"
It is by virtue of that freedom which is God's alone, and which is
the issue of absolute love, that is, "because God so loved the
world," he takes up the subject, Jesus, and makes himself objective
to him without measure, thereby rendering his life as divine as it is
human, though it remains also as human, -- strictly speaking, -- as
it is divine.
To all men's consciousness it is true that God is objective in
a degree, or they were not distinctively human. His glory is
refracted, as it were, to their eyes, through the universe. But only
in a man, to whom he has made himself the imperative object, does he
approach men, in all points, in such degree as to make them divine.
He is no less free (sovereign) in coming to each man in Christ, than,
in the first instance, in making Jesus of Nazareth the Christ. Men
are only free inasmuch as they are open to this majestic access, and
are able to pray with St. Augustine, "What art thou to me, oh Lord?
_Have mercy on me that I may ask_. The house of my soul is too
strait for thee to come into; but let it, oh Lord, be enlarged by
thee.
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