Sermons 32–35

On the Passion, XII.: preached on Wednesday

I.  God chose to save man by strength made perfect in weakness.

The glory, dearly-beloved, of the Lord’s Passion, on which we promised to speak again to-day, is chiefly wonderful for its mystery of humility, which has both ransomed and instructed us all, that He, Who paid the price, might also impart His righteousness to us.  For the Omnipotence of the Son of God, whereby He is by the same Essence equal to the Father, might have rescued mankind from the dominion of the devil by the mere exercise of Its will, had it not better suited the Divine working to conquer the opposition of the foe’s wickedness by that which had been conquered, and to restore our nature’s liberty by that very nature by which bondage had come upon the whole race.  But, when the evangelist says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt in us,” and the Apostle, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself,” it was shown that the Only-begotten of the Most High Father entered on such a union with human humility, that, when He took the substance of our flesh and soul, He remained one and the same Son of God by exalting our properties, not His own:  because it was the weakness, not the power that had to be reinforced, so that upon the union of the creature with the Creator there should be nothing wanting of the Divine to the assumed, nor of the human to the Assuming.

II.  God’s plan was always partially understood, and is now of universal application.

This plan of God’s mercy and justice, though in the ages past it was in a measure enshrouded in darkness, was yet not so completely hidden that the saints, who have most merited praise from the beginning till the coming of the Lord, were precluded from understanding it:  seeing that the salvation, which was to come through Christ, was promised both by the words of prophecy and by the significance of events, and this salvation not only they attained who foretold it, but all they also who believed their predictions.  For the one Faith justifies the saints of all ages, and to the self-same hope of the faithful pertains all that by Jesus Christ, the Mediator between God and man, we acknowledge done, or our fathers reverently accepted as to be done.  And between Jew and Gentile there is no distinction, since, as the Apostle says, “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of God’s commands,” and if they be kept in entirety of faith, they make Christians the true sons of Abraham, that is perfect, for the same Apostle says, “For whosoever of you were baptized in Christ Jesus, have put on Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek:  there is neither slave nor free:  there is neither male nor female.  For ye are all one in Christ.  But if ye are Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise.”

III.  The union of the Divine Head with Its members inseparable.

There is no doubt therefore, dearly-beloved, that man’s nature has been received by the Son of God into such a union that not only in that Man Who is the first-begotten of all creatures, but also in all His saints there is one and the self-same Christ, and as the Head cannot be separated from the members, so the members cannot be separated from the Head.  For although it is not in this life, but in eternity that God is to be “all in all,” yet even now He is the inseparable Inhabitant of His temple, which is the Church, according as He Himself promised, saying, “Lo!  I am with you all the days till the end of the age.”  And agreeably therewith the Apostle says, “He is the head of the body, the Church, which is the beginning, the first-begotten from the dead, that in all things He may have the pre-eminence, because in Him it was pleasing that all fulness (of the Godhead) should dwell, and that through Him all things should be reconciled in Himself.”

IV.  Christ’s passion provided a saving mystery and an example for us to follow.

And what is suggested to our hearts by these and many other references, save that we should in all things be renewed in His image Who, remaining “in the form of God,” deigned to “take the form” of sinful flesh?  For all our weaknesses, which come from sin, He took on Him without sharing in sin, so that He felt the sensation of hunger and thirst and sleep and fatigue, and grief and weeping, and suffered the fiercest pangs up to the extremity of death, because no one could be loosed from the snares of death, unless He in Whom alone all men’s nature was guileless allowed Himself to be slain by the hands of wicked men.  And hence our Saviour the Son of God provided for all that believe in Him both a mystery and an example, that they might apprehend the one by being born again, and follow the other by imitation.  For the blessed Apostle Peter teaches this, saying, “Christ suffered for us, leaving you an example that ye should follow His steps.  Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.  Who when He was reviled, reviled not:  when He suffered, threatened not, but gave Himself up to His unjust judge.  Who Himself bare our sins in His body on the tree, that being dead to sins, we may live to righteousness.”

V.  Christ not destroyed, but fulfilled and elevated the Law.

As therefore there is no believer, dearly-beloved, to whom the gifts of grace are denied, so there is no one who is not a debtor in the matter of Christian discipline; because, although the severity of the mystic Law is done away, yet the benefits of its voluntary observance have increased, as the evangelist John says, “Because the Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”  For all things that, according to the Law, went before, whether in the circumcision of the flesh, or in the multitude of victims, or in the keeping of the Sabbath, testified of Christ, and foretold the grace of Christ.  And He is “the end of the Law,” not by annulling, but by fulfilling its meanings.  For although He is at once the Author of the old and of the new, yet He changed the symbolic rites connected with the promises, because He accomplished the promises and put an end to the announcement by the coming of the Announced.  But in the matter of moral precepts, no decrees of the earlier Testament are rejected, but many of them are amplified by the Gospel teaching:  so that the things which give salvation are more perfect and clearer than those which promise a Saviour.

VI.  The present effect of Christ’s passion is daily realized by Christians, especially in Holy Baptism.

All therefore that the Son of God did and taught for the world’s reconciliation, we not only know as a matter of past history, but appreciate in the power of its present effect.  It is He Who, born of the Virgin Mother by the Holy Ghost, fertilizes His unpolluted Church with the same blessed Spirit, that by the birth of Baptism an innumerable multitude of sons may be born to God, of Whom it is said, “who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”  It is He, in Whom the seed of Abraham is blessed by the adoption of the whole world, and the patriarch becomes the father of nations by the birth, through faith not flesh, of the sons of promise.  It is He Who, without excluding any nation, makes one flock of holy sheep from every nation under heaven, and daily fulfils what He promised, saying, “Other sheep also I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.”  For though to the blessed Peter first and foremost He says, “Feed My sheep;” yet the one Lord directs the charge of all the shepherds, and feeds those that come to the rock with such glad and well-watered pastures, that countless sheep are nourished by the richness of His love, and hesitate not to perish for the Shepherd’s sake, even as the good Shepherd Himself was content to lay down His life for His sheep.  It is He whose sufferings are shared not only by the martyrs’ glorious courage, but also in the very act of regeneration by the faith of all the new-born.  For the renunciation of the devil and belief in God, the passing from the old state into newness of life, the casting off of the earthly image, and the putting on of the heavenly form—all this is a sort of dying and rising again, whereby he that is received by Christ and receives Christ is not the same after as he was before he came to the font, for the body of the regenerate becomes the flesh of the Crucified.

VII.  The good works of Christians are only part of Christ’s good works.

This change, dearly-beloved, is the handiwork of the Most High, Who “worketh all things in all,” so that by the good manner of life observed in each one of the faithful, we know Him to be the Author of all just works, and give thanks to God’s mercy, Who so adorns the whole body of the Church with countless gracious gifts, that through the many rays of the one Light the same brightness is everywhere diffused, and that which is well done by any Christian whatsoever cannot but be part of the glory of Christ.  This is that true Light which justifies and enlightens every man.  This it is that rescues from the power of darkness and transfers us into the Kingdom of the Son of God.  This it is that by newness of life exalts the desires of the mind and quenches the lusts of the flesh.  This it is whereby the Lord’s Passover is duly kept “With the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” by the casting away of “the old leaven of wickedness” and the inebriating and feeding of the new creature with the very Lord.  For naught else is brought about by the partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ than that we pass into that which we then take, and both in spirit and in body carry everywhere Him, in and with Whom we were dead, buried, and rose again, as the Apostle says, “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.  For when Christ, your life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.”  Who with the Father, &c.

On the Passion, XVI.: delivered on the Sunday

Sermon LXVII.

(On the Passion, XVI.:  delivered on the Sunday.)

I.  The contemplation of the prophecies of Christ’s suffering are a great source of pious delight.

The minds of the faithful, beloved, ought indeed always to be occupied with wonder at God’s works and their reasoning faculties devoted particularly to those reflexions by which they may gain increase of faith.  For so long as the pious heart’s attention is directed either to the benefits which all enjoy, or to special gifts of His grace, it keeps aloof from many vanities and retires from bodily cares into a spiritual seclusion.  But this must be the more eagerly and thoroughly done at the season of the Lord Passion, that what is then read in the sacred lections may surely be received with the ears of understanding, and that the themes which are great in word may be seen to be yet greater from the mysterious realities which underlie them.  For the first reason for our lifting up our hearts is that the voices of the prophets have sung of the things which the truth of the Gospel has also narrated, not as destined to happen, but as having happened, and that what man’s ears had not yet learnt was to be accomplished, was already being proclaimed as fulfilled by the (Holy) Spirit.  For King David, whose seed according to the flesh is Christ, completed his lifetime more than 1,100 years before the day of the Lord’s Crucifixion, and endured none of those punishments which he relates as inflicted upon himself.  But because by his mouth One spoke Who was to take suffering flesh of his stock, the story of the cross is rightly anticipated in the person of him who was the bodily ancestor of the Saviour.  For David truly suffered in Christ, because Jesus was truly crucified in the flesh which He had from David.

II.  The Divine foreknowledge does not account for the Jews’ wickedness so as to excuse them.

Since then all things which Jewish ungodliness committed against the Lord of Majesty were foretold so long before, and the language of the prophets is concerned not so much with things to come as with things past, what else is thereby revealed to us but the unchangeable order of God’s eternal decrees, with Whom the things which are to be decided are already determined, and what will be is already accomplished?  For since both the character of our actions and the fulfilment of all our wishes are fore-known to God, how much better known to Him are His own works?  And He was rightly pleased that things should be recorded as if done which nothing could hinder from being done.  And hence when the Apostles also, being full of the Holy Ghost, suffered the threats and cruelty of Christ’s enemies, they said to God with one consent, “For truly in this city against Thy holy Servant Jesus, Whom Thou hast anointed, Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel were gathered together to do what Thy hand and Thy counsel ordained to come to pass.”  Did then the wickedness of Christ’s persecutors spring from God’s plan, and was that unsurpassable crime prefaced and set in motion by the hand of God?  Clearly we must not think this of the highest Justice:  that which was fore-known in respect of the Jews’ malice is far different, indeed quite contrary to what was ordained in respect of Christ’s Passion.  Their desire to slay Him did not proceed from the same source as His to die:  nor were their atrocious crime and the Redeemer’s endurance the offspring of One Spirit.  The Lord did not incite but permit those madmen’s naughty hands:  nor in His foreknowledge of what must be accomplished did He compel its accomplishment, even though it was in order to its accomplishment that He had taken flesh.

III.  Christ was in no sense the Author of His murderer’s guilt.

In fact, the case of the Crucified is so different from that of His crucifiers that what Christ undertook could not be reversed, while what they did could be wiped out.  For He Who came to save sinners did not refuse mercy even to His murderers, but changed the evil of the wicked into the goodness of the believing, that God’s grace might be the more wonderful, being mercifully put in force, not according to men’s merits, but according to the multitude of the riches of God’s wisdom and knowledge, seeing that they also who had shed the Saviour’s blood were received into the baptismal flood.  For, as says the Scripture, which contains the Apostles’ acts when the preaching of the blessed Apostle Peter pierced the hearts of the Jews, and they acknowledged the iniquity of their crime, saying, “what shall we do, brethren?” the same Apostle said, “Repent and be baptized, each one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.  For to you is the promise, and to your sons, and to all that are afar off, whomsoever our Lord God has called,” and soon after the Scripture goes on to say:  “they therefore that received his word were baptized, and there were added on that day about 3,000 souls.”  And so, in being willing to suffer their furious rage, the Lord Jesus Christ was in no way the Author of their crimes; nor did He force them to desire this, but permitted them to be able, and used the madness of the blinded people just as He did also the treachery of His betrayer, whom by kindly acts and words He vouchsafed to recall from the awful crime he had conceived, by taking him for a disciple, by promoting him to be an apostle, by warning him with signs, by admitting him to the revelation of holy mysteries, that one who had lacked no degree of kindness to correct him, might have no pretext for his crime at all.

IV.  The enormity of Judas’ crime is set forth.

But O ungodliest of men, “thou seed of Chanaan and not of Juda,” and no longer “a vessel of election,” but “a son of perdition” and death, thou didst think the devil’s instigations would profit thee better, so that, inflamed with the torch of greed, thou wert ablaze to gain 30 pieces of silver and sawest not what riches thou wouldst lose.  For even if thou didst not think the Lord’s promises were to be believed, what reason was there for preferring so small a sum of money to what thou hadst already received?  Thou wast wont to command the evil spirits, to heal the sick, to receive honour with the rest of the apostles, and that thou mightest satisfy thy thirst for gain, it was open to thee to steal from the box that was in thy charge.  But thy mind, which lusted after forbidden things, was more strongly stimulated by that which was less allowed:  and the amount of the price pleased thee not so much as the enormity of the sin.  Wherefore thy wicked bargain is not so detestable merely because thou countedst the Lord so cheap, but because thou didst sell Him Who was the Redeemer, yea, even thine, and hadst no pity on thyself.  And justly was thy punishment put into thine own hands because none could be found more cruelly bent on thy destruction than thyself.

V.  Christ’s Passion was for our Redemption by mystery and example.

The fact, therefore, that at the time appointed, according to the purpose of His will, Jesus Christ was crucified, dead, and buried was not the doom necessary to His own condition, but the method of redeeming us from captivity.  For “the Word became flesh” in order that from the Virgin’s womb He might take our suffering nature, and that what could not be inflicted on the Son of God might be inflicted on the Son of Man.  For although at His very birth the signs of Godhead shone forth in Him, and the whole course of His bodily growth was full of wonders, yet had He truly assumed our weaknesses, and without share in sin had spared Himself no human frailty, that He might impart what was His to us and heal what was ours in Himself.  For He, the Almighty Physician, had prepared a two-fold remedy for us in our misery, of which the one part consists of mystery and the other of example, that by the one Divine powers may be bestowed, by the other human weaknesses driven out.  Because as God is the Author of our justification, so man is a debtor to pay Him devotion.

VI.  We can only attain to Christ’s perfection by following in His steps.

Therefore, dearly-beloved, by this unspeakable restoration of our health no place is left us for pride or for idleness:  because we have nothing which we did not receive, and we are expressly warned not to treat the gifts of God’s grace with negligence.  For He that comes so timely to our aid justly urges us with precept, and He that leads us to glory mercifully incites us to obedience.  Wherefore the Lord Himself is rightly made our way, because save through Christ there is no coming to Christ.  But through Him and to Him does he take his way who treads the path of His endurance and humiliation, and on that road you may be sure there are not wanting the heats of toil, the clouds of sadness, the storms of fear.  The snares of the wicked, the persecutions of the unbelieving, the threats of the powerful, the insults of the proud are there; and all these things the Lord of hosts and King of glory passed through in the form of our weakness and in the likeness of sinful flesh, to the end that amid the danger of this present life we might desire not so much to avoid and escape them as to endure and overcome them.

VII.  Christ cry of “Forsaken” on the cross was to teach us the insufficiency of the human nature without the Divine.

Hence it is that the Lord Jesus Christ, our Head, representing all the members of His body in Himself, and speaking for those whom He was redeeming in the punishment of the cross, uttered that cry which He had once uttered in the psalm, “O God, My God, look upon Me:  why hast Thou forsaken Me?”  That cry, dearly-beloved, is a lesson, not a complaint.  For since in Christ there is one person of God and man, and He could not have been forsaken by Him, from Whom He could not be separated, it is on behalf of us, trembling and weak ones, that He asks why the flesh that is afraid to suffer has not been heard.  For when the Passion was beginning, to cure and correct our weak fear He had said, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me:  nevertheless not as I will but as Thou;” and again, “Father, if this cup cannot pass except I drink it, Thy will be done.”  As therefore He had conquered the tremblings of the flesh, and had now accepted the Father’s will, and trampling all dread of death under foot, was then carrying out the work of His design, why at the very time of His triumph over such a victory does He seek the cause and reason of His being forsaken, that is, not heard, save to show that the feeling which He entertained in excuse of His human fears is quite different from the deliberate choice which, in accordance with the Father’s eternal decree, He had made for the reconciliation of the world?  And thus the very cry of “Unheard” is the exposition of a mighty Mystery, because the Redeemer’s power would have conferred nothing on mankind if our weakness in Him had obtained what it sought.  Let these words dearly-beloved, suffice to-day, lest we burden you by the length of our discourse:  let us put off the rest till Wednesday.  The Lord shall hear you if you pray that we may keep our promise through the bounty of Him Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.

On the Passion, XVII.: delivered on the Wednesday

Sermon LXVIII.

(On the Passion, XVII.:  delivered on the Wednesday.)

I.  Christ’s Godhead never forsook Him in His Passion.

The last discourse, dearly-beloved, of which we desire now to give the promised portion, had reached that point in the argument where we were speaking of that cry which the crucified Lord uttered to the Father:  we bade the simple and unthinking hearer not take the words “My God, &c.,” in a sense as if, when Jesus was fixed upon the wood of the cross, the Omnipotence of the Father’s Deity had gone away from Him; seeing that God’s and Man’s Nature were so completely joined in Him that the union could not be destroyed by punishment nor by death.  For while each substance retained its own properties, God neither held aloof from the suffering of His body nor was made passible by the flesh, because the Godhead which was in the Sufferer did not actually suffer.  And hence, in accordance with the Nature of the Word made Man, He Who was made in the midst of all is the same as He through Whom all things were made.  He Who is arrested by the hands of wicked men is the same as He Who is bound by no limits.  He Who is pierced with nails is the same as He Whom no wound can affect.  Finally, He Who underwent death is the same as He Who never ceased to be eternal, so that both facts are established by indubitable signs, namely, the truth of the humiliation in Christ and the truth of the majesty; because Divine power joined itself to human frailty to this end, that God, while making what was ours His, might at the same time make what was His ours.  The Son, therefore, was not separated from the Father, nor the Father from the Son; and the unchangeable Godhead and the inseparable Trinity did not admit of any division.  For although the task of undergoing Incarnation belonged peculiarly to the Only-begotten Son of God, yet the Father was not separated from the Son any more than the flesh was separated from the Word.

II.  Christ’s death was voluntary on His part, and yet in saving others He could not save Himself.

Jesus, therefore, cried with a loud voice, saying, “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” in order to notify to all how it behoved Him not to be rescued, not to be defended, but to be given up into the hands of cruel men, that is to become the Saviour of the world and the Redeemer of all men, not by misery but by mercy; and not by the failure of succour but by the determination to die.  But what must we feel to be the intercessory power of His life Who died and rose again by His own inherent power.  For the blessed Apostle says the Father “spared not His own Son, but gave Him up for us all;” and again, he says, “For Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify it.”  And hence the giving up of the Lord to His Passion was as much of the Father’s as of His own will, so that not only did the Father “forsake” Him, but He also abandoned Himself in a certain sense, not in hasty flight, but in voluntary withdrawal.  For the might of the Crucified restrained itself from those wicked men, and in order to avail Himself of a secret design, He refused to avail Himself of His open power.  For how would He who had come to destroy death and the author of death by His Passion have saved sinners, if he had resisted His persecutors?  This, then, had been the Jews’ belief, that Jesus had been forsaken by God, against Whom they had been able to commit such unholy cruelty; for not understanding the mystery of His wondrous endurance, they said in blasphemous mockery:  “He saved others, Himself He cannot save.  If He be the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we believe Him.”  Not at your blind will, O foolish scribes and wicked priests, was the Saviour’s power to be displayed, nor in obedience to blasphemers’ evil tongues was the Redemption of mankind to be delayed; for if you had wished to recognize the Godhead of the Son of God, you would have observed His numberless works, and they must have confirmed you in that faith, which you so deceitfully promise.  But if, as you yourselves acknowledge, it is true that He saved others, why have those many, great miracles, which have been done under the public gaze, done nothing to soften the hardness of your hearts, unless it be because you have always so resisted the Holy Ghost as to turn all God’s benefits towards you into your destruction?  For even though Christ should descend from the cross, you would yet remain in your crime.

III.  A transition was then being effected from the Old to the New Dispensation.

Therefore the insults of empty exultation were scorned, and the Lord’s mercy in restoring the lost and the fallen was not turned from the path of its purpose by contumely or reviling.  For a peerless victim was being offered to God for the world’s salvation, and the slaying of Christ the true Lamb, predicted through so many ages, was transferring the sons of promise into the liberty of the Faith.  The New Testament also was being ratified, and in the blood of Christ the heirs of the eternal Kingdom were being enrolled; the High Pontiff was entering the Holy of Holies, and to intercede with God the spotless Priest was passing in through the veil of His flesh.  In fine, so evident a transition was being effected from the Law to the Gospel, from the synagogue to the Church, from many sacrifices to the One Victim, that, when the Lord gave up the ghost, that mystic veil which hung before and shut out the inner part of the Temple and its holy recess was by sudden force torn from top to bottom, for the reason that Truth was displacing figures, and forerunners were needless in the presence of Him they announced.  To this was added a terrible confusion of all the elements, and nature herself withdrew her support from Christ’s crucifiers.  And although the centurion in charge of the crucifixion, in fright at what he had seen, said “truly this man was the Son of God,” yet the wicked hearts of the Jews, which were harder than all tombs and rocks, is not reported to have been pierced by any compunction:  so that it seems the Roman soldiers were then readier to recognize the Son of God than the priests of Israel.

IV.  Let us profit by fasting and good works at this sacred season of the year.

Because, then, the Jews, deprived of all the sanctification imparted by these mysteries, turned their light into darkness and their “feasts into mourning,” let us, dearly-beloved, prostrate our bodies and our souls and worship God’s Grace, which has been poured out upon all nations, beseeching the merciful Father and the rich Redeemer from day to day to give us His aid and enable us to escape all the dangers of this life.  For the crafty tempter is present everywhere, and leaves nothing free from his snares.  Whom, God’s mercy helping us, which is stretched out to us amid all dangers, we must ever with stedfast faith resist so that, though he never ceases to assail, he may never succeed in carrying the assault.  Let all, dearly-beloved, religiously keep and profit by the fast, and let no excesses mar the benefits of such self-restraint as we have proved convenient both for soul and body.  For the things which pertain to sobriety and temperance must be the more diligently observed at this season, that a lasting habit may be contracted from a brief zeal; and whether in works of mercy or in strict self-denial, no hours may be left idle by the faithful, seeing that, as years increase and time glides by, we are bound to increase our store of works, and not squander our opportunities.  And to devout wills and religious souls God’s Mercy will be granted, that He may enable us to obtain that which He enabled us to desire, Who liveth and reigneth with our Lord Jesus Christ His Son, and with the Holy Ghost, for ever and ever.  Amen.

On the Lord's Resurrection, I.; delivered on Holy Saturday in the Vigil of Easter

Sermon LXXI.

(On the Lord’s Resurrection, I.; delivered on Holy Saturday in the Vigil of Easter.)

I.  We must all be partakers in Christ’s resurrection life.

In my last sermon, dearly-beloved, not in appropriately, as I think, we explained to you our participation in the cross of Christ, whereby the life of believers contains in itself the mystery of Easter, and thus what is honoured at the feast is celebrated by our practice.  And how useful this is you yourselves have proved, and by your devotion have learnt, how greatly benefited souls and bodies are by longer fasts, more frequent prayers, and more liberal alms.  For there can be hardly any one who has not profited by this exercise, and who has not stored up in the recesses of his conscience something over which he may rightly rejoice.  But these advantages must be retained with persistent care, lest our efforts fall away into idleness, and the devil’s malice steal what God’s grace gave.  Since, therefore, by our forty days’ observance we have wished to bring about this effect, that we should feel something of the Cross at the time of the Lord’s Passion, we must strive to be found partakers also of Christ’s Resurrection, and “pass from death unto life,” while we are in this body.  For when a man is changed by some process from one thing into another, not to be what he was is to him an ending, and to be what he was not is a beginning.  But the question is, to what a man either dies or lives:  because there is a death, which is the cause of living, and there is a life, which is the cause of dying.  And nowhere else but in this transitory world are both sought after, so that upon the character of our temporal actions depend the differences of the eternal retributions.  We must die, therefore, to the devil and live to God:  we must perish to iniquity that we may rise to righteousness.  Let the old sink, that the new may rise; and since, as says the Truth, “no one can serve two masters,” let not him be Lord who has caused the overthrow of those that stood, but Him Who has raised the fallen to victory.

II.  God did not leave His soul in hell, nor suffer His flesh to see corruption.

Accordingly, since the Apostle says, “the first man is of the earth earthy, the second man is from heaven heavenly.  As is the earthy, such also are they that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such also are they that are heavenly.  As we have borne the image of the earthy, so let us also bear the image of Him Who is from heaven,” we must greatly rejoice over this change, whereby we are translated from earthly degradation to heavenly dignity through His unspeakable mercy, Who descended into our estate that He might promote us to His, by assuming not only the substance but also the conditions of sinful nature, and by allowing the impassibility of Godhead to be affected by all the miseries which are the lot of mortal manhood.  And hence that the disturbed minds of the disciples might not be racked by prolonged grief, He with such wondrous speed shortened the three days’ delay which He had announced, that by joining the last part of the first and the first part of the third day to the whole of the second, He cut off a considerable portion of the period, and yet did not lessen the number of days.  The Saviour’s Resurrection therefore did not long keep His soul in Hades, nor His flesh in the tomb; and so speedy was the quickening of His uncorrupted flesh that it bore a closer resemblance to slumber than to death, seeing that the Godhead, Which quitted not either part of the Human Nature which He had assumed, reunited by Its power that which Its power had separated.

III.  Christ’s manifestation after the Resurrection showed that His Person was essentially the same as before.

And then there followed many proofs, whereon the authority of the Faith to be preached through the whole world might be based.  And although the rolling away of the stone, the empty tomb, the arrangement of the linen cloths, and the angels who narrated the whole deed by themselves fully built up the truth of the Lord’s Resurrection, yet did He often appear plainly to the eyes both of the women and of the Apostles not only talking with them, but also remaining and eating with them, and allowing Himself to be handled by the eager and curious hands of those whom doubt assailed.  For to this end He entered when the doors were closed upon the disciples, and gave them the Holy Spirit by breathing on them, and after giving them the light of understanding opened the secrets of the Holy Scriptures, and again Himself showed them the wound in the side, the prints of the nails, and all the marks of His most recent Passion, whereby it might be acknowledged that in Him the properties of the Divine and Human Nature remained undivided, and we might in such sort know that the Word was not what the flesh is, as to confess God’s only Son to be both Word and Flesh.

IV.  But though it is the same, it is also glorified.

The Apostle of the Gentiles, Paul, dearly-beloved, does not disagree with this belief, when he says, “even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know Him so no more.”  For the Lord’s Resurrection was not the ending, but the changing of the flesh, and His substance was not destroyed by His increase of power.  The quality altered, but the nature did not cease to exist:  the body was made impassible, which it had been possible to crucify:  it was made incorruptible, though it had been possible to wound it.  And properly is Christ’s flesh said not to be known in that state in which it had been known, because nothing remained passible in it, nothing weak, so that it was both the same in essence and not the same in glory.  But what wonder if S. Paul maintains this about Christ’s body, when he says of all spiritual Christians “wherefore henceforth we know no one after the flesh.”  Henceforth, he says, we begin to experience the resurrection in Christ, since the time when in Him, Who died for all, all our hopes were guaranteed to us.  We do not hesitate in diffidence, we are not under the suspense of uncertainty, but having received an earnest of the promise, we now with the eye of faith see the things which will be, and rejoicing in the uplifting of our nature, we already possess what we believe.

V.  Being saved by hope, we must not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.

Let us not then be taken up with the appearances of temporal matters, neither let our contemplations be diverted from heavenly to earthly things.  Things which as yet have for the most part not come to pass must be reckoned as accomplished:  and the mind intent on what is permanent must fix its desires there, where what is offered is eternal.  For although “by hope we were saved,” and still bear about with us a flesh that is corruptible and mortal, yet we are rightly said not to be in the flesh, if the fleshly affections do not dominate us, and are justified in ceasing to be named after that, the will of which we do not follow.  And so, when the Apostle says, “make not provision for the flesh in the lusts thereof,” we understand that those things are not forbidden us, which conduce to health and which human weakness demands, but because we may not satisfy all our desires nor indulge in all that the flesh lusts after, we recognize that we are warned to exercise such self-restraint as not to permit what is excessive nor refuse what is necessary to the flesh, which is placed under the mind’s control.  And hence the same Apostle says in another place, “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it;” in so far, of course, as it must be nourished and cherished not in vices and luxury, but with a view to its proper functions, so that nature may recover herself and maintain due order, the lower parts not prevailing wrongfully and debasingly over the higher, nor the higher yielding to the lower, lest if vices overpower the mind, slavery ensues where there should be supremacy.

VI.  Our godly resolutions must continue all the year round, not be confined to Easter only.

Let God’s people then recognize that they are a new creation in Christ, and with all vigilance understand by Whom they have been adopted and Whom they have adopted.  Let not the things, which have been made new, return to their ancient instability; and let not him who has “put his hand to the plough” forsake his work, but rather attend to that which he sows than look back to that which he has left behind.  Let no one fall back into that from which he has risen, but, even though from bodily weakness he still languishes under certain maladies, let him urgently desire to be healed and raised up.  For this is the path of health through imitation of the Resurrection begun in Christ, whereby, notwithstanding the many accidents and falls to which in this slippery life the traveller is liable, his feet may be guided from the quagmire on to solid ground, for, as it is written, “the steps of a man are directed by the Lord, and He will delight in his way.  When the just man falls he shall not be overthrown, because the Lord will stretch out His hand.”  These thoughts, dearly-beloved, must be kept in mind not only for the Easter festival, but also for the sanctification of the whole life, and to this our present exercise ought to be directed, that what has delighted the souls of the faithful by the experience of a short observance may pass into a habit and remain unalterably, and if any fault creep in, it may be destroyed by speedy repentance.  And because the cure of old-standing diseases is slow and difficult, remedies should be applied early, when the wounds are fresh, so that rising ever anew from all downfalls, we may deserve to attain to the incorruptible Resurrection of our glorified flesh in Christ Jesus our Lord, Who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Ghost for ever and ever.  Amen.