Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

with the filthy conversation of the wicked, how did he from day to day by seeing and hearing, vex his righteous soul with their ungodly deeds! Very loud and rude were the people of Sodom in their wickedness, they made no secret of it, they prided themselves on shewing and practising it in the open streets and this all the more, when they saw how it shocked and distressed the righteous man. They were as truly persecutors as if they had sought to throw him to the wild beasts or to cast him down headlong. Our blessed Lord as His Passion drew on vouchsafed to endure more and more of this kind of persecution as well as of all other outward and inward suffering. When he saw Judas giving way to covetousness first, then to black-hearted malice and treachery; was it not, think you, a sorer pang by far to the heart of that Blessed One, than all the torment of the thorns, and stripes, and nails? Imagine my brethren, as well as you can, what it must have been to Him to look down day after day and hour after hour for many months into that wicked and corrupt bosom of His false disciple, and to see the evil brood of sins one after another coming into being, and growing into strength within him! according to that saying of the Prophet, "They hatch cockatrice's eggs, and weave the spider's web." Even to a mortal man who has any real love of goodness, to be aware of certain grievous sins committed very near him, is absolutely loathsome who can understand that deep suffering Judas' fall must have occasioned to our Lord Christ? the Scripture teaches us to call the like of it, "crucifying afresh:" is not this the worst of persecution?

c Isa. lix. 5.

And as Jesus Christ was, so are they that belong to Him, in this world. If it was unspeakably bitter to Him to see the wickedness of those whom He came to save, be sure it is bitter, in its degree, to His people also; the more bitter, the more truly and entirely they are His. Not bitter in the sense of making them angry, as if they were better than the rest, and it were an affront and indignity to have any thing so foul brought near them; that is the Pharisaical feeling, not the Christian; but he who is beginning to love Christ will love all souls because Christ died for them, and loving them, it will break his heart to see them ruining themselves and affronting Christ. Now to bring upon a person that which will break his heart is surely very like persecution. You see then brethren, what you were doing, if ever any of you through wicked wantonness, and braving as it were all consequences, has been tempted to make a shew of any sin, and bring it on purpose before the eyes of persons who would be most shocked at it, not caring how you annoyed and vexed them. Is it so very uncommon a thing, for a person to swear, or utter other bad words, or go on with other wickedness, all the more recklessly and impudently because there is some one near whom such things shock and distress, and who feels it his duty to speak a word of warning against them? Alas, when young persons or persons of any age are gathered together not in the fear of God, when they are set to have their own way, to please themselves with all greediness, too certainly they will be guilty of this sin of persecution too: him who is unwilling to sin with them they will persecute by mockery and ridicule, and when, being

helped by God's grace, he shews himself unmoved by their scorn, they will often still go on to persecute him, as the men of Sodom did Lot, by the very sight of their sins. "He will needs be a judge," they say: "now will we behave ourselves more fearlessly than ever, to shew that we do not care for him." This is direct persecution: but it is also quite real, though less direct, when people suffer from beholding the general wickedness and unbelief, uttered and practised, without any thought of them. A man writes and publishes, we will say, a scornful sentence against something holy in a book or a newspaper: that man is a persecutor: he sets himself to vex and punish all who are pained, when holy things are set at nought. Or it may be a profane word spoken: the pain and persecution to a believing hearer, is just the same. By this one instance you may judge what a common sin this of persecution is: and it will no longer sound strange to you to be told, "Even so it is now, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution."

Fearful indeed must it be to take part with the persecutors, i. e., to take part with the Jews and Judas against our Lord: but one word of caution may be not amiss, for those also on the other side, who wish to do right, and are therefore in danger of suffering persecution. Our Lord encourages them not only to be patient but joyful: "theirs," he says, "is the kingdom of Heaven:" well may they rejoice and leap for joy, for they are beginning to enter into the portion of the Saints and Prophets. But let them be very careful that their suffering is really for right

d 2 Tim. iii. 12.

eousness' sake, that they do not bring it on by any conceit, any inconsiderate selfish ways of their own: if the Ishmaels, the children of the bondwoman, seem to persecute them, let them see to it that they are themselves not in bondage to any sin: let them make good their title to be free by forgiving and loving and doing their best to help others to be free also in fear and pity earnestly praying for all who are now on the persecutor's side, and if they may, tenderly warning them of the peril they are in, in so taking part with Christ's enemies.

SERMON XXXI.

GOD'S WAYS OF PROVIDING FOR OUR BODIES AND OUR SOULS.

FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT.

S. JOHN vi. 5.

"Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat?"

THINK for a moment, my brethren, Who asked this question. It was the Creator of Heaven and earth, the Maker and Provider both of all food that is eaten, and of all who are nourished by food. He gave His blessing in the first place to the earth, that it should have power and virtue to bring forth what might nourish and sustain life. Every hour He continues that blessing, not only to the great world altogether, but to each little insect and blade of grass; He cares and provides for each one as perfectly as if there were only that one to be cared and provided for. He it was and no other; it was the great Almighty Creator Himself, Who as He stood that day on the grassy mountain near the sea of Tiberias, and saw a great company come unto Him, now after many hours of attendance, had pity upon them, knowing that they were faint and weary, and the provisions with which they had left their home, if any, had been exhausted, and He, the All-knowing

« AnteriorContinuar »