Visions and Tasks.
I. The power of man to stand between abstract truth upon the one side and the concrete facts of life upon the other, comes from the co-existence in his human nature of two different powers, without the possession of both of which no man possesses a complete humanity. One of these powers is the power of knowing, and the other is the power of loving. The more perfectly these two constituents of human nature meet the more absolutely they are proportioned to each other, and the more completely they are blended so much the more ready will the human nature be for the fulfilment of every function of humanity. And as one of the loftiest functions of humanity is to stand between the absolute truth and the world's needs, and to transmit the one in such a way that it can really reach and help the other, then it will also follow that the more perfectly the knowing faculty and the loving faculty meet in any man the more that man's life will become a transmitter and interpreter of truth to other men.
II. Every truth which it is possible for man to know it is good for him to know with reference to his brother men. Only in that way is the truth which he knows kept at its loftiest and purest. This is the daily meaning which I want to find in the picture of Peter seeing his vision on the house-top and the three men knocking in the street below. Cast off your sins, not for yourself, but for some soul which possibly may learn from you what it could not learn in any other way, how good and strong and forgiving is the sinner's God. It is a terrible thing to have seen the vision, and to be so wrapped up in its contemplation as not to hear the knock of needy hands upon our doors. But there is no greater happiness in all the world than for a man to love Christ for the mercy Christ has shown his soul, and then to open his whole heart outward, and help to save his brethren's souls with the same salvation in which he rejoices for himself. May none of us go through life so poor as never to have known that happiness.
Phillips Brooks, Twenty Sermons,p. 1.
References: Acts 10:19. Phillips Brooks, Twenty Sermons,p. 1.Acts 10:28. Homilist,vol. vi., p. 261.Acts 10:29. Parker, Cavendish Pulpit,vol. i., p. 3.Acts 10:33. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iii., p. 104; Parker, The Ark of God,p. 192; C. J. Vaughan, Church of the First Days,vol. ii., p. 78.