Sermon XXI.
On the Feast of the Nativity, I.

I.  All share in the joy of Christmas.

Our Saviour, dearly-beloved, was born today:  let us
be glad.  For there is no proper place for sadness,
when we keep the birthday of the Life, which destroys
the fear of mortality and brings to us the joy of
promised eternity.  No one is kept from sharing in
this happiness.  There is for all one common measure
of joy, because as our LORD the destroyer of sin and
death finds none free from charge, so is He come to
free us all.  

Let the saint exult in that he draws near to victory. 
Let the sinner be glad in that he is invited to
pardon.  Let the gentile take courage in that he is
called to life.  For the Son of GOD in the fulness of
time which the inscrutable depth of the Divine counsel
has determined, has taken on him the nature of man,
thereby to reconcile it to its Author:  in order that
the inventor of death, the devil, might be conquered
through that (nature) which he had conquered.  And in
this conflict undertaken for us, the fight was fought
on great and wondrous principles of fairness; for the
Almighty LORD enters the lists with His savage foe not
in His own majesty but in our humility, opposing him
with the same form and the same nature, which shares
indeed our mortality, though it is free from all sin. 
Truly foreign to this nativity is that which we read
of all others, “no one is clean from stain, not even
the infant who has lived but one day upon earth.   Job
xix. 4. .”  

Nothing therefore of the lust of the flesh has passed
into that peerless nativity, nothing of the law of sin
has entered.  A royal Virgin of the stem of David is
chosen, to be impregnated with the sacred seed and to
conceive the Divinely-human offspring in mind first
and then in body.  And lest in ignorance of the
heavenly counsel she should tremble at so strange a
result    Effectus:  the older editions read affatus
(sc. the utterances of the angel). , she learns from
converse with the angel that what is to be wrought in
her is of the Holy Ghost.  Nor does she believe it
loss of honour that she is soon to be the Mother of
GOD.   Dei genetrix
(θεοτόκος): 
in opposing Eutyches, Leo is careful not to fall into
Nestorianism.  Bright’s note 3 should be read on this
passage, and esp. his quotation from Bp. Pearson (note
2 on Art. 3) absit ut quisquam S. Mariam Divinæ gratiæ
privilegiis et speciali gloria fraudare conetur. . 
For why should she be in despair over the novelty of
such conception, to whom the power of the most High
has promised to effect it.  Her implicit faith is
confirmed also by the attestation of a precursory
miracle, and Elizabeth receives unexpected fertility: 
in order that there might be no doubt that He who had
given conception to the barren, would give it even to
a virgin.

II.  The mystery of the Incarnation is a fitting theme
for joy both to angels and to men.

Therefore the Word of GOD, Himself GOD, the Son of GOD
who “in the beginning was with GOD,” through whom “all
things were made” and “without” whom “was nothing made
   S. John i. 1–3. ,” with the purpose of delivering
man from eternal death, became man:  so bending
Himself to take on Him our humility without decrease
in His own majesty, that remaining what He was and
assuming what He was not, He might unite the true form
of a slave to that form in which He is equal to GOD
the Father, and join both natures together by such a
compact that the lower should not be swallowed up in
its exaltation nor the higher impaired by its new
associate.      “Without-other” repeated in almost the
same words in Letter XXVIII. chap. 3. Without
detriment therefore to the properties of either
substance which then came together in one person,
majesty took on humility, strength weakness, eternity
mortality:  and for the paying off of the debt,
belonging to our condition, inviolable nature was
united with possible nature, and true GOD and true man
were combined to form one LORD, so that, as suited the
needs of our case, one and the same Mediator between
GOD and men, the Man Christ Jesus, could both die with
the one and rise again with the other   
“Without-other” repeated in almost the same words in
Letter XXVIII. chap. 3. .

Rightly therefore did the birth of our Salvation
impart no corruption to the Virgin’s purity, because
the bearing of the Truth was the keeping of honour. 
Such then beloved was the nativity which became the
Power of GOD and the Wisdom of GOD even Christ,
whereby He might be one with us in manhood and surpass
us in Godhead.  For unless He were true GOD, He would
not bring us a remedy, unless He were true Man, He
would not give us an example.  Therefore the exulting
angel’s song when the LORD was born is this, “Glory to
GOD in the Highest,” and their message, “peace on
earth to men of good will729729    S. Luke ii. 14. .” 
For they see that the heavenly Jerusalem is being
built up out of all the nations of the world:  and
over that indescribable work of the Divine love how
ought the humbleness of men to rejoice, when the joy
of the lofty angels is so great?

III.  Christians then must live worthily of Christ
their Head.

Let us then, dearly beloved, give thanks to GOD the
Father, through His Son, in the Holy Spirit730730   
Bingham observes (b. xiv. c. 2, s. 1), that Leo here
uses, though in a catholic sense, that form of
doxology which had become associated with Arianism. 
He could well afford to do as S. Athanasius had done,
who ascribes glory to the Father “through the Son” at
the conclusion of four treatises.  Bright. , Who “for
His great mercy, wherewith He has loved us,” has had
pity on us:  and “when we were dead in sins, has
quickened us together in Christ   Eph. ii. 4, 5. ,”
that we might be in Him a new creation and a new
production.  Let us put off then the old man with his
deeds:  and having obtained a share in the birth of
Christ let us renounce the works of the flesh. 
Christian, acknowledge thy dignity, and becoming a
partner in the Divine nature, refuse to return to the
old baseness by degenerate conduct.  Remember the Head
and the Body of which thou art a member.  Recollect
that thou wert rescued from the power of darkness and
brought out into GOD’S light and kingdom.  By the
mystery of Baptism thou wert made the temple of the
Holy Ghost:  do not put such a denizen to flight from
thee by base acts, and subject thyself once more to
the devil’s thraldom:  because thy purchase money is
the blood of Christ, because He shall judge thee in
truth Who ransomed thee in mercy, who with the Father
and the Holy Spirit reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.