ears; the heavenly effluence could not pass inwards, could wake no thrill of appreciation, no sympathetic delight within the soul. There must, in short, be something godlike in us before we can see and know God; we must be "like Him before we can 66 see Him as He is." And into this divine affinity, this penetrative moral insight, it is one great end of the Christian's life on earth to train him. By every holy deed, by every spiritual aspiration, by each sacrifice of inclination to duty, of passion to principle, of the wayward human will to God's, the spiritual instincts of the believer are becoming more refined, his spiritual perceptions more acute. Not one fervent prayer, not one act of earnest thoughtful intercourse with God in holy ordinances, but is strengthening the wing of aspiration and purifying the eye of faith,-training the spirit to rise nearer to the region of eternal light, and to bear its divine effulgence with more undazzled gaze. The time will come when this process shall be completed-when love shall be refined from all admixture of selfishness -when purity, freed from all disturbing objects, shall quiver true to the centre of right, and the soul to its inmost depths, in heart, breath, and being, assimilated to God, shall be prepared to reflect, without one dimming shadow, the beams of infinite beauty. But meanwhile, and so long as aught of earthly imperfection adheres to it, not only is the soul unprepared for the full enjoyment of God, but it is probable that immediate vision would involve emotions too overwhelming for its feeble capacities. As there is a degree of light which, to human eye, is equivalent to darkness; so there are thoughts and conceptions under which man's feeble apprehension sinks, and emotions too big for human heart to hold. Even in our earthly experience there have been occasions in which great and sudden illapses of feeling-the joy, for instance, of unexpected meetings with lost or long-absent friends, or the thrilling sense of escape from seemingly inevitable danger or death-have proved too much for the heart's capacity of emotion, and the weight of rapture has broken the cup which it filled. Indeed it is just because the greatest minds approach most nearly the limits of human reason, and converse with thoughts which strain by their grandeur the very largest capacity of thinking, that great wit is, proverbially, to madness near allied. But all thoughts, all emotions, possible to man on earth, make but slight demand upon his powers compared with those which, were the barriers thrown down that now shut out God and eternity, would come rushing in upon the soul! What mind, what heart, would be able to endure such august revelation? Surely we may well believe that such a vision is only for the soul that has been trained, purified, enlarged by long-continued fellowship with God on earth; that while our spiritual education is yet incomplete, it is in mercy that the curtain of sense is kept drawn, and that there is compassion to our earthly weakness in the law, apparently so stern, "that no man shall see God at any time." SERMON IV. PART SECOND. THE MANIFESTATION OF THE INVISIBLE GOD. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him."-John, i. 18. No immediate knowledge or vision of God, then, is possible in our present state of being. But provision has been made for the attainment of a mediate or representative knowledge of Him. Of the invisible God, Jesus Christ is the image or manifestation; or, as the text expresses it, "The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." The obvious import of these words is, not that Jesus Christ has told or taught us verbally who and what God is, but that in His own person and life He is the silent inarticulate manifestation of God to the world. A child may declare or describe to you the appearance and character of his father; a pupil may tell you of his teacher; an author may give an account of himself in his book; but there may be in each of these cases an involuntary and indirect description, much more clear and emphatic than the direct one. For in his writings, the author, especially if he be an earnest writer, un consciously portrays himself, so that we may know as much of the heart and soul of a favourite author by familiarity with his books, as if we had lived for years in personal intercourse with him. So the pupil has caught the revered master's manner; or the child bears, not only in his person, but in his temper, habits, sentiments, prevailing tone of thought and feeling, a strong family-likeness to the parent; and though there may be much in the father which, from inferiority of talents or attainments, the character of the child may be inadequate to represent, yet, according to his measure, he may convey to us a better idea of what the father is than by any express and formal description of him we could attain. Now, so it is in the case before us. The infinitely wise and holy One by personal intercourse man has never known; but there is, if we may so speak, a book in which the whole mind and heart of God is written —a living epistle or Word of God, which may be read and known of men. The divine Father dwells in inaccessible light; but from His presence one hath visited our earth, the exact reflection of the Father's being and character, the "brightness of His glory and the express image of His person." Let us contemplate this divine portraiture, this celestial light shining through an earthly medium,-let us behold "in the face of Jesus Christ the light of the knowledge of the glory of God." How does Jesus manifest the Father? He does so, I answer, by His person, by His life and character, and especially by His sufferings and death. By the constitution of His person, Jesus is to us a manifestation of God. The incarnation, the mysterious embodiment of the divine in the form of the human, meets a deep necessity of our nature, supplying, as it does, to our feeble apprehensions, a visible, palpable object on which they may fix in the effort to think of God, and to our sympathies and affections in the endeavour to love Him.* For every one must have felt how difficult it is to form any conception of a pure and infinite spirit, on which the mind can rest with satisfaction: how much more difficult so to realise such a being as to cling to Him with a simple human love! We need the thought of God to be to us a thought of power and persuasiveness-an idea, not after which the mind, even in its loftier and more reflective moods, must strain with conscious effort, but which can be summoned up instantly, at any moment, a spell of potent influence amidst the pressing temptations of the world. But the idea of a pure Spiritual Essence, without form, without passions, without limits, pervading all, comprehending all, transcending all, is too vague and abstract for common use. It may furnish lofty exercise for philosophic minds, but it eludes the intellectual grasp of those of rougher mould; it may visit the soul in quiet and meditative hours, but the ethereal vision vanishes when we turn where its presence is most needed, amid the coarser cares and conflicts of our daily life. Besides, as I have said, the mere abstract conception of the Spiritual God is not less foreign to our human sympathies and affections than remote from * See this subject fully discussed in Archbishop Whately's 'Essays.' |