8. ‘Rock of Ages’
8
‘Rock of Ages’
There is a well-known aphorism in our English language which, if we could only carry it over into our religious literature and would continually practice it would change everything; that would in course of time transform all our religious words from their present idleness to a great fruitfulness and a great acceptableness. “Read,” so the fine aphorism runs, “Read always with your eye on the object.” That is to say, read not so much with your eye on the words as on the things.… Now tonight just repeat or chant to yourselves “Rock of Ages,” with your eye all the time on the Object, that is to say, on Christ crucified for you. That is to say, doing the thing all the time you are saying or singing the words. As thus: cleft for me! Always as you utter the great words think you are standing on Mount Calvary and are looking on Christ actually being crucified on that cross for you. See him and come up close to him, and, as if there were no one near him but you, say to him: Let me hide myself in thee from all my past sins, from all my present temptations of all kinds and of all degrees, and even from my evil and unseemly self. Look up and say to him—Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. And let that not be an idle word in such a place and at such a moment. But throw your arms around his bleeding Body, and so hide yourself for ever in his sin-atoning and debt-discharging sacrifice. And so on as the Spirit of God and your own believing heart will teach you to the end of your great hymn of Christ-appropriating praise. Do that once tonight and you will feel such a sense of reality and truth and power that you will sing in the same way all your days. And that not only with that heavenly hymn but with all the psalms and hymns and spiritual songs that have hitherto been such a tissue of idle words to you. Always sing with your eye on the Divine Object and your eye will infallibly both satisfy and sanctify your heart.
*From Thomas Shepard: Pilgrim Father and Founder of Harvard: His Spiritual Experience and Experimental Preaching (Edinburgh/London: Oliphant Anderson and Ferrier, 1909), 70-72. The title is a reference to the well-known hymn by Augustus M. Toplady (1740-1778), the Anglican Evangelical.