登陆注册
4610300000206

第206章 CLIP-PROMISE(3)

shears red with the blood of the Fourth Commandment. For, when did you rise off your bed this resurrection morning? And what did you do when you did rise? What has your reading and your conversation been this whole Lord's day? How full your heart would have been of faith and love and holiness by this time of night had you not despised the Lord of the Sabbath, and cast all His commandments and opportunities to you behind your back? What private exercise have you had all day with your Father who sees in secret? How often have you been on your knees, and where, and how long, and for what, and for whom? What work of mercy have you done to-day, or determined to do to-morrow? And so with all the divine commandments: Mosaic and Christian, legal and evangelical. Such as: A tenth of all I have given to thee; a covenant with a wandering eye; a mouth once speaking evil, is it now well watched?

not one vessel only, but all the vessels of thy body sanctified till every thought and imagination is well under the obedience of Christ. Lest His anger for all that begin to burn to-night, make your bed with Eli and Samuel in His sanctuary to-night, lest the avenger of the blood of the commandments leap out on you in your sleep!

4. The Old Serpent took with him the great shears of hell, and clipped 'Thou shalt surely die' out of the second chapter of Genesis. And the same enemy of mankind will clip all the terror of the Lord out of your heart to-night again, if he can. And he will do it in this way, if he can. He will have some one at the church door ready and waiting for you. As soon as the blessing is pronounced, some one will take you by the arm and will entertain you with the talk you love, or that you once loved, till you will be ashamed to confess that there is any terror or turning to God in your heart. No! Thou shalt not surely die, says the serpent still. Why, hast thou not trampled Sabbaths and sermons past counting under thy feet? What commandment, laid on body or soul, hast thou not broken, and thou art still adding drunkenness to thirst, and God doth not know! 'The woman said unto the serpent, We may not eat of it, neither may we touch it, lest we die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die.'

5. You must all have heard of Clito, who used to say that he desired no more time for rising and dressing and saying his prayers than about a quarter of an hour. Well, that was clipping the thing pretty close, wasn't it? At the same time it must be admitted that a good deal of prayer may be got through in a quarter of an hour if you do not lose any moment of it. Especially in the first quarter of the day, if you are expeditious enough to begin to pray before you even begin to dress. And prayer is really a very strange experience. There are things about prayer that no man has yet fully found out or told to any. For one thing, once well began it grows upon a man in a most extraordinary and unheard-of way. This same Clito for instance, some time after we find him at his prayers before his eyes are open; and then he keeps all morning making his bath, his soap, his towels, his brushes, and his clothes all one long artifice of prayer. And that till there is not a single piece of his dressing-room furniture that is not ready to swear at the last day that its master long before he died had become a man full of secret prayer. There is a fountain filled with blood! he exclaims, as he throws himself into his bath; and Jeremiah second and twenty-second he uses regularly to repeat to himself half a dozen times a day as he washes the smoke and dust of the city off his hands and face. And then Revelation third and eighteenth till his toilet is completed. Nay, this same Clito has come to be such a devotee to that he had at one time been so expeditious with, that I have seen him forget himself on the street and think that his door was shut. But there is really no use telling you all that about Clito. For, till you try closet-prayer for yourself, all that God or man can say to you on that subject will be water spilt on the ground. All we can say is, Try it. Begin it. Some desperate day try it. Stop when you are on the way to the pond and try it. Stop when you are fastening up the rope and try it. When the poison is moving in the cup, stop, shut your door first. Try God first. See if He is still waiting. And, always after, when the steel shears of a too early, too crowded, and far too exacting day are clipping you out of all time for prayer, then what should you do? What do you do when you simply cannot get your proper fresh air and exercise everyday? Do you not fall back on the plasticity and pliability of nature and take your air and exercise in large parcels? You take a ride into the country two or three times a week. Or, two afternoons a week you have ten miles alone if you cannot get a godly friend. And then two or three times a year, if you can afford it, you climb an Alp or a Grampian every day for a week or a month; and, so gracious and so adaptable is human nature, that, what others get daily, you get weekly, or monthly, or quarterly, or yearly. And, though a soul is not to be too much presumed upon, Clito came to tell his friends that his soul could on occasion take in prayer and praise enough for a week in a single morning or afternoon, and, almost, for a whole year in a good holiday. As Christ Himself did when He said: Come away apart into a desert place and rest a while; for there are so many people coming and going here that we have no time so much as to eat.

6. But I see I must clip off my last point with you, which was to tell you what you already know only too well, and that is, what terrible shears a bad conscience is armed with, and what havoc she makes at all ages of a poor sinner's Bible. But you can spare that head. You can preach on that text to yourselves far better than all your ministers. Only, take home with you these two lines I

have clipped out of Fraser of Brea for you. Nothing in man, he says to us, is to be a ground of despair, since the whole ground of all our hope is in Christ alone. Christ's relation is always to men as they are sinners and not as they are righteous. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. 'Tis with sinners, then, Christ has to do. Nothing damns but unbelief; and unbelief is just holding back from pressing God with this promise, that Christ came to save sinners. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, and it is still to be found standing in the most clipped-up Bible, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

同类推荐
  • 北洋水师章程

    北洋水师章程

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 法界观披云集

    法界观披云集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 关窍要旨

    关窍要旨

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 见闻纪训

    见闻纪训

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 太上洞真贤门经

    太上洞真贤门经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 恋爱解救,我的男神患者

    恋爱解救,我的男神患者

    痛!沈清涵感觉整个肺腔都要炸裂了,脖子上的禁锢在一点一点夺走她的呼吸。沈清涵费力的张开眼眸,入眼的便是一双无神却通透的眸子。漆黑的眸子毫无光泽,就像一个无底的黑洞,直勾勾的盯着沈清涵。--情节虚构,请勿模仿
  • 青少年走近伟人丛书·传记故事·邓小平

    青少年走近伟人丛书·传记故事·邓小平

    邓小平,早年赴欧洲勤工俭学,并成为中国共产党党员开始革命生涯。归国后,他全身心地投入党领导的争取民族独立和人民解放的革命斗争。从土地革命、抗日战争到解放战争,先后担任党和军队的许多重要领导职务,为党中央一系列重大战略决策的实施,为新民主主义革命的胜利和新中国的诞生,建立了赫赫功勋,成为中华人民共和国的开国元勋。他还是是中国社会主义改革开放和现代化建设的总设计师,创立了邓小平理论。他所倡导的“改革开放”及“一国两制”政策理念,改变了20世纪后期的中国,也影响了世界。
  • 我的天劫之道

    我的天劫之道

    汪无敌,一个平凡普通的人。因为她的出现刷新了他的世界观,这里没有斗气,没有武魂,但这个世界却拥有汪无敌想都没想过的仙力,这里叫做神州大陆……
  • 我与我的世界

    我与我的世界

    《我与我的世界》是曹聚仁先生晚年所写的回忆录,后由家人整理增补,按“传记文学”自觉经营,坦诚自白,纵横上下,酣畅洒脱,是一部具有重要史料价值与文本意义的传记。它将其生平世界“不加掩饰地揭示出来”。从金华童年的”神道黄昏”,到浙江一师的“四大金刚”;从“国学”和“文坛”,到“我与鲁迅”和“文白论战”,从上海春秋、报刊生涯,到抗战军兴、执笔从戎;不但阅历丰富、见识繁多,而且他颇想勾画出那一时代的生活轮廓及文化工作”,所以“史的意味,比较更重一些”。正因如此,才是一本既有史料价值,又具文学可读性的大家作品。
  • 母亲去世之后(小说)

    母亲去世之后(小说)

    我总在想,张彬偷麦子的事,母亲她当真没有一点感觉?如果有感觉她替张彬说话岂不成了一种交易?如果没感觉就能排除不是一种交易么?她那么肯定是李福干的,是不是像我查找口袋一样更多地是出自希望和想象?她逼迫哥哥考大学,除了对知识的信赖,是不是知道哥哥发现了那件事情?她为什么要做那种事情,是由于女人的本能还是由于对一个有知识的工作组长的真心喜爱?
  • 活着便要温柔相爱

    活着便要温柔相爱

    “活着便要温柔相爱”在这里并非进行时,而是时过境迁后的成熟回望,带着感性的体谅与祝愿。嬉笑怒骂的笔触里饱含热泪与深情,写尽爱情的穷形尽相、明亮忧伤,从炽热到冷却,从不甘到释然。故事里的她们会让你想起时光深处、曾经爱过却没有在一起的人,你会明白感情里存在多重形态,爱和偏执都是无法治愈的顽疾,不是付出就一定会有结果,也不是每个“为什么”都有对应的“因为”。人生怎么选都会有遗憾,别让错误的人浪费了最好的你。
  • 最强升级系统

    最强升级系统

    一剑天下臣服,一令三界听宣。 本书帝王争霸流。 【推荐新书《武道收税系统》!】
  • 中国人的修养

    中国人的修养

    国学大师蔡元培不仅奠定了中国近代教育思想,而且还撰有关于国人道德修养的丰富著述,为后人提升道德境界、加强内炼修养提供了可资借鉴的经典读本。本书编者重拾瑰宝,文白并存,精编细选,结集成书,凝聚了他论述国人修身立德处世的全部精髓,是今天的我们思考社会人生、加强内在修养不可多得的道德范本和践行宝鉴。
  • 超天大帝

    超天大帝

    重生到一介药奴身上!不料,其体内竟有九大封印,镇住他九大盖世星魂,随着修为提升,星魂步步解封,重明鸟,火麒麟,穷奇……少年是谁?身上为何有如此秘辛?
  • 暖婚似火:霸道老公是暖男

    暖婚似火:霸道老公是暖男

    “女人,我会负责。”第一次见面,他将她逼至角落。再见时,她却成了兄弟的女友。权势滔天的霸道总裁,直接将人锁在身边,让她与身边所有男人划清界限!“女人,还跑么?信不信我打断你的腿!”他俯身靠近威胁道,嘴上霸道得不可一世,可对她却一求百应。她想演戏?专门成立公司,只捧她一人!外界皆传“一个靠潜规则走红的明星!”他霸气表示:“就是我潜的!”...