I have sent also
unto you, saith God, not merely my servants the prophets, but my
only-begotten, Jesus Christ your Lord, saying, 'Return you now every
man from his evil way, and amend your doings, and go not after other
gods to serve them, and ye shall dwell in the land which I have given
to you and to your fathers. But ye have not inclined your ear, nor
hearkened unto me.'
God grant that that may never be said to any of us. And yet it is
impossible to deny--impossible to shut our eyes to the plain fact--
that Englishmen now-a-days are more and more forgetting that there
are any commandments of God whatsoever; any everlasting laws laid
down by their Heavenly Father, which, if they break, will avenge
themselves by our utter ruin. We do not go after other gods, it is
true, in the sense of worshipping idols. But there is another god,
which we go after more and more; and that is money; gain; our
interest (as we call it):- not knowing that the only true interest of
any man is to fear God and keep his commandments. We hold more and
more that a man can serve God and mammon; that a man must of course
be religious, and belong to some special sect, or party, or
denomination, and stand up for that fiercely enough: but we do not
hold that there are commandments of God which say for ever to the
sinner, 'Do this and thou shalt live;' 'Do this or thou shalt die.
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