FullReads

My honoured friends, if we are not practical, we are nothing. Now, the one main fault in the Christian Church is separation, repulsion, recoil between the component particles of the Lord’s body. I will not, I do not care to inquire who is more to blame than another in the evil fact. I only care to insist that it is the duty of every individual man to be innocent of the same. One main cause, perhaps I should say the one cause of this deathly condition, is that whereto we had, we did not, whereto we have attained, we do not walk by that. Ah, friend! do not now think of thy neighbour. Do not applaud my opinion as just from what thou hast seen around thee, but answer it from thy own being, thy own behaviour. Dost thou ever feel thus toward thy neighbour,–“Yes, of course, every man is my brother; but how can I be a brother to him so long as he thinks me wrong in what I believe, and so long as I think he wrongs in his opinions the dignity of the truth?” What, I return, has the man no hand to grasp, no eyes into which yours may gaze far deeper than your vaunted intellect can follow? Is there not, I ask, anything in him to love? Who asks you to be of one opinion? It is the Lord who asks you to be of one heart. Does the Lord love the man? Can the Lord love, where there is nothing to love? Are you wiser than he, inasmuch as you perceive impossibility where he has failed to discover it? Or will you say, “Let the Lord love where he pleases: I will love where I please”? or say, and imagine you yield, “Well, I suppose I must, and therefore I will,–but with certain reservations, politely quiet in my own heart”? Or wilt thou say none of all these things, but do them all, one after the other, in the secret chambers of thy proud spirit? If you delight to condemn, you are a wounder, a divider of the oneness of Christ. If you pride yourself on your loftier vision, and are haughty to your neighbour, you are yourself a division and have reason to ask: “Am I a particle of the body at all?” The Master will deal with thee upon the score. Let it humble thee to know that thy dearest opinion, the one thou dost worship as if it, and not God, were thy Saviour, this very opinion thou art doomed to change, for it cannot possibly be right, if it work in thee for death and not for life.

Friends, you have done me the honour and the kindness to ask me to speak to you. I will speak plainly. I come before you neither hiding anything of my belief, nor foolishly imagining I can transfer my opinions into your bosoms. If there is one role I hate, it is that of the proselytizer. But shall I not come to you as a brother to brethren? Shall I not use the privilege of your invitation and of the place in which I stand, nay, must I not myself be obedient to the heavenly vision, in urging you with all the power of my persuasion to set yourselves afresh to walk according to that to which you have attained. So doing, whatever yet there is to learn, you shall learn it. Thus doing, and thus only, can you draw nigh to the centre truth; thus doing, and thus only, shall we draw nigh to each other, and become brothers and sisters in Christ, caring for each other’s honour and righteousness and true well-being. It is to them that keep his commandments that he and his Father will come to take up their abode with them. Whether you or I have the larger share of the truth in that which we hold, of this I am sure, that it is to them that keep his commandments that it shall be given to eat of the Tree of Life. I believe that Jesus is the eternal son of the eternal Father; that in him the ideal humanity sat enthroned from all eternity; that as he is the divine man, so is he the human God; that there was no taking of our nature upon himself, but the showing of himself as he really was, and that from evermore: these things, friends, I believe, though never would I be guilty of what in me would be the irreverence of opening my mouth in dispute upon them. Not for a moment would I endeavour by argument to convince another of this, my opinion. If it be true, it is God’s work to show it, for logic cannot. But the more, and not the less, do I believe that he, who is no respecter of persons, will, least of all, respect the person of him who thinks to please him by respecting his person, calling him, “Lord, Lord,” and not doing the things that he tells him. Even if I be right, friend, and thou wrong, to thee who doest his commandments more faithfully than I, will the more abundant entrance be administered. God grant that, when thou art admitted first, I may not be cast out, but admitted to learn of thee that it is truth in the inward parts that he requireth, and they that have that truth, and they alone, shall ever know wisdom. Bear with me, friends, for I love and honour you. I seek but to stir up your hearts, as I would daily stir up my own, to be true to that which is deepest in us,–the voice and the will of the Father of our spirits.