Читать книгу Plain Parochial Sermons, preached in the Parish Church of Bolton-le-Moors онлайн

12 страница из 33

Say, Christian people, have ye never seen the triumph of faith over nature’s weakness and Satan’s power? have ye never, in the hour of trial, witnessed that the Saviour was near? never observed the fainting spirit animated and sustained? never beheld the closing eye, of the dying saint, beaming with heavenly fire; and the pale features lighted up with the smile of satisfaction and composure and peace? If ye have not, the dying Christian will shew you these things—go to his bed, and learn the lesson; go, and catch the hope, that “Christ will give you light.”

ssss1

Eph. iii 8.

The unsearchable riches of Christ.

There is no passage, in the whole range of Scripture, in which the benefits and blessings of the gospel are more strikingly and fully represented, than by these few words: it is elsewhere described as the “pearl of great price,” as “the treasure that fadeth not away,” as “the true riches;” but here, as if in addition to the former descriptions, it is called, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, “the unsearchable riches of Christ:” impossible for men, impossible for angels to search out and discover its full excellency and value. The more it is examined, and the more it is experimentally known, the more is the believer convinced of the propriety and truth of this description; without a deep enquiry indeed, without a vital experience of its blessedness, it is not for any one to understand even the nature of its transcendent riches; to the world at large they are known only by name: but the sincere Christian, who makes them his own, is brought to admire their inexhaustible fulness; and to perceive, how utterly they extend beyond his comprehension, how highly they are removed above his loftiest thoughts and his most ardent imagination: “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” [21] They lie entirely out of the reach of the natural man; and even the spiritual man does but imperfectly understand them.