Image of a bible cloak12/28/2023 ![]() ![]() First, let us LOOK AT THIS MEMORABLE CLOAK which Paul left with Carpus at Troas. I trust that this cloak may warm your hearts this morning, that these books may give you instruction, and that the apostle himself, may be to you an example of heroism, suitable to stir your minds to imitation.Ģ. I venture to say, that my text has much in it of spiritual instruction. Can we not see the legible handwriting of the God of nature and providence, in the very fact that the sublimities of revelation are interspersed with homely, everyday remarks? But they are not trifles, after all. Experts detect a handwriting by a slight quivering in the upstrokes, the turn of the final mark, a dot, a cross, or still less matters. Observe two pictures, and you will, if thoroughly skilled in art, detect certain minute details, which indicate the same authorship if they are by the same hand the very littlenesses often, to men of artistic eye, will betray the painter more certainly than the more prominent strokes, which might far more easily be counterfeited. Hence learn to see in the minutia of the Bible, the God of providence and nature. It is not at every hour that a torrent inundates a province, but how frequently do the dewdrops moisten the green leaves? We do not often read about hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes, but the annals of providence could reveal the history of many a grain of dust borne along in the summer’s gale, many a sear leaf torn from the poplar, and many a rush waving by the river’s brim. Besides, in providence are there not trifles? It is not every day that a nation is rent by revolution, or a throne shaken by rebellion: far more often a bird’s nest is destroyed by a child, or an anthill overturned by a spade. Are there not things which our short sightedness would call trifles in the volume of creation around us? What is the particular value of the daisy upon the lawn, or the buttercup in the meadow? Compared with the rolling sea, or the eternal hills, how inconsiderable they seem! Why has the hummingbird a plumage so wondrously bejewelled, and why is so much marvellous skill expended upon the wing of a butterfly? Why such curious machinery in the foot of a fly, or such a matchless optical arrangement in the eye of a spider? Because to most men these are trifles, are they to be left out of nature’s plans? No because greatness of divine skill is as apparent in the minute as in the magnificent: and even so in Holy Writ, the little things which are embalmed in the amber of inspiration are far from inappropriate or unwise. They have marvelled why so little a matter as a cloak should be mentioned in an inspired book but they ought to know that this is one of the many indications that the book is by the same author as the book of nature. Foolish people have made remarks upon the trifles of Scripture. The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when you come, bring it with you, and the books, but especially the parchments. Spurgeon, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington. A Sermon Delivered on Sunday Morning, November 29, 1863, by C. ![]()
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