“The principle is expressed again when we say, You maintain that the pain you are suffering is not good but ill, a sign of wrong and disorder. You say that it is a chain of bondage, from which you must seek and cry for deliverance. You say that you cannot stop to settle in what part of you it is, that it is throughout you, that it affects you altogether, that you want a complete deliverance from it. Even so. Hold fast that conviction. Let no man, divine or layman, rob you of it. Pain is a sign and witness of disorder, the consequence of disorder. It is mockery to say otherwise. You describe it rightly; it is a bondage, the sign that a tyrant has in some way intruded himself into this earth of ours. But you are permitted to suffer the consequence of that intrusion, just that you may attain to the knowledge of another fact, that there is a Redeemer, that He lives, that He is the stronger. That righteous King of your heart whom you have felt to be so near you, so one with you, that you could hardly help identifying Him with yourself, even while you confessed that you were so evil, He is the Redeemer as well as the Lord of you and of man. Believe that He is so. Ask to understand the way in which He has proved Himself so. You will find that God, not we. has been teaching you of Him, that He has been talking with you in the whirlwind, while we were darkening counsel with words without knowledge ; leading you to the sight of His glory, that He might make you willing to confess your own baseness. He has taught you that you have been in chains, but that you have been a willing wearer of the chains. To break them He must set you free. Self is your great prisonhouse. The strong man armed, who keeps that prison in safety, must be bound. The rod of the enchanter, who holds your will in bondage, must be broken by some diviner spell before the arms can be loosed, and the captive rise and move again.” - F.D. Maurice, 1856
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 02:08:07 +0000
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