Discipline and Other Sermons by Kingsley, Charles, 1819-1875

'One far-off divine event Toward which the whole creation moves;'

and possess our souls in patience, and in faith, and in hope for ourselves and for our children after; while we say, with the Psalmist of old: 'Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure. They all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be cleansed. But thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail. The children of thy servants shall continue; and their seed shall stand fast in thy sight.' Amen.

SERMON XXIV.--THE LIKENESS OF GOD

EPHESIANS iv. 23, 24.

And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

Be renewed, says St. Paul, in the spirit of your mind--in the tone, character, and habit of your mind. And put on the new man, the new pattern of man, who was created after God, in righteousness and true holiness.

Pay attention, I beg you, to every word here. To understand them clearly is most important to you. According as you take them rightly or wrongly, will your religion be healthy or unhealthy, and your notion of what God requires of you true or false. The new man, the new pattern of man, says St. Paul, is created after God. That, is after the pattern of God, in the image of God, in the likeness of God. You will surely see that that is his meaning. We speak of making a thing after another thing; meaning, make it exactly like another thing. So, by making a man after God, St. Paul means making a man like God.

Now what is this man? None, be sure, save Christ himself, the co- equal and co-eternal Son of God. Of him alone can it be said, utterly, that he is after God--the brightness of God's glory, and the express image of his person. But still, he is a man, and meant as a pattern to men; the new Adam; the new pattern, type, and ideal for all mankind. Him, says St. Paul,--that is, his likeness,--we are to put on, that as he was after the likeness of God, so may we be likewise.

But now, in what does this same likeness consist?

St. Paul tells us distinctly, lest we should mistake a matter of such boundless importance as the question of all questions--What is the life of God, the Divine and Godlike life?

It is created, founded, says he, in righteousness and true holiness. That is the character, that is the form of it. Whatever we do not know, whatever we cannot know, concerning God, and his Divine life, we know that it consists of righteousness and true holiness.