The World's Great Sermons, Volume 04: L. Beecher to Bushnell
Religion
The World's Great Sermons, Volume 04: L. Beecher to Bushnell
Sermons
But if there be a consistency in the errors, in like manner, is
there a consistency in the truths which are opposite to them? The
man who believes in the peculiar doctrines will readily bow to
the peculiar demands of Christianity. When he is told to love God
supremely, this may startle another, but it will not startle him
to whom God has been revealed in peace, and in pardon, and in all
the freeness of an offered reconciliation. When told to shut out
the world from his heart, this may be impossible with him who has
nothing to replace it--but not impossible with him who has found
in God a sure and satisfying portion. When told to withdraw his
affections from the things that are beneath, this were laying
an order of self-extinction upon the man, who knows not another
quarter in the whole sphere of his contemplation to which he could
transfer them, but it were not grievous to him whose view had been
opened to the loveliness and glory of the things that are above,
and can there find, for every feeling of his soul, a most ample and
delighted occupation. When told to look not to the things that are
seen and temporal, this were blotting out the light of all that is
visible from the prospect of him in whose eye there is a wall of
partition between guilty nature and the joys of eternity--but he who
believes that Christ has broken down this wall finds a gathering
radiance upon his soul, as he looks onward in faith to the things
that are unseen and eternal. Tell a man to be holy--and how can he
compass such a performance, when his fellowship with holiness is a
fellowship of despair? It is the atonement of the cross reconciling
the holiness of the lawgiver with the safety of the offender, that
hath opened the way for a sanctifying influence into the sinner's
heart, and he can take a kindred impression from the character of
God now brought nigh, and now at peace with him. Separate the demand
from the doctrine, and you have either a system of righteousness
that is impracticable, or a barren orthodoxy. Bring the demand and
the doctrine together, and the true disciple of Christ is able to
do the one, through the other strengthening him. The motive is
adequate to the movement; and the bidden obedience to the gospel is
not beyond the measure of his strength, just because the doctrine of
the gospel is not beyond the measure of his acceptance. The shield
of faith, and the hope of salvation, and the Word of God, and the
girdle of truth, these are the armor that he has put on; and with
these the battle is won, and the eminence is reached, and the man
stands on the vantage ground of a new field and a new prospect. The
effect is great, but the cause is equal to it, and stupendous as
this moral resurrection to the precepts of Christianity undoubtedly
is, there is an element of strength enough to give it being and
continuance in the principles of Christianity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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