Ephesians iii. 18, 19.
That ye may be able to comprehend with all saints,
what is the breadth and length and depth and height,
and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.
These words are very deep, and difficult to understand;
for St. Paul does not tell us exactly of what he is
speaking. He does not say what it is, the breadth
and length, and depth, and height of which we are
to comprehend and take in. Only he tells us afterwards
what will come of our taking it in; we shall know
the love of Christ.
And therefore many great fathers and divines, whose
names there is no need for me to tell you, but whose
opinions we must always respect, have said that what
St. Paul is speaking of is, the Cross of Christ.
Of course they do not mean the wood of which the actual
cross was made. They mean the thing of which
the cross was a sign and token.
Now of what is the cross a token?
Of the love of Christ, which is the love of God.
But of what kind of love?
Not the love which is satisfied with sitting still
and enjoying itself, as long as nothing puts it out,
and turns its love to anger— what we call
mere good nature and good temper; not that, not that,
my friends: but love which will dare, and do,
and yearn, and mourn; love which cannot rest; love
which sacrifices itself; love which will suffer, love
which will die, for what it loves;—such
love as a father has, who perishes himself to save
his drowning child.
Now the cross of Christ is a token to us, that God’s
love to us is like that: a love which will dare
anything, and suffer anything, for the sake of saving
sinful man.
And therefore it is, that from the earliest times
the cross has been the special sign of Christians.
We keep it up still, when we make the sign of the
cross on children’s foreheads in baptism:
but we have given up using the sign of the cross
commonly, because it was perverted, in old times,
into a superstitious charm. Men worshipped the
cross like an idol, or bits of wood which they fancied
were pieces of the actual cross, while they were forgetting
what the cross meant. So the use of the cross
fell into disrepute, and was put down in England.
But that is no reason why we should forget what the
cross meant, and means now, and will mean for ever.
Indeed, the better Christians, the better men we
are, the more will Christ’s cross fill us with
thoughts which nothing else can give us; thoughts which
we are glad enough, often, to forget and put away;
so bitterly do they remind us of our own laziness,
selfishness, and love of pleasure.
But still, the cross is our sign. It is God’s
everlasting token to us, that he has told us Christians
something about himself which none of the wisest among
the heathen knew; which infidels now do not know;
which nothing but the cross can teach to men.
