Church of England -- Sermons; Sermons, English -- 19th century
This Christian country, thank God! gives daily many another example
of the same: and every place, and every station affords to each one
of us opportunities,--more, alas, I fear, than we shall ever take
full advantage of: but I have chosen the case of the soldier, not
merely because it is perhaps the most striking and affecting, but
because I wish to see, and trust in God that I shall see, those who
remain at home in safety emulating the public spirit and self-
sacrifice which our soldiers are showing abroad; and by sacrifices
more peaceful and easy, but still well-pleasing unto God, showing
that they too have been raised above selfishness, by the glorious
thought that they are members of a body.
For, are we not members of a body, my friends? Are we not members
of the Body of bodies, members of Christ, children of God,
inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven? Members of Christ--we, and the
poor for whom I plead, as well as we; perhaps, considering their
many trials and our few trials, more faithfully and loyally by far
than we are. There are some here, I doubt not, to whom that word,
that argument, is enough: to whom it is enough to say, Remember
that the Lord whom you love loves that shivering, starving wretch as
well as He loves you, to open and exhaust at once their heart, their
purse, their labour of love. God's blessing be upon all such! But
it would be hypocrisy in me, my friends, to speak to this, or any
congregation, as if all were of that temper of mind. It is not one
in ten, alas! in the present divided state of religious parties, who
feels the mere name of Christ enough of a bond to make him sacrifice
himself for his fellow Christians, as a soldier does for his fellow
soldiers. Not one in ten, alas! feels that he owes the same
allegiance to Christ as the soldier does to his Queen; that the
honour of Christianity is his honour, the history of Christianity
his history, the life of Christianity his life. Would that it were
so: but it is not so. And I must appeal to feelings in you less
wide, honourable and righteous though they are: I must appeal to
your public spirit as townsmen of this place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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