"WHAT THOU SEEST WRITE IN A BOOK."1

"I was in the spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last: and, What thon seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia."-REV. i. 10, 11.

THE Lord Jesus Christ is "the Word" "made flesh." All that is in the Word is also in Him, only in Him it is all embodied and outlived. In Him we find its every command obeyed, its every prayer answered, its every promise realized, its every prophecy fulfilled. Every person, every place mentioned in the Word is, in some way, representative of something in Him. From beginning to end it is only the perfect autobiography of Immanuel; the self-written history of His marvellous life. It is the mirror in which we may see the perfect reflection of the perfect Image of the Invisible God. But, though He is very God, He is also very Man. This is no wonder that must be deemed incredible. It would be a wonder were He not so. And thus, He being Man as well as God, His glorification is the pattern of man's regeneration, as well as the cause. And thus, also, His incarnation of the Word is the pattern, as well as the cause, of its incarnation by He became "the Word" "made flesh" without measure, that we, according to our measure, might become "the Word" "made flesh" ourselves. Thus the whole Word is, here and now, to every man, the living Word of the living and ever everywhere-present God.

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1 Notes of a sermon preached by the Rev. Charles H. Wilkins of Nottingham, in the New Jerusalem Church, Argyle Square, London, before the General Conference of the New Church, August 11, 1874.

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Hence for the interpretation of its pictured pages there is no need to step out of ourselves. We need only to step within. We need to recall no remote past. We need to anticipate no remoter future. There can be no ground more holy than that which our feet are treading. There can be no hour more sacred than that which is passing now. We have but to simply come home to ourselves, to the marvellous and the innumerable capacities and faculties that lie folded up within us, and to the all-quickening Spirit that unwearyingly broods for ever over them all. For here, or nowhere, shall we find the true Genesis, and the true Apocalypse of Scripture. And, verily, the Word of the Lord can be the Word of the Lord to us only so far as the written Word without is able to match itself with the living Word within.

Permit me then to ask you, this evening, without for one moment excluding or undervaluing other interpretations, to seek such an interpretation of the text as shall come home directly and forcibly to the business and the bosom of every one of us.

There are in the world to-day hundreds of authors who are widely and deeply honoured. But there are thousands who are not honoured at all, who have never emerged from their primitive obscurity, whose books have fallen upon the world still-born. Yet, if the host of honoured authors can be counted by hundreds, and of unhonoured ones by thousands, the host of unrecognized authors can be counted by thousands of millions. For, in truth, the number of authors can be told only when we can tell the numbers of the human race. Every man is writing "a book." We are all authors whether we will or no. We are, all of us, slowly perhaps, but surely, inscribing upon the imperishable pages of our inmost selves principles which, publicly or privately, we have made our own. Our hearts and minds are "fearfully and wonderfully made." Every desire that we really foster, every thought that we really prize, is self-recording. Year by year, yea, rather, moment by moment, the indestructible parchments of our inmost lives are unrolled beneath our hands; and, thoughtfully or heedlessly, we make an entry, we pen a sentence, we register something; and always with an ink that never fades.

But in all this there is nothing grand; nothing grand in the mere fact that, somehow or other, the thing gets done and goes. There is nothing grand in anything save what is done by command of God. Better sweep a crossing, as a cripple, by command of the King of kings, than sweep a continent, as a Napoleon, by command of the slaves of hell. Better write a two-paged tract by command of the Spirit of the Lord,

than write a pile of popular volumes by command of the spirit of society or the spirit of self. It is not what you do, but whence you do it, and why, that makes the thing magnificent or mean. There is nothing great but God. All else, apart from Him, is vanity. But what is done by His command, what is done from His Spirit, is enrobed in His glory and inspired with His might. And, with regard to this perpetual book writing, in which we are all engaged, it is the same. In the thing itself there is not, of necessity, anything grand. All depends upon your answers to the questions, Whence? and Why?

Thy life is being inscribed with certain characters, is being impressed indelibly with certain principles; but is it by command of God, or no? Is it, or is it not, because God has said to thee, "Write in a book?"

Further, we are not authors only, we are publishers too. Not only are we bound to write out legibly, in our inmost lives, the principles that we have made our own; but such writing we are bound to publish to the world. Like the book of Scripture, like the book of Nature, the book of a man's life is "written within and without." We are not only living epistles, we are living epistles "known and read of all men."

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But he who writes his life-book only by command of God, publishes that book only "to the seven churches." Long ago one prayed (a prayer that from such lips could never fail) to find an "audience fit though few." And to no promiscuous audience can we, in our day, legitimately or innocently appeal. For "the Church," exclusively, are we permitted to write. But the true Church is a thing, "not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" of the soul. A man is a man only as he is a church; only by virtue of the Church within him only by virtue of the exquisite harmony of all the numerous principles of his nature; only by virtue of the Divine Order, the Divine Truth, that prevails in his mind and heart; only by virtue of the Faith and Charity that are the founts of all the thoughts and all the feelings that he cares to make eternally his own. And to these Divine Principles in the soul, which constitute the church in man, and to these alone, may we address our life-books; these alone may we strive to reach, to stimulate, and to feed.

But whilst we must address nothing more than the Church, as surely we must address nothing less. It is to "the seven churches," it is to the whole Church, it is to ALL that is truly churchly in humanity, it is to all in all men that is in any way receptive of the life of God, that we must send out, by means of our living books, all our soul's sympathy, and skill, and strength.

Then, further;-though we cannot but write and publish, we are divinely authorized to write and to publish only what we Bee. Spiritual sight is the only sight that is characteristically human. All men cannot see naturally. But all men could see spiritually if they would. All are, or are capable of becoming, seers in the truest, that is, in the deepest sense; seers, not of spiritual beings, but of spiritual truths.

The Lord is infinite; and so it comes to pass that His Truth is altogether too broad and too high for any man, even the greatest-natured and the keenest-eyed, to see it all. Yet, though no man can see all truths, every man can see some. Every man stands upon a spot of ground upon which, the Omnipresent alone excepted, no other being can place his feet. From that peculiar standpoint he has a peculiar vision; he can catch a glimpse of truth in an aspect that must be eternally concealed from every finite eye but his; he can behold something of truth, and thus of goodness, and thus of God, which, in all the universe, no other creature can set eye upon. And it is this something; it is this that you see, when with pure heart you pray and strive with your own eyes to look upon things Divine in Light Divine; it is this alone that you are called upon, in the pages of your living, undecaying book, to write. All else you write not "with authority," but "as the scribes;" not for eternity, only for to-day. You are to write truth, but truth as it comes to you. You are to cry, "Lead, kindly Light," but you are to follow no light but that which falls upon the pathway along which you are walking. Do this,-write thus, and you write for ages that can never end. aimed, and not in vain, to write something which the world would "not willingly let die." The world is not always gentle in its treatment of its greatest authors; but the world is not always able to do with its greatest authors quite what it gladly would. And if you do but publish in words, and above all in deeds, what you inmostly see, then, verily, not this world, not all worlds, can let such writing die. God has ordained its everlasting preservation. All the forces, all the laws of the universe, conspire to keep that priceless thing from harm. Temporally, as well as eternally, on earth, as well as in heaven, only sincere writing lives. When a man speaks and works only what he, in his inmost soul, looking straight heavenward, sees, there is in that man's words, in that man's deeds, an unmistakable vitality, vividness, and force, which give to them, for living men, a charm that is irresistible. "Write," saith the Lord; but only "what thou seest."

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But, yet further; we are divinely authorized to write even what we see, only after we have heard the "great voice."

The mind has, in the body, two great means of giving knowledge. We have mouths, by means of which we may utter our thoughts in words; and hands, by means of which we may utter our thoughts in deeds. So also the mind finds, in the body, two great means of getting knowledge. We have eyes, by means of which we see the words of the text-book and the face of the teacher; and ears, by means of which we hear the stimulating tones of the teacher's voice.

In our relations with the Lord, the case is the same. We have spiritual eyes most certainly; but as certainly we have spiritual ears. Our understandings are so organized that, by their means, we can, verily, "see Jesus;" and, as truly, our wills are so organized, that, if we will, by their means we can, verily, hear Jesus Himself speaking to us "the words of eternal life." And, in the long run, we must enjoy the happy and fruitful exercise of both faculties, or of neither. Spiritually speaking, no single things are true things. It is not good for any faculty, or for any principle, to be alone. In the inner world, at all events, marriage is the secret, not only of fruitfulness, but even of long life. Thoughts unmated with affections pine in their solitude and swiftly die. The life of an unprotected affection is precarious at the best. Neither sights nor sounds alone can ever satisfy themselves or their recipients. A man who only sees, does not deeply see; and a man who only hears, hears nothing clearly. Neither the eye nor the ear, neither the understanding nor the will, can long act efficiently alone.

Perhaps not many have ever widely opened their mental eyes to see the heavenly vision; but even of those who have, they alone have been rewarded with the sight, who have also opened, and as widely, their hearts' ears to hear the heavenly voice.

When the Lord comes indeed, He comes with "all the fulness" of His Divine Faculty; and to all the fulness of our human capacity.

One who looked upon the unresponsive picture of his dead mother, cried, in words that will never perish, "O that those lips had language!" The Divine Word is the wonderful picture of the Father of the human spirit. Men fix upon it the gaze of their mental eyes, and, in the midst of the silence, cry, "O that those lips had language!" But THOSE lips HAVE language. If THEY lost it, but for a moment, we should, in a moment, lose it too. A dumb Creator would mean a dumb creation. When the Lord seems dumb, as, indeed, to some he does so often, too often even to us all, it is solely because we are deaf; our ears we have closed; our hearts we have shut; or rather, we have turned them to other voices; until His voice has, to us, become utterly inaudible.