Expositions of Holy Scripture: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and NumbersMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Pentateuch -- Commentaries; Bible. Pentateuch -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Nor less needful is the other exhortation--live by the laws of your own
land, not by those of the foreign country where you are for a time. If
you do that thoroughly, you will not need to say, 'I am from another
country.' Your conduct will say it for you. An English ship is a bit of
England, in whatever latitude it may be, and however far beyond the
three-mile limit of the King's authority upon the seas it may float.
And so, wherever there is a Christian man, there is a bit of God's
kingdom, and over that little speck in the midst of the ocean of the
world the flag with the Cross on it should fly, and the laws of the
Christ should be the only laws that have currency. If it could be said
of us as Haman said to his king about the Jews, that we were a people
with laws 'diverse from those of all people,' we should be doing more
than, alas! most of us do, to honour Him whom we profess to serve.
Follow Christ, and people will be quick enough to say of you 'The man
from the other side,' 'He does not belong to our city.' There is no
need for ostentation, nor for saying, 'Come and see my zeal for the
Lord,' nor for blowing trumpets before us at street corners or
elsewhere. The less of all that the better. The more we try to do the
common things done by the folk round us, but from another motive, the
more powerful will be our witness for our Master.
For instance, when John Knox was in the French galleys, he was fastened
to the same oar with some criminal, perhaps a murderer. The two men sat
on the same bench, did the same work, tugged at the same heavy sweep,
were fed with the same food, suffered the same sorrows. Do you think
there was any doubt as to the infinite gulf between them? We may be
working side by side, at the very same tasks, and under similar
circumstances, with men that have no share in our faith, and no
sympathy with our hopes and aspirations, and yet, though doing the same
thing, it will _not_ be the same thing. And if we keep Christ before
us, and follow His steps who has left us an example, depend upon it
people will very soon find out that we are men 'from across the water.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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