Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Mind of Christ the Perfection and Bond of the Church: A Sermon Preached at St. Peter's Church, Brighton, Before the Right Reverend Philip Nicholas, Lord Bishop of Chichester, at a Meeting of the Diocese, December 9, 1841
In this unutterable self-abasement, and in this transcendent self-oblation, St. Paul teaches us to see the divine ideas of all earthly forms of lowliness, and self-denial. Whatsoever there is of pure humility and painful self devotion upon earth is the re?ection and the impress of these heavenly realities which were in Christ Jesus. The humiliation of the Son of God taken in its moral, not its mysterious aspect, that is, not on the side by which it manifests itself in the world unseen as a mastery over sin and death, but on the side which is turned on this visible world, - is a type and a law of life given to the church of God. The mind of Christ dwel ling in the faithful, is the perfection of the Saints and the bond of unity to His mystical body. The humiliation of the Great Head of the Church, now exalted to the glory of His kingdom, is the pattern in heavenly places of the new creation of God. The mind of Christ then is the life of that great mystery of truth and grace, which was revealed, and shed abroad for the perfection of the faithful. They are the true brethren of the Firstborn, who have received upon their spiritual being the stamp of his humiliation. Every true servant of God from the beginning has borne these two great tokens of his lineage, lowliness and self-devotionand men are Saints in the measure in which they partake of this unearthly character. If we look down the line of those who by sanctity of life, have visibly handed on in the world the mys tery of Christ's humiliation, we shall find each one bearing, in these particular features, the likeness of Him who was alone above the world. Whatsoever mankind had before known of its own perfection, whether by the yearnings of a purer wisdom, or by the gradual revelations of God, this they had never reached, that the perfection of man is in the abase ment of self, in being the last, the lowest, and the least in yielding up his own, in suffering for others, in choosing sorrow for his portion. It was a standard and a kind of perfection beyond the thoughts of man. And as before, the world could not reach this mystery, so, afterwards, it could not understand its depth. It was before a secret, it was afterwards a miracle.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
