Church of England -- Sermons; Sermons, English -- 19th century
to hear every one's troubles; a head always planning little comforts
and pleasures for others; and hands always busy in doing good.
Instead of being made hard and selfish by their own troubles, they
had been taught by them, as the Lord Jesus was, to feel for the
troubles of all around them, and went about like ministering angels
in the Spirit of God, which is peace on earth and goodwill towards
men.
Oh, my friends, such poor women seemed to me most glorious, most
honourable, most venerable! What was all rank or fashion, beauty or
accomplishments, when compared with the great honour which the Lord
Jesus Christ was putting upon those poor women, by transforming them
thus into His own most blessed likeness, and giving them grace to go
about, as He the Lord Jesus did, doing good, because God was with
them!
Then I felt that such women, poor, and worn, and hard-handed as they
were, were ladies in the sight of that Heavenly Father, who is no
respecter of persons; and felt how truly a wise ancient has said,--
'It is virtue, yea, virtue, gentlemen, which maketh gentlemen; which
maketh the poor rich, the strong weak, the simple wise, the base-
born noble. This rank neither the whirling wheel of Fortune can
destroy, nor the deceitful cavillings of worldlings separate;
neither sickness abate, nor time abolish.' No; for it is written,
that though prophecies shall fail, tongues cease, knowledge vanish
away, and all that we now know is but in part, yet charity shall
never fail those who are full of the Spirit of Love, but abide with
them for ever and ever, bringing forth fruit through all eternity to
everlasting life.
But what sort of virtue? Do not mistake that. Not what the world
calls virtue; not mere legal respectability, which says, I do unto
others as they do unto me; which is often merely the whitening
outside the sepulchre, and leaves the heart within unrenewed,
unrighteous, full of pride and ambition, conceit, cunning, and envy,
and unbelief in God: not that virtue, but the virtue which the
Apostle tells us to add to our faith, the virtue from above, which
is the same as the wisdom from above, which is first pure, then
peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated; in one word, the Holy
Spirit of God, the Spirit of Divine Love and Charity, which seeketh
not its own, which St. Paul has described to us in this epistle; the
Holy Spirit of God, with which the Lord Jesus was filled without
measure, and which He manifested to all the world in His most
blessed life and death.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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