and all the natural feeblenesses, and weaknesses, and miseries, and distresses of childhood-these are his! God, born a child! and the Natural Body,-this he has assumed and bears!

The Body of the child, the Animal Mind, the Spirit-all these God the Word has assumed! and unto them inseparably and eternally he is united! This is a great wonder.

And surely that Body, that Soul, those Mental Powers, made originally in God's image, and which God assumed, these cannot be in themselves essentially evil; they must be good"good, though fallen." The Body which the Eternal Word assumed, this is not to be scorned, or despised, or looked upon as brutish, but held in all reverence.

But more than this: the Word assumed it not as perfect; all its weaknesses, and deficiencies, and liabilities to temptation were still in the Redeemer's Body,-in the Body of "God, who shed for us his blood," were all these by which sin has access to us. "So that he was tempted in all things as we, only without sin ;"* and until he had passed through the resurrection gate of the grave, it to him was a "Natural body," or a "Terrestrial" body. And thus remaining in substance the same, the dross being cleansed away, the weakness having vanished, it became the Spiritual and Celestial body.

So that unto a body having in nature but not in effects the same feebleness, deficiency, weaknesses that our body has, was the Word of God united. Our Bodies, then, we should not despise, or think brutally of for this natural weakness, but rather tenderly, since Christ passed through this life in a body that had the same weak

nesses.

Again that body that he assumed of the Virgin Mary, his mother, this same flesh that was born of her was weak and mor tal; suffered, and died and was buried; this body of the same humanity as mine, of the same blood, the same flesh, the same bones; this rose with the Word from the grave, a Glorified, Heavenly, Spiritual Body, never dying and perfect, and yet the same that was born of the Virgin. And this Human Nature is thenceforth one with God the Word, two natures,† God and Man

* He had neither at birth Original Sin, nor during life Actual Sin. †This is called the Hypostatical or Substantial Union of the two Natures in one Christ forever.

forever joined and forming one Christ, seated upon the right hand of the glory of God, upon the eternal throne.of heaven.

Thou that wouldst despise the body, look to this;-the "body," the "mind," the Spirit of Man,-Human Nature,-a true man, and at the same time God the Word, is seated upon the throne of Omnipotence! Man is almighty, omniscient, eternal, immortal! The Body of Man, the same as this my body, the same Flesh and the same Blood is exalted into heaven, there to sit for evermore upon the right hand of God.

Should I not, therefore, reverence this my body, seeing that there, in the council chamber of Omnipotence, in the most inmost shrine of the Presence, upon the most shining throne of glory, in the central light and unapproachable depths of God's splendor, there is united to the Word for ever, the Body born in Bethlehem, laid in the manger, the Human Body, that suffered and died, was buried and rose again?

Great, truly, is the glory to me and to my Body that this is so. And, therefore, with all reverence and respect shall I look upon the "Body of man" even as it is, beset with the effects of Original Sin. To others I shall leave the pagan dreams of scorn and contempt for this our earthly frame. And the bodies of the dead, these I shall look at as no carcases,* no cadavres,† but as holy and sacred shrines from which the spirit has departed again to return; dwellings, that by their frame-work and fashioning, were made after His own image, fitted in their nature to receive and be forever the dwelling of the sanctified spirit.

This is the Christian feeling of reverence to the body. And because of this thought of a human frame made perfect and seated upon the throne of God,-because of this thought is it that the aspect of the grave has changed from dreary and blank despair to the calmness of a living hope. Because of this it is that instead of casting out our dead to the birds and the beasts, instead of. giving them up to the devouring flame, or of exposing them to the wasting elements as the carcases (caro casa) of dead beasts; with all reverence and tenderness we wash them free from all pollutions; we dress them in the pure raiment of death; we weep over them; we shield them even from the too rude contact of the earth, and we commit them to her bosom in peace and in hope..

* Carcase-caro casa-flesh fallen, or cast away.

† Cadavre (French) Caro, data, vermibus,-flesh, food for worms.

These are, as respects the Body, the effects upon our morals of the fact of the Incarnation,-the fact that the Word of God was made flesh and dwelt among us, and is now, together with that Human Nature which he took of his mother, seated on the right hand of God. And therefore should man reverence his Body, and neither scorn nor despise it, but even in its weakness count it not evil, but good, although injured by Original Sin.

CHAPTER VI.

The nature of man has, 1st, a capacity of life through the Word Incarnate; 2d, of receiving His Body and Blood; 3d, of the Indwelling of the Spirit. Love is the highest Christian state.-The Eucharist is hence a school of Works and Love.

THE great fact with which we closed our last chapter, while it fully manifests the truth, that the body of man is not of the same kind as the body of the beasts, but an organization wholly different in its nature, inasmuch as it could be united with the Word of God; and these two natures, the Human and Divine, become and be eternally one Christ; while it shows this as a fact, it enables us, upon the strength of that fact, to proceed still further.

Can the Word, eternally begotten of the Father, assume the flesh of man? It can be so. Then as made of God, that Human Nature had, by its constitution, as of God created, this capacity of union with the Word,—a capacity no other created being has. This is a quality of man's nature which is not manifested by mere organization, and yet which evidently exists and distinguishes clearly between his body and that of the beasts.

Human Nature, then, has the capacity in it of eternally being in Christ upon the throne of God as God. It must, then, have a capability of Life everlasting through him. There must be in our nature secretly, and it may be unconsciously to us, a capability and a power of having His Life dwelling in us. There must be in nature as it is, the power whereby the same Holy Ghost that in Christ united the Word with Human Nature, so that both should

be one eternally, can implant in our human nature, that is, in
our body, our soul, and our spirit, the Life of the Eternal Word.
For if the Human Nature, as created in His Image, had the
capacity of being united with the Word, so as to be one Christ, then
has it of the same constitution the capability of receiving the Life
that comes from the Word only. And so of being of Him new born
through the same Spirit, so that the man shall become a “member of
Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven."
Hence also, it has the capacity that it should receive of the "Body
and Blood" of Christ our Lord. For that Humanity which he
assumed here upon earth,-which was born, "suffered," "died,'
and was "buried," and all this being "corporeal," "earthly,'
99.66 na-
tural," "fleshly," "rose again," being then "spiritual," heavenly,
perfect. For it is most distinctly the doctrine of holy writ that the
body, after the resurrection, remains the same and identical as to
its actual being; but all imperfection and incompleteness is then
done away. For the Natural body is changed into the Spiritual
body, the corruptible into the incorruptible, the earthly into the
celestial, not losing its identity, but casting off its imperfections.
And the body of our Lord having been, until his burial, a Natural
body, as ours, (save only in sin,) at his Resurrection was changed,
even as ours shall be through Him. It became a Spiritual and
glorious body from having been a Natural body,—its qualities
being changed, yet did it still remain the same in being that he
bore on earth,-nay, even the same that was born in the manger
at Bethlehem. God-man on Earth, even while yet a speechless
and feeble babe on his mother's knee! God-man in Heaven,
seated upon the throne of power! Great, truly, is the mystery of
godliness, that God should be born of a woman and shed his blood
and die for us here on earth! Greater still its crowning glory,
that Man should take his seat upon the throne of the universe!
forever to be worshipped! forever to reign as God! And thus the
Word and the Human Nature, united in one Person, are at the
head and on the throne of all being.

And the Human Nature of the Word, as far at least as his Body and Blood are concerned, this by the Spirit of God, can we, having faith, receive as the food and supply of the Life of Christ in us. For the very fact that Human Nature in Christ is capable of being united with the Word, and being invested with all the attributes of God, this proves that Nature to be capable of bending down

1

from its eternal throne and giving itself as the food and supply of the Life to its kindred nature in us here upon the earth.

Only grant the great central fact that "Man is God," and no Time, no Space, shall prevent "omnipotence," omniscience united with Humanity forever, from conferring upon us, really and truly, the gift of his Body and his Blood, not in figure, not in metaphor, but actually, really, and truly, and by means which, while they are not themselves the "Body" and the "Blood," are means of its being most certainly conferred. Think upon the great fact that Human Nature could be joined unto the Word,--and Human Na ture can, by virtue of this capacity, receive that gift of the perfect and glory-crowned "Body and Blood," that now sits upon the throne of eternity, and be fed and cherished by it in body, soul, and spirit. No figure this is of an absent body, no metaphor, save the Incarnation of the Word be a metaphor, and his conception of the Holy Ghost a metaphor.

But if the Human Nature is eternally united with the Word, so that a real man, one who has, as I have, a body, a soul, and a spirit, is seated on God's throne, and is God, then this capacity exists in him to give to me in whom, by spiritual regeneration, is His Life, his glorified, spiritual, heavenly "Body and Blood,” as food and nutriment of that His Life in me. Then in me exists, by my "creation in his image," and the suitableness of my very nature, the capacity of receiving that true gift of his real Body

and Blood.

But if "God" and Man are not truly united, the two Natures in one Christ eternally, then this union is but a figure, a metaphor; and the reception of the Body and Blood is only a figure and a metaphor; and the frame and nature of man is as the frame and nature of the beasts, flesh made to live and then to perish; but having in it no capacity of the divine nature, no capacity of a Spiritual Life, or of spiritual support to it.

.

*

But it is not so. We can, by our nature, receive this heavenly food. The capacity is in us; because our very "flesh and blood," the Humanity of Man united with the Eternal Word, is God eternally; and because of this that we are created "in His image." For these reasons we can receive actually, really, and truly His Body and His Blood.

* "Wherefore unto us are given exceeding great and precious promises, that by them ye might be partakers of the divine nature." 2 Péter, i. 4.