The Good News of God eBook

and believe really that he is now what he always was, the friend of publicans and sinners, and love one another as he gave us commandment.  That was Christ’s spirit; the fairest, the noblest spirit upon earth; the spirit of God whose mercy is over all his works; and hereby shall we know that Christ abideth in us, by his having given us the same spirit of pity, charity, fellow-feeling and love for every human being round us.

And now, I will also give you one lesson to carry home with you—­a lesson which if we all could really believe and obey, the world would begin to mend from to-morrow, and every other good work on earth would prosper and multiply tenfold, a hundredfold—­ay, beyond all our fairest dreams.  And my lesson is this.  When you go out from this church into those crowded streets, remember that there is not a soul in them who is not as precious in God’s eyes as you are; not a little dirty ragged child whom Jesus, were he again on earth, would not take up in his arms and bless; not a publican or a harlot with whom, if they but asked him, he would not eat and drink—­now, here, in London on this Sunday, the 8th of June, 1856, as certainly as he did in Jewry beyond the seas, eighteen hundred years ago.  Therefore do to all who are in want of your help as Jesus would do to them if he were here; as Jesus is doing to them already:  for he is here among us now, and for ever seeking and saving that which was lost; and all we have to do is to believe that, and work on, sure that he is working at our head, and that though we cannot see him, he sees us; and then all will prosper at last, for this brave old earth whereon we are living now, and for that far braver new heaven and new earth whereon we shall live hereafter.

SERMON XXXIV.  THE SEA OF GLASS

(Trinity Sunday.)

Revelation iv. 9, 10, 11.

And when those beasts give glory, and honour, and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, the four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power:  for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

The Church bids us read this morning the first chapter of Genesis, which tells us of the creation of the world.  Not merely on account of that most important text, which, according to some divines, seems to speak of the ever-blessed Trinity, and brings in God as saying, ‘Let us make man in our image;’ not, Let me make man in my image; but, Let us, in our image.—­Not merely for this reason is Gen. i. a fit lesson for Trinity Sunday:  but because it tells us of the whole world, and all that is therein, and who made it, and how.  It does not tell us why God made the world; but the Revelations