^ I have been greatly cheered by assurances which have recently reached me again and again of the blessing which God has caused to rest on my ministry in past years, and of the light and strength which, through God's grace, some are finding in my books ; but I seem to have a great deal to say that I have never said yet, and I want to say it. How wonderful the gospel of
^ P. C. Ainsworth, Poems and Sonnets, 77.
528 THE INDWELLING WORD
Christ is ! I have been thinking about it and preaching about it for more than forty years, and yet there seem to be vast provinces of truth in it which I am only just beginning to explore.^
^ In the Green Eoom at Dresden, where for centuries the Saxon princes have gathered their gems and treasures until they have become worth millions of pounds, may be seen a silver egg, a present to one of the Saxon queens, which when you touch a spring opens and reveals a golden yolk. Within this is hid a chicken, whose wing when pressed also flies open, disclosing a splendid gold crown, studded with jewels. Nor is this all ; another secret spring being touched, hidden in the centre is found a magnificent diamond ring. So it is with every truth and promise of God's word — a treasure within a treasure ; and all to enrich and bless us.^
^ To all men's hearts the words of Christ find a way when they are rightly considered. For no one will say that to hate is better than to love, darkness better than light, impurity than holiness, falsehood better than truth. And it may very likely be the case that when all the endless books and tomes of scholastic divinity, ancient and modern, shall have ceased to interest man- kind, the words of Christ, and these alone, shall prevail.^
(3) Its gracious accent. — When a person speaks there is not only the thing he says, but the tone in which he says it. There is a dry and flippant tone which withers the sincerity out of the kindest words, and there is a full-hearted tone which will fill the most common words with a melting magic. And so there is not only Christ's Word, but Christ's way of speaking it. "The Word dwelt among us full of grace and truth." What Jesus spoke was truth, the way He spoke was gracious, so gracious that all men marvelled hearing the words which proceeded out of His mouth. Christ's tone was gracious. He spoke the truth, but He spoke the truth in love. Even when moved with indigna- tion at hypocrisy and hardness of heart, there was love enough to make His anger far more awful, that absence of bitterness when goodness frowns on guilt — the wrath of the Lamb,
^ A chemist may analyse the wine of Lebanon, and he may tell you that it contains so many salts and alkalies ; and you may combine all these, you may mix them in the just proportions ; but chemistry will never create what the vintage yielded. To make the wine of Lebanon needs Lebanon itself — the mountain with its 1 R. W. Dale, Ufe, 631. « principal Holliday. ^ g, Jowett.
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gushing heart and aromatic springs. A theologian may analyse the Christian doctrine. He may tell you how many truths and tenets this Bible contains; and you may combine them all. You may put the sound words together and make a system of them, but that system, however orthodox, so long as it abides alone, is not the Word of Christ. It needs Christ's own mind. His loving heart and benignant spirit, to reproduce the truth as it is in Jesus. It needs the Evangelic truth and the Evangelic tone to go together. They are essential to one another, and it is Gospel only when they are combined.^
^ He whom God sent into the world, to be the Light of the world, and Head of the whole Church, and the perfect example of true religion and virtue, for the imitation of all — the Shepherd whom the whole flock shall follow wherever He goes — even the Lord Jesus Christ, was a person who was remarkably of a tender and affectionate heart ; and His virtue was expressed very much in the exercise of holy affections.^
•[f The Sacred Infancy teaches us tenderness ; the Passion tenderness ; the Blessed Sacrament tenderness ; the Sacred Heart tenderness. But look at the common life of Jesus among men, and you will see more clearly what this tenderness is like. There is first the tenderness of our Lord's outward deportment. The narrative of Palm Sunday is an instance of it. Also His way with His disciples. His way with sinners, and His way with those in affliction or grief who threw themselves in His road. He quenched not the smoking flax nor broke the bruised reed. This was a complete picture of Him. There was tenderness in His very looks, as when He looked on the rich young man and loved Him : and St. Peter was converted by a look. His whole conver- sation was imbued with tenderness. The tone of His parables, the absence of terrors in His sermons, the abyss of forgiveness which His teaching opens out, all exemplify this. He is no less tender in His answer to questions, as when He was accused of being possessed, and when He was struck on the face. His very reprimands were steeped in tenderness ; witness the woman taken in adultery, James and John, and the Samaritan, and Judas ; nor was His zeal less tender, as was evidenced when He rebuked the brothers who would fain have called down fire from heaven upon the Samaritan villagers, and also by the sweet meekness of His divine indignation when He cleared the Temple. Now if our Lord is our model, and if His spirit is ours, it is plain that a Christian-like tenderness must make a deep impression upon our