Bible temperance.

Date:
[1880?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Bible temperance. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/52 (page 6)
    “ the prince of this world ” : how complete and universal till then was his deluding dominion over the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve! “ Knowledge is power,” while ignorance is weakness ; and this know¬ ledge of Christ on the part of Satan and his hosts formed a mighty vantage-ground on the side of hell, in this central conflict of the great war. And with what tremendous effect did the infernal legions employ that vantage-ground! Notwithstanding all the watchings and prayers Jesus, all His words of love and truth, all His deeds of goodness and grace, all His miracles of power and mercy, all His ministry of spotless innocence, boundless benevolence, andinfinite, self-sacrificing compassion, they succeeded in rousing against Him the jealous hos¬ tility of the State, the bitter animosity and relentless persecution of the Church, and the misguided zeal, ignorant antipathy, and unreason¬ ing rage of the populace. And through these hell-inspired elements com¬ bined, the Innocent One was opposed, persecuted, despised, rejected, condemned, buffeted, scourged, mocked, spit upon, and murdered; while with a love which nothing could quench, He prayed even for His murderers, “ Father, forgive them, for they know not what the do.” The arms which they so cruelly extended on Calvary’s cross wTould gladly have clasped them all to His heart of inextinguishable love, even in the expiring agony of death ! Yea, He voluntarily shed His heart’s blood for the salvation of the very creatures who treated Him with a cruelty of wickedness and wickedness of cruelty never exceeded in earth or hell! O blessed Jehovah-Jesus ! this most as¬ suredly is more than creature love ! In its presence, should not every child of Adam adoringly exclaim with Thomas, “ My Lord and my God (John xx. 28)!” Love and truth conquer evermore ! Here, in the voluntary suffering, agony, crucifixion, and death, so far as these were possible, of the Divine-human Son of God and Son of Man, we have the most marvellous exhibition of the Almighty power of love and truth which the universe has ever witnessed. And here, at the same time, we behold the culminating illustration of the power of hate and false¬ hood, in the murder of the Divine Redeemer and Loving Saviour of men, with all its associated baseness, ingratitude, injustice, cruelty, and wickedness, by the hands of the rational beings whom He was living and dying to redeem and deliver from the cruel dominion and malign influence of the prince of hate and father of lies, while this very author of hate and falsehood was goading them on in the per¬ petration of this most wicked of all wicked atrocities, under the most marvellous of all delusions actual or possible, that they were -doing service to the God of love and truth ! In this closest struggle of the sublime war, we believe heaven did its best and hell its worst. We believe that no greater exhibitions of the powers of love and truth on the part of heaven, and of hate and falsehood on the part of hell are possible, than those displayed before angels, men, and devils, in the slaying and sacrifice of the Lamb of God on the hill of Calvary. Satan here, if ever, bruised the Saviour’s heel, and Jesus here emphatically bruised the Old Serpent’s head. Here Jesus in reality stooped to conquer, humbled Himself for the moment that