Alas! this is a most delicate and difficult subject: and the safest way,
and the only safe general rule is the silence that accompanies the
inward act of looking at the contrast in all that is of our own doing
and impulse! So may praises be made their own antidote.
Vol. III. p. 20. Serm. I.
'They shall see God'. What this is we cannot tell you, nor can you
conceive it: but walk heavenwards in purity, and long to be there,
where you shall know what it means: 'for you shall know him as he is'.
We say; "Now I see the full meaning, force and beauty of a passage,--we
see them through the words." Is not Christ the Word--the substantial,
consubstantial Word, [Greek: ho on eis ton kolpon tou patros],--not as
our words, arbitrary; nor even as the words of Nature phenomenal merely?
If even through the words a powerful and perspicuous author--(as in the
next to inspired Commentary of Archbishop Leighton,--for whom God be
praised!)--I identify myself with the excellent writer, and his thoughts
become my thoughts: what must not the blessing be to be thus identified
first with the Filial Word, and then with the Father in and through Him?
Ib. p. 63. Serm. V.
In this elementary world, light being (as we hear,) the first visible,
all things are seen by it, and it by itself. Thus is Christ, among
spiritual things, in the elect world of his Church; all things are
'made manifest by the light', says the Apostle, 'Eph'. v. 13, speaking
of Christ as the following verse doth evidently testify.
Pages:
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172