Discipline and Other Sermons by Kingsley, Charles, 1819-1875

Let him be of good cheer. He is not going wrong wilfully. But he is making a mistake. Let him make it no more. He feels himself unworthy. Let him come all the more, that he may be made worthy. Let him come, because he is worthy. For--strange it may seem, but true it is--that a man is the more worthy to draw near to God the more he feels himself to be utterly unworthy thereof.

He who partakes worthily of the Holy Communion is he who says with his whole heart, 'We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table.' He with whom Christ will take up his abode is he who says, 'Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof.'

For humility is the beginning of all goodness, and the end of all wisdom.

He who says that he sees is blind. He who knows his own blindness sees. He who says he has no sin in him is the sinner. He who confesses his sins is the righteous man; for God is faithful and just to forgive him, as he did St. Peter, and to cleanse him from all unrighteousness.

SERMON XIX.--A WHITSUN SERMON

PSALM civ. 24, 27-30.

O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches. . . . These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.

You may not understand why I read this morning, instead of the Te Deum, the 'Song of the three Children,' which calls on all powers and creatures in the world to bless and praise God. You may not understand also, at first, why this grand 104th Psalm was chosen as one of the special Psalms for Whitsuntide,--what it has to do with the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the Spirit of God. Let me try to explain it to you, and may God grant that you may find something worth remembering among my clumsy words.

You were told this morning that there were two ways of learning concerning God and the Spirit of God,--that one was by the hearing of the ear, and the Holy Bible; the other by the seeing of the eye--by nature and the world around us. It is of the latter I speak this afternoon,--of what you can learn concerning God by seeing, if only you have eyes, and the same Spirit of God to open those eyes, as the Psalmist had.

The man who wrote this Psalm looked round him on the wondrous world in which we dwell, and all he saw in it spoke to him of God; of one God, boundless in wisdom and in power, in love and care; and of one Spirit of God, the Lord and Giver of Life.