a while, delayed until we should share it with them. Of the way and means of that blessed consummation we know nothing; but we surely do know that they had not that fulness of privilege which we have, that they "were not made perfect;" that, when the serpent's head was crushed, and the virgin's womb not abhorred, and man delivered, the kingdom of Heaven opened, and the Son of man was also the Son of God, and our flesh sanctified by the Incarnation, and immortalized and glorified; then a great change was wrought upon the earth, the old descent from Adam cut off, in as many as were engraffed into Him, and a new lineage begun for man, even sonship of God, and brotherhood with Christ, the Everlasting Son of the Father! "How," says St. Augustine[1], "How do they become sons of God?" they were born—"'not of blood,' such as is the first birth, a wretched birth, coming of wretchedness, but—of God. The first birth was of man and woman, the second of God and the Church; whence was it then that being first born of man, they were born of God? The Word became flesh. Mighty change! He made flesh, they spirit! What dignity! my brethren. Lift up your mind to hope and seek for better things. Shrink from devoting yourselves to worldly desires! ye have been bought with a price: for you the Word became flesh: for you He, who was the Son of God, became the son of man, that ye, who were sons of men, might be made sons of God. He was the Son of God! What became He? Son of man! Ye were sons of men! what were ye made? Sons of God! He shared our ills, to give us His goodnesses." May God's Holy Spirit open all our hearts to see what of ourselves we cannot see, what our indolence would shrink from thinking on, since it involves such high responsibility, that so we may "know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fulness of God!" Truly, though "none among them that are born of woman be greater than John the Baptist, he that is least in the kingdom of Heaven is greater than he." We dare, then, neither compare ourselves with the Holy Patriarchs, nor dare we
- ↑ Serm. xxi, in Ev. Joann. 1. (al.de Diversis, 85.) on Joh. i. 13.
