The World's Great Sermons, Volume 09: Cuyler to Van Dyke
Religion
The World's Great Sermons, Volume 09: Cuyler to Van Dyke
Sermons
What thinkest thou, O Herder, illustrious German thinker, broad
scholar, and exquisite genius, of Jesus, the Christ? Superb is his
reply: "Jesus Christ is in the noblest and most perfect sense the
realized ideal of humanity." What thinkest thou of the Christ, O
Napoleon, mighty son of Mars, striding through the world like a
Colossus, darkening the brightness of noonday with the smoke, and
lighting the darkness at midnight with the fires of battle? Hear
this man of gigantic intellect, whatever may be said of his moral
motives: "I think I understand somewhat of human nature, and I tell
you all these (the heroes of antiquity) were men, and I am a man,
but not one is like Him; Jesus Christ was more than man. Alexander,
Cæsar, Charlemagne, and myself founded great empires; but upon what
did the creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone
founded His empire upon love, and to this very day millions would
die for him." Compared with such witnesses as these, the opponents
of Jesus Christ of to-day are pigmies so contemptible in mentality
and so questionable in morality as to be ruled out of every court of
testimony, where intellectual ability and moral worth have weight.
I summon thee, O execrable Judas. Behold him flinging down the
thirty pieces of silver before the chief priests and elders. Hear
him speak in his agony of soul: "I have sinned in that I have
betrayed the innocent blood." I summon thee, O Pontius Pilate,
with thy immortality of shame in the creeds of the ages. The Roman
Procurator washes his hands. Strange sight! He speaks: "I am
innocent of the blood of this just person." He speaks again: "I find
no fault in this man." I summon John, the heroic Baptist. Hear His
testimony: "Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the
world." O loving and divine John, the Evangelist, what thinkest thou
of the Christ? "He is the Vine, the Way, the Truth, the Light, and
the Word, and the Word was God." I summon thee, O matchless Paul.
What is thy testimony? "He is the image of the invisible God.... The
blest and only Potentate, the King of kings, the Lord of lords."
I summon thee, Apostle Peter, once confessor, then denier, but
afterward penitent witness and heroic martyr. What is thy testimony?
"He is the Christ, the Son of the living God." I summon thee, O
once doubting but always brave Thomas. Hear the testimony of this
witness as he falls at the Master's feet and exclaims, "My Lord and
my God!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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