What that is; what the Church Catechism does tell us, which the favourite religious books now-a-days do not tell us; and what that has to do with turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, I must tell you hereafter.  God grant that my words may sink into all hearts, as far as they are right and true; if sooner or later we are not all brought to understand the meaning of those two simple words, Father and Son, neither Baptism, nor Confirmation, nor Schools, nor this Church, nor the very body and blood of Him who died for us, to share which you are all called this day, will be of avail for the well-being of this parish, or of this country, or any other country upon earth.  For where the root is corrupt, the fruit will be also; and where family life and family ties, which are the root and foundation of society, are out of joint, there the Nation and the Church will decay also; as it is written, ’If the foundations be cast down, what can the righteous do?’

And whensoever, in any family, or nation and church, the root of the tree (which is the conduct of parents to children, and of children to parents) grows corrupt and rotten, then ‘last days,’ as St. Paul calls them, are indeed come to it, and evil times therewith; for the Lord will surely lay the axe to the root of it, and cut it down and cast it into the fire:  neither will the days of that family, or that people, or that Church, be long in the land which the Lord their God has given them.  So it has been as yet, in all ages and in all countries on the face of God’s earth, and so it will be until the end.  Wheresoever the hearts of the fathers are not turned to the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers, there will a great and terrible day of the Lord come; and that nation, like Judaea of old, like many a fair country in Europe at this moment, will be smitten with a curse.

SERMON II.  SALVATION

John xvii. 3.  This is life eternal, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.

Before I can explain what this text has to do with the Church Catechism, I must say to you a little about what it means.

Now if I asked any of you what ‘salvation’ was, you would probably answer, ‘Eternal life.’

And you would answer rightly.  That is exactly what salvation is, and neither more nor less.  No more than that; for nothing greater than that can belong to any created being.  No less than that; for God’s love and mercy are eternal and without bound.

But what is eternal life?

Some will answer, ‘Going to heaven when we die.’  But what before you die?  You do not know? cannot tell?

Let us listen to what God Himself says.  Let us listen to what the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, says.  Let us listen to what He who spake as man never spake, says.  Surely His words must be the clearest, the simplest, the most exact, the deepest, the widest; the exactly fit and true words, the complete words, the perfect words, which cannot be improved on by adding to them or taking away one jot or tittle.  What did the Lord Jesus Christ say that eternal life was?