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THE MAGNIFICAT
1 gertes of ^Kebifaftons
UPON THE
SONG OF THE BLESSED VIEGIN MARY
BY THE
KEY. E. M. BENSON, M.A.
STUDENT OP CHRIST CHURCH
SUPERIOR OF THE MISSION PRIESTS OF S. JOHN THE EVANGELIST
COWLEY
LONDON
J. T. HAYES, 17 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN
1889
BT
WO
CONTENTS.
i.
THE ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF GOD'S GREATNESS.
PAGE
(1) That greatness essential ; (2) the soul's perception of
it ; (3) the Divine supremacy 1
II.
THE JOY OF THE SOUL IN THE LIFE OE GOD.
(1) Joyous adoration; (2) man's spiritual need of Divine
joy ; (3) the Personal Saviour 6
III.
THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF SALVATION.
(1) God's watchful Love ; (2) man's state of feebleness ;
(3) the duty of obedience 1
IV.
THE INCARNATION THE BEGINNING OF TRUE JOY FOR MAN.
(1) Christ the Giver of joy; (2) the joy of humanity in
union with Him ; (3) the perpetuity of that joy . 16
VI THE MAGNIFICAT.
V.
THE MAJESTY OP THE INCARNATION.
PAGE
(1) The fulfilment of Divine promises ; (2) the work of
the Incarnation surpassing the work of Creation ; (3)
the infinite glory of man's destiny . . . .21
VI.
THE POWER OF GOD.
(1) Personal ; (2) self -originative ; (3) creative . . 25
VII.
THE POWER OF GOD.
(1) Universal ; (2) voluntary ; (3) beneficent ... 30
VIII.
THE DIVINE HOLINESS.
(1) The Divine nature essentially holy ; (2) the Divine
covenant sanctifying ; (3) the consciousness of God's
holiness in the children of His covenant . . .36
IX.
THE DISCRIMINATING CHARACTER OF THE DIVINE
GOODNESS.
(1) God's mercy a self-communicating holiness ; (2) the
abiding character of God's covenant ; (3) the con
ditions of our admission 41
X.
CHRIST THE ARM OF THE LORD.
(1) A Personal Euler ; (2) His power no earthly power ;
(3) the manifestation of the Creator . . . .46
CONTENTS. Vll
XL
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE UNBELIEVING.
PAOH
(1) The pride of the natural heart; (2) the scattering which
awaits it ; (3) the deceitf ulness of that whereon it
relies ... 51
XII.
THE OVERTHROW OF THE POWERS OF DARKNESS.
(1) The prince of this world and his powers ; (2) the
thrones they occupy ; (3) the presence of Christ the
Conqueror . ... 56
XIII.
THE EXALTATION OF HUMANITY.
(1) Beyond any natural attainment ; (2) the hope of the
glory of God ; (3) the consciousness of our present
incapacity 62
XIV.
THE SATISFACTION OF MAN'S NEED.
(1) Man's hunger after righteousness : (2) the fulness of
God ; (3) the sweetness of Divine nourishment . . 67
XV.
THE EMPTINESS OF PRESENT SATISFACTION.
(1) The worthlessness of earthly things ; (2) the dismissal
of those who lived for them ; (3) the eternal sense of
loss 72
XVI.
THE COVENANTED KELATIONSHIP.
(1) The Divine Prince; (2) the elect servant; (3) the
help which God gives 77
yiii THE MAGNIFICAT.
XVII.
THE EEMEMBERED MERCY.
I'AGK
(1) The character of mercy ; (2) its recipients ; (3) God's
changeless purpose 82
XVIII.
THE PATRIARCHAL EXPECTATION.
(1) The necessity of prophecy ; (2) God's faithfulness to
His Covenant ; (3) the memory of the past . . 87
XIX.
ABRAHAM AND HIS SEED.
(1) The original covenant; (2) the Seed who should be
the Heir ; (3) the nature of the Blessing . . .91
XX.
DIVINE ETERNITY.
(1) The accomplishment of Divine purposes ; (2) the
final deliverance ; (3) the eternal Blessing . . 90
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A SERIES OF MEDITATIONS.
L
Ci TI ^V^T) JJ.QV TOV Kvpiov.
My soul doth magnify the Lord.
$dmott)le6gmenf of (Soft's
1. That greatness essential.
2. The soul's perception of it.
3. The Divine supremacy.
1. Magnify.
a. The creature cannot give greatness. It
can only acknowledge the greatness of God. It
is the joy of the creature to give this acknow
ledgment. By faith we are able to do this now
in the power of that grace which faith appropriates.
The joy of Heaven shall be to give back this
greatness in the full experience ofUts truth. Our
glory shall consist in the utterance of God's glory.
b. God alone is great. To confess His great-
B
2 THE MAGNIFICAT.
ness is to confess the nothingness of all that is
outside of Him. We only know His greatness
now by considering His exemption from our weak
ness and littleness. His essential greatness is
beyond our understanding. The greatness of the
Divine Life in the glory of its Triune activity
surpasses our knowledge. But we can confess
His freedom from created infirmity.
c. We can only acknowledge this greatness in
proportion to our personal experience; and as we
only know it by its opposition to created infirmity,
we can only acknowledge it in proportion as we
know the weakness of the creature. We do not
rise to the knowledge of God's greatness by the
communication of great powers of apprehension,
but by the experience of the great necessities
under which we are held captive. Otherwise our
idea of God would only be an idol, a monster.
But there is no experience of human weakness
which has not a correlative knowledge of the
greatness of God as its opposite.
2. My soul.
a. The perceptive nature of man seeks for
God. Material things cannot satisfy it. It cannot
be at rest in this lower world. Finite itself, it
nevertheless seeks for the infinite.
6. The soul is as it were nothingness develop
ing into infinity. It is formed in God's image
and therefore has a capacity of infinity. So a
MEDITATION I. 3
point has the capacity of becoming a line, or
rather an infinite number of lines disposed as a
circle emanating from it, and thus it expands it
self into an infinite pyramid. So the soul expands
towards God.
The line is not to be measured by its thickness
but by its length : the soul, not by accidents of
worldly power, but by the outreaching of faith.
That which draws the soul out is love. Faith
working by love embraces God. Action towards
the creature is soon exhausted, but action to
wards God obedience to revelation what the
psalmist calls i Thy commandment is exceeding
broad.'
c. Personality is the starting point of the
soul's action. The impersonal brute has no aim
beyond the immediate quieting of the material
necessity of the body. Personality is the image
of God in the human soul, and seeks that which
is beyond all created powers of manifestation,
I the pure, creative, Personality of God. It can
not be satisfied until it has found that which is
like itself, i.e., that in Whose likeness itself was
formed.
The individual soul has this longing, and it
cannot find rest in any other created indivi
duality, because it is conscious that all such in
dividualities are not self-existent, but point to a
kindred origin, the One, the Infinite, the Eternal
God.
B 2
4 THE MAGNIFICAT.
3. TJie Lord.
a. The Self-existent, the Sovereign, the Cove
nant God. The soul finds its joy in resting thus
upon the Divine supremacy, acknowledging its
own inferiority and dependency. We may take the
words as equivalent to Jehovah or Adonai. c The
LORD said unto my Lord.' The address may con
template either the Divine Speaker, or the Incar
nate Person. God is Lord to us, our Lord,
Adonai, because He is LORD in Himself, the
Eternal Jehovah. He does not receive this Lord
ship from the creature, but abides in the glory
thereof, independently of all creation as before
creation began.
b. Dependence upon the Self-existent involves
obedience to the Self-revealer. We do not
acknowledge God's supremacy merely by an act
of the understanding, but by the surrender of
the will, and therefore of the whole life, to accept
Him who has life in Himself as the Master to
whom our life must be consecrated. We cannot
really perceive God's glory without the entire
oblation of our nature to be conformed to His
bidding. His infinity makes us sensible of our
own nothingness.
c. The Lord must be known not as one of us
all, but as the One with whom our soul has the
most intimate relationship. All thought of
separation is put away in the acknowledgment of
union with Him, if He is indeed the Lord, our
MEDITATION I. O
Life. His condescension in taking us into cove
nanted relationship with Himself, does not lead
us to think of any glory of our own as being ours,
but makes us only acknowledge the more fully
that all the glory is only His.
THE MAGNIFICAT.
II.
r)ya\\ia(T TO rrvevfid p.ov eVt r<5 $eo> rw
MT/ spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
of i^c goul in t^c <ife of 00.
1. Joyous adoration.
2. Man's spiritual need of Divine joy.
3. The Personal Saviour.
1. Rejoice.
a. The joy is the inward reaction of that which
is outwardly expressed in magnifying the Lord.
The soul does not magnify because it rejoices, but
rejoices because it magnifies the Lord. It is the
act of magnifying which is the very essence of the
joy. We are too apt to contemplate Divine joy as
if it could be a vague state of delight, as we may
rejoice in the sunshine, or in a work of art or the
like ; but our joy in the Lord is a joy in the great
ness of His Personality which we can only utter
by being absorbed into active fellowship with Him.
' Rejoice in the Lord.' The soul would feel itself
to be insignificant and miserable if it were not thus
taken up in the Divine greatness. As we recog
nise that greatness we must rejoice.
MEDITATION II. 7
1. This joy is not associated with any self-con
templative pride. It is entirely self-forgetful and
humble. We do not rejoice in wha.t we are, but
in what He is. True human joy is in coming out
of ourselves. It follows upon love, by which we
lose ourselves in another. The joy of brutes is that
whereby we delight in what our senses receive.
Passive delight becomes not man formed in the
image of the Creator, formed for action. Joy
belongs to God. Man cannot rejoice except in
proportion as he loses himself and finds God.
c. It is a higher joy to ' rejoice in God my
Saviour ' than to ' rejoice in the Lord and in His
salvation' (1 Sam. ii. 1). Hannah's was the joy
of human exultation, guided by the Holy Ghost,
but still needing the Mediatorial Presence to ele
vate it. Mary's joy was the joy of Divine in
spiration, spoken in substantive union with the
Person of the Incarnate Mediator, Who was her
joy-
2. My spirit.
a. Mary's soul as the principle of human
activity magnified God. The spirit as the prin
ciple of Divine union is the well-spring of the joy.
A joy springing out of the human affections is
earthly after all. The spirit is the interior prin
ciple of life wherein God's Spirit comes to dwell,
and through which it sanctifies and illuminates
both soul and body, both the understanding and
THE MAGNIFICAT.
the affections. It is therefore the spirit which is
the true fountain-head of joy.
b. Abraham rejoiced to see the day of Christ.
How much more Mary now, with the infant
Saviour in her womb. The spirit of man is by
nature dead, involving the death of every soul
that is born into the world, for the spirit's only
life is by the operation of the Holy Ghost, the
Spirit of God. That life-giving Spirit operated in
a certain degree upon the spirits of devout men
before Christ came. He overshadowed them, as
now He overshadowed Mary. Yet the spirit raised
by a certain influence of Divine life could not act
upon the soul or body that was by nature dead,
except indeed in a very imperfect manner. Now
the Spirit of Christ quickens human nature, not
only in His Person, but in the persons of His
members. It is- not our spirit which, like a harp
touched by the wind, utters its melody through
our frame. It is the Spirit of Christ like the voice
of a sweet singer which vibrates through our
frames as being united to His Body, and our spirits
quickened thus from within, from Christ's Spirit,
through bodily union with Him, rejoice by no
mere external influence, but by habitual energy of
life.
c. The soul cannot apprehend God, but it lives
supernaturally by the energy of the spirit which
rejoices in God. The soul deals with the created
world as the spirit when quickened deals with the
MEDITATION II. 9
Creator. The life of the spirit is of a higher kind
than the life of the soul, consequently the man of
soul [^rv%LK6s] understandeth not the things of
the Spirit of God. No amount of natural wisdom
or piety filling the soul elevates it to the appre
hension of Divine mysteries. The spirit alone
can know God with the true energy of Divine
love. The soul and body of the regenerate are
renovated gradually by the Spirit of Adoption so
as to become through union with the Soul and
Body of Christ the fitting habitation and instru
ments of the personal spirit quickened by the
Divine Spirit who proceeds to us in that Body
from the Person of Christ the Head.
3. God my Saviour.
a. All mankind, and consequently the Blessed
Virgin Mary, were born in this- inheritance of
death, and could only be raised out of it by
the Incarnation of the Divine Person, the
Mediator. Hence Mary acknowledges Him as
' God my Saviour.' Purification from the taint of
original sin could not be effected merely by refer
ence to the merits of Christ. A false idea of
purification by reference to the merits of Christ is
taught on one hand by the maintainers of the
Immaculate Conception, on the other by the
maintainers of the Protestant doctrine of Justifi
cation. Life can be given only in the living
Divine nature which man regains in a Divine
10 THE MAGNIFICAT.
Mediator not for Him, nor from Him, but in
Him. Therefore ' grace and truth' could not
precede Christ's coming, but c came by Him.'
He can save none save by taking them up into
His own Life.
b. Hannah exulted with a holy but an
earthly joy at the deliverance from her state of
reproach. Mary rejoiced with a heavenly joy at
the presence of Him who is the deliverer of all.
She did not receive Divine Life merely because she
gave earthly life to Him who was the giver of
Divine, but all the earthly affections were by this
relationship absorbed in Him who was her Child,
and in the form of her Child they laid hold upon
God who was thus incarnate. As she ministered
to Him of her substance, nourishing Him in the
womb, so she could not but receive from Him
communications of grace, the return to herself of
that filial love in which the Child rejoiced to exert
towards her His Divine power.
c. Jesus is God the Saviour. His name
expresses His worth and office. Mary, perhaps
= bitterness, now becomes Naomi, pleasantness; or
if the name means rebellion, now the rebellious
race is ' saved by the child-bearing.' The conse
quences of sin, whether in the heart or in the
surroundings, are done away by the Atonement.
The fallen race must rejoice in the birth of the
Saviour God.
If we would know Him as our Saviour we
MEDITATION II. 1]
must have the same absorbing delight in Him
which Mary had. She rejoiced because He came
to give the salvation, but He had not then wrought
it out. We must much more rejoice because He
has now accomplished this great salvation and has
made us partakers thereof.
12 THE MAGNIFICAT.
III.
V eVl rrjv rcnreivciKriv rqs SovXrjs avrov.
He liath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden.
^fye Phrine ^rigm of
1. God's watchful Love.
2. Man's state of feebleness.
3. The duty of obedience.
1. He hath regarded.
a. Love is the moving power which, makes
God to be our Saviour. Love is watchful watchful
according to the fulness of power, present to assist,
prospective to perfect. Love is discriminating.
It recognises individual necessity, helps according
to the actual need. It expects a return, namely,
that the loved one shall meet its advances with an
entire self-surrender. So God looks on man, to
obtain for him all the eventual glory of which man's
nature is capable, and that glory is the return to
God of the love which God has given to man.
b. The regard is not a momentary one. God
has been watching throughout watching for
the most convenient moment in which to act,
MEDITATION III. 13
what is called in Holy Scripture, c tlie fulness
of time.'
c. He regards not so as to obviate all difficulty,,
for that would destroy man's moral position, but
so as to order all things with a view to man's
moral development by the assistance of grace.
His regard gives life. That which He sees lives :
that whereon He looks not, perishes.
2. The low estate.
a. Man's nature is in a fallen estate. Nothing
is low which is true to the order of nature in
which God created it, but man was created to live
with the power of supernatural righteousness, and
he forfeited that by the fall of Adam. Every
created thing partakes of the dignity of the
Creator to whom it belongs, but man has rebelled
against his Creator, and in forfeiting his allegiance
forfeits his dignity.
??. Man's nature being thus fallen is liable to
all the external evils and indignities which we
experience. Other creatures, however insignificant,
are satisfied to be what their Creator made them.
The worm does not wish to be an elephant.
Man is conscious that he ought to have a dignity
which he has not got, and therefore he is sensitive
to all the necessities which press upon him.
He desires what God alone can give salvation.
His true joy is to welcome the Saviour.
c. All the host of glorious intelligences con-
14 THE MAGNIFICAT.
template our low estate. They see us as fallen
beings, and have at least some knowledge of what
we ought to be. They behold and by God's com
mand they help us in our trouble : but they
cannot deliver us out of it. God beholds and
delivers. He beholds our low estate by coming to
share it, taking upon Himself the likeness of sinful
flesh, the experience of the misery in which we, as
sinners, are involved. As God He knows what He
meant us to be, but God sends His Eternal Son
to become man in order to enter along with us
into all the sorrows of our ignorance. The In
carnation brings to light the greatness of the
Fall.
3. His handmaiden.
a. The highest character of man is to be the
servant of the Lord. So Moses, Joshua, and David
are called. So now Mary. It is a name not of
self-will, but of natural truth. Our position in the
world is accidental. Our relation to God as His
servants is essential. The servant is raised to a
further relationship of sonship in the Person of
Christ, but man was created to be God's servant
antecedently to that elevation.
b. The bondslave has to recognise the absence
of any free will on his own part. So must we
serve God by nature, simply as God chooses to
employ us. A slave has no will of his own, but
he knows that he must do his master's will.
MEDITATION III. 15
Man can have no power of accomplishing his own
will, but his wisdom is to recognise his duty
towards his Master. The love which must cha
racterise the service of Christians as having
been made God's sons must not destroy the sense
of necessity which belongs to us as slaves to
God in the order of the created world. Even
the Son of God from whom our sonship is
derived was c born of a woman, born under the law,'
and so takes upon Himself our condition of neces
sary obedience. His mother acknowledges herself
as the bondslave, and so He became, c taking upon
Himself the form of a bondslave.' Nature is not
elevated by repudiating its own essential relations,
but by accepting the co-operative powers of a
higher Life.
c. A slave is not valued by work done but by
trustworthiness. We are not to think that we
are more truly God's slaves, or more nearly His
children, by the possession of any unusual gifts.
We must contentedly act within the limits of
God's appointment in nature, learning obedience
by the things which we suffer, that so we may be
able to use the freedom of God's children in the
accomplishment of all those purposes which He by
grace will teach us to desire and strengthen us to
do. Our necessary obedience, as slaves by nature,
must prepare for the voluntary glorification which
as sons we are to give to God by grace.
16 THE MAGNIFICAT.
IV.
UTTO TOV vvv /ArtKapiouo-i /ie 7racrat at yeveai.
From henceforth all generations shall count me happy.
gncatrnatiott tfye ^cginnina of Iruc
for
1. Christ the giver of joy.
2. The joy of humanity in union with Him.
3. The perpetuity of that joy.
1. From henceforth.
a. The Incarnation is the beginning of all
blessings. The Word of God is Himself in everr
way ' the Beginning ' [avros Trpcorsvcov] ; Him
self the first. So the years of grace are dated
from His birth. It was the turning point of the
history of the human race, the advent of the
second Adam.
b. Up to that time man's nature was empty.
Preventing grace there was, the overshadowing of
the Holy Ghost, but not indwelling grace. Mary
was Ks^apiTco^sv'rj, prepared by grace to receive
the Divine Person who should be born of her.
Jesus was ' full of grace and truth,' having the grace
MEDITATION IV. 17
inherent in the temple of His Body. The law had
empty shadows of good things to come, but the
image of the things is substantially communicated
to us in the ordinances of the Church, the Body
of Christ.
c. The Person of the Son of God came in all
His fulness to be the Child of Mary as man. From
the first moment of her pregnancy He claimed as
His own the Body that was formed within her,
taken from her substance. The blessedness of
the maternity was complete before the maturity
of the humanity.
2. Account me happy.
a. The woman was to be ( saved through the
child-bearing.' That which was given to woman
as her penalty was intended to be eventually her
joy. That joy Mary now receives, a joy to be
eventually perfected in the final manifestation of
the Body of Christ, when all the saints shall
enter into the joy of their Lord.
b. Mary probably speaks here not so much of
her personal joy as of the joy of humanity. Mary
is the representative of humanity, the woman who
was the especial object of the serpent's hatred.
Humanity, although the parent of a heavenly seed,
has been cast down for a time to earth to suffer
much affliction from the dragon, but shall appear
at last, triumphant over every difficulty, as the
City of God, the Bride of Christ.
18 THE MAGNIFICAT.
c. The Church calls Mary happy, by sharing
that happiness and exulting in union with Christ.
The joy of the elect humanity which began in the
bitterness of our state of humiliation in the form
of maternity shall be consummated in the glory
of the state of exaltation in the form of bridal,
the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. c As a young
man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry
thee, and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the
bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee. ' As Eve
was both the daughter and the bride of Adam,
so is humanity both the mother and the bride of
the second Adam. Her sons include those who
are taken into the glorified humanity of Christ
the Firstborn, partakers in Him of the Divine Life
and the Divine joy. The suffering joy of the
maternity which has a sword piercing the heart,
by reason of this very union, is changed into the
perfect joy of indissoluble union in the bliss of God.
d. The only other place where the word
4 account happy ' occurs is in St. James, c Behold
we count them happy which endure.' The begin
ning of all happiness is the Incarnation. The
only happiness in this world is to share Christ's
cross and to suffer. i If ye suffer with Christ
happy are ye.' The true, the final happiness is
in the manifestation of the kingdom of Heaven,
the glory of the Heavenly Jerusalem. ' Happy are
they which are called to the Marriage Supper of
the Lamb.'
MEDITATION IV. 19"
3. All generations.
a. The grace which came by Christ was not
to be an evanescent manifestation, it was to abide
from generation to generation. As Mary now,
so, but in a yet higher way, would all future
generations be taken into union with the Incarnate
Lord after His Ascension. Only they who are
taken into this union can know her joy in her
Saviour.
5. The Son of God took her substance and
separated it by Divine Life from her person, that
He might act therein in the perfection of His God
head. In the Christian Church He takes our
persons, separating us from the corrupt substance
of our humanity, that as we are partakers of His
glorified Humanity and of His glorifying Godhead,
He may act beneath the evil of our outward
humanity which has to be done away, and may
make us to be identified with Himself by grace,
in the perfection of the Divine Righteousness.
' Happy is she that believed, for there shall be an
accomplishment of those things which were told
her of the Lord.' ' Happy in all ages they who
hear the word of God and keep it ' (Luke xi. 28).
c Happy if they be reproached for the name of
Christ, for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth
upon them' (1 Peter iv. 14). 'Happy the dead
who die in the Lord ' (Rev. xiv. 13). ' Happy and
holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection >
o 2
20 THE MAGNIFICAT.
on such the second death hath no power ' (Rev.
xx. 8). ' Happy they that do His commandments,
that they may have right to the tree of life, and
may enter in through the gates into the city/
c. The joy of the Incarnation is the strength
of each successive generation in its suffering. The
joy of the Incarnation shall be the united con
sciousness of all generations when they shall be
gathered together singing Alleluia. Then shall
the elect humanity indeed be manifest as the
Naomi, full of pleasantness and delight, no longer
widowed, but rejoicing in the bridal of eternity.
MEDITATION V. 21
V.
f P.OL /nryaXeia 6 dvvaros.
He that is mighty Jiath done to me great things.
ffje ^Tajestg of tf>e gncarnation.
1. The fulfilment of Divine promises.
2. The work of the Incarnation surpassing the
work of Creation.
3. The infinite glory of man's destiny.
1. Hath done to me.
a. The action of God is beginning now to de
velop the promises of God. God manifests Him
self by His Word, but His Word is an active word,
and therefore can only be fully known by that
which it accomplishes.
b. That which God does is something which
really affects ourselves. God's gifts are not
merely external. He does not merely give some
thing to us, He does something for us. Such
action of God implies a real change in the recipi
ent. So the Blessed Virgin hereby became the
Mother of God. This was the elevation of nature
into a new relationship to God. The creature
22 THE MAGNIFICAT.
could not rise to such elevation by any effort. It
was a vocation a call of the Creator, a manifes
tation of the Word, by whom all things are created^
calling her to this relationship by the action
of the Holy Ghost upon her physical frame. So
by the action of God's grace upon us our nature
becomes pregnant as it were with Divine powers
according to the manner of the Divine call. The
action of the Creator towards us is of neces
sity a transformation whereby our very nature is
elevated.
c. God's action is a continuous action, not a
solitary or transitory one. This is expressed by
the aorist. The happiness of which Mary speaks
is the outcome of a continuous activity of God.
So must we recognise the continuous Personal
fiction of God towards us, sustaining us in that
life of grace to which He calls us.
2. Great things.
a. The wonderful works of God are the mani
festation of God in the flesh by the Incarnation and
the extension of that Incarnation in the Church.
The only other place where the word occurs is
upon the day of Pentecost. All created things
are small to the Creator. Nothing He does can
be great unless His action enshrines Himself. He
alone is great: He alone the greatness of any of
His works.
b. The greatness which is in God obtains a
MEDITATION V. 23
manifoldness by manifestation in created form.
Every feature of created littleness becomes ex
panded by the corresponding greatness of Divine
glory. Indeed, the greatness of the undivided
glory of God shining upon the creature reveals the
manifold littleness of the creature as it pours into
that littleness the quickening greatness of the
Divine Life.
c. The great things which God does for us, do
not affect the littleness which belongs to us in the
order of nature so as to make us in any way
superior to the exigencies of natural position.
Nature remains nature in all its feebleness al
though filled with the majesty of heavenly glory
in the fellowship of Divine action.
3. He that is mighty.
a. It is a greater act of power whereby God
takes the creature into union with Himself than
it was when He called the creature out of nothing.
The Eternal Power and Godhead of the Creator
are seen by the things which are made, but the
things made are themselves evanescent. The act
of the Divine Power is eternal. His power is not
merely a supreme mechanical power, but a living
Personal power.
b. The Father is Almighty ; so is the Son ; so is
the Holy Ghost : and yet they are not three
Almighties but one Almighty. The Almighty
Love of the Father is the moving principle of the
24 THE MAGNIFICAT.
Incarnation. God sent His Son. The Action of
the Godhead contains within itself the eternal
relationships of the Three Divine Persons. This
unity is the very basis of the Divine Life. The
Almighty is the Everlasting.
c. The living Unity of the Three Divine Per
sons is the Eternal Love, and the outcome of the
Divine Power assuming the creature into any
participation of its greatness is the communication
of the Divine Love to the creature. God is Love,
and there can be no essential action of the Divine
Power which is not the action of Divine Love.
Nothing could be truly the great work of the Al
mighty which was not the communication of the
Eternal Love. As we contemplate the Divine
Love thus acting towards man by the Incarnation,
we must remember that we cannot live in the
power of that which God has done unless we live
in the reciprocal action of love to which we are
called by this supernatural exaltation. Our per
sonal action is not destroyed by the greatness of
what God does for us, but we must rise in personal
response to the greatness of that love whereby He
who calls us empowers us. Our love to God is
no merely human affection however great, but it
is an exercise of the Divine Power, raising us
above nature so that we act in the fellowship of
God.
MEDITATION VI.
25
VI.
6 dvvaros.
He that is mighty.
?on>er of
1. Personal.
2. Self-originative.
3. Creative.
1 . God's power is personal.
a. He does not merely possess power as an
acquisition, but as a property inherent in His
Personality. The person of any man is weak,
however great may be the power that he possesses.
He can lose it. He is dependent upon various
contingencies for its exercise. God has all power,
not residing in Himself but originating in Him
self. He is not dependent upon any external
conditions for the use of His power. He lives
eternally by the eternal power inherent in Him
self.
b. His power is none the less nor any the
more because it is exerted towards beings out
side of Himself. His power is formulated by His
own Will. The eternal action of His power
26 THE MAGNIFICAT.
within Himself is shown in the eternal generation
of the Son and the Eternal Procession of the Holy
Ghost.
c. He is Himself the sphere within which His
infinite power acts, and without the eternal interior
activity on which the Divine relationships are
based, His power would have no adequate sphere
of action, nor result of effort. There can be no
adequate result of Divine power which is not
itself truly Divine. If the Divine Persons were
not consubstantial with the Father, the Divine
Almightiness would waste itself in coming out
side of the Divine Substance.
2. God's personal power is self-originative.
a. He does not act under the stress of any
external necessity. His eternal volition is the
eternal cause of His interior action. Without this
He would be a dead unconscious immensity. His
eternal will changes not. By this will He lives.
Life is action. His action must be within Him
self. His action must be equal with Himself. The
Son, the Spirit must be consubstantial, co-equal
with the Father, co-eternal with the Father's
changeless will.
b. The Divine Person generated thus within
the Godhead must be the true Image of the Father ;
for if He were in any way inferior to the Father,
the action of the Godhead would have been untrue.
The result must be identical with the origin.
MEDITATION VI. 27
There can be no Third Person thus generated
within the Substance of the Godhead ; for if the
act of generation were repeated, each act would
be but a partial act, lacking the completeness of
Divine Life.
c. The Second Person being the Image of the
First must be, like the First, an originative Person.
He does not indeed originate another Person from
Himself as He Himself is originated from the-
Father. If He did so, He would come between the-
First and the Third Person, and there would be an
interruption of the energy of the Divine Power by
the transmission through successive generations.
He is the perfect Image of the Father, and He
originates the Third Person as the Father does. It
is not an imitative act, but it is an act of identity.
' He and the Father are one ' in Life, and therefore
the Life common to both originates the Third
Person by the procession of living Power from
both, one and the same Power because they live-
in one and the same Almighty Substance.
d. If the Holy Ghost proceeding from them
both were not a person, the living Substance of the-
Godhead would have lost one of its characteristics.
The Act of the Procession would be unequal to the-
glory of the Father and the Son. But that cannot
be. Therefore the Third Person of the Godhead
is the manifestation of unity of Life unbroken,
wherein the Father and the Son dwell eternally,
and the Godhead thus proceeding remains personal
28 THE MAGNIFICAT.
in its Life, and this Third Person is of one sub
stance, power, and eternity with the Father and
the Son.
e. In the Procession of the Holy Ghost the
act of the Divine Substance finds a term. With
out that Procession the Divine Substance would
have been broken in two by the generation of the
Second Person. But the exercise of the Divine
Substance by the two in the undivided act of
Procession precludes any such division. The Sub
stance of the Godhead proceeds in the Unity of
the Person of the Holy Ghost.
The Monarchy of the Father and the Proces
sion of the Holy Ghost are the bond of the Eternal
Trinity.
/. The eternal act of the Divine Substance does
not tolerate repetition so that there should be an
infinite number of Trinities springing up after
the manner of the primary Trinity. The action
of the Divine Substance is eternal, not consecu
tive. The action of the Holy Ghost is a Divine
reflex action of love towards the Father and the
Son from whom He proceeds.
3. TJie creative power.
a. The exhaustless power of the Godhead finds
a new form of action in the Person of the Holy
Ghost proceeding so as to accomplish works outside
of God, but not the less worthy of God.
b. The act of the Holy Ghost is incapable of
MEDITATION VI. 29
repetition, but the power of the Godhead remains
unimpaired. The Holy Ghost proceeds ad extra.
This creative action has a numerical infinity
commensurate with its eternal origin. Other
wise it would not be worthy of God. But it
loses the Personal Infinity of the Godhead,
for it goes forth to act outside of the Divine
Nature.
c. There can be no Divine Person outside of
the Divine Substance. Creation has no sub
stantial necessity, being outside of the Eternal
Life, but it is the act of the Divine volition of the
Three Almighty Persons. For the same reason
it lacks permanence, but in its constant flux it
mirrors the eternal purposes of the Divine good
ness which the all -originating volition is pleased
to stamp upon its nothingness.
30 THE MAGNIFICAT.
VII.
6 Swaros.
He that is mighty.
of
1. Universal.
2. Voluntary.
3. Beneficent.
1 . God's power is universal.
a. He is not more powerful than others, but
He is the only being who has any power, and the
power of all others is only by communication from
Him. He cannot even give them power, but all
the power which they exercise, whether material
or intellectual, individual or collective, is only by
His continued and unchanging presence sustain
ing them each and all, both good and bad.
b. Even the power of thought is communicated
from Him and exercised in Him, so that it is
impossible for any human or angelic being to
conceive of that which is beyond His power. All
our thoughts come short of His mind. We can
not conceive a better world or anything better in
MEDITATION VII. 31
the world than what He has purposed and will
perform. To conceive of anything which He has
not taught us to conceive would be a creative act,
and He is the only Creator. We may conceive of
impossible combinations, but the things which our
mind combines are His creation, and the com
binations which are not His will would be in
jurious developments, not augmenting power but
effacing it.
So then not only all actual power but all
possible power comes from Him. He is not com
prehended within any limits which hinder His
power, nor surrounded by any vacancy in which
His power ceases to act. On the contrary, all
created things are contained in Him, so that it is
impossible for the created mind to wander beyond
the outlines of His predestination. We may rebel
against what He has ordained, but we cannot
form to ourselves any object of contemplation
except according to the laws which He has given.
Any such combinations are only like the grotesque
monsters of ancient sculpture.
c. Hence the power of God is as truly one as
it is universal. This we find scientifically enforced
by the laws of comparative anatomy and the like.
However great the variety of things may be, all
things bear the impress of the same origin. This
origin is a living and a life-giving origin. What
ever, therefore, is not in accordance with the ori
ginal law thus impressed, must be a deformity, a
32 THE MAGNIFICAT.
thing of death. Created life can only be in accord
ance with the impressed law of the uncreated life.
2. God's power is voluntary.
a. God does not live subject to any power, but
He is the Author of all power. It is engendered
from Him. The created world follows upon the
eternal activity of God, because God creates all
things by His only-begotten Son. If it were not
for the interior act of the eternal generation of His
Son, and the procession of the Holy Ghost in the
act of this eternal generation, the created world
must be one with the unintelligent First Cause,
which without any will of His own gave existence
to all. All must be one with God, or else all must
be nothing. The mediation of the Word is as
essential to the primary creation of the world as it
is to the world's restoration, and the new creation
in holiness.
b. All that is to be has been present to the
mind of God from eternity in His only-begotten
Son. All that could be for good is to be, and has
thus been present to the mind of God and will
eventually be. If there were any good which will
be wanting to the final development of creation,
then something would be wanting to the Divine
goodness. God would be imperfect. He is perfect
in Himself, and He is putting forth His perfections
by creative power. All that power is exercised
through His consubstantial Son. His Spirit pro-
MEDITATION VII. 33
ceeding holds that which He creates in union with
Himself and in conformity to His will.
c. The will of God does not spring from
necessity, but necessity springs from His will.
If we rebel against His will or seek something
which His will has not ordained, we set ourselves
not merely against facts, so as to fail, but against
the Creator, so as to fail eternally. The eter
nal failure is not a mere failure to accomplish
what we seek, a disappointment, but it is an
antagonism to the eternal will which alone can
give happiness, and therefore it is an eternal
penalty. Nothing passes out of existence because
it does not choose to submit to the eternal sovereign
will. That will must triumph. The rebellious
must experience throughout eternity the antago
nism of the Divine Omnipotence. The will of God
accomplishes by its own unexhausted energy in
some new form of creation that which the rebel
lious creature has refused to carry into effect.
3. God's power is beneficent.
a. The will of the All-good is altogether good.
Whatever He originates is good, and whatever is
good is sure to be originated by Him. It is not
in God's power to originate anything that is not
good, for whatever is not good is destructive of
something which is good. Nothing is simply bad
in itself, but only by relation to other things.
It is bad because it is antagonistic to something
D
34 THE MAGNIFICAT.
which is good. But the power of God cannot be
self-destructive. If He destroyed anything that
He had made, He would be ' denying Himself,' as
St. Paul says.
b. His goodness is a living power in all those
who embrace it, so that it is continually developing
itself in consequences of beneficence. God's acts
are not merely things good for a time and perish
ing, but good for ever, in ever-fresh germination
of enjoyment.
c. The punishment of the rebellious is God's
strange work, not His own work but their own
work upon themselves. He created that which is
evil, but He created it to be good. The purpose
of His beneficence is not frustrated because He
creates others to enjoy what has been thus thrown
away, but His anger is not malicious revenge. It
is changeless love which becomes the destruction
of those who reject it, because they reject that
which love provided for their good, and it now
goes on acting with necessary destructiveness
against everything that is opposed. The rebellious
creature does not regain the co-operation of God's
beneficent will by mere self-surrender after conflicts.
The past antagonism to God's will remains and
needs to be obliterated. Otherwise there can
be no reconciliation. God's beneficent will has
been acting all along, and there has been a
heaping up of wrath by those who resisted it.
This needs to be done away. Otherwise there can
MEDITATION VII. 35
be no atonement. When we say that God must
be reconciled to us, we are stating an historical
fact. It is not that God's will must be changed.
That has been, is, and ever will be, ceaseless love,
but man cannot ask to be accepted of God as if
starting anew. There must be a Divine act for the
doing away of the past offences before there can
be a rightful co-operation for the future. God's
beneficence requires us to become worthy and co
operative partakers of His goodness, and not merely
to accept His goodness by compulsion.
D 2
36 THE MAGNIFICAT.
VIII.
ayiov TO avopn avrov.
Holy is His Name.
pimne holiness.
1. The Divine nature essentially holy.
2. The Divine covenant sanctifying.
3. The consciousness of God's holiness in the
children of His covenant.
1 . The Holiness of God.
a. The beneficence of God is not a mere at
tention to the well-being or external happiness of
His creatures. His power is a moral power. His
beneficence is true beneficence, effecting the
sanctification of those who accept it. He is holy,
and He makes holy. His power is not a mere
neutral capacity, such as is the power residing in
any created being. Power may be used by us well
or ill. Not so the power of God. His power ever active
is also always holy. A creature possessing power
is always liable to misuse that power. God is
never mastered by the power which He exerts, for
He originates that power from Himself. He
always knows how to use it. He develops power
MEDITATION VIII. 37
according to the will of His infinite Wisdom, and
uses it for the purpose of infinite Love. We seek
by power to escape from God's control, and so we
fall into sin. He develops His own will by the
external results of His power, and exercises His
holy sovereignty. His power is never mere brute
force or mechanical supremacy. His power is
always the operation of love for the glory of His
dear Son.
b. A being is holy whose action results in
the well-being of everything. Holiness promotes
the relative well-being, while it promotes indi
vidual well-being. That which has within it any
element of destruction would not be holy, but
God is so preservative that He eliminates every
thing that would destroy. He destroys the power
of evil. Stagnation or cessation of power is evil.
God so preserves that which springs from Him
that He makes it to be perpetually effective for
good.
The holiness of God is therefore a beneficent
life-generating energy. It is not merely free
from taint of evil. It is radiant with elements of
good, which it communicates to all who are
capable of accepting the good, so as to accomplish
His designs of goodness.
c. The holiness of each Person of the Eternal
Trinity is the eternal action of this power as
originating, originated, and continuously unex
hausted. The thrice-holy God communicates His
38 THE MAGNIFICAT.
own holiness to the creature, which in itself can
have no holiness, for it has within itself no in
herent life.
This holiness is communicated by the assump
tion of our humanity into union with one of the
Divine Persons. No human person is capable of
possessing this holiness. The Person of the Son
of God assuming our nature into union with Him
self makes it to be the instrument of the Divine
holiness, and all other beings are capable of being-
made holy only by being taken up into union
with the nature thus assumed.
2. His Name.
a. The Psalmist had sung, c Let them praise
Thy Name, for it is great, fearful, and holy.' The
holiness for which He is to be magnified is inherent
in His Name. It is no mere possession which may
be alienated. It is derived from His own essen
tial Life. Created beings have no holiness. The
gods of the heathen have not holiness inherent in
their conception. They are only to be conceived
of by their worshippers as enshrining certain
powers which they personify. The Name of our
God is great and awful because it has this holiness
essentially inherent within it. The holiness of
the Three Persons is not a multiplied holiness, but
a communicated holiness which as a living power
loses nothing by its communication. It is one
and the same holiness in each of the Three.
MEDITATION VIII. 39
b. God hath done great things for Mary, great
things for mankind, by taking the substance of
man into personal union with the holy Substance of
God, so that manhood henceforth shall live with
the glory of the Only-begotten. Before the Incar
nation manhood was in various degrees the recipi
ent of overshadowing influences from God. Now
the Body of Christ is a radiating principle of
Divine Holiness. Mary, in contemplating the
Child whom she bore in her womb, could not but
express the worship which she gave to Him, by
acknowledging the holiness of that Almighty
Presence.
c. She had been sanctified that He might
take to Himself a body of her substance. That
which is conceived in her is a holy thing, for it
is the body of Him whose name is Holy. The
substance taken from her and living with the life
of nature is taken into God that it may live with
the holiness of the Almighty.
3. Mary worshipping her Child.
a. The greatness thus enshrined in the Child
whom she bore makes her conscious of her own
nothingness, just in proportion to the nearness
into which she is brought with His Divine
Majesty. So must it ever be. The more we are
brought into the living presence of the Divine
greatness, the more must we learn our nothing
ness. While somewhat separates us from God,
40 THE MAGNIFICAT.
we feel ourselves to be somewhat. Self disappears
as God is increasingly revealed. Self -shall be lost
when God shall be known as all in all.
b. The greatness of God's Name brought home
to our consciousness as we become partakers of
His life, must make us feel increasingly indifferent
to all that is accidental, earthly, belonging only
to the faculties of nature. Our only greatness is
to know His greatness, to minister to His mani
festation, that nothing of ourselves may mar the
glory of His self-sufficing majesty.
c. Our littleness cannot hinder the greatness
of His manifestation if we are conscious of our
own nothingness, and lose all thought of self in
praising the Divine holiness of His sovereign
power. Great gifts of nature are apt to puff up and
to destroy those who possess them. The great
gifts of grace necessitate our being absorbed as we
receive them in the contemplation of the great,
the awful, the holy Name of Him to whom they
belong.
MEDITATION IX. 41
IX.
TO f\eos avTov els -/evens yeveS>v rols
His mercy is unto all generations for them that fear Him.
piscrtminaiing ^atracicr of
1. God's mercy a self-communicating holiness.
2. The abiding character of God's covenant.
3. The conditions of our admission.
1. His mercy.
a. The holiness of God separates Him from
the sinful creature. And yet this holiness is the
very bond which binds Him to them. It is no
mere dead holiness like the imaginary holiness of
some false object of worship from which the very
worshippers shrink in terror, fearing lest it should
do them evil, worshipping with deprecation rather
than expecting it to do them good and worshipping
with joyous hope. Even David feared to bring
the ark of God to his house when he saw how the
sinner wanting in faith was struck by its ven
geance. But he learnt afterwards to look to it with
confidence when he saw the blessing which came
42 THE MAGNIFICAT.
upon Obed-Edom. He needed thus to learn the
love which is the essential glory of the Divine
Holiness.
b. The Name of God whereby He makes Him
self known, the grace whereby He reveals Himself,
is not a repellent power but a self-communicative
holiness. The Love which is the interior law of
His being shows itself forth as mercy to those that
are outside. By His Word He created them out of
nothing. By His Word He calls them to partake
of His Divine Life. His power created. His
mercy invites. t His power gave a capacity of re
cognising His goodness. His mercy invites those
who will recognise it to share it.
c. His mercy is no mere tolerant and external
reconciliation. His mercy which invites is a trans-
forming power to such as accept the invitation.
His Holy Name is a life-giving power by which
the sinner is raised out of the death of sin and
made to live with the very Life of the Divine Holi
ness. Those who receive the Word are admitted
into the Covenant of His Name so as to become
the sons of God. His mercy is not the veiling of
His justice, but the communication of His right
eousness.
2. Its endurance.
a. The mercy of God is no mere occasional act.
It is His essential and unchanging characteristic.
It cannot cease as long as His work of creation
MEDITATION IX. 43
continues. Its breadth is to include all the world*
its length to continue throughout all generations
of mankind. Nor is it transitory in its operation
towards those who receive it. God has given
unto us eternal Life in His Son.
6. All generations partake of its blessing while
they are on earth, and are gathered into its im
perishable glory when they leave this world. They
do not merely rejoice in successive experiences.
They shall rejoice all together in collective fruition.
Before Christ came there had been various mani
festations of God's temporal mercy in His govern
ment of the chosen people, but mercy had been
followed by judgment. That which had been
mercifully preserved was upon misconduct justly
taken away. Now, however, the holiness of God's
Name is manifested in the spiritual, eternal mercy
of redeeming love. This is unchanging. It
develops in fresh gifts of power which only show
more and more what its truth is. ' He hath de
livered us from death and doth deliver. In Him
we trust that He will yet deliver us ' (2 Cor. i. 10).
c. His mercy never expends itself. He is un
wearied in the bounty whereby He seeks to bring
men to Himself. Their various provocations,
instead of driving Him back, do but develop in
successive generations the manifoldness of His
inventive power. He is ever adapting Himself to
meet their needs and overcome the variety of their
transgressions.
44 THE MAGNIFICAT.
3. Its conditions.
a. None can profit by His mercy but those
who fear His justice. ' The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom.' None can escape from evil
but those who hate it. None can hate evil unless
they fear God. Evil is not repulsive in itself to
the natural heart. It is only repulsive by reason
of its consequences. We do not fear the Lord
because we fear the evil consequences which may
naturally follow from any evil conduct. We fear
Him when we recognise the antagonism of
His holiness to our inherent sinfulness. We fear
Him when we would accept any outward evil
rather than come into antagonism with His Holi
ness such as our sin deserves. He communicates
holiness whereby we may be transformed, and they
that fear Him would seek to die to themselves in
order that they may not die to His transforming
Love.
b. The mercy of God does not therefore lead
to presumption, but to reverence. If God were
not merciful as He is, we could not fear Him, for
we should be necessarily the objects of His ven
geance. We can only fear that whose operation is
contingent. We do not fear the inevitable. God's
mercy wakens our fear, because we have been
made partakers of a benefit which by transgression
of His covenant we may yet forfeit. So do we ' fear
the Lord and His goodness ' (Hos. iii. 5).
MEDITATION IX. 45
c. God's justice is the object of hatred to the
damned. God's mercy is the object of fear to the
redeemed. He whose Name is Holy calls us mer
cifully to partake of His Holiness that we may-
abide in His Love.
46 THE MAGNIFICAT.
eVoiijo-e KpaTos eV /3pa^toi/i avrov.
He hath showed strength with His arm.
I)ttsf tfye Jlrm of tye <lor&.
1. A Personal Ruler.
2. His power no earthly power.
3. The manifestation of the Creator.
1. God's Sovereignty.
a. The great things which God accomplished by
the Incarnation have been already considered . Now
the Blessed Virgin contemplates the sovereignty
of God, the authoritative power which He exercises
in His kingdom. The mercy of God belongs to
Him as a sovereign. A mere power is not
merciful. It may be dangerous if exerted, but it
is simply harmless if tranquil. God is merciful
because He is the Righteous Judge. The reason
why we should fear Him is that we have violated
the legitimate claim of His sovereignty. The
praise of God's mercy is therefore introductory
to the praise of God's sovereignty.
b. Men act against the sovereignty of God
MEDITATION X. 47
whenever the rebellious heart cries out in fear of
vengeance. The imprisoned spirit can only look
up to God and cry, < Let us cast away His cords
from us.' The cry is futile. The loving soul
looks up to Him and owns the justice of whatever
He may appoint in the way of chastisement.
c. If we fear Him, we shall not fear the dis
cipline to which He subjects us. We shall feel
assured that His sovereign power is ordering all
for our real good, however painful may be the
events of the moment. * Though I go through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,
for Thou art with me.' God's sovereignty is our
constant ground of confidence. If we are fearing
Him, we know His eye is upon us and He will
show us His covenanted mercy. Whatever powers
may be ranged against us, we know they are all
subordinate to Him and cannot harm us save by
the permission of His Love who will turn that
seeming harm to eventual and everlasting good.
2. The display of sovereignty.
a. God displays His sovereignty by the very
secrecy of His operations. c The kingdom of God
cometh not by observation.' If He used the great
powers of nature for the accomplishment of His
designs in grace, then His kingdom would seem
to be an outgrowth of this present world. He makes
the Divine character of His sovereign acts to be
beyond dispute by using things for purposes alto-
48 THE MAGNIFICAT.
gether beyond and even contrary to their natural
capacity. A virgin from a despised village-
becomes the mother of Him who is to rule the
world with a rod of iron. The people round about
her do not know what now has happened, but the
birth of her Child shall be the date by which al!
the chronology of the world shall be regulated.
This birth is a turning-point in the world's history.
b. Other sovereigns may have lived so as to-
mark epochs by their accession to power, but
such events are only of local interest after all.
This birth is an event which, although absolutely
unnoticed by the people that were around, shall
be remembered in every place through future ages ;
for it is the coming into the world of the Sovereign
who is no mere conqueror of certain hostile tribes,
founding a dynasty which after a time will pass
away, but He is the Conqueror of the enemy of
mankind, and His sovereign power will be ready
to aid all throughout all future generations who fly
to Him for protection.
c. The Child that shall be born is so truly the
Incarnation of Divine Sovereignty that all who
would seek His benefits must personally come to*
Him to receive them, and none who come to Him
shall go away unsatisfied. In proportion as His
sovereignty is acknowledged the nations of the
world will find blessing. His law, uttered by His<
own lips to casual throngs in a remote province of
the empire, shall become the basis of the world's
MEDITATION X.
49
moral regeneration, and none of His words shall
fall to the ground. The Divine character of the
sovereignty of Christ is to be evidenced by the
very scorn which surrounds Him even in spite of
the miracles which He works. The hatred of
man cannot make His words powerless, for He
that speaks is the Sovereign of the world, the
Lord of life, and of His kingdom there shall be
no end. He does not receive power from earth.
He brings to earth the power of God, a power in
herent in Himself.
3. The arm of the Lord.
a. The sovereignty of God is manifested in such
a way that men will be unwilling to acknowledge
it. Being simply and purely Divine, it cannot be
perceived by any human faculty. It can only be
known by its eventual developments, and in itself
could not be recognised save by the intimations of
prophetic utterance which hearts devout and pure
delight to reflect upon. Such hearts can see that
this is He of whom prophets spake, but the worldly
heart c sees in Him no beauty to make Him to be
desired.' This is ' the Arm of the Lord. To whom
shall He be revealed ? for He shall grow up before
Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of the dry
ground.'
6. The sovereignty of God is manifested in
the Incarnation, for this Child is He by whom all
God's acts have been done. He is no mere angel
E
50 THE MAGNIFICAT.
so as to be an instrument in God's hand. He is
the very Arm of God acting with personal autho
rity in the fulness of Divine Life. That Arm
takes hold of human nature, and, clothing itself
therewith, acts through the feebleness of man so
as to display the inherent power of God. He
acts in His own Name, for He is consubstantial
with the Father.
c. The Arm which upholds the Universe is
come near, so that by taking upon Himself our
nature He may act as man among men, assuming
our feebleness but not forfeiting His own sove
reignty. He loses nothing by taking upon
Himself our nothingness, for He does not separate
Himself from the Eternal Father. Though He
acts for a season in the emptiness of the flesh
which He assumes, He remains nevertheless indis-
solubly united with the Father, and the actions
wrought in His humiliation are done by the
power of the Holy Ghost resting upon Him in the
fulness of Divine unction, so that even when He
shall die, having subjected Himself to the condi
tions of fallen humanity, He shall yet live and
triumph in the very act of death by the fulness
of the power of God.
MEDITATION XI.. 51
XL
VTTfpr)(pdvovs fv Siavotq KapStas
He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
^f)C pesitrucficw of ilje ^ttbeltemttg.
1. The pride of the natural heart.
2. The scattering which awaits it.
3. The deceitfulness of that whereon it relies.
1. The proud, i.e., the scornful and unbeliev
ing [=DV^ Prov. iii. 34; James iv. 6 ; 1 Peter
v.5].
a. The pride here intended is the pride of the
natural heart which refuses to accept the control
of God's law. So in Ps. i. 1, 'The seat of the
scornful/ ' Boasters, proud, blasphemers.' Not so
much referring to social pride, although that is
involved, but primarily to the self-satisfied, self-
reliant opposition to God in the natural heart.
6. How does the Incarnation set at nought the
preconceived imaginations of mankind ! God
whom they proudly set aside appears in the midst
of them in such a way that ithey can treat His
manifestation with as much scorn as they treated
a 2
52 THE MAGNIFICAT.
His absence. The unbelieving would drive us
from our faith by their mockery, but we must not
be surprised at their taunts. ' The proud have
scorned me (had me greatly in derision), yet have
I not shrinked from Thy Law.'
c. The acceptance of Christ requires a humble
and reverent attitude of the soul towards God.
His ways are not as our ways, and if we lay down
the conditions upon which He should act we shall
find ourselves rejecting His action, because He does
not fulfil those conditions. So it is with all God's
dealings towards us in His Church. { There is
no beauty that we should desire Him. 5 We must
accustom ourselves to accept from God what is
most contrary to our natural idea of fitness.
d. He fulfils His promises in ways that we
cannot anticipate, and the fulfilment turns to the
condemnation of the unbelieving. As the captain
who scorned Elisha's prophecy received the pro
phecy against himself, ( Behold, thou shaltsee with
thine eyes but shalt not eat thereof,' so do the
unbelieving receive God's gifts only to perish
thereby. We must be blind to our own imagina
tions, knowing our incapacity, if we would see
God's work of grace and learn the greatness of
His power. The work of pride begins with great
ness and ends in littleness. The work of God
begins in ways imperceptible, and overmasters in
the end all who refuse to reverence its hidden
operations.
MEDITATION XI. 53
2. The scattering.
a. The Incarnation is a principle of mysterious
unity to those who receive its power, and it brings
to nought every kind of unity that is based upon
worldly power. It scatters the proud. As God
of old scattered the proud builders of Babel, con
founding their language, so He scatters those who
would build up worldly schemes of earthly wisdom,
speaking to them by His word in such a form
that they understand it not. Even the sheep
may for a time be scattered because the Shepherd
is smitten. Yet must we return to the Good
Shepherd, and stand beside His cross and die with
Him to all our worldly imaginations.
b. The enemies of the Lord shall be scattered
as chaff and as smoke (Ps. i. 4, Ixviii. 2), however
powerful and united they may seem for a season.
The breath of the Lord is an unseen power to
scatter the ungodly who rely upon some worldly
foundation, and to infuse life even into dry bones
which lie about in the valley, so that they become
one.
c. We must not fear though we be scattered
in the world. The day is coming when the Shep
herd will seek His flock among the sheep that
are scattered (Ezek. xxxiv. 12). The scattering of
providential discipline is for the purposes of love.
It is the scattering from the presence of the Lord
(Ps. Ixviii. 1) in the great day that is to be feared.
54 THE MAGNIFICAT.
4 The day of the Lord shall be upon all that is
proud and haughty, and upon all that is lifted up *
(Is. ii. 12). They must all be scattered that are
not ' rooted and built up in Him/ so as to abide
in Him whom they have loved unseen, and share
His glory in the day of revelation.
3. The mode of the scattering.
a. The faithful may be scattered by God's
power for purposes of love. They learn thereby
their weakness. The proud are scattered by the
very success of what they have devised. That
whereon they rely is used by God's power to be
the instrument of their destruction. Their under
standing is darkened by the sinfulness of their
heart. They devise what they desire and become
blind to what God wills. They ' fulfil the desires
of their flesh and of their imaginations ' (Eph. ii.
3), ( and so they have their imagination darkened '
(Eph. iv. 18). Thus blinded to God they welcome
to themselves the very things which become their
destruction.
b. Our prayer must be to have c the eyes of our
imagination enlightened by the spirit of wisdom
and revelation in the knowledge of Him ' (Eph. i.
18). But this cannot be save by the exercise of
the Spirit. c The natural man cannot receive the
things of the Spirit of God.' By purity of imagi
nation giving heed to the words of prophecy, we
must be on our guard against the scoffers, the
MEDITATION XI. 55
proud (2 Pet. iii. 1, 2). It is by moral endeavour
that we are to shake off the deceits of the flesh,
' girding up the loins of our imagination, and
hoping soberly to the end for the grace that is being
brought to us in the revelation of Jesus Christ '
(1 Pet. i. 13).
c. False beliefs are a judgment upon the moral
guilt of earthly self-confidence. We can only
be safe while we walk with God. ' I have more
understanding than the aged, because I keep Thy
statutes. Let the proud be confounded, for they
go wickedly about to destroy me. Let such as
fear Thee and have known Thy testimonies be
turned unto me. Let my heart be sound in Thy
statutes that I be not ashamed ' (Ps. cxix. 1 00, 78,
79, 80). 'He hath given us a ' spiritual ' imagina
tion that we may know Him that is true ' (1 John v.
20). f All the imaginations of the thoughts of man's
heart are only evil continually ' (Gen. vi. 5). But
we must love the Lord our God with all our
imagination (Matt. xxii.). The only thought of our
heart must be to love Him in the power of the
renewing Spirit of Love.
56 THE MAGNIFICAT.
XII.
dvraorac djro 6pova>v.
He Jiath put down the mighty from thrones.
^t>ertf)rott> of tt)e powers of
1. The Prince of this world and his powers.
2. The thrones they occupy.
3. The presence of Christ the Conqueror.
1. The potentates.
a. These are the powers of darkness, the spirits
of evil that tyrannise over the world. They ap
pear in the Old Testament as presiding over the
heathen nations, and are in antagonism to Michael
the Prince of the covenanted people. We are
not to think of their power as if it were now at
an end. They are not dependent upon the
natural world which they organise. They have
spiritual strength, which they infuse into the
material organism in order to carry out the pur
poses of evil, while they possess a knowledge of the
secrets of nature altogether surpassing what we
know, so that they are able to contend with us in
MEDITATION XII. 57
twofold strength. They are doubtless all of them
confederated under the headship of Satan as the
Prince of this world. Formed for heavenly action,
they have capacity of simulating heavenly power.
They can clothe themselves as angels of light,
although their inward being is always darkness.
They can thus attract to themselves the homage of
mankind, so as to deceive by lying wonders and
specious pretexts of good even the very elect.
Their whole existence is falsehood, being at vari
ance with God who is Truth. Satan is ( a liar and
the father of it.'
b. They have power in this lower world because
it has been given to them by God. So Satan
himself says to Christ. Therefore they retain this
power until they are cast into the abyss. We
must not be surprised, then, if we find evil
triumphing in the world. We must rather be
suspicious of that which triumphs by worldly
power. We must not be afraid of worldly power,
for it is deceptive and will soon pass away.
c. If we would have abiding power, we must
4 continue in the truth.' ; The truth makes us free '
from the bondage of these lying spirits. i He that
committeth sin is the servant of sin,' for the powers
of darkness claim dominion over him, and even
communicate to him their nature by diabolical
inspiration, so that they become children of the
devil. The seed of the serpent is at enmity with
58 THE MAGNIFICAT.
the seed of the woman. How carefully must we,,
as being 'born of God, keep ourselves so that the
evil one may not touch us ! ' How must we bring
all things to the test of God's revelation! How
vain it is for us to contend with Satan ! All we
can do is to say, ( The Lord rebuke thee! ' commit
ting ourselves to Him that judgeth righteously,
and assured that, however evil may seem to pro
sper in the world, we may ' commit the keeping of
our souls to God in well-doing as to a faithful
Creator ' (1 Pet. iv. 19).
d. Surrounded by the powers of darkness, ever
ready to deceive and overthrow, how must we rest
secure simply in God's love, looking up to Him
with constant prayer ! The proud, unbelieving
scoffers perish through the powers which sway
the world, but which are to them unseen. We
need not be afraid of the powers of darkness if we
are abiding in the power of God.
2. The thrones.
a. The hierarchy of spiritual wickedness is-
organised according to God's creative will. What
their position was when He created them in His
eternal truth, that their position remains although
they have lost the light of truth. They held the
world in subjection until their tyranny was set
aside. They raised men up to be their vicegerents
and outward agents. How must we contemplate
MEDITATION XII. 59 1
their thrones now vacant in heaven, waiting to be
filled by the redeemed !
6. Man, though created in subjection to angels,
will judge angels in the end. Jesus mounts from
the cross to the throne of glory, and they who suffer
shall reign with Him.
c. We must not be eager to climb to any
thrones of power in this present dispensation.
Not until the world to come is made manifest,,
shall we acquire the kingdom. It is ' our Father's
good pleasure to give it to the little flock,' but not
until the enemy has been cast into the lake of
fire. Then shall we reign with Christ for ever
and ever. Then shall the redeemed occupy the
place from which the angels fell, and the original
order of G od's predestination shall be restored with
added glory through the manifestation of Divine-
Life in Christ.
3. The overthrow.
a. Christ puts down the powers of darkness
from their thrones by His own appearance. No
created power could do this, for they were consti
tuted on their thrones by the will of the Creator.
The Word who gave them their dignity becomes
incarnate so as to accomplish their punishment
and effect their overthrow. In the heavenly places
He acts as in the earthly vineyard. c He miserably
destroys those wicked ones and gives the vine-
<30 THE MAGNIFICAT.
yard to others/ How must we look to Him as an
inexorable Judge !
b. No benefits that we have received can war
rant us in presuming upon the continuance of His
favour. We have been called to fill the place from
which beings much mightier than ourselves fell
away. We cannot be secure unless we abide in Him
who is the Truth. We cannot claim the kingdom by
our own right, nor seize it by our own power, nor
retain it by our own sufficiency. ' Abide in Me
and let My words abide in you.' So Christ speaks.
We must look to him as the Conqueror of Satan.
He it is who shall ' tread down Satan under our
feet shortly.'
c. How must we despise every semblance of
earthly power ! Yea, how must we tremble if we
possess it! It matters not of what kind it be,
material or spiritual. Christ puts down all who
look to any position of this world. Christ puts
all down by the power of the Holy Ghost.
Whatever is high and lifted up must perish
before Him. The Lord alone shall be exalted in
that day. Whatever power assails us, we must
meet it in His strength.
d. Never need we fear any because they are
great. Rather let any greatness of our enemies be
an encouragement. We know that it is a principle
of weakness in itself. The more boastful it may be,
the more sure is God to destroy it. He hears
MEDITATION XII. 61
the groaning of His people in Egypt. He hears
the insolence of Sennacherib. Satan appears be
fore God to accuse the people of Christ. God may
let him take from us all wherein the natural heart
would delight, but it is His purpose thus to con
demn sin in the flesh that we may attain to be
enthroned in the glory of His holy love.
62 THE MAGNIFICAT.
XIII.
He hath exalted the lowly.
'Qfye Exaltation of
1. Beyond any natural attainment.
2. The hope of the glory of God.
3. The consciousness of our present incapacity.
1. The exaltation.
a. As the powers of darkness are cast down
from their thrones, so man is exalted to take their
place. The exaltation of man is indeed to a glory
even higher than that of the angels; but we must
first consider it as being (what it originally is) a
replacement of the fallen angels by the newly
created race of man. They lost their power by
resting in it, falling away from dependence upon
God. The exaltation of man is not by any natural
upgrowth, but by an act of Divine grace. The
same Divine Love which in its justice cast down
the angels by its mercy raised mankind. Our
first thought must be that of wondering gratitude.
Our second thought must be humble self-distrust.
MEDITATION XIII. 63
6. Looking back to this original fall, we must
consider the same moral law as obliging us to
watchfulness. So St. Peter expressly speaks.
4 God spared not the angels which sinned.' If
God spared not them, created as they were for this
glory, c take heed lest He spare not thee.' Such
would be St. Paul's warning.
c. But how much greater is this glory than the
glory which man could have attained by nature !
How ought we then to look upward with an
earnest longing, not letting ourselves be satisfied
by any earthly conception of power, but remem
bering our destiny in tha,t we are made to reign
with Christ in heavenly places ! How contemptible,
liow dangerous, how loathsome does earthly power
and dignity appear to the soul which realises that
it is called by grace to a dignity not of earth, but
to be as the angels of God. in heaven ! Satan
would have us shudder at gross material sin in
order thus to deceive us. The worst sins are the
sins akin to his spiritual nature, sins of intellect,
sins of spirit, sins of pride. God scatters the
.proud, the unbelieving scorner by the very imagi
nation of his own heart. We must accept all exal
tation as being His simple gift. We must exercise
all gifts of honour as belonging simply to Him.
2. The greater exaltation.
a. ' Where sin abounded grace did much more
abound.' God has exalted man not only to occupy
64 THE MAGNIFICAT.
the thrones of fallen angels, but to sit with Himself
upon the eternal throne of the Divine Life. A
destiny of glorious elevation was promised to-
Adam if he had continued faithful. That eleva
tion was compatible with, and therefore worthy
of, the indwelling Spirit of Life, worthy of the-
Divine Image which Adam bore. Nothing could
be worthy of that image save the glory coequal
with the Father. It was veiled for a time, but
it would seem as if creation without this final
development of glory would have been a toy un
worthy of God. All things were created for the-
Only-begotten Son, whose coming in the flesh had
been foreordained.
b. The fall of the angels necessitated His
coming as a conqueror. Adam was created to win
the battle of God. Adam's fall necessitated
Christ's coming in humiliation as a sufferer.
Nevertheless the purpose of God standeth sure.
Now the promise is accomplished.
c. By the very fact of God humbling Himself
to the form of a servant, the servant's form is
raised to the participation of the Divine Substance.
It is an accomplished fact. 'He hath exalted.' He
has taken man's nature into God. The exaltation
of our nature in Christ must be to us a principle
of constant watchfulness united with Divine adora
tion of Him who is our Head. ' Watch ye ; stand
fast in the faith/
d. The participation of the Divine nature thus
MEDITATION XIII. 65
given to us must be a ground not of empty assu
rance, but of increased responsibility, f Take heed
that ye despise not Him that speaketh from
heaven. Take heed lest there be in any of you an
evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living
God.'
3. The lowly.
a. God has exalted mankind, who were not
only by nature lower than the angels, but by the
Fall had become even lower than themselves, having
forfeited their predestination by becoming slaves
to sin. The exaltation of grace is above the
natural development of nature. The exaltation of
grace is a gift which not only raises man, as he
was intended to be raised, even to the glory of
God, but raises him out of his state of degradation
as a bondslave to God's great rebel involved in all
the misery of sin.
b. If we are to be partakers of the exaltation,
we must have a full sense of the degradation.
The Incarnation brings the Divine glory into
human nature, but it does not communicate the
Divine glory to any individual man.
c. We cannot have that glory save by coming
with lowly penitence and faith to be incorporated
in the renewed and renewing humanity of Christ.
No nearness of kinship by nature, though we were
as near to Him by nature as the Blessed Virgin
Mary was, no clearness of spiritual intuition,
F
66 THE MAGNIFICAT.
though we apprehended the truth as clearly as the
devils did who cried out that they knew Him,
would avail. We must know ourselves to be
verily, and indeed { by nature, children of wrath/
So must each man come to Christ. We are reborn
by grace in the covenant of holy baptism. ' As
many as received Him, to them gave He power to
become the sons of God. 1
MEDITATION XIV.
G7
XIV.
Tie hath filled the hungry with good things.
^e Satisfaction of plan's 3loco.
1. Man's hunger after righteousness.
2. The fulness of God.
3. The sweetness of Divine nourishment.
1 . The hunger after righteousness.
a. The seat of the scornful where the proud
are content to sit with Satan is contrasted with
the thrones in Heaven where the lowly are called
to sit with Christ. Mankind are again divided into
two classes the hungering, and the rich . Hunger
implies the conscious desire of something which
we have not got, for which our nature craves,
without which we die. If we are to profit by
Christ's coming, we must have this hunger after
the righteousness which He gives.
b. We are subjected to hunger by the Fall, for
we have lost by nature the supernatural endow-
F 2
68 THE MAGNIFICAT.
ments by which alone the desire of our souls
created in God's image can be satisfied. The soul
has o rest outside of God, no sense of complete
ness unless we are ade complete in Him. It is
not man's misery to hunger. Kather it is his
glory. Man's greatest misery is to seek to feed
himself with the husks of created pleasure, whereas
all things round about him have lost the power of
giving him what he needs, since the Divine Life
has been withdrawn from all.
c. Our nature leads us to crave for Divine sus
tenance because God gave it to man before the
Fall. We have therefore a consciousness of having
lost our necessary food. Hunger is a testimony
of healthy action, but the hungry die of inanition.
So, the more true we are to nature, the more we
feel ourselves to be perishing. * A Syrian ready to
perish was my father.' So the Israelite spake
constantly. This gave thankfulness to his devo
tion. But there was in the Law c no honour so as
to fill the craving of the flesh.'
d. Without the gift of the Spirit of God re
newing us to Divine Life, we die. Death becomes
complete. Let us praise God if we feel the crav
ing. It is no cause for indignation that we are
left to feel it for a while. By feeling this hunger
we become capable of being nourished. The
heavenly food cannot otherwise be assimilated by
us. O blessed hunger ! Let me feel this more
and more ! I must die by this hunger to nature,
MEDITATION XIV. 69
that I may behold God's . likeness and may be
satisfied, feeding upon the beatific vision.
2. The fulness.
a. The fulness of God dwells in Christ, and
of His fulness have all we received. Man's nature
created in God's Image has not merely such an
emptiness that it must die unless it be sustained
by a Divine Grace ; the fulness is correspondent
with the emptiness. Every faculty of our nature
has become empty by the Divine withdrawal.
b. Every faculty of our nature receives its
corresponding fulness by the infusion of the
glorified Humanity of Christ wherein dwells all
the fulness of the Godhead bodily. We are not
merely sustained in a life of nature satisfied with
itself, but we are filled with a Theandric Life.
The exaltation given to the lowly communicates
itself gradually to those who hunger after the
righteousness of God.
c. That righteousness does not allay the
hunger by its primary communication, but glorifies
the nature as we feed upon it with continual appe
tite. The fulness is given already, but it needs to
be individualised by the life of faith that thus we
may grow in holiness. Thus l Christ is formed
within us.' The fulness is entirely the gift of
Christ. He is both the Giver and the Gift.
d. Human nature is the culminating object of
creation. Only through man can the vanity of the
70 THE MAGNIFICAT.
creature be done away. All were created so as to
be saved by the hope which should be fulfilled in
man. Thus does God in Christ satisfy even the
hunger of a world outside of human nature. { He
chargeth even His angels with folly/ but to them
through the Church as Christ's Body i shall be made
known the manifold Wisdom of God.'
3. The good things.
a. Goodness is one with the substantial unity
of God. Goodness is manifold with the variety of
created experiences. How imperfect our frag
mentary apprehension of God's goodness in this
present life ! How glorious will be the complete
apprehension, when sight and hearing and all the
senses become identified in the experience of the
Divine manifestation glorifying them all, so that
in our very flesh, in the essence of the faculties
whose blindness now shuts God off from us, we
shall see God. Seeing will be hearing, and so on.
5. There will be no faculty in the risen body
which does not exist for the sole purpose of appre
hending God, none that fails to apprehend Him,
none that does not recognise in loving fellowship
of act the Divine Presence which all the other
faculties of that glorious organism will also enjoy.
A flood of enjoyment which does not disturb the
harmony of the risen life by the passionate excite
ment of one faculty to the detriment of others, but
MEDITATION XIV. 71
fills the whole nature with an entrancing peace-
fulness of calm delight.
c. That delight shall not exhaust the faculties
as the passion of earthly pleasure does. It shall
sustain, nourish, perfect, glorify the whole nature
of man with the eternal joy of the communication
of God, the Spirit of Christ working in all the
members of His Body. ' The Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us,' and we are made the mem
bers of His Body, that in the Resurrection we may
dwell in Him for evermore, evermore to ' taste and
see how gracious the Lord is.'
72 THE MAGNIFICAT.
XV.
7T\ovTovvras
The rich He hath sent empty away.
ginpfiness of present Satisfaction.
1. The worthlessness of earthly things.
2. The dismissal of those who lived for them.
3. The eternal sense of loss.
1. The rich.
a. These are they whom this world call rich,
who think themselves to be so, boasting of that
which keeps them from the true wealth.
False riches are those which come to us.
They seem to be means of power. They are
rather burdens that weigh down the soul, dead
riches.
True riches are those which come from us, in
so far as we are c rich towards God/
We are rich by what comes to us, but these
riches we lose. While we have them they are
only a tomb, a prison. They help not the real
living activity of the soul. They do not forward
the true purpose of our being. They do not enable
MEDITATION XV. 73
us to live any the more worthy of God our Creator
or of the nature He has given us.
We become rich by that which comes from us,
for by acts worthy of our Divine origin in the power
of the Holy Ghost we lay up treasure in heaven.
We are raised out of the world. We make return
to God of that sanctifying Spirit which constitutes
our Life. Then we become rich with God and in
Him, for such operation of the Holy Ghost stab-
lishes us in the Being of God.
b. We are not rich toward God in proportion
to the amount we can yield to Him, but in pro
portion to the Divine quality of the action, the
heavenly glory of the life which fills the gift.
A restful state of being rich, as an accom
plished fact, is therefore a state of absolute poverty,
a spiritual deadness. A living state of richness
not in ourselves, but towards God, is an active
state, a growing state, a state in which the
present poverty is felt by reason of the greatness
of the demand which it makes upon us.
c. It matters not of what kind the riches may
be which we possess material, intellectual, spiri
tual. What is possessed as making us rich by its
possession, makes us poor by its deadness. ' Thou
sayest, I am rich, and have become rich, and have
need of nothing.' True riches cannot be attained
in this world, but are always in a state of being
attained. The riches of grace developed in the
actions of grace glorify the soul which is using
74 THE MAGNIFICAT.
them, but in a moment of stagnation they cease
to be. To feel our riches is to sink under our
poverty.
2. The sending away.
a. It is an anticipation of the words 'Depart, ye
cursed.' The Prince of this world is cast away. So-
too the princes of this world who held it under him.
So too the Jews, God's ancient people who had
the law, which should have made them rich toward
God, and became impoverished by the law because
they prized it as a gratification of their own pride.
So shall it be with the Christian that makes
boast whether of position, or of attainments, or of
any power capable of external determination.
I. If we rest in the riches which are outside of
God, God will send us away to experience the
worthlessness of that which we delight in. We
need no other curse to all eternity than to enjoy
what we have lived for, and find that its enjoy
ment brings us no nearer to God.
c. Now we do not know what it is to be with
out God. In the light of Divine Providence good
and bad experience many tokens of God's Love.
Hereafter the soul that is driven away from God
will find that it can only subsist in the light of
God's Presence, and its curse is to be sent with
that which it lived for into the darkness far away
from God.
MEDITATION XV. 75
3. Empty.
a. Then shall the emptiness of created things
at last be known. The greater has been the re
pletion of the riches, the more terrible will be the
depletion when that emptiness shall be experienced.
Unless we are now seeking the fulness of grace,
we must find the emptiness of eternity. The
soul which has lost God has within itself a law of
eternal doom by the hunger which it shall experi
ence.
We may have the fulness of earthly acquisition,
but all these things are only manifold forms of
emptiness. As they have no power in themselves,
they seem but to indicate the want of that power
which alone can make them of avail.
b. Empty things intensify our consciousness
of being empty, serve but the more to drive away
from us the fulness of God here, as they will here
after cause us to be driven away in irredeemable
emptiness from the fulness of God's Glory.
Those who hunger after God and feel their
poverty shall be increasingly filled with His pre
sence while they use His Grace. Those who rejoice
in the riches of nature must learn the emptiness
of nature.
c. Nothing can be filled with God which is
not given to God, for the Holy Ghost does not come
to us as a river dashing over a precipice to flow
onward to the sea. The Holy Ghost is a power
76 . THE MAGNIFICAT.
which comes to us from God, fills us with God,
and carries us back by His necessary circulating
power to God as the final object of our being.
We must thus be drawn to God in the fulness
of grace, or we must be cast away from God, having
relied upon the riches of nature to find the empti
ness of a state of banishm ent from Him.
MEDITATION XVI. 77
XVI.
y l(rpafi\ Traiftbs avrov. 1
He Jiath liolpen His servant Israel.
1. The Divine Prince.
2. The elect servant.
3. The help which God gives.
1. Israel.
a. The title points to the victory of Jacob
during the night of wrestling. He became a
prince with God and left his claim to his posterity.
However negligent Israel might be of their pre
rogatives, God was not forgetful of them. The
results of that victory could not be transferred
to any other nation. ' I will not let Thee go unless
Thou bless meJ That blessing must be given.
There was but one blessing to give, and that
blessing was the Incarnation of the Son of God.
All blessings are summed up in Him. The nation
1 Cf. Isaiah xli. 9, <rv 5e 'lo-po^A, vats JJLOV, 'Io/cci>j8, KO.\
eeA.e|a/i7ji/ ffirfpfia 'AjSpoa/*, t>v ijydinrjffa, ov avTeXafidfJL'rjv
&Kp<av TTJS 77}$.
78 THE MAGNIFICAT.
which had the prerogative that ' of them as con
cerning the flesh Christ should come who is over
all God blessed for ever,' stood in a position quite
unique amongst the nations of the world. God
could not but look upon them with an interest
which He could take in no other. That nation
was a Prince with God for evermore.
2. TJie servant of God.
a. Israel was the Servant of God, the Child
of God, in a special manner, not merely by an
ideal elevation, a national consecration, but by
the personal relationship that the Incarnation
would involve. The prophecies which belong to
Israel belong to Christ. If the prophecies
which belong to Christ have any preparatory
fulfilment in Israel, it is because of the foreseen
relationship ; not by any arbitrary, or idealising,
substitution, but by a reality of kindred and
personal identification. Their historical accom
plishment is a typical event leading onward to
the personal fulfilment.
The word ' servant ' implies not merely the
slavish service from which Israel, by reason of a
Divine necessity, could not escape, but the filial
service in which Israel as the elect Son of God
was to rejoice. The law was a schoolmaster to
bring them to Christ, and the prophets were to
arouse them not to any mere boast of human
MEDITATION XVI. 79
consciousness, but to the Christian consciousness
of the glory of Him who was to come. He when
He came would raise them to a Divine glory.
b. Christ was to take upon Himself the form
of a servant, and He is the only servant who has
fulfilled or could fulfil the duties required of such
a relationship. The law which was given re
quired a service which none could yield. It
required the fulness of Divine Life. It was the
portraiture of the Righteousness of God.
c. To be elect to so high a service implied
election to the corresponding relationship. God
did not give commands to Israel merely in irony,
mocking their weakness, but in love, pledging
Himself thus to the communication of power.
' This do, and thou shalt live. I will give thee
strength to do it.'
So with us now, every high vocation with its
special difficulties is a pledge of corresponding
grace. Therefore, if God gives us any command
we may always make answer, ' I am able. I can
do all things through God which strengtheneth
3. He hath holpen.
a. The help which God gives is the help of
an eternal life. The Hebrew leads us to the
stricter interpretation He hath laid hold of. It is
not quite the same, but very nearly what is said in
80 THE MAGNIFICAT.
Hebrews (ii. 16), c He laid hold of the seed of
Abraham.' This phrase rather implies the help
which He gives Israel by becoming the substitute
for Israel's infirmities. The phrase in the Hebrews
indicates principally His personal participation in
that nature which He assumes. Christ is the strong
Hand, the Hand Whose helpful strength cannot
fail. The carpenter strengthened his work with
nails, but God strengthens Israel with Divine
Life (Is. xli. 7-9).
b. That strength foreseen was a pledge of
security during all the ages of weakness. God
strengthened Israel with a watchful love, a love
which must at length show itself in Divine power.
What advantage then had they? We can see
how true an answer is given by St. Paul, Much
every ivay. It was not the external advantages
which they possessed which raised them in the
scale of nations. On the contrary they were to
experience antagonisms and overthrow altogether
beyond their strength to endure, beyond what any
nation of the world would know. But there was
a .mysterious vitality in Israel, and that vitality
was to show itself in due time. Israel must live
until Messiah comes. Messiah is the life of Israel.
The hopes of Israel are to be realised in Him. He
was to be of Israel. Henceforth Israel is to be
found only in Him. He is ' born of a woman, born
under the law to redeem them that were under
MEDITATION XVI. 81
the law,' not that they should remain in the weak
ness of their natural condition, but that they
might receive the adoption of sons. 'As many as
received Him, to them gave He power to become
the sons of God.'
82 THE MAGNIFICAT.
XVII.
r6r)vai eX
So as to remember His mercy.
1. The character of mercy.
2. Its recipients.
3. God's changeless purpose.
1. Mercy.
a. The race which looks for God's redemption
must look for ifc as an act of mercy. There was
no claim of justice. Love had been forfeited.
Mercy must remove the barrier which original sin
had interposed between God and the nature which
He would assume, the chosen race to which He
would give His help.
Hannah speaks of God's judgments. Mercy is
not the mere deliverance from evils now experi
enced. It is the power enabling man to meet the
judgment to which he will be eventually sub
jected.
b. Mercy is not mere pity which alleviates
suffering, but it is a gift empowering man to
MEDITATION XVII. 83
accomplish that which the Judge requires. * Mercy
and Truth meet together.' Mercy without truth
were no mercy at all. Mercy therefore here anti
cipates the saying of St. John, that grace and truth
came by Jesus Christ. Mercy consists in that gift
of grace and truth which the Incarnation involves.
2. The recipients of mercy .
a. In this word Mary acknowledges herself as
belonging to a sinful race, as she has already done
by the word Saviour. It were no mercy to be
exempted from original sin, for the non-existent
being is incapable of receiving mercy, and what
ever may be the prerogatives of our birth, requir
ing our gratitude to God as our Creator, we cannot
call them by the name of mercy. That which is
nothing has neither worthiness nor unworthiness.
God of His good pleasure can create a being with
whatever endowments He pleases. Mercy implies
that the recipient had an inherent unworthiness of
the bounty which is shown.
6. The truth of our Lord's Godhead quickens
the mercy wherewith He raises our nature out of
the consequences of the Fall. The act of mercy
consists in His thus taking hold of His servant
Israel by the grasp of the Divine nature where
with He restores humanity to its true life. The
moment of the Incarnation is therefore the begin
ning of this mercy, not any previous moment
which might be conceived as making man fit to
G 2
84 THE MAGNIFICAT.
receive it. Prophets told of the coming mercy
which Christ brought. In proportion as man
was made fit to receive it, the quality of mercy
would be itself destroyed. What we are fit to
receive we receive as an act of justice, not of mercy ,
but man never could be fitted to receive the gift
of the Incarnation and the deliverance from sin
which it involves.
c. We are fitted to receive mercy simply by
the fact that we are sinners perishing unless we
receive it. We must therefore take encourage
ment. No sin unfits us to receive God's mercy.
' Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast
out.' He that has been four days dead is as
capable of being raised to life as any other that
died but an hour ago. c As therefore we have
received mercy, we faint not.'
3. The memory of God.
a. God remembers His mercy, for He does not
act upon any mere sudden emotion awakened by
the sight of man's misery. He keeps to the pur
pose which He has had for mankind, coeval with
the original fall. God did not suffer man to fall
that man might perish, but that He might be
glorified by the exercise of mercy towards man.
Were it not for this mercy, God's purpose in man's
creation would have been frustrated, but c mercy
rejoiceth over judgment.' Such mercy is not the
mere setting aside of judgment and justifying the
MEDITATION XVII. 85
sinner, but it is justifying the sinner so that he
may meet the requirements of the judgment.
b. The Incarnation and Atonement are no
afterthought, but they are a part of that dispen
sation of love which created man with a moral
nature capable of rising up to the Divine love
capable not in itself, but by the assistance of a
higher power to be communicated when the
natural incapacity had been proved.
c. If the trial of man's love had not been too
great for human nature, it would not have been
adequate to the requirement of Divine Love. It
must be seen that man had failed naturally to
deserve that Love. Then God would give super
natural grace so that man might rise to its require
ment and acquire it. No love can be worthy of
God which is not Divine, but man is made capable
of loving God with a Divine Love by the communi
cation of the Spirit of Christ. Thus did God
determine that man should receive His mercy,
and be raised to a position wherein he might be
fit for the Divine Love.
d. God had watched the nations of mankind
through various temptations and failures, but He
always looked forward to sending His Son with
grace sufficient to meet all the requirements of
every individual of the human race. So ' when the
fulness of time was come, He sent His Son.' He
remembered His mercy, and helped His servant
Israel. Man's sin was manifest, but God looked
86 THE MAGNIFICAT.
beneath man's sin to the glorious being which He
had predestinated to be conformed to His own
Image and share His glory. So the Psalmist sings,
remember not the sins and offences of my youth, but
according to Thy mercy remember me, Lord, for
Thy goodness.
MEDITATION XVIII. 87
XVIII.
Kcidtos e\d\Tja-f irpbs TOVS Trarfpas
As He spake to our fathers.
1. The necessity of prophecy.
2. God's faithfulness to His Covenant.
3. The memory of the past.
1. The necessity of Prophecy.
a. Whatever God's purpose might have been,
we could not have recognised it unless it had been
announced beforehand. God made known the pre
destined salvation so that the previous generations
might look forward to the coming of Christ in
order to prepare for it, and we might acknowledge
its truth so as to receive it now that it has come.
b. It was impossible that man should recognise
the voice of God if God had come amongst us in
the ordinary way of human action. If He had
borne witness of Himself alone His witness could
not have been received as true. Nor could we
have given due faith to any miraculous actions if
God had simply appeared amongst us in the ex
ercise of powers greater than belong to man. It
was needful that the Incarnation should be accom-
88 THE MAGNIFICAT.
plished with attendant miracles as befitted the
approach of God, and that there should be a pre
vious expectation of such accomplishment resting
upon the credentials of antecedent religion. The
very errors mingled with the expectation testified
to the truth of the fulfilment which so far
surpassed it.
God therefore spake unto the fathers by pro
phets. They who were approved in their lifetime
by many Divine tokens pointed onward to One
who should claim the fulness of Divine honour.
c. The message of prophecy grew to its com
pleteness as the appointed time drew near. Ut
terances which seem to be contradictory were to
find their accomplishment in the birth of the Son
of God, and their very contradictions would serve
to corroborate the truth of His mission, since all
that seemed to defy reconciliation was brought
into a harmonious completeness by the circum
stances of His Life.
d. When all had been announced which God
thought fit, there was to be a silence of prophecy
which should make the outburst of the Divine
Word at the period of the Incarnation the more
remarkable. Yet had God also specially marked
the time, place, and manner of the Incarnation so
that we might not have to rely upon any merely
human testimony when the time should come, but
might recognise the fulfilment of all, even as God
had spoken to the fathers.
MEDITATION XVIII. 81)
2. God's faithfulness to His Covenant.
a. Many generations had passed away. God
had from time to time spoken. Successive genera
tions had been constantly rebellious. Frequently
had God visited their sin with renewed chastise
ment. Nevertheless God would not take His
lovingkindness utterly from those whom He had
chosen nor suffer His Truth to fail.
b. It might have seemed that a generation so
miserably wanting in heavenly aspirations as the
Jews were when Christ was born, might have lost
all hold upon the Divine gifts. Not so. The
unfaithfulness of man could not hinder the faith
fulness of God. True, the heart of that generation
was set on earthly things. Yet would God give
the heavenly things which He had promised to
their fathers. God's gift was not to be measured
by their desires.
c. How must we now amidst the degradation
of modern Christianity look for God's power still
to assert itself in all the glory of the first mani
festation ! The Word of God is the same in fulfil
ment as it was in promise. i Jesus Christ is the
same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever/
3. The memory of the past.
a. As God spake to the fathers of that which
He afterwards fulfilled, so it is our duty to bear in
mind what He has said, and not think that it has
00 THE MAGNIFICAT.
passed away with the generations to whom it was
addressed.
b. Whatever God says is, we may be sure, a
law of what God will do. God does not act with
inconsistency. He has no changeable purpose.
As He has revealed Himself in word to any that
were before us, so we shall find Him in act to
wards ourselves.
c. How varied were the circumstances of our
fathers ! Yet was it one Divine Word leading
them all onward to one great issue. So it is now.
We must never think our circumstances so peculiar
that we become exempted from God's Word,
whether of promise or of threatening. The varia
tions of human circumstance only serve to develop
the constancy of the Divine action. If we would
find ourselves capable of profiting by what God
does we must be constantly reflecting upon what
He has said, ' giving heed to the word of prophecy
as to a light which shineth in a dark place.'
d. God makes His conduct known because we
should not otherwise recognise it. Therefore His
action very often seems to us to be at variance
with His utterances, and it is our duty to watch
for His words, and lay them up in our hearts, so
that the outward events may not discourage us
nor blind us to the certainty of God's final
triumph. The faithful heart must see beneath the
surface of events how God is accomplishing what
He has said.
MEDITATION XIX. 91
XIX.
ro> paa/n *a ra> orrfp/iart avrov.
For Abraham and his seed.
Jl&rar)am cmb ts geeb.
1. The original covenant.
2. The Seed who should be the Heir.
3. The nature of the Blessing.
1. The covenant with Abraham.
a. God hath been always mindful of His
covenant arid promise that He made to a thousand
generations, even the covenant that He made with
Abraham. To Abraham and his seed were the-
promises made.
b. Prophecies had been given to the fathers,
but not for their sakes. Previous generations, as
those of our Lord's own day, were ' the children of
the prophets and of the covenant which God made
with our fathers, saying to Abraham, And in thy
seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed/
What had been said to the fathers was but the-
development of God's promise to Abraham.
c. It was not said for their own sakes, for they
92 THE MAGNIFICAT.
were a stiffnecked and rebellious people from the
beginning to the time of their overthrow. Never
theless the chosen seed was amongst them. Not
because they are the seed of Abraham are they all
children. There must be a separation. As Isaac
from Ishmael, and Jacob from Esau, so in each
subsequent generation there was to be the separa
tion going on, and at the last only ' a remnant
should be saved.' So is it now. The gifts of
covenanted grace profit not those who will not
rise to the conditions of the covenant. 'They
who are of faith shall be blessed with faithful
Abraham.'
2. Abraham's Seed.
a. The Seed of Abraham to whom the promises
are made is Christ Himself. He is the Seed in
whom all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.
He is the supernatural Seed, and no seed of Abra
ham which was not supernaturally born could be
the channel of supernatural blessing to the nations
of the world. All that were naturally born failed of
fulfilling the Divine promises. The mercy of God
was to be shown to the world as the prerogative
of Abraham and then of Christ.
b. It might seem that Christ, who was the
bringer of mercy, could not be in any sense the
receiver of mercy. He brings mercy as the Son
of God. He receives mercy not in His own person
but in the nature transmitted to Him from Abra-
MEDITATION XIX. 95
ham. That nature had been subjected to all th(
consequences of the Fall until the Son of God took
it upon Himself. Therefore the seed or nature
of Abraham received mercy in that it was assumed
by the Son of God. So in the Psalms Messiah
constantly speaks of salvation coming to Him. It
comes to Him as man, because as man He is the
Heir of the promises.
c. The dative ' for Abraham and his seed ' in
this verse is like what the Psalmist says, ' The oath
which he sware concerning Isaac/ The mercy pro
mised has reference to these two personages. It
is promised to Abraham, and consummated in
Christ.
There was no supernatural seed between Isaac
and Christ. Isaac was supernaturally born, but
it was by a renewal of human power in his parents'
frame. Jesus was Divinely born, the Seed of
Abraham, being sprung from him as the promised
Seed of the woman, but being born not of human
power, born of a virgin as had been prophesied to
the fathers, having no human father, for the Son of
God had not His origin from earth. He came to
fulfil the promised mercy, being conceived by the
Holy Ghost.
3. The promised blessing.
a. What was the blessing which belonged to
Abraham and his seed, in virtue whereof all the
nations of the world were to be blessed ? It was
94 THE MAGNIFICAT.
no gift of aggrandisement over the nations of the
world by outward sovereignty. Messiah was to
be the Heir of the world by becoming i The Father
of a new world ' (Is. ix. 6).
b. As Isaac lived herewith a new life, the parent
of the chosen race, so Messiah would live with a
higher Life, the parent of a new race, who by being
incorporated with Him should be gathered from
all the ends of the earth so as to become the
children of Abraham. He would possess the
world not only as servants but as children. He is
the Hand wherein the staff of Judah and the staff
of Israel are to become one, and when He gathered
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the elders of the ancient
election, to sit with Him upon thrones, ' many from
the east and west were to come and sit down with
them in the Kingdom of Heaven ' which He would
establish.
c. This is that covenant of mercy to all man
kind which God remembered when He sent His
Son to take upon Himself our nature. In the
Incarnate Son of God the seed of Abraham receives
that mercy which had so long and so continuously
been declared, a mercy which knows no end. This
is the inheritance which Abraham was to receive
when he went out not knowing whither he went.
As the prophet Ezekiel gives us the measurements
of the promised land, not that wherein the fathers
dwelt of old, but a new, a mystical habitation, so
MEDITATION XIX. 95
Abraham ' went forth looking for a city which
hath foundations, whose builder and maker is
God,' in a heavenly country ; c wherefore God is
not ashamed to be called their God, for He hath
prepared for them a city.'
96 THE MAGNIFICAT.
XX.
s TOV ava.
For ever.
1. The accomplishment of Divine purposes.
2. The final deliverance.
3. The eternal Blessing.
1. The accomplishment of Divine purposes.
a. The help which God had promised to Israel
was no merely transitory deliverance. It was a
help worthy of the eternity of the Giver. God
had foreseen from the beginning what He would
do for Israel. From everlasting to everlasting He
is God. The salvation which was to be accom
plished in Israel had all along been known to Him.
I. Many another deliverance had been wrought
in the interval, but all those deliverances as being
transitory and typical pointed onward to that
which God was purposing to do hereafter. Now
the time has come.
The coming of the time was fixed by circum
stances of which we have no real knowledge. We
know, however, that God was waiting for the ful-
MEDITATION XX. 07
jfl of time to be come, and when it did come then
1 He sent forth His Son made of a woman, made
under the law, to redeem them that were under the
law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.'
c. As the entrance of Israel into the promised
land was waiting for the iniquity of the Amorites
to be full, so we may well conceive that the
Incarnation of the Son of God was delayed until
the wickedness of mankind had reached a cul
minating point, so that from henceforth it was
manifest how utterly incapable man was to work
out any deliverance for Himself.
All along God had been pointing onward to
the great Deliverer.
2. This deliverance is the final deliverance.
a. During previous ages there had been mani
fold successive deliverances. These deliverances
had been followed by overthrow. In the over
throw there always was a Divine certainty for
the recovery of Israel. Until Christ came Israel
could not pass away from among the nations of
the earth. There always was the security of re
storation, however great the calamity.
b. Now the history of Israel has reached its
culminating point. In Messiah all nations of the
earth shall be blessed, but all the glory of Israel
henceforth is summed up in the Person of Messiah.
This is the promised Seed of Abraham to whom the
blessing belonged, and all the rest of the nations
98 THE MAGNIFICAT.
could claim the blessing only by associating them
selves with Him.
c. Truly the nation through whom the blessing
came to all the nations of the earth would not be
excluded from the blessing which it conveyed.
But all who would share this blessing must seek
it from the one Person, the one Child of Abraham
in whom it was inherent. Christ, the long-pro
mised Messiah, is the beginner of a new era in
history. He does not come to raise either
Israel or any other nation of the earth by mere
external organisation. Christ is born, the Lord
of Life, to give a better life to those who shall be
incorporated into Him, but without such incorpo
ration He could not profit any. His Kingdom,
though it spring up in earthly form, is to be a
Kingdom of heavenly power.
3. This deliverance is eternal.
a. The blessing which Messiah should convey
would be a blessing altogether distinct from the
merely perishing phenomena of earthly nationa
lities. It was a blessing to all the nations of
the earth. It was the blessing of a new life along
with God. It was a blessing which would reach
in its consequences to all, in whatever age of this
world's history they might have lived, from Adam
to the last generations of mankind. It was a bles
sing to be enjoyed along with God in the glory of
a new life for ever and ever.
MEDITATION XX. 99
b. Previous deliverances achieved for man had
only served for some shortlived purpose. Death
reigned over all the world, and though there
might be a fresh career of glory rising after many
a fall, yet the fresh career of glory must perish as
that which preceded it. Every renewal of glory
had to acknowledge itself subject to the tyrant
power. The glory would pass away.
This deliverance was a deliverance from death
itself. It would raise from death those who had
fallen under its penalty. It would set them free
with the security of an endless life. The blessing
was Divine. God has sent His Son into the world
that all may live through Him, and all who will
come unto Him shall henceforth have power to
become the sons of God.
c. The manifestation of the sons of God, the
restoration of a fallen universe to the glory of the
original Divine intention, is not the initiation cf a
new career of earthly existence which shall after all
be exposed to the possibility of failure as the ori
ginal creation had been. The purpose of God is
to be accomplished by the restoration of all things,
the restoration of the old organism not in its own
weakness but in a mode of existence instinct
with the life of the Eternal Son.
All that is not renewed by coming to Him
must perish in its corruption. ' A new heaven and
a new earth ' shall rise out of the grave of sin,
glorious with the righteousness of God, and right
eousness is immortal.
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THE EXAMPLE OF THE PASSION.
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EVANGELIST LIBRARY CATECHISM.
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