December 26, 2006

• Stamp Thine Image

  It is a particular delight to discover new verses to familiar songs.  On Sunday we sang a verse to
  Hark! the Herald Angels Sing I had never heard before:

  Adam’s likeness, Lord efface,
  Stamp Thine image in its place:
  Second Adam from above,
  Reinstate us in Thy love.

  Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
  Thee, the Life, the inner man:
  O, to all Thyself impart,
  Formed in each believing heart.

  Hark! the herald angels sing,
  “Glory to the newborn King.”

  A line from Athanasius, On the Incarnation (the emphasis is my own):

  He made all things out of nothing through His own Word, our Lord Jesus Christ; and of all these His earthly creatures He reserved especial mercy for the race of men.  Upon them, therefore, upon men who, as animals, were essentially impermanent, He bestowed a grace which other creatures lacked–namely, the impress of His own Image, a share in the reasonable being of the very Word Himself, so that, reflecting Him and themselves becoming reasonable and expressing the Mind of God even as He does, though in limited degree, they might continue for ever in the blessed and only true life of saints in paradise.

  

  • 11:53 am
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