The World's Great Sermons, Volume 07: Hale to Farrar
Religion
The World's Great Sermons, Volume 07: Hale to Farrar
Sermons
the sea has stood on one side like a wall, and that the waters have
gushed forth from the rock; we believe that bread has been rained
from heaven; we believe that a touch has awakened the dead--we
believe all this; and, because we believe it, we believe the voice
when it says to us, "Pray"; and because we hear that voice still
amongst us, and because we know it to be the same voice, we say, as
we hear it, "Lord, save, or we perish."
But still, in the last place, it may be said to us: If you do
believe that there is this power of miracle amongst you still, and
that it will answer to your prayer, why is it that we do not see
more miracles than we do? Why is not the world filled with strange
miracles every day, considering the infinite number of men's needs,
and the infinite number of human prayers? My brethren, it does seem
to me that if we were merely deists, and did not believe in Christ,
it would be difficult for us to answer this objection. The spirit
of man has, however (thanks be to God for it), in all ages been
deeper and truer in its instincts than his mere logical power. Even
the deist (and we thankfully acknowledge it), tho inconsistently
and illogically, yet really and truly prays. For us Christians
there is not any difficulty. There is that difference in our prayer
of which I spoke. To whom is it that we pray? Not merely to the
invisible Lord or Creator of the past, but to the incarnate Lord of
the present. We believe that Christ our Lord, to whom we pray, took
flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we believe that He did so that He
might work the greatest of all miracles--the salvation of the souls
of men; and we believe that He wrought it by dying and by living
again. We believe that He established in the world this great and
miraculous law, that it is possible out of death to bring life--nay,
that death is the way to life. If this be so, that by His death
life was purchased for us, then He teaches us that there is another
life than this, and that there is another death and a deeper death
than that we fear; and He tells us, it may be, that even by dying
we shall be saved, that He will not always save us from death--nay,
that He may save us by death. And so it comes to pass that we
understand how, by losing life, we may miraculously save it; and
yet, on the other hand, by trying to save life, we may naturally
lose it. So we come to understand this fact, how the beginning of
His kingdom was full of miracles, and how, in the history of His
kingdom, miracles have since ceased. The kingdom began with miracles
that He might teach us that He was able to save; the miracles ceased
in order that He might work a greater miracle. The lesser miracle
of ruling nature ceased in order that the greatest of all miracles
might perpetually be wrought--the regeneration, the redemption, and
the glorification of the nature of man. And so we understand that
Christ our Lord, because He is our Lord, may save us, even while
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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