LECTURE III. VEN, CHARLES S. OLMSTED, OF COOPERSTOWN, N. Y. Archdeacon of the Susquehanna. THE TWO CREEDS. THE best method by which to arrive at a definition of the Creeds, and at the same time to discover what they involve, and what relation they bear to other doctrinal standards and to the reunion of Christendom, is to trace their origin and history. I. It will not be denied that the entire idea, fact and doctrine of Christianity may be reduced in the last analysis to a single concept, viz., that God is become Man in the Person of Jesus Christ. Tertullian said, "The consciousness of God is the original dowry of the soul." This consciousness is the most patent and pervasive fact in human history. It enters into the very fibre of all human life. To it the Ethnic religions owe their being and vitality. The world has always desired God as an object of worship and as an object of knowledge. Even more, it has ever desired to be united to God. However distorted the notion of how such an union may be effected, in the fugitive incarnations of Indian culture, or in the apotheoses of Hellenic thought, it proclaims the dim but persistent hope which is native to the human heart. In the great mystery of our Christian faith we find how man can be united to the Absolute and Abiding Reality which underlies the universe. God answers man's hope by taking manhood into God. In a manner undreamed of by human religions the desire of those religions is accomplished. In a manner due to Divine wisdom alone the union is effected. The Son of God assumes our nature into His Divine Person. It is not by changing Himself into man, nor by uniting entirely to Himself a human person, nor by exalting a single man on account of his goodness to become God, nor by uniting all men in their persons to the nature of God that the Son of God unites God and man. The Incarnation takes place in a Divine manner, undreamed of by the world, and is proved not only by its fitness to the desire and need of man, but by its Divine method of becoming. The nature of man is united to the nature of God in the Person of the Eternal Son. The true knowledge of the Incarnate Son of God is the peculiar possession of Christians. He Himself revealed it to certain men whom He named Apostles. He lived with them, and permitted them to see and hear the word of life. They paid to Him Divine worship. They acknowledged Him to be the Lord. They knew Whom they believed, for they had an unction from the Holy One. They spent their lives in His service. They poured out their blood in witness to the truth of His Divinity. In subsequent ages the Apostolic witness was felt to be true by vast multitudes of people, who gave themselves to the Lord. They lived the life of Christ. They entered here on an heavenly state of being. They fed on immortal food. They contemplated in simple faith the condescension of their Master, Who, that He might "better the quality and advance the condition" of their nature had come down from Heaven and was made flesh and had humbled Himself yet more, even to the death of the Cross. They knew the witness of the Holy Spirit with their spirit. They knew the Father, knowing the Son. They had entered the Kingdom of Christ through the door of grace and pardon. They looked for the likeness of their Risen Lord not only in the spiritual part of their nature, but also in their bodies, and they rejoiced. in the hope that was laid up for them in Heaven. |