Ambrose on the incarnation

Letter of Ambrose to Sabinus, a Bishop. ca. AD 390

Just as in the form of God, He lacked nothing of the divine nature and its fullness, so too in the form of man there was nothing lacking in Him, by the absence of which He might have been judged an imperfect man; for He came to save the whole man. It would not have been fitting for One who accomplished a perfect work in others to allow anything imperfect in Himself. If something was lacking in His humanity, He did not redeem the whole man; and if He did not redeem the whole man, He was a deceiver when He declared that He had come to save the whole man. But He did not deceive, because “It is not possible for God to lie. ” Because He came, therefore, to save and redeem the whole man, it follows that He took upon Himself the whole man, and that His humanity was perfect.—Ambrose in William A. Jurgens, Faith of the Early Fathers, 2:148

O Splendor of God's glory bright

638 St. Venantius. L.M.

1 O Splendor of God's glory bright,
   From light eternal bringing light;
   Thou Light of life, light's living Spring,
   True Day, all days illumining.

O Thou true Sun, on us Thy glance
   Let fall in royal radiance,
   The Spirit's sanctifying beam
   Upon our earthly senses stream.

The Father, too, our prayers implore
   Father of glory evermmore;
   The Father of all grace and might,
   To banish sin from our delight;

To guide whate'er we nobly do,
   With love all envy to subdue,
   To make illfortune turn to fair,
   And give us grace our wrongs to bear.
                        Ambrose of Milan
                         The Methodist Hymnal 1939 edition

<idle musing>
This hymn by Ambrose only occurs in about 45 hymnals, but it seems to have about that many variations. None of the versions at hymnary.org has the version here. Most of them also contain more verses. Follow the link and compare to your heart's content!

That's the final hymn in this hymnal; what follows now is responsive readings, orders of service, communion services, etc. I may or may not post on those. Expect a gap here and there for a week or two. Next I think I'll go through the United Methodist hymnal that replaced this one. By necessity there will be overlap, but I won't post the duplicates (but I think I've already said that).
</idle musing>