Twenty-Five Village Sermons

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Charles Kingsley. Twenty-Five Village Sermons

SERMON I. GOD’S WORLD

SERMON II. RELIGION NOT GODLINESS

SERMON III. LIFE AND DEATH

SERMON IV. THE WORK OF GOD’S SPIRIT

SERMON V. FAITH

SERMON VI. THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH

SERMON VII. RETRIBUTION

SERMON VIII. SELF-DESTRUCTION

SERMON IX. HELL ON EARTH

SERMON X. NOAH’S JUSTICE

SERMON XI. THE NOACHIC COVENANT

SERMON XII. ABRAHAM’S FAITH

SERMON XIII. ABRAHAM’S OBEDIENCE

SERMON XIV. OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN

SERMON XV. THE TRANSFIGURATION

SERMON XVI. THE CRUCIFIXION

SERMON XVII. THE RESURRECTION

SERMON XVIII. IMPROVEMENT

SERMON XIX. MAN’S WORKING DAY

SERMON XX. ASSOCIATION

SERMON XXI. HEAVEN ON EARTH

SERMON XXII. NATIONAL PRIVILEGES

SERMON XXIII. LENTEN THOUGHTS

SERMON XXIV. ON BOOKS

SERMON XXV. THE COURAGE OF THE SAVIOUR

Отрывок из книги

Did you ever remark, my friends, that the Bible says hardly any thing about religion—that it never praises religious people?  This is very curious.  Would to God we would all remember it!  The Bible speaks of a religious man only once, and of religion only twice, except where it speaks of the Jews’ religion to condemn it, and shews what an empty, blind, useless thing it was.

What does this Bible talk of, then?  It talks of God; not of religion, but of God.  It tells us not to be religious, but to be godly.  You may think there is no difference, or that it is but a difference of words.  I tell you that a difference in words is a very awful, important difference.  A difference in words is a difference in things.  Words are very awful and wonderful things, for they come from the most awful and wonderful of all beings, Jesus Christ, the Word.  He puts words into men’s minds—He made all things, and He makes all words to express those things with.  And woe to those who use the wrong words about things!—For if a man calls any thing by its wrong name, it is a sure sign that he understands that thing wrongly, or feels about it wrongly; and therefore a man’s words are oftener honester than he thinks; for as a man’s words are, so is a man’s heart; out of the abundance of our hearts our mouths speak; and, therefore, by right words, by the right names which we call things, we shall be justified, and by our words, by the wrong names we call things, we shall be condemned.

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What does this text teach us?  To look at God as Him who gives to all freely and upbraideth not.  It says to us,—Do not suppose that your crops grow of themselves.  God waters the hills from above.  He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and the green herb for the service of man.  Do not suppose that He cares nothing about seeing you comfortable and happy.  It is He, He only who sends all which strengthens man’s body, and makes glad his heart, and makes him of a cheerful countenance.  His will is that you should be cheerful.  Ah, my friends, if we would but believe all this!—we are too apt to say to ourselves, ‘Our earthly comforts here have nothing to do with godliness or God, God must save our souls, but our bodies we must save ourselves.  God gives us spiritual blessings, but earthly blessings, the good things of this life, for them we must scramble and drudge ourselves, and get as much of them as we can without offending God;’—as if God grudged us our comforts! as if godliness had not the promise of this life as well as the life to come!  If we would but believe that God knows our necessities before we ask—that He gives us daily more than we can ever get by working for it!—if we would but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all other things would be added to us; and we should find that he who loses his life should save it.  And this way of looking at God’s earth would not make us idle; it would not tempt us to sit with folded hands for God’s blessings to drop into our mouths.  No! I believe it would make men far more industrious than ever mere self-interest can make them; they would say, ‘God is our Father, He gave us His own Son, He gives us all things freely, we owe Him not slavish service, but a boundless debt of cheerful gratitude.  Therefore we must do His will, and we are sure His will must be our happiness and comfort—therefore we must do His will, and His will is that we should work, and therefore we must work.  He has bidden us labour on this earth—He has bidden us dress it and keep it, conquer it and fill it for Him.  We are His stewards here on earth, and therefore it is a glory and an honour to be allowed to work here in God’s own land—in our loving Father’s own garden.  We do not know why He wishes us to labour and till the ground, for He could have fed us with manna from heaven if He liked, as He fed the Jews of old, without our working at all.  But His will is that we should work; and work we will, not for our own sakes merely, but for His sake, because we know He likes it, and for the sake of our brothers, our countrymen, for whom Christ died.’

Oh, my friends, why is it that so many till the ground industriously, and yet grow poorer and poorer for all their drudging and working?  It is their own fault.  They till the ground for their own sakes, and not for God’s sake and for their countrymen’s sake; and so, as the Prophet says, they sow much and bring in little, and he who earns wages earns them to put in a bag full of holes.  Suppose you try the opposite plan.  Suppose you say to yourself, ‘I will work henceforward because God wishes me to work.  I will work henceforward for my country’s sake, because I feel that God has given me a noble and a holy calling when He set me to grow food for His children, the people of England.  As for my wages and my profit, God will take care of them if they are just; and if they are unjust, He will take care of them too.  He, at all events, makes the garden and the field grow, and not I.  My land is filled, not with the fruit of my work, but with the fruit of His work.  He will see that I lose nothing by my labour.  If I till the soil for God and for God’s children, I may trust God to pay me my wages.’  Oh, my friends, He who feeds the young birds when they call upon Him; and far, far more, He who gave you His only-begotten Son, will He not with Him freely give you all things?  For, after all done, He must give to you, or you will not get.  You may fret and stint, and scrape and puzzle; one man may sow, and another man may water; but, after all, who can give the increase but God?  Can you make a load of hay, unless He has first grown it for you, and then dried it for you?  If you would but think a little more about Him, if you would believe that your crops were His gifts, and in your hearts offer them up to Him as thank-offerings, see if He would not help you to sell your crops as well as to house them.  He would put you in the way of an honest profit for your labour, just as surely as He only put you in the way of labouring at all.  “Trust in the Lord, and be doing good; dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed;” for “without me,” says our Lord, “you can do nothing.”  No: these are His own words—nothing.  To Him all power is given in heaven and earth; He knows every root and every leaf, and feeds it.  Will He not much more feed you, oh ye of little faith?  Do you think that He has made His world so ill that a man cannot get on in it unless he is a rogue?  No.  Cast all your care on Him, and see if you do not find out ere long that He cares for you, and has cared for you from all eternity.

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