The readers of this letter, certainly, and its writer, probably, never heard Jesus Christ in His earthly utterances; but as the letter says, in another place, He now speaketh from heaven.' The writer was sure that to these people, who had never heard a syllable of the Lord's earthly sayings, that pleading, infinitely sweet and persuasive voice was ever coming. And, as I said, his bold transference of the ancient words to his own generation involves a principle which compels us to transfer them equally unhesitatingly from the generation of apostles and early Christians to our own prosaic and commonplace times. Jesus Christ, dear friends, is speaking to every one of us, direct and straight, as He spoke to the men of those days.
He speaks to us by His recorded earthly utterances. Oh, if people would read the gospels as they ought to be read--with the conviction that there was nothing in Christ's words, local, temporary, or peculiar to the individuals to whom they were primarily addressed--how different they would be to us all! His own declaration is true about all His utterances, What I say unto you'--the little group gathered round Me here,--I say unto all'--those dim and distant multitudes away out to the very ends of the earth, and down through the ages, I speak to them all.
He stands and says to me, and to thee, Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' Dear brother, straight to you, as if winged like an arrow from the heavens, comes this call of the Lord, If any man thirst'--and surely that is general enough to take us all in--let him come unto Me and drink.'
We are putting no violence on the Lord's words by thus asserting their direct aim at every human heart. For I believe, for my part, that the love and individualising knowledge of Jesus Christ are divine; and that each of us has his own place in that loving heart; and that to each of us He spoke when He spoke unto all. So if you will rightly use the record that you have, you will hear in it Christ speaking to you.
He speaks to us by one another. I do not believe in sacerdotal authority, nor in apostolic succession, nor in any mystical sacredness attaching to any form of the preacher's office; but I do believe that the humblest and rudest of men who turns to another and says, Brother, Jesus Christ is thy Saviour; wilt thou not let Him save thee?' is speaking Christ's words. He that heareth you, heareth Me.' That is no bestowment of superhuman and magical authority on either apostles or clergy, but it is the declaration which I am trying to enforce, that every lip that is opened to proclaim the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord derives all its power and all its music, if there be any, from the inspiration of Christ Himself. The body of a violin is but meant to reverberate the sound; it is His hand that is drawn across the strings. All Christian teachers are the sounding-boards and reverberators of the music that He has made. They are but like wind instruments; the breath that is blown through them is the breath of Christ Himself. Alas! that the instrument is so often out of tune, and so poorly reproduces the infinite sweetness of the pleading tones of Him into whose lips grace was poured. But He does speak, and speaks even through such poor instruments as me.
He speaks to you deep down in that solemn voice that sometimes wakes within, and rebukes and restrains and directs. If it be true, and true it is, that the eternal Word of God is the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, it is tenfold more true--if I may so say--that consciences like ours, which have been saturated with the more or less direct influences of Christian morality all our days, are to be taken as His voice.
And so, I beseech you, discern Christ's words, and not the mere historical record of what a dead Man once said in the past--of which criticism may make more or less havoc--but Christ's living words, springing fresh from His lips, and meant for you, in the words of the gospels. Hear His utterances, and not men's poor faltering transcription and translation of them, in the words which my fellows and I may chance to speak to you. And hear His voice in that august monitor which you carry within, to warn and to impel, a spur to all lingering good, and a check upon all rampant evil.
