The Good News of God. Charles Kingsley

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СКАЧАТЬ all: and it shall be to that poor soul as it was to poor deserted Hagar in the sandy desert, when the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast her child—the only thing she had left—under one of the shrubs and hurried away; for she said, ‘Let me not see the child die.’  And the angel of the Lord called to her out of heaven, saying, ‘The Lord hath heard the voice of the lad where he is;’ and God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water.

      It shall be with that poor soul as it was with Moses, when he went up alone into the mount of God, and fasted forty days and forty nights amid the earthquake and the thunderstorm, and the rocks which melted before the Lord.  And behold, when it was past, he talked face to face with God, as a man talketh with his friend, and his countenance shone with heavenly light, when he came down triumphant out of the mount of God.

      So shall it be with every soul of man who, being in the deep, cries out of that deep to God, whether in bloody India or in peaceful England.  For He with whom we have to do is not a tyrant, but a Father; not a taskmaster, but a Giver and a Redeemer.  We may ask him freely, as David does, to consider our complaint, because he will consider it well, and understand it, and do it justice.  He is not extreme to mark what is done amiss, and therefore we can abide his judgments.  There is mercy with him, and therefore it is worth while to fear him.  He waits for us year after year, with patience which cannot tire; therefore it is but fair that we should wait a while for him.  With him is plenteous redemption, and therefore redemption enough for us, and for those likewise whom we love.  He will redeem us from all our sins: and what do we need more?  He will make us perfect, even as our Father in heaven is perfect.  Let him then, if he must, make us perfect by sufferings.  By sufferings Christ was made perfect; and what was the best path for Jesus Christ is surely good enough for us, even though it be a rough and a thorny one.  Let us lie still beneath God’s hand; for though his hand be heavy upon us, it is strong and safe beneath us too; and none can pluck us out of his hand, for in him we live and move and have our being; and though we go down into hell with David, with David we shall find God there, and find, with David, that he will not leave our souls in hell, or suffer his holy ones to see corruption.  Yes; have faith in God.  Nothing in thee which he has made shall see corruption; for it is a thought of God’s, and no thought of his can perish.  Nothing shall be purged out of thee but thy disease; nothing shall be burnt out of thee but thy dross; and that in thee shall be saved, and live to all eternity, of which God said at the beginning, Let us make man in our own image.  Yes.  Have faith in God; and say to him once for all, ‘Though thou slay me, yet will I love thee; for thou lovedst me in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world.’

      SERMON IX

      THE LOVE OF GOD ITS OWN REWARD

Deut. xxx. 19, 20

      I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life that both thou and thy seed may live; that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest cleave unto him, for he is thy life and the length of thy days, that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord God sware unto thy fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give them.

      I spoke to you last Sunday on this text.  But there is something more in it, which I had not time to speak of then.

      Moses here tells the Israelites what will happen to them if they keep God’s law.

      They will love God.  That was to be their reward.  They were to have other rewards beside.  Beside loving God, it would be well with them and their children, and they would live long in the land which God had given them.  But their first reward, their great reward, would be that they would love God.

      If they obeyed God, they would have reason to love him.

      Now we commonly put this differently.

      We say, If you love God, you will obey him; which is quite true.  But what Moses says is truer still, and deeper still.  Moses says, If you obey God, you will love him.

      Again we say, If you love God, God will reward you; which is true; though not always true in this life.  But Moses says a truer and deeper thing.  Moses says that loving God is our reward; that the greatest reward, the greatest blessing which a man can have, is this—that the man should love God.  Now does this seem strange?  It is not strange, nevertheless.

      For there are two sorts of faith; and one must always, I sometimes think, come before the other.

      The first is implicit faith—blind faith—the sort of faith a child has in what its parents tell it.  A child, we know, believes its parents blindly, even though it does not understand what they tell it.  It takes for granted that they are right.

      The second is experimental faith—the faith which comes from experience and reason, when a man looks back upon his life, and on God’s dealings with him; and then sees from experience what reason he has for trusting and loving God, who has helped him onward through so many chances and changes for so many years.

      Now some people cry out against blind implicit faith, as if it was childish and unreasonable.  But I cannot.  I think every one learns to love his neighbour, very much as Moses told the Jews they would learn to love God; namely, by trusting them somewhat blindly at first.

      Is it not so?  Is it not so always with young people, when they begin to be fond of each other?  They trust each other, they do not know why, or how.  Before they are married, they have little or no experience of each other; of each other’s tempers and characters: and yet they trust each other, and say in their hearts, ‘He can never be false to me;’ and are ready to put their honour and fortunes into each other’s hands, to live together for better for worse, till death them part.  It is a blind faith in each other, that, and those who will may laugh at it, and call it the folly and rashness of youth.  I do not believe that God laughs at it: that God calls it folly and rashness.  It surely comes from God.

      For there is something in each of them worth trusting, worth loving.  True, they may be disappointed in each other; but they need not be.  If they are true to themselves; if they will listen to the better voice within, and be true to their own better feelings, all will be well, and they will find after marriage that they did not do a rash and a foolish thing, when they gave up themselves to each other, and cast in their lot together blindly to live and die.

      And then, after that first blind faith and love in each other which they had before marriage, will come, as the years roll by, a deeper, sounder faith and love from experience.—An experience of which I shall not talk here; for those who have not felt it for themselves would not know what I mean; and those who have felt it need no clumsy words of mine to describe it to them.

      Now, my dear friends, this is one of the things by which marriage is consecrated to an excellent mystery, as the Prayer-book says.  This is one of the things in which marriage is a pattern and picture of the spiritual union which is between Christ and his Church.

      First, as I said, comes blind faith.  A young person, setting out in life, has little experience of God’s love; he has little to make him sure that the way of life, and honour, and peace, is to obey God’s laws.  But he is told so.  His Bible tells him so.  Wiser and older people than he tell him so, and God himself tells him so.  God himself makes up in the young person’s heart a desire after goodness.

      Then he takes it for granted blindly.  He says to himself, I can but try.  They tell me to taste and see whether the Lord is gracious.  I will taste.  They tell me that the way of his commandments is the way to make life worth loving, and to see good days.  I will try.  And so the years go by.  The young person has grown middle-aged, old.  He or she has been through many trials, many disappointments; perhaps more than one bitter loss.  But if they have held fast by God; if they have tried, however clumsily, to keep God’s law, and walk in God’s way, СКАЧАТЬ