Unspoken Sermons, Series I., II., and III.MacDonald, George
Religion
Unspoken Sermons, Series I., II., and III.
MacDonald, George
Sermons, English -- 19th century
Didymus answers, "No doubt, what we know not now, we shall know
hereafter." Certainly there may be things which the mere passing into
another stage of existence will illuminate; but the questions that come
here, must be inquired into here, and if not answered here, then there
too until they be answered. There is more hid in Christ than we shall
ever learn, here or there either; but they that begin first to inquire
will soonest be gladdened with revelation; and with them he will be
best pleased, for the slowness of his disciples troubled him of old. To
say that we must wait for the other world, to know the mind of him who
came to this world to give himself to us, seems to me the foolishness
of a worldly and lazy spirit. The Son of God _is_ the Teacher of men,
giving to them of his Spirit--that Spirit which manifests the deep
things of God, being to a man the mind of Christ. The great heresy of
the Church of the present day is unbelief in this Spirit. The mass of
the Church does not believe that the Spirit has a revelation for every
man individually--a revelation as different from the revelation of the
Bible, as the food in the moment of passing into living brain and nerve
differs from the bread and meat. If we were once filled with the mind
of Christ, we should know that the Bible had done its work, was
fulfilled, and had for us passed away, that thereby the Word of our God
might abide for ever. The one use of the Bible is to make us look at
Jesus, that through him we might know his Father and our Father, his
God and our God. Till we thus know Him, let us hold the Bible dear as
the moon of our darkness, by which we travel towards the east; not dear
as the sun whence her light cometh, and towards which we haste, that,
walking in the sun himself, we may no more need the mirror that
reflected his absent brightness.
But this doctrine of the Spirit is not my end now, although, were it
not true, all our religion would be vain, that of St Paul and that of
Socrates. What I want to say and show, if I may, is, that a man will
please God better by believing some things that are not told him, than
by confining his faith to those things that are expressly said--said to
arouse in us the truth-seeing faculty, the spiritual desire, the prayer
for the good things which God will give to them that ask him.
"But is not this dangerous doctrine? Will not a man be taught thus to
believe the things he likes best, even to pray for that which he likes
best? And will he not grow arrogant in his confidence?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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