THE PREACHER'S INNER LIFE
prayers and I said nothing. But now you jeer at the Word of God, I would as soon play with forked lightning!" Surely the diffidence and lack of assurance which would be appropriate enough in the propagating of private theories or the giving of human advice become ludicrous and nauseating in the proclamation of a Word so swift and powerful and tremendous. "It is not God's ordinary way," cries John Donne, "to be whispering of secrets. For Publication of Himselfe He hath constituted a Church, And in this Church, His Ordinance is Ordinance indeed; His Ordinance of preaching batters the soule, and by that breach, the Spirit enters; His Ministers are an Earthquake, and shake an earthly soule; they are the sonnes of thunder, and scatter a cloudy conscience."
The very terms describing the preacher's function—herald, ambassador—manifestly connote authority. Far too often the pulpit has been deferential and apologetic when it ought to have been prophetic and trumpet-toned. It has wasted time balancing probabilities and discussing opinions and erecting interrogation-marks, when it ought to have been ringing out the note of unabashed, triumphant affirmation—"The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it!"
It is significant that when the vision of the glory of God struck Ezekiel prostrate to the ground, the first words that shattered the silence were "Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee." God wants no grovelling, faint-hearted creatures for His ambassadors: He wants men who, having communed
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