Misit dominus manum suam et teligit os meum et dixit rnihi etc, {Jer, I9). ‘ The Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth and said unto me.’
When I preach it is my wont to speak about detachment, of the duty of ridding ourselves of self and of things. Or again, of return to the impartible good, God to wit. And thirdly, on the duty of remembering the high and noble nature God has put into the soul so that mortals may wonder about God. Fourthly, about the pure nature of God, the ineffable splendour of God. God is a ord, an unspoken word. Augustine says : ‘ All scripture is vain.’ Wo say that God is unspoken, but he is unspeakable. Grant he is somewhat : who can pronounce this word ? None but the Word, od is the Word which pronounces itself. Where God exists he is saying this Word ; where he does not exist he says nothing. God is spoken and unspoken. The Father is the speaking energy and the Sun is the speech energising. What is in me goes forth of me ; I have but to think and my word goes forth, at the same time abiding within. Even so does the Father speak forth his Son who meanwhile remains in him unspoken. I have repeatedly said, God’s exit is his entrance. In proportion to my nearness to God does he speak himself into me. In the case of rational creatures the more they go out of themselves in their works the more they get into themselves. Not so with corporal things : the more active these are the further they get from themselves. All creatures desire to speak God in their works : they all of them speak him as well as they can but they cannot really pronounce him. Willy-nilly, in weal or in woe they are all trying to utter God who yet remains unspoken.
David said, ‘The Lord is his name.’ Lord means one set in authority ; knox)e means an underling. Some names are proper to God and forbidden to aught beside God. God is the name peculiar to God just as 7nan is the name for mankind. A man is a man be he foolish or wise. Seneca says, ‘ ’Tis a vile man that excels not humanity.’ Anotlier name we associate with God is paternity. When we call a man father y we take for granted a son. No father can be without having a son. True, they merge, beyond time, into eternal nature. The third name in its higher sense relates to God and in its lower one to time. God is called by many names in scripture. Now I say, anything we can think of in God or put any name to, that God is not. God transcends name, transcends nature. We hear of one good man who in prayers besought God for his name. Then, ‘ Peace ! ’ quoth a brother,
‘ thou art abasing God.’ We can lind no name to give to God ; but we are permitted to use the names his saints have called him by, those whose hearts inspired by God were Hooded with his divine light. Hence we learn, first, how to pray to God. We ought to say. Lord, in those very names which thou didst instil into the hearts of saints, suffusing them with thy light, we praise thee and adore thee. And secondly we learn that in giving God no name at all we praise and honour him suflicicntly since God is above name and ineffable.
Out of the fullness of his power the Father speaks the Son and in iiim all things. All creatures are the utterance of God. Like as my lips proclaim and tell forth God so does a stone’s existence, and we can glean more from the fact than from the telling of it. Work wrought by highest nature in its sovran power a lower nature cannot comprehend. If it did the selfsame work then would it not be lower, but the same. Creatures all want to copy
God in all they do. But it is precious little they are able to reveal. Even the highest angels, inasmuch as they ascend and come in touch with God, are no more like than black and white to that which is in God. It is altogether different, what creatures have received, yet they all desire to speak as nearly as possible the same. The prophet says : ‘ Lord, thou sayest one and I understand two.’ When God speaks into the soul, as it falls it divides. The higher we soar in our understanding the more we are in him. In eternity, the Father is speaking his Son all the time and iouring forth all creatures in him. They all have a call to return whence they came forth. Their whole life and nature is a vocation, a flight back to what they came out of.
The prophet says : ‘ The TiOrd sent forth his hand,’ meaning the Holy Ghost. He says, ‘ he touched my mouth,’ and straightway there follow the words, ‘ he spake unto me.’ The mouth of the soul is the highest part of the soul and she has this in mind when she says, ‘ he hath put lus Word into my mouth,’ this being the kiss of the soul ; mouth to mouth the Father conveys his Son into the soul, then he speaks to hir, saying, ‘ Lo, this day I have chosen thee to set thee over nations and over kingdoms.’ God says he will choose us to-day. Yonder in eternity, where time is not, there is ever to-day. ‘ And I have set thee over nations,’ i,e, above this world which thou must be rid of ; ‘ and over kingdoms,’ meaning, that more than one thing is too much ; it behoves thee to die to all things and get back to the height where we dwell in the Holy Ghost. Amen.