George MacDonald Quotes
First of all, a copy of his, “Unspoken Sermons”, can be found here.
“But to the man who would live throughout the whole divine form of his being, not confining himself to one broken corner of his kingdom, and leaving the rest to the demons that haunt such deserts, a thousand questions will arise to which the Bible does not even allude. Has he indeed nothing to do with such? Do they lie beyond the sphere of his responsibility? “Leave them,” says the dull disciple. “I cannot,” returns the man. “Not only does that degree of peace of mind without which action is impossible, depend upon the answers to these questions, but my conduct itself must correspond to these answers.” “Leave them at least till God chooses to explain, if he ever will.” “No. Questions imply answers. He has put the questions in my heart; he holds the answers in his. I will seek them from him. I will wait, but not till I have knocked. I will be patient, but not till I have asked. I will seek until I find. He has something for me. My prayer shall go up unto the God of my life.”
Sad, indeed, would the whole matter be, if the Bible had told us _everything_ God meant us to believe. But herein is the Bible itself greatly wronged. It nowhere lays claim to be regarded as _the_ Word, _the_ Way, _the_ Truth. The Bible leads us to Jesus, the inexhaustible, the ever unfolding Revelation of God.” – from the sermon titled, “The Higher Faith”
“And our God is a consuming fire.
If this be hard to understand, it is as the simple, absolute truth is hard to understand. It may be centuries of ages before a man comes to see a truth–ages of strife, of effort, of aspiration. But when once he does see it, it is so plain that he wonders he could have lived without seeing it. That he did not understand it sooner was simply and only that he did not see it. To see a truth, to know what it is, to understand it, and to love it, are all one. There is many a motion towards it, many a misery for want of it, many a cry of the conscience against the neglect of it, many a dim longing for it as an unknown need before at length the eyes come awake, and the darkness of the dreamful night yields to the light of the sun of truth. But once beheld it is for ever. To see one divine fact is to stand face to face with essential eternal life.” – from the sermon titled, “The Consuming Fire”
“Words for their full meaning depend upon their source, the person who speaks them. An utterance may even seem commonplace, till you are told that thus spoke one whom you know to be always thinking, always feeling, always acting. Recognizing the mind whence the words proceed, you know the scale by which they are to be understood. So the words of God cannot mean just the same as the words of man. “Can we not, then, understand them?” Yes, we can understand them–we can understand them _more_ than the words of men. Whatever a good word means, as used by a good man, it means just infinitely more as used by God. And the feeling or thought expressed by that word takes higher and higher forms in us as we become capable of understanding him,–that is, as we become like him.” – from the sermon titled, “It Shall Not Be Forgiven”
”“And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.”
So saith St Luke.
Then Satan ventured once more. When?
Was it then, when at the last moment, in the agony of the last faint, the Lord cried out, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” when, having done the great work, having laid it aside clean and pure as the linen cloth that was ready now to infold him, another cloud than that on the mount overshadowed his soul, and out of it came a voiceless persuasion that, after all was done, God did not care for his work or for him?
Even in those words the adversary was foiled–and for ever. For when he seemed to be forsaken, his cry was still, “_My God! my God!_”” – from the sermon titled, “The Temptation in the Wilderness”
The true man trusts in a strength which is not his and which he does not feel - which he does not even always desire. He believes in a power that seems far from him which is yet at the root of his fatigue itself and his need of rest - rest as far from death as is labour. To trust in the strength of God in our weakness is victory. To say, “I am weak: so let me be. God is strong,” is victory. To seek from him who is our life, as the natural cure of all that is amiss with us, the power to do, and be, and live, even when we are weary - this is the victory that overcomes the world. - George MacDonald