The original Plymouth pulpit Author:Henry Ward Beecher Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: GROWTH IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. SUNDAY MORNlNG, NOVEMBER 1, 1868. "Bur grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesue Christ."—2 Pet. in... more ». 18. To increase in the knowledge of God is distinctly commanded, not in this passage alone, but in very many. The progress of the mind in the knowledge of physical truth, scientific truth, depends very much upon the exercise of the senses upon matter; but the growth of knowledge in moral truth depend) upon the exorcise of moral feelings. While sense is the source of physical or scientific knowledge, disposition is the source of the knowledge of moral truth. Growth in the knowledge of a Divine Being unites both of these. That is to say, there is a revelation of God in the natural world, and there is also a revelation of God in society and in the social nature of man. But as the Lord Jesus Christ is a representation of divine nature in its moral aspects chiefly, rather than in its forensic or executive elements, it is to be learned by moral growth in our- selves more than in any other way. Hence the text is, " Grow in grace" as if it were in that way only that you could grow " in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." Grace is the schoolmaster of knowledge. Therefore we find such expressions in Paul, (this is from Peter,) where, in the 4th of Ephesians, and the 15th verse, he exhorts them to speak the truth. " Speaking the truth in love, that ye may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ "—growing being here identified with the development of such dispositions as make us identical with Christ. Let us, then, trace the steps of growth in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. 1. The earliest knowledge which we have of divine existence is Limon : Colossians 1. Hymns (Plymouth...« less