Church of England -- Sermons; Sermons, English -- 19th century
Ah, my
friends, herein is the glory of God: and he who will consider the
lilies of the field, how they grow, that man will see at last that
the highest, and therefore the truest, notion of God is, not that
the universe is continually going wrong, so that he has to interfere
and right it: but that the universe is continually going right,
because he hath given it a law which cannot be broken.
And when a man sees that, there will arise within his soul a clear
light, and an awful joy, and an abiding peace, and a sure hope; and
a faith as of a little child.
Then will that man crave no more for signs and wonders, with the
superstitious and the unbelieving, who have eyes, and see not; ears,
and cannot hear; whose hearts are waxen gross, so that they cannot
consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: but all his cry
will be to the Lord of Order, to make him orderly; to the Lord of
Law, to make him loyal; to the Lord in whom is nothing arbitrary, to
take out of him all that is unreasonable and self-willed; and make
him content, like his Master Christ before him, to do the will of
his Father in heaven, who has sent him into this noble world. He
will no longer fancy that God is an absent God, who only comes down
now and then to visit the earth in signs and wonders: but he will
know that God is everywhere, and over all things, from the greatest
to the least; for in God, he, and all things created, live and move
and have their being. And therefore, knowing that he is always in
the presence of God, he will pray to be taught how to use all his
powers aright, because all of them are the powers of God; pray to be
taught how to see, and how to hear; pray that when he is called to
account for the use of this wonderful body which God has bestowed on
him, he may not be brought to shame by the thought that he has used
it merely for his own profit or his own pleasure, much less by the
thought that he has weakened and diseased it by misuse and neglect:
but comforted by the thought that he has done with it what the Lord
Jesus did with his body--made it the useful servant, and not the
brutal master, of his immortal soul.
And he will do that, I believe, just as far as he keeps in mind what
a wonderful and useful thing his body is; what a perpetual token and
witness to him of the unspeakable greatness and wisdom of God; just
in proportion as he says day by day, with the Psalmist, 'Thou hast
fashioned me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such
knowledge is too wonderful and excellent for me; I cannot attain
unto it. Whither shall I go, then, from thy Spirit; or whither
shall I go from thy presence? If I climb up into heaven, thou art
there. If I go down to hell, thou art there also. If I take the
wings of the morning, and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there also shall thy hand lead me, thy right hand shall hold
me.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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