The World's Great Sermons, Volume 04: L. Beecher to Bushnell
Religion
The World's Great Sermons, Volume 04: L. Beecher to Bushnell
Sermons
"It is of no consequence," you say, "we pass over that difficulty;
we suppose between God and us connections we can not conceive; we
admit them because they are necessary to us. But this is the only
step we are willing to take: we have already yielded too much to
yield more." Say more, say you have granted too much not to grant
much more, not to grant all! You have consented to admit, without
comprehending it, that there may be communications from God to you,
and from you to God. But consider well what is implied in such a
supposition. It implies that you are dependent, and yet free: this
you do not comprehend; it implies that the Spirit of God can make
itself understood by your spirit: this you do not comprehend; it
implies that your prayers may exert an influence on the will of
God: this you do not comprehend. It is necessary you should receive
all these mysteries, in order to establish with God connections the
most vague and superficial, and by the very side of which atheism
is placed. And when, by a powerful effort with yourselves you have
done so much as to admit these mysteries, you recoil from those
of Christianity! You have accepted the foundation, and refuse the
superstructure! You have accepted the principle and refuse the
details! You are right, no doubt, so soon as it is proved to you,
that the religion which contains these mysteries does not come from
God; or rather, that these mysteries contain contradictory ideas.
But you are not justified in denying them, for the sole reason that
you do not understand them; and the reception you have given to the
first kind of mysteries compels you, by the same rule, to receive
the others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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