(4) Fourthly and lastly, the Cross of Christ is a lesson of the
regenerate and sanctified life. Dying and living, burial and
resurrection, these in the Christian vocabulary are correlative ideas.
The Crucifixion implies the Resurrection and the Ascension. The
raising up on the cross demands the raising up from the grave, the
raising up into heaven. The lifting up of the brazen serpent in the
wilderness is a symbol alike of the one and the other. And as with
Christ, so also with those who are Christ's. "If we died with Christ,
we shall also live with him." Those only can be made conformable to
Christ's resurrection who have been made conformable to His death. The
power of His resurrection is the counterpart to the power of His
cross.
Herein, then--in the Cross of Christ--resides this power of God which
is offered to you as the true aim of your ambition, inexhaustible,
omnipotent, infinite. Will you close with the offer? Then reverence
yourselves; believe in yourselves; consecrate yourselves.
Reverence yourselves. Begin with reverencing this your body. Reverence
it as God's handiwork fearfully and wonderfully made. Contemplate it;
yes, contemplate it with awe, if only for its marvellously subtle
mechanism. But reverence it still more as the consecrated temple of
God's Spirit. Do not neglect it; do not misuse it; before all things
do not defile and desecrate it. Young men, the problem of social
purity is thrown down for your generation to solve. Will you accept
this challenge? The conscience of England is awakening to the terrible
curse. To redress the crying social wrong, to raise womanhood from
degradation and shame, to hold up to reverence the idea of a pure,
chivalrous, manly manhood,--this is the crusade in which you are
invited to enlist. Will you, as consecrated soldiers of the Cross,
claim your part in the glory of this campaign? If so, the work must
begin now, must begin in yourselves. There can be no success against
the foe where there is disaffection and mutiny in the citadel.
Believe in yourselves; yet, not in yourselves as yourselves. Believe
not in your strength, but in your weakness. Believe in God who dwells
in you. Give full rein to your ambition. Trust this power of God. It
will not stunt or mar, will not crush, will not annihilate your
natural gifts--your social endowments, your political instincts, your
intellectual capacities. It will only elevate, harmonize, inspire,
purify them. Trust this power. There is nothing, absolutely nothing,
which you may not do, if you will only trust it. +Panta ischuô+,
"I have strength for everything," everything in heaven and earth. You
have youth, health, vigour, enthusiasm, hopefulness, everything on
your side now. Seize the great opportunity which can never return.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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