The following is part of an article by Horatius Bonar (1808-1889)
The Church of God on earth is not what she seems; nay, is what she seems not. She is not a beggar, yet she seems one; she is a King's bride, yet she seems not. It was so with her Lord while here. He was not what men thought him; he was what they thought him not.
It is in this way that the world is put to shame, its thoughts confounded, its greatness abased before God. And it is in this way that Divine wisdom gets large space over which to spread itself, step by step, and to open out its infinite resources slowly and with care (like one exhibiting his treasures), that no part, no turn in all its windings may be left unobserved. It is not the result only that God desires that we should see and wonder at, but the process by which it is reached, so unlikely to effect it, yet so steadily moving forward to its end, and so strangely successful in bringing about that end.
God is showing us most minutely how "fearfully and wonderfully" all things are made, and we among the rest, in our first birth and in our second, in our natural and in our spiritual growth.
