Christian Believing and Living; Sermons

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1860. Excerpt: ... SERMON XX. LIFE, SALVATION, AND COMFORT FOR MAN IN THE DIVINE TRINITY. GO YE, THEREFORE, AND TEACH ALL NATIONS, BAPTIZING THEM IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF The Holy GnosT.--Matthew xxviii. 19. The Saviour spoke these words at a moment fitted above all others for a clear and full declaration of the fundamental article of Christian belief. It was at the end of his visible ministry on earth and his outward connection with his people. It was when he was commissioning his chosen disciples to their work, --a work which was to take up and bear on his own work through all the future ages. In every respect, it was the natural and fitting time for the decisive, explicit communication of the one essential characteristic truth of his religion. The teaching Church was then to be told what was to be taught. That central and sublime verity on which the whole matter of the Gospel rested was to be condensed into a brief, comprehensive, significant sentence. This is the last hour. It is the critical and awful meeting and commingling of two wondrous periods, --the period of the Incarnation, and of the everlasting age of the organized Christian commonwealth. Now, if ever, Christ will distinctly proclaim the doctrine of Christendom. We listen with breathless anxiety to hear what Christianity means. Under these solemn conditions, at this unparalleled crisis, it is remarkable that our Lord gives his Church three things necessary to its life, --a Ministry, an initiatory Ordinance, a Creed: --Go and teach, --baptize, --in the Triune name. What concerns us now is, not the order of Preachers, nor the Sacraments, but the Doctrine. We find here no recapitulation of moral and spiritual precepts, as the ethical view would lead us to expect; no array of what are sometim...