chapter 1 series 1 of unspoken sermons this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by David Baldwin unspoken sermons by George McDonald chapter 1 series 1 the child in the midst and he came to Capernaum and being in the house he asked them what was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way but they held their peace for by the way they had disputed among themselves who should be the greatest and he sat down and called the 12 and sayeth unto them if any man desired to be first the same shall be last of all and servant of all and he took a child and set him in the midst of them and when he had taken him in his arms he said unto them whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name receiveeth me and whosoever shall receive me receiveeth not me but him that sent me mark chapter 9 verses 33 through 37 of this passage in the life of our lord the account given by saint mark is the more complete but it may be enriched and its lesson rendered yet more evident from the record of st. matthew verily I say unto you accept ye be converted and become as little children ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven whosoever shall humble himself as this little child the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven and whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveeth me but whoso shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea these passages record a lesson our lord gave his disciples against ambition against emulation it is not for the sake of setting forth this lesson that I write about these words of our lord but for the sake of a truth a revelation about god in which his great argument reaches its height he took a little child possibly a child of st. peter for st. mark says the incident fell at cavernum and in the house a child therefore with some of the characteristics of peter whose very faults were those of a childish nature we might expect the child of such a father to possess the childlike countenance and bearing essential to the conveyance of the lesson which I now desire to set forth as contained in the passage for it must be confessed that there are children who are not childlike one of the saddest and not least common sites in the world is the face of a child whose mind is so brim full of worldly wisdom that the human childishness has vanished from it as well as the divine child likeness for the child light is the divine and the very word marshals me the way that I was going but I must delay my assent to the final argument in order to remove a possible difficulty which in turning us towards one of the grandest truths turns us away from the truth which the lord had in view here the difficulty is this is it like the son of man to pick out the beautiful child and leave the common child unnoticed what think would he have in that do not even the publicans as much as that and do not our hearts revolt against the thought of it shall the mother's heart cleave closest to the deformed of her little ones and shall Christ as we believe him choose according to the sight of the eye would he turn away from the child born in sin and taught iniquity on whose pinched face hunger and courage and love of praise have combined to stamp the cunning of avaricious age and take to his arms the child of honest parents such as peter and his wife who could not help looking more good than the other that were not he that came to seek and to save that which was lost let the man who loves his brother say which in his highest moments of love to god which when he is nearest to that ideal humanity whereby a man shall be a hiding place from the wind he would clasp to his bosom of refuge would it not be the evil faced child because he needed it most yes and god's name yes for is not that the divine way who that has read of the lost sheep or the found prodigal even if he had no spirit bearing witness with his spirit will dare to say that it is not the divine way often no doubt it will appear otherwise for the child like child is easier to save than the other and may come first but the rejoicing in heaven is greatest over the sheep that has wandered the farthest perhaps was born on the wild hillside and not in the fold at all for such a prodigal the elder brother in heaven praise thus lord think about my poor brother more than about me for I know thee and I met rest in thee I am with thee always why then do I think it necessary to say that this child was probably peter's child and certainly a child that looked childlike because it was childlike no amount of evil can be the child no amount of evil not to say in the face but in the habits or even in the heart of the child can make it cease to be a child can annihilate the divine idea of childhood which moved in the heart of god when he made that child after his own image it is the essential of which god speaks the real by which he judges the undying of which he is the god heartily I grant this and if the object of our lord in taking the child in his arms had been to teach love to our neighbor love to humanity the ugliest child he could have found would perhaps have served his purpose best the man who receives any and more plainly he who receives the repulsive child because he is the offspring of god because he is his own brother born must receive the father and thus receiving the child whosoever gives a cup of cold water to a little one refreshes the heart of the father to do as god does is to receive god to do a service to one of his children is to receive the father hence any human being especially if wretched and will be gone and outcast would do as well as a child for the purpose of setting forth this love of god to the human being therefore something more is probably intended here the lesson will be found to lie not in the humanity but in the childhood of the child again if the disciples could have seen that the essential childhood was meant and not a blurred half obliterated childhood the most selfish child might have done as well but could have done no better than the one we have supposed in whom the true childhood is more evident but when the child was employed as a manifestation utterance and sign of the truth that lay in his childhood in order that the eyes as well as the ears should be channels to the heart it was essential not that the child should be beautiful but that the child should be childlike that those qualities which waken our hearts at sight the love peculiarly belonging to the childhood which is indeed but the perception of childhood should at least glimmer out upon the face of the chosen type would such an unchildlike child as we sometimes see now in a great house clothed in purple and lace now in a squallet clothes clothed in dirt and rags have been fit for our lord's purpose when he had to say that his listeners must become like this child when the lesson he had to present to them was that of the divine nature of the child that of childlikeness would there not have been a contrast between the child and our lord's words ludicrous except for its horror especially seeing he set forth the individuality of the child by saying this little child one of such children and these little ones that believe in me even the feelings of pity and of love that would arise in a good heart upon further contemplation of such a child would have turned it quite away from the lesson our lord intended to give that this lesson did lie not in the humanity but in the childhood of the child let me now show more fully the disciples had been disputing who should be the greatest and the lord wanted to show them that such a dispute had nothing whatever to do with the way things went in his kingdom therefore as a specimen of his subjects he took a child and set him before them it was not it could not be in virtue of his humanity it was in virtue of his childhood that this child was thus presented as representing a subject of the kingdom it was not to show the scope but the nature of the kingdom he told them they could not enter into the kingdom safe by becoming little children by humbling themselves for the idea of ruling was excluded where child likeness was the one essential quality it was to be no more who should rule but who should serve no more who should look down upon his fellows from the conquered heights of authority even of sacred authority but who should look up honoring humanity and ministering unto it so that humanity itself might at length be persuaded of its own honor as a temple of the living god it was to impress this lesson upon them that he showed them the child therefore I repeat the lesson in the childhood of the child but I now approach my special object for this lesson led to the enunciation of a yet higher truth upon which it was founded and from which indeed it sprung nothing is required of man that is not first in god it is because god is perfect that we are required to be perfect and it is for the revelation of god to all the human souls that they may be saved by knowing him and so becoming like him that this child is thus chosen and set before them in the gospel he who in giving the cup of water or the embrace comes into contact with the essential childhood of the child that is embraces the childish humanity of it not he who embraces it out of love to humanity or even love to god as the father of it is partaker of the meaning that is the blessing of this passage it is the recognition of the childhood as divine that will show the disciple how vain the strife after relative place or honor in the great kingdom for it is in my name this means as representing me and therefore as being like me our lord could not commission anyone to be received in his name who could not more or less represent him for there would be untruth and unreason moreover he had just been telling the disciples that they must become like this child and now when he tells them to receive such a little child in his name it must surely imply something in common between them all something in which the child and jesus meet something in which the child and the disciples meet what else can that be than the spiritual childhood in my name does not mean because i will it an arbitrary utterance of the will of our lord would certainly find ten thousand to obey it even the suffering for one that will be able to receive such a vital truth of his character as is contained in the words but it is not obedience alone that our lord will have but obedience to the truth that is to the light of the world truth beheld and known in my name if we take all we can find in it the full meaning which alone will harmonize and make the passage a whole involves a revelation from resemblance from fitness to represent and so reveal he who receives a child then in the name of jesus does so perceiving wherein jesus and the child are one what is common to them he must not only see the ideal child in the child he receives that reality of loveliness which constitutes true childhood but must perceive that the child is like jesus or rather that the lord is like the child and may be embraced yay is embraced by every heart childlike enough to embrace a child for the sake of his childness i do not therefore say that none but those who are thus conscious in the act partake of the blessing but a special sense a lofty knowledge of blessedness belongs to the act of embracing a child as the visible lightness of the lord himself for the blessedness is the perceiving of the truth the blessing is the truth itself the god known truth that the lord has the heart of a child the man who perceives this knows in himself that he is blessed blessed because that is true but the argument as to the meaning of our lord's words in my name is incomplete until we follow our lord's enunciation to its second and higher stage he that received with me received with him that sent me it will be allowed that the connection between the first and second link of the chain will probably be the same as the connection between the second and third i do not say it is necessarily so for i aim at no logical certainty i aim at showing rather than at proving to my reader by means of my sequences the idea to which i am approaching for if once he beholds it he cannot receive it if it does not show itself to him to be true there would not only be little use in convincing him by logic but i allow that he can easily suggest other possible connections in the chain though i assert none so symmetrical what then is the connection between the second and third how is it that he who receives the son receives the father because the son is as the father and he whose heart can perceive the essential in christ has the essence of the father that is sees and holds to it by that recognition and is one therewith by recognition and worship what then is the connection between the first and second i think the same he that sees the essential in this child the pure childhood sees that which is the essence of me grace and truth in a word child likeness it follows not that the former is perfect as the latter but it is the same in kind and therefore manifest in the child reveals that which is in jesus then to receive a child in the name of jesus is to receive jesus to receive jesus is to receive god therefore to receive the child is to receive god himself that such is the feeling of the words and that such was the feeling in the heart of our lord when he spoke them i may show from another golden thread that may be traced through the shining web of his golden words what is the kingdom of christ a rule of love of truth a rule of service the king is the chief servant in it the kings of the earth have dominion it shall not be so among you the son of man came to minister my father worketh hitherto and i work the great workman is the great king laboring for his own so he that would be greatest among them and come nearest to the king himself must be the servant of all it is like king like subject in the kingdom of heaven no rule of force as of one kind over another it is the rule of kind of nature of deepest nature of god if then to enter into this kingdom we must become children the spirit of children must be its pervading spirit throughout from lowly subject to lowliest king the lesson added by saint luke to the presentation of the child is for he that is least among you all the same shall be great and saint matthew says whosoever shall humble himself as this little child the same as greatest in the kingdom of heaven hence the sign that passes between king and subject the subject kneels in homage to the kings of the earth the heavenly king takes his subject and his arms this is the sign of the kingdom between them this is the all pervading relation of the kingdom to give one glance backward then to receive the child because god receives it or for its humanity is one thing to receive it because it is like god or for its childhood is another the former will do little to destroy ambition alone it might argue only a wider scope to it because it admits all men to the arena of the strife but the latter strikes at the very root of emulation as soon as even service is done for the honor and not for the service sake the doer is that moment outside the kingdom but when we receive the child in the name of christ the very childhood that we receive to our arms is humanity we love its humanity in its childhood for childhood is the deepest heart of humanity it's divine heart and so in the name of the child we receive all humanity therefore although the lesson is not about humanity but about childhood it returns upon our race and we receive our race with wider arms and deeper heart there is then no other lesson lost by receiving this no heartlessness shown in insisting that the child was a lovable a child like child if there is in heaven a picture of that wonderful teaching doubtless we shall see represented in it a dim childhood shining from the faces of all that group of disciples of whom the center is the son of god with a child in his arms the childhood dim in the faces of the men must be shining trustfully clear in the face of the child but in the face of the lord himself the childhood will be triumphant all his wisdom all his truth upholding that radiant serenity of faith in his father verily oh lord this childhood is life verily oh lord when thy tenderness shall have made the world great then children like thee will all men smile in the face of the great god but to advance now to the highest point of this teaching of our lord he that received with me received with him that sent me to receive a child in the name of god is to receive god himself how to receive him as alone he can be received by knowing him as he is to know him is to have him in us and that we may know him let us now receive this revelation of him in the words of our lord himself here is the argument of highest import founded upon the teaching of our master in the utterance before us god is represented in jesus for that god is like jesus jesus is represented in the child for the jesus is like the child therefore god is represented in the child for that he is like the child god is child like in the true vision of this fact lies the receiving of god in the child having reached this point i have nothing more to do with the argument for if the lord meant this that is if this be a truth he that is able to receive it will receive it he that have ears to hear it will hear it for our lord's arguments are for the presentation of the truth and the truth carries its own conviction to him who is able to receive it but the word of one who has seen this truth may help the dawn of a like perception in those who keep their faces turned towards the east and its aurora for men may have eyes and seeing dimly want to see more therefore let us brood a little over the idea itself and see whether it will not come forth so as to commend itself to that spirit which one with the human spirit where it dwells searches the deep things of god for although the true heart may at first be shocked at the truth as peter was shocked when he said that be far from the lord yet will it after a season receive it and rejoice in it let me then ask do you believe in the incarnation and if you do let me ask further was jesus ever less divine than god i answer for you never he was lower but never less divine was he not a child then you answer yes but not like other children i ask did he not look like other children if he looked like them and was not like them the whole was a deception a masquerade at best i say he was a child whatever more he might be god is man and infinitely more our lord became flesh but did not become man he took on him the form of man he was man already and he was is and ever shall be divinely child like he could never have been a child if he would ever have ceased to be a child for in him the transient found nothing childhood belongs to the divine nature obedience then is as divine as will service as divine as rule how because they are one in their nature they are both a doing of the truth the love in them is the same the fatherhood and the sonship are one save that the fatherhood looks down lovingly and the sonship looks up lovingly love is all and god is all in all he is ever seeking to get down to us to be the divine man to us and we are ever saying that be far from the lord we are careful in our unbelief over the divine dignity of which he is too grand to think better pleasing to god it needs little daring to say is the audacity of job who rushing into his presence and flinging the door of his presence chamber to the wall like a troubled it may be angry but yet faithful child calls allowed in the ear of him whose perfect fatherhood he has yet to learn am i a sea or a well that thou set us to watch over me let us dare then to climb the height of divine truth to which this utterance of our lord would lead us does it not lead us up hither that the devotion of god to his creatures is perfect that he does not think about himself but about them that he wants nothing for himself but finds his blessedness and the outgoing of blessedness ah it is a terrible shall it be a lonely glory this we will draw near with our human response our abandonment of self and the faith of jesus he gives himself to us shall we not give ourselves to him shall we not give ourselves to each other whom he loves for when is the child the ideal child in our eyes and to our hearts is it not when with gentle hand he takes his father by the beard and turns that father's face up to his brothers and sisters to kiss when even the lovely selfishness of love seeking has vanished and the heart is absorbed in loving in this then is god like the child that he is simply and altogether our friend our father our more than friend father and mother our infinite love perfect god grand and strong beyond all that human imagination can conceive of poet thinking and kingly action he is delicate beyond all that human tenderness can conceive of husband or wife homely beyond all that human heart can conceive of father or mother he has not two thoughts about us with him all is simplicity of purpose and meaning and effort and end namely that we should be as he is think the same thoughts mean the same things possess the same blessedness it is so plain that anyone may see it everyone ought to see it everyone shall see it it must be so he is utterly true and good to us nor shall anything withstand his will how terribly then have the theologians misrepresented god in the measures of the low and showy not the lofty and simple humanities nearly all of them represent him as a great king on a grand throne thinking how grand he is and making it the business of his being and the end of his universe to keep up his glory wielding the bolts of a jupiter against them that take his name in vain they would not allow this but follow out what they say and it comes much to this brothers have you found our king there he is kissing little children and saying they are like god there he is at table with the head of a fisherman lying on his bosom and somewhat heavy at heart that even he the beloved disciple cannot yet understand him well the simplest peasant who loves his children and his sheep were no not a truer for the other is false but a true type of our god beside that monstrosity of a monarch the god who is ever uttering himself in the changeful profusions of nature who takes millions of years to form a soul that shall understand him and be blessed who never needs to be and never is in haste who welcomes the simplest thought of truth or beauty as the return for seed he has sown upon the old fallows of eternity who rejoices in the response of a faltering moment to the age-long cry of his wisdom in the streets the god of music of painting of building the lord of host the god of mountains and oceans whose laws go forth from one unseen point of wisdom and the return without an atom of loss the god of history working in time unto christianity this god is the god of little children and he alone can be perfectly abandonally simple and devoted the deepest purest love of a woman has its wellspring in him our longing desires can no more exhaust the fullness of the treasures of the godhead than our imagination can touch their measure of him not a thought not a joy not a hope of one of his creatures can pass unseen and while one of them remains unsatisfied he is not lord over all therefore with angels and with archangels with the spirits of the just made perfect with the little children of the kingdom yay with the lord himself and for all them that know him not we praise and magnify and laud his name in itself saying our father we do not draw back for that we are unworthy nor even for that we are hard hearted and care not for the good for it is his child likeness that makes him our god and father the perfection of his relation to us swallows up all our imperfections all our defects all our evils for our childhood is born of his fatherhood that man is perfect in faith who can come to god in the utter dearth of his feelings and his desires without a glow or an aspiration with the weight of low thoughts failures neglects and wandering forgetfulness and say to him thou art my refuge because thou art my home such a faith will not lead to presumption the man who can pray such a prayer will know better than another that god is not mocked that he is not a man that he should repent that tears and entreaties will not work on him to the breach of one of his laws that for god to give a man because he asked for it that which was not in harmony with his laws of truth and right would be to damn him to cast him into the outer darkness and he knows that out of that prison the childlike imperturbable god will let no man come till he has paid the utter most farthing and if he should forget this the god to whom he belongs does not forget it does not forget him life is no series of chances with a few providences sprinkled between to keep up a justly failing belief but one providence of god and the man shall not live long before life itself shall remind him it may be an agony of soul of that which he has forgotten when he prays for comfort the answer may come in dismay and terror and the turning aside of the father's countenance for love itself will for love's sake turn the countenance away from that which is not lovely and he will have to read written upon the dark wall of his imprisoned conscience the words awful and glorious our god is a consuming fire end of chapter one series one chapter two of unspoken sermons series one this libra vox recording is in the public domain recording by david baltwin unspoken sermons by george mcdonald the consuming fire our god is a consuming fire he bruised chapter 12 verse 29 nothing is inexorable but love love which will yield to prayer is imperfect and poor nor is it then the love that yields but it's alloy for if at the voice of entreaty love conquers displeasure it is love asserting itself not love yielding its claims it is not love that grants a boon unwillingly still less is it love that answers a prayer to the wrong and hurt of him who prays love is one and love is changeless for love loves unto purity love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds where loveliness is incomplete and love cannot love its fill of loving it spends itself to make more lovely that it may love more it strives for perfection even that itself may be perfected not in itself but in the object as it was love that first created humanity so even human love and proportion to its divinity will go on creating the beautiful for its own outpouring there is nothing eternal but that which loves and can be loved and love is ever climbing towards the consummation when such shall be the universe imperishable divine therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved all that comes between and is not of love's kind must be destroyed and our god is a consuming fire if this be hard to understand it is as the simple absolute truth is hard to understand it may be centuries of ages before man comes to see a truth ages of strife of effort of aspiration but when once he does see it it is so plain that he wonders he could have lived without seeing it that he did not understand it sooner was simply and only that he did not see it to see a truth to know what it is to understand it and to love it are all one there is many a motion towards it many a misery for want of it many a cry of the conscience against the neglect of it many a dim longing for it as an unknown need before at length the eyes come awake and the darkness of the dreamful night yields to the light of the son of truth but once beheld it is forever to see one divine fact is to stand face to face with essential eternal life for this vision of truth god has been working for ages of ages for this simple condition this apex of life upon which a man wonders like a child that he cannot make other men see as he sees the whole labor of god's science history poetry from the time when the earth gathered itself into a lonely drop of fire from the red rim of the driving sun will to the time when alexander john scott worshiped him from its face was evolving truth upon truth and lovely vision in torturing law never lying never repenting and for this will the patience of god's labor while there is yet a human soul whose eyes have not been opened and whose child heart has not yet been born in him for this one condition of humanity this simple beholding has all the out thinking of god flowed in forms innumerable and changeful from the foundation of the world and for this too has the divine destruction been going forth that his life might be our life that in us too might dwell that same consuming fire which is essential love let us look at the utterance of the apostle which is crowned with this lovely terror our god is a consuming fire where for we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved let us have grace whereby we may serve god acceptably with reverence and godly fear for our god is a consuming fire we have received a kingdom that cannot be moved whose nature is immovable let us have grace to serve the consuming fire our god with divine fear not with the fear that cringes and craves but with the bowing down of all thoughts all delights all loves before him who is the life of them all and he will have them all pure the kingdom he has given us cannot be moved because it has nothing weak in it it is of the eternal world the world of being of truth we therefore must worship him with the fear pure as the kingdom is unshakable he will shake heaven and earth that only the unshakable may remain verse 27 he is a consuming fire that only that which cannot be consumed may stand forth eternal it is the nature of god so terribly pure that it destroys all that is not pure as fire which demands like purity in our worship he will have purity it is not that the fire will burn us if we do not worship thus but that the fire will burn us until we worship thus yay we'll go on burning within us after all that is foreign to it has yielded to its force no longer with pain and consuming but it's the highest consciousness of life the presence of god when evil which alone is consumable shall have passed away in his fire from the dwellers in the immovable kingdom the nature of man shall look the nature of god in the face and his fear shall then be pure for an eternal that is a holy fear must spring from a knowledge of the nature not from a sense of the power but that which cannot be consumed must be one within itself a simple existence therefore in such a soul the fear towards god will be one with the homeliest love yay the fear of god will cause a man to flee not from him but from himself not from him but to him the father of himself in terror lest he should do him wrong or his neighbor wrong and the first words which flow for the setting forth of that grace whereby we may serve god acceptably are these let brotherly love continue to love our brother is to worship the consuming fire the symbol of the consuming fire would seem to have been suggested to the rider by the fire that burned on the mountain of the old law that fire was part of the revelation of god there made to the Israelites nor was it the first instance of such a revelation the symbol of god's presence before which moses had to put off his shoes and to which it was not safe for him to draw near was a fire that did not consume the bush in which it burned both revelations were of terror but the same symbol employed by a writer of the new testament should mean more not than it meant before but than it was before employed to express for it could not have been employed to express more than it was possible for them to perceive what else than terror could a nation of slaves into whose very souls the rest of their chains had eaten in whose memory lingered the smoke of the flesh pots of Egypt who rather than not eat of the food they liked best would have gone back to the house of their bondage what else could such a nation see in that fire than terror and destruction how should they think of purification by fire they had yet no such condition of mind as could generate such a thought and if they had had the thought the notion of the suffering involved would soon have overwhelmed the notion of purification nor would such a nation have listened to any teaching that was not supported by terror fear was that for which they were fit they had no worship for any being of whom they had not to be afraid was then this show upon Mount Sinai a device to move obedience such as bad nurses employ with children a hint of vague and false horror was it not a true revelation of God if it was not a true revelation it was none at all and the story is either false or the whole display was a political trick of Moses those who can read the mind of Moses will not easily believe the latter and those who understand the scope of the pretended revelation will see no reason for supposing the former that which would be politic were at the deception is not therefore excluded from the possibility of another source some people believe so little in the cosmos or ordered world that the very argument of fitness is a reason for unbelief at all events if God showed them these things God showed them what was true it was a revelation of himself he will not put on a mask he puts on a face he will not speak out of a flaming fire if that flaming fire is alien to him if there is nothing in him for that flaming fire to reveal be his children ever so brutish he will not terrify them with a lie it was a revelation but a partial one a true symbol not a final vision no revelation can be other than partial if for true revelation a man must be told all the truth then farewell to revelation yay farewell to the sonship for what revelation other than a partial can the highest spiritual condition receive of the infinite God but it is not therefore untrue because it is partial relatively to a lower condition of the receiver a more partial revelation might be truer than that would be which constituted a fuller revelation to one in a higher condition for the former might reveal much to him the latter might reveal nothing only whatever it might reveal if its nature were such as to preclude development and growth thus chaining the man to its incompleteness it would be but a false revelation fighting against all the divine laws of human existence the true revelation rouses the desire to know more by the truth of its incompleteness here was the nation at its lowest could it receive anything but a partial revelation a revelation of fear how should the Hebrews be other than terrified at that which was opposed to all they knew of themselves beings judging it good to honor a golden calf such as they were they did well to be afraid they were in a better condition acknowledging if only a terror above them flaming on that unknown mountain height than stooping to worship the idol below them fear is no blur than sensuality fear is better than no god better than a god made with hands in that fear lay deep hidden the sense of the infinite the worship of fear is true although very low and though not acceptable to god in itself for only the worship of spirit and of truth is acceptable to him yet even in his sight it is precious for he regards men not as they are merely but as they shall be not as they shall be merely but as they are now growing or capable of growing towards that image after which he made them that they might grow to it therefore a thousand stages each in itself all but valueless are of in estimable worth as the necessary and connected gradations of an infinite progress a condition which of declension would indicate a devil may have growth indicate a saint so far then the revelation not being final any more than complete and calling forth the best of which they were now capable so making future and higher revelation possible may have been a true one but we shall find that this very revelation of fire is itself in a higher sense true to the mind of the rejoicing saint as to the mind of the trembling sinner for the former sees farther into the meaning of the fire and knows better what it will do to him it is a symbol which needed not to be superseded only unfolded while men take part with their sins while they feel as if separated from their sins they would be no longer themselves how can they understand that the lightning word is a savior that word which pierces to the dividing between the man and the evil which will slay the sin and give life to the sinner can it be any comfort to them to be told that God loves them so that he will burn them clean can the cleansing of the fire appear to them anything beyond what it must always more or less be a process of torture they do not want to be clean and they cannot bear to be tortured can they then do other or can we desire that they should do other than fear God even with the fear of the wicked until they learn to love him with the love of the holy to them Mount Sinai is crowned with the signs of vengeance and is not God ready to do unto them even as they fear though with another feeling and a different end from any which they are capable of supposing he is against sin insofar as and while they and sin are one he is against them against their desires their aims their fears and their hopes and thus he is altogether and always for them that thunder and lightning and tempest that blackness torn with the sound of a trumpet that visible horror billowed with the voice of words was all but a faint image to the senses of the slaves of what God thinks and feels against vileness and selfishness of the unrest of unassuageable repulsion with which he regards such conditions that so the stupid people fearing somewhat to do as they would might leave a little room for that grace to grow in them which would at length make them see that evil and not fire is the fearful thing yay so transform them that they would gladly rush up into the trumpet blast of Sinai to escape the flutes around the golden calf could they have understood this they would have needed no mount Sinai it was a true end of necessity a partial revelation partial in order to be true even moses the man of god was not ready to receive the revelation in store not ready although from love to his people he prayed that god would even blot him out of his book of life if this means that he offered to give himself as a sacrifice instead of them it would show reason enough why he could not be glorified with the vision of the redeemer for so he would thank to appease god not seeing that god was tender as himself not seeing that god is the reconciler the redeemer not seeing that the sacrifice of the heart is the atonement for which alone he cares he would be blotted out that their names might be kept in certainly when god told him that he that had sin should suffer for it moses could not see that this was the kindest thing that god could do but i doubt if that was what moses meant it seems rather the utterance of a divine despair he would not survive the children of his people he did not care for a love that would save him alone and send to the dust those thousands of calf worshiping brothers and sisters but in either case how much could moses have understood if he had seen the face instead of the back of that form that passed the cliff of the rock amidst the thunderous vapors of cyanide had that form turned and that face looked upon him the face of him who was more man than any man the face through which the divine emotion would in the ages to come manifest itself to the eyes of men bowed it might well be at such a moment in anticipation of the crown with which the children of the people for whom moses pleaded with his life would one day crown him the face of him who was bearing and who was yet to bear their griefs and carry their sorrows who is now bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows the face of the son of god who instead of accepting the sacrifice of one of his creatures to satisfy his justice or support his dignity gave himself utterly into them and they're into the father by doing his lovely will who suffered unto the death not that men might not suffer but that their suffering might be like his and lead them up to his perfection if that face I say had turned and looked upon moses would moses have lived would he not have died not of splendor not of sorrow terror was not there but of the actual sight of the incomprehensible if infinite mystery had not slain him would he not have gone about dazed doing nothing having no more any business that he could do in the world seeing god was to him altogether unknown for thus a full revelation would not only be no revelation but the destruction of all revelation may it's not then hurt to say that god is love all love and nothing other than love it is not enough to answer that such is the truth even granted that it is upon your own showing too much revelation may hurt by dazzling and blinding there is a great difference between a mystery of god that no man understands and the mystery of god laid hold of let it be but by one single man the latter is already a revelation and passing through that man's mind will be so presented it may be so feebly presented that it will not hurt his fellows let god conceal as he will although I believe he is ever destroying concealment ever giving all that he can all that men can receive at his hands that he does not want to conceal anything but to reveal everything the light which any man has received is not to be put under a bushel it is for him and his fellows in sowing the seed he will not withhold his hand because there are thorns and stony places and way sides he will think that in some cases even a bird of the air may carry the matter that the good seed may be too much for the thorns that that which withers way upon the stony place may yet leave there by its own decay a deeper soil for the next seed to root itself in besides they only can receive the doctrine who have ears to hear if the selfish man could believe it he would misinterpret it but he cannot believe it it is not possible that he should but the loving soul oppressed by wrong teaching or partial truth claiming to be the whole will hear understand rejoice for when we say that god is love do we teach men that their fear of him is groundless no as much as they fear will come upon them possibly far more but there is something beyond their fear a divine fate which they cannot withstand because it works along with the human individuality which the divine individuality has created in them the wrath will consume what they call themselves so that the selves god made shall appear coming out with tenfold consciousness of being and bringing with them all that made the blessedness of the life the men tried to lead without god they will know that now first are they fully themselves the avaricious weary selfish suspicious old man shall have passed away the young every young self will remain that which they thought themselves shall have vanished that which they felt themselves though they misjudged their own feelings shall remain remain glorified in repentant hope for that which cannot be shaken shall remain that which is immortal in god shall remain in man the death that is in them shall be consumed it is the law of nature that is the law of god that all that is destructible shall be destroyed when that which is immortal buries itself in the destructible when it receives all the messages from without through the surrounding region of decadence and none from within from the eternal doors it cannot though immortal still know its own immortality the destructible must be burned out of it or begin to be burned out of it before it can partake of eternal life when that is all burnt away and gone then it has eternal life or rather when the fire of the eternal life has possessed a man then the destructible is gone utterly and he is pure many a man's work must be burned that by that very burning he may be saved so as by fire away in smoke go the lordships the rabbi hoods of the world and the man who acquiesces in the burning is saved by the fire for it has destroyed the destructible which is the vantage point of the deathly which would destroy both body and soul in hell if still he cleaned that which can be burned the burning goes on deeper and deeper into his bosom till it reaches the roots of the falsehood that enslaves him possibly by looking like the truth the man who loves God and is not yet pure courts the burning of God nor is it always torture the fire shows itself sometimes only as light still it will be fire of purifying the consuming fire is just the original the active form of purity that which makes pure that which is indeed love the creative energy of God without purity there can be as no creation so no persistence that which is not pure is corruptible and corruption cannot inherit in corruption the man whose deeds are evil fears the burning but the burning will not come the less that he fears it or denies it escape is hopeless for love is inexorable our God is a consuming fire he shall not come out till he has paid the uttermost farthing if the man resist the burning of God the consuming fire of love a terrible doom awaits him and its day will come he shall be cast into the outer darkness who hates the fire of God what sickness may shall then seize upon him for let a man think and care ever so little about God he does not therefore exist without God God is here with him upholding warming delighting teaching him making life a good thing to him God gives him himself though he knows it not but when God withdraws from a man as far as that can be without the man ceasing to be when the man fills himself abandoned hanging in a ceaseless vertical of existence upon the verge of the gulf of his being without support without refuge without aim without end for the soul has no weapons were with to destroy herself with no in breathing of joy with nothing to make life good then will he listen in agony for the faintest sound of life from the closed door then if the moan of suffering humanity ever reaches the ear of the outcast of darkness he will be ready to rush into the very heart of the consuming fire to know life once more to change this terror of sick negation of unspeakable death for that region of painful hope imagination cannot mislead us into too much horror of being without God that one living death is not this to be worse than worst of those that lawless and uncertain thoughts imagine howling but with this divine difference that the outer darkness is but the most dreadful form of the consuming fire the fire without light the darkness visible the black flame God hath withdrawn himself but not lost his hold his face is turned away but his hand is laid upon him still his heart has ceased to beat into the man's heart but he keeps him alive by his fire and that fire will go searching and burning on in him as in the highest saint who is not yet pure as he is pure but at length oh god wilt thou not cast death and hell into the lake of fire even into thine own consuming self death shall then die everlastingly and hell itself will pass away and leave her Dolores mansions to the peering day then indeed wilt thou be all in all for then our poor brothers and sisters every one oh god we trust in thee the consuming fire shall have been burnt clean and brought home for if there are moans myriads of ages away would turn heaven for us into hell shall a man be more merciful than god shall of all his glories his mercy alone not be infinite shall a brother love a brother more than the father loves a son more than the brother christ loves his brother would he not die yet again to save one brother more as for us now will we come to thee our consuming fire and thou wilt not burn us more than we can bear but thou wilt burn us and although thou seem dislayous yet will we trust in thee even for that which thou hest not spoken if by any means at length we may attain and to the blessedness of those who have not seen and yet believed end of chapter two series one chapter three of unspoken sermons series one this libra vox recording is in the public domain recording by david baltwin unspoken sermons by george mcdonald the higher faith jesus sayeth unto him thomas because thou hast seen me thou hast believed blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed john chapter 20 verse 29 the aspiring child is often checked by the dull disciple who has learned his lessons so imperfectly that he has never got to be on his school books full of fragmentary rules he has perceived the principle of none of them the child draws near to him with some outburst of unusual feeling some scintillation of a lively hope some wide-reaching imagination that draws into the circle of religious theory the world of nature and the yet wider world of humanity for to the child the doings of the father fill the spaces he has not yet learned to divide between god and nature between providence and grace between love and benevolence the child comes i say with his heart full and the answer he receives from the dull disciple is god has said nothing about that in his word therefore we have no right to believe anything about it it is better not to speculate on such matters however desirable it may seem to us we have nothing to do with it it is not revealed for such a man is incapable of suspecting that what has remained hidden from him may have been revealed to the babe with the authority therefore of years and ignorance he forbids the child for he believes in no revelation but the bible and in the word of that alone for him all revelation has ceased with and been buried in the bible to be with difficulty exhumed and with much questioning of the decayed form reunited into a rigid skeleton of metaphysical and legal contrivance for letting the love of god have its way unchecked by the other perfections of his being but to the man who would live throughout the whole divine form of his being not confining himself to one broken corner of his kingdom and leaving the rest to the demons that haunt such a deserts a thousand questions will arise to which the bible does not even allude has he indeed nothing to do with such do they lie beyond the sphere of his responsibility leave them says the dull disciple i cannot returns the man not only does that degree of peace of mind without which action is impossible depend upon the answers to these questions but my conduct itself must correspond to these answers leave them at least till god chooses to explain if he ever will no questions imply answers he has put the questions in my heart he holds the answers in his i will seek them from him i will wait but not till i have knocked i will be patient but not till i have asked i will seek until i find he has something for me my prayer shall go up unto the god of my life sad indeed would be the whole matter if the bible had told us everything god meant us to believe but herein is the bible itself greatly wronged it nowhere claims to be regarded as the word the way the truth the bible leads us to jesus the inexhaustible the ever unfolding revelation of god it is christ in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge not the bible save as leading to him and why are we told that these treasures are hidden him who is the revelation of god is it that we should despair of finding them and cease to seek them are they not hidden him that they may be revealed to us in due time that is when we are in need of them is not there hiding in him the mediatorial step towards their unfolding in us is he not the truth the truth to men is he not the high priest of his brethren to answer all the troubled questions that arise in their dim humanity for it is his heart which contains of good wise just the perfect shape didimus answers no doubt what we know not now we shall know here after certainly there may be things which the mere passing into another stage of existence will illuminate but the questions that come here must be inquired into here and if not answered here then there too until they be answered there is more hidden christ than we shall ever learn here or there either but they that begin first to inquire will soonest be gladdened with revelation and with them he will be best pleased for the slowness of his disciples troubled him of old to say that we must wait for the other world to know the mind of him who came to this world to give himself to us seems to me the foolishness of a worldly and lazy spirit the son of god is the teacher of men giving to them of his spirit that spirit which manifests the deep things of god being to a man the mind of christ the great heresy of the church of the present day is unbelief in the spirit the mass of the church does not believe that the spirit has a revelation for every man individually a revelation as different from the revelation of the bible as the food in the moment of passing into living brain and nerve differs from the bread and meat if we were once filled with the mind of christ we should know that the bible had done its work was fulfilled and had for us passed away that thereby the word of our god might abide forever the one use of the bible is to make us look at jesus that through him we might know his father and our father his god and our god till we thus know him let us hold the bible dear as the moon of our darkness by which we travel towards the east not dear as the sun whence her light cometh and towards which we haste that walking in the sun himself we may no more need the mirror that reflected his absent brightness but this doctrine of the spirit is not my end now although where it's not true all our religion would be vain that of saint paul and that of socrates what i want to say and show if i may is that a man will please god better by believing some things that are not told him than by confining his faith to those things that are expressly said said to arouse in us the truth seeing faculty the spiritual desire the prayer for the good things which god will give to them that ask him but is this not dangerous doctrine will a man not be taught thus to believe the things he likes best even to pray for that which he likes best and will he not grow arrogant in his confidence if it be true that the spirit strives with our spirit if it be true that god teaches men we may safely leave those dreaded results to him if the man is of the lord's company he is safer with him than with those who would secure their safety by hanging on the outskirts and daring nothing if he is not taught of god and that which he hopes for god will let him know it he will receive something else than he prays for if he can pray to god for anything not good the answer will come in the flames of that consuming fire these will soon bring him to some of his spiritual senses but it will be far better for him to be thus sharply tutored than to go on a snail's pace in the journey of the spiritual life and for arrogance I have seen nothing breed it faster or in more offensive forms than the worship of the letter and to whom shall a man whom the blessed god has made look for what he likes best but to that blessed god if we have been indeed enabled to see that god is our father as the lord taught us let us advance from that truth to understand that he is far more than father that his nearness to us is beyond the embodiment of the highest idea of father that the fatherhood of god is but a step towards the godhood for them that can receive it what a man likes best may be god's will may be the voice of the spirit striving with his spirit not against it and if as I have said it be not so if the thing he asked is not according to his will there is that consuming fire the danger lies not in asking from god what is not good nor even in hoping to receive it from him but in not asking him in not having him of our counsel nor will the fact that we dare not inquire his will preserve us from the necessity of acting in some such matter as we called unrevealed and where shall we find ourselves then nor once more for such a disposition of mind is it likely that the book itself will contain much of a revelation the whole matter may safely be left to god but I doubt if a man can ask anything from god that is bad surely one who has begun to pray to him is child enough to know the bad from the good when it has come so near him and dares not pray for that if you refer me to david praying such fearful prayers against his enemies I answer you must you must read them by your knowledge of the man himself and his history remember that this is he who with the burning heart of an eastern yet when his greatest enemy was given into his hands instead of taking the vengeance of an eastern contented himself with cutting off the skirt of his garment it was justice and right that he craved in his soul although his prayers took a wild form of words god heard him and gave him what contented him in a good man at least revenge is as lord bacon says a kind of wild justice and is easily satisfied the heart's desire upon such a one's enemies is best met and granted when the hate is changed into love and compassion but it is about hopes rather than prayers that I wish to write what should I think of my child if I found that he limited his faith in me and hoped from me to the few promises he had heard me utter the faith that limits itself to the promises of god seems to me to partake of the paltry character of such a faith in my child good enough for a pagan but for a christian a miserable and wretched faith those who rest in such a faith would feel yet more comfortable if they had god's bond instead of his word which they regard not as the outcome of his character but as a pledge of his honor they try to believe in the truth of his word but the truth of his being they understand not in his oath they persuade themselves that they put confidence in himself they do not believe for they know him not therefore it is little wonder that they distrust those swellings of the heart which are his drawings of the man towards him as sun and moon heave the ocean mass heavenward brother sister if such is your faith you will not you must not stop there you must come out of this bondage of the law to which you give the name of grace for there is little that is gracious in it you will yet know the dignity of your high calling and the love of god the passive knowledge he is not afraid of your presumptuous approach to him it is you who are afraid to come near him he is not watching over his dignity it is you who fear to be sent away as the disciples would have sent away the little children it is you who think so much about your souls and are so afraid of losing your life that you dare not draw near to the life of life lest it should consume you our god we will trust thee shall we not find thee equal to our faith one day we shall laugh ourselves to scorn that we looked for so little from thee for thy giving will not be limited by our hoping oh thou of little faith in everything i am quoting your own bible nay more i am quoting a divine soul that knew his master christ and in his strength opposed apostles not to say christians to their faces because they could not believe more than a little in god could believe only for themselves and not for their fellows could believe for the few of the chosen nation for whom they had god's ancient word but could not believe for the multitude of the nations for the millions of hearts that god had made to search after him and find him in everything says saint paul in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known unto god for this everything nothing is too small that it should trouble us is enough there is some principle involved in it worth the notice even of god himself for did he not make us so that the thing does trouble us and surely for this everything nothing can be too great when the son of man cometh and findeth too much faith on the earth may god in his mercy slay us meantime we will hope and trust do you count it a great faith to believe what god has said it seems to me i repeat a little faith and if alone worthy of reproach to believe what he has not said is faith indeed and blessed for that comes of believing in him can you not believe in god himself or confess do you find it so hard to believe what he has said that even that is almost more than you can do if i ask you why will not the true answer be because we are not quite sure that he did say it it if you believed in god you would find it easy to believe the word you would not even need to inquire whether he had said it you would know that he meant it let us then dare something let us not always be unbelieving children let us keep in mind that the lord not forbidding those who insist on seeing before they will believe blesses those who have not seen and yet have believed those who trust in him more than that who believe without the sight of the eyes without the hearing of the ears they are blessed to whom a wonder is not a fable to whom a mystery is not a mockery to whom a glory is not an unreality who are content to ask is it like him it is a dull hearted unchildlike people that will be always putting god in mind of his promises those promises are good to reveal what god is if they think them good as binding god let them have it so for the hardness of their hearts they prefer the word to the spirit it is theirs even such will leave us some of them will if not all to the uncovenanted mercies of god we desire no less we hope for no better those are the mercies beyond our height beyond our depth beyond our reach we know in whom we have believed and we look for that which it has not entered into the heart of man to conceive so god's thoughts be surpassed by man's thoughts god's giving by man's asking god's creation by man's imagination no let us climb to the height of our alpine desires let us leave them behind us and ascend the spear-pointed Himalayas of our aspirations still shall we find the depth of god's sapphire above us still shall we find the heavens higher than the earth and his thoughts and his ways higher than our thoughts and our ways oh lord be thou in all our being as not in the Sundays of our time alone so not in the chambers of our hearts alone we dare not think that thou canst not carest not that some things are not for thy beholding some questions not to be asked of thee for are we not all thine utterly thine that which a man speaks not to his fellow we speak to thee our very passions we hold up to thee and say behold lord think about us for thou hast made us we would not escape from our history by fleeing into the wilderness by hiding our heads in the sands of forgetfulness or the repentance that comes of pain or the lethargy of hopelessness we take it as our very life in our hand and flee with it unto thee triumphant is the answer which thou holdest for every doubt it may be we could not understand it yet but thou shalt at least find faith in the earth oh lord if thou comest to look for it now the faith of ignorant but hoping children who know that they do not know and believe that thou knowest and for our brothers and sisters who cleave to what they call thy word thinking to please thee so they are safe in thy holy hands who hast taught us that whosoever shall believe a word against the son of man it shall be forgiven him though unto him that blasphemes against the holy ghost it shall not be forgiven end of chapter three series one