SIMPLICITY AND POWER OF THE WORD.
You enquire, my friend, why I do not use obscure terms and extraordinary expressions, in explaining the Scriptures. My Lord teaches me, that while there are no writings so profound as the Gospels, there are none so simple. And further, that simplicity of soul gives simplicity of expression. When we speak of a state beyond our experience, we do so with difficulty, and have recourse to learning to aid us, and use forced expressions.
In the natural, simple expressions of Scripture, there are deep sentiments, adapted to the wants of each soul—to those less and more advanced.
The word of God enters the centre of the soul; it has a penetrating quality; an operative efficiency. No words of man can produce the same effect; at least, none but such as come from souls, who are pure channels of the word of God. It is the good pleasure of our Lord, to express and reproduce himself upon the self-abandoned soul. Who does not admire the profound mystery of the creation of the world, where God produced all things by his word? When God created man, he formed him of the dust of the earth—the lowest form of matter—made of dust, that he might not rob God of his glory! But man thus created, received the spirit—the breath of the Word. This dust of the earth became the living breath of God. When Jesus Christ is formed in the soul, he imparts not only a clear understanding of the word, but is himself the Word, reproduced in the soul. Those only in whom Christ dwells, fulfill the word, or have the word accomplished in them. Such only are able fully to interpret the word. It is not learning which best explains the truths of God, but the reproduction of these truths in the life—-the experience of them.