Greetings,
In preparation for a talk on a particular aspect of John Wesley’s life I was reviewing many of his writings and information about his beliefs. While not directly related to this particular talk, Wesley’s constant focus on the Bible as the inspired Word of God constantly appeared in almost every reference or quotation which I wanted to use. Thus I was reminded of Charles Kingsley and this passage from his Westminster Sermons (1874).
Charles Kingsley (June 12, 1819 – January 23, 1875) was an English priest of the Church of England, university professor, historian and novelist, particularly associated with the West Country and northeast Hampshire.
Kingsley sat on the 1866 Edward Eyre Defence Committee along with Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, Charles Dickens and Alfred Lord Tennyson.
He was sympathetic to the idea of evolution and was one of the first to praise Charles Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species. His concern for social reform is illustrated in his great classic, the Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby.
Kingsley was influenced by Frederick Denison Maurice, and was close to many Victorian thinkers and writers, for example the great Scottish writer George MacDonald.
“The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of lebanon, which He has planted.” (Ps. 104:16) it has happened to me-through the bounty of God, for which I shall be ever grateful—to have spent days in forests as gread as, and far stranger thsn, that of Lebanon and its cedars; amid trees beside which the hugest tree in Britain would be but as a sapling; gorgeous too with flowers, rich with fruits, timbers, precious gums, and all the yet unknown wealth of a tropic wilderness. As I looked up, awe-struck and bewildered, at those minsters not made by hands, I found the words of Scripture rising again and again unawares to my lips and said—Yes, the Bible words are the best words, the only words for such a sight as this. These too are trees of God which are full of sap. These too are trees which God, not man, has planted. Mind, I do not say that I would have said so, if I had lot learnt to say so from the Bible. Without the Bible I should have been, I presume, either an idolater or an atheist. And mind, also, that I do not say that the Psalmist learnt to call the cedar trees of God by his own unassisted reason. I believe the very opposite. I believe that no man can see the truth of a thing unless God shows it him; that no man can find out God, in earth or heaven, unless God condescends to reveal Himself to that man. But I believe that God did reveal Himself to the Psalmist; did enlighten his resaon by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit; did teach him, as we teach a child, what to call those cedars; and, as it were, whispered to him, through no audible voice: “Thou wishest to know that name is most worthy whereby to call these mighty trees: then call them trees of God. Know that there is but one God, of whom are all things; and that they are His trees; and that He planted them, to show forth His wisdom, His power, and His good-will to man.”
Yours & His,
DED
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