Expositions of Holy Scripture: Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. JohnMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Ephesians -- Commentaries; Bible. Epistle of John, 1st -- Commentaries; Bible. Peter -- Commentaries
midst, and in the common grasp of Him by us all.
There is a well-known hymn which was originally intended as a High
Church manifesto, which thrusts at us Nonconformists when it sings:
'_We_ are not divided,
All one body _we_.'
And oddly enough, but significantly too, it has found its way into all
our Nonconformist hymn-books, and we, 'the sects,' are singing it, with
perhaps a nobler conception of what the oneness of the body, and the
unity of the Church is, than the writer of the words had. 'We are not
divided,' though we be organised apart. 'All one body we,' for we all
partake of that one bread, and the unifying principle is a common love
to the one Jesus Christ our Lord.
II. Mark the impartial sweep of the divine gifts.
My text is a benediction, or a prayer; but it is also a prophecy, or a
statement, of the inevitable and uniform results of love to Jesus
Christ. The grace will follow that love, necessarily and certainly, and
the lovers will get the gift of God because their love has brought them
into living contact with Jesus Christ; and His life will flow over into
theirs. I need not remind you that the word 'grace' in Scripture means,
first of all, the condescending love of God to inferiors, to sinners, to
those who deserved something else; and, secondly, the whole fulness of
blessing and gift that follow upon that love. And, says Paul, these
great gifts from heaven, the one gift in which all are comprised, will
surely follow the opening of the heart in love to Jesus Christ.
Ah, brethren! God's grace makes uncommonly short work of ecclesiastical
distinctions. The great river flows through territories that upon men's
maps are painted in different colours, and of which the inhabitants
speak in different tongues. The Rhine laves the pine-trees of
Switzerland, and the vines of Germany, and the willows of Holland; and
God's grace flows through all places where the men that love Him do
dwell. It rises, as it were, right over the barriers that they have
built between each other. The little pools on the sea-shore are separate
when the tide is out, but when it comes up it fills all the pot-holes
that the pebbles have made, and unifies them in one great flashing,
dancing mass; and so God's grace comes to all that love Him, and
confirms their unity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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