The attributes of God, though intelligible to us
on their surface,--for from our own sense of
mercy and holiness and patience and consistency,
we have general notions of the All-merciful and
All-holy and All-patient, and of all that is proper 20
to His Essence,--yet, for the very reason that
they are infinite, transcend our comprehension,
when they are dwelt upon, when they are followed
out, and can only be received by faith. They are
dimly shadowed out, in this very respect, by the 25
great agents which He has created in the material
world. What is so ordinary and familiar to us
as the elements, what so simple and level to us
as their presence and operation? yet how their
character changes, and how they overmaster us,
and triumph over us, when they come upon us in
their fullness! The invisible air, how gentle is it,
and intimately ours! we breathe it momentarily, 5
nor could we live without it; it fans our cheek,
and flows around us, and we move through it
without effort, while it obediently recedes at every
step we take, and obsequiously pursues us as we
go forward. Yet let it come in its power, and 10
that same silent fluid, which was just now the
servant of our necessity or caprice, takes us up
on its wings with the invisible power of an Angel,
and carries us forth into the regions of space, and
flings us down headlong upon the earth. Or go 15
to the spring, and draw thence at your pleasure,
for your cup or your pitcher, in supply of your
wants; you have a ready servant, a domestic ever
at hand, in large quantity or in small, to satisfy
your thirst, or to purify you from the dust and 20
mire of the world. But go from home, reach the
coast; and you will see that same humble element
transformed before your eyes. You were equal to
it in its condescension, but who shall gaze
without astonishment at its vast expanse in the bosom 25
of the ocean? who shall hear without awe the
dashing of its mighty billows along the beach?
who shall without terror feel it heaving under him,
and swelling and mounting up, and yawning wide,
till he, its very sport and mockery, is thrown to 30
and fro, hither and thither, at the mere mercy of
a power which was just now his companion and
almost his slave? Or, again, approach the flame:
it warms you, and it enlightens you; yet approach
not too near, presume not, or it will change its
nature. That very element which is so beautiful 5
to look at, so brilliant in its character, so graceful
in its figure, so soft and lambent in its motion,
will be found in its essence to be of a keen,
resistless nature; it tortures, it consumes, it reduces to
ashes that of which it was just before the 10
illumination and the life. So it is with the attributes
of God; our knowledge of them serves us for our
daily welfare; they give us light and warmth and
food and guidance and succor; but go forth with
Moses upon the mount and let the Lord pass by, 15
or with Elias stand in the desert amid the wind,
the earthquake, and the fire, and all is mystery
and darkness; all is but a whirling of the reason,
and a dazzling of the imagination, and an
overwhelming of the feelings, reminding us that we 20
are but mortal men and He is God, and that the
outlines which Nature draws for us are not His
perfect image, nor to be pronounced inconsistent
with those further lights and depths with which it
is invested by Revelation. 25
Say not, my brethren, that these thoughts are
too austere for this season, when we contemplate
the self-sacrificing, self-consuming charity
wherewith God our Saviour has visited us. It is for that
very reason that I dwell on them; the higher He 30
is, and the more mysterious, so much the more
glorious and the more subduing is the history of
His humiliation. I own it, my brethren, I love
to dwell on Him as the Only-begotten Word; nor
is it any forgetfulness of His sacred humanity to
contemplate His Eternal Person. It is the very 5
idea, that He is God, which gives a meaning to
His sufferings; what is to me a man, and nothing
more, in agony, or scourged, or crucified? there
are many holy martyrs, and their torments were
terrible. But here I see One dropping blood, 10
gashed by the thong, and stretched upon the
Cross, and He is God. It is no tale of human woe
which I am reading here; it is the record of the
passion of the great Creator. The Word and
Wisdom of the Father, who dwelt in His bosom 15
in bliss ineffable from all eternity, whose very
smile has shed radiance and grace over the whole
creation, whose traces I see in the starry heavens
and on the green earth, this glorious living God,
it is He who looks at me so piteously, so tenderly 20
from the Cross. He seems to say,--I cannot
move, though I am omnipotent, for sin has bound
Me here. I had had it in mind to come on earth
among innocent creatures, more fair and lovely
than them all, with a face more radiant than the 25
Seraphim, and a form as royal as that of
Archangels, to be their equal yet their God, to fill
them with My grace, to receive their worship, to
enjoy their company, and to prepare them for the
heaven to which I destined them; but, before I 30
carried My purpose into effect, they sinned, and
lost their inheritance; and so I come indeed, but
come, not in that brightness in which I went forth
to create the morning stars and to fill the sons of
God with melody, but in deformity and in shame,
in sighs and tears, with blood upon My cheek, and 5
with My limbs laid bare and rent. Gaze on Me,
O My children, if you will, for I am helpless; gaze
on your Maker, whether in contempt, or in faith
and love. Here I wait, upon the Cross, the
appointed time, the time of grace and mercy; here 10
I wait till the end of the world, silent and
motionless, for the conversion of the sinful and the
consolation of the just; here I remain in weakness
and shame, though I am so great in heaven, till
the end, patiently expecting My full catalogue of 15
souls, who, when time is at length over, shall be
the reward of My passion and the triumph of My
grace to all eternity.