Post-Mediæval Preachers: Some Account of the Most Celebrated Preachers of the 15th, 16th, & 17th Centuries; with outlines of their sermons, and specimens of their styleBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Post-Mediæval Preachers: Some Account of the Most Celebrated Preachers of the 15th, 16th, & 17th Centuries; with outlines of their sermons, and specimens of their style
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Preaching
Certainly the damned would feel no pain if they could see Jesus. Three
children were cast into the burning fiery furnace of Babylon, and they
trampled on the flames, they sang among their torments, and called upon
all creatures to unite with them in praise. Would you know the reason? We
have it from the mouth of the hostile king: _Lo! I see four men loose,
walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of
the fourth is like the Son of God_. The form, the very image only, of the
Son of God was sufficient to remove all power from the fierce element,
to turn torment into jubilee, punishment into delight, a furnace into a
joke (_focum in jocum_; a pun), a torturer’s pyre into festive flames. No
less would the damned rejoice if they could thus behold the Son of God,
and would set at nought fire, hell, and damnation.
6. Oh! if after myriads of years they were given a chance of obtaining
one thing from Christ, would they ask of Him any thing else but that
which the blind man required—_Lord, that I may see_? Why did the damned
Dives ask that Lazarus might come with a drop of water at the tip of
his finger to cool his parched tongue? Why did he not rather demand a
refreshing shower, or a pleasant rill of cool water to flow into his
throat? It was because he desired the presence of the glorified Lazarus.
By that presence all his pains would be relieved, his hell would be
turned into Paradise. The longed-for Lazarus is the very Son of God, who
suffered poverty at the gate of the rich, asking for a little crumb of
comfort, but in vain; rejected by the Jews, the dogs of Gentiles came,
and found healing in His wounds.
Now the damned desire of the Father that He should send His Son, who with
the finger of God’s right hand, the Holy Spirit, might touch the stream
of celestial joys, and let one drop distil into the consuming fire, to
refresh the lost for one moment, to give them for one instant a glimpse
of the beauty of that radiant countenance. But in vain; in vain they ask,
they cry, they weep; they shall see the face of Jesus no more.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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