TJ " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you." It is thus that this saying of Jesus is rendered in the Latin Bible, and, after it, in the version of old John Wycliffe. And thus rendered, it was associated by the devout men of mediaeval days with the sacred ordinance of the Supper. " Thou biddest me," says St. Thomas a Kempis, " confidently approach Thee, if I would have part with Thee ; and accept the nourishments of immortality, if I desire to obtain eternal life and glory. ' Come,' sayest Thou, ' unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.' " x
The Call.
" Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden."
1. In the history of the world was ever an utterance made like this ? Was ever a claim of power or an assertion of supre- macy so vast, so calm, so confident ? Could we have endured it from one of the teachers of the world — from Socrates, from Seneca, from Isaac Newton, from Kant, or from Shakespeare ? Would not its utterance have repelled and disgusted us? Its arrogance would have been intolerable. And yet have these words from the lips of Christ ever produced repulsion ? Is it not the case that they have ever been regarded as among the most
1 D. Smith, The Feast of the Covenant, 123.
ST. MATTHEW xi. 28 259
gracious and lovely of the Saviour's words ? And why so ? Has it not been because it was known and felt that these were the words of Him who was God as well as Man ? They follow in this chapter of St. Matthew the verse in which Jesus has said, " All things have been delivered unto me of my Father." The beauty and the sweetness of the invitation, " Come unto me," depend upon the sovereign right to give it. He who is the Son of God as well as the Son of Man alone has the right. In His mouth alone such words possess not only beauty but also the force of genuineness.
Thus we see that beneath the tenderness of this evangelical message, " Come unto me," lies the bed-rock foundation of the Christian faith, that Christ is God as well as Man. Call it dogma ; if dogma be the epitome of belief, it is the dogma of dogmas. Call it Christian truth ; it is the one truth without which Christi- anity fades into an airy system of baseless speculation, and its claims shrink and shrivel to the dimensions of a human imposture. It is the Divinity of our Lord that makes these words of His so splendid and inspiring in their strength and comprehensiveness. There is no hesitation in their tone ; they strike no apologetic or self-depreciatory note. It is not the outcome of long argument to advance or prove His claims. It is not the vague pronouncement of bliss and reward upon those who followed His cause. No ; it is the simple authoritative personal invitation of Christ to the people of the world ; it is an imperial message given in infinite love and proclaimed with infinite power to the souls of men and women. And we, whether we teach it to our children or repeat it to the dying, can attach no adequate meaning to the words unless we are convinced in our hearts that He who spoke them was God as well as Man, and could really give what He promised.
■fl We are making trial of the belief that in Christ we see the Power by which the world is governed — the Almighty. But the world, if we regard its present condition in isolation, is most manifestly not governed by any such Power. The Sin and Pain of the world we know cannot be themselves the goal of the Purpose of God, if God is the Father of Jesus Christ. Either then Christ is not the revelation of God, or else the world as we see it does not express its real meaning. Only, in fact, as Christ is drawing men to Himself from generation to generation is the victory over evil won, and His claim to reveal the Father vindi-
260 THE GREAT INVITATION
cated ; we can only regard Him as Divine, and supreme over the world, if we can regard Him as somehow including in His Personality all mankind. If the Life of Christ is just an event in human history, what right have we to say that the Power which directs that history is manifest here rather than in Julius Ceesar or even Nero ? We can only say this, if He is drawing all men to Himself so that in Him we see what mankind is destined to become.1
2. The call is addressed to all who labour and are heavy laden. To all ; not merely to a few favoured souls, not merely to the Jews ; it is an invitation to mankind. Our Lord, when He uttered the words, was looking out with the gaze of Omniscience across the ages. He saw each human soul, with its capacity for eternal blessedness or endless loss. Generation after generation swept before His vision, as He longed that they might all come unto Him and find rest. No one is excluded, for all need the healing of Christ. Christ saw — as the painter of " The Vale of Tears " has vividly portrayed in his last picture — all conditions of men, weary of the sorrows, trials and burdens of human life, as well as of its pleasures, ambitions and prizes, when He uttered the tender, authoritative, universal invitation, " Come unto me."