SERMON I. OBEDIENCE TO THE SPIRIT. REV. ii. 7. HE THAT HATH AN EAR, LET HIM HEAR WHAT THE SPIRIT SAITH UNTO THE CHURCHES. SOUNDS are continually falling on the ear, wheth Winds blow through the er it heed them or not. forests, or amidst the branches of lonely trees, or over grass or grain or flowers; waters roll beneath their sweep, breaking in waves or dashing for ever along the beach; thunders peal from the clouds; the unceasing voices, unceasing even amidst the stillness of nature, are joined, and the silence broken, by numberless and varied tones of animals by day and by night, by the words of men and the sounds of their industry. The ear becomes oftentimes heedless of them, as of the air whose undulations bear them to it; there is a sort of passive hearing, unsought, unobserved, scarcely remembered. We have, moreover, what may be called an active hearing. The man summons himself to listen; he collects his thoughts, he calms his feelings, he creates, so far as he can, a deep silence around him and within him; that, all else still, he may give ear only to the chosen voice. This he invites into his inmost soul. This he loves to hear and feel penetrating through his whole being. This communicates to him of its own powers and influence, making him glad with its joyous tones, and sad through the sorrows which it speaks. The trumpet summons men to war; the music of fit instruments quickens them to meet and go through the perils and the horrors of its battles. Gentler strains, as of the hymn and the prayer, draw the soul from its agitations to repose, and breathe a peace in which it is nourished for holier worship and loving deeds. Always, indeed, as the eye brings its objects before us for the sight, type of the mind in its conscious vision; so the ear opens the entrance to impulses of sound, symbol of the soul in the vividness of its quicker emotions. Obedience itself, as the very word traced to its origin indicates, is nothing else than a certain activity of hearing; the man hearkening to some higher voice which moves him, listening that he may drink in its influences, and going forth into deed, stern or gentle, as the welcome power impels. Outward senses and their organs are creations of an interior and unseen Power, earthly expressions of a heavenly sphere, human receptacles and channels of a Divine Life, to which by conse quence they for ever and necessarily correspond. Hence, as we pass from nature to spirit, or rather enter through the former as vestibule, into the latter as temple or shrine; as we rise above the world of sensations within which we have been born, into the sphere of life which the Regeneration opens to the inner consciousness; there is no real break; it is rather a series of ascensions, wherein the lower is ever prophecy of the higher, and an everlasting harmony surrounds, unites, and fills each and the whole. A single application of this universal law presents itself in figurative speech, such as the text, for instance, in which almost every word gives us some natural image to represent a spiritual idea. He that hath an ear, through which he can take in sound, let him hear, if he will, what the Spirit breathed as air or wind brings and gives forth of its own and other voices; thus Nature is always saying some word of hers to men. But there is which the ear heareth not, which neither outward sense reaches nor the heart of man -much less the head-comprehends. A deeper spirit there yet is which revealeth the unseen, unheard, uncomprehended presence, as there is an everlasting sphere which that presence creates, opens, and illumines, even to the experience of the prepared soul. He that hath an ear, through which he can take in its celestial melodies, let him hear, listening, reverent, joyous, what the Spirit breathed as air of a new spring, gives out to gladden and bless us. The Word calls us to dwell where itself has birth, in the bosom of the Father. So does the Spirit speak. We have before us, in the Apocalypse, its words to those seven churches of Western Asia, commending their love, their faith, their virtue, where these existed; condemning their apostacies, their unbelief and sin, when love had failed; admonishing them of the ruin into which they should fall by disobedience, and uttering promise of the highest elevation to the faithful. And as these churches have their permanent parallels in societies and persons through the descending ages of Christendom, so to these also come, as equally permanent, the befitting words of the one Spirit. Think not, because we see no John or other to behold or record his vision of the Lord girded with emblems of his power and his glory, walking amidst churches represented by golden candlesticks, and sending to them messages as from his own lips; think not, because these grand hieroglyphs have now faded into the obscurity of a deepening past, that therefore the spirit is remote and voiceless. Throughout the churches, into the souls, of this age also, amidst the loves and the hates, the beliefs and the distrusts, the obedience and the disobedience, the good works and the evil, the light and the darkness, now mingling and surging among men, the Spirit is present still, unheeded it may be, yet here alike in the peace and the commotions of mankind, coming forth evermore from its own deep to inspire and confirm whatever there is of bliss, and when the gloom and storm are about us, to go over the highest wave, to soothe the swollen seas, to scatter the clouds and bring back the sun. Neither dead, nor even asleep, it is alone eternal amidst passing things, unchangeable in the very heart of mutability, while seeking to draw all things into concord with its own harmony. |