He is going to rebuke them for having heresies among
them, that is religious parties and religious quarrels--very much as we
have now; for being puffed up with spiritual self-conceit; for despising
and disparaging him; for loose lives, allowing (in one case) such a crime
among them as even the heathen did not allow; for profaning the Lord's
Supper, to such an extent that some seem even to have got drunk at it;
for want of charity to each other; for indulging in fanatical excitement;
for denying, some of them, the resurrection of the dead; on the whole,
for being in so unwholesome a state of mind that he has to warn them
solemnly of the fearful example of the old Israelites, who perished in
the wilderness for their sins--as they will perish, he hints, unless they
mend.
And yet he begins by thanking God for them, by speaking of them, and to
them, in this cheerful and hopeful tone.
Does that seem strange? Why should it seem strange, my friends, to us,
if we are in the habit of training our children, and rebuking our
children, as we ought? If we have to rebuke our children for doing
wrong, do we begin by trying to break their hearts? by raking up old
offences, by reproaching them with all the wrong they ever did in their
lives, and giving them to understand that they are thoroughly bad, and
have altogether lost our love, so that we will have nothing more to do
with them unless they mend? Or do we begin by making them feel that
however grieved we are with them, we love them still; that however wrong
they have been, there is right feeling left in them still; and by giving
them credit for whatever good there is in them--by appealing to that;
calling on them to act up to that; to be true to themselves, and to their
better nature; saying, You can do right in one thing--then do right in
another--and do right in all? If we do not do this we do wrong; we
destroy our children's self-respect, we make them despair of improving,
we make them fancy themselves bad children: that is the very surest plan
we can take to make them bad children, by making them reckless.
Pages:
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252