11 We all forget that Christ's teaching is not a teaching like that of Moses, of Mohammed, and like all other human teachings, that is, a doctrine of rules to be executed. Christ's teaching is a gospel, that is, a teaching of the good.
He who is thirsty, let him go and drink.
And so, according to this teaching it is impossible to prescribe to any one, to rebuke any one for anything, to condemn any one.
"Go and drink, if thou art thirsty," that is, take the good which is revealed to us by the spirit of Truth.
* Illingworth, Personality, Human and Divine, 201.
334 LIVING WATER
Can one be ordered to drink ?
Can one be ordered to be blessed ?
Even so a man cannot be rebuked for not drinking, or for noi being blessed, nor can he be condemned. The one thing that Christians can do, and always have done, is to feel themselves blessed and to wish to communicate the key of blessedness to other people.^
(1) The invitation was delivered with great earnestness. This is the world's way turned upside down. We are accustomed to hear those crying who are ready to perish, while those who go out to save are calm and silent. Here this method is reversed. The lost whom He saves are silent and satisfied ; the Saviour, who brings deliverance, cries. They act as if they were full, and He as if He were needy. Why did He cry ? All things are His in heaven and on earth ; what want is gnawing at the heart of Him in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily ? It is the longing of His soul, not to get, but to give, redemption. He has a more eager desire to give pardon than any awakened sinner has to get it.
(2) " If any man." The invitation was universal. The Gospel is as free as the air or the sunshine. " Any " — the man may be atheist or deist or idolater ; the man may be sceptical and un- believing ; the man may be broken-hearted, because all his cisterns are broken ; the man may be disappointed with all the wells to which he has been accustomed to resort ; the man may be an outcast, forbidden to come where men drink, or an apostate, one who has forsaken the fountain of living water ; the man may be conscious that he deserves only to die of thirst; the man may be sad at his heart's core, and weary in every limb, and dying of thirst; the thirst may be morbid and foul, the thirst may be varied and deep, the thirst may be refined and elevated, but to every man Jesus says, " Come unto me." The thirsty one may have no apparel but rags and these filthy, no vessel but an earthen one and that broken, no money, no commendation ; but Jesus says, " Come." He may have nothing, and may need everything — life, knowledge, power, joy — still Jesus says, " Come." He may be a most thirsty soul, with wide capacity and fiery eagerness, but Jesus says, " Come and drink." And if those who
* Tolstoy, Aphorisms {Complete TForks, xix. 83).
ST. JOHN VII. ^^^ 335
hear Jesus say, " Come and drink," do come and drink, they live satisfied, they die satisfied, and they abide satisfied for ever ; but if they never come, they live thirsty, die thirsty, and abide madly thirsty for ever.
(3) "Let him come unto me." The invitation is from a ceremony to a Person. Christ is a personal Saviour. The world had had enough of ritual. It had gone the weary round of form until life was almost extinct, and it seemed as if the smoke of sacrifice only darkened the skies and brought man no nearer vision of God. The Law increased the burden it professed tc lift. Says Christ, It is not from Siloam's stream, it is not from your silver songs and solemn litanies, not from your priests and altars and censers, that you can gain rest — " If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink."
^ He that thirsts and wants relief must come to Christ Himself. He must not be content with coming to His Church and His ordinances, or to the assemblies of His people for prayer and praise. He must not stop short even at His holy table, or rest satisfied with privately opening his heart to His ordained ministers. He that is content with only drinking these waters " shall thirst again." He must go higher, further, much further than this. He must have personal dealings with Christ Himself : all else in religion is worthless without Him. The King's palace, the attendant servants, the richly furnished banqueting-house, the very banquet itself, all are nothing unless we speak with the King. His hand alone can take the burden off our backs and make us feel free. The hand of man may take the stone from the grave and show the dead ; but none but Jesus can say to the dead, " Come forth, and live." We must deal directly with Christ.!
U I remember a simple story that twined its clinging tendril fingers about my heart. It was of a woman whose long years had ripened her hair, and sapped her strength. She was a true saint in her long life of devotion to God. She knew the Bible by heart, and would repeat long passages from memory. But as the years came the strength went, and with it the memory gradually went too, to her grief. She seemed to have lost almost wholly the power to recall at will what had been stored away. But one precious bit still stayed. She would sit by the big sunny window of the sitting-room in her home, repeating over that one bit, as though chewing a delicious titbit, " I know whom I have believed