The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-08-18
THE. PULPIT
AN ELOQUENT SUNDAY SERMONS BY
THE REV. SYDNEY H. COX. -,
Theme: What is 1t to Live?

BrOOKlyn, N. moiAlA6
the Rev. Sydney Herbert Cox, pastor
of the = Church of the Evangel,
preached on the special subject,
What is 1t to Live?" The text was
from Matthew "A: 1T is written
Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that %proceedeth
out of the mouth of Cod" Mr.. Cox
said:
1t is written! Where? In Deuter-
onomy, the second giving of the law,
the recapitulation of mans experience
with God, and his Interpretation
thereof. 1t is declared that mans life
is something more than escape from
a wilderness Of hunger to a land OF
rich harvests.
The temptation of Jesus is the pro-
totype through which every per-
sonality must. pass. This profound
fact of spiritual consciousness brings
man face to face with the elemental
questions of his being. What is our
life? Why are we tempted, and how?
What is sin, and how can we be free
from it? What is to be the end of
the battle, with it's deep failures and
few successes? What does 1t mean to
live?
The answer of Jesus includes a
denial and an affirmation. He sets
forth Cd the unity Of life. His re-
ply to the tempter was surely uneX-
pected. He does not say, l am divine,
I am unique, I am in a social sense
the Son of God. He speaks for. the
race as its representative and refers
to a fundamental law that man has
experienced, though rarely inter.
preted. Man does not live by bread
alone. His living is something more
than the means to live. There is one
life. Only part of it depends on
bread. Bread, like the pillow and the
soil, is but an agent, a tool. 1t pre-!
serves the body, but the body also is
only a machine In which the person
who has life for a little while dwells:
The answer of Jesus does not define
life, but declares the source of its
fullest expression. Your fathers did
eat mama in the wilderness, and are
dead. The bread that I will give, ii
q man eat, he shall live forever"
There Is a distinctness of the life that
is purely physical, or intellectual, OF
moral, or spiritual, but with the dis
tinctness there Is also the impossible
ity of separation. The source Of each.
and the unity Of all, originate in God.
This, then, Is the denial Of ma,
terialism. Man does not live by bread
alone! God has given to each phase
of life it's need, and no lower nature
in US can supply the needs of the one
above it, though it may influence it
more or less. A bilious body may
cause a pessimistic philosophy, but 1t
could not be the sole cause. The
pugilist acquires a perfect physique,
without gaining al atom Of intel.
lectual force, moral perception or
spiritual desire. The skeptic may
inherit wealth without faith, and the
hypocrite may OWL libraries and art
galleries. These live-that is to say,
they exist; they eat, drink and are
merry, because the bread Of the
world, the things of time and place
and of the present are theirs in abun.
dance. But in the deeper, profound.
er, timeless, ageless n of life, in
the vision of the true, the beautiful
and the good, do they live?
Jesus denies it. He afirms the real.
tty of the spiritual. All things proceed
out of, the mouth Of God. The soul
must receive life by an incarnation.
That Is the representative miracle or
sign of the being Of Christ. God
must pass into our consciousness as
He had always been in that of Jesus,
dominating our nature, but only with
our voluntary acquiescence. What is
it to live? To have the force of the
life Of God put in control Of u hu-
man forces at the command of our
own will, the higher controlling the
lower, and yet making more Of the
lower. The spiritual, feeding on the
vision ofgGod and then expanding the
moral, the intellectual, and the phys
ical, so that, for the whole man, lin
its disappear; time, death and the
grave are but temporary expedients
and all his nature cries, II live, yet
not I, Christ liyeth in me-" Thus life
eternal is something more, and some
thing different from life prolonged.
It is a new quality of life, involving
the recognition Of Gods share in the
making. It is God lifting man into
the new spirit Of being. Man lives
by the things that proceed out Of the
mouth of Jehovah, said the Deuteron-
omist. He does. The words Of God
are symbols Of his volition, whether
his will reveals a new harvest, a new
idea, a new duty, or a ne. sacrifice.
The spiritual man greets either OF
these words Of God by giving them
their hottest expression because now
he lives! He lives in growing har-
mony with the perceived will Of his
eternal Father. He has a stronger
life than the pugilist, because his
phyEical powers are OILY at the SER
vice Of the worlds need. He Is
mightier than the physical champion,
because his superb bodily endowment
cannot escape his spiritual ideals of
servfce.
His mind towers above the skep-
tics because, in spite of poverty or
bodily weakness, or many sorrows,
or grave problems of truth, he has
the power to prevent these things
from ohscuring his vision of a child's
t;mplieity, a woman's tenderness, a
mans courage, or those larger sue
casses seen when races struggle up
through fearful toll to days Of laugh
ter and powers a thousandfold
greater.
He sees that men have risen above
the level of their dead selves to
nobler living, and he finds that
neither money, nor land, nor power,
nor luxuries have explained the
primal forces that have urged NAL
on.
The eternal choice. And always
that choice involves sacrifice. 1t did
for Jesus. 1t must for US. He de.
sired nothing more eagerly than the
rapid conquest of His people by His
;dao1e and poicciop HE triD1e fpmOta.