ST. LUKE II. lo, II 37
and the fulness of the creature — dwelt bodily. All things were gathered together in one in Him — both those which are in the heavens and those which are in the earth — even in Him. His Incarnation was the crowning miracle of grace, as the creation of man was the crowning miracle of nature.^
^ " If Moslems," Lull argued, " according to their law affirm that God loved man because He created him, endowed him with noble faculties, and pours His benefits upon him, then the Christians according to their law affirm the same. But inasmuch as the Christians believe more than this, and affirm that God so loved man that He was willing to become man, to endure poverty, ignominy, torture, and death for his sake, which the Jews and Saracens do not teach concerning Him, therefore is the religion of the Christians, which thus reveals a Love beyond all other love, superior to that of those which reveals it only in an inferior degree." Islam is a loveless religion. Eaymund Lull believed and proved that Love could conquer it. The Koran denies the Incarnation, and so remains ignorant of the true character not only of the Godhead but of God.^
^ We make far too little of the Incarnation ; the Fathers knew much more of the incarnate God. Some of them were oftener at Bethlehem than at Calvary; they had too little of Calvary, but they knew Bethlehem well. They took up the Holy Babe in their arms; they loved Immanuel, God with us. We are not too often at the cross; but we are too seldom at the cradle ; and we know too little of the Word made flesh, of the Holy Child Jesus. ^
(2) Though Divine yet is Re human. — Behold what manner of love God hath bestowed upon us that He should espouse our nature ! For God had never so united Himself with any creature before. His tender mercy had ever been over all His works ; but they were still so distinct from Himself that a great gulf was fixed between the Creator and the created, so far as existence and relationship are concerned. The Lord had made many noble intelligences, principalities, and powers of whom we know little ; we do not even know what those four living creatures may be who are nearest the Eternal Presence ; but God had never taken up the nature of any of them, nor allied Himself with them by
^ H. AlacmillaD, The Garden and the City, 32.
2 S. M. Zwenier, Ray nanid Lull, 140.
• *' Rabbi " Duncan, iu Recollections by A. Moody Stuart, 167.
38 GOOD TIDINGS OF GREAT JOY
any actual union with His Person. He has, however, allied Himself with man : He has come into union with man, and therefore He loves him unutterably well and has great thoughts of good towards him.
The fact that such intimate union of the Divine with the human is possible unveils the essential Godlikeness of man. His nature is capable of receiving Divine indwelling. There is such affinity between God and him that the fulness of the Godhead can dwell bodily in a man. Christianity has often been accused of gloomy, depressing views of human nature ; but where, in all the dreams of superficial exalters of manhood, is there anything so radiant with hope as the solid fact that the eternal Son of God has said of it, "Here will I dwell, for I have desired it"? Christianity has no temptation to varnish over the dark realities of man as he is, for it knows its power to make him what he was meant to be.
So we have to look on the child Christ as born " to give the world assurance of a man," or, in modern phraseology, to realize the ideal of human nature. That birth in the manger was the first appearance of the shoot from the dry stump of the Davidic house, which was to flower into " a plant of renown," and fill the world with its beauty and fragrance. One thinks of the " loveli- ness of perfect deeds," the continual submission to the loved will of the Father, the tranquillity unbroken, the uninterrupted self- suppression, the gentle immobility of resolve, the gracious words, bright with heavenly wisdom, warm with pure love, throbbing with quick pity, as one gazes on the " young child," and would, with the strangers from the East, bring homage and offerings thither. There is the dawn of a sun without a spot ; the head- waters of a mighty stream without stain or perturbation in all its course.
^ The story tells us that Christ Himself was as poor and as unfamed as the shepherds — yet all Heaven was with Him. No trumpet-flourish told His coming, no posts rode swift from town to town to announce His Kingship. Earth and its glory took no notice of One who was laid in a manger. But far above in the world beyond, where earthly glory hath no praise, and earth no power, and rank no dignity, the Child who lived to love and die for men, was celebrated among the heavenly host. All the courts
ST. LUKE II. lo, II 39
of Heaven began to praise God for the little Child for whom there was no shelter on earth but a cave in the rocks. Christianity has restored humanity to man.^