tell them how to rise out of the death of sin, into God’s life of righteousness.  They could preach the terrors of the Law, but they did not know the good news of the Gospel, and therefore they did not succeed; they did not convert their neighbours to God.  Then came St. Paul and preached to the very same people, and he did convert them to God; for he had good news for them, of things which prophets and kings had desired to see, and had not seen them, and to hear, and had not heard them.

For God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke to the fathers by the prophets, at last spoke to all men by a Son, His only-begotten Son, the exact likeness of His Father, the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person.  He sent Him to be a man:  very man of the substance of His mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the same time that He was Very God, of the substance of His Father, begotten before all worlds.

And so God, and the life of God, was manifested in the flesh and reasonable soul of a man; and from that time there is no doubt what the life of God is; for the life of God is the life of Jesus Christ.  There is no doubt now what God is like, for God is like Jesus Christ.  No one can now say, ’I cannot see God, how then can you expect me to be like God?’ for He who has seen Jesus Christ, as His character stands in the Gospels, has seen God the Father.  No one can say now, ’How can a man be like God, and live a life like God’s life?’ for if any one of you say that, I can answer him:  ’A man can be like God; you can be like God; for there was once a man on earth, Jesus, the son of the Blessed Virgin, who was perfectly like God.’  And if you answer, ‘But He was like God, because He was God,’ I can say, ‘And that is the very reason why you can be like God also.’  If Jesus Christ had been only a man, you could no more become like Him than you can become clever because another man is clever, or strong because another man is strong:  but because He was God The Son of God, He can give you, to make you like God, the same Holy Spirit which made Him like God; for that Holy Spirit proceeds from Him, the Son, as well as from the Father, and the Father has committed all power to the Son; and therefore that same Man Christ Jesus has power to change your heart, and renew it, and shape it to be like Him, and like His Father, by the power of His Spirit, that you may be like God as He was like God, and live the life of God which He lived; so that the Lord Jesus Christ, because He was a man like God, showed that all men can become like God; and because He was God, Very God of Very God, He is able to make all who come to Him men like Himself, men like God, and raise them up body and soul to the everlasting life of God, that He may be the firstborn among many brethren.