The New Life in Christ Jesus; Essays on Subjects Relating to Spiritual Life, to Which Is Added Listening to Jesus, and the Law of Love (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE SECRET VOICE The Name of God is published to the world without the sound of any external voice, but by the virtue of that secret voice which forms the new creature in all. 1. It is said in the Prophet Isaiah: Behold My servant, whom I uphold; Mine elect, in whom My soul delighteth; I have put My Spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles (Isaiah xlii. i). He also saith: He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. How shall we reconcile this, O holy Prophet ? If this Servant of God, who is none other than our adorable Jesus Christ, is to publish the Name of God to the nations, His voice must needs be heard in the streets; why do you say then that His voice shall not be heard ? The allusion is to that holy efficacious voice which penetrates into the inmost heart of the soul, which is the Word itself, the Word of God. It makes for itself secret paths and conveyances by which it reaches the heart, strikes it, and becomes master of it; and though the senses are not affected, so that one doth not hear that voice outwardly, which is here expressed by the streets, yet it is so much the more efficacious, and so much the more powerfully it penetrates the heart. 2. This is that secret voice which, possessing itself of the heart, works the true conversion, changes the man, gives him inclinations quite contrary to those he had before; and without his knowing how this is brought about, he finds himself by degrees changed into another person. What is wonderful is, how that expression of the holy Prophet is fulfilled; for experience teaches us how the sacred voice does not make itself to be heard in the streets. Whatever strikes the senses, and causes great and sensible emotions in the powers of the soul, making a...