(2) The Bible is the revelation to me of a Divine Saviour. I carry about me, I carry within me, a burden of guilt and sin. Ignore this, in thy dealing with me—and however eloquent, however wise, however lofty thy counsels, they touch me not, they address not me. Recognize this when thou speakest to me of a God around and above me; and however humble, however simple, however human thy monitions, they find me out, they penetrate me, they thrill me through and through, because they deal with me as I am, and they tell me of that which I want. The Book of Light is the revelation of a Saviour. From its first page to its latest, it is the testimony of Jesus. When I see this, all is made plain. Patriarchs, and lawgivers, and psalmists, and prophets, and kings, all, if they are in God’s Book, point on to, or point back to, Jesus. Descriptions of life, personal and national—records of sins and vices and crimes—narratives of wrath and mercy, of judgment and restoration—even details of ordinance and ritual, which were else trivial or wearisome—become instinct with meaning, brilliant with beauty, when I read them in the Book of Light, because I know that there they all speak of Jesus, and add something—something real, definite, tangible—to the hope of pardon and acceptance which is bound up for me in Him.
(3) The Bible is the revelation to me of an everlasting Heaven. We cannot exaggerate the power of that word. The experiences of this life are various for man and man: for most men they are various from period to period of the unit life. We say not whether, on the whole—taking the average of men, and the average also of the life—it is better, if earth were all, to have been or not to have been. But one thing is certain—that this earth is not, cannot be, for the most fortunate, either rest or satisfaction. Death alone would forbid that. Change, decay, separation—separation of hearts yet more than of lives—discords and discrepancies making union here impossible—would alone make a man write “vanity of vanities” upon his tomb. It is this, it is this above all, which gives the Bible its power. It reveals Heaven. It tells of an immortality which shall reconcile differences; an immortality which shall redress wrongs; an immortality which shall re-unite the severed, and knit all hearts in one, in the haven, and in the Heaven, and in the Heart, of God. Marvel not if a Book possessing this secret is a Book omnipotent over the affections of mankind. Believe it, and life takes a new colour. If the hand of love carries this roll, it comes indeed for the healing of the nations!
The Hand of Love bears the Book of Light.
Quite inexplicable, without love, the scene before us this day. Philanthropy, without the Gospel, was not. Charity herself is the creation of Jesus Christ. How much more that charity which is the love of souls!
This Society, now keeping her sixty-eighth birthday, has chosen a distinct province. I would commend her to you, brethren—nay, you are here because you love her—on two special grounds.
(1) She is the witness—as such, God has owned her—to the primary importance of the spiritual life. Light first, then love. Illumination the condition of union. First the quickening, then the combination. First the spirit, then the body. First the soul, then the Church.
The argument is sometimes turned against us. You set aside the Church. You treat the individual as though he were a unit. You wait not for priest or presbyter; you intrude yourself between the man and the community; you care not if you even sow discord—if you even make a man see the lie in the Church’s right hand. What if one of your agents offer your Book—Divine, of course, it is—to a man prohibited by rule and censure from reading it? What if, as he reads thus against order your Divine Book, he should perceive, in some point or in many points, the hollowness, the nakedness of the system in which he has been brought up? What if you pass on, and leave him an isolated man, a separatist, a schismatic, where before he was the member of a body? And you have done this of the self-will, of the separate schismatical action, which is a feature of your organization!
The charge is—let us understand it—that in offering the light promiscuously, we set the Bible above the Church. We ought to have waited till Rome gave leave—till Rome unsaid her saying—till the unchangeable system changed itself—till Rome gave the Word of God free course amongst her people! Till then, we can only give light at the cost of love. We divide, we dissever, we isolate, the life from the communion. We leave the man taught of God an Ishmael among his brethren.
Brethren! we are not careful to answer concerning this matter. If it be so; if the possession of light be anywhere, in any Christian community, contraband; if a Church prohibits the Bible; if a member of that Church, possessing a Bible, reads in it that Church’s rebuke; if at last, trying all means of subordination, he must take his choice between his God and his Church—we did not suggest it; we did all we could to harmonize and to reconcile; we even took Rome’s Version, and bade him read out of it the words of life; we know how earnestly the Bible presses communion—how strong will be the pressure upon its student, not to live alone, not to isolate himself—on the very contrary, to feel, to cherish, to insist upon Church membership—but if—if the Book of Light does condemn, in the man’s conscience, the Church of his birth and of his Baptism—can we, ought we, to lie to him? Can we, ought we, to withhold the light, lest haply the light should condemn? The light of God is the right of mankind; the hand of love must offer it!
This Society is, we frankly say, a witness to the primary importance of the individual life. It is God’s order. Out of the individual—not the other way—grows the community. It was so at Jerusalem, it was so at Damascus, it was so at Antioch, it was so at Philippi, it was so at Ephesus, it was so at Rome. It was so—to come nearer home—in England, in London, at Oxford, at Gloucester, at Paul’s Cross, and in Smithfield fires. All God’s mightiest works of grace have sprung out of individual convictions. To wait till an irreversible judgment is reversed—to wait till a bigoted and tyrannical Church invites her members to read and to hear, to meditate and to judge—is, in other words, to decide that God’s truth shall wait man’s convenience, that souls shall live out their days ignorant of the Word that (through grace) quickens!