Practical Religion: Being Plain Papers on the Daily Duties, Experience, Dangers, and Privileges of Professing ChristiansRyle, J. C. (John Charles)
Religion
Practical Religion: Being Plain Papers on the Daily Duties, Experience, Dangers, and Privileges of Professing Christians
Ryle, J. C. (John Charles)
Christian life -- Anglican authors
This family likeness among true believers is a thing that deserves
special attention. To my own mind it is one of the strongest indirect
evidences of the truth of Christianity It is one of the greatest proofs
of the reality of the work of the Holy Ghost. Some true Christians live
in civilized countries, and some in the midst of heathen lands. Some are
highly educated, and some are unable to read a letter. Some are rich and
some are poor. Some are Churchmen and some are Dissenters. Some are old
and some are young. And yet, notwithstanding all this, there is a
marvellous oneness of heart and character among them. Their joys and
their sorrows, their love and their hatred, their likes and their
dislikes, their tastes and their distastes, their hopes and their fears,
are all most curiously alike. Let others think what they please, I see
in all this the finger of God. His handiwork is always one and the same.
No wonder that true Christians are compared to "a family."
Take a converted Englishman and a converted Hindoo, and let them
suddenly meet for the first time. I will engage, if they can understand
one another's language, they will soon find common ground between them,
and feel at home. The one may have been brought up at Eton and Oxford,
and enjoyed every privilege of English civilization. The other may have
been trained in the midst of gross heathenism, and accustomed to habits,
ways, and manners as unlike the Englishman's as darkness compared to
light. And yet now in half an hour they feel that they are friends! The
Englishman finds that he has more in common with his Hindoo brother than
he has with many an old college companion or school-fellow! Who can
account for this? How can it be explained? Nothing can account for it
but the unity of the Spirit's teaching. It is "one touch" of grace (not
nature) "that makes the whole world kin." God's people are in the
highest sense "a family."
This is the family to which I wish to direct the attention of my readers
in this paper. This is the family to which I want you to belong. I ask
you this day to consider it well, if you never considered it before. I
have shown you the Father of the family,--the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ. I have shown you the Head and Elder Brother of the
family,--the Lord Jesus Himself. I have shown you the features and
characteristics of the family. Its members have all great marks of
resemblance. Once more I say, consider it well.
Outside this family, remember, there is no salvation. None but those who
belong to it, according to the Bible, are in the way that leads to
heaven. The salvation of our souls does not depend on union with one
Church or separation from another. They are miserably deceived who think
that it does, and will find it out to their cost one day, except they
awake. No! the life of our souls depends on something far more
important. This is life eternal, to be a member of "the whole family in
heaven and earth."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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