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SERMON V.

THE LIFE THAT WAS IN THE CHILD JESUS.

ST. JOHN, i. 4.

"In Him was life."

WE celebrate on this day the triumph of humility, and see in the stable at Bethlehem the seeming weakness of God proving itself stronger than men. On this day we behold the Almighty Word, the Everlasting Son, clothed in the garment of frail humanity. God is made man; and is manifested in the flesh; and abides among His creatures in the form of helpless infancy.

Let us rejoice, my brethren, in the advent of our Blessed Saviour. Let us worship the glory of His Divinity, veiled, as it was at this time, from the eyes of men; and let us stoop to learn the lesson of humility, and the more secret lesson of comfort and encouragement which His sacred infancy affords us.

That Holy Child, who, as on this day, was born of the Virgin Mary, came to live His mortal life in the midst of enemies. As soon as He was born, the King of Judea sought to take away His life.

Not by

And how did the Holy Child escape ? power, nor by might. His kinsfolk, according to the flesh, had no power to resist the decree of Herod; and so the Saviour of the world found safety in flight. It seems, then, that it was not merely the shadow of helpless infancy that He took unto Himself, but the very image. When He became man, He submitted Himself to the ordinary laws by which human nature is governed. And since human nature is weak and defenceless during infancy and childhood, our Saviour was subject to the like infirmities. And hence, without doubt, His human life was exposed to many dangers, like that which threatened Him from Herod, dangers from which He was defended by no miraculous exhibition of irresistible power, but by the ordinary providence of God; or rather, by that special providential care by which He governs His elect in all ages.

Yet He who thus appeared, born under the law which assigns peculiar infirmity to the period of childhood, was designed to accomplish a greater work than had ever been effected in the creation of God; for He came to redeem those who were willing captives to the most hopeless of slaveries; to restore life to those who were twice dead; to seek and to save those who were lost by their own choice; and to reconcile to His Father those with whom He was most justly displeased. The Second Adam was born to repair the ruin which was wrought by the first: for as by Adam came sin and death, so by Christ came holiness and life. But how was it possible that so great a work should

be accomplished by that which seemed so feeble? Consider what a sore trial it must have been to the faith of those who looked for Redemption in Israel, to behold Him to whom their hopes were directed by angels and miraculous signs, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger! Would it have been at all wonderful if any among them, the Blessed Virgin herself, or Simeon, or Anna, had said, like the Disciples who went to Emmaus, "We trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel;' but now we do not see that He is able to claim for Himself a place where He may lay His head, but He and His mother are obliged to give way to the rich and the noble of this world; and are by them thrust out into the stable. Neither does He manifest His power in opposition to a cruel tyrant; but is borne away as any infant might be, from his wrath; and suffers a multitude of innocents to perish in His stead. Neither as He grows up do we see any tokens of the power necessary to recover a lost world. We see, indeed, a meek, submissive child, yielding unswerving obedience to His mother, but we see no tokens of a kingly power; and we fear we have been deceived by vain visions, and have listened to fables without foundation." Can we wonder if these, or such as these, were the feelings of many of those who watched our Blessed Saviour as He passed through the periods of infancy and childhood?

How, then, did it come to pass that He did, in fact, accomplish the great work which He undertook? And how was it that the Angels sang a song of joyous confidence the moment He was born, as though

the great work were already accomplished, "Unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord? ..... Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men?"1 Because, " in Him was life." Because He was greater than He appeared. He appeared to be a child only. He was God as well. Being God, He became man, yet still remained God. He became what He was not, and continued what He was. Even as His Blessed Mother, being a virgin before His conception, remained a virgin after His birth; so He, becoming man, remained God as He was before He became man. For God the Word became incarnate, "not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh; but by taking of the manhood into God." Therefore, though it pleased Christ the Ever Blessed, to veil the glory of His Divine Person, yet Life was ever in Him; or rather, He was Himself that Life which the veil of mortal flesh concealed from the eye of men. "And the Life," we further read, "was the light of men." Now it is of the very nature of light to pierce the shades of darkness, and by its innate power to dispel them, and to triumph in its own diffusiveness. And as light is conveyed to us by the sun, which is itself a creature inferior to the light of which it is the temporary channel (light being created first, and then the sun afterwards to convey it to earth and its inhabitants), so Christ, being Himself Light of Light, was pleased to make His assumed Humanity the channel of light for the life of the world that lay in darkness and the shadow of death. 1 St. Luke, ii. 11, 14.

It is, then, no longer strange that He should conquer sin and death, and the Lord of sin and death, though He chose instruments feeble as the infantile flesh of man, with a human soul and faculties, useless until developed into knowledge, and wisdom, and power, by experience, and exercise, and discipline.

Now in this, as in all other points, our Blessed Saviour is the pattern, type, or ensample of His elect in all ages. For it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren, sin only excepted. And this thought, dear brethren, if rightly followed out, will afford us that comfort and encouragement of which we stand in need at all times, and may inspire us with some measure of that hopeful joy which is so peculiarly suitable to this holy season. Let us, then, endeavour, by the help of God, to trace this analogy, or likeness, between our Saviour in His apparent feebleness and real strength, and the condition of those who are to be conformed to His image.

It is exceedingly difficult for some Christians to rejoice with a calm spiritual joy in holy seasons like the present; and this is the case even with some who watch and pray as they are commanded, and who, therefore, ought to rejoice in Christmas blessings with hopeful gladness. But this they feel restrained from doing by a sense of their own manifold imperfections. "It is, indeed," they say, " a cause of exceeding joy that Christ was born, as at this time, for man's salvation; but we do not deserve to share the general gladness, for we are ever falling into sin, and adding to the burthen of guilt: whereas He came to set men free from sin. Those who are