Christlikeness

“ And this, we say, is again a signal witness to Christianity. Jesus Christ came to reveal what righteousness, to which the promises belong, really is; and so long as this, though shown by Jesus, is not recognised by us, we may call ourselves Christendom as much as we please, the true character of a Christendom will be wanting to us, because the great promises of prophecy will be still without their fulfilment. Nothing will do, except righteousness; and no other conception of righteousness will do, except Jesus Christ's conception of it:—his method, his secret, and his temper. ”

“ There is as little weariness of Jesus Christ as there is of nature, of the world revealed to us by the eye and the ear. After many disenchantments, multiplying with the years of our life, these two objects, Jesus and nature, retain their charm unabated, growing rather as old age steals on. What is true of the individual Christian is not less true of Christendom at large. ”

“ Justification by faith is the answer to that momentous question, "How shall man be just with God?" And the reply is, "Not by works of his own, but by faith in the work of another, that is Christ." He must have a righteousness in which to stand before a righteous and a holy, as well as a merciful God. He has no such righteousness of his own. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness unto him. ”

“ Those in whom that fancy lingers must have but a paltry standard of what righteousness is, a mean conception of moral—that is, spiritual—perfection. But those who look not inwards, but upwards; not at themselves, but at Christ and all spiritual perfection—they become more and more painfully aware of their own imperfections. The beauty of Christ’s character shows them the ugliness of their own. His purity shows them their own foulness. His love their own hardness. His wisdom their own folly. His strength their own weakness. ”

“ To trust that, just because Christ is so magnificent, He will pity, and not despise, our meanness. Just because He is so pure, and righteous, and true, and lovely, He will appreciate, and not abhor, our struggles after purity, righteousness, truth, love, however imperfect, however soiled with failure—and with worse. Just because He is so unlike us, He will smile graciously upon out feeblest attempts to be like Him. ”

“ And I could but answer No—for to be a Christian is to be Christ-like.
"As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." This is the divine standard. "Ye must be born again," leaves to us no latitude of interpretation. There must be a death of the old, natural, selfish loves, and a new birth of spiritual affections. As a man feels, so will he act. ”

“ Many who reject Christianity carry the principles of morality to very high perfection, and are distinguished for their integrity and benevolence, but we are required to surpass them. The same mind which dwelt in Christ Jesus is to dwell in us. We are not only to admire his humility and condescension, his meekness and his devotional fervour, but to imitate it. We are not only to love him as a Saviour, and obey him as a sovereign, but to follow him as an example. ”

“ Such is the character of the Christian, as drawn in the bible; so that all ground of objection to the gospel scheme, as drawn by St. Paul, is removed. Those who are Christ's instead of taking liberty to sin, because "they are not under the law, but under grace," are of all men most careful to do God's commandments; and from the noblest principles. Their obedience is not servile, but filial.
This is the spirit of the text. They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the afflictions and lusts—HAVE crucified. ”

“ The most destructive criticism has not been able to dethrone Christ as the incarnation of perfect holiness. The waves of a tossing and restless sea of unbelief break at His feet, and He stands still the supreme model, the inspiration of great souls, the rest of the weary, the fragrance of all Christendom, the one divine flower in the garden of God. ”

“ Yet this is Christendom, and the Christian principles are entirely familiar, and every Sunday and saint's day in all the Christian churches we protest that the practice of them is essential to our soul's salvation. Then we wipe our eyes, and smile kindly upon any one who really insists that we should offer the other cheek, and forgive seventy times seven. Oh no, we say; that is an eccentric view. No man in this world—that is, in Christendom—can afford to allow himself to be imposed upon. ”

“ So that men are not justified because they are sanctified, but for His sake that sanctifies them, and works all their good works in them and for them, and presents them blameless, that is Christ Jesus, who is made unto them, as He was to the saints of old, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, that he that glorieth might glory in the Lord. ”

“ As we listen to the call, it shows also the nature of true Holiness. ‘Like as He is holy, so be ye also holy.’ To be holy is to be Godlike, to have a disposition, a will, a character like God. The thought almost looks like blasphemy, until we listen again, ‘He hath chosen us in Christ to be holy.’ In Christ the Holiness of God appeared in a human life: in Christ’s example, in His mind and Spirit, we have the Holiness of the Invisible One translated into the forms of human life and conduct. To be Christlike is to be Godlike; to be Christlike is to be holy as God is holy. ”

“ Every religious nation went counter to the spirit of this injunction in worshiping for a God a being in the human form. Even the founders of Christianity, though making high claims to spirituality, were too gross, too sensuous in their conceptions, too externally-minded, and too idolatrous in their feelings and proclivities, to be content to "worship God in spirit." Hence their deification of the "man Christ Jesus" to answer the requisition of an external worship, by which they violated the command to "worship God as a spirit." ”

“ To this Body also the power and virtue of its soul are communicated; and, since Christ by His Spirit animates it, in honouring it He is honoured; in despising it, He is despised. There is an imparting to it of the qualities which He has; and thus it is that unity and sanctity, truth and charity dwell in it as the operation of His mind. Thus every man contains in [pg 134] himself, in the union of soul and body, an image of that tie by which Christ and His Church are one. ”

“ But there is mercy with God upon repentance, and propitiation in the blood of Jesus.—3. He is the light of the world that reproves the darkness, that is, the evil of the world; and he is to be known within.—4. Christendom, like the inn of old, is full of other guests: she is advised to believe in, receive, and apply to Christ.—5. Of the nature of true faith; it brings power to overcome every appearance of evil: this leads to consider the Cross of Christ, which has been so much wanted.—6. ”

“ But first let me ask, Does the present form of Christianity commend itself to the masses? Surely not to the very poor, that is to say, not to the class to whom Christ appears to have specially addressed Himself. And even among the classes which retain the tradition of worshipping Christ, has Christianity been such as would commend itself to Christ? Has not our religion been too often divorced from morality? Has there been dominant among us that habit of mutual helpfulness—"comforting one another," as St. Paul calls it—which is the criterion of a truly Christian nation? ”

“ Why, if any other man should claim to be divine, saying, in plain terms, 'I and my Father are one,' he would be seized and punished for blasphemy. It would be monstrous, presumptuous in the last degree. The fact that Jesus Christ claimed that he was one with the Father, the fact that he was a sinless being, and could not therefore be such a wicked impostor, that he proved his assertion by his life, his teachings, and his power to work miracles, is the great central truth on which Christianity is based. If you read your Bible prayerfully, as I earnestly hope you do, you must concede so much. ”

“ Even the enemies of Christ, who deny His divinity, admit the beauty and perfectness of His character, and the unselfishness and holiness of His earthly life. Since these three-and-thirty years He walked with men many new Christs have risen, many new creeds and dogmas been offered for the world's acceptance; but all have passed away, disappeared into nothingness, and Christ remains, the mainstay and salvation of human souls. His teaching is still the very best we can obtain for our guidance here. ”

“ Christ makes the Christian—the Christian in Christ and Christ in the Christian—a loving, affectionate, endearing union—of ignorance with wisdom, of infirmity with strength, of immorality with virtue. Christ throws his robe of righteousness over the follies and the wickedness of the converted soul, and by covering him with himself, gradually similates him to himself until what is carnal being cast off, the spiritual remains at death a pure child of God. ”

“ To such heavenly-mindedness, my dear brethren, we all are called; and without something of this spirit, whatever our professions and formalities, we do but belie the name of Christian. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth, on the right hand of God; set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth; for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God; when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory." ”

“ If he believes in the living Christ; if he believes that Christ is really his master, his teacher, who is watching over him, training him, from his cradle to his grave;—if he believes that Christ is dwelling in him, that whatever wish to do right he has comes from Christ, whatever sense of honour and honesty he has comes from Christ; then it will seem to him a dreadful thing to lie, to play the hypocrite, or the coward; to sin against his own better feelings. It will be sinning against Christ himself. ”

“ Christ's primary idea, His means of saving the world, is, after all, personality. The face, the character, the life of Jesus is to be seen in men and women. This is the bridge to the seething masses who believe in nothing, who hate religion, who cry 'Down with Jesus Christ!' What sympathy I felt with them as I listened to their angry cries against something which they had never really seen or known. ”

“ They know very well that if they become Catholics, they must lead honest and sober lives, they must be pure, they must respect the holy sacrament of marriage, they must check their sinful passions; and this they are unwilling to do. “Men love darkness rather than light," says Jesus Christ, “because their deeds are evil." Remember the well-known proverb: “There are none so deaf as those that will not hear."
They are kept back from embracing the faith, because they know that the truths of our religion are at war with their sinful inclinations. ”

“ Or supposing it were admitted, for the sake of argument, that, so far as we had the means of judging, there has occasionally appeared, without faith in Christ, a certain product of character, apparently as pure, lofty, self-denying, loving, and devoted to God as any which ever professed to owe its origin to Jesus Christ; yet, where has there been on earth such a body of living persons as those Christians who, within the bosom of the universal Church, during eighteen centuries, have manifested that kind of character which all men profess to admire and reverence? ”

“ How little do all earthly unkindnesses, dislikes, prejudices, become in our eyes, when the real bond of our common faith is discerned clearly! There is indeed neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all, and in all. And to look at our brethren, once or twice in every day, with these Christian eyes, would it not also, by degrees, impress us at other times, and begin to form something of our habitual temper and regard towards them? ”

“ Would any one refuse admission to these spiritual views as they are given off to our souls from the pure life of Jesus, if he was permitted to receive them from Christ himself, and not obliged on his way to that Heavenly Image of grace, liberty, and truth, to stoop his free neck to the yoke of Churches and of Creeds? But men preach themselves, not Christ. ”

“ The Christian churches have been presided over by pastors who have possessed both penetration and purity in the highest degree—who were able to see what there was to be seen, and devout enough to render it in their lives. Try the question even in our day. If Christ be the symbol of love and gentleness to all who believe in his name, how is it that in every part of the world the Freethinker should fear to fall into the hands of the Christian? ”

“ There is a principle which is inseparable from the existence of vital godliness, and that is faith in Christ. Now if all who look to the work of Christ for justification, and confide in the Holy Spirit for sanctification, are really Christians, why should they not be felt to be such, and loved as brethren? ”

“ So when the Christian quietly goes on his circle of duties, ever seeking, by the help of God's grace, to do the will of his Lord,—he shows to the world a living example of the power and truth of religion; he does good not for the look of the thing, but because the love of Christ constraineth him to act as conscience directs. ”