On the Study of Words by Richard Chenevix Trench (great book club books .TXT) 📖

exclaiming, 'Loose him, and let him go,' the same is done spiritually for us, when we receive the 'absolution' of our sins.

Tell your scholars that 'atonement' means 'at-one-ment'—the setting at one of those who were at twain before, namely God and man, and they will attach to 'atonement' a definite meaning, which perhaps in no way else it would have possessed for them; and, starting from this point, you may muster the passages in Scripture which describe the sinner's state as one of separation, estrangement, alienation, from God, the Christian's state as one in which he walks together with God, because the two have been set 'at one.' Or you have to deal with the following, 'to redeem,' 'Redeemer,' 'redemption.' Lose not yourselves in vague generalities, but fasten on the central point of these, that they imply a 'buying,' and not this merely, but a 'buying back'; and then connect with them, so explained, the whole circle of statements in Scripture which rest on this image, which speak of sin as a slavery, of sinners as bondsmen of Satan, of Christ's blood as a ransom, of the Christian as one restored to his liberty.

Many words more suggest themselves; I will not urge more than one; but that one, because in it is a lesson more for ourselves than for others, and with such I would fain bring these lectures to a close. How solemn a truth we express when we name our work in this world our 'vocation,' or, which is the same in homelier Anglo-Saxon, our 'calling.' What a calming, elevating, ennobling view of the tasks appointed us in this world, this word gives us. We did not come to our work by accident; we did not choose it for ourselves; but, in the midst of much which may wear the appearance of accident and self-choosing, came to it by God's leading and appointment. How will this consideration help us to appreciate justly the dignity of our work, though it were far humbler work, even in the eyes of men, than that of any one of us here present! What an assistance in calming unsettled thoughts and desires, such as would make us wish to be something else than that which we are! What a source of confidence, when we are tempted to lose heart, and to doubt whether we shall carry through our work with any blessing or profit to ourselves or to others! It is our 'vocation,' not our choosing but our 'calling'; and He who 'called' us to it, will, if only we will ask Him, fit us for it, and strengthen us in it.

End of Project Gutenberg's On the Study of Words, by Richard C Trench