Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

but is now turning a suicidal hand against itself. It is a question whether even the name of Christianity will survive the killing tendency of its own dogmas, though the immortal spirit of its religion-its faith, hope and love-can never be utterly quenched.

Finally, of Jesus too it may be said there is a letter and a spirit. A letter in the narratives of His life and teaching, the errors and blemishes of which would not soon exhaust criticism, and which ought long ago to have opened the eyes of Christians to the fact that either the historians wrote falsely, or else that the subject of their narratives was very fallible indeed. This letter kills not only the pretentious claims of Godhead made for Christ, but even that reverence for him as a great and good man, which not even the Jews of to-day would withhold.

But the spirit of his life is quite different. Not the sharpest critic will deny that he must have been good up to the light he had, friendly to all who needed friendship, going about doing what good he was able to perform, noble and manly in braving priestly and popular fury, and dying at last without resentment at his wrongs, and with words of forgiveness on his lips. Against such virtues there is no law, and they are enough to make us tender of his faults and to judge his errors with the same mercy with which he judged his fellow-men.

If you ever complain that these merits of the spirit in the Bible, in Christianity and in Christ are not worthily and adequately dwelt upon from this pulpit, do not blame me, but blame the Bible-worshippers, the Christian world, the idolaters of Jesus, the tenacious bigotry and obstinacy with which orthodoxy is held, and last, not least, the way in which the sword of the letter-not the sword of the spirit-is wielded by the champions of Christendom to slay our trust in God, our love for all mankind, and our hopes for the world to come. Blame not me for attacking venerable beliefs and ancient scriptures, while they are used to darken the face of God and to distort by fierce passions the vision of man; while they are used, not to set free the poor captives and bring peace to the sorrowful, but "to bind upon men's shoulders burdens grievous to be borne," and to make sad the hearts of those whom God has bidden to rejoice.

When the cruel letter has done its work and filled up the measure of its murderous cup with its own gore, the immortal spirit of all that is true and good and lovely will escape from the lifeless clay in which it has been imprisoned, and rise triumphant to its rightful throne in the hearts of living men who have so long waited and prayed and toiled for the Kingdom of God,

CARTER & WILLIAMS, Printers, 14, Bishopsgate Avenue, Camomile Street, E.C.

The Sure Refuge.

A SERMON,

PREACHED AT ST. GEORGE'S HALL, LANGHAM
PLACE, JUNE 27, 1875, BY THE

REV.

CHARLES VOYSEY.

PSALM, xlvi., 1. "God is our hope and strength: a very present help in trouble."

W

E stand, as I have often said, between those who believe too much and those who believe too little. But if by the word "believe," we mean having a filial trust in the good purposes and wise providence of a Heavenly Father, we cannot believe too much; whereas if we mean by "believing" the acceptance of a system of dogma containing statements which violate alike our Reason and our Consciences we cannot believe too little.

In my present state of mind I confess that it seems better to believe nothing than to believe a lie; better to have no God than one in whom it is impossible to trust and whom it would be degrading to adore; and yet better, on the other hand, to hold a partially erroneous belief so long as it is compatible with trust and adoration, than to have no God at all. If by being orthodox and realizing all that orthodoxy implies and involves so as to make trust and reverence for God impossible, religion were thus blighted and destroyed, it would be far better to be an Atheist at once. But if by being a Roman Catholic some precious sense of peace and trust in God were secured to us, then such a religion with all its errors were surely better than Atheism.

The problem we have to solve is to avoid both of these

Rev. C. Voysey's sermons are to be obtained at St. George's Hall, every Sunday morning, or from the Author (by post), Camden House, Dulwich, S.E. Price one penny postage a halfpenny.

extremes and to discover and proclaim a Faith in God which shall on the one hand be free from incredible and immoral dogmas, and on the other dispel the gloom and darkness of utter Godlessness.

Some of us think that this problem has been solved, at all events to their own satisfaction; and it can never be too often repeated that the great body of Theists all the world over have arrived at their conclusions independently of each other and of any external authority, and solely by the working of their own minds in the rejection of the errors of their childhood, and aided by that very progress in physical science which many deem fatal to all belief whatever.

And having found this faith for themselves they turn not unnaturally to seek for traces of it elsewhere, not only in the thoughts and sayings of the present, but in the time-honoured records of the past. And sure enough they find it embedded like gems in the strata of ancient creeds, or glittering like particles of gold in stream-beds of thought long since dry. In the Jewish Scriptures these precious relics richly abound, and our delight and admiration are heightened by knowing that they were crystalized into radiant form in times analogous to our own, when superstition and practical atheism abounded, when blood was flowing from Levitical altars, when the rites of Baal and Moloch defiled the land and men were causing their sons and daughters to pass through the fires to propitiate the wrath of heaven. Not only so, but when men were trampling on all Divine law, and the earth was stained by oppression and lust, when neither Baal, nor Ashtoreth, nor Jehovah could keep them from deeds of outrage and violence, and there was "no fear of God before their eyes."

I said those times were analogous to our own; I do not mean that they were in all respects similar, either in the kind or degree of infamy which marked them. But in broad outlines we may trace some parallel between them and the age in which we live; and it is a fact significant to the last degree that "Holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" within them to testify against the degrading superstitions and the reckless infidelity which surrounded them, bearing testimony in language of piety, trust, and righteousness of soul never surpassed.

And it seems that we cannot do better than follow their example. With one hand they grasped a sword and with the other they builded. They denounced in no uncertain and effeminate mildness the evils and errors around them. They spared neither king nor peasant, neither rich nor poor, neither priest nor people. And in their intervals of rest from the terrible warfare they sat them down and sang immortal songs of praise and hope and never-failing trust in Him who was "their hope and strength, their very present help in time of trouble." Thus they shewed what was in their heart of hearts, and literally saved their people from their errors and sins, sowing the salt of their own pure faith and uprightness which survive in their nation to this very day.

When we think of what abasement prevailed when these glorious thoughts of God were first proclaimed, and then trace their course down through all the ages since, through all the perils to which they were exposed and the intense fire of persecution which ever threatened their extinction, we are driven to see in their survival and in their universal overthrow of the errors at which they were aimed the hand of Divine Providence whose "truth endureth from generation to generation."

The Psalm which I have taken as my text is the expression of entire trust and confidence in God-no matter what may happen, no matter what people may say, no not even if whole kingdoms be shaken by the sound of impending danger.

"God is our hope and strength: a very present help in trouble.

2. Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be moved, and though the hills be carried into the midst of the sea;

3. Though the waters thereof rage and swell, and though the mountains shake at the tempest of the same;

4. The rivers of the flood thereof shall make glad the city of God; the holy place of the tabernacle of the most Highest.

5. God is in the midst of her, therefore shall she not be removed: God shall help her, and that right early.

6. The heathen make much ado, and the kingdoms are moved: but God hath shewed his voice, and the earth shall melt away.

« AnkstesnisTęsti »