Expositions of Holy Scripture: the ActsMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: the Acts
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Acts -- Commentaries
In almost every town of England, your Churches, and those to which I
belong, with Presbyterians and Wesleyans, stand side by side. The
conditions of our work make some rivalry inevitable, and none of us, I
suppose, object to that. It helps to keep us all diligent: a sturdy
adherence to our several 'distinctive principles' and an occasional
hard blow in fair fight on their behalf we shall all insist upon. Our
brotherhood is all the more real for frank speech, and 'the animated
No!' is an essential in all intercourse which is not stagnant or
mawkish. There is much true fellowship and much good feeling among all
these. But we want far more of an honest rejoicing in each other's
success, a quicker and truer manly sympathy with each other's work, a
fuller consciousness of our solidarity in Christ, and a clearer
exhibition of it before the world.
And on a wider view, as our eyes travel over the wide field of
Christendom, and our memories go back over the long ages of the story
of the Church, let gladness, and not wonder or reluctance, be the
temper with which we see the graces of Christian character lifting
their meek blossoms in corners strange to us, and breathing their
fragrance over the pastures of the wilderness. In many a cloister, in
many a hermit's cell, from amidst the smoke of incense, through the
dust of controversies, we should see, and be glad to see, faces bright
with the radiance caught from Christ. Let us set a jealous watch over
our hearts that self-absorption, or denominationalism, or envy do not
make the sight a pain instead of a joy; and let us remember that the
eye-salve which will purge our dim sight to behold the grace of God in
all its forms is that grace itself, which ever recognises its own
kindred, and lives in the gladness of charity, and the joy of beholding
a brother's good. If we are to have eyes to know the grace of God when
we see it, and a heart to rejoice when we know it, we must get them as
Barnabas got his, and be good men, because we are full of the Holy
Ghost, and full of the Holy Ghost because we are full of faith.
III. What Barnabas said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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