The World's Great Sermons, Volume 04: L. Beecher to Bushnell
Religion
The World's Great Sermons, Volume 04: L. Beecher to Bushnell
Sermons
To suppose that God did not know what events would exist in
His kingdom, is to divest Him of omniscience. To suppose that
He did know, and did not care,--had no choice, no purpose,--is
to blot out His benevolence, to nullify His wisdom and convert
His power into infinite indolence. To suppose that He did know,
and choose, and decree, and that events do not accord with His
purposes, is to suppose that God has made a world which He can
not govern; has undertaken a work too vast; has begun to build,
but is not able to finish. But to suppose that God did, from the
beginning, behold all things open and naked before Him, and that
He did choose, with unerring wisdom and infinite goodness, how to
govern His empire,--and yet at the same time, to employ heart,
and head, and tongue, in continual opposition to this great and
blessed truth,--is, most clearly, to cherish enmity to God and His
government.
To object to the choice of God because it is immutable, is to cavil
against that which constitutes its consummating excellence. Caprice
is a most alarming feature in a bad government; but in a government
absolutely perfect, none, surely, can object to its immutability,
but those, who, if able, would alter it for the worse.
To say that, if God always knew how to govern so as to display His
glory, and bless His kingdom, and always chooses thus to govern,
there can be, therefore, no accountable agency in the conduct of
His creatures, is to deny the possibility of a moral government,
to contradict the express testimony of God; and this, too, at the
expense of common sense, and the actual experience of every subject
of His moral government on earth.
From the character of God, and the nature of His government, as
explained in this discourse, may be inferred, the nature and
necessity of unconditional submission to God.
Unconditional submission is an entire surrender of the soul to
God, to be disposed of according to His pleasure,--occasioned by
confidence in His character as God.
There are many who would trust the Almighty to regulate the rolling
of worlds, and to rule in the armies of heaven, just as He pleases;
and devils they would consign to His disposal, without the least
hesitation; and their own nation, if they were sure that God would
dispose of it according to their pleasure; even their own temporal
concerns they would risk in the hands of God, could they know that
all things would work together for their good; their souls, also,
they would cheerfully trust to His disposal, for the world to come,
if God would stipulate, at all events, to make them happy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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