The World's Great Sermons, Volume 06: H. W. Beecher to Punshon — John Shaqi
The World's Great Sermons, Volume 06: H. W. Beecher to Punshon
Religion
The World's Great Sermons, Volume 06: H. W. Beecher to Punshon
Sermons
Again, I say, let us not depreciate morality. Let us condemn that
ostentatious piety which lifts up holy hands to God, but never
stretches them out to help man; which anoints its head with the oil
of sanctity, but will not defile its robes with the blood of the
abused, or the contact of the guilty; which is loud in profession
and poor in performance; which makes long prayers, but devours
widow's houses. Let us condemn this, but remember that this is
not real religion, only its form; as often, the kind deed, the
honest method, is not true morality, only its form. Of both these
departments of action let it be said: that these we have done, and
not left the other undone. Let us recognize the perfect harmony,
nay, the identity of religion and morality, in that One who came
from the solitary conflict of the desert, to go about doing good,
and who descended, from the night prayer on the mountain, to walk
and calm the troubled waves of the sea.
But those who rest in a mere routine of kind and prudential deeds
need the deeper life and the inner perception which detects the
meaning and gives the sanction to those deeds. Such need the vital
germ of morality--the changed heart, the new birth.
And as I have spoken of a subordinate yet somewhat distinct class
who may be ranked under the general head of seekers after religion
in philosophy, let me here briefly allude to some with whom religion
is a matter of mere sentiment and good feeling. Such are easily
moved by the great doctrines of the New Testament. They are affected
by the sermon; they have gushes of devout emotion during the prayer.
But with them, religion is not a deep and steady pulse of divine
life. Prayer is not a protracted aspiration--is not a habit. They
feel well towards God, because they consider Him a good-natured,
complacent being; but they do not meditate upon the majesty of His
nature, upon His justice, and His holiness.
From the doctrine of immortality they draw consolation, but not
sanctity. They regard it as a good time coming, but it furnishes
them with no personal and stringent applications for the present.
They need a more solemn and penetrating vision; a profounder
experience in the soul. They need to be born again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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