What, then, are we to believe and do?  Shall we degenerate into a lazy scepticism, which believes that everything is a little true, and everything a little false—­in plain words, believes nothing at all?  Or shall we degenerate into faithless fears, and unmanly wailings that the flood of infidelity is irresistible, and that Christ has left His Church?

We shall do neither, if we believe the text.  That tells us of a firm standing-ground amid the wreck of fashions and opinions.  Of a kingdom which cannot be moved, though the heavens pass away like a scroll, and the earth be burnt up with fervent heat.

And it tells us that the King of that kingdom is He, who is called Jesus Christ—­the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

An eternal and changeless kingdom, and an eternal and changeless King.  These the Epistle to the Hebrews preaches to all generations.

It does not say that we have an unchangeable cosmogony, an unchangeable eschatology, an unchangeable theory of moral retribution, an unchangeable dogmatic system:  not to these does it point the Jews, while their own nation and worship were in their very death-agony, and the world was rocking and reeling round them, decay and birth going on side by side, in a chaos such as man had never seen before.  Not to these does the Epistle point the Hebrews:  but to the changeless kingdom and to the changeless King.

My friends, do you really believe in that kingdom, and in that King?  Do you believe that you are now actually in a kingdom of heaven, which cannot be moved; and that the living, acting, guiding, practical, real King thereof is Christ who died on the Cross?

These are days in which a preacher is bound to ask his congregation—­and still more to ask himself—­whether he really believes in that kingdom, and in that King; and to bid himself and them, if they have not believed earnestly enough therein, to repent, in this time of Lent, of that at least; to repent of having neglected that most cardinal doctrine of Scripture and of the Christian faith.

But if we really believe in that changeless kingdom and in that changeless King, shall we not—­considering who Christ is, the co-equal and co-eternal Son of God—­believe also, that if the heavens and the earth are being shaken, then Christ Himself may be shaking them?  That if opinions be changing, then Christ Himself may be changing them?  That if new truths are being discovered, Christ Himself may be revealing them?  That if some of those truths seem to contradict those which He has revealed already, they do not really contradict them?  That, as in the sixteenth century, Christ is burning up the wood and stubble with which men have built on His foundation, that the pure gold of His truth may alone be left?  It is at least possible; it is probable, if we believe that Christ is a living, acting King, to whom all power is given in heaven and earth, and who is actually exercising that power; and educating Christendom, and through Christendom the whole human race, to a knowledge of Himself, and through Himself of God their Father in heaven.