'We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard,' is a
principle that applies far more widely than to the work of a Christian
Church, or to any activity that is put in force to spread the name of
Jesus Christ. For there is a universal impulse which brings it about
that whatever, in the nature of profound conviction, of illuminating
truth, especially as affecting moral and spiritual matters, is granted
to any man, knocks at the inner side of the door of his lips, and
demands an exit and free air and utterance. As surely as the tender
green spikelet of the springing corn pushes its way through the hard
clods, or as the bud in the fig-tree's polished stem swells and opens,
so surely whatever a man, in his deepest heart, knows to be true, calls
upon him to let it out and manifest itself in his words and in his
life. 'We believe, and therefore speak,' is a universal sequence. There
were four leprous men long ago that, in their despair, made their way
into the camp of the beleaguering enemy, found it empty; and after they
feasted themselves--and small blame to them--then flashed upon them the
thought, 'We do not well, this is a day of good tidings, and we hold
our peace; if we tarry till the morning light, some evil will befall
us.' Something like that is the uniform accompaniment of all profound
conviction. And if so, especially imperative and urgent will this
necessity be, wherever there is true Christian life. For whether we
consider the greatness of the gift that is imparted to us, in the very
act of our receiving that Lord, or whether we consider the soreness of
the need of a world that is without Him, surely there can be nothing
that so reinforces the natural necessity and impulse to impart what we
possess of truth or beauty or goodness as the greatness of the
unspeakable gift, and the wretchedness of a world that wants it.
Brethren, there are many things that come in the way--and perhaps never
more than in our own generation--of Christian men and women making
direct and specific efforts, by lip as well as by life, to speak about
Jesus Christ to other people. There is the standing hindrance of love
of ease and selfish absorption in our own concerns. There are the
conventional hindrances of our canons of social intercourse which make
it 'bad form' to speak to men about anything beneath the surface, and
God forbid that I should urge any man to a brusque, and indiscriminate,
and unwise forcing of his faith upon other people. But I believe, that
deep down below all these reasons, there are two main reasons why the
practice of the clear utterance of their faith on the part of Christian
people is so rare. The one is a deficient conception of what the Gospel
is, and the other is a feeble grasp of it for ourselves. If you do not
think that you have very much to say, you will not be very anxious to
say it; and if your notion of Christianity, and of Christ's relation to
the world, is that of the superficial professing Christian, then of
course you will be smitten with no earnestness of desire to impart the
truth to others. Types of Christianity which enfeeble or obscure the
central thought of Christ's work for the salvation of a world that
needs a Saviour, and is perishing without Him, never were, never are,
never will be, missionary or aggressive. There is no driving force in
them. They have little to say, and naturally they are in no hurry to
say it. But there is a deeper reason than that. I said a minute ago
that a dumb Christian was an impossibility unless he were a dead
Christian. And _there_ is the reason why so many of us feel so little,
so very little, of that knocking at the door of our hearts, and saying,
'Let me out!' which we should feel if we deeply believed, and felt, as
well as intellectually accepted, the gospel of our salvation.
The cause of a silent Church is a defective conception of the Gospel
entrusted to it, or a feeble grasp of the same. And as our silence or
indifference is the symptom, so by reaction it is in its turn the cause
of a greater enfeeblement of our faith, and of a weaker grasp of the
Gospel. Of course I know that it is perfectly possible for a man to
talk away his convictions, and I am afraid that that temptation which
besets all men of my profession, is not always resisted by us as it
ought to be. But, on the other hand, sure am I that no better way can
be devised of deepening my own hold of the truths of Christianity than
an honest, right attempt to make another share my morsel with me.
Convictions bottled, like other things bottled up, are apt to evaporate
and to spoil. They say that sometimes wine-growers, when they go down
into their cellars, find in a puncheon no wine, but a huge fungus. That
is what befalls the Christianity of people that never let air in, and
never speak their faith out. 'We cannot but speak the things which we
have seen and heard'; and if we do not speak, the vision fades and the
sound becomes faint.
Now there is another side to this same inward necessity of which I have
been speaking, on which I must just touch. I have referred to the
impulse which flows from the possession of the Gospel. There is an
impulse which flows from that which is but another way of putting the
same thing, the union with Jesus Christ, which is the result of our
faith in the Gospel. If I am a Christian I am, in a very profound and
real sense, one with Jesus Christ, and have His Spirit for the life of
my spirit. And in the measure in which I am thus one with Him, I shall
look at things as He looks at them, and do such things as He did. If
the mind of Jesus Christ is in us 'Who for the joy that was set before
Him endured the Cross,' who 'counted not equality with God a thing to
be desired, but made Himself of no reputation,' and 'was found in
fashion as a man,' then we too shall feel that our work in the world is
not done, and our obligations to Him are not discharged, unless to the
very last particle of our power we spread His name. Brethren, if there
were no commandment at all from Christ's lips laying upon His followers
the specific duty of making His gospel known, still this inward impulse
of which I am speaking would have created all the forms of Christian
aggressiveness which we see round about us, because, if we have Christ
and His Gospel in our hearts, 'we cannot but speak the things which we
have seen and heard.'