NO matter how many go the wrong way, nor how popular they are, nor how much money they have, the Lord is able to bring them to judgment, and he will most certainly do it. When the people went away from the temple and abandoned him, and only a few disciples remained with him, and he inquired of them: “Will you also go away?” the prospect looked dim, but the Lord did not change his course. When he expired on the cross the enemies exulted and triumphed; but their triumph did not last long. “He was quickened by the Spirit.” God raised him up. “He was justified by the Spirit.” The armies in heaven were with him. The upper world was in motion. God vindicated him, as he did all who will listen to him. When they burned Tyndale at the stake they thought they had put him down; but, while the names of his persecutors have, with few exceptions, gone into oblivion, the name of Tyndale is held in esteem by all good men. The name of Luther will live to the end of time, while the time-servers who opposed him are rapidly sinking into forgetfulness. The man that leads the people to God, to the Lord Jesus, by the gospel, and maintains the will of God, will abide forever; while the man that tries to catch the giddy throng with a little show of some human devices, and who may attract their attention for a time, will pass away and be forgotten forever.
We are for progress in the true sense in every department, but not for the progress backward. We are for the progress in the church that goes forward and converts sinners, and builds up churches; that infuses piety, devotion to God and to the right way of the Lord; but not for the progress that is nearly all money, and almost no work. We are for the progress that goes forward and not backward.
[THE GROUND OF UNION.]
“IN what are Christians to be united?”
They are to be united on Christ—on being Christians. This embraces the entire revelation from God to man, all the truth uttered, the commandments given and the promises made by our heavenly Father. The truth must all be believed, the commandments obeyed, and the promises must be hoped for. This includes the entire faith, obedience and hope of the gospel. In this we must be united.
II. “What are the essentials of Christianity which can not be compromised?”
Christianity itself, as a whole and in all its parts, is essential. All that is in it is essential, and all that is not in it is not essential. We are for christianity itself, not in part, but the whole of it, as it came from the infallible Spirit of all wisdom and all revelation. It is all essential. Nothing may be added to it or taken from it. The “doctrines and commandments of men,” the doctrines of “expediency,” of “deductions” and “inferences,” from principles, are not essential; but these are not christianity, nor any part of it. Nothing in christianity can be compromised except at our peril. The wisdom of God gives us no non-essentials. If the wisdom of man pronounces anything given by the wisdom of God, or, which is the same, any part of christianity, non-essential, such wisdom of man must be set aside as presumptuous.