a sad and fearful thing,
if we try to be like some false god of our own invention. But so it
is. It was so even among the old heathen. Whatsoever a man fancies
God to be like, that he will try himself to be like. So if you
fancy than God the Father's glory is stern and awful power, that he
is extreme to mark what is done amiss, or stands severely on his own
rights, then you will do the same; you will be extreme to mark what
is done amiss; you will stand severely on your rights; you will grow
stern and harsh, unfeeling to your children and workmen, and fond of
shewing your power, just for the sake of shewing it. But if you
believe that the glory of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is all
one; and that it is a loving glory if you believe that such as Jesus
Christ is, such is his Father, gracious and merciful, slow to anger,
and of great kindness, and repenting him of the evil; if you believe
that your Father in heaven is perfect, just because he sendeth his
sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the
just and on the unjust, and is good to the unthankful and the evil--
if you believe this, I say, then you will be good to the unthankful
and the evil; you will be long-suffering and tender; good fathers,
good masters, good neighbours; and your characters will become
patient, generous, forgiving, truly noble, truly godlike. And all
because you believe the Athanasian Creed in spirit and in truth.

In like manner, if you believe that Jesus Christ is not a perfect
Son; if you fancy that he has any will but his Father's will; that
he has any work but what his Father gives him to do, who has
committed all things into his hands; that he knows anything but what
his Father sheweth him, who sheweth him all things, because he
loveth him; then you will be tempted to wish for power and honour of
your own; to become ambitious, self-willed, vain, and disobedient to
your parents.

But if you believe that Jesus is a perfect Son, all that you would
wish your son to be to you, and millions of times more; and if you
believe that that very thing is Christ's glory; that his glory
consists in being a perfect Son, perfectly obedient, having no will
or wish but his Father's; then will you, by thus seeing Christ in
spirit and in truth, see how beautiful and noble it is to be good
sons; and you will long to try to be good sons: and what you long
for, and try for, you will surely be, in God's good time; for he has
promise