PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Great Texts of the Bible — Volume 8
James Hastings · 167,062 words · 172 reading sections
Section 61
ST. MATTHEW vi. 33 161 unity of one will, one purpose, one destiny. We are too apt to speak of an ideal as something wholly unattainable, and to excuse ourselves for not living the ideal life by saying that it is ideal ; that is not the sense in which our Lord speaks of the Kingdom of God. It is rather an ideal to be …
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TJ The return of Christ in bodily form to reign over His faith- ful ones, their own bodies rescued from death and the grave, is the aim and goal of our exultant hope. For that return His early followers eagerly waited. And their eager hope suggested that perhaps they might hear His voice and see His face without passin…
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6. God's righteousness is itself the very spirit of His own Kingdom. Christ does not here tell us merely to seek righteous- ness, though elsewhere we are thus bidden ; but to seek God's righteousness. Any righteousness which is of our own making, which we try to gain by standing aloof from Him, is worth nothing at all.…
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"We would fill the hours with the sweetest things If we had but one day; We should drink alone at the purest springs In our upward way ; "We should love with a lifetime's love in an hour If the hours were few; We should rest not for dreams, but for fresher power To be and to do. "We should waste no moments in weak…
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•ff It is as if a company of sculptors should spend all their time and effort providing pedestals, — some able to get only rough boulders from the wayside, others polishing and finishing fine shafts of purest marble, — but nobody thinking of carving a statue to set thereon. Or as if a company of painters busied themsel…
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And it was to make strong souls that Jesus came. Tj There is a story in the " Arabian Nights " of a prince who brought to the king, his father, a fairy tent folded into the con- fines of a walnut shell. When it was spread in the council chamber it sheltered the king and his counsellors. When taken out and spread in th…
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3. It is only when our hearts are on the chief thing that secondary things yield pleasure. It is possible to have a thing, and yet not to have the good of it. There it is in our hands, the very thing we wanted apparently, and yet it does not seem to be the thing we wanted. It is not the thing, but the aroma of pleasure…
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f This is the sovereign remedy : to believe utterly in the Heavenly Father's love and wisdom and make His Kingdom and His righteousness the supreme concerns, leaving all lesser interests in His hands. " Seek ye first his kingdom and his righteousness ; and all these things shall be added unto you." Here is the secret o…
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TJ The principle here enunciated is fundamental, underpinning the whole structure of human society. It is equitable, because all men are more nearly on an equality than might be inferred from a consideration of their outward circumstances. It is portable, " like the two-foot rule " which the artisan carries in his pock…
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1 D. Swing, Truths for To-Day, i. 34. 8 A. Pearson, Christus Magister, 261. ST. MATTHEW vn. 12 183 language intelligible and impressive to His Galilean hearers. The gospel morality needs no championship ; it only needs to be understood and felt. It has much that is manifestly higher than what human wisdom unenlighten…
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But there is a far more difficult case for the application of the Golden Rule than this. Suppose that you have fallen into some gross sin, and incurred a very severe punishment, what may we assume you would wish that men should do to you ? In ninety- nine cases out of a hundred the answer would be, " Let me off the pen…
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The answer is that the disciple of Jesus Christ is not only to love his neighbour as himself, but to love the Lord his God with all his heart and soul and mind and strength. And this latter commandment, the first and great one, has much to do with a man's relations to his fellow-men. It would, we might almost say, be e…
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1 Ruskin, The Crown of Wild Olive, % 39 ( Works, xviii. 420). 8 N. D. Hillis. i90 THE GOLDEN RULE God has made these our neighbours. And if we were in their place ! If we were the condemned, the pain-stricken, the crippled, the diseased, and they were here to-day in our places, in health and hope, what should we wish…
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Chafer (L. S.), True Evangelism, 54. Doda (M.), Christ and Man, 200. Goodrich (A.), in Tixe Sermon onthe Mount, iii. 105. Gun-aulus (F. W.), Paths to the City of God, 70. Hutton (J. A.), At Close Quarters, 181. Jones (J. D.), The Unfettered Word, 101. McAfee (C. B.), Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, L63. Macl…
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ST. MATTHEW vn. 13, 14 i97 that they so enter. And yet the knowledge may not be very express or clear. From want of reflection, from want of observ- ance of the real character and consequences of things, men may go on from youth to age without being aware that they pass through " gates " at all. They live as they list…
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ST. MATTHEW vn. r3, 14 199 safe rule, that a feeling of security is a warning to be suspicious, and that our safety is to feel the stretch and the energy of a continual strife. TJ There is an extraordinary confirmation of His teaching about the broad way in the attitude of those who among our- selves have rejected Ch…
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2. The ivay also is narrow. — The word used by the Bevisers here is " straitened." The figure contemplated is that of " double- dykes." There is a path between two properties, each measured off with its wall. Both walls approach as closely and compress- ingly as possible to the centre of the thoroughfare, which is the …
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3. The narrow way leads to life. — Life ! The mind alive in truth, the heart alive with full affection, the conscience alive in the vision of duty, and the enjoyment of peace, the soul alive in joyous communion with God. Life ! The activity of our finer faculties, the consciousness of their expansion, the enjoyment of …
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Selwyn). Churchman's Pulpit : Third Sunday after the Epiphany, iv. 52 (E. Palmer). Clergyman's Magazine, 3rd Ser., xi. 20 (W. Burrows). The Leper. And behold, there came to him a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And he stretched forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I…
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2. Now the exercise of faith must always precede healing. A certain moral temper there must be in the recipient, a certain spiritual outlook, a movement of trust, a personal desire of living interest that will go out from the soul towards the presence of Him who draws it into His mastery. These there must be if any vir…
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Tj Jesus did not treat slight ailments, only the most profound, obstinate, ghastly maladies. He did not concern Himself with simple aches and pains, but proved His Divine authority and efficacy in distinguishing leprosy, palsy, fever, blindness, and terrible psychic derangements. Numbers of reformers are prepared to de…
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^j The hand, more than any other limb or organ, differentiates man, begotten in the image of his Father, from the whole series of animal creations. No other animal has a hand. The corre- sponding organ in the anthropoid ape, which is the most like a hand, is not really a hand ; it can fashion nothing, it is fit for not…
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1. Salvation provides free access to God. When the Lord said, " I will ; be thou made clean," when He had put forth His healing hand, from that moment the man had a right of approach to the place where God's honour dwelt — he might again tread the courts of the Temple ; he might again offer his gifts ; he might once mo…
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^f During Sunday afternoons in June 1888, Professor Drum- mond delivered a series of religious addresses at Grosvenor House, London. After distinguishing between religion and theology, he said that the truth of Christianity is mani- fest in the fact that there is no real civilization without it, and that the purer the …
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TJ There was nothing in Eoman tax-gathering which made vice in that calling a necessary thing. In point of fact, the vice came from the outside. The master-publicans were men of rank and credit ; but they put their work into the hands of subordinates who were often taken from the slums. The vices these exhibited in the…
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That was not Christ's conception of the Healer's art and duty. The true Healer was he who dreaded no infection, who went fearlessly among the diseased, and sought to make them whole ; who gave eyes to the blind, ears to the deaf, feet to the lame, 1 James Hutchison Stirling : His Lift and Work, 57. ST. MATTHEW ix. 12…
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ST. MATTHEW ix. 12 227 reference to physicians in general, men who embodied such skill and knowledge as were then possible. Luke is called " the be- loved physician," and no doubt there were many beloved for their own sakes and honoured for their work's sake. But of exact science there was, of course, little or none, …
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ST. MATTHEW ix. 12 229 stoutest quail. To-day we take for granted the silence of the operating-room, but to reach this Elysium we had to travel the slow road of laborious research, which gave us first the chemical agents, and then brave hearts had to risk reputation, and even life itself, in experiments, the issue of …
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TI There is an Eastern legend about Christ so profound of meaning, so full of instruction, that we are half tempted to think that it must be true in fact as it is in feeling. On the high road, under the blistering sunlight, lay a poor, miserable dog that had died of starvation. Clouds of flies had begun to settle on th…
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T| A minister, when he had done preaching in a country village, said to a farm-labourer who had been listening to him, " Do you think Jesus Christ died to save good people, or had people ? " " Well, sir," said the man, " I should say He died to sa ve good people." " But did He die to save bad people ? " " No, sir ; no,…
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Tf Christ's way with sinners was to love them, to believe in their recoverability. He tackled the outcasts as an object-lesson in the possibilities of a loved humanity. To preach His Gospel to men is to announce your faith in a Divine something in them which will respond to the Divine something you bring to them. It is…
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2. Our real salvation, the things which refresh and put heart iuto us, are the simplicities of the gospel — the cup of cold water. 1 J. H. Jowett, in TJic Examiner, April 27, 1905. ST. MATTHEW x. 42 24T Charles Kingsley was a scientist, but he was a poet also in every fibre of his soul ; and it is only a scientist w…
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1 D. J. Burrell, The Unaccountable Man, 222, ST. MATTHEW x. 42 243 Christ has evoked, it would be found that they have formed the starting-point of influences that have told materially upon the well-being of mankind. Tj The other morning I saw an ingenious machine which told with the minutest exactitude the strength…
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ST. MATTHEW x. 42 245 From thy hand, and thy heart, and thy brave cheer, And God's grace fructify through thee to all. The least flower, with a brimming cup, may stand, And share its dewdrop with another near.1 3. The greatest things are poor, if the little things are not done — those minor courtesies which do so muc…
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As he sits down in the snow outside the gates, musing of sunnier climes, he hears once more the leper's voice, " For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms." The knight turns to the sound and sees again the leper cowering beside him, lone and white : And Sir Launfal said, " I behold in thee An image of Him who died on th…
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1. What is the reward of heaven ? " Eternal life," people say. Yes ! " Blessedness." Yes ! But where does the life come from, and where does the blessedness come from ? They are both derived, they come from God in Christ ; and in the deepest sense, and in the only true sense, God is heaven, and God is the reward of hea…
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1 St. Thomas Aquinas, Sv/inma Theologica, Prima Secundae, Ixix. § 2. 3 St. Ambrose. 252 THE MINISTRY OF SMALL THINGS be all stained and imperfect, yet, to our own amazement and to God's glory, we shall find, when the fire is kindled which reveals and tests our works, that, by the might of humble faith in Christ, we h…
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2. Those to whom Jesus spoke that day in Galilee were con- spicuously the labouring and the heavy laden. They were a labouring and a heavy-laden people, because they were in the worst sense a conquered people. The lake district was rich in national products, the fields brought forth largely, and the lake with its fishi…
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TJ " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you." It is thus that this saying of Jesus is rendered in the Latin Bible, and, after it, in the version of old John Wycliffe. And thus rendered, it was associated by the devout men of mediaeval days with the sacred ordinance of the Supper. "…
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(1) First, He invites those who labour; or, perhaps more correctly, all who are toiling. Can we venture to reconstruct the scene? Close beside Him stand His immediate disciples, who alone had been privileged to hear the language of His prayer. But beyond the circle of His immediate followers is gathered a crowd of the …
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(4) But primarily Christ addressed Himself to the sin problem. Indisputably sin is the cause of all unrest, the poison which has fevered every life. Sin is the root of all the weakness and weariness which rob life of its true quality. Sin it is that blurs the vision of God, and blinds men to His unfailing nearness and …
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ST. MATTHEW xi. 28 265 of His peace which the world can neither give nor take away, because it is God's gift only. Such peace may undergo many an assault, but it will be confirmed thereby, and rise above all that would trouble it. He who has tasted it would not give it in ex- change for all this life can give : and de…
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I hear the low voice call that bids me come, — Me, even me, with all my grief opprest, With sins that burden my unquiet breast, And in my heart the longing that is dumb, 1 Life Radiant: Memorials of the Rev. Francis Paynter, 144. ST. MATTHEW xi. 28 267 Yet beats forever, like a muffled drum, For all delights whereof…
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1 Hugh Black. 2 Memoir of Principal Tulloch, 202. Rest Under the Yoke. jt^ Literature. Ainger (A.), Sermons Preached in the Temple Church, 30. Allon (H.), The Indwelling Christ, 43. Brandt (J. L.), Soul Saving, 251. Burrows (W. 0.), The Mystery of the Cross, 141. Chadwick (W. E.), Clirist and Everyday Life, 11.…
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I. The Yoke — " Take my yoke upon you." II. The Lesson — " Learn of me." III. The Rest — " Ye shall find rest unto your souls." I. The Yoke. " Take my yoke upon you." 1. When Jesus spoke these words He referred to the yoke He Himself wore ae Man. That was the yoke of a perfect surrender to the will of God, and abso…
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3. Ease comes by practice. When we have fully surrendered ourselves to Christ, the yoke becomes easy and the burden light. To yield to Christ, to obey His conditions, brings us into harmony with the eternal order of things, and makes us realize this ; we know, when once we have yielded and obeyed, that we are in the sp…
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^| It must have been at one of the early meetings [with University students at Edinburgh], when he had for text the grand Gospel invitation in the end of the eleventh of Matthew, that Mr. Drummond used an illustration which caught their 1 0. Silvester Hume. 2 Erskioe of Linlathea. ST. MATTHEW xi. 29, 30 277 atten…
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1 R. W. Barbonr, Thoughts, 10.". 112. s A. Mu'lareu, A Rotary of Christian Grace*, 154. ST. MATTHEW xi. 29, 30 279 III. The Rest. "Ye shall find rest unto your souls." 1. When we respond to Christ's invitation and come to Him, we enter into the rest of faith. The very act of trust brings tranquillity, even when t…
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^ When our surrender is made, the pain of our sacrifice is great in proportion to our former selfishness. It is also harder to bear, or more protracted when there is any looking back. When we have once renounced our self-will and deliberately chosen the Will of God, if we look back we not only expose our- selves to gri…
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1 S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Service, 79. My Church. a85 Literature. Al.liott (L.), Signs of Promise, 157. Adeney (\V. F.), in Men of the New Testament, 109. Book (W. H.), The Columbus Tabernacle Sermons, 142. Brown (0. K.), The Young Man's Affairs, 139. Burrell (D. J.), Tlie Spirit of the Age, 296. Clow ( W…
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What Christ says, then, is not, " On you and your successors in ecclesiastical office I will build My Church " ; not, " On what you have said I will build My Church " ; but, " On you as a man transformed by the power of an indwelling Christ, on you as the type of a long liue of humanity growing broader through the swee…
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TI Mr. Bernard Shaw (who asks not for a new kind of philosophy but for a new kind of man) cannot understand that the thing which is valuable and lovable in our eyes is man — the old beer-drinking, creed-making, fighting, failing, sensual, respect- able man. And the things that have been founded on this creature immorta…
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1 H. P. Liddon, The Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jtsus Christ, 101. ST. MATTHEW xvi. 18 293 fulfilled through His Spirit, under a sense of His presence. " Ubi Christus, ibi cccksia." Where Christ is, there is the Church. It is the organ through which the great truths He preached, those of God, of the meaning and …
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1 W. L. Watkinson. ST. MATTHEW xvi. 18 295 all builders under Hi 111 — masons, carpenters, hodmen — and the business of these people, from the foreman of the works right downward, is to carry out the Architect's plan.1 Tj A foundation must be hidden and out of sight unto all those that outwardly look upon the house.…
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TJ In the middle of the last century all literary and philo- sophical people in this country were writing down the Church, saying its last days were come: when bishops like Butler were apologizing for Christianity, and historians like David Hume were predicting that by the end of the century it would be among the dead …
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Now, at this very moment a child's voice from the neighbour- ing house began repeating in a kind of chant : " Take and read, take and read." Augustin shuddered. What was this refrain ? Was it a nursery-rhyme that the little children of the countryside used to sing ? He could not recollect it ; he had never heard it bef…
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1. If we refer to another occasion upon which Christ used this metaphor of the keys, we shall find that Christ was accustomed to associate with the expression knowledge and the specific power that comes from knowledge. To the lawyers He said, " Ye took away the key of knowledge." The reference here can only be to the k…
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Tj In a chapter of reminiscences which is given at the end of the second volume of the Letters of Erskine of Linlathen, Principal Shairp writes ; " Mr. Erskine utterly repudiated the character which Eenan's Vie de JSsus drew of our Lord, and almost resented the fatuity which could separate with a sharp line the moralit…
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T| Francis of Assisi is pre-eminently the saint of the Middle Ages. Owing nothing to church or school, he was truly theo- didact, and if he perhaps did not perceive the revolutionary bearing of his preaching, he at least always refused to be ordained priest. He divined the superiority of the spiritual priesthood. The c…
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ST. MATTHEW xvi. 19 311 was no slight comfort to Lave it declared, by the one authority which all Christians acknowledged as Divine, that there were those living on the earth on whose judgment in these disputed matters the Church might rely with implicit confidence. In the highest sense of all, doubtless, this judgmen…
1,155 wordsSource & rights
Public-domain historical edition (1910); OCR text from Internet Archive. OCR may contain scanning/transcription errors. Verify quotations against page images when precision matters.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.