Plain Speaking on Deep Truths; Sermons Preached at St. Paul's Church, Bedford

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. 1870 Excerpt: ...in the faith lived in the Apostolic days, when the religion by which we hope to be saved was contrary to law, in fact, proscribed by the law of the land. Consider, for a moment, you who are Christians because it is respectable to be a Christian, you who desire to conform yourselves to the tone of society in which you move, what would you have done if you had lived in a city where all the magistrates, all the chief men and women, all the best society, were heathen; all frequenting the heathen temples, though only for form's sake; perhaps, in their secret souls all atheists, with the hearts, and morals, and hopes of atheists; whilst the catacomb, or hollow tomb, or court-yard, or upper room where the Church of Jesus Christ assembled--that Church in which you profess your belief every time you say your creed--whilst that court or tomb, I say, was crowded mainly by the poor, the uneducated, with a fair number of converted Jews amongst them, so that the public in general classed the worshippers at the best as a sect of Jews; Jews being then held in pretty much the same estimation in society as they are now? Or again, consider, you who think that whatever is enacted by the law and sanctioned by our most gracious sovereign must be right, what would you have done in a country where the national religion was the worship of false gods; where all the institutions of the country were based on the recognition of these false deities; where power--crushing power--was all in the hands of those whose public duty it was to see that due honour was paid to the national religion? It is well, my brethren, that we should put these questions to ourselves; for they will assist us to remember that Christianity--I mean, the outward profession of the faith of Christ--was not always th...