Sermons and Addresses Delivered on Special Occasions

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. 1858. Excerpt: ... CHAEGE IV THE GOOD SOLDIER OF JESUS CHKIST. 2 Tim. ii. 3, 4-- Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. Here are three things--the character to be aimed at by the Christian minister, the conditions of his success, and the hope which should inspire him in fulfilling those conditions. I. The character he is to aim at is that of a good soldier of Jesus Christ. This single simple phrase lays open to view, as by a magic touch, or as when the eyes of the prophet's servant were unsealed, a wide scene of martial conflict, filled with more than horses and chariots of fire. It may take us back in thought to the hour of the Fall; for then the struggle began, and the martial imagery was first employed-- The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. Through all the long ages of expectation which followed, the promised Deliverer was seen in prophetic vision, girding His sword upon His thigh/' and preparing for the great encounter. And though His arrival was at length announced as peace on earth; though that was the great design of His coming, and will be its certain issue; so certainly would the godlike attempt array all the hostility of hell against it, that He himself averred, I am come, first and in fact, not to send peace on earth/' though ultimately and in principle that is my only object, but a sword/' This charge was Dr Harris's last public discourse, delivered, about three weeks before his death, at the recognition of the Rev. Macbrair, as minister of Barbican Chapel. 1. As a soldier of Christ, it is important, first, that the Christian minister bear in mind the spiritual nature of the c...