Unspoken Sermons, Series I., II., and III.MacDonald, George
Religion
Unspoken Sermons, Series I., II., and III.
MacDonald, George
Sermons, English -- 19th century
How, then, must the truth fare with those who, having neither glow nor
insight, will build intellectual systems upon the words of our Lord, or
of his disciples? A little child would better understand Plato than
they St Paul. The meaning in those great hearts who knew our Lord is
too great to enter theirs. The sense they find in the words must be a
sense small enough to pass through their narrow doors. And if mere
words, without the interpreting sympathy, may mean, as they may, almost
anything the receiver will or can attribute to them, how shall the man,
bent at best on the salvation of his own soul, understand, for
instance, the meaning of that apostle who was ready to encounter
banishment itself from the presence of Christ, that the beloved
brethren of his nation might enter in? To men who are not simple,
simple words are the most inexplicable of riddles.
If we are bound to search after what our Lord means--and he speaks that
we may understand--we are at least equally bound to refuse any
interpretation which seems to us unlike him, unworthy of him. He
himself says, "Why do ye not of your own selves judge what is right?"
In thus refusing, it may happen that, from ignorance or
misunderstanding, we refuse the verbal form of its true interpretation,
but we cannot thus refuse the spirit and the truth of it, for those we
could not have seen without being in the condition to recognize them as
the mind of Christ. Some misapprehension, I say, some obliquity, or
some slavish adherence to old prejudices, may thus cause us to refuse
the true interpretation, but we are none the less bound to refuse and
wait for more light. To accept that as the will of our Lord which to us
is inconsistent with what we have learned to worship in him already, is
to introduce discord into that harmony whose end is to unite our
hearts, and make them whole.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account