“To them that sell.” The “water of life” is for all that are athirst; the “wine and milk” are without money and without price. But the oil, the supply of light for other lives, this must truly be bought with a price. Not at second-hand, not by sitting at our ease and absorbing the thoughts of others, can we become as lamps to show forth the path of life. Our own hearts must first be baptized with fire, and our knowledge bought at the cost of suffering. It is such dearly-bought knowledge alone which can enable any one to raise a standard round which others will rally in fighting the good fight of faith.
The special struggle of our day is a struggle for truth. We who have been bold to call ourselves children of light, shall we not boldly join hands with all who are struggling towards the light? Shall we not be willing and ready to lay aside every weight,—not only every hindering possession or habit, but every vain endeavour to bind in the truth of God by human formularies and definitions,—and unreservedly trust to the living teaching of the Spirit for ourselves and others, “looking for God in holiness, that we may behold His power and glory?”
Holiness—that is, obedience—is surely the rock upon which alone we can build any faith that will endure. Standing firmly on that rock, and on that only, we may hope to catch some glimpses of the Divine mysteries. “Clouds and darkness are round about Thee, but righteousness and truth are the habitation of Thy throne.” It ill becomes us to attempt to explain all the dealings of God with man, still more the mysteries of the Divine Being and Nature; and that which must for ever remain a mystery to the most faithful of His children it is idle indeed to undertake to explain to others. Yet let us never flinch from bearing witness to that of which through these awful clouds we have from time to time been permitted to obtain some broken vision. Let us never cease to do what in us lies to persuade our fellows to lift their eyes also to the heavens, and though the vision may tarry, to wait for it in steadfast patience. They may call us dreamers, and we may think them blind. When we speak of the stars, they may say we are idly romancing about a mere painted ceiling. But the end is not yet. No roof of human workmanship will endure for ever. Sooner or later all that is of earth must perish and crumble away. Then is the time for the children of light to “lift up their heads,” knowing that “their redemption draweth nigh.”
For beyond all words and all proofs lies the true anchorage of the spirit, to which every firmly rooted life bears a witness neither needing nor admitting of utterance. Deeper than all need of mere conviction is the need of rest and stability. We must be at rest before we can be free. In quietness and in confidence is our strength. While our hearts are tossed and agitated by every wave of this troublesome world, while the shadows of passing things have power to distract and confuse our vision, we cannot clearly discern that truth which alone can make us free.
Truly “there remaineth a rest for the people of God;” a satisfying, soul-restoring fulness of rest of which some of us have begun to taste. Some of us know assuredly that nothing perishable is the habitation of our spirits. Some of us know what it is to be willingly brought into an order flowing perceptibly and perpetually from the one unchangeable will of God, in which alone can our own will be harmonized and made steadfast. Some of us are learning ever more and more fully to accept the Father’s will because it is the will of the Father, entering more and more truly day by day into the spirit of sonship. To experience in our own hearts the harmonizing, purifying, invigorating power of the Divine will is to be at rest for ourselves and for others; not to be set free from suffering or to become indifferent to it, but to be undisturbed by it—to know that underneath all the agitations of the creatures are the everlasting arms; to receive strength to consent to whatever is ordained by that blessed will, and to resist whatever is opposed to it.
In thus taking up the cross, we begin to see something of its glory, to experience something of its redeeming power. When we have ourselves passed from death unto life, having been led through “sundry kinds of death” into ever fuller and more abundant life, then indeed we can bear witness to the redeeming power of Christ; then we speak of what we do know, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; then we are on our own ground.
It has ever been our belief that the light of Christ, the brightness of the Father’s glory, is (through obedience to light, even while in ignorance of its source) purifying the hearts of many who name not His Name—who are not yet able to recognize the blessed Face from which the light shines. But the fulness of “the light which no man can approach unto” is surely reserved for those who stand before the throne of God and of the Lamb, and with full purpose of heart bow in adoration before Him that sitteth thereon.
We claim to be a people who have found rest in God; a people building our house upon the rock, through obedience to those “words of eternal life” given forth by Christ, the Word. We recognize His Voice as speaking to us, not only in the pages of Scripture, but also in the whole course of life as ordered by Him; and yet more closely in the inmost chamber of our own hearts; and we desire to yield to it an undivided allegiance.
Our calling is, as branches of the living Vine, to let the working of that Voice, Light, Spirit, and Grace of Christ be shown forth in our own lives; and, as power may be given us, to bear witness of it also in words; baptizing and being baptized into the one Name in which alone is salvation.
If, therefore, we have so unassailable a stronghold, so deep and immovable a foundation, let us never cease to look up steadfastly into heaven, if so be we may “see the heavens opened;” that we may receive into our hearts, and reflect with ever-increasing fulness in our lives, the rays of the Sun of Righteousness. The vision may indeed be intercepted again and again by the driving clouds; our sight may fail or falter; but the glory itself is unchangeable, and it is in reflecting that glory alone that any human face can be, to those that stand by, “as the face of an angel”—of a Divinely appointed messenger of glad tidings.