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 Expository Sermons on the Old Testament. 
 
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 EXPOSITORY SERMONS 
 AND OUTLINES 
 
 ON THE 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 |:cId fork; 
 
 A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON, 
 714 BROADWAY. 
 
 1886. 
 
AUTHORS OF SERMONS. 
 
 Right Rev. William Alexander, D.D., Bishop of Derry. 
 Right Rev. Alfred Barry, D.D., Primate of Australia. 
 
 Very Rev. G. G. Bradley, D.D., Dean of Westminster. 
 
 Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, M.A., London. 
 
 Rev. Prof. A. B. Davidson, D.D., LL.D., Edinburgh. 
 
 Ven. Archdeacon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S., Westminster. 
 
 Rev. Canon W. J. Knox-Little, M.A., Manchester. 
 
 Rev. Canon H. P. Liddon, D.D., St. Paul’s, London. 
 
 Rev. Alexander Maclaren, D.D., Manchester. 
 
 Rev. George Matheson, D.D., Mellar. 
 
 Rev. Joseph Parker, D.D., London. 
 
 Very Rev. J. J. S. Perowne, D.D., Dean of Peterborough. 
 Rev. Charles Stanford, D.D., London. 
 
 Right Rev. William Stubbs, D.D., Lord Bishop of Chester. 
 Very Rev. C. J. Vaughan, D.D., Dean of Llandaff. 
 

 262 . 
 Ex 76 
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 The following expositions are all gathered from fugitive 
 or unpublished sources. 
 
 601471 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/expositorysermonOOalex 
 
I. Enoch. Gen. v. 21-24. And Enoch lived sixty and five 
 years ^ and begat Methuselah: and Enoch walked zvith God 
 after he begat Methuselah three hundi^ed years ^ and begat sons 
 and daughters : a7id all the days of Enoch were three htmdred. 
 sixty and five years: a7id Enoch walked zvith God: a7td he was 
 7wt ; for God took himl^ 
 
 Enoch is one of this world’s representative men. It is 
 written of him by the writer of Genesis, that he was not 
 found amongst the dead ; it is written of him by the writer 
 to the Hebrews, that he was “ translated that he should 
 not see death.” Such a contingency could never have be- 
 fallen any man who was not essentially a representative of 
 his race, could never have been attributed to any man who 
 had not impressed his race with a sense of his representa- 
 tive character. In the world of literature, in the world of 
 philosophy, in the world of morals, there are men who, 
 spiritually speaking, may be said to have been translated 
 that they should not see death, but these have all, without 
 exception, been representative men. Time has not touched 
 their fame, their eye is not dim nor their natural strength 
 abated, but that is because their lives were universal lives. 
 They were not men of a party, of a sect, of a school. They 
 did not walk round the mere environments of their subject 
 of study. They did not occupy themselves with the ephe- 
 meral and accidental questions which floated in their con- 
 temporaneous atmosphere ; they laid hold of that element 
 in their atmosphere which was to constitute the breath of 
 every life and to form the being of every time. By that 
 grasp of the universal in humanity, they being dead are 
 yet speaking. 
 
 But just because the representative men of the world 
 have refused to occupy themselves with the accidental 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 questions of their own day, they have incurred the fate 
 involved in Mr. Carlyle’s aphorism ; they have had short 
 biographies. Let us look at this man Enoch as his figure 
 looms down upon us through the mist of six millenniums. 
 He stands amidst a group of antediluvians but his form 
 is easily distinguishable from all beside. He is unques- 
 tionably and confessedly the hero of the band, the one life 
 amongst them whom posterity has judged worthy to in- 
 herit everlasting youth ; but this is on the heavenly side 
 of his being. When we look at the earthly side we are 
 impressed with a contrast between him and his contem- 
 poraries of a totally different kind. From the spiritual 
 standpoint Enoch is the greatest man of the band, but 
 from the earthly standpoint he is the least ; he has a short 
 biography. The test of earthly greatness in that day was 
 the duration of years, and measured by that test, Enoch 
 sinks far beneath his contemporaries. He cannot touch 
 the longevity of the Adams, the Seths, the Cainans, the 
 Methuselahs ; his life embraces but a golden year of 
 circling suns. The measurement of the man must be esti- 
 mated on other grounds than those of duration, and his 
 greatness must be determined by another standard than 
 that of the world. His physical life is weaker than all 
 the physical lives around him. The days of his earthly 
 pilgrimage reach not to the days of those who went before 
 nor of those who followed, yet he has an immortality that 
 belongs not to them ; he is not found among the dead. 
 
 Now in all this there is nothing accidental ; it is the law 
 of the spiritual life in every age. The leading men of the 
 world have from the physical side had the least eventful 
 lives. In the earliest recorded history of the human race 
 the thought appears with marked emphasis. The opening 
 chapters of Genesis contain the narrative of two contem- 
 poraneous orders of human life ; they are called in that 
 record respectively the Sons of God and the Sons of Men, 
 but we of modern times should best describe them as the 
 men of matter and the men of spirit. The one race is 
 represented by Cain, the other is prefigured in Abel, and 
 even in their first representatives their distinctive marks 
 appear. “ Cain ” means possession ; “ Abel ” signifies 
 vanity ; the one typifies the fulness of worldly gain, the 
 other represents the sense of worldly emptiness. All down 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 3 
 
 the stream of the antediluvian centuries the characteristics 
 of these races are manifest. All the historical interest 
 centres in the sons of Cain. They are the inventors of 
 musical instruments, the forgers of brass and iron, the dis- 
 coverers of a mode of architecture, the initiators of an art 
 of poetry, the earliest builders of walled cities ; they laid 
 hold of the civilization of this world and therefore they 
 have deservedly the higher place in the world’s history. 
 
 With the order of Abel, on the other hand, it is all the 
 reverse. The men of this school make no figure in the 
 world and do not seek to make any figure. We know 
 nothing about them but their names and genealogies. 
 Whatever eventfulness belonged to their lives must have 
 been an eventfulness of spiritual experience ; it does not 
 manifest itself on the surface. Their life is a hidden life ; 
 the changes and revolutions of their being are all within, 
 and just because they are subsisting on that which is 
 universal to humanity there is nothing in experience which 
 can catch the historian’s eye. 
 
 I. We have implied that in the lives of these represen- 
 tative men the absence of an outward eventfulness may be at 
 once supplied and explained by an eventfulness of inward 
 experience. Now, in the case of this man Enoch, it is 
 emphatically so. Brief as is the record of his life it is long 
 enough to give us a glimpse behind the scenes, and in the 
 case of a representative man it is only behind the scenes 
 that any one cares to see. The whole narration of his 
 history is summed up in the simple words of a single 
 sentence — “And Enoch lived sixty and five years and be- 
 gat Methuselah ; and Enoch walked with God after he 
 begat Methuselah three hundred years and begat sons and 
 daughters.” Yet in that artless and primitive narrative, so 
 simple, so compressed, so unadorned, there is revealed a 
 volume of rich human experience. We are made to see 
 that in the heart of this uneventful life there was indeed 
 transacting one of the most marvellous events which the 
 universe can ever witness — the birth of a human soul from 
 darkness into light. It is by no accident that after the 
 close of the first sixty-five years the words “ Enoch lived ” 
 are changed into the words “ Enoch walked with God ; ” 
 it is the expression of a great and solemn fact which sooner 
 or later every spiritual man must learn. 
 
4 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 It tells us that to this man there came that time which 
 comes to every developed soul when the life of the vege- 
 table is transformed into the life of the human, when the 
 man ceases to be a mere living and breathing apparatus, 
 and begins to manifest himself as a working force and 
 power. For five and sixty years — the period, let us say, 
 of an antediluvian youth — Enoch simply lived. He grew, 
 as the plants grew, by the force of a spontaneous nature 
 unconscious of its own native majesty. He entered into 
 relation with the physical world, and had no glimmering 
 of a suspicion that there was aught within him which had 
 a right to transcend that world ; through all these years he 
 was but of the earth earthy. But at the end of these 
 years there came a change, and from the manner in which 
 the dates are marked we may infer that it was a sudden 
 change. Had it been gradual it would have been no more 
 possible to have fixed its year than it is possible to fix 
 the year when the natural child becomes the natural man. 
 How it came we know not ; whether it was suggested by 
 circumstances from without, or whether it arose incompre- 
 hensibly from within, we have not the data to determine. 
 When a soul is ready to take fire a very slight external 
 cause will be sufficient to ignite it — a cause which for any 
 incombustible spirit would be simply non-existent. 
 
 Probably to the eyes of his contemporaries the change 
 in the life of Enoch had that look of unaccountability 
 which we call madness. It matters not ; the important 
 question is not its cause, but its nature. It is described in 
 the narrative of Genesis as the transition into a new world, 
 a spiritual world, a world incapable of being perceived by 
 the merely physical life ; for sixty- five years he had lived, 
 for the next three hundred years he was to walk with God. 
 He had been iii union with the region of the five senses, 
 and he had asked for nothing more, but now there were 
 opening within him new senses leading into other regions 
 — an eye that was cognisant of a light which never shone 
 on land or sea, an ear which caught the sound of a music 
 unutterable by earthly voices, a heart which had wakened 
 into thoughts which the human imagination had not con- 
 ceived. He was beginning to seek for objects beyond 
 experience, to set his affections on things above, to look 
 towards a life which was unseen and eternal. In that hour. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 5 
 
 though he knew it not, he had entered upon the process of 
 vanquishing death ; the beginning of his translation was 
 the hour of his walk with God. 
 
 II. Here, then, was a mystery in the life of Enoch, a 
 mystery which is repeated in every regenerated life. But 
 let us look deeper into the narrative before us, and we shall 
 find, if possible, a still greater mystery. Previous to that 
 day on which Enoch became the subject of a great spiritual 
 revolution he had already begun to discharge the ordinary 
 ciuties>-of a householder ; he had become the educator of a 
 family. When the spiritual change passes over him we 
 expect to hear that he has abandoned these commonplace 
 cares. We expect to hear that, after the manner of Eastern 
 devotees, his walk with God has become a desertion of 
 man. We look for his translation out of the world even 
 before his death. When we are told that at a definite 
 period of life he walks with God, or strikes out into a 
 spiritual pathway, we fully expect the sequel to be that he 
 walks no more with men and participates no longer in the 
 ways of men ; that is the sequel which Brahmanism, which 
 Buddhism, which the great mass of Eastern religions 
 would have deemed imperative. 
 
 But this man reverses all our expectations. He is not 
 of the East Eastern ; he is no Brahman, no Buddhist, no 
 ascetic. He goes up into the life of God, to walk in the 
 spiritual regions, and we expect to see him vanish in the 
 clouds of heaven, but presently he re-appears in the world 
 of men and resumes the life of common day. He ascends 
 up into the mountain, but it is only to come down again 
 into the valley perfumed with the fragrance of the moun- 
 tain air. When the great spiritual change first comes to 
 him it finds him engaged in the duties of a householder ; 
 when the great spiritual change is completed it leaves him 
 resuming those duties. The three hundred years of his 
 walk with God are years of family life ; he brings up sons 
 and daughters. His life in its outward aspect in no respect 
 differs from the lives of those around him. His walk with 
 God lies not over a different road from the common walk 
 with men ; the difference lies not in the road but in the 
 companionship, not in the steps taken but in the spirit with 
 which they are taken. Before he saw God he had a sphere 
 in a human family ; after he saw God he had still the same 
 
6 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 sphere. But it was no longer the same man that filled it, 
 and therefore it was no longer filled in the same way. 
 
 The walk with God leads through the paths of earth as 
 well as the paths of heaven, but he who has entered upon 
 that walk can no longer separate these paths ; the atmo- 
 sphere of heaven penetrates everywhere. It does not 
 unsphere the lives of men ; it purifies the old spheres. It 
 makes better fathers, better sons. It makes the soldier a 
 more loyal soldier, the philosopher a more true philosopher, 
 the legislator a more just legislator ; the triumph of eternity 
 is the sublimation of time. That is the great truth which 
 Enoch was the first to see, the great truth which he was 
 to make the distinctive principle of the coming Jewish 
 nation. This man standing at the head of the stream is at 
 once the representative and the prophecy of that which 
 constitutes the genius of Judaism. 
 
 That religion, almost alone amongst the faiths of the 
 East, maintains from beginning to end that the sacred has 
 its province in the secular. It is a protest against the 
 Brahman, against the Buddhist, against the ascetic of every 
 age. In opposition to all theories of mysticism and tran- 
 scendentalism, it declares that the earth is the Lord’s, and 
 the fulness thereof. It claims for God all the kingdoms of 
 the world and the glory of them : every government is His 
 government, every law is His law, every political institution 
 is an ordinance from Him. There is no difference between 
 treason and impiety ; there is no distinction between 
 anarchy and atheism. God is not only the supreme ruler 
 of the earth — He is the only ruler ; He is without rival and 
 without second. Therefore it is that to the Jew, that man 
 who had most of the Divine life was the man who had the 
 best right to fill the largest secular spheres. 
 
 Of all spheres that which he had most right to fill 
 was the circle of family life, for the family was the begin- 
 ning of the kingdom and the kingdom was the reign of the 
 Theocracy. The goal of Jewish religion was morality, and 
 the beginning of its morality was the life of home. The 
 essence of Jewish religion was a and the first steps 
 
 of the walk were around the domestic altar. The sacred 
 fire which illuminated the saints of the Old Testament 
 burned not on the mountain-tops ; it enshrined itself in the 
 valleys of their lives. It lighted up the family circle, it 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT, 
 
 7 
 
 warmed up the domestic duties, it irradiated the sphere of 
 household commonplaces. It is not without significance 
 that when we would describe in a single word the greatest 
 leaders of that primitive age we call them by the one 
 name of patriarch or father. 
 
 III. But there is one other point of significance in this brief 
 narrative of Enoch’s life, and a point in which, more than 
 all others, he stands out as a representative of his nation. 
 We have seen that in him is first revealed that great prin- 
 ciple of Jewish faith — the identity of religion with morality. 
 We have now to see revealed in him that other character- 
 istic doctrine of his race — the connection between morality 
 and immortality. That connection is expressed in one 
 pregnant utterance: ‘‘he walked with God; and he was 
 not.” We have nothing to do here with that in the 
 narrative which is miraculous ; we are concerned with 
 that which is non-miraculous, representative, universal. 
 We wish to find what is that element in the life of 
 Enoch which has constituted to posterity the fact of his 
 immortality. When we read this fifth chapter of Genesis 
 we seem to be walking through a cemetery perusing the 
 inscriptions on the antediluvian tombstones. Each life 
 contains a common epitaph — a record of birth, parentage, 
 and length of years, closed by the one universal statement, 
 “ and he died.” 
 
 But here, in the midst of the cemetery, there is a vacant 
 space where a tombstone was meant to be, and instead of 
 the common inscription of death there are found the words, 
 “ he was not, for God took him.” He was not ; he never 
 became a thing of the past, it always can be written of him 
 — he is : such was the deep significance of the primitive 
 epitaph on Enoch. It tells us that he is not numbered 
 amongst the things that have been, that he has not passed 
 away with the shadows of a bygone time, that he lives in 
 a perpetual present, in an everlasting now, in an eternity of 
 immortal youth ; and then it completes the picture by 
 declaring that this immortality was to him no accident, no 
 capricious destiny, no arbitrary fate ; that he received im- 
 munity from death just because there was in him that 
 which could not die — “he walked with God, and he was 
 not.” 
 
 Now here is the great truth which the world in general 
 
8 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 has grasped, and which Judaism in particular has made her 
 own — the connection between morality and immortality. 
 To the consciousness of mankind the freshest and greenest 
 thing in this world is the pure heart. It is independent 
 of all time ; it is independent of all space. When we 
 meet it on the page of history we refer it to no age or 
 clime ; we accept it as a fact of humanity. The heroism 
 of moral purity is never antiquated ; it is always modern. 
 The men who have walked through this world by the 
 power of faith are, even in a spiritual sense, translated that 
 they should not see death. They are not to us men of the 
 past ; we shake hands with them across the centuries as by 
 the bond of a present continuity. They never recede with 
 the years ; they are as young to-day as they were a thousand 
 years ago. The life which they lived was not the life of 
 their time but the life of humanity. Their walk through 
 the world was a walk with God, and the walk with God 
 never becomes a beaten path ; it is perpetually trodden, yet 
 to every soul that treads it it is ever new. The man who 
 treads that path is abreast of every age ; it always can be 
 said of him, he is ! 
 
 Here, then, is the grand principle which Enoch be- 
 queathed to the Jewish nation and to posterity — the power 
 of morality to transcend the limits of time. He taught 
 by his life, he illustrated by the survival of his life, that the 
 evergreen element of humanity is conscience, that mar- 
 vellous power which, call it by what name you will, issues 
 the categorical imperative, “ thou shalt ; thou shalt not.*’ 
 The one life amongst the antediluvians which does not 
 come to us as an echo of the past, is that life which is a 
 walk with God. Seth, and Enos, and Cainan may have been 
 greater men as the world counts greatness, and their lives 
 may have been more eventful to their day and generation, 
 but for that very reason they are less eventful to humanity. 
 The distinctive merit of Enoch w^eighed against his con- 
 temporaries is the fact that his life laid hold of that which 
 belonged not to his age, nor to any age, but which consti- 
 tuted the basis of human nature itself ; by this, he being 
 dead yet speaketh. He bequeathed to his countrymen a 
 revelation of the truth that morality is man’s hope of 
 immortality. Judaism appropriated that lesson, and in 
 theory never swerved from it. Of a future state in itself 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 9 
 
 she speaks little, and of the nature of the future existence 
 she does not tell. But the one point which this religion 
 grasps is the message borne down to her by the life of 
 Enoch, that the way to escape death is the walk with God. 
 
 “Who shall abide in His tabernacle, who shall dwell in 
 His holy hill ? He that hath clean hands and a pure 
 heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity nor 
 sworn deceitfully ; he that doeth thus shall never be 
 moved.” The one eternal object in this world to the heart 
 of the Jew was the life of God ; the very name of Jehovah 
 means the Eternal. The one hope of human immortality 
 to the heart of the Jew lay in union with this life of God ; 
 to walk outside of Him was to die, to walk with Him was 
 to live for evermore. Where was the place of the dead he 
 knew not nor cared to inquire ; all he knew was that even 
 from that region the Divine Omnipresence was not ex- 
 cluded : “ If I make my bed in Hades, Thou art there.” 
 The problem for Judaism was to get near to God, to touch 
 the secret of that Divine holiness in which lay the Fountain 
 of life. To be holy as He was holy, to be pure as He was 
 pure ; to meditate on His law day and night ; to keep His 
 commandments one by one : that was the sum of her creed, 
 that was the substance of her hope. Her religion was a 
 walk with God, and the walk with God was the road to 
 immortality. 
 
 G. M. 
 
 II. Noah. Heb. xi. 7. By faith Noah, being 7varned of 
 God of things not seen as yet, moved with feai‘, prepared an ark 
 to the saving of his house ; by the which he condemned the 
 world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. 
 
 The great servants of God, as a rule, share in a common 
 stock of thoughts, feelings, resolves, efforts, sacrifices, which 
 lift them, as a class, above the ordinary level of men, and 
 make them what they are. They live in the world without 
 being of it ; they look beyond these narrow frontiers for 
 their ruling interests and their deepest motives. In some 
 shape or other, they give up what they see, for what they 
 do not see ; they feel beforehand that life is a thing at once 
 blessed and awful ; blessed in its opportunities, awful in its 
 possibilities. They act as men who are in possession of 
 
lO 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 the clue to its real meaning. They know and feel why they 
 are here, and whither they are going ; and in communion 
 with the Author and end of their existence, and in doing 
 His will, so far as they know it, by themselves and among 
 their fellow-creatures, they realize the true scope and 
 dignity of their being, and they fertilize the lives of all 
 around them. “ Blessed is the man that hath not walked 
 in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of 
 sinners, and hath not sat in the seat of the scornful. But 
 his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law will 
 he exercise himself day and night. And he shall be like a 
 tree planted by the waterside, that will bring forth his fruit 
 in due season. His leaf also shall not wither, and look, 
 whatsoever he doeth, it shall prosper.’’ But over and above 
 that which is common to them as a body, each am.ong the 
 servants of God has some distinguishing characteristic. 
 As in nature, no two flowers, no two animals, no two 
 human countenances, are exactly alike ; so in grace, this 
 reflection of God’s exhaustless resources is even more 
 apparent, and each who has a part, still more each who is 
 eminent in the kingdom of grace, has in it a distinct place, 
 and form, and working, which belongs to no other. His 
 character, or circumstances, confer upon him a speciality, 
 which makes him, at least in some respects, unlike any who 
 have preceded him, unlike, we may dare to add, any who 
 will follow him. 
 
 The great patriarchal figures who move before us in the 
 earliest pages of the Bible are, as a class, naturally clouded 
 in the dimness of a remote antiquity. Of the seven names 
 which are contemporary with Noah, one only attracts a 
 specific moral and religious influence. We pause at the 
 holy life, at the glorious translation of Enoch. With this 
 exception, there is little to arrest the attention beyond the 
 length of years which was granted to these earliest gene- 
 rations of men. Strange, almost inconceivable, as such 
 longevity may appear, when we contrast it with the exist- 
 ing limits of human life, it is in harmony, nevertheless, with 
 the general scale of gigantic power, which, according to 
 the most reliable evidence relating to the old world, was 
 characteristic of it. Life in that earliest age was com- 
 paratively simple, regular, and free from the social mischief 
 and wickedness which came along with a more organised 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 11 
 
 society. The climate, the weather, and the natural con- 
 ditions under which mankind moved, were probably very 
 different from those which succeeded, and Paradise itself 
 was still recent So that although in the exercise of his 
 great prerogative, man had forfeited the endowments with 
 which he had been originally blessed, yet some of these, 
 such as immortality, would abate but gradually, and thus 
 it was that Enoch was translated into eternal life with God, 
 without passing through disease and death. Five genera- 
 tions of ancestors, at least, must still have been living — 
 Jared, Mahalaleel, Cainan, Enos, and even Seth ; while 
 Enoch's son, Methuselah, and his grandson, Lamech, had 
 attained an age far beyond that of modern men. Of all 
 the antediluvian life, from the time of the creation, only 
 Adamhad been taken to his rest, only Noah was not yet 
 born. Sixty-five years elapsed between the translation 
 of Enoch and the birth of Noah, and during that interval 
 the moral atmosphere of human history had very rapidly 
 darkened. 
 
 This result appears to be due to two main causes, beyond 
 and above the constantly self-aggravating effects of the 
 Fall. In the fourth and fifth chapters of Genesis, the 
 development of the human race is traced through two 
 entirely different lines — that of Cain and that of Seth. It 
 would seem that notwithstanding the general sense of the 
 phrase elsewhere in Scripture, the Sethites, and not any 
 beings of a higher world, are on this occasion meant by the 
 august title, “Sons of God;" and an inter-marriage between 
 the Sethites, who had preserved the higher and better forms 
 of religion, and the Cainites, who had entirely lost them, 
 issued in the rapid moral degradation of the posterity of 
 Seth. 
 
 Distinct from this, but contemporaneous with it, was the 
 appearance of the giants ; they were tyrants, it would 
 seem, physical natural monsters — men who made the law 
 of might to be the governing force in that primitive society. 
 The corruption of the old world was therefore traceable to 
 two causes, each in its way fatal to the moral well-being of 
 man. It was traceable on the one hand to social oppres- 
 sion and cruelty ; on the other hand to a reckless sensuality. 
 Lamech felt the evils of his time ; it all seemed to him to 
 flow, as it did flow, from the sin which had been brought 
 
12 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 about, and from the curse which had been pronounced in 
 Eden. He felt the burden of his labour upon the ungrate- 
 ful soil ; and when his son was born, we read of the father’s 
 melancholy, together with a profound presentiment of 
 some brighter future, in the name of the infant, “ and he 
 called his name Noah, saying. This same shall comfort us 
 concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the 
 ground which the Lord hath cursed.” Noah’s general and 
 lofty piety is described by the same phrase as Enoch’s — 
 He walked with God.” This expression denotes more 
 than that which was used in a Divine manner of Abraham. 
 Abraham was to walk, and did walk before God. Still 
 more carefully should it be distinguished from walking 
 after God, the phrase by which Moses enjoins obedience 
 to the commands given in the Divine law. To walk before 
 God is to be ever conscious of His over-shadowing and 
 searching presence ; but to walk with God, is something 
 higher and more blessed even than this ; it is to be, as it 
 were, constantly at His side, and admitted to His con- 
 fidence ; it is to be admitted to a close and intimate 
 communion with Him as a dear personal friend. It is to 
 be in spirit what the apostles were in flesh, when they 
 shared day by day in the streets and lanes of Galilee, 
 the Divine companionship of the Incarnate Son. It is 
 St. John’s ‘‘fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus 
 Christ.” It is St. Paul’s “ being quickened and made to 
 sit together in heavenly places with Jesus Christ.” Once 
 only besides does the phrase occur in the Old Testament, 
 where the Prophet Malachi applies it, not to the Israelites 
 generally, but specifically and distinctly to the conduct of 
 the priests, considering that they stood in a closer relation 
 to God than the rest of the ancient people, and could 
 enter the Holy of Holies, and have intercourse with the 
 Sacred Presence which was there veiled from the public 
 eye. 
 
 Noah’s piety, then, was of an exceptionably lofty kind ; 
 he is said to have been a religious man, and perfect in his 
 generation, and in the midst of the general corruption he 
 found favour in the eyes of the Lord. Of this temper his 
 thankfulness after his deliverance is a sample ; in order to 
 express it he sacrifices some of the little store which he 
 had saved from the general wreck, and a sentence in the 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 13 
 
 Prophet Ezekiel implies that he had special power as an 
 intercessor with God. Yet his intercession is classed with 
 that of Job and Daniel, and his thankfulness was both in 
 form and the spirit of its manifestation, an anticipation of 
 what is shown in other instances, as that of Moses ; and 
 Holy Scripture, with its wonted simplicity and truthfulness, 
 describing his falling in his old age into an error, does not 
 place him in this respect above the level of other servants 
 of God. We have, then, still to ask, what it was wherein 
 Noah’s excellence more particularly shows itself. And 
 this question is answered in the passage we are considering, 
 in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which, omitting all else — 
 and there is rnuch which the history of this great patriarch 
 suggests — bids us observe, that “By faith Noah, being 
 warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, 
 prepared an ark to the saving of his house ; by the which 
 he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteous- 
 ness which is by faith.” 
 
 Indeed, it is to this period in the life of Noah that all 
 the allusions to him in the New Testament, with the one 
 exception of that of our Lord in St. Luke’s Gospel, con- 
 sistently refer. In the mind not only of St. Peter, but of 
 our Lord himself, the “ days of Noah ” were specially that 
 most critical period of one hundred and twenty-five years 
 which preceded the deluge. It is possible that the social 
 or political interests of his life may have been greater at 
 an earlier or at later periods, it is certain that the intensity 
 of its moral interest centred in this. 
 
 In Noah’s building the ark at the command of God, there 
 are three main points to be considered. It implies, first 
 of all, that he had an earnest conviction of the sanctity 
 and greatness of moral truth — a conviction which, more 
 than any other, is the basis of religious character. He was 
 surrounded by a populace which had broken altogether 
 away from the laws of God. Impiety, impurity, and 
 licentiousness, were the order of the day. Every imagina- 
 tion of the thoughts of man’s heart was only evil con- 
 tinually ; the corruption was universal and profound. To 
 numbers of men, this surrounding atmosphere of evil 
 would be simply destructive to the moral sight. Those of 
 us who know anything of our own hearts and characters 
 must know this how easily we get accustomed to the sight 
 
14 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 of what is wrong — how soon we feel complacency, or 
 something like complacency, towards it — how it under- 
 mines our sense of its own malignity, and makes us, if not 
 exactly its captives, yet its tolerant apologists. “ Neither 
 did they abhor anything that is evil,’' is a severe and 
 exceptional condemnation by the psalmist. It is not that 
 evil triumphant, as in Babylon, crushes out the remaining 
 righteousness in the land ; there it is, and we take it for 
 granted in ourselves and others ; it is part of the actual 
 sum of human life and activity — nay, it is a very large 
 part; in our hearts, too, it finds something like countenance 
 and sympathy. What is the good, we say to ourselves, of 
 finding fault with the weather, or with an epidemic ? We 
 may wish that things were otherwise ; we cannot but resign 
 ourselves to take them as they are, and this acquiescence 
 in evil, as inevitable, involves a something beyond ; it leads 
 us to shut our eyes to what the deepest and truest of all 
 human presentiment, apart from the revelation of God, 
 points to as its certain consequences. It blinds us to the 
 fact that it must be followed, at some time or other, by 
 punishment. Could it be otherwise, God would not be 
 God, a necessarily and intrinsically Moral Being. Could 
 it be otherwise, the first and most earnest forms of belief 
 in conscience would be untrustworthy. And yet we may 
 by familiarity with this indolent sympathy with evil, learn 
 first to forget that evil leads to punishment, and next, and 
 not improbably, even to deny it. It is inconceivable, we 
 say, that a world-embracing mass of evil should be 
 punished : its very universality is its safe-guard and its 
 protection ; it might be punished if it were an exception, it 
 must escape simply because it is the rule. This is what we 
 secretly say to ourselves. We shut our eyes to a first truth 
 of morals, and we flatter ourselves that we naturally escape 
 the effects. 
 
 It was against this tacit and fatal influence of a corrupt 
 moral atmosphere that Noah’s life was a protest of resist- 
 ance. He was,” the Bible says, “ perfect in ” or among 
 ‘‘ his generations,” and these generations were corrupt. 
 He was a preacher of righteousness when righteousness 
 was at a discount and peculiarly unpopular. He walked 
 with God when mankind at large had forgotten Him. He 
 did not think the better of evil, of its real nature or of its 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 15 
 
 future prospects, merely because it was practised on a 
 large scale and with considerable apparent impunity. To 
 Noah, the eternal truths were more certain than the surface 
 appearances of life ; he was certain that evil was evil, and 
 that it could not but be followed by chastisement, because 
 God was God. 
 
 Such a moral conviction it must have been which fitted 
 Noah to receive the Divine prediction of a coming deluge. 
 God does not take the morally deaf and blind into His 
 confidence. The words of Jesus Christ sound through all 
 the ages of human history as the voice of a Divine and 
 presiding Providence : ‘‘ He that hath ears to hear, let him 
 hear,*' he whose moral senses are really alive, let him listen 
 to the proclamations of God’s truth. To those only it will 
 be made known. He that willeth to do the will of God, 
 shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.” . . . 
 
 Noah was warned of God of things not seen as yet ; he was 
 the subject in some way — it were folly to attempt to deter- 
 mine in what way — of supernatural communications ; it 
 may have been some sensible voice from without, it may 
 have been an unmistakably Divine operation, when God 
 said unto Noah, ‘‘The end of all flesh is come before Me ; 
 for the earth is filled with violence through them ; behold I 
 will destroy them with the earth. Make thee an ark of 
 gopher wood. . . . Behold I, even I, do bring a flood of 
 waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the 
 breath of life from under heaven; and every thing that is in 
 the earth shall die. But with thee will I establish My cove- 
 nant.” Why should Noah believe this prediction sufficiently 
 to act upon that command? Because God had spoken; that 
 was his reason, that was his conviction, — it was enough for 
 him, he needed no more. But then his conviction of the un- 
 changeableness of that truth, and of the moral laws of God, 
 would have rendered such an announcement, under the cir- 
 cumstances, to him at least morally intelligible. It was true 
 that what was foretold, was to come unprovided by any 
 past experience. In the burning plains of central Asia, 
 the idea of an universal deluge may well have seemed the 
 wildest of imaginations. A thousand years, at least, had 
 already passed, and there had been nothing like it. Nature 
 seemed to be unvarying in her movements, the sun rose 
 and set, the seasons succeeded each other, the generations 
 
i6 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 of living beings appeared and passed away ; there was a 
 limit, so to call it, a regular period traversing this in a 
 discernible and provided order, but as yet there was 
 nothing that met the sense to warrant the expectation of 
 a vast or overwhelming shock or catastrophe. Why should 
 it be otherwise hereafter ? why should this accumulated 
 experience go for nothing ? why should this sense of 
 security, so amply warranted, be succeeded by appre- 
 hensions and distrust, for which, as yet, the annals of the 
 world afforded no parallel ? The answer was, that God 
 had spoken. Who that believes in a real living God can 
 plead observation in the divinity of nature against the 
 avowed will of the Author of nature? After all, this in- 
 variability, so to call it, appeals rather to the imagination 
 than to the reason ; the imagination becomes so accustomed 
 to it, so moulded by it, that it undergoes a certain distress 
 at the very thought of its violent interruption ; but reason, 
 true reason, is ever mindful of the limits which must’ bound 
 even our widest observations. Because we observe a con- 
 tinuous sequence of similar effects, it does not follow as 
 an absolute certainty ; it at most amounts to a very strong 
 presumption, strong in proportion to the range of our 
 observation, that these effects will continue. We are not 
 really in possession of knowledge respecting any great 
 necessity rooted in the nature of things, which makes it 
 certain they must continue ; and if we believe that the 
 Almighty Author of nature is really alive, and that He is 
 a Moral Being — and not merely an intelligence, still less 
 merely a force — and that as a moral being He may have 
 grave reasons for disturbing altogether this physical and 
 social sympathy which encircles us, we shall not then dis- 
 trust Him if He tells us that He means to do so. And so 
 it was that Noah was moved, as the apostle says, with fear, 
 with a fear most reasonable, as it was judicious ; he did 
 not treat the warning he had received as if it had been 
 only some evil omen, appealing at best to his superstition, 
 but he prepared an ark to the saving of his house. 
 
 This event, in which Noah believed before it came, was 
 appealed to in a later age by St. Peter, as furnishing a 
 reason for believing in a still, to us, future and greater 
 catastrophe. St. Peter is writing at the very close of his 
 life, and already a sufficient time had elapsed since the 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 17 
 
 Ascension of our Lord to allow for the foundation of 
 systematic doubts respecting His second coming to judg- 
 ment ; doubts which were based upon the apparent endur- 
 ability of the world and of the laws of life. Where is the 
 promise of God’s coming? men asked in that generation, 
 too ; all things continue as they were from the beginning 
 of the creation. The apostle reminds those who argue thus, 
 that Time has no meaning for the eternal God, and that 
 to apply pur notions of the difference between greater and 
 lesser portions of it to His Majestic providences, is to for- 
 get that there is simply no such thing as succession in His 
 unbegun, unending life. ‘‘ Beloved, be not ignorant of this 
 one thing— that one day is with the Lord as a thousand 
 years, and a thousand years as one day.” 
 
 But if Christ’s delay meant nothing but His long-suffer- 
 ing, the unchanging order of the world could not be urged 
 as a reason for this unbelief in the catastrophe of a future 
 judgment, because the past history of the world contained 
 at least one eminent example of such a catastrophe. “ By 
 the word of the Lord the heavens were opened, the earth 
 standing out of the water and in the water, whereby the world 
 that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.” In 
 other words, water had been the instrument by which the 
 surface of the earth was moulded ; water had been one of 
 the constituent elements of its well-being and productive- 
 ness, yet at the creative word of God, from being a servant 
 and blessing, it became an over-mastering force and 
 scourge ; and what had been, might yet, would yet, be. 
 Another element had yet a work to do in God’s Provi- 
 dence, and neither the lapse of years nor yet the observed 
 regularity of nature were any real reasons for presuming 
 that a final catastrophe would not come at last. “ The 
 heavens and the earth, which are now,” says the apostle, 
 “ by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire 
 against the judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” 
 
 Nay, it is very possible that with a higher knowledge 
 than that which we at present possess, we might be able 
 to extend the argument by additional illustrations. 
 
 Some years ago it was usual to refer wholly to the time 
 of the Deluge the more ancient animal remains which had 
 been discovered in caverns or beneath the surface of the 
 earth, but more recent science urges that these remains 
 
 c 
 
i8 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 simply imply, at least generally, a higher antiquity, and 
 are found under circumstances for which no universal 
 flood would sufficiently account. It may be so. But is 
 there anything in the text of the Bible which obliges us 
 to narrow down to 6,000 years, or in any way whatever 
 distinguish the measure of the earths antiquity, short of 
 admitting its absolute eternity? On the contrary, between 
 the original creative Act and the description of that 
 gradual process, by which through successive periods 
 {days they are called in the eastern idiom) this world was 
 brought into its present state, there is room for a measure- 
 less interval, I should rather say for a series of intervals ; 
 and if this be so, who shall say that many of the animal, 
 it may be some of the apparently human, remains, which 
 are now pointed at as hostile to, or at least as damaging 
 to, the faith of Christians, are after all only relics and re- 
 cords of bygone catastrophes of which, previous to the 
 creation and present order of things, this globe has 
 been the scene, and by which the ages of probation ac- 
 credited to moral beings who have pieceded us here, 
 were by the judgment of the great Moral Ruler violently 
 closed. 
 
 It is true that we are here altogether in a region of 
 hypothesis, but I submit that there is at least nothing in 
 Revelation which necessarily contradicts it ; while if it be 
 true, it yields support to the argument of the apostle, it 
 justifies the generous faith of the patriarch. Not that 
 Noah’s faith had anything to do with such speculations ; 
 religious men may be glad to harmonize their convictions 
 with the advancing and often inconsistent conclusions of 
 human knowledge, but the foundation of their faith is one 
 and invariable ; they believe that He who made the world 
 can control it, and when His purpose is clear to them, they 
 do not allow themselves to lose sight of it simply because 
 their imaginations are powerfully impressed by the spec- 
 tacle of a settled and common order of continuance or 
 execution. They are, therefore, in their deepest sympa- 
 thies independent of scientific arguments, without being at 
 all indifferent to them ; they walk by faith and not by 
 sight ; they are certain that whatever difficulties may be 
 urged against God’s declared will at the moment, God will, 
 in the long run, justify Himself to men, and will vindicate 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 19 
 
 the wisdom of those who in days of trial or darkness have 
 taken Him at His word. 
 
 A third point to be observed in Noah is his persever- 
 ance under difficulties. His faith was a practical principle, 
 and it upheld him in the face of serious discouragements. 
 He might have easily persuaded himself that there could 
 be no real necessity for his personally exerting himself ; 
 that the threatened disorder would scarcely touch one who 
 was already 480 years of age ; that it would be enough to 
 warn his children of what was coming, when he himself 
 would probably have been laid in his rest. Why should 
 he arouse himself in such advanced life to so great an 
 effort as that required of him, instead of leaving it to be 
 undertaken by younger hands ? The answer in his con- 
 science was, that it had been said to him, ‘‘ Build thee an 
 ark of gopher wood.’' 
 
 Again, he might naturally have dwelt upon the great 
 mechanical and constructive difficulties of such an under- 
 taking. It is not to be supposed that these were left to 
 be found out for the first time by modern criticism. How 
 could such an ark be built so as to secure at once sufficient 
 space and safety? How could it be provisioned, lighted, 
 and worked ? How could the several representatives of 
 the animal races be so gathered as to enter it ? How 
 would it be possible to preserve them under conditions of 
 weather and temperature so unlike their own ? And when 
 the scourge had passed, how would it be possible to enter 
 again upon the earth as solitary colonists, amid traces of 
 so gigantic a desolation ? Well may Noah’s heart have 
 sunk within him when God said to him, “ Build thee an 
 ark of gopher wood,” yet he only lived to obey. More- 
 over, Noah had to begin his work and to continue it, not 
 merely without active support and sympathy, but under 
 the eye of public opinion which was not so much hostile 
 as contemptuously cynical. 
 
 What was this extraordinary outlay of labour and skill 
 for ? what was its purpose and meaning ? How was it 
 other than the crotchet of a mere visionary fanatic ? Did 
 he really think that his fancies would become true, and 
 that the settled order of nature, as well as the civilization 
 and progress of human life, were going to be buried be- 
 neath the flood which he dreamt of? Was every one else 
 
20 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 wrong, while he was right ? Was his private opinion to 
 be weighed against the collective experience and judgment 
 of mankind ? How they must have mocked at the entire 
 undertaking, how they must in their aversion to the awful 
 idea have revenged themselves upon its form and details ! 
 What airy criticism must have been lavished upon it, and 
 on each detail supplied to it, and on its complete structure 
 what bitter comments must have been passed. Its useless- 
 ness, its ugliness, its utter opposition to the whole current 
 of contemporary thought and feeling. How, too, to some 
 of the more liberal critics would it have occurred to en- 
 deavour, as if in scornful and condescending pity, to enter, 
 although only remotely and for a moment, into the strange 
 hallucination that could have produced it, as if surveying 
 from afar some mental curiosity, which only did not move 
 anger because it ministered so largely to amusement. 
 And then with what satisfaction, complacence, and confi- 
 dence would they have betaken themselves anew to the 
 life against which this ark was a protest and a warning, as 
 to that which was warranted by the common sense and 
 judgment of the time, and by a force of custom and of 
 sentiment, which, as the world grew older, was daily gain- 
 ing new strength. 
 
 Our Lord Himself has said that what took place then 
 is an anticipation of what will be on the eve of the last 
 judgment. “As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be 
 also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they 
 drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, 
 until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood 
 came, and destroyed them all.'' Yet there was delay, a delay 
 of 120 years, but the threatened judgment came at last, 
 “ the flood came, and destroyed them all." Whether it was 
 a strictly universal or something less than a literally uni- 
 versal deluge ; whether it covered Ararat without covering, 
 for instance, the Himalayas ; whether it can be possibly 
 explained by any combination of known causes or only by 
 simply natural ones — these are most important questions, 
 but they do not touch the broad limits of the general fact, 
 still less the moral interests of the narrative ; they would 
 only lead us away from it. What is important is, that the 
 judgment came — it came to vindicate the morality and 
 sovereignty of God ; it came to justify Noah, and to con- 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 21 
 
 tend with the generations which rejected him ; it came to 
 demonstrate the folly and wickedness of the ancient civi- 
 lization, the uncertainty of that nature which seemed at 
 the time so well founded and so strong. There must have 
 been upon that day a murmur — an outburst of surprise 
 and alarm — a struggle — an agony — a despair — when this 
 was realized. Poets and painters have endeavoured to 
 portray it, but as the mind dwells on any guch vast pic- 
 ture of human agony, the heart grows sick and the head 
 giddy. In that very multitude, no doubt, there were de- 
 grees of responsibility and guilt, knowm to and weighed 
 by the Eternal Justice. The apostle hints as, much in the 
 significant expression which apparently implies, that on 
 the descent of our Lord’s human soul into the place of 
 the departed, there was a preaching, at least, to some 
 of the repentant spirits of the antediluvian world. But 
 the general result is a contrast between an overwhelming 
 judgment and a signal mercy— a judgment provoked by 
 forgetfulness of the given law and knowledge of God — a 
 mercy awarded to faith in His word — a faith which was 
 not sacrificed to false and narrow views of duty, or to 
 base misgivings, or to the current and corrupting opinions 
 of the time. What Noah's work really and mainly fore- 
 shadowed would have been obscured in /its day, but we 
 Christians look back upon it from a vantage ground, which 
 enables us to do it justice. We see that in the labour and 
 temporal salvation of Noah, there is already the shadow of 
 a greater toil and a more complete deliverance. Looking 
 to our Lord Jesus Christ, may we not, in its wretchedne.ss 
 and yet in its hope, use in a true sense the word of 
 Lamech, This same shall comfort us concerning our 
 work and toil of our hands." Like Noah, Jesus Christ 
 was a preacher of righteousness — the preacher of a higher 
 and brighter righteousness than man knew before. And 
 as Noah built an ark for the saving of his house, so did 
 our Lord build His Church to be the home of His fol- 
 lowers, with the promise that against it the gates of hell 
 should not prevail. 
 
 His teaching, His example. His works of mercy. His 
 bitter death. His resurrection from the tomb, and His 
 glorious ascension into heaven, all are steps in this mighty 
 work. The Divine Architect shed His very life-blood in 
 
22 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 the labour of construction, and at length Pentecost came, 
 and the eternal Spirit welded all into a consistent and 
 enduring whole ; and as the races and sexes and degrees 
 of men passed within it, one after another, at the heavenly 
 call, lo ! there was to the eyes of faith neither Jew nor 
 Greek, neither male nor female, circumcision nor uncir- 
 cumcision, barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free, but 
 Christ was all and in all. And although since those earlier 
 days, the passions and the errors of men have raised walls 
 and partitions over and above the divinely-ordained stories 
 within the Divine fabric, yet this most assuredly will not 
 always last ; they are but human, while the ark itself is 
 Divine. Even now, too, it floats upon the waters, upon the 
 vast ocean of human opinion and society, and we, without 
 any merit of our own, but by His free grace and mercy, 
 have been permitted to enter it. Over us, too, once was 
 uttered the prayer that the everlasting God, who by His 
 great mercy did save Noah and his family in the ark from 
 perishing by water, would look upon and sanctify us, that, 
 being delivered from His wrath, we might be received into 
 the ark of Christ’s Church, and, being steadfast in faith, 
 joyful through hope, and rooted in charity, might so pass 
 through the waves of this troublesome world, that in the 
 end we might come to the land of everlasting life. 
 
 It would be useful to insist, before we end, upon one or 
 two practical conclusions which are suggested by the life 
 and work of Noah. It suggests, first of all, a particular 
 form of duty which at certain times of the world’s history 
 may press very heavily on the consciences of public men, 
 whether in Church or State, and at certain terms in life 
 upon all of us, however retired and private our place and 
 work may be — I mean, the duty which may arise on our 
 seeing, or believing that we see, more or less clearly into 
 the future, which has to be provided for or provided 
 against. Indeed, to endeavour to look forward, or to 
 provide in this way, is a part of the work of those who are 
 charged with the maintenance and support of large public 
 interests ; it is their business to observe the direction in 
 which things are moving, the forces which are coming to 
 the front, the combination or separation of force which 
 may fairly be anticipated, the general result that will 
 apparently emerge from and succeed the state of things 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 23 
 
 with which they are actually conversant Here, as else- 
 where, to seek knowledge is more or less to learn ; and 
 God teaches us through our natural powers of observation 
 and reflection, as well as in other and higher ways. The 
 prayer to know enough to be able to do His will, in our 
 day and generation is answered. And it may be we have 
 to deliberately anticipate very much, to which we would 
 be willingly blind. Such a habit of looking forward, if its 
 motive is something higher than mere speculative curiosity, 
 will not interfere with the duties of the present hour, nor 
 will it militate against that general temper of trustful 
 resignation, which those who see furthest and deepest feel, 
 and which is ever ready to leave its hopes and fears in the 
 hands of God. 
 
 In private and worldly concerns, such foresightedness is 
 not often undervalued. No man, for instance, continues 
 to invest his money in an undertaking, recommended 
 though it be by an imposing prospectus and an influential 
 Board of Directors, if beneath its fair promises and ap- 
 parent prosperity, he can clearly see at work the causes of 
 a coming bankruptcy. But where the interests of others 
 are only or chiefly concerned, it may be probable that the 
 man himself will have passed away before his anticipations 
 are realized ; it is possible for him to find himself in 
 Noah’s moral position, to this extent, that he foresees a 
 catastrophe which is hidden from the eyes of his con- 
 temporaries, and which imposes on him the plain duty of 
 preparing to meet it. And then comes the trial ; will 
 he bestir himself to obey the behest of his conviction, or 
 will he indolently fold his hands and let things take their 
 course.^ Will he say to himself, ‘‘After all, this is no 
 particular concern of mine, it is the concern of everybody ; 
 why should I in particular be compelled to put myself out 
 of my way in a matter which interests hundreds of other 
 people quite as much as it interests me? Why should I 
 be taxed, — heavily taxed, — on the score of my far-sighted- 
 ness, while others can go on easily and quietly, with a 
 perfectly good conscience, only because they are too un- 
 observant to see, or to try to see, beyond the next turn in 
 the road of life } I will let things take their course ; there 
 is no necessity on my part for an interference which will 
 be mocked at till it is justified, and then, even when It is 
 
24 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 justified, will soon enough be forgotten.’’ Will he reason 
 thus, or will he reflect that knowledge, insight, far-sighted- 
 ness, if they really exist, and are known to exist, constitute 
 responsibility ; that he who as a man sees further and 
 knows more than others, cannot merely be as others before 
 his fellow-men or before God ; that together with know- 
 ledge, at least of this kind, there comes, to a certain extent, 
 the forfeiture of that particular species of liberty which is 
 the moral bound of ignorance } Will he reason thus, and 
 act upon his reason ? 
 
 My brethren, this is a most critical question — possibly 
 for the generation, for the country, for the Church to 
 which he belongs, but certainly, under any circumstances, 
 for himself. Can any one who has a heart at all, think 
 without true sorrow of that king of France whose reign 
 covers the greater part of the last century, who spans 
 the interval which connects the great monarch with the 
 Bourbon who died upon the scaffold. Few things in 
 history are more piteous than the contrast of the youth of 
 much interest and promise, and the advanced life of abject 
 dissipation. Yet Louis XV. was not wanting in penetra- 
 tion. Even the gay revelries of Versailles did not wholly 
 blind him to sights and sounds which might have con- 
 vinced a less observant ruler, that the foundations of the 
 great depth of national life were surely breaking up, and 
 that a new order of things was imminent. Allowing for 
 the difficulties of a traditional position such as his, may we 
 not believe that an earnest and well-considered effort to 
 improve the condition, and to assert the rights of the lower 
 classes of the French people in the middle of the century, 
 might have saved France from the torrents of blood in 
 which the inevitable revolution was baptized. Yet Louis 
 the Fifteenth passed away his time morally and physically 
 in pleasures, which ministered only to the satisfaction of 
 the hour, while the mutterings of the approaching storm 
 were falling thick upon his dying ear, and his last and 
 deepest conviction found expression in words, which were 
 too surely to be fulfilled : ‘‘After us, the deluge.” 
 
 H. P. L. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 25 
 
 III. Ab rah am. Gen. xxv. 7, 8. these are the days of 
 
 the years of Abraham's life which he lived, a7i hundred three- 
 score and fifteen years. Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and 
 died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years ; and was 
 gathered to his people, 
 
 The epitaph which the writer of Genesis inscribes upon 
 the tomb of Abraham is this : An old man and full — we 
 translate “full of years/' but the addition weakens the sense 
 of the inscription ; the idea is not that of duration, but of 
 ripeness. The truth is, that when we read this epitaph, we 
 are made powerfully conscious of the fact that there has 
 come into the world a new standard for the measurement 
 of human life. Formerly the only standard had been that 
 of extent or duration. Yet, measured by such a test, the 
 life of Abraham was not long, and did not nearly reach to 
 the days of his forefathers ; one hundred and seventy-five 
 years comprised the whole term of his earthly history. 
 Nevertheless, the writer of Genesis has no diffidence in 
 inscribing upon his grave the words, an old man, and he 
 hastens to add the reason why he has no diffidence ; he 
 declares that Abraham's life was long because it was full. 
 He was an old man, not because his life was extensive, but 
 because it was intensive ; not because it had many years, 
 but because, within its comparatively few years, there were 
 compressed large experiences. And this itself shows that 
 in the view of that age there was already rising a new 
 standard of the value of human existence. Enoch, as we 
 have seen, had a short biography, but in his case the 
 brevity of the earthly life is compensated by an exemption 
 from the common law of mortality. In Abraham's case 
 there is no such exemption, but we feel instinctively that 
 it is not needed. We feel that no compensation is required 
 for the brevity of his earthly years, for although few, they 
 are already full. The shortness of the outward duration 
 is compensated now and here by the intensity of every 
 moment's experience. We see that the man is receiving 
 a double portion of life in every instant of time. There 
 are moments which seem to concentrate the value of years ; 
 one year of grief has silvered the hair and bowed the 
 manly form. There are lives which come to maturity long 
 before they have reached that conventional term of years 
 which men call the coming of age. It is with such lives as 
 
26 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 with some American prairies, which at nightfall are colour- 
 less wastes and at morning are filled with beautiful wild 
 flowers ; they have sprung up in the hours of a single 
 night. Even so there are seasons, and generally night 
 seasons, in which the process of human growth is mar- 
 vellously accelerated and the flowers burst prematurely 
 into bloom. Such lives cannot be measured by duration, 
 yet they do not really come short in quantity ; there is less 
 diffusion but there is more intense concentration ; their 
 years are not long, but they are full. 
 
 Wherein then consists the fulness of this life of Abraham } 
 Manifestly in the fact that his is a complete life, embrac- 
 ing all the stages of human development. There are three 
 great stages in the development of man. The first scene 
 of existence is one of boundlessness, one in which the soul 
 has sight of a great and glorious promise. The second 
 stage is one of limitation : a cloud falls over the dream, and 
 the glory of the promise seems to fade. Lastly, there 
 comes a time when the second stage is reconciled with the 
 first : the clouds which have gathered over the path of life 
 are seen not to be really barriers to the fulfilment of the 
 promise, but to be working out, under the semblance of 
 adversity, the purpose and plan of our opening years. 
 
 Such is the natural and normal rhythm of human life — 
 that is to say, of human life in its complete manifestation. 
 It is not always that an individual existence is thus per- 
 fectly rounded ; when it is, it is an exhibition of the fulness 
 of being. Now such an exhibition of fulness is given in the 
 earthly history of Abraham. Here the three stages are 
 marked prominently and emphatically. We see, first, the 
 youth in the boundlessness of hope looking out upon the 
 prospect of his destiny, and beholding a promise of a king- 
 dom. We see next a cloud falling over the promise of 
 youth, and the prospect of the destiny threatened by the 
 imminence of a great sacrifice. We see, lastly, the recon- 
 ciliation between the cloud and the sunshine ; the sacrifice 
 is recognised as itself the fulfilment of the promise, and the 
 element which seemed to be adverse is found to have been 
 working out the prophetic ideal. Let us glance at each 
 of these. 
 
 I. The first stage of Abraham s life is one of promise. 
 He is introduced to us in an attitude of aspiration. There 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 27 
 
 rises within him that desire which in one form or other 
 animates the breasts of most young men — the longing for 
 greatness. And with Abraham, as with most young men, 
 the longing is accompanied by conviction. He feels that 
 he has a destiny before him, that he has a name to make 
 in the world. He interprets his aspiration itself as the 
 voice, the prophecy of God within him, and his desire 
 becomes the measure of his certainty. He is to become 
 the founder of a great nation whose destinies are to in- 
 fluence the fate of the world ; he is to be the progenitor 
 of a vast multitude of descendants whose branches are to 
 stretch through the whole earth, and by whose culture the 
 whole earth is to be blessed : such is the vision of Abraham. 
 And not the least strange feature of the vision is the occa- 
 sion of its waking ; it comes to him in the contemplation 
 of nature. God brings him out to look at the stars and 
 try if he can count their number, and it is in beholding the 
 visible glory that he recognises his own glory. To a man 
 in modern times the command to count the stars would 
 have quite the opposite effect to that which it produced 
 upon Abraham. There is nothing which so depresses the 
 modern consciousness as the contemplation of the vastness 
 of nature, nothing which so appals the soul with a sense of 
 its own littleness. What the Psalmist said in wonder at a 
 fact, we say in despair of a possibility : ‘‘ When I consider 
 the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, what is man that 
 Thou shouldst be mindful of him.^'’ But then we must 
 remember that the difference between us and the Hebrew 
 mind lies deeper. Our different impressions of nature pro- 
 ceed from our different views of God. We come to nature 
 to find God ; the Hebrew came to nature to commune with 
 a God whom he had already found. The God of the 
 Hebrew was in immediate contact with the soul. The 
 human soul was the centre of His universe, and for its 
 pleasure and profit were all things created. The mind of 
 the ancient seer was not dismayed in looking abroad upon 
 the world of visible beauty. He came to that vision with 
 the knowledge that God was already in his own heart, and, 
 therefore, he was exalted rather than depressed by it. He 
 was inclined to say, in anticipation of the spirit of the 
 Divine Teacher, “If God so clothe the grass of the field, 
 shall He not much more clothe you } 
 
28 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 So was it with Abraham. He came out to contemplate 
 the expanse of the nightly heavens, but he had already 
 heard within him a voice which had exalted him above the 
 heavens. What he sought in the starry firmament was not 
 so much a vision of the magnificence of creation as a 
 reflex or mirror of that sense of expansiveness which he 
 felt within himself. God had spoken to his soul, and had 
 promised him great things ; was it not natural that in his 
 effort to picture the promise he should have cast his eye 
 abroad over the bespangled dome of night Nor to one 
 already so impressed with the greatness of his own soul 
 would the vastness and order of the spectacle be fraught 
 with any depression ; they would rather have the contrary 
 effect. He would be disposed to argue from the less to 
 the greater, from the clothing of the heavenly fields to the 
 clothing of the yet more heavenly soul. In point of fact^ 
 Abraham did so argue. He retired from the contempla- 
 tion of nature more confident than ever of his own splendid 
 destiny. He felt that if there were such order in the laws 
 of matter, there must be at least an equal order in the laws 
 of human history. He felt that a single human soul had 
 in it more of God than the united sum of all this visible 
 glory. He felt anew that his own aspirations were the voice 
 of God within him, the promises of God to his heart, and 
 he was nerved by an impulse alike from without and from 
 within to begin that great historic labour- which was to 
 produce a race of heroes like to the stars of the heaven in 
 multitude. 
 
 II. The next time the curtain rises upon the life of Abra- 
 ham the scene is entirely changed. A cloud has fallen over 
 the promise of his youth. The Divine will has issued a 
 command to his will. -He is told to offer up as a sacrifice his 
 only son Isaac. The command is tantamount to an abjur- 
 ing of all his youthful expectations. These expectations 
 had centred in one hope — the promise that he would be 
 the progenitor of a race whose power and influence should 
 fill the world. To render that hope vain, one stroke alone 
 would suffice. The whole chain depended upon a single 
 link — the life of Isaac ; let that link be broken, and the 
 entire fabric must fall to pieces. Abraham is commanded 
 to break the link of the chain. He is not simply told that 
 it must be broken, he is asked to make his own will the 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 29 
 
 instrument in breaking it. Now, it is in the obedience to 
 this command that Abraham comes before us as a dis- 
 tinctively religious man. The piety of his youth, beautiful 
 as it undoubtedly was, had yet consisted mainly in a trust 
 of the promises of God ; he is now asked to trust God 
 Himself, to trust Him not simply without any promises, 
 but with the seeming reversal of all His promises. The 
 star of hope which had been guiding him from the east to 
 the place where Jehovah dwelt fades away as he draws 
 near to the Invisible Presence. He is called to meet God 
 alone, without the star, to come into the holy place as the 
 Magi of an after day came into the manger and found cold 
 and darkness where they expected to have seen a royal 
 palace. Such is in spirit the trial of Abraham. He had 
 accepted God for the sake of His gifts ; he is asked to give 
 up the gifts, and to accept God for Himself alone. 
 
 HI. One other scene remains, and it is a very remark- 
 able one, one which reconciles the days of Abraham’s youth 
 with the seeming contrast of his maturer years. Abraham 
 yields himself up to the sacrifice, and immediately the 
 hope of youth comes back to him. No sooner is the sacri- 
 ficial act completed than Isaac, the child of promise, is 
 restored, and along with him is restored the fulness of 
 early expectation. It may seem strange that we have 
 put it thus ; in the popular view the sacrificial act was 
 never completed. But the popular view is here an illusion. 
 What was commanded was not really the sacrifice of Isaac, 
 but the sacrifice of Abraham. It has been customary 
 amongst theologians to regard Isaac as the type of Christ, 
 but in truth, if there be any typology in the matter, it must 
 be sought in the father and not in the son. Abraham him- 
 self is here the true foreshadowing of the Son of man, and 
 he is so just because his sacrifice is essentially an inward 
 one, a surrender of the will. His was, in the highest sense 
 of the word, a completed offering ; when He had willed to 
 give up his son, the whole process was finished, nor would 
 the consummation of the outward act have added anything 
 to its completeness. But the point for us to observe here 
 is that when the will had once been surrendered, the out- 
 ward act was not required. When the man had yielded 
 himself to the kingdom of God and His righteousness, he 
 got back even the earthly things which he had consented 
 
30 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 to part with. And Abraham was in this the type of more 
 than he knew. The scene of Mount Moriah was not simply 
 an episode which interrupted for a time the promise of his 
 youth, though doubtless to Abraham himself it appeared 
 to be so. To us, who can look back from the height of a 
 modern standpoint, the scene of Mount Moriah is not an 
 episode, but a sequel ; not an interruption of the promise, 
 but a revelation of the mode in which the promise was to 
 be fulfilled. The vision of Abraham’s youth had revealed 
 to him only the fact that he was to be the source of 
 universal blessing ; it had not told him the manner in 
 which it was to be conveyed. The scene of Mount Moriah 
 took up the vision of his youth, and supplied what it had 
 left untold. Whether Abraham knew it or not, it was to 
 him the completion of that promise which had been made 
 to his early years, and it is in that light alone that posterity 
 can regard it. It may be that in the mind of the patriarch 
 there had often risen the desire to know the manner in 
 which his dream would be fulfilled ; it may be that from 
 his heart there had often ascended the prayer that he 
 might be permitted to see the form of this great day of 
 blessing. If ever that desire was gratified, if ever that 
 prayer was answered, it must have been in that trial of his 
 later years, when the command was laid upon his soul to 
 sacrifice the object of his deepest love. 
 
 That in the seed of Abraham all the families of the 
 earth have been blessed is a matter of history, and it is not 
 less a matter of history that the mode of blessing has been 
 the sacrifice of a divinely human will. If Abraham saw 
 that day and was glad, it must have been through an ex- 
 perience of sacrifice felt in his own heart ; and where could 
 he more appropriately find it than in the silence of that 
 stern hour of mental conflict when he was called to make 
 his choice between the hope of his human will and his trust 
 in the will of God. G. M. 
 
 IV. Abraham’s Death. Gen. xxv. 8. '‘'‘Then Abra- 
 hu77i gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old 77ian, 
 and full of years ; and was gathered to his peopled 
 
 What is the meaning of those phrases, and how may they 
 be true about you and me ? 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 31 
 
 First, I want you to look with me at that lovely expres- 
 sion for the tranquil and completed close of a satisfied life. 
 “ He died,'’ says the words, ‘‘ in a good old age, an old 
 man, and full of years.” This supplement seems a perfectly 
 correct one — ‘Tull of years.” Now that last phrase is the 
 one I want to fix upon. It does not seem to me to be a 
 mere synonym for longevity ; that would be an intolerable 
 tautology if it were said three times over : “ an old man,” 
 “ in a good old age,” “ full of years.” 
 
 There must be some other and some deeper meaning 
 in the phrase, as I take it, than that. And if you notice, 
 still further, that the expression is by no means a usual 
 one, that it is only applied to one or two of the Old Testa- 
 ment characters, and those selected ones, I think you will 
 see, still further, that there must be some other significa- 
 tion in it than merely to point to length of days. 
 
 It is employed, for instance, in reference to the patriarch 
 Abraham, to the patriarch Isaac, when there are almost 
 the same words, verbatim, repeated. Then we find that the 
 stormy and adventurous career of the great king David, 
 with its wonderful viscissitudes and alternations, both of 
 moral character and fortune, is represented as being closed 
 at last with the tranquil and crowning glory : “ He died 
 full of years, riches, and honour.” 
 
 And then we read about the great high priest Jehoiada, 
 whose life also was full of large vicissitudes, strange paral- 
 lels, strenuous strife, vigorous effort of reformation — we 
 read of him, that with all the storms behind him, he died 
 at last “full of days.” 
 
 And the only other instance is in reference to the char- 
 acter of Job, the very type of the glad man who has passed 
 through a great many of the ups and downs of fortune ; 
 and to him there is given the great compensation at the 
 end, and the lovely picture with which that book closes of 
 returning prosperity, the morning sunshine breaking in 
 upon the seclusion and the storm of the night ; the lovely 
 picture of returning prosperity and repeated domestic joys 
 is crowned at last with this, which is intended to be the 
 very summit and climax of the peace that is breathed 
 evidently over the whole concluding narrative was : “Job 
 died, full of years.” 
 
 The words then, as I take it, mean something a great 
 
32 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 deal more than the mere dull fact that the man had com- 
 pleted the ordinary tale and term of human existence. 
 
 I think we shall get to understand them better if we make 
 a very slight and entirely warranted change, and instead of 
 reading ‘‘ full of years,'’ read “satisfied with life; "having 
 exhausted its possibilities, having drunk a full draught, 
 having had as much as he wanted, having nothing more 
 left to wish for, having the stormy desires all quietly 
 passed behind him, satisfied, and so willing to go. 
 
 Now, there are just three things that I want to say 
 about this first thought. I want you to notice, for the 
 guidance of all of us, that it is possible for each to make 
 his life of such a sort as that wherever it stops, whether it 
 runs on to the apparent maturity of old age, or whether it 
 has in it a very limited period, the man shall go away 
 from life feeling that it has satisfied his desires, met his 
 anticipations, and been all very good. Possibly, that is not 
 the way in which a great many of us look at life ; that is 
 not the way in which a great many of us seem to think 
 that it is a part of Christian and religious character to look 
 at life ; but it is the way in which the highest type of 
 devotion and the truest goodness will always look at it. 
 There are people, old and young, who, whenever they look 
 back, whether it be over a long tract of years or over a 
 shorter one, have nothing to say about it, except, “ Vanity 
 of vanities, all is vanity ! " 
 
 There are some of my audience listening to me, I have 
 no doubt, who stand, as a man may do, with his back to 
 the sunshine, and all in front is flooded with light ; and 
 when he turns about, all behind is dark and dreary. Plenty 
 of us, whose memories contradict our hopes at every point, 
 and at every moment, and who can only expect blessed- 
 ness and felicity in the future by giving the lie to, and 
 forgetting the whole history of, our life. Plenty of us to 
 whom the future lies like the Garden of Eden, and behind 
 us there is a blasted country like what Abraham saw when 
 he looked down from the mountain-top on the plain of 
 Sodom, and saw slime pits, and smoke, and sulphur, and 
 stench. 
 
 Because your past has been a godless past ; because 
 your past has been a past in which passion, inclination, 
 whim, anything but conscience and Christ, have given 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 33 
 
 their commandment of what you ought to be, and of what 
 you ought to do. And so you live in a fooFs paradise of 
 expectation about the future ; and all the while the bitter 
 words of the voluptuary, who is represented as writing 
 the Book of Ecclesiastes, are the only words that express 
 what is your mode of life, “ vanity of vanities, windy 
 strife, and vexation of spirit.” 
 
 Put by the side of that this calm picture of the old man 
 going down into his grave and looking back. Ah ! what 
 at? What at f Field for his memory he had since those 
 long, long ago days, when he came away from his father's 
 house an exile. How all the hot anxieties of youth, the 
 desires and occupations, have quieted themselves down. 
 How far away now seem the warlike days of his life when 
 he fought the barbarian kings. How far away the pangs 
 of heart when he journeyed to Mount Moriah with his boy, 
 the cord, the wood, the knife ! His love has all been buried 
 in Sarah's grave, a lonely man for many years. And yet 
 he looks back, and as God looked over His creative work, 
 he looks back and says : ‘‘ It was all for the best, and the 
 great process of my life has been ordered from the begin- 
 ning to the end by the hand that shapes beauty every- 
 where, and has made all things blessed and sweet. I have 
 drunk full draughts, I have had enough. I bless the 
 Giver of the feast, and push my chair back, and get up 
 and go away.” He died an old man, satisfied, — satisfied, — 
 with his life. 
 
 Ay ! and what a contrast that makes to another set of 
 people. There is nothing more miserable than to see 
 men, as their years go on, gripping harder and tighter at 
 this poor, fleeting, mendicant world that is getting away 
 from them ; nothing sadder than to see how, as the 
 opportunities and the capacities and the time for the 
 possession of it dwindle and dwindle and dwindle, the 
 almost ferocity of the desire with which some of us seek 
 to make it our own increases. Why, you can see on the 
 face of many an old man and woman a hungry, eager, 
 dissatisfied look that has not come from the mere corru- 
 gating of the skin, nor the wrinkles of anxiety, nor the 
 physical changes. A selfish passion of acquisitiveness 
 looking out of the dim old eyes ; tragical and awful to see 
 a man, as the world goes from him, grasp at its skirts as 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 a beggar does at the retreating person that refuses to be- 
 stow an alms upon him. And there are plenty of us who 
 feel that that is our desire ; that the less we have before 
 us of life here on earth, the more eagerly we grasp at 
 the little that still remains, trying to get some drops out 
 of the broken cisterns that we know can hold no water. 
 How different this blessed acquiescence in the flitting 
 away of the fleeting, and this contented satisfaction with 
 the portion that has been given. But all that does not 
 mean any diminution of interest in even the smallest trifles 
 of the world that lies round about us ; because there is 
 another kind of misuse of life which is very common, 
 which looks like satisfaction, but is not satisfaction. There 
 is a satiety, a disgust, a weariness, a saying : “ Man delights 
 me not, nor woman either ! I am tired of it all, and there 
 is nothing new under the sun.” This man had a whole- 
 some enjoyment of life till the last moment of it, and a 
 wholesome detachment from it even in the enjoyment of 
 it. And I come to you, and I say to you it is possible 
 for you all to wring the last drop of sweetness and blessed- 
 ness out of all the circumstances of life, to make even its 
 disappointments into satisfactions, and to make of the 
 whole of it the very thing that you want, that you feel you 
 need ; to look back upon it all, and feel that it has been 
 blessed and good. And yet not to cleave to it, but to be 
 willing to let it go. And I beseech you to ask yourselves, 
 whether the course of your life is such as that. If at this 
 moment God’s great knife was to come down and chop it 
 in two, you would be able to say : “ Well, I have had 
 enough, and now contentedly I go ! ” 
 
 Well now, there is another thing of the same sort, and 
 yet a little different, which I want to say a word about. I 
 want you to look at the possibilities of your making your 
 life what this man made his — a complete, rounded, perfect 
 whole, because he had accomplished the great end for 
 which life was given. Scaffoldings are for buildings, and 
 the days and years and moments of our earthly lives are 
 the scaffoldings. What are you building inside, brother } 
 What kind of a building is it that is going to be there 
 when the scaffolding is knocked away, and the walls stand 
 there and remain } The river rolls down, bringing tons of 
 mud and alluvial deposit ; the moments, the thoughts, the 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 35 
 
 words, the deeds, — are there any grains of gold brought 
 down with it ? If your life and mine has done one thing, 
 or rather two things which are one thing, for us, then, long 
 or short, it is a complete life. If it has not, long or short, 
 it is a wretched fragment and a miserable abortion. Man’s 
 chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever. 
 Has your life helped you to do that? If it has, though 
 you be but a child, you are full of years. If it has not, 
 though your hair be whitened with the snows of the 
 nineties, you are yet incomplete and immature. The great 
 end of life is to make us like Christ and pleasing to 
 Christ. If life has done that for us, we have got the best 
 out of it, and the life is complete ; never mind about the 
 number of the days. Quality, not quantity, is the thing that 
 determines the perfectness of life ; and like as in northern 
 lands, where there is only a week or two from the melting 
 of the snow to the cutting of the hay, there may be in a 
 very brief space of time, and a very short portion of a 
 little life, there may be a work which makes life complete. 
 Has it been done in your life ? 
 
 There is a suggestion, further, in this verse of the pos- 
 sibility for us all, not only of looking back and feeling 
 that all has been for good, — not only of making our lives 
 complete, be they longer or shorter, because they have 
 contributed to the formation of a Christlike character and 
 led us to know God, — but also the possibility of our being 
 willing to go or willing to abide, because we are satisfied 
 with life. 
 
 Ah ! most of us grasp at the continuance of our earthly 
 existence as a man whirled down the stream would do at 
 any straw that has toppled from the bank. Physically, of 
 course, there will always be the desire you will never get 
 away from, that men will always want to live the bodily 
 life as long as they have bodies to live it with. That is a 
 mere physical fact ; but we may master that and come to 
 this position, which good old Richard Baxter has put in 
 words whose very simplicity makes them eloquent and 
 memorable : 
 
 “ Lord ! it belongs not to my care, 
 
 Whether I die or live.” 
 
36 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 “ If life be long, I will be glad, 
 
 That I may long obey ; 
 
 If short, yet why should I be sad 
 'To soar to endless day ? ” 
 
 So this man here in our text was full of years, not want- 
 ing to go, not merely tired of life, willing to abide, willing 
 to depart, satisfied. 
 
 Or, as I said, like a man sitting at a table, who has 
 had his meal, and is quite content to sit on there, restful 
 and cheerful, but is not unwilling to put back his chair to 
 get up and go away, thanking the Giver for what he has 
 received. 
 
 Ah ! that is the way to die ; and how is it to be done ? 
 Why, the secret of it lies in the commandment which 
 Abraham received and obeyed : “ I am the Almighty 
 God ; walk before Me, and be thou perfect.” That is 
 to say, a life of simple communion with God ; the realizing 
 His presence and feeling that He is near, will sweeten 
 disappointments, will extract all the good out of life, will 
 make us victorious over its pains and its sorrows, will turn 
 all that comes to us into a joy and a blessing, will make 
 it all contribute to the satisfaction of our desires, and will 
 bring us to feel at the last that we are ready for life and 
 ready for death ; that this world and the next are but two 
 of the mansions of our Father s house ; and Death, the 
 dark narrow corridor that connects the one to the other. 
 And so we shall be ready and say : “ Whether we live, 
 we live in the Lord, or whether we die, we die in the 
 Lord. Living or dying we are God’s.” And so it does 
 not matter, so much as people think, whether we die or 
 live. 
 
 And now I have a thing or two which I want to say 
 about the last words of this text. “ He died in a good old 
 age, an old man, and full of years ; and was gathered to his 
 people.” 
 
 Well, that too is remarkable — a symbol very seldom 
 employed in Scripture. It is only found in the very early 
 books of the Old Testament, and there only in reference 
 to a very few persons. 
 
 But if you will observe the language, I think you will 
 see that there is in it a dim intimation of something 
 beyond this present life — a life beyond. He “ was gathered 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 37 
 
 to his people” is not the same thing as to say, ‘‘he died.” 
 That is disposed of in the earlier portion of the verse in 
 two phrases, one of which is remarkable : “ Abraham gave 
 up the ghost, and died.” Being “ gathered to his people ” 
 is not the same thing as being buried. That is disposed 
 of in words that come after : “ He was gathered to his 
 people, and his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the 
 cave of Machpelah.” It is neither the equivalent of death 
 nor of burial ; it conveys, dimly and veiledly, that some- 
 how or other though Abraham was buried that was not 
 all. He was buried ; yes, “ he was gathered to his peo- 
 ple.” Why, his own people were buried away in Meso- 
 potamia, and his grave was never near them. What is 
 the meaning of the expression ? Who were the people 
 that he was gathered to in death ? “ The dust shall return 
 
 to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God 
 that gave it.” Dimly, vaguely, veiledly, but unmistak- 
 ably as it seems to me, here we have expressed a pre- 
 monition and feeling after the thought of an immortal self 
 that was not in the Abraham that his sons Isaac and 
 Ishmael laid in the grave at Machpelah, but was some- 
 where else, and for ever. 
 
 That is the first thing, the dim hint of a future. Any- 
 thing more.^ Yes! “He was gathered to his people.” 
 Now remember, Abraham was a wanderer all his life. His 
 life was shaped by that commandment : “ Get thee out 
 from thy father s house, and from thy kindred, and from 
 thy country.” 
 
 He never dwelt with his kindred all his days. He was 
 a pilgrim and a sojourner, a stranger in a strange land ; and 
 though he was living in the midst of a civilization — great 
 cities whose walls ran up to heaven — he pitched his tent 
 ' beneath the terebinth tree at Mamre, and will have nothing 
 to do with all that civilization ; an exotic, a waif, an outcast 
 in the midst of Canaan all his life. Why? Because “ he 
 looked for a city which hath foundations, whose Builder 
 and Maker is God.” And now he has gone to it, and he is 
 “gathered to his people ; ” the life of isolation is over. 
 
 He is no longer separated from those around him, or 
 flung amongst those that are uncongenial to him. He is 
 gathered to his people, he dwells with his own tribe, he is 
 at home, he is in the city. 
 
38 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 And so, dear brethren, life for every true man must be 
 an isolated life, a lonely life, after all its communion. He 
 dwells upon islands with his fellows, all separate dwellings, 
 dotted over a great archipelago, each upon his little rock, 
 with the sea dashing between them. But a time comes 
 when, if our hearts are set upon that great Lord whose 
 presence is communion, we shall be brought together, and 
 enter into the city. The future is the perfection of society; 
 and amongst the people, Abraham found those that had 
 gone before him ; and reunion is sweet to the wanderer. So 
 you and I may find — 
 
 That with the mom those angel faces smile 
 Which we have loved long since, and lost awhile.” 
 
 ‘‘ He was gathered to his people.” Ay ! and there is 
 another thought here, and that is association. According to 
 affinity and character each is “ gathered to his people ; ” — 
 to the folk that he is like, and that are like him ; the 
 people with whom he had sympathy ; the people whose 
 lives were shaped after the fashion of his own. That is 
 possible. Men will be sorted there. Gravitation will come 
 into play undisturbed, and the pebbles will be ranged 
 according to their weights on the great ocean-coast where 
 the sea has cast them up ; all the big ones together, and 
 sized off to the smaller ones, regularly and steadily laid 
 out. Like draws to like.” 
 
 Spiritual affinities, religious character, the moral char- 
 acter, will settle where we are, and who are our companions 
 when we get yonder. And some of us would not alto- 
 gether like to live with people that are like ourselves, and 
 some of us would not find it very tolerable. 
 
 The men in the Dantesque circles were made more miser- 
 able because the men around them were of the same sort 
 as themselves, and some of them worse. 
 
 And an ordered hell, with nobody for the liars but liars, 
 and nobody for the thieves but thieves, nobody for im- 
 pure men but the impure, and nobody for the godless but 
 the godless, would be hell indeed ! 
 
 “ He was gathered to his people,” and you and I will 
 be gathered likewise. Judas went to his own place — 
 the place he was fit for, the place which he had earned, 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT, 
 
 39 
 
 the country to which he belonged ! So shall we, so shall 
 we ! 
 
 Let us see to it that we take Christ for our Saviour, and 
 give our hearts to be shaped and purified by Him ; and 
 our country will be where He is, and His people will be 
 our people, the people with whom His love abides ; and 
 the tribe to which we belong will be the tribe of which He 
 is the Chieftain and the Prince. And so shall we ever be 
 with the Lord. 
 
 V. I saac. Heb. xi. 20. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and 
 Esau co7icerning things to C077iel 
 
 That story of the blessing, which Jacob got by craft from 
 his father Isaac, presents very many singular features which 
 we cannot enter upon now. But it is a miserable story all 
 round. What with the doting fondness of the old man, 
 the craft of the mother, the selfish lying of Jacob, and the 
 savagery of Esau, it is an ugly picture, every bit of it. 
 
 And yet there was one little point of light in it, one 
 redeeming thing about it that the writer of the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews here puts his finger upon with certainty. He 
 says — “Yes! it is a wretched story! There is nobody 
 comes out of it very clean ; but that man that spoke, he 
 spoke, however imperfectly apprehended, the truth. He 
 had in him the little germ of all that was good and noble 
 in human nature, because the blessing that he gave he gave 
 by faith! And whatever else was bad, that was good. 
 And whatever else was of the devil — and there was a great 
 deal of his in the story — that was of God. 
 
 And so that helps to redeem the whole story, and to lift 
 it up into another region altogether. “ By faith Isaac 
 foolish, fond, doting, blind, blundering, weak as he was, “ by 
 faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to 
 come.” I need not enter upon the question, although it 
 is one that would afford very fruitful consideration as to 
 how these came to lie, side by side, in the patriarch’s expe- 
 rience, all these manifold faults and imperfections, and yet 
 some kind of prophetic power which made his blessing a 
 prophecy, and therefore a reality that could not be altered 
 when once it was spoken. 
 
40 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 That would take us too far away ; but what I would rather 
 fix upon for our consideration is that one thought of the 
 faith that the writer here signalizes as being predominant 
 in the character, — at least, more than distinctly there. 
 
 And the next thing that I would suggest is, that we get 
 here the faith of this man and of all of us in its substance. 
 Isaac’s faith, what was it } A firm reliance, rising some- 
 times to absolute certainty, of things far beyond the ken 
 of mortals, his faith at first sight grasped material bless- 
 ings, but they were unseen ones, and that is the point that 
 this writer could dwell upon first. 
 
 But that does not go to the bottom of it, although a great 
 many people seem to think, and we hear them speak as if 
 faith was concerned only with the unseen. Not necessarily. 
 Faith at bottom has not to do with things, but with persons ; 
 and Isaac’s faith — like that of all those other heroes, sages, 
 warriors, and patriarchs in this grand roll-call in the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews — whatever it was secondarily concerned 
 with, was primarily concerned with God. God’s word and 
 character, what He had shown himself to be, was the object 
 of these men’s faith. And sometimes the object of their 
 faith was a God that threatened, as in the case of Noah. 
 Sometimes it was a God that commanded, as when the 
 Israelites compassed the walls of Jericho; sometimes a 
 God that promised, as in the case of Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob. Sometimes their faith laid hold of a past fact, 
 sometimes upon a present fact, sometimes upon a future 
 one ; but wherever it led them, the materials of it was 
 their confidence in God, and they believed His word 
 utterly. 
 
 Or, to put it into other words, our faith may either go 
 backward or forwards or upwards ; it may either be con- 
 cerned with the deep things of Divine revelation, or with 
 the common things that lie round about us. We take them 
 all because we trust in God, and faith is confidence in the 
 Divine Lord of past, present, and future. And then, as this 
 chapter says at the beginning, '‘Faith is the substance of 
 things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” What 
 our faith has to grasp is God in Christ, and only through 
 Him do we see the things that are unseen. First, we must 
 “behold the King in His beauty,” and then and thereby 
 we shall “ see the land that is very far off.” 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 41 
 
 And so this old story shows us that the beginning of 
 faith is confidence in God ; and the field in which the faith 
 that trusts Him moves and expatiates is the blessed region 
 beyond, into which the eye cannot pass, but in which certain 
 hope and desire may walk, blessed and calm as the angels 
 of God. 
 
 Brethren ! everything that lifts a man out of the mire 
 of to-day helps to make him good and pure and strong. 
 Even the poorest earthly anticipation, if only it has got 
 about it the magic touch of being in the future and being 
 unseen, is more noble than when it is possessed. That 
 is why people say about this world’s good, “ The chase is 
 better than the prey when caught,” the run is more than 
 the hare. Everything in the future is invested with a halo 
 that disappears when you get near it. The mountains that 
 ring our horizon in the country of the Alps look violet and 
 roseate in soft glow, and when you get up there, they are 
 cold cliffs and rocks and snow ; barrenness and roughness 
 and death. 
 
 The future, even when it is made of the same stuff as the 
 present, is more ennobling in its effect upon a man than 
 itself will be when he gets beside it. But if, instead of living 
 on these lower levels, we lift our eyes up to those everlasting 
 hills, and live by the power of that unseen reality, then 
 all life is transfigured, ennobled, purified, and the man 
 becomes greater because he lays hold of the things un- 
 seen, and he lays hold of them because he first lays hold 
 of God. 
 
 And then another lesson that we get very strikingly in 
 the story of Isaac’s life is faith in its operation. How 
 singularly the second of the great Jewish patriarchs differed 
 from the first and the third. Not a hero like Abraham, 
 not a’man with a strong life like Jacob, Isaac had no need 
 of the perfecting discipline so necessary for Jacob before he 
 could become Israel : he never attained to anything like the 
 greatness and nobleness of his father. A decent, plain, quiet 
 man, living all his days with his flocks and herds in the south ; 
 no heroisms, no force of character, just a respectable, ordi- 
 nary, quiet, pastoral chief. When the Philistines quarrelled 
 with him about a well, he quietly went away and dug 
 another ; when they quarrelled about that, he dug a third ; 
 and so passed all his life in the desert. He seems to have 
 
42 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 had few causes of excitement — no great changes in his life, 
 was never impelled by any desire to seek them. He had 
 no Divine revelation, as his father and his son had in their 
 lives. There he was, quiet in the land. ‘‘ Blessed are the 
 meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” 
 
 And it is very beautiful, I think, to see in his life how the 
 same principle that made the grand organ music of the 
 enumeration of its effects in this chapter, the same principle 
 that “ subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained 
 promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence 
 of fire, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of 
 the aliens and so on, dropped down to the low level of this 
 very prosaic, commonplace life, he found a sufficient field 
 in making that quiet mission peaceful and pure, and wrapped 
 about with God through his earthly days. Let us take that 
 lesson : there is no need for great events in our lives — great 
 services, great sacrifices, great manifestations of the Divdne 
 favour. The life that runs smoothly maybe as full of faith 
 as the life that stormily surges amidst the rocks and comes 
 down the cataract. There may be as much power in the 
 still river among the pastures of the south of England, 
 that flows gently and quietly in its course, as there is in the 
 torrent that dashes among the mountains. The life of a 
 quiet domestic character, with nothing conspicuous about 
 it, may be as truly and as blessedly under the influence 
 of the highest Christian principle as the noblest and the 
 greatest of those recorded here. Not the outward form 
 but the inward motive makes the greatness of the life, and 
 the field of faith may be the fireside and the back of the 
 counter and the home circle. Its trophies may be as great 
 amongst those whom there were none to praise and very 
 few to love as amongst those whose names are written 
 highest and in most perennial characters on the grateful 
 remembrance of the Church of God. 
 
 Isaac was as truly a son of faith as the hero Abraham, 
 or as the far richer and more complex character of his son 
 Jacob. And then I might point you to two things in 
 Isaac’s life which bear upon this quesdon. There is very 
 little recorded about him, as you will see if you will 
 turn to the Book of Genesis ; but there are two things 
 told about him, one concerning his history and the other 
 concerning his friendly relations with the people amongst 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 43 
 
 whom his lot was cast. He dwelt a long time amongst 
 the Philistines, and there, as I said, they quarrelled 
 about the wells. He simply gave them up, and went 
 and dug others. Well, take that lesson. One of the 
 most marked effects of Christian faith ought to be that of 
 making men gentle and forbearing ; not holding on by 
 their rights tooth and nail, fighting with everybody for a 
 penny, so that nobody shall say they got the advantage of 
 them. The effect of true Christian faith will always be to 
 make a man yield rather than fight, suffer wrongly rather 
 than shriek, and call heaven to earth, and take claws and 
 teeth in order to contend for what is his. 
 
 That principle is as true to-day as it ever was, and our 
 Lord Himself has told us, in words that it is very con- 
 venient for us to say are to be interpreted with much 
 limitation : He that compelleth thee to go a mile, go 
 
 with him twain. If a man will take thy coat, let him have 
 thy cloak also.'’ Faith makes men gentle, ay ! and more 
 than that, the faith that makes men gentle tells its own 
 story to the outsider. These same wrangling and dis- 
 honest Philistines, that stole the wells and then turned 
 Isaac out of their territory, because he was getting too 
 strong for them, and they began to be afraid of him, — 
 what did they do next ? He quietly went away, and as is 
 always the case, he was scarcely gone when they sent for 
 him to come back again ; and they say to him : ‘‘ Come 
 back to us, for we know that the Lord is with thee." 
 
 That is to say, if your faith is worth the snap of a finger 
 it will tell its own story to outsiders. They will be glad 
 to have you beside them for more or less worthy motives ; 
 but the motives we have nothing to do with, the point is 
 that it will be like the ‘‘ointment of the right hand that 
 bewrayeth itself, and it cannot be hid." And bad as the 
 world is, it is not so bad but that it knows a good man 
 when it sees him ; and bad as it is, it is not so bad but it 
 has a kind of respect for him when it sees him. And in 
 the long run, whatsoever persecution and wrong-doing 
 there may be, “ the meek-doing shall inherit the earth " in 
 a real sense ; and the meek man will get what a good 
 many people would sell themselves to get — the good 
 opinion of the men around him ; just because he does not 
 look for it, or care to try to get it, but simply lives right- 
 
44 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 eously. For though the Philistines may steal the wells, 
 they all the while respect the man from whom the robbery 
 has been made. 
 
 And then let us take consolation from the other thought, 
 that this man was a man of faith, though he was a man 
 of a great many imperfections. I said at the beginning 
 of these remarks, that the story of the blessing was an 
 ugly story all round, and Isaac does not come out of it 
 very clean either. And there are other points that come 
 out of the narrative of his life, which show that he was by 
 no means a faultless monster ; and yet for all that he was 
 a man of faith. 
 
 Now that is not a pillow for lazy people to lay their 
 heads upon, and say : “ There is no need for me to strive 
 after the perfection of my faith, because it may co-exist 
 with imperfection.” Yes ! it may. But did you ever hear 
 that it could exist with imperfections that people knew 
 about and did not try to mend ? Is there anything in the 
 Bible that says that a man’s faith is consistent and upright 
 up to a certain point, without his doing anything to remedy 
 or prevent failure } 
 
 Faith may be consistent with failure; thank God we 
 cannot say how much failure may co-exist with faith ; but 
 let us remember that all faith is necessarily effort, that the 
 smallest sin that we do not fight against will be like a little 
 grain of sand dropped into the works of a fine clock, it 
 will spoil all the wheels and break the mainspring sooner 
 or later, that is if you do not get it out. 
 
 And so whilst there is no reason for anything but 
 humble penitent confidence even in the consciousness of 
 imperfections, there is no reason for any reliance upon my 
 faith which is not accompanied with honest, continual 
 effort to fight against my thoughts and my sins. And, 
 thank God ! the quiet husbandman, whose life ran in one 
 level all along, scarcely ever brightened by anything great 
 or grand, as far as we know it, rose at last, though amidst 
 many faults, into a flash of grand, vivid consciousness of a 
 blessed future. 
 
 And that is what you and I have to hope for, by God’s 
 grace, if we keep near to Him, doing our common tasks 
 in cheerful godliness ; at the end even of a very prosaic, 
 commonplace, low-lying life, there may come a gleam, as 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 45 
 
 upon some winter day there comes a bit of red in the sky 
 towards the west, there may come a gleam at the last that 
 shall show us all the brightness to come, ay ! and make us 
 feel that it is a real thing. 
 
 And so, living by a quiet humble faith, we may die in 
 the triumph and faith that grasps the things unseen, 
 because it reaches out its hand to grasp the unseen and 
 eternal. 
 
 VI. Jacob at Bethel. Genesis xxxv. i. And God 
 
 said unto Jacoby Arise^ go up to Bethel^ and dwell there : and 
 make there an altar unto God^ that appeai'ed unto thee when 
 thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy br other P 
 
 It was somewhere about thirty years since Jacob had 
 vowed that vow which, even when he made it, was not of 
 a very high tone. He made his bargain very tight when 
 he said : If God will be with me, and will keep me in 
 
 this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and rai- 
 ment to put on, and see that I come again to my father's 
 house in peace, then " — after he has done all that for me — 
 “ then shall the Lord be my God ! " 
 
 Yes! I should think so! He was his God before He 
 did all that for him. “ And this stone which I have set 
 for a pillar shall be God’s house ; and of all which Thou 
 shalt give me I will give the tenth unto Thee.” 
 
 Well, it was not much of a vow to begin with, but if we 
 think of the exceedingly leisurely manner in which he set 
 about keeping it, there is even a darker hue over the patri- 
 arch’s character, even at its highest and its best. And a 
 very little comparison of the events,- as they may be de- 
 duced from the narrative, will show us that God had done 
 all which Jacob had laid down as the conditions ten years 
 ago; that Jacob had “comeback to his place in peace,” 
 having prospered far beyond all hope and expectation. 
 He had gone out a fugitive and come back a rich man ; 
 gone out lonely, come back with all his household and his 
 wealth. And when he had thus come back, instead of 
 going straight to Bethel to fulfil his vow, he settled himself 
 quietly down at Shechem ; and in that lovely valley, the 
 fairest spot in the whole land of Palestine, he buys a bit of 
 
46 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 ground, makes himself exceedingly comfortable, and seems 
 to have forgotten all about the vow that he had made. So 
 that there needs this: “And God said unto Jacob, Arise, 
 Go up to Bethel ! ” “ Do you remember } Go up to Bethel^ 
 
 and dwell there ; and make an altar there/^ 
 
 You might almost put these words into inverted com- 
 mas ; the Lord is quoting the vow : “ Make there an altar 
 unto God.'’ And then comes a very sharp twinge : “ That 
 appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of 
 thy brother.’^ 
 
 Ah ! Is not that a picture of a great many more people 
 besides Jacob How many of us, for instance, think of 
 our religion very much as if it was an umbrella or a cloak, 
 a thing for stormy weather ! How we pray when we want 
 anything ; how when God's hand is upon us, and sickness 
 or perplexity or disaster or loss, or the rupture of family 
 ties comes to us and opens for a moment a glimpse into 
 the kingdoms beyond, how we can pray then and live 
 decided then ! And how, when the storm has passed, and 
 the burden is lifted off our shoulders, how we do just like 
 Jacob did, settle down at Shechem, and forget all the past 
 when we lay there with our head on the stones, and the 
 black night above us, and a dark dim, future before us. 
 Ready to vow at the beginning of a questionable under- 
 taking ; very, very slow to pay at the successful end of it. 
 Ready to say: “When I am commencing this task, the 
 issue of which I do not know, the difficulties of which I 
 may not be able to meet ; " ready to say then : “ If Thou 
 wilt do so-and-so, then shall the Lord be my God.” But 
 when He has done so-and-so, not in such a hurry to pay 
 the vow. How many of us have more prayers for the 
 unknown future on the ist January, than we have thanks- 
 givings for the forgotten past on the 31st December ! It 
 is not Jacob only that was full of vows at Bethel, and in 
 thirty years forgetting them just because God so com- 
 pletely remembered His part. 
 
 Well, and there is another way of looking at it, for I 
 only want to take the plain practical lessons out of this little 
 story now. A good many resolutions that most of us 
 made in the early days of our Christian career, how many 
 of them can we look back upon and say we have kept, 
 and how many of them have gone to water } Jacob was 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 47 
 
 not a young man really when he began his course at 
 Bethel, but he may stand for us as a type of the buoyant, 
 joyful, confident resolutions which we are so apt to make at 
 the commencement of our career. 
 
 There is nothing sadder, I think, in the history of the 
 Christian Church, and in the history of the individual souls 
 that make it up, than the dreadful frequency — I was almost 
 going to say uniformity — with which the beginning of the 
 Christian career is always so much more bright than the 
 reality of that same career when years have passed. Is 
 there any reason why it should be, so frequently as it is 
 amongst all of us Christian people, the experience that the 
 beginning of the course promises far more fairly than the 
 middle and the end of the course realizes ? Why should 
 the morning always be the sunniest part of the day ? Why 
 should it always cloud over ; or, if not always, at least so 
 often that it is little exaggeration to say always ? Why 
 should the average Church member and professing Christ- 
 ian, in all our communities, be obviously a man or woman 
 whose religious growth has been stopped and stunted ? 
 Why should it be that most of us have in our memories 
 a Bethel at the beginning, the vows made at which are 
 unfruitful to this day } Is it so, my brother, or is it not, 
 with us ? 
 
 Well, let us go on with the story, and see w ^hat i t^was 
 that kept this man from going there and builHmg his^ltar 
 and^oing as hc' said. There are two things clearly that 
 kept him, besides the fact that in the years that passed, 
 the impression of his early days had been forgotten, and 
 that the very continuance of the Divine mercy had made 
 him less conscious of it than he was at the beginning, 
 when it was all problematical. 
 
 One of the Fathers says somewhere, that “ God by assid- 
 uity loses admiration ; and that is one reason w^hy these 
 vows were not rendered, viz. that the gifts had been so 
 continuous that the continuity had destroyed the impres- 
 sion of its greatness and had deadened the sense of 
 admiration. If there had been breaks in it, parentheses, 
 no man would have felt it more. No man enjoys health 
 so well as the man who has good health now and then 
 broken up by a great many bad days. 
 
 But besides that one operative cause there are plenty in 
 
48 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 the narrative. What did Jacob do as soon as he got this 
 commandment } That will answer the question what it 
 was that kept him from doing it before. ‘‘ Arise ! Go to 
 Bethel, and build an altar.” ‘‘ Then said Jacob unto his 
 household and all that were with him, Put away the 
 strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and 
 change your garments.” And they gave unto Jacob all 
 the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their 
 earrings, and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by 
 Shechem.” And when they had got rid of them “ they 
 journeyed ” and came back to Bethel. 
 
 Well, put that into other words, and it comes to this : 
 The man settled himself down at Shechem. There was a 
 great valley, and more grass for his cattle there than there 
 was at Bethel ; Mt_w ^ a better place to pitc h. ‘‘ Business 
 prospects were more promising” at SKechem, and of 
 course we know that that is the first thing that any man 
 ought to consider in all his ways. And so of course it 
 would answer better to stop at Shechem than to go to 
 Bethel. The plainest dictates of duty said : “ Stop at 
 Shechem ! Never mind the vow ! ” And he stopped 
 there ; and he was very nearly getting into the same 
 position that his relative Lot got into, when he and Abra- 
 ham stood on the hill-top here, and looked over all the 
 plain of Jordan; and Abraham had said: “You choose 
 first the bit of land you like.” And Lot saw the cities 
 of the plain ; he saw the plains were fertile, and he knew 
 the cities were sinful, but he answered : “ I will go down 
 among the godless ones. There is plenty of pasture there.” 
 And we know what it led him to ; only God’s mercy 
 stopped him before he got to the end. And Jacob did 
 not go to Bethel, because the pastures where he was were 
 good. 
 
 That is to say, the thing that tugs us back is this poor 
 sinful, miserable world ; the thing that keeps us from ful- 
 filling these resolutions is because the world is always 
 plucking at our skirts and keeping us from rising. The 
 thing that ties us down to the past, which we know is 
 an unworthy past, is, in nine cases out of ten, the mere 
 incapability of getting rid of the temptation of earthly 
 treasures and earthly conveniences and comforts. 
 
 And we must do as Jacob did — huddle them all to- 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 49 
 
 ^ether and bury them under the oak-tree, and leave them 
 behind us, before we can go onwards to build the altar of 
 God at Bethel. And another thing that I must just 
 touch upon. There must have been something very wrong 
 in J acob’s household before there could have been idols 
 and emblems of idolatry amongst them sufficient to make 
 it necessary to get rid of them. How came that about, 
 that Jacob’s wives and sons and daughters were people 
 of that sort. Such a household, so wild a set, with a wife 
 that was an idolater, with sons that were murderers, with 
 daughters that were light of heart and light of conduct — 
 such a household as that did not say much for the patri- 
 arch’s wisdom and holiness. And it was because of the 
 domestic associations being against him, and keeping him 
 from going to Bethel, no doubt, that he delayed so long 
 before he went. 
 
 Which being translated is just this : — Let us take care 
 that a man’s foes shall not be they of his own household ; 
 and that those that are dear to us shall not be hindrances 
 in the way of a consistent and unworldly Christian pro- 
 fession. And you fathers and mothers, do you see to it 
 that you do not set up or permit ways of living, occupa- 
 tions, amusements, associations, companionships, in your 
 household, which war against your best interest, as well 
 as against that of those who are more immediately con- 
 cerned in it. And remember, the one way by which we 
 can fulfil our early resolutions and keep the mid-day and 
 the evening of our Christian life up to the level of the 
 early hopes of the bright morning, is the old way of sacri- 
 fice and surrender, and the offering up of everything that is 
 a hindrance to our communion with the God of Bethel. 
 
 The first step towards the building of the altar was the 
 bundling together of all the strange gods that had tempted 
 these people, and the digging of a hole there below the 
 tree, and putting them all in, and covering them well over 
 with the sods, and leaving them there for anybody that 
 liked to find them. 
 
 And then let me remind you how this sacrifice is re- 
 warded by the rapt vision and the renewed and enlarged 
 promise from the God of Bethel. He goes to the place : 
 I wonder what he thought when he got there, and saw 
 the old stone that he had stuck up there forty years 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 before, and remembered how, when he had stood by it, his 
 heart had been heavy within him until he saw that vision 
 at the top of the ladder, and tried to recover for a moment 
 those early thoughts with which he had set out on his 
 journey. I wonder if he said to himself : “ What a poor 
 ungrateful creature I have been ! I will try to make it 
 better for the time to come, at all events.*’ 
 
 “ And the Lord came unto him again, and blessed him,” 
 and confirmed to him his mighty name of Israel, and the 
 promise of the land. And then Jacob raised his pillar, and 
 poured out a drink-offering ; and, with a double meaning, 
 called the name of the place once more “ Bethel,” the house 
 of God. 
 
 That is to say : the old man’s vision may be a deeper 
 and a more glorious edition of the young man’s dream. 
 The one in the night, the other in the day ; the one a 
 narrow promise, the other a wider word ; the one limited 
 almost to an earthly blessing, the other expanding to im- 
 mortal hopes and celestial glories. And thus the fathers 
 that knew Him that was from the beginning may know 
 Him with a deeper knowledge, and hope in Him with a 
 grander hope, than the young men that start on their 
 careers with the knowledge of the future. 
 
 But remember, the surrender of the idols is the only 
 way to see God ; and they who, for dear love’s sake of the 
 Christ that died, come with their broken vows and lay 
 them at His feet, shall find pardon, and shall receive a 
 nobler vision than even that with which He blessed the 
 beginning of their Christian course. 
 
 VII. J acob's Death, Heb. xi. 21. By faith Jacoby 
 when he 7 aas a dyings blessed both the sons of Joseph ; and 
 worshipped^ leaning upon the top of his staffp 
 
 There were surely plenty of pieces of Jacob’s life that 
 might have served the writer’s purpose better as illus- 
 trations of faith than these two comparatively neglected 
 events at the close of it, and surprise has often been ex- 
 pressed, that, with the whole field of the recorded biography 
 of the patriarch to choose from, the writer should have chosen 
 just these two little things, — the dying benediction and the 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 51 
 
 dying adoration. And yet perhaps we may, without being 
 fanciful, find a reason in the very comparative insignifi- 
 cance of the act. The smaller the thing done the more 
 perhaps is it an evidence of the all-pervading power of 
 faith in the man’s life. It is perhaps more to say about 
 people — they did the little things of life by faith, than to 
 say — they did the big ones. Anybody can come to the 
 height of a great action, but to have my faith so close to 
 my hand that it naturally influences the trivialities of my 
 days, that is a demonstration of its power in me. And so 
 I think there need be no stumbling-block in the minute- 
 ness of the event that is chosen as the illustration from the 
 life of Jacob. There is another remark, viz. : that there are 
 two very distinct incidents recorded here in inverted order 
 to that of their occurrence. The one— the benediction upon 
 the sons of Jacob ; and the other the event that preceded 
 that, which is recorded by the side of it in the Book of 
 Genesis, when the patriarch, dying, sent for his son and 
 exacted from him an oath that he would not leave his bones 
 there in the land of Egypt, but would bury him in the land 
 in which he had no inheritance ; and when the promise 
 was given, fell back, as our Bible has it — in adoration ; 
 or rather turned himself on the bed in adoration, and in quiet 
 triumphant contemplation of the God in whom he trusted. 
 The explanation of the diversity of expression in my text 
 to that of the alternative in the Book of Genesis — “ wor- 
 shipped on the top of his staff” — the explanation of that 
 variety is very simple and natural. The Hebrew which 
 means bed, means also staff according as you supply one 
 or another set of vowels — you know there were no vowels 
 in the Hebrew language — which leaves some expressions a 
 little doubtful at times. The translator of the Book of 
 Genesis has adopted the one reading, and the translator of 
 the Septuagint, — which for the most part the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews follows, — has adopted the other. But there 
 is nothing at all incongruous, the dragging in the mention 
 of staff, but it is natural that the bed should appear when 
 a man is dying, and the picture is of the old patriarch 
 turning himself upon his bed in an attitude of adoration 
 and contemplation, and, thinking of God, and thankful 
 that his bones should not be laid in the alien soil of Egypt, 
 but carried to the land of his forefathers. And so I think 
 
52 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 out of these two incidents there come two or three im- 
 portant lessons. The first of them is — looking at this far- 
 off glimpse into a life lived under such diverse conditions 
 and regulations to ours, that the man’s faith works in such 
 a different fashion to what it works with us. Looking 
 away into this far-away, strange, and unfamiliar mode of 
 life, we learn first of all to understand what is the real 
 throbbing, living heart of that thing we call religion. 
 Here is this man — the writer of this book says — exercising 
 the special Christian virtue of faith. And look how he 
 explains it. At the beginning of this chapter he tells us 
 that ‘‘ faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence 
 of things not seen,” as if he was explaining it as having 
 mainly reference to the invisible, to the future world. But 
 notice that that is not the definition of faith, and that the 
 writer of this letter does not give it as a definition. He 
 gives it as the two cases of the operation of faith, not of 
 its essence, that it enables a man to lay hold — as of a 
 living substance — on the things wh’ch are unseen. That 
 is the consequence and the effect of faith, it is not faith. 
 For how was it that these old patriarchs were able to look 
 forward through all the dim ages, and to call the things 
 which were not as though they were, and to believe that 
 that land was to be theirs } It was because their faith was 
 kept — not with the things unseen and hoped for — but with 
 Him that had promised the things ; and deep down 
 beneath the things that they -expected, lay the confidence 
 that they cherished in the promising God. And so I call 
 you to notice that wheresoever the eye and hand of faith 
 may be turned, the essence and the heart of it is the grasp 
 of the living God. And secondly a reliance on Him and 
 on His word. On the surface, this old chapter seems to 
 deal with faith as the substantiating and bringing near to me 
 all the things that are all unseen and anticipated ; beneath, 
 it emerges as the confidence of the soul in the promise ; 
 and beneath that, it appears as the confidence of the soul 
 in Him that promised. Let me take a bold illustration. 
 Suppose a man said to you, there is ;^i,ooo to your credit 
 in a bank. Well, you might say that the ^^"1,000 was the 
 object of your faith, but that would only be a very loose 
 and incomplete way of putting it. Or you might say 
 that his word was the object of your faith, and I don’t 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 53 
 
 quarrel with your way of putting it. But below the re- 
 liance on the word, there is the reliance on the speaker of 
 the word, and that in the last analysis, it is neither the 
 gift promised, nor the promise of the gift, but the promiser 
 who gives the gift, with which a man’s faith is to be con- 
 versant. And so you will take this chapter, this grand 
 deed-roll of heroes of the faith ; though at first sight it 
 seems as if the word was employed in a different shade 
 of significance from that which it usually occupies in the 
 Old Testament, a little more looking lets us see that it is 
 the same idea throughout ; and that the language on 
 which your salvation and mine is suspended, is simple 
 affiance and trust of our whole spirits in the manifested 
 God who “ spoke unto the fathers by the prophets,” and 
 in these last days hath spoken unto us by His Son. He 
 Himself is the living object, the only adequate object of a 
 man’s confidence and trust. And so from this, — if only 
 we will rightly understand it, — there comes forth this plain 
 thought, that however bright and blessed our inheritance 
 beyond, that with whatsoever fair and substantial forms 
 faith may legitimately people the else unknown and soli- 
 tary future, howsoever bright and glorious-^yet far less 
 bright and glorious than the realities which they shadow — 
 may be the visions which it conjures beyond the worst 
 darkness beyond the grave, not this^ but the word of Him 
 who brought life and immortality to light ; and not even 
 that word, but Him — the Speaker — in the fulness of His 
 own infinite verity, is the object of our faith. ‘‘I am the 
 way, and the truth, and the life,” and we obtain an inherit- 
 ance amongst them that are sanctified through the faith 
 that is in Christ. And so still further. I would have you 
 look at a thought closely connected with this one thought 
 I have been dealing with, and yet different from it, and 
 take that unfamiliar picture of a type of devoutness and 
 Godly living, so far removed by circumstances, and race, 
 and character, from our modern notion of what a good man 
 is ; take it — that type of the dying Jacob — as an illus- 
 tration of the fact of the substantial oneness and identity 
 of, — call it religion, or call it faith, — in all ages, and at all 
 stages of knowledge and culture. Jacob’s faith was yours 
 and mine. Jacob’s creed was not. The progress of God’s 
 self-manifestation and infinitude of wisdom, and truth, and 
 
54 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 love, and knowledge, lay all dark and unknown to him, 
 which has been revealed to and manifested to us ; but yet, 
 with all the variety in the language that the faith grasped, 
 the faith that grasped it was the same. And whether it 
 was the God revealed partially, and yet adequately, in 
 vision and sign ; or whether it is the God revealed, not 
 completely, and yet so far as human possibilities are con- 
 cerned, perfectly, in Jesus Christ, the hand that it leaned 
 upon is the same. And we look across the ages away into 
 the dim distances where life was so different to what it is 
 to-day, where laws of right and wrong were so much modi- 
 fied, in regard to what they are now. We look back to the 
 fierce militant exclusive religion of those early days, and 
 beneath that we see the very same thing that binds men to 
 God to-day, and will do beyond the end of time ; for the 
 faith of earth is the faith of heaven, and although at one 
 end of the line stands the world’s grey fathers, with their 
 early, contracted creed ; and at the other end may stand the 
 saints perfected in knowledge, as in purity and in love, all 
 these are in one line, and are united to God by one and 
 the same faith. And Jacob with his faults and sins and 
 limitations, and you and I, on whom the ends of the earth 
 are come, journey on the same path to the same Father. 
 I do not need to dwell upon the possible applications of a 
 thought like this, in regard to our own times and circum- 
 stances, and the plea that may be built upon it for a far 
 wider construction of the limits of God’s house and Christ’s 
 kingdom than we are so ready to impose upon the one and 
 the other. The measure of the temple and the walls of 
 the New Jerusalem is the rod which comes from heaven, 
 and our measuring rods are not adequate to that task. 
 Only, let us remember, no false and spurious liberality 
 under the guise of recognising an identity of faith under 
 all varieties of manifestation. You can take the position of 
 these Old Testament saints, and, seeing you live at a time 
 when so much more has been taught us than they pos- 
 sessed, the faith that laid hold of a creed like theirs to-day 
 would not be their faith. The faith that knits a man to 
 God is a faith that accepts whatsoever God the Lord hath 
 revealed ; and so says, “ Speak, Lord ; for Thy servant 
 heareth.” Then notice how this same story, or these two 
 stories, which are smelted into one illustration and instance 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 55 
 
 here, give us also the thought of the ennobling and refining 
 influence of this confidence in God, and occupation there- 
 fore with the unseen future. There is no more significant 
 lesson in the whole Bible I think than the difference 
 between the character of this man Jacob at the beginning 
 and at the end of his career. At first, a low, shifty, 
 crafty, scheming Jew; with material objects and all manner 
 of quirks and meannesses ever near him ; and at the end, 
 all that beaten out of him, and dignity, and simplicity, 
 and contentedness, and lofty elevation, characterizing the 
 whole life. And how did that serene and noble figure of 
 a green old age with fulfilled desires, and immortal hopes ; 
 how did that emerge from the utterances we read about 
 in the early chapters } Sorrow } Yes and no. Discipline 
 of circumstances } Yes and no. Growth, the natural 
 growth of character in changing years } Perhaps. But 
 I think deeper than all this, that promise that God had 
 given to him among His people had sunk in his mind, 
 and that his thoughts and desires were more and more 
 drawn outward and onward to an unseen future ; and 
 so by degrees the earthliness and the cunning, and the 
 vulpine nature of the man dropped away, and w^as changed 
 to the dignity, and grandeur, and statuesque simplicity, 
 and beauty, the outcome and influence of a life conver- 
 sant with unseen hopes and with the God that promised 
 them elevating the nature out of all its lowness, and sin- 
 fulness, and selfishness, and setting it there on a pedestal. 
 We all admit theoretically, — whether we do it practi- 
 cally or not, — that, given two men, a man who has pur- 
 poses, and hopes, and anticipations for himself, or for 
 some great cause for his fellows, running on into the 
 future, a remote future, is, pro tanto^ so far as that goes a 
 bigger man, a better man, a wiser man, a stronger and a 
 holier man, than the other man that is living from hand to 
 mouth, and has no purpose beyond the end of next week, 
 and no hopes that go stretching out away into the far 
 distant. And we all admit that of two men, the man 
 that lives, not only for immediate things, but for gross, 
 palpable, material things, is a lower man than he that 
 lives for the unseen, though far-ofif earthly unseen. That 
 the student, the thinker, and the artist, and all men 
 that have their delight in the region of the invi.^ible, are 
 
56 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 nobler men by far than the contracted and animalised 
 spirits that grovel on, — I was going to say, — like dogs 
 hunting for truffles, grubbing along with their noses to the 
 ground, only sniffing up the delights that may be there. 
 Take the two men, the man that lives for to-day is a poor 
 creature always by the side of the man that lives for 
 to-morrow. And the man that lives for anything that he 
 can put into his pocket, or look at, or stow away in his 
 senses, is a poor creature compared to the man that lives 
 for anything that is unseen, even though it be one of the 
 things that are unseen and temporal. And so high above 
 that elevation, and greater far than the influence upon 
 any life of narrowness and weaknesses and trickiness, is 
 the great hope that drives a man onward to the great 
 unseen ideal that dwells only before that inward eye. And 
 therefore, you and I, whose work is cast in toiling for our 
 daily bread ; working among the transitory things of life, 
 have, — to speak roughly, — no other means of getting the 
 counterpoise to the brutalising influence of the present 
 and the seen, except faith in God, that makes us denizens 
 of another world, and citizens of another country. I 
 believe, of course, that the unseen and future objects which 
 Christian faith brings near a man are infinitely mightier in 
 than all the abstractions, or all the great objects of human 
 pursuit the realization of which lies millenniums in advance. 
 But for the most of men, you have next to nothing else to 
 choose between ; and the alternative lies here for most of 
 us, — live for the gross vulgar present, or live for the majestic 
 future, guaranteed' to us by the living Christ, and the un- 
 seen realities that are there. And let us notice in tin’s 
 story how the life of faith was a life of growing nobleness 
 and beauty ; and so take the lesson to ourselves. 
 
 The last thing I shall refer to, is that this same incident 
 may set before us the power of this confidence or faith, in 
 the end of life. I do not mean to say as some people are 
 disposed sometimes to preach, that the only way by which 
 a man can die calmly is to die a Christian. God hath 
 ordained that the physical act of dying is generally a calm 
 and easy act. So I am not going to build upon that ; but 
 here is this man, who has been putting his heart on hopes 
 that are still unaccomplished, hopes that have been the 
 nourishment and sustenance of his soul for many and 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 57 
 
 many a day ; and he is dying, and there does not seem the 
 slightest sign of them being nearer ; and if anybody might 
 have laid down to die and said, ‘‘ Well, my life has all been 
 a failure, and a blunder, and here am I the victim of 
 unfulfilled expectations,'' it was that man. But instead of 
 that, he lays himself down and says, ‘‘ I die, and God shall 
 be with you ; carry my bones up with you," and he puts 
 his hands upon the heads of the boys and says : They 
 
 shall be great in the land which God shall give you 
 for a possession.” And so his confidence has rounded off, 
 to his own apprehension, the loose, fragmentary, and broken 
 life, into completeness and beauty ; and he felt that for 
 all the past — and that comes ou,t most lovelily in his words 
 — that for all the past, that had seemed so strange, so 
 perplexing, so sad while it was passing, there was a living 
 reason. He looks at his son, and says, “And I did not 
 think I should ever see your face again, yet God hath let 
 me see your boys,” and then he pats their heads and says, 
 “ Looking back here, I see God that was my Shepherd all 
 my life long, the angel that redeemed me from all evil, — 
 bless the lads.” The past is beautiful, beginning to be 
 intelligible, shaping itself into symmetry and meaning, 
 into significance and mercy, the unaccomplished hopes are 
 still true hopes, his dear ones he leaves to God ; and so he 
 says, “ My hope is strong, dying as it was living ; I know 
 in whom I have believed, I know His faithful promise, I 
 know I shall share in that.” Let us set our confidence 
 on the living love of the Divine Christ, and then when we 
 come to die, if the life may have been failure, and sorrow, 
 and disappointment, and many sins, we may be able to 
 look forward and say, like that old patriarch prophet — 
 “ God’s promise shall be fulfilled, I shall enter into the 
 rest.’' By the side of that noble passing away of the Old 
 Testament hero, set the triumphant one in the new. By 
 the side of Jacob the patriarch put Paul the apostle; “I 
 have fought the fight, I have finished my course, I have 
 kept the faith ; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown 
 of righteousness.” These lived and died in faith. In that 
 faith may you and I live and die. 
 
58 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 VIII. The waters of Marah. Exod. xv. 23-25. 
 
 And when they ca7ne to Marah^ they could not drink of the 
 waters of Marah ^ for they were bitter : therefore the name of it 
 was called Marah, And the people murmured against Moses, 
 saying. What shall we di ink I And he cried unto the Lord ; and 
 the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the 
 waters, the waters were made sweet : there he made for them a 
 statute and an ordinance, and thei e he proved the7uP 
 
 There is no more dismal bit of country, perhaps, in the 
 world than that strip of desert sea-coast which goes by the 
 name of the wilderness of Shur, through which the Israelites 
 were called upon to march immediately after passing the 
 Red Sea. Sand and gravel, and limestone rock, all beaten 
 upon with the pitiless glare of the sun, full in the eyes of 
 this caravan of fugitives, as they marched due south for 
 three days. They had no means of refreshing their needs, 
 and one can understand how as the third day came to an 
 end, and the long weary march was drawing to an end too, 
 and the evening quietness came ; how when they saw away 
 on the horizon the feathered tips of the palm-trees that 
 told of water, their drooping spirits would revive, men 
 would stagger along a little less apathetically. And when 
 they came to the spring there was an iridescent scum on 
 the surface, and as travellers tell us the very worst water in 
 all the peninsula ; and one man tries and spits out the first 
 mouthful, and another man tries but cannot manage it, — 
 although he is half-dead with thirst it won’t go down, and 
 they cannot drink the water ; and they call the name of it, 
 with breaking hearts, ‘‘ Marah ! ” And there were the 
 little children that had never been accustomed to anything 
 but ease in Egypt, and the burdened women with their 
 kneading troughs on their shoulders, and the despairing 
 fathers, a crowd of fugitives, and they all turn upon Moses, 
 and cry against him, and Moses does the right thing. ‘‘ He 
 cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree,” or 
 a bit of wood, for the word does not necessarily mean a 
 living tree ; and Moses puts it into the water, and the 
 water becomes sweet ; and, says the narrative, summing it 
 all up, “ there he made a statute and an ordinance,” that 
 thing, the bitter water, and the sweetening and the thirst. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 59 
 
 that is the statute for you, and an ordinance ; “ and there 
 he proved them.” Well, now the first thing I want you to 
 notice, for these last words vindicate us in taking this story 
 to mean something more than itself, as being the embodi- 
 ment of a perpetual principle that applies all round and all 
 ways, or in the old-fashioned language of the text, “ is a 
 statute and an ordinance.” The first thing I want you to 
 notice is this — Where is Marah ? Close by the Red Sea. 
 That is to say, cheek-by-jowl with the triumph, the first 
 stage in the wilderness. As soon as the men got across 
 and began their march, there is a couple of days or so at 
 the first halting place to shake themselves together, and 
 get themselves into order ; and then the next stage is into 
 this wilderness, this desert, and the next halting-place is 
 out on that waterless plain. Like a steamer going out of 
 Dover harbour, the one minute safe behind the stones, the 
 next minute as soon as she gets outside the pier the whole 
 surge of the waves upon her. Not going sailing down 
 along some white ridge, like a ship going down the Thames 
 a long time before it gets into broken water, but out into 
 it at once, one plunge and there you are. Yesterday, they 
 were crossing the Red Sea, with signs and wonders, to-day 
 journeying through the waterless and dreary plain of sand. 
 That is to say, God’s road is generally very near its begin- 
 ning a bit of ugly country, that will try a man’s strength 
 and his patience. Good old John Bunyan saw that the 
 Slough of Despond was very near the wicket gate; and 
 that is an old-fashioned way of putting an everlasting truth, 
 that all good things worth doing, all Christlike life, and 
 all high life of every sort, is hard at the beginning. Gram- 
 mar is always drudgery, the rudiments are always difficult 
 to learn, the apprenticeship is the worst bit of it. We may 
 be quite certain that we are not on God’s road if every- 
 thing goes smoothly; and as a rule. His paths are rough 
 and tangled at the beginning, and only afterwards do they 
 broaden out, and open wide to us. The world does the 
 opposite way ; claps a bait upon the hook, entices men into 
 wrong paths by giving them sweetness at the beginning 
 and the bitter afterwards. 
 
 “Young gamblers always win, the devil takes care of 
 that ! ” says the old proverb. So the man at the feast said, 
 “ when men have well drunk, then that which is worse, but 
 
6o EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 thou hast kept the good wine until now/’ So in religious 
 experience, when a man gets converted and brought near 
 Jesus Christ, and finds out the depth of his own sin, and 
 the height of God’s love .and mercy, very commonly there 
 comes surging over his heart not very long afterwards a 
 great regurgitation, as it were, of the evil that he thought 
 he had got rid of ; and a season of sadness and bitterness, 
 measured often by the depth of his former joy and rapture. 
 The crossing of the Red Sea yesterday, Marah and its 
 bitterness to-morrow ; and even if it is not so always, there 
 is at any rate the big rule which is usually fulfilled in our 
 experience, although upward and onward, yet God’s paths 
 have a trying bit very near the beginning, and even for the 
 husbandman who laboureth first and is afterwards partaker 
 of the fruit. 
 
 But that is not all. Marah, as I said, was next door to 
 the Red Sea ; but Elimjvas next door to Marah. Hear 
 how the story goes on after that bit which I have been 
 reading to you. “ And they came to Elim, where were 
 twelve wells of water,” one for each tribe ; “ and three- 
 score and ten palm-trees,” one for each elder, “ and they 
 encamped there by the waters.” How sweet the water, 
 how grateful the shade, how blessed the change from yes- 
 terday with the bitter saline filth standing in the puddle 
 there. Who can tell what made the Elim waters sweet } 
 Yesterday’s experience ! What made the shade of the 
 palm-trees so precious } The unsheltered blaze of yester- 
 day’s sunshine. 
 
 And so, never fear ! Our lives will be carried out of the 
 one into the other in God’s own good time ; and as sure as 
 any of us may to-day be in Marah, to-morrow^ we shall be 
 in Elim, for there is no human life but is passed, by a 
 loving wise hand, through the alternations of bright and 
 dark, summer and winter, both co-operate to the blessed 
 harvest. So^if any of you are camping by the side of the 
 bitter waters, do not let' your sorrows cause you to for- 
 get yesterday’s triumph, nor your hopes fail before you 
 grasp to-morrow’s rest and peace. That is where Marah 
 was. 
 
 \ Now, the next thing I want you to notice is, the r ight 
 and the wrong way of dealing with the bitterness. They 
 “murmured,” and “Moses cried unto the Lord.” Two 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 6i 
 
 ways of using your tongues about your troubles ; on^Js to 
 gruniHe and the oU^ to pray. Two ways of speech 
 and thought. One is to set our backs up against what we 
 have to carry, ^nd the other is to go to God and say — 
 “ Help us, O Thou who hast laid this upon us ! ” 
 
 “ They murmured against God.” What! have you for- 
 gotten all His past dealings with you this last week al- 
 ready ? “ They murmured against God I ” Why it is only 
 two or three days since you were slaves in the land of 
 Goshen there I You came out jubilant. Where is all your 
 jubilation gone ? Is a little thing like this going to turn 
 your thankfulness into murmuring, and embitter your life ? 
 There are some people that have got a wonderful habit ; if 
 there is one little bit of cloud in their sky no bigger than a 
 man’s hand they go talking about it as if it were a great 
 black thunder cloud that covered the whole zenith and 
 threatened to drown them. 
 
 You may always make your life a pattern of brightness 
 inlaid upon darkness, or of darkness inlaid upon brightness 
 just as you like to view God’s path. It is like a man lying 
 in bed, half asleep, he gazes through his closing eyes and 
 amuses himself with making figures out of the paper, some- 
 times taking one of the colours for a background, and 
 sometimes another ; and the whole aspect changes when 
 he changes a different colour for his background. 
 
 And so with your lives. You may either grumble or 
 pray about them, one or the other you will certainly do. 
 It is the alternative for every one of us. We have thorns 
 enough in our pillow, and burdens enough to carry. Let 
 us never bend our backs till we know the burden is laid on 
 them. We have miles enough to travel. Never let us start 
 until we are quite certain that we have got hold of God’s 
 hand to keep us steady, patient, and cheerful, or we shall 
 certainly be amongst the grumblers and the murmurers. 
 So it seems to me to be a choice ; either we shall be mur- 
 murers against some poor brother Moses or other, or else 
 look up above the pigmies, the creatures, and the things, 
 look right away up to Him and all our murmurings will 
 die, and we shall go about with piayers and not with 
 grumbling when once we have got hold of Him. 
 
 Well now, the next thing that is here is the se cret of 
 turning the bitter waters into sweet. It is a very remark- 
 
62 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 able form which the miracle takes here. God concealing 
 Himself behind Moses; hiding Himself, so to speak, behind 
 a material vehicle for His miraculous power, — something 
 in the same fashion in which our Lord fell Himself, of 
 complying with different customs and methods of doing 
 wonders ; to send one man to bathe in the pool of Siloam, 
 to another using saliva in order to heal him, a touch of the 
 finger to a third. And so God here does not do the thing 
 straight away, but He puts in, between Himself the cause 
 and the healing of the waters the result, two links — Moses 
 and a bit of wood. The reason I do not know that we 
 can find out, nor whether it would do us much good if we 
 could. But at any rate there is a great similarity between 
 this His first miracle of education which He wrought for 
 these Israelites in the wilderness, and the first miracle of 
 judgment wrought upon the Egyptians. This is making 
 bitter water sweet ; that was making sweet water — the 
 Nile — bitter. Then, as to the object, a bit of wood. This 
 sweetening of the waters was done with a bit of wood, the 
 tree, or whatever it was that was cast into the watei'*; the 
 Nile was embittered by a bit of wood — the rod of Moses. 
 
 There may be a parallel, I do not know whether there is 
 or not, but at any rate it is worth noticing. But putting 
 that aside, what is the means by which we can turn all 
 the bitterness into sweetness ? Well, one can scarcely help 
 noticing this, and thinking of the tree as shadowing another 
 Tree, the Tree of Life, the Cross, which being put into any 
 bitterness turns it into sweetness. That is to say according 
 to the great words: “Consider Him that endured such 
 contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied 
 and faint in your minds.” Consider Him, and the word 
 used there is a very special one, it means “ consider,” in 
 the light of comparison, compare your sufferings with 
 Christ’s. “Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving 
 against sin.” Compare His sorrows. His patience, His 
 innocence ; think of these things. “ And did my Lord 
 suffer,” as good John Newton put it : — 
 
 “ And did my Lord suffer, 
 
 And shall 1 repine 1 
 
 Put that Tree of Life into the bitterest fountain that we 
 have to drink, and it becomes sweet. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 63 
 
 But there is another side of the same thought, the secret 
 of making all bitterness sweet is the recognition of, and 
 the acquiescence in, God’s perfect loving will as manifested 
 in the trial. I do not believe there is any consolation for 
 a great many of the troubles that we all have to bear 
 sooner or later except that. A man stands beside his dead, 
 and people go and pester him with the threadbare com- 
 monplaces of conventional Christian consolation ; and he 
 is ready sometimes to turn upon them with — “Miserable 
 comforters are ye all ! ” 
 
 Oh ! there is only one thing that will give ease to a m‘an, 
 the loving will of a loving Father. Get that into my heart 
 and then the fieriest showers will fall soft like snowflakes, 
 cooling and refreshing upon my heart, and I shall be able 
 to bear it all. And there is nothing else, nothing in all 
 the universe, that will arm you and me against “ the 
 slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” and the wild sea 
 of troubles that comes storming upon every man some time 
 or other, except only that one thing : “ It is the Lord, let 
 Him do as seemeth Him good which being cast into 
 the waters, the waters are healed. 
 
 And they change their places. Marah becomes Elim, 
 and the twelve wells open in the wilderness, and there are 
 streams in the desert. 
 
 IX. Balaam. Num. xxiv. ii. Therefore now flee thou to 
 thy place : I thought to promote thee unto great honour ; hut, lo, 
 the Lord hath kept thee back from honour P 
 
 Balaam lived in circumstances sufficiently unlike our own. 
 But human nature does not change with the change of 
 civilisations, and the human conscience face to face with 
 truth and with duty repeats its experiences, its efforts, its 
 failures, its triumphs in the most distant climes and ages. 
 Let us endeavour to study this history, however briefly, 
 in a practical temper, and with a view to our own im- 
 provement. 
 
 I. Balaam, it need hardly be said, was a very eminent, 
 he was even an extraordinary man. He lived largely 
 among the wild race of the Midianites ; but he had 
 gifts and powers which, so far as we know, were entirely 
 unshared by those among whom he dwelt. 
 
64 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 He was, first of all, an observer, a careful observer of 
 contemporary events. He was a man of trained political 
 sagacity. In his last recorded prophecy we see how much 
 interest he felt in the future of the neighbouring peoples, 
 of the wild Kenite tribes, of the kingdom of Amalek, of 
 the great monarchies of Central Asia, of the navies which 
 had already begun to connect Palestine with the Western 
 world. He was one of those men who generally look on 
 at public life rather than take part in it, but whose judg- 
 ment is valued by men of action as being the product of 
 more reflection and experience than their own. Balaam 
 thus corresponds to a writer on history or on politics among 
 ourselves, who does not go into Parliament, but whose 
 deliberate opinions have more weight than those of many 
 Parliamentary speakers. He was consulted, he was allowed 
 for, he was obeyed by energetic people on all sides of him, 
 who felt at least that he saw farther than they did, and 
 who were glad to lean on his advice and his directions. 
 
 And next, Balaam was in possession of a truth which, 
 quite apart from its awful and intrinsic value, gives purpose 
 and meaning to a human life ; he believed in one God. 
 He lived, we know not for how long, in the Mesopotamian 
 city of Pethor ; and here he might very well have fallen in 
 with the descendants of those relatives of Abraham who, 
 like Nahor, did not accompany Abraham in his migration 
 to Canaan ; and from these he may have learnt the know- 
 ledge of the one true God. This great truth was at the 
 basis of Balaam's thought all through, although he held 
 it in an inconsistent combination with Pagan practices of 
 soothsaying and divination. He would seem to have fallen 
 to a certain extent under the influence of the degraded 
 public opinion around him, and so to have endeavoured to 
 combine his purer faith with the popular heathen sorcery ; 
 just as we see people nowadays unite a serious profession of 
 the Christian faith with proceedings and opinions which 
 it really condemns. However, Balaam's knowledge of re- 
 ligious truth, so far as it went, gave him great power among 
 his countrymen, and it led him, as was natural, to take a 
 deep interest in the fortunes of the people of Israel. P>om 
 his recorded prophecies it is plain that he had heard of the 
 promises made to the Jewish patriarchs, that he knew 
 something of the text of the Jewish records. He uses the 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 65 
 
 Holy Name itself, which was revealed to the Jews. He 
 must have heard of the remarkable circumstances attend- 
 ing the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt. Those 
 circumstances had produced a profound impression on all 
 the peoples of the south-eastern seaboard of the Mediter- 
 ranean and the adjoining tribes. And while the fear and 
 the dread of Israel fell on all the Amorite races, and while 
 in particular Moab was sore afraid of the people because 
 they were many, and Moab was distressed because of the 
 children of Israel, Balaam would have been able to study 
 the secret of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt, and of Israel’s 
 successful advance across the desert, through his possession 
 of the key of religious sympathy. The heathen around 
 him saw in Israel's history the triumph of physical force, 
 the triumph of good fortune, the triumph, at the best, of 
 certain imaginary divinities like their own. Balaam knew 
 enough to know that the explanation lay far deeper ; and 
 this knowledge, at any rate for a time, would have given 
 clearness and decision to his judgment, and force and con- 
 sistency to his action. 
 
 But, besides this, it is clear that Balaam was endowed in 
 a high degree with the gift of supernatural prophecy. Not 
 only could he anticipate the future more rapidly and accu- 
 rately than ordinary men by the trained use of his natural 
 faculties, but he had also the gift of prophetic insight into 
 a future too remote, too unlike the actual present, to be 
 anticipated at all by the unaided faculties of man. Of this 
 gift his closing words to Balak afford one remarkable speci- 
 men. His prediction of the Star and Sceptre that were to 
 arise out of Jacob is not fully satisfied by the conquests of 
 David, of Omri, of Hyrcanus, but points to the spiritual 
 empire of Jesus Christ. 
 
 And here we may pause for a moment to take note of 
 the fact that a stranger to Israel, living among a heathen 
 people, himself practising heathen arts, should have been 
 thus distinguished by the possession of a great religious 
 and supernatural gift. Israel alone was the people of 
 Revelation in the ancient world, and yet here an accredited 
 organ of revelation is found far beyond the frontiers of 
 Israel, and his utterances are actually honoured with a high 
 place in the sacred books of Israel. Now, this is in keep- 
 ing with what we find in the whole course of God’s deal- 
 
 F 
 
66 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 ings with man. God makes governments ; He creates and 
 authorises sacred institutions ; He bestows the certificate 
 of His presence and His approval here, and He withholds 
 it there. And yet he is not so bound by His own rules 
 that they confine His action besides compelling it. He 
 shows ever and anon that His illimitable and exuberant 
 life has outlets which lie beyond the bounds of consecrated 
 system. Balaam was in one age what Melchisedec had 
 been in another, what Job was in a third — an organ of 
 truth beyond the frontiers of the kingdom of truth. And 
 when, in our day, we see beyond the limits of the Church, 
 beyond the limits of Christianity, conspicuous gifts, if not 
 quite religious, or beautiful and even saintly characters 
 that throw into the shade much that we find nearer home, 
 within the enclosure of the sacred garden of the soul, this 
 does not prove that God has done away with the ordinary 
 rules and bounds of His dispensations of grace and truth ; 
 it only proves this, that those rules do not always confine 
 His action. Balaam, though not of Israel, was still a 
 great prophet ; and this supernatural gift of prophecy en- 
 riched the political and religious knowledge which he 
 had acquired naturally, enriched it with a new element of 
 power. 
 
 Now, with gifts like these, Balaam was naturally a per- 
 son of great public consideration. Among the Midianites 
 he took rank even with the princes. His fame spread 
 far and wide among the neighbouring peoples, especially 
 among the Moabites. 
 
 Balak, the king of Moab, was in all probability himself 
 a Midianite, wh6 had taken the place of a native dynasty 
 when Moab had been weakened by the Amorite victories ; 
 and Balak would therefore have had opportunities of know- 
 ing what was thought of Balaam elsewhere. But men with 
 no knowledge or interest in religions of their own are apt 
 to make very odd guesses about those who are in any way 
 connected with them. Balak seems himself to have looked 
 upon Balaam chiefly as a very powerful wizard. Balaam's 
 higher gifts would be scarcely intelligible to Balak ; or, at 
 any rate, they were not what Balak wanted in the existing 
 circumstances of Moab. Moab and its king were seriously 
 alarmed at the steady, the persistent advance of the host 
 of Israel towards their destined home in Canaan. Israel 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 67 
 
 had now passed the desert, and was encamped in the plain 
 of Moab, the low, flat district along the Jordan and the 
 Dead Sea, which is fertilised by the brooks that run west- 
 ward from the Pirathon Hills. And from these, their 
 neighbouring heights, the Moabites could look over the 
 camp of Israel. There was Israel encamped in his num- 
 bers, which were probably exaggerated by the terrors of 
 the invaded Moabites ; and Balak longed to strike a swift 
 and decisive blow. He thought that if a great soothsayer 
 like Balaam could be induced to devote the Israelites to 
 destruction by a solemnly pronounced and public curse, 
 then there would be no doubt about the issue of the im- 
 pending, the inevitable struggle with Israel. “ I wot,'’ he 
 said to Balaam, ‘‘ that he whom thou blessest is blessed, 
 and he whom thou cursest is cursed.” In Balak's eyes, 
 you see, Balaam was simply a weapon of offensive warfare. 
 He had only to be brought into position where he might 
 bear upon the enemy in order to produce results of decisive 
 importance. 
 
 Balak’s view of Balaam illustrates the way in which in 
 all ages statesmen who are statesman and nothing else are 
 apt to look upon religion and its representatives. They 
 see in it only one of the great forces which modify and 
 control human life ; and they desire, by whatever means, 
 to enlist it on the side of the policy or the Government 
 which they for the moment represent. They do not take 
 the trouble to understand what it is in itself. They do not 
 see that it has obligations, laws, principles, which cannot 
 be trifled with, if it is not to forfeit its essential character. 
 They look at it, not from within, but from without ; they 
 measure it, not by its inspiring motives, but only by its 
 social and popular results ; and, as a consequence, they 
 often make very great miscalculations about it, especially 
 in cases where the absence of insight into the results of a 
 religious creed upon human action, which comes from their 
 lack of faith in that creed, is not compensated for by the 
 sympathetic imagination which enables a man to put him- 
 self readily into the mental and moral circumstances of 
 those who differ from him. 
 
 Now, this was Balaam’s case. It was quite clear that 
 Balaam.’s gift would be placed at his disposal unreservedly 
 so he thought, if he only paid a sufficient price for it. If 
 
68 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 a first bid did not succeed, then he would make a second 
 and a larger bid. He did not regard Balaam as having a 
 God or a conscience to consult. Balaam was in his eyes 
 simply a merchant of preternatural wares with a particular 
 useful commodity to dispose of ; and the only question was 
 to ascertain his price. 
 
 This mistake as to the availableness of religion for any 
 political purpose that may be immediately in view has been 
 made in all ages of the world's history. Saul made it when, 
 in his off-hand way, he offered sacrifice without waiting for 
 Samuel ; Jeroboam made it, when he tried to set up a new 
 religion at Dan and at Beersheba, which was to supersede 
 the old duties of the tribes towards their temple and their 
 priesthood at Jerusalem ; the princes of Judah made it, 
 when in the last days of the monarchy of Judah they 
 endeavoured to force Jeremiah to advocate what they 
 thought the patriotic policy of reliance on Egypt against 
 Babylon. 
 
 History is studded with examples of this mistake, which 
 underlies, for instance, Hume’s well-known advocacy of an 
 established Church. Hume advocates what is oddly called 
 the establishment of religion by the State ; because, he 
 says, this enables the State to take the religious principle 
 well in hand, and so to repress its tendency to become a 
 fanaticism, and to enlist it on the side of measures which 
 the State may deem expedient. 
 
 Without discussing how far this theory is borne out 
 by experience, we may observe that perhaps the most 
 singular illustration of the error in question was afforded 
 by the first Napoleon. When that extraordinary man 
 had conducted the campaign of Austerlitz to a brilliant 
 conclusion, he addressed himself, and with his usual energy, 
 to religious questions. If at this time he had any creed 
 at all, it was the creed of a half-convinced Deist. But for 
 Napoleon religion was always chiefly a political instru- 
 ment. He professed warm devotion to Mahometanism 
 during the campaign of Egypt ; he wrote to Pius VII. as 
 a devoted son of the Roman Church, as a second Charle- 
 magne. Napoleon then, in 1806, thought that his dynasty 
 would be safer if the duty of devotion to himself and 
 his dynasty could be introduced into a catechism which 
 should be used in all the dioceses of France ; and accord- 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 69 
 
 ingly, under the head of the Fifth Commandment, a little 
 political treatise — for such in effect it was — was framed 
 in the shape of question and answer, in which children 
 were told that they must obey the General who had 
 recently suppressed the Republic by force, who had re- 
 cently murdered the poor Bourbon prince that had fallen 
 into his hands, and this under pain of eternal condemna- 
 tion. Christianity owes all the support that she can give to 
 existing Governments ; but this general principle may be 
 pressed to untenable lengths in particular cases. Napoleon's 
 catechism was criticised, it was protested against, it was 
 slightly modified, but as a whole it was received, it was 
 taught in all the French dioceses for eight years, that is, 
 until the peace. But acceptance of such a document as 
 this cost the French clergy their moral influence ; and 
 Napoleon lived too entirely outside the sphere of con- 
 science to understand that, by carrying his point against 
 them, he had done his best to destroy that very power 
 whose support he was anxious to secure. 
 
 To return. Balak set himself to work to enlist Balaam's 
 gifts and powers on the side of Moab against Israel. First, 
 a deputation carrying the rewards of divination, the price 
 which was to be paid for the public curse which Balaam 
 was to pronounce, went to him and failed. It was followed 
 by a second deputation composed of much more influential 
 people, and promising Balaam very great honour if he 
 would comply with Balak’s request. In the end this depu- 
 tation succeeded so far as to induce Balaam to go back 
 with it to Balak. 
 
 II. Here we are face to face with a difficult question — 
 the real character of Balaam. 
 
 This subject was much discussed in the ancient Christian 
 Church, and there were two very different opinions about 
 it. On the one hand, Balaam was regarded by St. Augus- 
 tine and others as a thoroughly bad man, as a devil’s 
 prophet, who was compelled by God, against his will, like 
 the demoniac in the Gospel, to utter truths for which he 
 had no heart. On the other hand, St. Jerome and others 
 considered Balaam a good man in the main and a prophet 
 of God, who fell through yielding to the temptations of 
 avarice and ambition. 
 
 The truth probably lies somewhere between the two 
 
70 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 opinions. Balaam was a mixed character, and the real 
 problem that has to be dealt with, as we read his history 
 with a practical object, is to discover, if we can, the ingre- 
 dients of the proportions of the mixture. 
 
 On the one hand, Balaam was a man with a clear idea 
 of duty based on a certain knowledge of God. He knew 
 enough about God to feel that when there was no mistake 
 about God’s will it must be obeyed, if only for reasons of 
 prudence. He knew enough of God’s dealings with Israel 
 to fear to trifle with God’s plain commands. 
 
 When he was asked by Balak to curse Israel, he did not 
 answer the question without first asking God for guidance ; 
 and when he was told by God that he must not accept the 
 invitation, he at once declined. ‘‘ The Lord refuseth me 
 leave to go with you.” When the invitation was renewed, 
 he was equally decided. ‘‘ If Balak would give me his 
 house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word 
 of the Lord my God, to do less or more.” He only went 
 at last when he had, as he thought, satisfied himself that 
 God permitted him to do so. 
 
 And Balaam’s sense of duty is not less observable when 
 he had joined Balak. Balak naturally thought that if 
 Balaam once came, there would be no further difficulty. 
 But Balaam was careful to explain at once that he was not 
 at all free to say just what he or Balak might wish. ‘‘ Lo, 
 I am come unto thee. Have I now any power at all to 
 say anything? The word that God putteth in my mouth, 
 that shall I speak.” And so it happened. First there was 
 a sacrifice at the royal residence of Kirjath-huzoth ; and 
 then the next day Balaam was solemnly taken to Hamath- 
 Baal, a high hill connected with the Baal-worship, and 
 commanding a full view over the camp of Israel, and there 
 God met him, apparently condescending to manifest His 
 will even through the pagan auguries which Balaam con- 
 sulted, and Balaam blessed Israel altogether.” And then, 
 when Balak remonstrated, Balaam asked, “ Must I not 
 take heed to speak that which the Lord hath put in my 
 mouth ?” and Balak probably thought that there was some 
 sinister influence at work in the spot or in the air, or that 
 Balaam had been unduly impressed with the imposing 
 spectacle of the entire camp and host of Israel ; and so 
 they moved to another point nearer the encampment of 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 71 
 
 Israel, but commanding a much less complete view of it, 
 as it would have been apparently shut out from view by a 
 projecting spur of Mount Pisgah. And here again the 
 altars are built, and the sacrifices offered, and the auguries 
 consulted ; and Balaam prophesied, and again he cele- 
 brated the strength and the assured victory of Israel under 
 the Divine protection. There was, he said, no enchant- 
 ment against Jacob; there was no divination against Israel 
 ** Behold, I have received a commandment to bless, and I 
 cannot reverse it.’’ And Balak was in despair — just as a 
 man might be who has set a machine in motion whose work- 
 ing he is totally unable to guide or to control; he begged 
 the prophet neither to curse Israel at all nor to bless it 
 at all ; silence would be better than these unlooked for 
 blessings ; but Balaam is still true to his text : “ Told 
 I not thee saying. All that the Lord sayeth, that must I 
 do?” 
 
 One more trial, Balak thought, might yet be made. 
 Balaam was taken by Balak to a spot celebrated then, 
 celebrated afterwards, further north, — Baal-Peor, which 
 looked over the waste valley below, and in which the 
 Moabite king fondly hoped that the prophet might at 
 last feel himself able to curse Israel ; and the altars are 
 built, and the sacrifices offered, but, instead of again con- 
 sulting the auguries, Balaam looked out over the camp 
 of Israel, which was still, though in the distance, within 
 his view ; and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him ; and 
 this time the blessing was more explicit than ever before : 
 all the pictures which are most welcome to the inhabitants 
 of the burning desert — the well-watered valley, the fertile 
 garden, the spice-bearing aloe, the noble cedar — are sum- 
 moned in his poetry to describe the assured prosperity of 
 Israel. Israel’s monarch was to be higher than the power- 
 ful chief of the Amalekites, higher than Agag ; to bless 
 Israel was to be certainly blessing ; to curse Israel was to 
 be certainly cursing. And here Balak’s dismay gave way 
 to indignation. “Therefore now,” he said, “flee thou to 
 thy place ; I thought to promote thee unto great honour ; 
 but, lo, the Lord hath kept thee back from honour.” And 
 again Balaam reminded Balak that he had warned him of 
 what might happen ; and then he proceeded to utter a 
 closing prophecy, which foretold the conquest of Moab 
 
72 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 itself by Israel, and the history of the other neighbouring 
 peoples, and above all, the appearance of the Star of 
 Jacob, under Whom Israel was to advance to the spiritual 
 dominion of the world. 
 
 Throughout these circumstances Balaam apparently 
 speaks and acts as a man who has a law of duty clearly 
 before him, and who courageously obeys it. Balak was 
 right in saying that the Lord had kept him back from 
 honour. Whatever earthly wealth or consideration was in 
 store for him at the court of Moab, this he forfeited alto- 
 gether by his persevering obedience to the voice of God. 
 Self-sacrifice is always respectable, and Balaam had his 
 share in it. For the moment he might almost seem to 
 rank with prophets and with apostles, and in that distant 
 age, and according to his measure, to anticipate the reward 
 of those great promises of the Gospel, ‘‘ Whosoever hath 
 left father, or mother, or lands, or wife, or children for My 
 sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit ever- 
 lasting life.'' 
 
 But, on the other hand, this devotion to duty was clearly 
 accompanied by another characteristic which explains why 
 Balaam was really an object of God's displeasure, and why 
 he came to a bad end. Balaam, you remember, when he 
 was first asked by Balak to come and curse Israel, referred 
 the question to God in prayer, learned that he ought not 
 to go, and accordingly refused to go. This ought to have 
 been enough for his guidance afterwards. But when 
 Balak made a second application, Balaam, after first of 
 all declining it, allowed himself to treat the question as 
 still open, and he consulted God again. And then God 
 answered him again, but answered him according to the 
 desire of his heart, and bade him go. He did go, and 
 God's anger was kindled because he went, and as he went 
 on his journey he saw the angel of the Lord standing in 
 the way, and his sword drawn in his hand. 
 
 - How are we to explain this apparent inconsistency be- 
 tween the Divine command to go and the Divine anger at 
 Balaam's obedience } Surely, by saying that the second 
 answer of God to Balaam's inquiry was a reflection, not of 
 God's will, but of Balaam's secret wish. There is such a 
 thing — let us take note of it — as the creation of a false 
 conscience. We may wish that a particular line of con- 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 73 
 
 duct might be our duty, until we persuade ourselves that 
 it is really' our duty, that it is really what God would 
 have us to do. If instead of acting upon right when we 
 know it to be right, we pray for further knowledge of duty, 
 we may pray ourselves into belief that wrong itself is 
 right. How easily this may be done, how unobserved and 
 secret the process of doing it may be, is only too apparent 
 to any man who keeps his eyes about him in our daily 
 life. Some of the worst things that have been done in 
 human history have been done by persons who have acted 
 on what was at the time to them a sense of duty. But 
 then the sense of duty has been a perverted sense ; and 
 the perversion has not seldom arisen from the secret dis- 
 position to read human and personal wishes into Divine 
 laws and rules. 
 
 When we are once clear about a particular portion of 
 God’s will we ought not to reconsider it unless some en- 
 tirely new facts come to light, which plainly make a real 
 difference in the case before us. In Balaam’s case, the 
 problem of duty was exactly the same on the occasion of 
 the second application that was made to him on the occa- 
 sion of the first. The persons who urged it were more 
 important, the bribe that was offered was higher ; but this 
 did not for a moment affect the hard question of duty. 
 To reopen that question was to play a trick with con- 
 science ; and one such trick deliberately played with con- 
 .science may easily be fatal. Balaam’s sense of duty did 
 not give way all at once. We have seen how once, twice, 
 and again he held out against the inducements and the 
 importunities of Balak, and uttered the unwelcome truth 
 which God put in his mouth. But, for all that, his moral 
 constitution was sapped by a fatal wound ; his notion of 
 duty was clearly not what he could discover to be God’s 
 will, but only what God would not allow him to ignore. 
 It was, as we say, a minimising rule of duty; and, wherever 
 this is the case with a man, a moral catastrophe on a great 
 scale is always possible. Balaam, the author of some of 
 the most lofty and inspiring sayings, of the most majestic 
 prophecies in the Old Testament Scriptures, ended by 
 suggesting that a hideous temptation to iniquity should be 
 placed in the way of the people whose moral superiority 
 he had himself acknowledged ; and he died fighting against 
 
74 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 the cause whose victory he had, at the cost of great per- 
 sonal sacrifice, proclaimed as certain. 
 
 III. There are three considerations which the history 
 suggests. 
 
 The ministry of grace and truth to others may be quite 
 independent of the personal character of the minister. 
 Truth and grace are God’s gifts, not man’s. Man is at 
 best an organ of the Divine utterances, the channel 
 through which the Divine influence flows. God does not 
 put Himself in the hands of His human instruments to 
 such an extent as to make His purpose of mercy or of 
 illumination depend on the personal consistency of His 
 ministers with the commission they bear. The profession 
 of a prophet, or a priest, or a clergyman, is one thing ; his 
 vocation is another. The first is conferred in the Church 
 of Christ by a valid ordination ; it is independent of the 
 character of the recipient. The second is the antecedent 
 and inward work of the Holy Spirit in the recesses of the 
 character, and it alone brings the character into harmony 
 with the work and the powers that fall upon the outward 
 benediction of Christ in His Church. 
 
 Balaam is a very ancient and awful instance of the 
 profession of a prophet wielded by a man who had no 
 true inward vocation to prophecy. And Church history 
 records many an example of men who have taught or 
 worked with conspicuous success, yet have failed in the 
 elements of personal devotion to Him whose livery they 
 wear. As to their future our Lord has in merciful severity 
 warned us : “ Many will say to Me in that day. Lord, 
 Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy 
 name cast out devils, and in Thy name done many won- 
 derful works 1 and then will I say to them, I never knew 
 you.” 
 
 Another consideration is, how possible it is to know a 
 great deal about the truth, to make sacrifices for it, to 
 be kept back from honour out of deference to its high re- 
 quirements, and yet to be at heart disloyal to it. When 
 Balaam returned to Midian, he probably reflected, as men 
 speak, with just pride on the manner in which he had 
 conducted himself. He had been exposed to a sharp 
 trial ; he had stood it well ; he had resisted flattery, 
 bribery, force ; he had been as good as his word ; what 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 75 
 
 had he not resigned at the call of duty ? What had 
 he not achieved for the cause of truth ? And yet below 
 all this there was the question, the fundamental question, 
 as to the rectitude of his secret will. The surface obe- 
 dience might cover, it did cover, an inward rebellion. There 
 are in every generation lives like his. We seem to be 
 gazing on the rosebud, perfect in its form and in its colour, 
 but a worm is eating away the petals, and they will pre- 
 sently wither and fall. 
 
 Lastly, the true safeguard against such a fate as Balaam’s 
 is the love of God. Love is the salt which alone in this 
 poor human nature of ours saves the sense of duty from 
 decomposition. Had Balaam loved God besides knowing 
 Him, he would not have asked for guidance a second 
 time. One intimation of the will of those whom we love 
 is enough, always enough, for a sincere affection. Love 
 rejoices to obey, not because obedience is welcome to self, 
 but because obedience is agreeable to him who is the 
 object we love. Love rejoices in opportunities of resisting 
 self ; for love in its very essence is the renunciation and 
 the gift of self, for the sake of another, to another, whether 
 God or man. 
 
 Let us pray God that this great gift may be poured 
 into our hearts by His Holy Spirit, that loving Him above 
 all things we may obtain His promises, which indeed 
 throw into the shade all earthly objects, which exceed all 
 that we can desire. 
 
 H. P. L. 
 
 X. Joshua. Deut. xxxIv. 9. And Joshua the son of Nun 
 
 was full of the spirit of wisdom ; for Moses had laid his hands 
 upon hhn : and the children of Israel hearke7ied unto him^ and 
 did as the Lord co7nmanded MosesP 
 
 Joshua was selected to finish the work of Moses; and it 
 was of the first importance that the ideas, even in this 
 remote era, of Moses should be continued, and that the 
 whole spirit of his work should be promulgated. We may 
 be sure that part of the endeavour of Moses’ life was to 
 secure this. “Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit 
 of wisdom ; for Moses had laid his hands upon him.” He 
 
76 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 had received instruction from Moses. It was not done in 
 a hurry, but through forty years, and, therefore, it lasted. 
 It will not do to teach a man or nation hurriedly. We 
 are disappointed sometimes because our thoughts, clear to 
 ourselves, are not clear to others, or if our children do not 
 understand the thought we have been giving them. Do 
 not trouble yourselves about that ; go on, if you believe 
 what you are saying, and after forty years you will perhaps 
 make men who will continue your work. They will be 
 worth the making. The excitable ones who rush into 
 excitement about you, will, when the time of difficulties 
 comes, fall away. They are not rooted, and when the sun 
 of opposition shines they wither away. Moses made a 
 firm, fixed man of his follower, because he worked on him 
 for many years. 
 
 Mark, Joshua was not a man like Moses ; on the contrary, 
 Joshua’s nature was one entirely different from his own — 
 a man whose genius was for war and not for law. Look- 
 ing at himself through Joshua he saw his own faults in a 
 different manner. That was wise ; and in truth the one 
 thing Moses cared for was the thought, not the form, the 
 eternal thought which came from God. This course was 
 wise, it was prophetic. The thoughts Moses gave to the 
 people were to be continued under different circumstances. 
 They were to be continued during almost incessant war, 
 and next in the national sentiment ; and he took care 
 they should be cultivated and impelled in the mind of a 
 warrior. 
 
 And the results } Some things are kept like one by 
 their unlikeness to each other ; respect and wonder and 
 loving curiosity kindling respect and wonder and loving 
 curiosity, and thus kindling themselves together. That was 
 the friendship of these two men ; and it was the foundation 
 of Joshua’s education for his work. The sketch I have 
 given you is full of lessons for us, lessons I can only indi- 
 cate. If any one wants, and you have anything to give 
 them, do not neglect them because they are of a different 
 nature to you. Dissimilarity of nature may be the one 
 thing needed in order to carry on your thoughts afterwards 
 in dissimilar circumstances from those which surround you. 
 It pleases a man’s vanity to be reflected by his fellows ; but 
 you will be foolish if you accept it. Your work given back 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 77 
 
 to you by reflection will be spoilt. It would stagnate first 
 and then be utterly spoilt Seek for those to take your 
 thoughts who have life in themselves, who will work their 
 thoughts into yours, and who will give them new clothes in 
 their own minds. For the one thing to be cared for and 
 to secure, in truth, is the idea, and not its clothes. Of 
 course you make the clothing, but the tendency is to dwell 
 too much upon the clothing and to forget the truth itself. 
 Do not be betrayed through vanity or the applause of 
 men into that deadly error. Desire that the thought you 
 possess or the truth you tell has new clothing put upon it 
 through every change of circumstance ; but if you keep old 
 clothes upon it, the thought gets useless because of the 
 clothing, and by-and-by your thought that you prized so 
 is thrown on the dust-heap until some one comes by and 
 finds it, and the old clothing is .stripped off ; and when the 
 old garments, all rotted, are taken off, then the thought is 
 a beautiful thing, and the finder reclothes it again for man- 
 kind. Thus take care, like Moses, that you have some one 
 to give the truth to who will put a different clothing upon 
 it ; like Christ, who gave His ideas to twelve men, all 
 different in mind, so that tiiere might be diversities of 
 opinion, differences of opinion, but the same truth in all. 
 
 So far for the stating of the friendship and the education 
 between Joshua and Moses. How does Joshua first appear 
 before us? As a warrior. He keeps that place till near 
 the end. He stands forth as the very spirit of war from 
 the time when he stands on the mountain side and cries, 
 “There is the noise of war in the camp.“ The very 
 war cry stirred him, and gave birth to that terror-giving 
 shout with which Israel always rushed to battle. He 
 recalls the memory of one of the Greek heroes. We see 
 himi in ambush and then turning like a lion upon the foe to 
 destroy. We see him spear in hand calling upon the sun 
 to stay and upon the moon to hold, while the pursuing 
 host avenged their enemies — a splendid image of wild war, 
 and he is its centre and inspiration. The career of battle, 
 of which this was the last, began almost immediately after 
 the exodus ; more than forty years before this time the 
 battle with Anak took place. Then began Joshua’s training. 
 No one can help seeing that Joshua’s temptation was to 
 feel that it was through his genius Israel won. It was 
 
78 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 not without reason, then, that the story makes Moses take 
 him up the mountain, and while he looked into the dark- 
 ness to leave Joshua on the outskirts. That was enough 
 to take out of the man everything but his own sense of 
 littleness. What overwhelming awe was his, those of us 
 who have been alone upon the mountain or upon the sea 
 when a mighty storm was raging, may conjecture. Then 
 are we impressed with a deep conviction of God’s presence. 
 So also was the lesson of humility learned by Joshua when 
 upon the mountain. It was a lesson for life. No man 
 thereafter could more undividedly carry out the idea that 
 all the success was God’s alone. 
 
 The next step in his training was to learn how to obey, 
 wherefore he became the servant, the daily attendant of 
 Moses. He learnt the duties which should belong to him 
 as a leader, through being the personal assistant of the 
 leader. And we see why. He did this, not because it gave 
 him a name, but because he needed out of his simple heart 
 to express his love for his master in delighted service. 
 That is the very best in the world that can happen to a 
 man who has in after life to rule and manage others, who 
 had such work as Joshua had to do. It teaches him how 
 to rule, the things that must be done if rule is to be suc- 
 cessful. It teaches that the truest service is that done 
 through love, that the ruler’s life must be such as to win 
 love and conquer human affection, and that this is the 
 true power of the governor. It was a lesson easily learned 
 by Joshua. 
 
 It seems that this teaching of him to obey and to be 
 humble went even still further, and that he was taken away 
 from being a war leader. We do not see him mentioned in 
 the succeeding wars ; he stops behind with Moses. This- is 
 curious. It makes us think of the wonderful ways of God 
 for him. He was not only to be a warrior, but was to 
 guide the organization of the new national sentiment ; the 
 founding of a government. He was to stay with Moses 
 and learn how it was to be done, to make friends with the 
 other leaders, with the other advisers of himself afterwards. 
 Therefore he was now to lay aside his special type of work 
 for the time. 
 
 Again, had he alone led the host he might have been 
 jealous of any one afterwards coming near his glory. He 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 79 
 
 was therefore kept in the background for a time. That 
 was an excellent lesson ; he knew the stuff of the men he 
 had to command, and he lost all envy and jealousy of 
 others. He was willing to give others their due, and to 
 consider himself one hero among many. We read in 
 Numbers that he had been jealous with regard to two 
 prophets, and had exhibited the spirit of a martinet. This 
 would have been fatal to his success. As it was, Joshua 
 got rid of all his jealousy and martinet spirit. Not one of 
 the complaints such as we find against Moses seems to have 
 been made against him. 
 
 What a lesson is this not to be exclusive to those 
 objects for which you have not a special genius ; to retire 
 from those things you do, or think you do, so well, in 
 order to learn the other side of things a little ; to balance 
 and steady your powers, and to do that because you have 
 met some one, like Moses, whose qualities you think higher 
 than your own. This will do wonders for your character, 
 will check the evil and balance the good of your character ; 
 enable you to see others do well the very things you think 
 you do well, and help you to see this without jealousy or 
 opposition. It delights you now to find men excelling in 
 your own special business, for you care now not for your 
 own fame in the thing for which you have a genius, but for 
 the beauty of the thing itself. Self has been wrought out of 
 you. “Would to God,'’ you say, “all men were musicians 
 and poets," because it is music and poetry you care for, 
 and not your own reputation. That is a beautiful temper ; 
 it is the highest temper to which an artist can arrive. 
 Though Joshua was removed from generalship for a time, 
 he was learning an invaluable lesson. 
 
 He was sent out with eleven others to survey the land in 
 preparation for invasion. With the sending him into the 
 land was linked his future work as conqueror of the land. 
 Moses changed his name. The new name enshrined his 
 destiny, — a prince, a saviour. It was a kind of baptism of 
 the man. Henceforth he knew what he had to do. It was 
 a wonderful thing to have this new tenant in his heart ; 
 and the change of name was but a faint symbol of the 
 marvellous change within him. Just imagine as he went 
 into Canaan, the intensity of his life. He was to conquer 
 the land for the sake of the people, and the thought must 
 
8o 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 have impressed him and given a new life to every act of 
 his character. And it is delightful to picture to oneself the 
 feelings that must have filled him as he went on day by 
 day with the rest of the spies over the fields and villages 
 and cities of the land he was to win, and where his fathers 
 long ago had lived and suffered and died, and which he 
 was permitted by God to conquer again. 
 
 Full of enthusiasm he came back, one faithful com- 
 panion with him sharing in his excitement and courage. 
 Now what happened? Now at the very height of his 
 eagerness all his dreams, all that he had suffered through 
 these forty days, were suddenly dashed and shattered like 
 a Venetian glass. When the people heard of the report of 
 the spies they were fearful. “ Would God,” said they, 
 “ that we had died in the land of Egypt ! or would God we 
 had died in the wilderness. And wherefore hath the Lord 
 brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our 
 wives and children should be a prey ? Were it not better 
 for us to return into Egypt.” That was Joshua’s first trial, 
 and truly it was sharp enough. Everything he loved and 
 aspired to were shattered to pieces, and in the bitterness 
 of his disappointment he might have been tempted to give 
 way to their outcry, or to be untrue to the great object of 
 his life. How did the man come out of this ? In those 
 times when a man is so tested, we see the real stuff of 
 which he is made. ‘‘And they (Joshua and Caleb) spoke 
 unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying. The 
 land which we passed through to reach it is an exceeding 
 good land. If the Lord delight in us, then He will bring us 
 into this land and give it us ; a land which floweth with 
 milk and honey.” What vigour, what practical faith in 
 God there is in all these words. Now listen to these 
 courageous words : “ Only rebel not ye against the Lord, 
 neither fear ye the people of the land, for they are bread 
 for us ; their defence is departed from them, and the Lord 
 is with us ; fear them not.” But the people stoned them. 
 
 So the dream was shattered. It was a sorry thing for 
 Joshua. He had to put quietly by his splendid anticipa- 
 tions for many years. But he took two things with him — 
 great courage, which we find in his speech, and great faith 
 in God. 
 
 I close with one or two remarks drawn from this. If we 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 8i 
 
 are to do anything in our lives the time comes sooner or 
 later. It came to Joshua, this time, when Moses re-named 
 him and gave him his life work ; it came to David, when 
 he was called to be king over Israel ; and it came to Christ, 
 when he was baptized by John and went into the wilder- 
 ness ; it came to Wordsworth on that dreary morning 
 among the hills which he saw full of God, and when he was 
 filled with thoughts of God ; it comes to all of us the day 
 we feel, This is my work, I will do it, God helping me.” 
 Our name is, as it were, changed ; we are baptized and 
 consecrated by God. Some among you may be at that 
 moment now. Have you, my brother, counted the cost, 
 lest having taken up the work you leave it incomplete. 
 See what lies before you ; search out the land you are 
 going to conquer, going through it step by step, even as 
 Gideon and the other scouts, finding out the difficulties; 
 and may the courage and faith you have be such that you 
 shall see “This is prepared for me,"' for I shall be faithful 
 and accomplish my destiny. 
 
 Some of you may have begun. How have you done it ? 
 Well and bravely, or lazily and fearingly ? Having seen 
 the difficulties, have you said in your heart, “ Would God 
 that I could get back to Egypt.” Take this history as a 
 warning — you will not get back to Egypt. You will 
 wander and die in the wilderness, and as you look back 
 you will know you have been untrue to your inspiration. 
 It may not be so yet, there may be time to save your soul. 
 The call is to-day, when you are baptized into your work, 
 when the dew of its inspiration fills your soul like a 
 summer’s garden in the morning, when you hear its voice 
 to you, “This is the way ; walk ye in it,” or only if you 
 recall enough to gain an impulse to go forward, thinking 
 of how Joshua conquered, and of how Jesus the great 
 Master rose from the dead with you. Have faith in God 
 as your father, and in the courage of Joshua begin again. 
 Be strong and very courageous, and all the powers of evil 
 will fall before the faith and courage which you will receive 
 from God Himself. 
 
 S. B 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 XI. The Captain of the Lord's Host. Josh. v. 
 13 - 15 . A7id it came to pass, whe7i Joshua was by Jericho, that 
 
 he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, thei'e stood a ma7i 
 over against him ivith his sword drawn m his hand : and 
 Joshua went unto hun, and said u7ito him. Art thoti for us, or 
 for our adversaries I And he said, Nay ; but as captain of the 
 host of the Lord a7n I now come. And Joshua fell on his face 
 to the earth, and did worship, and said unto hi77i. What saith 
 7iiy lord unto his se7'vant ? And the captam of the Lord's host 
 said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot ; for the 
 place whereo7i thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so," 
 
 God’s revelations of Himself are always to be shaped by 
 the momentary necessities of the people at the time they 
 are made. They take the form and the pressure of the 
 instant’s need, and vary according to the moment’s wants. 
 And so here the army of Israel was just beginning a hard 
 struggle, under an untried leader, — Moses had been left 
 behind at Pisgah, — and now they had the Jordan behind 
 them, and in front of them the strong, fortified, and seem- 
 ingly impregnable city of Jericho, embosomed in the palm 
 trees there ; and beyond it, the steep passes and the moun- 
 tain land they wanted to win. So the soldiers of this army 
 had no doubt their own cares and anxieties, and their 
 leaders would feel the heavy responsibility of the occasion 
 resting upon them ; and so their commander seems to have 
 gone away by himself, and to have been brooding, as he had 
 been brooding many a time before, how he was to get into 
 that fortified city up there which barred his progress, and 
 was a menace of defeat and overthrow. And lifting up 
 eyes, as a meditative man will do, not expecting anything, 
 having no prevision of a supernatural visitation, and lo,” 
 as our story has it, he was startled by the appearance of 
 an armed man, standing statuesque and picturesque in close 
 proximity. As I have said, he had no notion of a super- 
 natural vision ; mundane affairs were filling his mind, he 
 has no preparation for anything of the sort, but with true 
 soldier-like courage and promptitude, he strides up to him 
 with the quick challenge ; “ Who do you belong to ; are you 
 one of us, or do you belong to them from the city there ? ” 
 And then the hitherto silent lips uttered the answer, I do 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 83 
 
 not belong to you, you belong to me ; as Captain of the host 
 of the Lord am I come up” And then down upon his 
 knees Joshua bends before him and recognises that he him- 
 self is only second in command, and that this is the true 
 Captain and Leader of the people. “What does my Lord 
 say to thy servant ? ” Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, 
 and then listen and I will tell thee how this Jericho shall 
 be taken.” Without wasting your time with talk about this 
 being legend or hallucination, or anything of that sort, and 
 taking the story as we find it, with many large and valuable 
 truths in it, I select one or two thoughts from it, and first 
 of all I want to bring out more distinctly the profound 
 significance of the person and the office of this Captain 
 of the host of the Lord. 
 
 Notice that in this story, for whatsoever reason, there is 
 a strange blending together of the two elements, humanity 
 and divinity, the apparent humanity, — distinct and separate 
 from divinity, — and yet claiming the Divine attribute. The 
 speaker as the Captain of the host of the Lord, does not 
 distinctly say that the host is his, and yet he is the Captain 
 of the host that obeys the injunction of Jehovah himself. 
 And then you find him in the subsequent portion of the 
 narrative, speaking as endowed with the full power of 
 Jehovah, and recognised by the obedience of the Leader 
 of Israel as being thus invested, and his word identified 
 with the word of the Lord, and his commandment' with 
 the commandment of God Himself. And you find still 
 further that in the very page there come these words — 
 “The Captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, Loose 
 thy shoe from off thy foot ; for the place whereon thou 
 standest is holy ground.” 
 
 Holy, because he was there. Another thing. “ Loose 
 thy shoes ” are a quotation. When the angel of the 
 Lord appeared in the burning bush in the wilderness, these 
 were the words that were spoken — “Loose thy shoes from 
 off thy feet.” So far the story carries these points. A 
 singular apparent identification with divinity, and a singu- 
 lar apparent separation from it. But the quotation from 
 the story of the appearance to Moses carries us a step 
 further. We are to recognise in this same human figure, 
 armed and commanding, that figure which appeared to 
 Moses in the flame of fire out of the bush. If you will 
 
84 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 turn to that story, you will find that in it the speaker is 
 called the angel of the Lord, and that this angel of the 
 Lord is spoken of with an elevation of tone, and an unhesi- 
 tating application to him of Divine prerogative and func- 
 tions, which separate him altogether from the hosts of 
 created existences which stand before His throne who 
 ‘‘ maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of 
 fire.” And then that opens out the great wide door as to 
 that old, difficult, and remarkable subject, as to the mean- 
 ing and dignity and personality of the figure that appears 
 glancing all through the Old Testament from Genesis 
 to Malachi, the angel of the Lord. Let us glance at 
 one or two brief quotations. I should ask you, then, to 
 think of this first, the words of the dying patriarch when 
 “he blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers 
 Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all 
 my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me 
 from all evil, bless the lads.” In one benediction and invo- 
 cation “the God which fed me all my life long,” and “the 
 angel which redeemed me from all evil,” are incorporated. 
 Then there is that to which I have already referred, — the 
 appearance in the burning bush to Moses. And then 
 there is another one : “ The angel of the Lord encampeth 
 round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them.” 
 There is a strange blending of the reverence for divinity, 
 and the protection of some mysterious person, — the angel 
 of the Lord. And then hear the commentary which one 
 of the later prophets makes upon this strange story about 
 Jacob wrestling with the man concerning whom he said, 
 “ I have seen God, and my life is preserved.” Hosea said 
 he had power over the angel and prevailed ; he found him 
 in Bethel, “ and there he spoke to us, even the Lord God 
 of hosts.” And then the last of all the prophets of the 
 old covenant, who gathers up into one so many of the 
 threads that run through the whole series, seems to put 
 upon it the top stone when he says, “ Behold, I will send 
 my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me : 
 and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His 
 temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye de- 
 light in,” etc. 
 
 And now put that altogether,— and there is a great deal 
 more than that, — and it seems to me that the answer to the 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 85 
 
 question, Who is this mysterious creature that from the 
 beginning to the end of the earlier revelation, — parted from, 
 and yet united with, the Divine name and nature, — whom 
 the prophet Isaiah calls “ the angel of the face ; that the 
 answer to the question. Who is he ? the answer is that it 
 is T/ie Eter7ial Word that from the beginning was the agent 
 of all Divine revelation, and who from the first manifested 
 the Father's glory. And in these mysterious, evanescent, 
 merely apparent assumptions of the human form and humart 
 speech, was giving, as it were, a kind of preludings, and far- 
 off preparations of that great, full, and perfect revelation 
 of His, when the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst 
 us." And so I think the answer to the question, — who is 
 the Angel of the Covenant ? is, He who in the fulness of 
 time, — made of a woman, made under the law, — came to 
 redeem them that were under the law. 
 
 There is another point before I come to the more practical 
 teaching of this story, and that is, what I call the office 
 and functions of this Captain of the Lord’s host. Whether 
 you accept the idea that this is a Divine personal activity, 
 or whether you believe that it is simply some created 
 person or servant of the uncreated Divine power ; it re- 
 mains the same — the Captain of the hosts of the Lord. 
 And what are these hosts ? That little camp of the 
 Israelites amongst the palm trees there ? Surely not. Is 
 it the other camp which one of the patriarchs saw in his 
 vision ; as the narrative says, in its archaic simplicity, 
 “ The angels of the Lord met him, and he called the 
 place Mahanaim " — that is, “ two camps ; " my little camp 
 down here ? that great one up in the heavens ? There is 
 included these personal existences dimly revealed which 
 seem to gather round about us, but there is gathered in 
 it all the forces of the universe, which is not chaos, — 
 as the old Hebrews had found out long before natural 
 science and philosophy had found it out, — but all obeying 
 the Divine impulse and finger of the will that had created 
 them ; thus, the stars in their courses, the seasons in their 
 succession and order, the stormy winds, the dragons in the 
 great deeps, every creature in the whole universe except 
 those who by rebellious wills have run away from the fair 
 order. These are the hosts, of whom this is the Captain. 
 
 It seems to me, that none else or other than He, of whom 
 
86 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 in later days it was said, ‘‘ All things were made by Him, 
 and without Him was not anything made that was made,” 
 was fit to rule with his Commander’s truncheon the mighty 
 forces and embattled hosts of the universe, viz. Christ as 
 the King, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Lord 
 of nature, the Lord of angels, for they must be included, 
 the Lord and Ruler of all that are, and they serve His 
 purposes as Captain of the Lord’s hosts ! And then if 
 this be anything like the true — howsoever inadequate — 
 interpretation of the words before us I need not more than 
 prompt you of how these thoughts are in immediate antici- 
 pation of great New Testament thoughts ; Christ is the 
 Prince of Peace. Yes, but Christ said, I came not to bring 
 peace upon earth, but a sword ; ” and His peace is first of 
 all righteousness, and not until the righteousness is secured 
 is the peace proclaimed. His name, which is Jesus, is the 
 same as the Captain and Leader in our story, — Joshua who 
 led the people through many a hard fought field to victory ; 
 and the Captain of the New Testament salvation shall lead 
 men through many a struggle and difficulty and wavering 
 hesitation and critical conjuncture, safe over the beleagured 
 cities that stand in opposing strength thickly round our 
 path, right through to the Heavenly Jerusalem beyond. 
 His warfare is the exhibition of His love, His gentleness, 
 His forgiveness, and His healing, in the face of all the powers 
 of evil that set themselves against Him. And so Christ is 
 the warlike Christ, warring a merciful warfare that knows 
 no peace because it is righteousness. And so with this 
 interpretation of the significance of the person and function 
 that is set before us in this vision. 
 
 And now I will try to put as simply as I can one or two 
 broad lessons that come for all time out of this incident. 
 Its significance in that petty incident in the history of the 
 world has long since been exhausted ; and if it were only 
 for the sake of this people this incident happened it would 
 not be worth my while to consider it, but we must disengage 
 these principles from the mere transitory things of which 
 they are the revelation. So notice how this attitude of the 
 mysterious person, of the angel of the Lord, carries with it 
 great and everlasting truths upon which you and I may 
 lean our whole weight. There are two different ways in 
 which I look upon this incident : one of them, the great 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 87 
 
 warfare that is always going on in this world between God 
 and the devil ; and the other, the narrower one, the battle- 
 ground of which is my own heart, and the combatants are 
 Christ and my own worldly lusts. And so with regard 
 to the first thing, that He Himself, Jesus Christ, in no 
 metaphor, in no exaggerated figure, in no mere influence 
 of His patient action ; but by present helpfulness and 
 present work takes part in the perennial fight that is going 
 on in this world between good and evil, and strikes on the 
 side of good. You remember that grand vision with which 
 the gospel stories end, of the Lord lifted up in heaven ; and 
 how one of the evangelists puts it in its most picturesque 
 form when he says, “ He was lifted up and put on the 
 right hand of God.'^ What a strange contrast this ! Is 
 this Captain gone to some safe distance, and watching 
 the fight down in the valley below, while the men are 
 struggling with grim death — Himself with no smell of gun- 
 powder on Him. Is that the kind of leader? God forbid. 
 They went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord work- 
 ing with them and confirming the word with signs following. 
 Them down here. Him up yonder, breathing His influence 
 over the field everywhere. The old legend that many a 
 one has been strengthened with, of the two pale horse- 
 men who had charged at the head of the soldiers on the 
 plain of Marathon, all of these are but adumbrations of the 
 truth that wherever a man for Christ’s sake strikes out 
 against any kind of evil or abomination, he may be sure 
 that he has Christ at his side. And how much soever we 
 may feel that the work is nothing, and that all the talents 
 that guide a wise and benevolent man are counteracted by 
 the tendencies of human nature, do not let us be down- 
 hearted and disappointed ; it is only the false appearance of 
 things. The kingdoms ivill become the kingdoms of our 
 God and His Christ ; and His help is not in vain and it is 
 said truly of this, as is untruly said about another kind of 
 conflict, that this battle, “though baffled oft is ever won.” 
 Christ clashes His sword down into the scale; that out- 
 weighs everything else. And you, weak man or woman, if 
 you stand by yourself and the world against you, if you 
 can say ‘‘Jesus Christ and I,” you and He would be in 
 the majority, and your labour is not in vain in the Lord. 
 So Christian man and woman, and all of you that in any 
 
88 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 way are helping on that great cause, be of good cheer, and 
 do not only look at these high battlements of that Jericho 
 there, but lift up your eyes and behold the Captain of the 
 hosts of the Lord. Take up your weapons and He will 
 bring you victory. And so the same thoughts, with a 
 brief and slight modification, apply to the other department 
 in which that same metaphor is placed. Jesus Christ has 
 fought all that fight that you and I have got to fight. No 
 man can front a temptation which does not appeal to the 
 experience and the memory of Him who began His career 
 by facing the wilderness and the devil, and ended His 
 career on the cross, which was an intense superlative of 
 all temptations. And so when we come into the fight with 
 the cavillings of our own hearts, when we try to get the 
 mastery of our own passions, and to resist the temptations 
 that beset us round about ; and when we begin to discover, 
 after being beaten so often, how little strength we have of 
 ourselves, let us think of Him who served in the ranks before 
 He became commander, and who knows all about the 
 battle, and do not go into the fight at your own charge. 
 Do not fancy that your own firm resolution will enable 
 you to repel temptation ; do not think that your own 
 strength, or motives drawn from your own person, will be 
 ever adequate to make you a conqueror in the fight with 
 lust, and passion, and sense, and self, and earth, and the 
 devil. You have not done it in the past — you will not 
 do it in the future. Jericho will stand untouched as far 
 as you are concerned unless you put yourself into His 
 ranks, the ranks of the Captain of the hosts of the Lord. 
 Be Christ’s soldiers and servants, and do not attempt a 
 campaign in your own strength, or there is nothing before 
 you except shame and defeat; but rather as this Joshua 
 here, “What saith rny Lord unto His servant?” And 
 you will get all the reply you want, and as you want it, 
 and in the shape and at the time you need it, until at last 
 you will be able to say, “ Now. unto Him that has made 
 us more than conquerors, unto Him be praise and honour 
 and glory for ever.” And He will fulfil the promise that 
 He has made to us all, “To him that overcometh will I 
 grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I, the Captain 
 and Leader, overcame, and am set down with My Father 
 in His throne.” Amen. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT, 
 
 89 
 
 XII. Barak’s Faith. Jud. iv. 9. And she said,, I 
 will surely go with thee: not^vithstanding the journey that thou 
 takest shall not be for thine honour ; for the Lord shall sell 
 Sisera mto the hand of a woniani*' 
 
 Barak, to whom these words are spoken, is mentioned by 
 name in the epistle to the Hebrews amongst the heroes of 
 faith. It is not quite easy at first sight to see the reason 
 for this selection. Who and what was Barak, as the Old 
 Testament paints him, that he should have a place given 
 him in the other half of the Bible, that half of the Bible 
 which tells of life and immortality brought to light by the 
 gospel } To answer this question we must look below the 
 surface of the story, and then we shall see that in the 
 personal insignificance of Barak lies the very reason of 
 his everlasting renown. It is very interesting to fasten, 
 in reading the books of the Old Testament, upon those 
 shadows cast before by coming events and future revela- 
 tions, which show the one Hand and the one Mind in the 
 composition of the book. Although revelation is always 
 progressive in its disclosures, and although as the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews says, God spake in old times to the fathers 
 in many parts and portions, rather than in full complete- 
 ness, and although this method was essential to the educa- 
 tion and intention of all God’s dealings, with the race as 
 well as with the man, still it pleased Him to give here and 
 there glimmerings and glimpses from the very beginning 
 of the meridian Gospel-day ; enough, at least, to attest the 
 continuity of the revelation and the divinity of the Re- 
 vealer. Instances of this are very common. We have an 
 example of it in the two chapters before us. And it is the 
 more seasonable, perhaps, to notice it, because infidelity, 
 sometimes clever, but always superficial and ignorant in its 
 treatment of Scripture, has fixed upon the story of Sisera, 
 and notably upon the panegyric of Sisera in the Song of 
 Deborah, as one of the most assailable points in the Bible ; 
 and therefore it is particularly desirable to call attention, 
 as far as it can be done with truth, to beautiful points and 
 traits in the actions and characters here set before us. It 
 ought to be sufficient, so far as the taunt to which I have 
 referred is concerned, to remind ourselves that there is no 
 assertion whatever in the Bible of the inspiration of the 
 
90 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 song of Deborah: ‘‘Blessed above women shall Jael the 
 wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above 
 women.” The chant may have been nothing more than 
 the paean of a patriot over the deed which had set her 
 country free ; it may, for anything told us in the Bible, 
 have been no more prophetic utterance than the counsel 
 of Balak which taught Balaam to cast a snare and deadly 
 seduction before the children of Israel ; for anything con- 
 trary to good morals in that burst of eloquent song, the 
 Bible, and the God of the Bible, is no more responsible 
 than for those terrible lapses of the Royal Psalmist, of 
 which this is the solemn closing estimate, on the part of 
 the Bible and its Author — “ But the thing which David 
 had done displeased the Lord.” 
 
 There is probably a deeper principle of interpretation 
 involved in the question, namely, that in the field of morals 
 itself, the revelation of God and the inspiration of God 
 have not been precipitate, but gradual. 
 
 Two revelations, certainly, avowedly waited for Christ 
 Himself. The one was the revelation of immortality, and 
 the other was the revelation of charity. Of both these, 
 shadows were cast before. Saints walking closely with 
 God had in them the instinct of immortality ; saints walk- 
 ing mostly in God had in them the struggling, flickering 
 light of charity. David could say, “ I will behold Thy 
 face in righteousness, and when I awake up in Thy like- 
 ness I shall be satisfied.” And David could say, in the 
 far-off retrospect of his chequered and past youth, “ Is 
 there not any of the house of Saul, that I may show the 
 kindness of God unto him.?” These were rays and voices 
 from the excellent glory, showing that above and beyond 
 the clouds of human passion and ignorance, there was 
 already and always a bright light in heaven. But these 
 glimpses were by their nature exceptional and intermittent. 
 As a rule, courage was then a higher virtue than patience, 
 devotion than forgiveness, patriotism than charity. Let 
 us, brethren, who have received the Christian revelation 
 concerning these things, look to it that we lose not the 
 stronger and sturdier virtues in the easy flatteries and the 
 plausible compromises of a loose and flexible Christianity. 
 
 The spirit of Deborah, in its very heartiness, may still 
 teach us something — something which shall nerve the arm 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 91 
 
 for what Scripture calls “the resistance unto blood in 
 striving against sin, while it may lend its energy to that 
 most excellent grace, charity, out of which whosoever 
 liveth is dead before his time ; it can never be superfluous 
 to take off the edge of a moral difficulty in the paths of 
 Divine revelation. The parade of such difficulties before 
 minds unused to thoughtful inquiry, k^eps thousands and 
 tens of thousands of our countrymen from the very porch 
 and vestibule of God’s Word. Probably no argument, 
 certainly no reproaches, will avail much for the reinstate- 
 ment in faith and worship of men who have once admitted, 
 willingly or unwillingly, the cruel objection, the more cruel 
 sneer, the most cruel jest of an ingenious and industrious 
 infidelity. These we must, by any or by all means, in 
 duty and in mercy, endeavour to rescue ; and while here 
 and there, by the grace of God, our efforts will be crowned 
 with success, yet that success will rather be in the pro- 
 vidential dealings of the Invisible wfith the lives and hearts 
 of men, which they will then know must bow before a 
 power and a love which cannot always be evaded or trifled 
 with, and which will make them in the end confess in 
 secret in their found-out soul — “Yes, there are mysteries 
 in religion which I cannot fathom, but the mystery of 
 mysteries is my own being. Yes, there are difficulties, 
 moral difficulties, if you will call them so ; contradictions, 
 discrepancies, if you will call them so ; but the difficulty 
 of difficulties is how to be good and how to be happy, and 
 the contradiction of contradictions is the conflict between 
 inclination and duty, between the life which must die and 
 the life which cannot die. And, under the stress of this 
 divided and distracted condition, I must and will put it to 
 the proof, the personal proof. Perhaps there is for me a 
 Father in heaven ; a Father whom to know is to solve a 
 problem ; a Father who will perhaps explain Himself one 
 day, but whom, if He never explains Himself, I shall seek 
 and I shall serve and I shall love still. We come back to 
 the text, and to a few brief lessons for ourselves from the 
 actions of the characters before us. In an age and season 
 of perpetual unrest, how refreshing to our spirits to have 
 before us some example, albeit in the remote past, of a 
 judge who could dwell under the palm tree between 
 Ramah and Bethel, and to whom the children of Israel 
 
92 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 could go up for judgment Were it only a picture in con- 
 trast and contrariety to a possible present, I would not 
 tantalize you by exhibiting it. Who does not yearn and 
 pant for rest — for a pause at least — an interlude of quiet- 
 ness } Who does not complain, whose countenance does 
 not bear the mark either of excitement or else of fatigue } 
 The age in which our lot is cast has determined not to 
 waive its activities ; the man who can crowd the greatest 
 number of engagements into one day is, with us, the dili- 
 gent and industrious man. Every office, every dignity up 
 to the very highest, is measured and judged by the scale 
 of hours given to business, by the multitude and the multi- 
 fariousness of its separate things done. Brethren, it is an 
 unfair and unrighteous judgment. Nothing is easier than 
 to live a life all in sight and all in evidence. The difficult 
 thing is to live any other : to have no solitude and no 
 privacy suits that spiritual indolence, at all events, which 
 is in all of us by nature. If, in addition to incurring no 
 blame, we can often get praise for a life lived all in sight 
 of the sun, this redeems the conscience from its sense of 
 one relation, the highest and holiest of all, being left un- 
 fulfilled and unrealized, adding that pleasantest sensation 
 of all, the being compassioned for neglect of duty, till at 
 last the man loses the very power of repose, of so much as 
 the enjoying a holiday, and the whole being becomes that 
 external, that superficial, thing which has no yesterday and 
 no to-morrow, certainly no remembrance of any Divine 
 Rock from which it was hewn or any Divine source to 
 which it must eventually return. You may say indeed 
 that the life lived under the palm tree between Bethel and 
 Ramah must have been fearfully monotonous, utterly with- 
 out incident, mentally as well as physically stagnant, also 
 that it is idle to draw lessons from a state of things quite 
 impossible now. What would a judge or a bishop be 
 thought of in these days who should try to act on that 
 principle.^ Few men, it may be urged, are capable of pro- 
 fiting by leisure, even if they could find it. The practical 
 life is at all events useful ; it lays the axe at the root of 
 many kinds of sin. Let us admit all this, yet let us 
 bewail for a moment the accompanying ease. If the right 
 kind of men, and but a few of them, could be set free to 
 think, to advise, to originate, to counsel, what a gain would 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 93 
 
 this be to a people laden with care, full of intellectual and 
 spiritual perplexities, and feeling themselves terribly alone 
 in a difficult and embarrassing way! For lack of this 
 many lives go utterly astray and many minds are wrecked 
 on the shoals and sand-banks of doubt. It might be said 
 that the two influences of action and thought are com- 
 monly kept distinct in the present state of things, and 
 those that want counsel have no lack of help from an in- 
 numerable crowd of helpers. Unhappily the thinkers are 
 too much isolated from action, so that they run into vain 
 and profitless speculation, having no help for this life nor 
 hope for that which is to come. The moral of it all is : 
 Busy men, snatch moments of reflection. Even if these are 
 rare moments, if well used, they will fertilize, will tranquil- 
 lize, will consecrate the long hours of toil. When you die 
 your life will not vanish like the lives of those who neither 
 feared God nor regarded man ; they will have left a sweet 
 memory behind them, and they themselves will pass natu- 
 rally into the heavenly rest which remaineth. 
 
 The second thought is the true place and dignity of 
 woman. We see it here in the positive and in the nega- 
 tive. Deborah was a prophetess : God spake to her ; she 
 saw within and beneath the appearance of things. That is 
 a prophet. She did not allow the visible to crush out the 
 invisible. She was not appalled by the nine hundred 
 chariots of iron : she did not feel that King Jabin and his 
 great general were invincible because for twenty years they 
 mightily oppressed the children of Israel. She saw through 
 these, and knew still that there was a God in Israel who 
 rules in the kingdom of man, and who, though He tarries 
 long and sometimes sets up over nations the basest of 
 rulers, can yet be called on by prayer, and in the long run 
 will make it to be well with the righteous. Deborah was a 
 prophetess, and the spirit which I have tried to describe is 
 the spirit of prophecy. Having it, she was, as a matter of 
 course, an influence in her generation. Men who sought 
 her for judgment doubtless went away the better for 
 having seen her. In a great emergency she obtained that 
 influence. She called Barak to her, set him his task, 
 assured him of his commission, and even consented at his 
 request to accompany him on his march. This was heroic, 
 but it was also feminine : Deborah did not assume the 
 
94 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 command of the army ; she was the influence, she was the 
 inspiration, but she left the leadership and the generalship 
 to another. Not for nothing have we the record of another 
 woman on the same page with that of Deborah. We 
 shrink instinctively from the false dealing and the blood- 
 stained hand of Jael ; she has overstepped the line between 
 the feminine and masculine — nay, between the enthusiast 
 and the fanatic. That impassioned cry, “ Blessed above 
 women,'’ has never found an echo, and never could have 
 found an echo, in any evangelical heart ; that cry has given 
 care and pain and trouble to many champions of revela- 
 tion. We cannot receive it as the voice of God's Spirit, 
 except in some modified and softened sense in which it 
 hails, and justly hails, the victory, however soiled and 
 damaged, of the alone moral theistic nation as a victory in 
 the long run, and in a large view, of the cause of progress, 
 the cause of development and therefore, in some sense, the 
 cause of mankind and of the world. But the chapter 
 teaches us that woman is to be content with that honour 
 and dignity which God has made hers. Influence is hers, 
 inspiration may be hers, alike to the sword of Barak and 
 the nail and the hammer of Jael. God rarely puts into 
 one hand both influence and power ; those who grasp at 
 the latter usually lose the former. Influence in one sense 
 indeed, is power, but it means the moral, social, spiritual 
 power only. 
 
 One last thought occurs, and it might seem on first 
 hearing to conflict with the foregoing, but it is not so. 
 Deborah says to Barak, Hath not the Lord God of Israel 
 commanded } " and he replies to her, “ If thou wilt go with 
 me then I will go ; but if thou wilt not go with me, then I 
 will not go.” She rejoins yet again, ‘‘ I will surely go with 
 thee ; notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall 
 not be for thine honour, for the Lord shall sell Sisera into 
 the hand of a woman.” We are not concerned with the 
 last phrase, The Lord shall sell Sisera into the hands of 
 a woman.” The Scripture writers see the hand of God 
 everywhere. They go so far as to say, “ Shall there be 
 evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?” That 
 distinction, important in its place, which we make so com- 
 monly between the ruling and overruling, was merged for 
 Scripture writers in the one thought of the Divine empire 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 95 
 
 and omnipotence. What ! ” they ask, or seem to ask, as 
 a pregnant question, “ Can God do anything certainly, 
 except He do all things really?'’ Thus, if the hostile 
 general bows and falls at the feet of a Jewish assassin, 
 they say, ‘‘ The Lord delivered Sisera ; the Lord sold 
 Sisera into her hand." The overruling is for them an 
 agency. They are not afraid of any cavilling ; for them 
 it is so. 
 
 But the thought before us is differenjt. What v/as the 
 character, the differentia of the faith of Barak, that the 
 epistle to the Hebrews should single him out for mention ? 
 And we find it here in the self-forgetfulness of Barak in 
 doing God’s work. What if one woman set him on it, and 
 another woman is to finish it? What if the journey he 
 took was not to be for his own honour — should that 3top 
 him ? What will the troops say if they see a woman 
 marching by his side ; if they see him consulting her for 
 his tactics ; if they hear him confess that she is his 
 monitress and superior? Shall that not deter? No. It 
 is God’s cause ; God’s honour, not his, is the thing to be 
 aimed at. Here is faith forgetting itself in the cause of 
 God. Brethren, it is a grand heroism ; for lack of it much 
 good work is spoiled, and much more is left undone. It 
 may be a matter of controversy whether a Wilberforce or 
 a Clarkson was earlier in the field against the slave-trade. 
 The workmen of God do not fight about these things. 
 There is a phrase which is often used of God’s agents ; 
 they are called '‘humble instruments.’’ Yet this same 
 modest disclaimer asserts the instrumentality. Propose to 
 omit the name from the subscription list, from the list of 
 patrons, where will the humble instrument be then ? “ The 
 journey which thou takest shall not be for thine honour ; ’’ 
 no, for one woman suggested it, and another woman was 
 to complete it. What then? Faith is willing to have it 
 so, for faith is the sight of the invisible, and rests on an 
 invisible power. He that speaketh of himself seeketh his 
 own glory, but he that seeketh His glory that sent him is 
 true, and no unrighteousness is in him. What shall I more 
 say? The time would fail to tell of the faith of Barak, 
 who took a journey not for his own honour ; who obeyed 
 the call of a woman saying, “ Hath not God commanded ?’’ 
 and left to another woman the last stroke of victory. 
 
96 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES . 
 
 Brethren, let us do the prescribed portion ; small and poor 
 if it be, it is better for the like of us ; let us do the little 
 portion set us of the world-wide and age-long work of 
 God, and then fall asleep in the spirit of one who wrote 
 these last words in his diary the night before he was sud- 
 denly called home to be no more seen : “ There are works 
 which by God’s permission I would do before the night 
 cometh^ but, above all, let me mind my own personal work, 
 keep myself pure and zealous and believing, labour to do 
 God’s will, yet not anxious that it should be done by me 
 rather than by others, if God disapproves of my doing it.” 
 Be this our spirit in life and in death, and toil itself shall 
 be rest ere the long rest comes ! 
 
 C J. V. 
 
 XIII. Ruth and Boaz. Ruth i. 22. And they came to 
 Bethlehe 7 n in the beginning of barley hai vestP 
 
 You will not expect a meagre abbreviation of the beautiful 
 story of Ruth. It seems to me that a preacher who would 
 attempt anything of the kind would act like one who, 
 standing on the outskirts of a forest, and had seen the 
 glory of the wintry sunset gleaming through the branches, 
 should then take a few dry sticks from the trees as a speci- 
 men of the glories he had witnessed. I assume that you 
 know the beautiful story of the Book of Ruth, and I shall 
 only attempt to draw some of the chief moral and spiritual 
 lessons which appear to me to pervade it. 
 
 I. In the first place it seems to me that the Book of 
 Ruth exhibits to us an eternal law of God’s kingdom. I 
 mean that, in the worst and darkest times of the Church, 
 God has had His own people. We are led directly to this 
 law by the objection which has been made to the story of 
 the Book of Ruth, that such sweet and genuine piety is 
 utterly inconceivable in the dark and stormy times of the 
 Judges. But if you bear in mind the truth that the very 
 purpose of the Book of Judges is to trace out the law of 
 retaliation, and to show how national sin is connected with 
 national punishment, you will see why such narratives of 
 exceptional piety like that of Ruth should be excluded. 
 But there is a more satisfactory answer in the fact that ever 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 97 
 
 since God had a Church on earth true spiritual religion has 
 never been utterly extinguished. Faith can always say 
 with the Apostle that there is a remnant according to the 
 election of grace.’' When God’s holy dove is driven from 
 cities and the abodes of men, that bird of sweetest note 
 can be heard singing in remote places, even in dens and 
 in the clefts of the rocks. 
 
 And consider for one moment how this law has been 
 exhibited from time to time in our own Church of England. 
 It seems to me to be a great mistake to suppose that 
 spiritual religion totally disappeared 150 years ago, until 
 it was as if accidentally discovered by some excellent 
 men in the suburbs of London about seventy years since. 
 Just take two instances in the history of the Church of 
 England. Take the reign and court of Charles II. There 
 are many who wdll remember that wonderful picture of 
 the last Sunday in the Church, when the gallery was filled 
 with boys, singing lewd songs, and the king was to be seen 
 playing with a group of dissipated companions. Yet even 
 here the life of Mary Godolphin was hidden with Christ in 
 God. She walked through the fire, and there was not so 
 much as the smell of it upon her raiment. Even here 
 she lived according to rules simple and direct, and which 
 many would find as useful in a London suburb as they 
 were to her. 
 
 Or, again, when we come to the Georgian era, and light 
 upon certain histories written as if in vitriolic acid. No 
 doubt there is enough darkness about them, and we light 
 upon clerical slanders rather than upon the souls of men 
 being cared for, and of dioceses being superintended. Yet 
 even at this darkest period there was one on whose face 
 men saw a glow. Bishop Butler was sent to preside over 
 the see of Durham, while in remote places of England there 
 were men of the stamp of the Wesleys. The soil may be 
 ever so rank, the spiritual atmosphere ever so unwholsome, 
 but still the Apostle’s words remain, “ His seed abideth ” — 
 abideth in him that is in God. Never has the Church been 
 so dead but that the voice may be heard which said of 
 Sardis, ‘'Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have 
 not defiled their garments ; and they shall walk before Me 
 in white : for they are worthy.” 
 
 I\ow of this great law, the survival of holiness, we 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 have a beautiful instance in the Book of Ruth. You 
 will observe that the Bible in this respect differs from all 
 our preconceived notions. History, it is sometimes said, 
 is a pall covering dead men’s bones ; but at least it covers 
 them gracefully. The king shows off gracefully in the 
 hands of some great master of the art, so does the states- 
 man who claims for himself a sort of Divine right of 
 always acting with the majority. As we frame history it 
 is all perfect and sublime. It should be a passing on of 
 saints and martyrs with a cross on their shoulders, and a 
 crown on their brow, to the throne of glory. But as God 
 has framed history, how different it is ! Its every page 
 is stained and blistered — stained with blood and blistered 
 with tears. And of this feature in Old Testament history, 
 the Book of Judges is an example. The Divine narrative 
 closes with a sigh. ‘‘ In those days there was no king in 
 Israel ; every man did that which was right in his own 
 eyes.” 
 
 Now, over against all this stands the Book of Ruth, in 
 which the characters are drawn in simple life. An air of 
 truthfulness and reality pervades the book. In support 
 of this I need only remind you of the beautiful language 
 of Naomi with regard to Ruth herself. I find a German 
 critic saying that “ Ruth is not a marked character.” But 
 is that a real objection } What is the true and high ideal 
 of woman? Is she simply a thing of nerves and bones? 
 Is it for her to wash the wounds of pain, or to minister in 
 old age, and in daily sickness ? We entwine the memory 
 of a woman dear to us with sickness and suffering re- 
 lieved. 
 
 Ruth embraces the true religion with her whole heart. 
 Boaz sees that she has come to put her trust under the 
 wings of the Lord God of Israel, not a young proselyte 
 caught by those who wish to entrap her. She comes with 
 her whole heart, and that heart a broken one. She is the 
 type of the Gentile Church, she is the firstfruits of that great 
 multitude of all nations, and kindreds, and tribes, who 
 have been drawn to the Cross. Then you notice another 
 thing after Naomi has addressed her daughters-in-law ; 
 ‘‘ Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clav^’e unto 
 her.” We all know how much these little gushing tokens 
 of affection mean in sweet-mannered women. Truth, pro- 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 99 
 
 priety, affection, these are the old combined virtues that 
 formed the character of Ruth. 
 
 Then we have Boaz. There have been times when the 
 young have needed encouragement, and it is well to en- 
 courage those even who are growing old. The voice of a 
 philosopher reminds us that the work of the world is done 
 by the young, that the golden decade is between thirty and 
 forty, that men as they grow older become lost to enthu- 
 siasm and to faith. Now the words of Boaz have a Bible 
 tinge, and his memory is haunted by Bible echoes. “ And, 
 behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the 
 reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered him, 
 The Lord bless thee.’' Think of that beautiful service in 
 the harvest field ! It is no exaggeration to say that 
 some one might come into Westminster Abbey, and when 
 the last light of day is stealing in through the clerestory, 
 when the priest says, ** The Lord be with you,” and the 
 choir responds, “And with Thy Spirit,” you may catch 
 the echo of words once spoken during the barley harvest 
 of Bethlehem.” 
 
 II. We may learn a lesson on the law of social life. 
 There is throughout the book a constant reference to the 
 Levitical law. There is the “ goel,” the redeeming kinsman. 
 But I wish you specially to observe the beneficence of the 
 law. I wish that some who speak of the barbarous char- 
 acter of the old law would take their Bibles and read the 
 1 8 th chapter of Leviticus. You will there see that God 
 ordained that a portion should be reserved for the poor and 
 the stranger. The law gave a measure of wealth to the 
 indigent. It solved in this way one of the most terrible 
 problems of our modern society. While it did this there 
 was an ample margin left for the exercise of private charity. 
 The corner of the field was defined to mean a portion that 
 in modern language would have been a poor-rate of four- 
 pence in the pound. It was not a system of outdoor relief, 
 for the Book of Ruth shows us that there was great delicacy 
 to be observed in giving. There is a difference between 
 the alms you fling and the present you give. And thus 
 there is a moral even in children’s presents. But I think it 
 should be observed in favour of the old Levitical law that 
 this England never found out till the reign of Queen Eliza- 
 beth the difference between the pauper and the vagabond. 
 
lOO 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 the difference between misfortune and crime. Depend 
 upon it, as the spirit of the Old Testament works, the bitter 
 taunt will become less and less true that England is a para- 
 dise for the rich and a purgatory for the poor. 
 
 III. There is an Evangelical law connecting this book 
 of the Old Testament with Christ Jesus our Lord. Per- 
 haps, in modern times, we have heard too much of Ruth as 
 an idyll, and too little of it as a sacred book of the inspired 
 canon. We have been called on to see her as she appeared 
 to the poet Keats, too little as she appeared to St. Matthew 
 linked in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. We cannot dis- 
 pense with the genealogies of the New Testament. They 
 do not consist simply of long lists of difficult names, but 
 contain something far beyond. Over and over again, in 
 some layer of the soil, the naturalist finds traces of animals 
 now extinct ; yet give him one vertebra, and he will form 
 the entire structure. So these names, which may at first 
 appear only cold petrifactions, only want an interpreter to 
 start them into a new life. I need not remind you that 
 Bethlehem is connected with history and prophecy again 
 and again. In Psalm xxxii. 6, 7, we seem to hear echoes 
 from the old Church, singing ‘Wenite adoremus.'' Then 
 there is that old strain again in the beginning of the Book 
 of Micah, and you will remember it in connection with 
 the histories of Saul and the death of Rachel. Yes, and in 
 Bethlehem was the birth of Him who made it the most 
 celebrated place of all except Calvary. As we hear of 
 Bethlehem what do we think of? Of the mystery of the 
 Virgin's womb, of that true humanity which was born there 
 like unto us in form and feature, like us in all but sin, and 
 by the mystery of that Holy Incarnation each one may 
 find pardon and peace. 
 
 IV. Lastly, we learn the law which pervades the life of 
 every true believer. The Book of Ruth may be an idyll, 
 but it is an idyll seen in a Divine light. Those two boys 
 that had been taken from the widowed mother early — have 
 we never seen one in middle life like Naomi, with her hair 
 flecked with grey, and who, when she speaks, can but say, 
 “ Call me not Naomi ; call me Mara, for the Almighty hath 
 dealt very bitterly with me ” ? No doubt the history is 
 given us because it is a specimen of the Divine guidance 
 of the believer's life. We may learn that our lives are not 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 loi 
 
 random things, and that there is no such thing as chance 
 about the Christian’s life. This story of Ruth, like every 
 story of the highest sort, would lead us to perfect trust in 
 Him who wants His own dear children to lift up their 
 hands to Him when in darkness. They must wrestle in 
 the darkness before they can face the sunrise. God seems 
 to keep silence when we pray. We ask, and God seems 
 not to give us the things for which we pray. Ah ! but 
 He giv^es us far better. There are some who may pray 
 for their Mahlon and Chilion. They may have asked for 
 the life of their children, and God answered the prayer by 
 giving them a long life — even life for ever and ever. And 
 some Ruth here has prayed for one dearer than life, and he 
 has gone down in youth and beauty, and now the grass 
 waves over him, for God has taken him. And then, as 
 time has gone by, she has found a refuge under the eternal 
 wings, a. home that shall not pass away. Amidst all 
 weariness she can sing, — 
 
 “ Be the day weary or be the day long, 
 
 It ringeth at last to even-song.” 
 
 W. A. 
 
 XIV. David. 2 Sam. xii 7. Thou art the manT 
 
 Each of us has but one life in this world, a life of infinite 
 possibilities, alike for blessedness and for ruin. The stake 
 at issue is so tremendous, that every human life, in its 
 struggle against destiny, has in it the elements of the 
 grandest tragedy. 
 
 “ Lo, ’tis a gala night ! Amidst 
 The lonesome later years, 
 
 An angel throng, bewinged, bedight 
 With robes, and bathed in tears, 
 
 Sit in a theatre to see 
 A play of hopes and fears, 
 
 While the orchestra plays fitfully 
 The music of the spheres.” 
 
 Out of the pages of Scripture, with the exception of two 
 poets, Dante and Shakespeare, it has rarely been given to 
 any mortal man to indicate anything like the elements of 
 awfulness and pathos, of beauty or of deadliness, which 
 
102 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 may He in the story of any man. That story is scarcely 
 ever truly told. There are but two autobiographies in the 
 world — the Confessions of St. Augustine and the Confes- 
 sions of Rousseau — which the world has taken as the 
 genuine efforts of any man to exhibit himself as he really 
 was. Biographies written by others are rarely more than 
 a record of mere external events. It has happened to us, 
 I dare say, sometimes to read the biography of a man 
 whom we knew very well in life, and in doing so we 
 may generally see that the deepest elements of the man’s 
 life, as we knew them, have been untouched. There has 
 been no attempt to explain the outward manifestations ; 
 the keynote of all the discords and all the harmonies has 
 after all been never struck. The fact that in the Scrip- 
 tures, we have the lives of men written truthfully, and in 
 their essence, however briefly, gives to the Bible no little 
 of its strange power. It holds up the mirror to nature, 
 and shows us human souls as they really were, with none 
 of the falsities, none of the suppressions, none of the 
 exaggerated eulogy and the tedious triviality of modern 
 biographies. It goes to the heart of human life. It pro- 
 nounces with sovereign finality the one decision : “ He did 
 that which was good,” or ‘‘ he did that which was evil, in 
 the sight of the Lord.” 
 
 We may mention three men in particular, of whom full 
 and detailed records are given to us. Each of them marked 
 a great epoch : each of them was a representative man : 
 they were Moses, David, and St. Paul. We may be sure 
 that there were deep reasons why these men should have 
 been set apart, to occupy, with their story and with their 
 writings, so large a space in the Holy Book. We will 
 glance at some of the facts in the life of one of them, — 
 David. Perhaps it may throw light on some truths respect- 
 ing sin, and penitence, and pardon. 
 
 We see the son of Jesse, first, a beautiful, innocent, noble 
 boy, with boundless capabilities for a holy and happy life. 
 A thousand such have been born into the world, with 
 bodies of perfect health and symmetry, with minds of quick 
 intelligence, with spirits capable of being attuned to the 
 sweetest melodies of heaven. Thousands of boys have been 
 born into this world, for whom the design of God — until 
 they themselves, aided by the fraud and subtlety of the 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 103 
 
 devil, or man, have fatally marred it — was, that they 
 should grow in wisdom, and stature, and in favour with 
 God and man ; that they should prove a blessing to them- 
 selves, and to the world into which they have been born ; 
 that their path should be as the path of the just, as a 
 shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect 
 day. Moses, the goodly child drawn from the reeds of 
 the river, was such a boy. Joseph, pure in the furnace of 
 trial, was such a boy. Samuel, called in the night-watches, 
 before the light of the Temple had yet gone out, was such 
 a boy. Daniel, simple, temperate, holy, in the midst of a 
 cruel and corrupt court, was such a boy. John the Baptist, 
 the stern, strong prophet of the wilderness, was such a boy. 
 St. Benedict, and St. Francis, and St. Bernard were such 
 boys. And these, and many others, have grown up into 
 brave and godly men, in city or in wilderness, in prison or 
 on the throne ; through evil report or good report, they 
 have held fast, even to the end, the purity and the glory of 
 the human life which God had given them. We ask of 
 one who has shown such early promise, — 
 
 “ And has that early hope been crowned with truth ? 
 
 Has he fulfilled the promise of his youth ? 
 
 And borne untainted, through the world’s wide field, 
 
 Virtue’s white wreath, and Honour’s stainless shield?” 
 
 Yes, sometimes he has. None of these, indeed, — not Moses, 
 or Joseph, or David, or St. Bernard, or St. Benedict, or any 
 one of them, — was perfect : the world has seen but one 
 sinless boy, and one sinless man — the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 And so far is sinlessness from ensuring that earthly pros- 
 perity, of which most men think most of all, and for which 
 they spend their strength, and even sell their souls, in vain, 
 that the one life of perfect holiness which alone the world 
 has seen, ended amid taunts, and gibes, and howls of exe- 
 cration, from priest, and Pharisee, and mob, upon the bitter 
 cross. Men usually fix upon the outer facts of life as 
 being of its essence. Ah ! let us learn the value of this 
 estimate. 
 
 ‘‘Tis not the whole of life to live, 
 
 Nor all of death to die.” 
 
 Every life, the good as well as the bad, has its necessary 
 martyrdom : the only important thing is, how the martyr- 
 
104 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 dom was caused. There are God’s martyrs, content in the 
 very fire, to whom the heavens open amid all their toil and 
 anguish from a sinful and unregenerate world. There are 
 the devil’s martyrs, who, swallowing his gilded bait, are rent 
 by his lacerating hook, and whom he lays contemptuously 
 on the ground to gasp and die. There are those who 
 die by their self-inflicted martyrdoni, the souls who sell 
 themselves, the multitudes who commit moral suicide by 
 the edge or the poison of the passions, which, instead of 
 mastering, they encourage. There are the martyrdoms of 
 healing retribution, those whom God makes sick with 
 smiting, but only that they may repent, and who, even in 
 the drowning waters, seize hold of His saving hand. 
 
 It is to this last class that David belongs. He fell 
 grievously, and he was chastised, because he was a son. 
 He sinned, and he suffered. He was saved, indeed, but it 
 was so as by fire. We see him, first, a happy boy amid his 
 sheep-folds, in the glow of health, the dew on his gracious 
 golden hair, the fresh wind of the wilderness in his ruddy 
 cheek, as he faithfully performs his narrow duties, and, 
 with the dauntlessness of a pure heart, slays the lion and 
 the bear. And as he thus fed his flock like a shepherd, 
 afar from cities, their strife, their squalor, their temptations, 
 desiring nothing but the yellow dates from the palm-tree 
 and the water from the brook, he felt and sang : “ The 
 Lord is my Shepherd ; I shall not want. He maketh me 
 to lie down in green pastures ; He leadeth me beside the 
 still waters. He restoreth my soul ; He leadeth me in the 
 paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.” Happy, 
 perhaps, for David, had he never changed that way of life 
 in those blessed and simple years ! In those days his 
 thoughts were pleasant as roses, and pure as the dew upon 
 their leaves. 
 
 “ Love had he found in huts where poor men lie. 
 
 His daily teachers had been woods and rills. 
 
 The silence that is in the starry sky, 
 
 The sleep that is among the lonely hills.’' 
 
 But man does not choose his own destiny. The small, 
 sweet idyll ended. One day the boy is summoned from 
 his sheep in the wilderness to his father’s house. There 
 he finds that the grey-haired prophet of his race has come 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 105 
 
 to the family sacrifice. All his stalwart brothers pass before 
 the seer, but, bold as they are, and like the children of a 
 king, Samuel, who is no longer to be deceived by tallness 
 of stature, feels that the Lord has not chosen these, and 
 pours the fragrant oil of consecration on the head of the 
 boy who was despised by his brethren. Another day he 
 is summoned to the tent where the mighty Saul is sitting 
 in moody madness, troubled by an evil spirit from the Lord, 
 and nothing but the sweet notes of the boy’s harp can 
 dispel that agonizing gloom. Another day makes him 
 spring into the hero and the darling of his nation. He 
 visits his brethren in the camp ; and, strong in the strength 
 of the Lord, — because his heart is pure alone of the house 
 of Israel, — with no other weapon but his sling and the 
 smooth stones of the brook, he slays the giant champion, 
 and puts to flight the armies of the Philistines. From that 
 day forth, the innocent shepherd-life is over. He is a 
 warrior ; he bears the armour of the king ; he is sent on 
 perilous enterprises ; he sits at the king’s table ; he marries 
 the king’s daughter ; the king’s son loves him as his own 
 soul, with a love passing the love of women ; the maidens 
 of Israel, with timbrels and dances, extol his fame and his 
 prowess, even above that of the warrior Saul. But, while 
 the youths of Israel, doubtless, envied his glory, he found, 
 even thus early, how rare it is in life that there is a line of 
 light in the life of any man, without many a line of dark- 
 ness to intercept and close it in. Saul eyes him with a 
 deep smouldering malice, which bursts every now and then 
 into fits of murderous fury. At last he is forced to flee 
 from this hated and imperilled life. Then he becomes an 
 outlaw, the head of a band of men, who, but for his strong 
 influence, might have been lawless freebooters. He is 
 mixed up of necessity with war and raids and forays. 
 His hand is stained with blood ; but, in spite of all, he still 
 holds fast to the law of his God. He controls his followers ; 
 he restrains his passions ; he bears his trials with heroic 
 cheerfulness ; he works for honourable ends ; he takes no 
 revenge. Loyal to the last, he spares again and again the 
 life of his unrelenting foe. Gallant and chivalrous, in the 
 robber’s den as in the king’s palace, he still does not forget 
 the God of his youth, nor forsake the covenant of his God* 
 And so, at last, he too becomes a king. God says to 
 
io6 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 him : “ Thou shalt be the shepherd of My people Israel.’* 
 From the sheepfold, from following the ewes great with 
 young ones, God took him that he might feed Jacob, His 
 people, and Israel, His inheritance. And here, too, he is 
 not at first found wanting. He shows himself a brave, a 
 faithful, a magnanimous king. He still shows, in his lofty 
 place, the wisdom which adversity had bred. What our 
 Alfred was, as a civilizer and a law-giver, what Edward 
 HI. was, as a statesman and a soldier, what gallant Henry 
 V. was, as a favourite of the people after the glory of 
 Agincourt, that David became to the united tribes of 
 Israel and Judah in the zenith of their glory. Here, then 
 he stood at last on the summit of human wishes. The 
 despised youngest-born of his family, the rude shepherd- 
 boy of Bethlehem, has become a hero, and a hero-king. 
 And the king conquers all his enemies round about, and 
 builds his palace, and brings the Ark to Mount Zion, and 
 raises as his capital the city of Jerusalem, to be famous 
 thenceforth for ever. 
 
 There is no need to dwell on the story of David’s shame- 
 ful fall. You all know it. He was sitting on his palace 
 roof That cool place of retirement had often been 
 hallowed by the melodies of his better thoughts. From 
 thence, as he watched the birds streaming towards the 
 sunset, with their golden feathers and silver wings, he had 
 sung : ‘‘ Oh, that I had the wings of a dove, for then 
 would I flee away, and be at rest ! ” There, as he gazed on 
 the starry midnight, he had broken forth in the immortal 
 Psalm : “ The heavens declare the glory of God, and the 
 firmament showeth His handiwork.” Far different was his 
 mood in this evil hour. He was secure and full-fed ; and 
 his thoughts were base, and sensual, and vile. Doubtless, 
 the prayers which might have saved him had been for- 
 gotten, or but carelessly uttered. Doubtless, his service in 
 the house of God had become but one of dead orthodoxy 
 and self-satisfied form, no better than the hawk’s shriek, or 
 the lake’s murmur in the summer eve. But that was why 
 evil thoughts and impure desires had entered into the 
 temple of his heart. Satan wakes, though man sleeps, and, 
 seizing the opportunity given him by the undefended soul, 
 Satan flung upon it a fiery arrow, which should rankle and 
 agonize until the end. The sin of David ; the root of it in 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 107 
 
 unguarded passions and careless hours ; the awful warning 
 which it involves ; the necessity of the girded loins and the 
 burning lantern ; the illustration of the way in which one 
 sin paves the road for a multitude of other sins which are 
 worse than the first ; the glimpse that it gives us into the 
 bottomless abyss which the sinful soul cleaves before its 
 own wandering feet : all this is full of instruction, but it is 
 not our subject. We have now to glance for a moment 
 rather at the consequences of the sin, at the remorse 
 which followed, at the pardon by which it was at last 
 healed. 
 
 It is, as you know, the awful property of a great sin to 
 open the eyes. The man who has never before suspected 
 the depths of his own vileness^ sees, as under the lurid 
 glare of a lightning flash, what he is, what he has been, 
 how low he has sunk, to what awful, inevitable retribution 
 he has laid himself bare ; but this does not always happen 
 at once. David s eyes were not opened by his guilt and 
 treachery. Rather, they were sealed in penal blindness. 
 He did not feel those stains of infamy which ought to have 
 burned into his conscience like flakes of fire. Conse- 
 quences waited, the punishment was delayed, the doom 
 was pronounced, but the execution was deferred. Bath- 
 sheba was in his house ; Uriah lay dead under the walls 
 of Rabbah, basely deserted, treacherously murdered, by 
 the king for whom his brave sword had been drawn. 
 David, the man whom God had chosen, was a murderer 
 and an adulterer, a vulgar Eastern despot stained with lust 
 and blood ; yet his guilty soul did not awake from this 
 strange, drugged sleep. Everything was going on as be- 
 fore. No lightning flashed, no thunder rolled, no earth- 
 quake rocked the ground at Jerusalem. All men still 
 bowed before the king, and as he stood in the Temple 
 service, among the white-robed Levites, and amid the 
 sounding of the silver trumpets, he did not remember that 
 he had forfeited the clean heart and the free spirit; that he 
 was no longer what he had been ; that he was worthy no 
 longer of standing among God’s chosen ones, and that he, 
 the king of the chosen people, was a vile and guilty man. 
 Not only did awakenment not come to David instantly ; 
 it did not even come gradually. God left him to see if 
 conscience would awaken, and it did not awaken ; and it 
 
io8 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 was only when the king was living on in contented crime, 
 guilty and impenitent, that God sent Nathan to him, to 
 tell him that parable of the ewe lamb. It kindled in 
 David a flash of his old nobleness ; and, when he had in- 
 dignantly condemned, out of his own mouth, his own far 
 more heinous iniquity, then, with a terrible voice of most 
 just judgment, with stern face and pointed finger, the seer 
 broke out with his passionate message : “ Thou art the 
 man ! 
 
 Then, indeed, David saw it all. The scales dropped 
 from his eyes. He saw what he was, and what he had 
 done. God had convicted him. He made no excuses. 
 He stood abashed and confounded before men, before God, 
 before his own conscience, an ashamed, self-condemned, 
 and miserable man. Deep, earnest, sincere, intense, ago- 
 nizing was his repentance. You read the records of it in 
 his seven penitential psalms ; you hear it most of all in 
 the sobbing of the broken heart in the 51st Psalm. And 
 because he repented from his heart, abhorred himself, 
 abhorred his sin, amended his ways, therefore God forgave 
 him. He gave him back the clean heart and the free spirit. 
 He took not wholly His Holy Spirit from him. Yes ; but 
 remark that, at the same time, God taught him, and through 
 him taught us, and taught the world, that remission of 
 sins is no condonation of sin’s earthly consequences. It 
 is against the ordinances of Providence, it is against the 
 interests of men,’' said a well-known statesman, that im- 
 mediate reparation should be possible when long evils have 
 been at work ; and one of the greatest safeguards against 
 misdoing would be removed, if at any moment the con- 
 sequences of misdoing could be repaired.” If David had 
 given occasion to the enemies of God to blaspheme, he has 
 also given occasion to take awful warning, for God did not 
 spare him. It availed him nothing that he was a poet, a 
 warrior, a king of the chosen nation, the builder of Jeru- 
 salem. It availed him nothing that he had been the 
 innocent shepherd-boy, the gallant chief, the national de- 
 liverer ; nothing, that the maidens of Israel had sung his 
 praises, and the priests of Israel chanted his holy songs. 
 God suffered the consequences of his sin to uprush over 
 his head in deluge. The freight of his bark of life, his 
 peace, his fortune, his crown, and his happiness, went by 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 109 
 
 the board with one deadly crash, amidst a chaos of waves 
 and storms. From that day the sword never departed 
 from his house. From that hour dark spirits haunted 
 his pillow, and unclean wings flapped about his roof. His 
 sons, beautiful and bad, had not seen him restrain his pas- 
 sions, and they did not restrain theirs. He had wounded 
 others in their tenderest affections, and he was wounded 
 in his own. He had humiliated a woman, and his own 
 daughter was humiliated. He had taken the wife of 
 another in secret, and /its wives were taken from him 
 openly, and in the sun. As he sinned, in like manner 
 he suffered. There was a frightful likeness between the 
 iniquity and its consequences. He had slain Uriah by 
 treachery, and by treachery his own son was murdered. 
 He had lifted his heel against his friend, and his own friend 
 lifted the heel against him. He had brutally invaded the 
 sanctities of a home, and the sanctities of his own home 
 were brutally laid waste. He was in the power of the 
 rough general who knew his guilty secret Shimei openly 
 cursed him, and flung dust at him. His favourite — his 
 darling Absalom — revolted against him, and drove him 
 away, weeping all day long, up the slopes of Olivet. And 
 from the heart thus sorely wounded, from the affections 
 thus terribly devastated, from the dignity thus vilely 
 trampled into the dust, at last, when the rebel, and the 
 darling of his soul, was slain, in defiance of his orders, in 
 contempt of his agonized entreaties, there was wrung at 
 last from him the exceeding great and bitter cry, as he 
 went up to his chamber over the gate, and wept, and as he 
 went he cried, “ O my son Absalom ! My son, my son 
 Absalom ! would God I had died for thee. O Absalom, 
 my son, my son ! ” 
 
 So did the sun of David’s house set into obscure dark- 
 ness ; and so, while it was yet day, it sank slowly down 
 into seas of blood. Surely his life and fate may teach us 
 at least these, among many lessons : one is, that, though 
 we repent, we must not expect the physical, the natural, 
 the earthly consequences of God’s broken laws to be done 
 away. Even for David it was not so. His sun never 
 shone again. No more peace ; no more victories ; no 
 more glory ; no more maidens’ songs ; no more sweet, 
 peaceful home for him ; “ no poppy, nor mandragora, nor 
 
no 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 all the drowsy syrups of the world/* could bring him back 
 the sweet sleep which he had owned before. Henceforth 
 the poet, the hero, the king, is a broken man. Another of 
 his sons, his much-loved Adonijah, revolts from him ; and 
 then the miserable scene ends in the resignation of his 
 throne, and the chilling of his blood. Old and unregretted, 
 he shivers miserably into his grave, and with scarce so 
 much as the cry, “The king is dead ! ** rises the glad shout 
 for another, “ Long live the king ! ** 
 
 But it is yet a sadder thing to see that neither do the 
 moral, the spiritual consequences of a great sin end with 
 itself. A man may rise after his fall, but he rises as a 
 cripple. Henceforth we read of David scarcely anything 
 but dubious acts. There is the strange treatment of Me- 
 phibosheth, the son of Jonathan, who had loved him with 
 such heroic love. There is the vindictive behest to Solo- 
 mon about his general Joab. There is the shockingly 
 mean command to bring to the grave the hoar hairs of 
 Shimei, whom he so ostentatiously pardoned. There is 
 the horrid story of the sacrifice of seven of Saul’s sons, 
 and among them the youths, over whom Rizpah, the 
 daughter of Aiah, watched, as they lay dead in the dim 
 and lion-haunted ways. One would think it was some 
 mean Arab sheik bequeathing his blood-feuds to an 
 avenger, and not the sweet Psalmist of Israel. Morally, as 
 well as in all other things, David, though repentant, though 
 forgiven, yet shaken and weakened by his fall, became the 
 wreck of his former self. 
 
 Then, lastly, notice the falling of all beauty into dark- 
 ness, and of all glory into dust. Notice that all human 
 beauty, valour, wit, genius, success, glory, are vanity of 
 vanities ; that man is nothing, and that God is all. Great 
 David died as the fool dieth. So died the glorious young 
 Greek Alexander, who conquered the world. So died the 
 wise Henry II., cursing his rebellious sons. So died our 
 gallant Plantagenet, the hero of Cre^y and Poictiers, 
 “ mighty victor, mighty lord.” Low on his funeral couch 
 he lies — no pitying hand, no tear to grace his obsequies. 
 So died the last great conqueror of modern days, Napo- 
 leon, on a petty island, squabbling with a poor English 
 sailor about etiquette and about champagne. Man is as 
 great as he is in God’s sight, and he is no greater. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Have, then, these truths no lessons for us ? If David 
 reaped as he had sown, shall not you reap as you have 
 sown ? Shall not you, young men and young women, reap 
 the whirlwind, if you sow the wind ? Shall you not reap 
 misery, and anguish, and moral deterioration of heart, and 
 deadness of spirit, and sin, springing up as dragons’ teeth 
 in Protean forms of grief and punishment, if you sow to 
 the world and to the flesh ? Yes ; and yet all this, and 
 more than this, you are able to bear if you can feel, as, 
 after all, David did feel, that in the midst of all, and in 
 spite of all, though he walked even on earth amid the 
 purging flames, and felt their scorching agony, he could 
 feel, as we may feel, that, for the sake of David’s Son and 
 David’s Lord, who died for us, he still had the blessedness 
 of him whose iniquity is forgiven, and whose sin is covered ; 
 that through whatever shames, and agonies, and moral 
 failures, God would deliver his soul from hell. His darling 
 from the power of the dog ; and that He who is Life, 
 who rose from the dead, would not leave his soul in hell, 
 neither would He suffer His holy one to see corruption. 
 
 F. W. F. 
 
 XV. The Failure of Elijah’s Faith, i Kings xix. 
 
 13. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said. 
 
 What doest thou here, Elijah ? ” 
 
 It has been more than once observed that some of the 
 men who, as we say, most distinctly leave a mark upon 
 their age are liable to great changes of spirits, alter- 
 nating between buoyant enthusiasm and something like 
 despair. At first sight it seems as if the resources of 
 human nature are after all very limited : that which is 
 expended in one quarter must be withdrawn from another. 
 The waves which raise their crests so proudly above the 
 accustomed level of the ocean imply, as we know, each one 
 of them, a corresponding interval of depression. As the 
 Psalmist says in his bold hyperbole, “as high as the 
 heavens, and down to the valleys beneath,” of the rude 
 experience of his countrymen in the Phcenician waters, so 
 it is often with the life of men, and especially of public 
 men. The great effort which rivets the attention, which 
 perhaps gives an impression of extraordinary strength or 
 
II2 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 capacity, is often dearly purchased by succeeding hours of 
 depression and weakness. 
 
 Something of this kind was the case with the late Bishop 
 Wilberforce. The buoyant spirits, the generous enthusiasm, 
 which made him what he was in the pulpit, in the senate, 
 at the public meeting, was dearly paid for by periods of 
 great despondency, when all things seemed dark, when 
 nothing seemed possible, when he was perhaps less equal 
 to the demands of duty than very inferior men. 
 
 I. From this characteristic of enthusiastic natures the 
 mighty prophet who is before us was not by any means 
 exempt. 
 
 So great was Elijah’s power both over men and over 
 nature that in after ages his countrymen came to regard 
 him as an altogether preterhuman personage, whose con- 
 duct was not a precedent for, or a sample of, that of ordinary 
 men. In later times this idea of Elijah was enhanced by 
 Malachi’s prophecy about his expected coming before “ the 
 great and terrible day of the Lord.” 
 
 So that when John the Baptist appeared it was a com- 
 mon opinion in Palestine that “ this was Elias which was 
 for to come.” When, then, St. James quotes Elijah as an 
 example of the efficacy of prayer, he prefaces his argument 
 by what might seem to us before consideration a very ob- 
 vious and trite remark, but a remark which was by no 
 means unheeded by St. James’s first readers. He says 
 that ‘‘ Elias was a man of like passions as we are ; ” Elijah, 
 he means, had his share of impulse and of weakness ; and 
 therefore the power of his prayers is an encouragement for 
 others than himself. 
 
 Now, that Elijah was what St. James thus said of him, 
 is plain. At Carmel he was at the height of his moral 
 ascendency, of his supernatural force. True, since his first 
 message from God to Ahab he had been a fugitive, he had 
 been fed by the ravens in the torrent brook of the Cherith ; 
 he had been dependent on the charity of the devout 
 widow in the heathen town of Zarephath. But no 
 sooner does he return to the soil of Israel than he asserts 
 his astonishing power over all who come in contact with 
 him ; for he, too, in his measure, had a share in that pro- 
 mise to the King Messiah, “ Be Thou Ruler in the midst, 
 even among thine enemies.” Obadiah, Ahab’s trusted min- 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 113 
 
 ister, falls awe-struck before him ; Ahab himself, who has 
 spared no pains to compass his death, acts as a man might 
 act under a resistless spell, and submissively, though with 
 evident reluctance, carries out his orders ; at his bidding the 
 eight hundred and fifty prophets of the newly imported 
 nature-worship of the Phoenicians are marshalled upon 
 Carmel, and he confronts them in his solitary weakness, 
 in his solitary strength. 
 
 And then follows the appeal to the people to choose 
 between Baal and the one true God, the challenge to the 
 prophets of Baal, their long but fruitless pleadings pro- 
 longed from the early morning till the evening sacrifice 
 that Baal would somehow own their offering, — pleadings 
 accompanied by frantic self-mutilation, and redoubled as 
 they listen to the prophet’s terrible irony ; and then, after 
 their final failure, Elijah’s measured preparations in accord- 
 ance v/ith the forgotten principles of the ancient ritual, his 
 solemn invocation of the God of Israel, the fire from 
 heaven, the adoring confession of the awe-struck people, 
 “ The Lord He is the God, the Lord He is the God,” and 
 the terrible extermination of the idolators. 
 
 Taken altogether, there is no other scene like it in the 
 Bible. Elijah on Carmel represents a man’s moral ascen- 
 dency over his brother man in the name and for the glory 
 of a religious truth carried to its very highest point of 
 effective power. 
 
 And now the scene has changed. Elijah is not on 
 Carmel, but on Horeb. The idolatrous priesthood was 
 indeed exterminated ; but Jezebel remained. She had her 
 projects and her means of vengeance, and the prophet 
 who had triumphed when confronted by the king, by the 
 court, by the people, by the whole hierarchy of the false 
 religion, must escape if he would save his life from the 
 implacable fanaticism of the queen. He first fled to Beer- 
 sheba, far away to the south, beyond the frontiers of Israel, 
 a town indeed of Judah, but on the very confines of the 
 wilderness beyond. 
 
 He left the boy who waited on him, in the town, veiling 
 as we all of us do, his moments of extreme depression even 
 from those who knew him best, and then he wandered out 
 despairingly into the desert, and prayed that he might die. 
 
 And here he was braced for his journey by food which 
 
 T 
 
EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 114 
 
 was brought him by no human hands — a type, as it was 
 always thought by the Christian Church of the early ages, 
 of that strengthening and refreshing of the soul by the body 
 and blood of Christ which enables the Christian pilgrim to 
 cross life’s long desert on his way to his true home. 
 
 Still in deep depression, after a journey of forty days, 
 Elijah reached the sacred mountain, the scene, the very 
 scene, of the great rev^elation to Moses. Its hallowed 
 associations, its dreary and awful solitudes, were in keep- 
 ing with the prophet’s thoughts. 
 
 He entered into a cave, a grotto which was associated, it 
 is likely, by the local tradition with the name and with the 
 work of Moses ; and he gave himself up to the thoughts 
 which crowded so darkly on his mind. Why had he suc- 
 ceeded so well only that success should issue, as it seemed, 
 after all in failure ? Why had such strength as had been 
 vouchsafed him been followed by such weakness } Was 
 not everything forfeited for which he had struggled t Was 
 not his ministry closing in discomfiture and in shame, 
 while the insolent and idolatrous queen and her weak and 
 wicked husband were completing the ruin of the religion 
 of Israel } What was the use of attempting anything 
 further ? All was really lost ; and those who, like himself, 
 had given their all to the losing cause, had only to bury 
 what might remain of life in sadness and obscurity. These, 
 or such as these, were his thoughts, when solemnly, and 
 once and again, the searching question came to him, 
 “ What doest thou here, Elijah ? ” 
 
 II. Observe here how God discovers himself to Elijah. 
 
 The Word of the Lord came to him, and He said unto 
 him. What doest thou here, Elijah ? ” The Word of the 
 Lord that Word which was lodged in Elijah, that Word of 
 which he was the instrument, the organ, and which he had 
 proclaimed so vividly, so terribly to others, now turned its 
 voice, I had almost dared to say its eye, in upon himself. 
 This Word or message which the prophet bears is, we thus 
 see, not his servant, but his master. It is not a work of his 
 own mind which he may control, or manipulate, or silence 
 at pleasure. It is a truth which, if it be in him, is yet 
 utterly independent of him, and to which he himself owes 
 an obedience no less than does the very humblest of his 
 hearers. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 115 
 
 The prophet of old, the minister of Jesus Christ at the 
 present day, is always the servant of the truth which he 
 proclaims ; and he carries it for his own “ reproof, correc- 
 tion, instruction in righteousness,’' no less than for that of 
 his people. To the question, “What doest thou here?” 
 Elijah could not but reply. It was — so it seemed to the 
 prophet — it was for his zeal for the cause of God ; it was 
 his tragic despair, it was his isolation, it was his sense, his 
 crushing sense, of impotence and of failure which had 
 brought him thus to Horeb. “ I have been very jealous,” 
 he said, “for the Lord God of Hosts; for the children of 
 Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down Thine 
 altars, and slain Thy prophets with the sword ; and I, 
 even I only, am left ; and they seek my life, to take it 
 away.” And this answer is neither accepted nor rejected. 
 It is passed by most significantly without a word of re- 
 proval or of rebuke. 
 
 If the prophet would know more about God, about him- 
 self, he must come forth from the cave, he must stand face 
 to face on the mountain side with the Infinite. And then, 
 as centuries before, on this very spot with Moses, the 
 Lord passed by.” 
 
 The Author of nature, who is also the Lord of con- 
 science, often speaks to conscience through the changing 
 aspects of nature ; and thus nature is a book written in 
 characters which those who live in communion with God 
 know how to read. For them the wind, the earthquake, 
 the lightning, are not merely physical phenomena, forces 
 or effects of which they can or cannot, as the case may be, 
 furnish themselves with an adequate scientific account, 
 they are outward signs of invisible realities that belong to 
 the human and to the moral world. 
 
 Nature is a robe of beauty, distinct, indeed, from the 
 Creator Himself, since it is the work of His hands, but 
 luminous with the revelations of His mind and of His will. 
 What was “ the great and strong wind that rent the moun- 
 tains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord ” but 
 a natural figure of the tempestuous impulse which had 
 carried the prophet onward ever since he left in his early 
 youth his native hills of Gilead ? What was the earth- 
 quake with its deep warning mutlerings, with its violent 
 shocks of upheaval and of ruin crashing through the wild 
 
Ii6 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 valleys around him, but an image of convulsions of which 
 Elijah's own soul, and many another soul around, had been 
 the scene ? What was the lightning playing incessantly 
 around the prophet on the mountain side but a reflection 
 of the heaven-sent burning zeal which had been from the 
 first the spirit of his work and of his life ? 
 
 And yet as the wind, and the earthquake, and the fire 
 succeeded each other, the prophet felt that they no longer 
 meant for him what they would have meant as he stood of 
 old on Carmel. They were signs of states of mind which 
 once seemed instinct with the life of God, but which now, 
 for the first time, he knew to be without it. ‘‘The Lord 
 was not in the wind." Strong religious impulse may be 
 more than half physical, a matter of temperament, a 
 matter of constitution. Earthly passions in some natures 
 may take this precise form ; the language, the intended, 
 the professed objec|s may be of heaven, the spirit of earth. 
 Even though mountains of opposition are rent by it, even 
 though rocks of prejudice are broken in pieces by it, and 
 changes brought about which fill the thoughts of men, and 
 which live in the pages of history, yet it may be that the 
 agency which effects all this is in itself destitute of any- 
 thing that is properly Divine, that “ the Lord is not in the 
 wind." 
 
 “ And the Lord was not in the earthquake." Spasmodic 
 terror may be only terror ; the thought, or sight, or imme- 
 diate apprehension of death may convulse, does convulse to. 
 its very depths the human soul. But mere mental agitation 
 may be only desperate. “ The fear of the Lord," as dis- 
 tinct from the fear of anything else, “is the beginning of 
 wisdom." Whether the Lord is or is not in these great 
 earthquakes of the soul depends, generally speaking, upon 
 the soul's previous relations with Him. 
 
 “And the Lord was not in the fire." He had been in 
 the burning bush ; He was, in after ages, in the fiery tongues 
 at Pentecost. He was not in the fire which played around 
 Elijah on Horeb. Religious passion carried to the highest 
 point of enthusiasm is a great agency in human life ; but 
 religious passion may easily be too inconsiderate, too 
 truculent, too entirely wanting in tenderness and in charity 
 to be in any sense Divire. Christendom has been the 
 scene of the most Divine enthusiasm of which the soul of 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 117 
 
 man has ever had experience in the whole course of its 
 history. But Christendom has also been ablaze again and 
 again with fires ; and those fires are not extinct in our own 
 day and country of which it may certainly be said that the 
 Lord is not in them. 
 
 “And after the fire, a still small voice.*' In physical 
 impulse, in convulsive terror, in the white heat of emotion, 
 dealing with sacred things, we may seek for God in vain. 
 But when conscience speaks clearly we may be sure of His 
 presence. Conscience is His inward messenger, and in its 
 quiet whisper we listen to an echo from the Infinite and 
 the Unseen. We may, alas ! play tricks with it ; we may 
 drug it, we may corrupt it in many ways, we may eventu- 
 ally silence it. But if we will let it alone, if we will 
 reverence it, if we will listen to it, it places us surely in the 
 presence of God. 
 
 “After the fire, a still small voice.” Conscience then 
 repeated the question, “ What doest thou here, Elijah ? ” 
 and the question implied beyond all doubt that Elijah had 
 better have been elsewhere, and that the state of mind 
 which had brought him to Horeb was not altogether right 
 or healthy, Elijah was still in deep gloom ; he had yielded 
 to it, and now he heard within him the voice of reproach : 
 “ What doest thou here, Elijah ? ” 
 
 HI. Now let us observe the character of Elijah's de- 
 spondency. Its motive beyond all question was unselfish 
 and noble. It is true that he does complain, “ They seek 
 my life, to take it away” ; but he is here only thinking of 
 himself as the representative of a great cause, and he is not 
 speaking in his private or personal capacity. As a man he 
 would, if it might be, gladly die : “ Now, O Lord, take away 
 my life ; for I am not better than my fathers.” So he had 
 prayed in the wilderness of Beersheba. But as a prophet 
 he desired to live — to live for the sake of the truth which he 
 had at heart. He felt that the sword which would strike him 
 was really aimed at that which for the moment he repre- 
 sented. The forsaken covenants, the ruined altars, the 
 slaughtered prophets — these filled his mind and heart ; 
 these explained why it was that he was so far from the 
 frontiers of Israel, and a fugitive in the mountain sanctuary 
 of Horeb. 
 
 Such a despondency as this is surely a much better 
 
ii8 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 thing than a jaunty light-heartedness, which is at the 
 bottom based on a selfish indifference to all the greatest 
 and most precious things in human life. It augurs ill for 
 a State when its citizens are satisfied with their individual 
 prosperity, and have no eye or care for the public weal. 
 It augurs ill for a Church when its members talk of a 
 personal religion, as if there was no thought, no care, no 
 prayer, due to the great society of Christians united to our 
 Lord and Saviour — to what St. Paul calls “the body of 
 Christ" 
 
 Prophecy has a stern word for those who are “not 
 grieved at the afflictions of Jacob"; and history condemns 
 unsparingly the royal sybarite who calculated that the 
 world would last his time, and who then added, “ After 
 me, the deluge." The motive of Elijah’s despondency was 
 noble ; but, in itself, his despondency was wrong. He 
 might have remembered that what passes for the moment 
 on earth is no measure of what is determined in heaven ; 
 he might have reflected that, while duties are ours, events 
 are in the hands of God ; he might have associated himself 
 with those lines, already ancient, of David, written, as we 
 now know with little less than certainty, when the first 
 mutterings of Absalom’s rebellion were being heard, and 
 when the faint-hearted men around him counselled flight 
 from his difficulties : “ In the Lord put I my trust : how 
 say ye, then, to my soul, that she should flee as a bird unto 
 the hill ? For, lo, the ungodly bend their bow, and make 
 ready arrows within the quiver, that they may privily shoot 
 at him who is true of heart ; for the foundations will be 
 cast down, and what hath the righteous done } The Lord 
 is in His holy temple, the Lord’s seat is in heaven." Had 
 this been in Elijah’s mind he would still have been some- 
 where near Jezreel. As it was, he had failed for the 
 moment, great prophet as he was, to set God’s will so 
 clearly before him as to keep close to the work that was 
 given him to do. For the moment, even Elijah had done 
 what we all are tempted from time to time to do. He had 
 set aside the claim of duty in favour — mark this well — in 
 favour of the indulgence of sentiment. And because this 
 sentiment was strictly religious sentiment, gathering round 
 a great and an ancient sanctuary, he had disguised from 
 himself that he had erred and strayed so far from the ways 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 119 
 
 of God ; and therefore when the question flashed upon his 
 conscience it was like the lightning on the path of some 
 benighted wanderer among the precipices, “ What doest 
 thou here, Elijah ? 
 
 “What doest thou here?’* Elijah, we have seen, had 
 his own account to give of his being where he was. But 
 behind his excuses, as they died away into space, behind 
 them was the voice of duty. “And the Lord said unto 
 him. Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus : 
 and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be king over 
 Syria: and Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to 
 be king over Israel : and Elisha the son of Shaphat of 
 Abel-meholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy 
 room.” 
 
 IV. Now these directions, whispered by “ the still small 
 voice” to the conscience of Elijah, involved two principles. 
 First, Elijah was not to dwell on the abstract aspects of 
 evil ; he was to address himself to the practical duties that 
 lay around his path. Evil in its vast, massive accumula- 
 tions, evil in its widespread, its ancient empire, evil in the 
 strong and subtle ascendency which from time to time it 
 acquires among men, is indeed beyond us. We, in our 
 separate weakness, cannot banish it from the world. We 
 lose precious time if we try to weigh and to measure it. Our 
 first wisdom is to pray to be delivered from it. There it is, 
 a fact, a vast and terrible fact, permitted for reasons which 
 we guess at rather than decipher. 
 
 If the children of Israel had broken the covenant, if they 
 had destroyed the altars, if they had slain the Lord’s pro- 
 phets with the sword, this was indeed a passed fact, a 
 permitted fact, and so far it was beyond the control of 
 Elijah. We only weaken ourselves by dwelling upon mis- 
 chiefs which we cannot hope to remedy. We have only a 
 certain amount of thought, of feeling, of resolve, each one 
 of us, to dispose of. And when this has been expended 
 unavailingly on the abstract, on the untangible, it is ex- 
 pended ; it is no longer ours, and we cannot employ it 
 when and where we need it close at home. 
 
 And, secondly, Elijah was to begin his work with in- 
 dividuals ; he was to deal with men one by one. “ Anoint 
 Hazael, the heathen monarch, who, yet heathen though he 
 be, has a place in the Divine government of the world. 
 
120 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 That duty lies furthest on the frontier of thy work. Anoint 
 Jehu the son of Nimshi; he will execute the impending 
 judgments on the apostate king of Israel. That piece of 
 work lies closer to thy appointed sphere of labour. Above 
 all provide for the continuance of thy ministry when thou 
 shalt have gone hence. Make Elisha the son of Shaphat 
 prophet in thy room. That shall be thy first stern, thy 
 most sacred and imperative, duty.’' 
 
 One of the familiar fallacies of an age like ours is the 
 notion that men can really be improved in the deepest 
 sense of the word if they are dealt with in masses. General 
 legislation, the vague influence of the press, or of oratory, 
 social movements which deal with men in the block, which 
 ignore the care and the needs of the separate soul ; these 
 are common enough. And this fallacy is the result partly 
 of the characteristic opportunities of the modern world, 
 partly of the inertness which shrinks from the hard and 
 humble work of dealing with single characters. These 
 general measures have, no doubt, their value, sometimes 
 their very great value, as supplementary influences ; but 
 they are almost worthless when they are regarded as sub- 
 stitutes for that careful indispensable labour with single 
 souls which alone secures real changes in hearts and 
 characters. 
 
 A proclamation in general terms would have had little 
 effect upon Israel. The anointing of Jehu, the appoint- 
 ment of Elisha, were, as we know, to be pregnant with 
 consequences. 
 
 What doest thou here } ” To every human being in 
 his most serious moments this question must be suggested : 
 Why am I where I am, doing what I do, thinking what I 
 think, saying what I say ? What is the motive which 
 shapes, which guides my life, making me do this rather 
 than that, making me take this turn in life rather than the 
 other ; choosing these friends, throwing myself into these 
 interests, into these trains of thought, into those associa- 
 tions, into those enterprises ? ” Something, perhaps much, 
 may be determined by antecedent circumstances ; that is 
 to say, by the hand of God acting through accomplished 
 events, and so far suspending or limiting personal liberty. 
 
 But beyond this there is a margin in which we all are 
 free. Even those who cannot in the least degree control 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 I2I 
 
 their personal movements, since they are, for whatever 
 reason, dependent upon others, can entirely determine 
 where they will be, what they will be doing in the sphere 
 of thought and of purpose. We are all of us masters, if 
 we will, of that inner world which each man carries about 
 within him ; and that world has its Carmel as well as its 
 Horeb no less than the outer world around us. And the 
 serious question for every man is whether, so far as he can 
 judge, he is, according to his measure of strength and 
 opportunity, endeavouring to do that portion of the will of 
 God to which the circumstances which surround him, to 
 which the powers and opportunities which have been given 
 him, clearly point as meant for him and for no other man 
 to do. What it is exactly that engages each one of us 
 matters little, comparatively little, if the motive to be 
 doing God's will is actively recognised. 
 
 It may be the most important duties in Church or State ; 
 it may be the daily toil of the shopboy or the domestic 
 servant, all is equally ennobled if the great motive be 
 there ; all is equally degraded if the great motive be 
 absent. ‘‘ What would you do," a very good man was once 
 asked who was playing draughts with his little son, ‘‘if 
 you knew that you would die in five minutes } " “ I 
 
 should finish this game of draughts," was the reply. Work 
 and recreation are equally legitimate if each is treated as 
 part of the will of God, if throughout life the awful signifi- 
 cance of life as the great gift for which we must surely 
 account to our Maker, which has been purchased back 
 from ruin by the Incarnation and the death of our Divine 
 Redeemer, be steadily kept in view. There may be very 
 good reasons for spending portions of it on Horeb as 
 well as upon Carmel. But the essential point is that we 
 should be where we are, that we should be doing what we 
 do, because, so far as we know. He who has given us the 
 gift of life wills this, wills nothing else respecting us. 
 
 H. P. L. 
 
 XVI. Elijah's Flight, i Kings xix. 
 
 This event in the life of Elijah is one that took place a 
 great while ago; and the circumstances in which it hap- 
 pened may seem very unlike our own ; and Elijah himself. 
 
122 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 to whom it happened, was so different from ourselves, and 
 so far above us that, all things considered, little instruction 
 may be expected to be derivable from this or any other 
 part of his history. The only feeling he is fitted to excite 
 may seem to be wonder. When we come upon him in the 
 pages of the Bible it is like coming upon a skeleton of 
 superhuman size, or upon a gigantic suit of armour — we 
 can only express astonishment at the greatness and the 
 strength of men of former times. Well, if this were the 
 only feeling which this history raised, it might not be amiss 
 to entertain it for a time in our minds. The feeling of 
 wonder at the greatness of others is a very wholesome 
 feeling, and is closely connected with another, equally 
 salutary, — the feeling of sadness at our own littleness. Yet 
 the greatness of this prophet need not be any obstacle in 
 the way of our deriving benefit from his history. * Rather, 
 it should be helpful to us. For, just as if we were examin- 
 ing the joints and mechanisms and the adaptations of the 
 human body, the body of a giant would present them to us 
 in their fullest and most visible form, so in a very great 
 mind we shall be able to see most clearly the movements 
 of mind, its strength and joy, as well as its weakness and 
 despondency. 
 
 The only part of the prophet’s history which can be 
 touched upon is his flight to Sinai, and only a few of 
 the more obvious points in that which have a practical 
 bearing. 
 
 I. We may notice the circumstances of the time in which 
 Elijah was placed. These circumstances were full of in- 
 terest. So far as things then could resemble things now, 
 the state of parties at that time was not unlike the state 
 of parties at present. There had always been in Israel an 
 idolatrous, disbelieving party. The history throughout its 
 whole length shows a polluted stream of idolatrous 
 worship running side by side with the true worship of 
 Jehovah; and sometimes this idolatrous current became 
 so broad that it gave its own colour to the whole stream 
 of the people’s religious life. They were idolaters in Ur 
 of the Chaldees — “Your fathers dwelt on the other side of 
 the flood in old times, even Terah, the father of Abra- 
 ham : and they served other gods.” 
 
 They were idolaters in Egypt. In the wilderness their 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT, 
 
 123 
 
 idolatry broke out when ‘‘ they joined themselves unto 
 Baal-Peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead.” They were 
 idolaters in Canaan. Even David’s wife, the daughter of 
 Saul, possessed idols, with one of which she deceived the 
 hired assassins of her father, and saved her husband’s life. 
 The idolatrous elements were numerous, and pervaded 
 every class in the nation, and only awaited some hand 
 skilful and strong enough to combine them, in order to 
 acquire the command of the people’s thoughts, and assume 
 the place of the established faith. This was found in 
 Jezebel, daughter of the king of Sidon, and her feeble 
 ^husband Ahab. The latter appears to have been not so 
 much vicious as weak — one who, like a spoilt child when 
 refused his wishes, fell sick and would not eat. And thus 
 he fell completely under the guidance of his unscrupulous 
 wife. At her instigation he introduced the worship of 
 Baal — “ He reared up an altar for Baal in the house of 
 Baal which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made 
 a grove ; and Ahab did more to provoke Jehovah the God 
 of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were 
 before him.” He made Baal-worship a State religion. But 
 he went further. He was not satisfied with toleration for 
 himself, he sought to suppress all other worship. He issued 
 orders for the murder of Jehovah’s prophets, and the throw- 
 ing down of His altars. And with a fatal fickleness and 
 subserviency, the people gave in to the despotic will of 
 the effeminate tyrant. Elijah pleaded this condition of 
 things before the Lord in the wilderness — ‘‘ The children 
 of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, and thrown down 
 Thine altars, and slain Thy prophets ; and I only am left, 
 and they seek my life.” The country was passing through 
 a religious crisis, and there could be seen that sifting of 
 men which goes on at such a time. 
 
 There were, as on all such occasions, three parties — the 
 true worshippers of Jehovah, the strict idolaters, and the 
 middlemen, who were neither. These last were, no doubt, 
 the most numerous. Perhaps the body of the people be- 
 longed to this class — men, as Elijah described. them, who 
 halted or limped between two opinions ; men not firm on 
 their legs, but limping, being neither worshippers of J ehovah, 
 nor good idolaters. Some belonged to this class because 
 they thought it safest to side with the majority. Some 
 
124 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 because they could not go all the way with the extreme 
 Jehovah-party ; yet they resented the king s high-handed 
 proceeding, thinking it a dangerous infringement of liberty. 
 Some because the problem presented to them was too 
 difficult for their solution, and they were unable to decide, 
 being drawn sometimes to one side and sometimes to 
 another. 
 
 And some belonged to this great middle party on prin- 
 ciple, because it was a middle party. They disliked 
 extremes. In every matter there was a great deal not 
 essential, and men ruined their own cause by their offensive 
 stickling for this. The worship of Jehovah was no doubt 
 essentially the true religion, and its supporters might be 
 excellent men ; but they were certainly narrow. If they 
 insisted less on names, and forms, and definitions, it would 
 be well. If they were more tolerant, and accepted the good 
 that was in all men — might it not even be said, in all things 
 — and the deep, religious feeling that was in their hearts, 
 even if the form in which it showed itself externally was 
 not always to their liking, they would make much greater 
 way and find their usefulness much enlarged. It must be 
 admitted that the old forms of Jehovah- worship, which 
 suited a rude people in the wilderness, might not be 
 adapted to the feelings of an accomplished and edu- 
 cated nation that had enjoyed permanent empire for 600 
 years. 
 
 Religious teaching must be accommodated somewhat 
 to the wants and relations of the age, and it was news to 
 them to hear that all that was to be attained of truth and 
 goodness amongst men had already been found, and was 
 to be had embalmed in the practices of their own particular 
 religion. It seemed certainly possible that some other 
 portion of mankind, even Zidon, had found something good 
 which they had missed, and this fanatical closing up of 
 every inlet against the thought and the belief of every 
 portion of the race besides themselves was surely a mis- 
 take. 
 
 Such was, perhaps, like the state of parties, and the feel- 
 ings that existed at this time. It was a time of confusion 
 and breaking up of old beliefs. Cross currents were run- 
 ning, and eddies, that caught men and whirled them about. 
 The waves were so broken that the real direction of the cur- 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 125 
 
 rent was not seen. Perhaps few discerned what was really 
 at stake. One mind at least took in the whole meaning of 
 the issue. He was not blinded by that w'ay that men have 
 of speaking of religion, — saying it is an inward thing, a kind 
 of feeling, and if the feelings be right it matters little what 
 the external object is that excites them. To him the ex- 
 ternal object was everything : “ Choose ye this day whom 
 ye will serve ; if Jehovah be God, follow Him ; but if Baal, 
 then follow him.'' He knew that according to the external 
 object, so very soon will be the feelings and the life of the 
 worshipper. Elijah, whether of set purpose or under a 
 sudden impulse, permitted himself on Carmel to use force. 
 He met the king's violence with equal violence of his own. 
 Perhaps no other course was left him ; but more likely it 
 was a mistake. But the temptation was very great — in the 
 full tide of excitement and with the multitude at his back. 
 But he should have remembered that the multitude would 
 be at any one’s back who would show them force, particu- 
 larly of a rude kind, and though at his back to-day they 
 might be at Jezebel's to-morrow. And so they were. And 
 the crowd that under the influence of his great miracle 
 confessed their faith on Carmel with such fervour, crying, 
 “Jehovah, He is God; Jehovah, He is God,” bowed sub- 
 missive to Jezebel’s threat to take the prophet's life in 
 Samaria : So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I 
 
 make not thy life as the life of one of them by to-morrow 
 about this time.” And Elijah arose and went for his life. 
 
 II. Observe now the circumstances of his flight and his 
 despondency. Elijah fled. That was necessary. He fled 
 into the wilderness ; not to Zidon as he had done before, 
 not to any of the neighbouring peoples, nor beyond the 
 Jordan, but to the wilderness. That is where you expect 
 him to flee. In any moment of his life the waste was con- 
 genial to him. Its bleakness and isolation were but the 
 counterparts of his own mind. His favourite abode was 
 among the mountains, by the brook Cherith, with only the 
 monotonous rush of waters in his ear among the silent hills. 
 He preferred the ravens for company to men. He seemed 
 alone among men. His greatness made him solitary. 
 There are some men solitary for other reasons, just as there 
 are some mountains. Some hills in our neighbourhood 
 stand alone though they are not great. The forces of 
 
126 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 nature and time have carried away what surrounded and 
 touched them, and left them solitary. And circumstances 
 sometimes alienate or remove men’s associates from them, 
 and they stand apart, not possessing, whether they seek 
 the confidence of others or no. But some mountains stand 
 alone because of their grandeur. Giant hills crowd about 
 the foot of Mount Blanc, yet in their midst he is alone. They 
 cannot reach the same altitude as he, and go with him but 
 a little way. Into those regions of cloud and sky into which 
 he towers they cannot rise. And thus it is with the highest 
 minds. In common things others can accompany them. 
 They can be followed to a certain height, but there other 
 men and they part company. In those lofty regions where 
 only heaven is about — in dense clouds or Divine light — they 
 stand solitary, and being alone, even in the midst of men, 
 they naturally seek solitude. 
 
 But Elijah fled to the wilderness of Sinai. That also 
 was characteristic. Sinai is the wilderness of wildernesses. 
 On the back of natural terrors moral terrors are accu- 
 mulated. There Jehovah, before whom Elijah stood, 
 showed himself most clearly. That side of God which 
 Elijah had most sympathy with was most fully mani- 
 fested there. He was the prophet of law, of force, of 
 terror ; and he longed to realize the Lord more fully. He 
 would penetrate into the very place of terrors. He would 
 see the mountain where the Law was given, its rugged 
 front, once veiled in awful smoke ; its long fissures, which 
 might have been ploughed by the very lightnings of that 
 dreadful day — might it not be that Jehovah Himself might, 
 as to Moses, appear to him } 
 
 My brethren, does not this flight of Elijah to Sinai ex- 
 hibit a figure of ourselves } May we not say of it : “ which 
 thing is an allegory } ” Do we never flee there, too? In 
 our conflicts with laxness, and the licentious Baal-worship 
 of our day, when the battle is going against us, do we not 
 invoke the God of Sinai against our adversaries ? At all 
 events do we not find refuge in. Sinai ourselves } I think 
 men flee there often still — when they are wearied with the 
 indifference and vexed with the laxness of those about 
 them. There is an asperity in their frame of mind, a fierce 
 earnestness, a longing, stimulated perhaps by opposition, 
 for a sight of truth as it is ; and that easy-going acceptance 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 127 
 
 of it which satisfies most men will not be put up with by 
 them. And it is the severer forms of truth that we desire 
 — law, right, justice, a word of God pure and simple — and 
 our toleration for men whose thinking tends to milder 
 truth ; to rub away the edges of sharp doctrines ; to run 
 every doctrine away into a region over which falls a mist 
 of uncertainty, saying this is mystery, this ends in God, we 
 do not know, we can only guess — our toleration for minds 
 of this class is very little. Their hesitation or reserve 
 seems to us but inconsequence or sluggishness, and our 
 mind with its keen dogmatic edge will have no compro- 
 mise, our cry is Sinai — law. 
 
 On his way towards Sinai, somewhere about the wilder- 
 ness of Beersheba, in the south of Palestine, there fell upon 
 Elijah that singular weariness of life and despair which we 
 wonder so much at in him — which we wonder at, but gladly* 
 accept, — for it is the touch of nature that makes us and him 
 kin. He came and sat down under a juniper-tree and 
 requested for himself that he might die. “ It is enough ; 
 now, O Lord, take away my life!’' Some part of this 
 despondency might be due to physical weakness, for he fled 
 for his life. But it was almost altogether spiritual. This 
 was the morrow of the day of his transcendant success on 
 Carmel. The tide of spiritual power had never risen so 
 high even in his soul as it had done on Carmel. God had 
 never obeyed him so implicitly as then, and in the presence 
 both of royalty and the masses of the nation. Never before 
 had he felt so confident and wielded with such absolute 
 mastery his sway over men’s minds. Never perhaps before 
 had such thoughts risen in his mind as rose then of a king- 
 dom conquered for Jehovah, and a nation born in an hour, 
 and a realm cleansed from all impurities, and every knee 
 bowed to the Lord. 
 
 Victory for God was secure, and he was the conqueror. 
 That was yesterday. And to-day spiritual reaction has set 
 in in his own soul, and he is a fugitive, crouching under a 
 bush in the wilderness, the facile crowd returned to its im- 
 pure rites again, not one voice that dares to raise itself on 
 the Lord’s side — the kingdom which seemed the Lord’s 
 not thrown back as it seemed, but hopelessly Baal’s — all 
 his efforts lost. It is no wonder that complete prostration 
 overtook him, and that he requested for himself that he 
 
128 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 might die. It is a hard moment in a man’s life that, such 
 as had now come upon Elijah ; when a man has given the 
 energy of his life to one cherished purpose, and has hoped 
 for it, patiently waiting till the years should roll past, 
 when the promised prize should fall to him ; enduring 
 many hardships, cheered by the prospects ever coming 
 nearer of success, and refusing to let himself think of defeat, 
 his mind always saying to itself that it could not be but 
 that he would succeed. It is a hard moment when at last, 
 through some perversity of will of one in whom he trusted, 
 or some unworthiness of others, or some great error in 
 calculation, defeat ensues when victory was judged secure, 
 and when the once compact purpose of his life is broken 
 into pieces like the fragments of a vanquished host which 
 no commander can ever rally or re-unite. At such a 
 •time only this remains to him, that he judged it truth for 
 which he struggled, and that the means he used seemed 
 to him the best, or at least worthy ; and this, that at any 
 rate God remains to him, to whom he can appeal to judge 
 his cause, and, if he have fought in vain, to release him from 
 the unavailing strife. 
 
 III. The last thing to notice is God’s treatment of His 
 desponding servant. 
 
 First, he gave him bodily food, for that was needful, and 
 as we pray daily, “ Give us this day our daily bread,” and 
 as He hears us ordinarily so to hear us is not beneath His 
 greatness when we pray in circumstances extraordinary. 
 Then in the strength given him He brought him to the 
 Mount of God. He gratified his longings. He satisfied his 
 spiritual aspirations. That which he so greatly desired to 
 see He showed to him. He took him up to the very height, 
 and down to the very deeps of that kind of realizing of 
 Himself which he longed to attain to. God as he conceived 
 Him, and as his heart delighted in. He showed him in per- 
 fection. Nay, for his sake He almost re-enacted the terrors 
 of Sinai. ‘‘ A great and strong wind rent the mountains, 
 and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord ; but the 
 Lord was not in the wind : and after the wind an earth- 
 quake ; but the Lord was not in the earthquake : and 
 after the earthquake a fire ; but the Lord was not in the 
 fire.” Sinai over again, and the Lord not in it at all. Was 
 it for this that he had come so far — was this the fulfilling 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 T29 
 
 of the dream of his life, and the reward of his unexampled 
 might and toil ? And after the fire a still small voice. 
 And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his 
 face in his mantle.” This is the Divine method of teaching, 
 the full meaning may be beyond us, but it pointed back to 
 Elijah’s past career, and it pointed onward to one who 
 should use no force, who should not cry, nor lift up, nor let 
 his voice be heard in the streets. 
 
 Elijah’s methods were tried on himself — power, force, 
 law, Sinai — and the efforts were naught. The Lord was 
 not in the earthquake or the fire. Did the prophet never 
 wonder at the obdurate king, at the besotted people, at 
 the fickle crowd, at the mad vindictive queen ? What 
 had he been plying them with all his days ? Miracle on 
 miracle, a gloomy demeanour, heavens of brass ; famine, 
 thirst, death, law, force. Did he wonder now after his 
 present experience, or was his wonder now not turned in 
 upon himself? He had been enabled to sound the depths 
 of that conception of God, which had all his life fascinated 
 him — he had come to his place and he had found that God 
 was something different from his idea of Him, and that 
 His power was not of the kind that he imagined. Yet 
 there must have been a parable to Elijah in the earthquake 
 and fire which was powerless, followed by the small voice,” 
 in which was God Himself — a parable of Sinai and Calvary, 
 And might there not rise up before him, some such scene 
 as he was yet to witness in the Mount of Transfiguration, 
 and to share in when the thunders of Sinai should die down 
 and become lower and lower through successive ages, till 
 at last they were succeeded by the “ still small voice ” of 
 one who “ did not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be 
 heard in the streets,” but who was God with us unto them 
 which are called, both Jews and Gentile, Christ the power 
 of God and the wisdom of God ; ” “ for what the law could 
 not do” — even though wielded by an Elijah — God send- 
 ing His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, 
 condemned sin in the flesh : that the righteousness of the 
 law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, 
 but after the Spirit.” 
 
 This history suggests two lessons. One speaks to those 
 of us who, like Elijah, are set over men in the Lord, and 
 the other to the people. 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 (1) We may see how, though God deals most merci- 
 fully with His desponding servants, He yet gives them to 
 understand that despondency is out of place somewhat — 
 is not a state for men who have work to do. He dealt 
 most mercifully with Elijah. He gave him bread to eat. 
 He brought him to the place of His own awful manifesta- 
 tion. He allowed him to revel in those conceptions of 
 Himself dearest to his soul, to sound them to their deeps. 
 He instructed him, not by plain words, but by indirect 
 displays from which he could not but gather where his 
 mistake had lain. All this was the treatment of a wise 
 and merciful Father. But in the midst of it all He kept 
 saying to him, What doest thou here, Elijah ? The scene 
 of labour was elsewhere, and he was here. And as soon as 
 it was possible to send him back to it the Lord said unto 
 him, ** Go, return ; and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to 
 be king over Syria : and Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt 
 thou anoint to be king over Israel ; and Elisha the son of 
 Shaphat shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room.'’ 
 Arise and return to the world and life. His work was not 
 done. In spite of weariness of the world he must face it, 
 he must handle its forces as he finds them, and do his best 
 to direct them. He must not recoil from meeting open 
 foes like Hazael, superficial reformers like Jehu ; there they 
 are, and the servant of God must use them for the best. 
 He must mix with them, study them, comprehend them, 
 declare God’s will to them, and use them for the Church’s 
 advancement. Action, not despondency, is demanded. 
 
 (2) For there is no reason to despair. We are often cast 
 down with our small success, and ready to throw away the 
 weapons of our warfare and acknowledge defeat. But 
 Elijah’s history shows that success is often much better 
 than appearances would suggest. 
 
 “ The kingdom of God cometh not with observation.” 
 No influences can be quite lost, only their result is not im- 
 mediate — As the rain cometh down and the snow from 
 heaven, and returneth not thither again, but watereth the 
 earth and maketh it bring forth and bud, so shall My word 
 be that goeth forth out of My mouth.” Perhaps all good 
 servants do more work than they imagine. P^lijah thought 
 he had saved his own soul. God showed him 7,000 men 
 who had not bowed the knee to Baal ; and as God’s 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 131 
 
 servants do more than they think they are doing, so they 
 will find God putting upon them at the last an unex- 
 pected honour — an exceeding weight of glory. This tem- 
 porary darkness in Elijah's life was swallowed up in the 
 light of the end, and the honour God put upon him in 
 the latter days was unspeakable, when he stood beside the 
 Son on the Mount of Transfiguration. So that it seems 
 that wherein men fail is forgotten by God, and wherein 
 they succeed is the measure of the glory that is bestowed 
 on them. 
 
 But the influence of a true man of God is profound 
 Elijah thought his influence fleeting and superficial, but 
 it was deep and pervading. Two brief reigns passed over, 
 one of two years and the other of twelve, when the harvest 
 began to be reaped. The nation was full of the spirit of 
 smiting against the bloody and idolatrous house of Ahab. 
 And when the prophet went to anoint Jehu the son of 
 Nimshi, so ripe was the time for a change that the army 
 immediately hailed the new monarch, crying, “God save 
 King Jehu." And the carnage which followed in Ahab's 
 house was terrible and complete, and the religious as well 
 as political revolution which followed was thorough. 
 
 It was Elijah's spirit working in men — in the army, 
 among the citizens, in the prophets that came after him, in 
 the Rechabites — the severe, pure, monotheistic spirit, the 
 spirit of truth, the spirit which is omnipotent when it rises 
 in the hearts of a people. Surely here is hope and en- 
 couragement for any one that is set over men to be their 
 spiritual guide and to lead them into the way of God and 
 of His Christ. Be assured, that any defeat we suffer is 
 only apparent : victory at the last is certain. Tears may 
 accompany your sowing. It is a hard soil, this human 
 mind which you have to break up and deposit the precious 
 seed in. Yet it is a deep and fertile soil after all. What 
 harvests have been already reaped from it, of godliness 
 and self-devotion, and of all those glorious ideal creations 
 of the mind. 
 
 And you know how the growth of this good seed in it 
 tends to make it deeper, and to cleanse it of its weeds, and 
 what a rich harvest it may be made to yield at the last. 
 Think of the reverence, and affection, and enthusiasm for 
 knowledge and truth, and for a pure and broad human life, 
 
132 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 you may call out in the young — of the steady attachment 
 to sound principle which you may create or confirm in 
 those that are grown up — of the patience and resignation 
 in sorrow and affliction which you may teach to those that 
 have to suffer, and how you may bring the light of religion 
 into the lonely cottage or the humble dwelling of the poor, 
 which will brighten up every face and gild the straitened 
 ways of life as a ray of sunshine will pass through the 
 narrow windows and lighten up the furniture within. Ah, 
 it is not in Parliament or on the battle-field that deeds are 
 done that are great in God s sight : it is rather on that 
 stage which to men’s eyes seems narrow, but is the widest 
 of all, where individual human souls are engaged in playing 
 out the great drama of their own immortal destiny, reject- 
 ing or accepting, amidst the manifold struggles of mind, 
 the truth which God by you is presenting to them. Think 
 of the influence in a crisis of soul like this, and how a word 
 or a look or a gesture may exert an influence even to 
 eternity ! Think of this, I say, and bring to bear upon 
 your task every resource of your own mind, of circumstance, 
 and of the word of God, strong in the Lord and in the power 
 of His might. 
 
 But there fs another lesson which this history teaches. 
 The lesson is this : the necessity of standing by those 
 set over you. Elijah’s despair was due largely to his 
 loneliness, to his having to fight the battle of the Lord 
 single-handed. And Elijah was a giant such as men are 
 not now, and yet the forces of the enemy were too strong 
 for him. He had not the support of the people. There 
 were many that agreed with him so far, a number who 
 agreed with him out and out ; there were many meek, 
 mute souls throughout the land who wished him well ; 
 but they wanted courage. Their feelings and their sym- 
 pathies were right but they were not the men that soldiers 
 in God’s army are made of, and of the most it had to 
 be said that they wanted one essential thing — they were 
 not firm in their principles. They halted between two 
 opinions. 
 
 Hence their sympathy and enthusiasm rose to fever 
 height one day and was cold as the dead the next. The 
 lesson goes deep. To-day you may be enthusiastic, your 
 sympathies are aglow, the tide of feeling rises high in your 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 133 
 
 heart, and there is no bound to the extent to which you 
 wish well to the cause which your spiritual leader repre- 
 sents. And you may feel that it is a great cause, as great 
 because really the same as that which Elijah represented ; 
 the cause of the one true living God against all denials of 
 Him or all substitutes for Him — the cause of a pure morality 
 in the land inseparably connected with a pure worship — the 
 cause of the independence of religion of the control and 
 manipulation for State purposes by civil rulers, whether they 
 be fools like Ahab, or harlots like Jezebel, or whatever they 
 may be — the cause of the existence of true religion in every 
 heart and home in the country. It is the same cause now 
 as then ; all this you may feel now, and you may believe 
 that the feeling will remain. 
 
 So did the crowd on Carmel on the day of the gladness 
 of Elijah’s heart. But on the morrow they feared to lift a 
 finger for him. My brethren, if those set over us are to be 
 successful we must stand by them ; and if so we must be 
 at one with them in principle. I do not say in every opinion 
 which we may hold or express, but in the great principles 
 which move their own lives, and for which among you they 
 have to contend. You must share with them in their love 
 of the Lord that bought you. You must hold with them, 
 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father 
 of all, who is over all, and through all, and in you all. 
 Everything you do must have its root there; and then your 
 sympathy with them in all their contendings for this will 
 be keen and intelligent — without it your sympathy with 
 them in their work will be languid and evanescent and go 
 no deeper than a certain esprit de corps peculiar to a sec- 
 tional Christianity, 
 
 It will arise merely out of opposition to others from 
 enmity to the opposite camp, and having no root in itself, 
 when a real conflict comes will wither away. Spiritual 
 teachers in all ages, perhaps, have fallen into the error of 
 Elijah. They have exaggerated, they have gone into ex- 
 tremes into which those whom they taught could not follow 
 them. It is not necessary to follow them into their extremes ; 
 but these extremes are greatly due to their feeling of being 
 isolated, and of the immovable insensibility of those whom 
 they have to instruct. Cordial co-operation, cordial sym- 
 pathy from you in the great general truths of the faith 
 
134 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 will remove these feelings and these exaggerations, and 
 then Christian teaching shall become calm and simple and 
 natural, and the stream of Christian truth and life, instead 
 of being like a noisy brook, dashing itself against everything 
 within its reach, will advance like a great placid broad 
 river without a wave upon its surface, absorbing into itself 
 on all sides every contribution of the thought and life of 
 men, and moving on with a power that nothing can resist, 
 and bearing on its bosom to a blessed end this human 
 family which Christ loved and gave Himself for. 
 
 A. B. D. 
 
 XVII. The King Conquered. 2 Kings vi. 
 
 This chapter is about one of the battles of the king of 
 Syria against Israel. You remember about Naaman. 
 Naaman was captain of the host of the king of Syria, yet 
 he does not appear, at least by name, to take any part in 
 this war. He may have been here, he may have been in 
 the background, but I rather infer that, since he went back 
 to Syria, not only with a new skin, but a new God, pro- 
 bably he fell into disfavour, or was in some way held to be 
 disqualified for his former supreme military position. A 
 very wonderful thing that. Naaman came to be healed of 
 his leprosy, and he got more than he wanted. That is the 
 perpetual history of all earnest men who come to the right 
 quarter for help. No man can come to church, to the 
 living God, with a right desire, without getting exceeding 
 abundantly above that which he came for ; no matter what 
 he came for, if it was of the right quality, of the right 
 nature, and within the compass of the gifts of God to men, 
 within the limits and boundaries of time, then he got ex- 
 ceeding abundantly above that for which he expressly 
 came. Naaman said, ‘‘Well, I will go to him, and I will 
 see if this man can cure me of this leprosy ; and he not 
 only got a new skin, so that his flesh came again as the 
 flesh of a little child, but he got a new God, a new theo- 
 logical conception, a new standpoint from which to view 
 the universe, and to estimate his own life ; and that is 
 what is always happening, and must occur to the end of 
 time. You cannot come to God for any one bounty proper 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 135 
 
 to be received at His hands, without receiving with it some 
 additional blessing, if so be you are willingly opening your 
 heart to receive whatever God in His Almighty power and 
 beneficent grace may be pleased to give you. Naaman, 
 then, has gone back again with a clean flesh, the leprosy all 
 gone, and with the God of Israel as his God, and now Syria 
 once more projects war against Israel. I want to study 
 the projection of that war, and how things occur under 
 combinations of circumstances to which you and I ought 
 to be no strangers. Begin, if you please, at the eighth 
 verse. 
 
 ‘‘ Then the king of Syria took counsel with his servants, 
 saying, In such and such a place shall be my camp.” 
 Was there anything amiss then ? I think there was. 
 Not on the bare reading ; the verse reads well enough — 
 it seems to have been a proper thing to do— and some- 
 times we do a proper thing improperly. Sometimes we 
 tell the truth falsely. How is that } In the telling of 
 truth itself, we may give a false impression — we may 
 preach the gospel destructively : we have not only to 
 announce the good news — the glad tidings — but to do it in 
 the right tone, with gentleness and tenderness and persua- 
 siveness and sympathy. And falling down before men, we 
 have oft entreated them with vehemence and passion, 
 that they may accept the testimony we bring. Well, but 
 the king of Syria consulted his servants — was not that 
 right } Possibly so — if he knew who his servants were. 
 Is there any one man on earth you can really trust in a 
 crisis ? Are there not some points in life when the true 
 consultation is divine and not human ? Are there not some 
 critical moments in your life when you must not speak to 
 the nearest and dearest friend you have, when your life 
 must culminate in a supreme agony, and all your com- 
 munications must be upward, and not lateral, and never 
 downward ? Well, methinks that grand old Roman was 
 right when he said : “ If I thought the shirt on my back 
 heard what I was saying to myself I would tear it ofif and 
 burn it.” That man will succeed, will do something in life. 
 He knows that there are times to be familiar, conversa- 
 tional, communicative, when you may say to the public. 
 Now mv heart is open, come in and see all you can see, 
 and see it for nothing ” — and this wins great reputation for 
 
136 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 geniality and communicativeness. People talk to him as 
 a very familiar, condescending, kind, amicable, and com- 
 municative man altogether ; but he knows exactly when to 
 shut the door and to look dumb. Do you know what it is 
 to look deaf.? You cannot look deaf if you are hearing 
 all the time unless you have the supreme mastery of your- 
 self. A deaf person looks so different from you — I see 
 that you are hearing, in your skin, in your eyes ; the very 
 hair on your head says, I am listening all the time ; I 
 am feigning deafness, but I hear all you are saying. You 
 cannot be deaf unless you are supremely master of your 
 own nature ; but this great man, this great Roman, looked 
 dumb, looked deaf, looked stone-like. There was no read- 
 ing his face. Ben-hadad having got an idea, could not 
 be trusted with it. He called in his servants, constituted 
 them into a kind of Divine Consensus, and began to tell 
 them what he was going to do — and there was an end 
 of him. 
 
 How many people would succeed if they could be silent? 
 — how many people would do well in life if they knew 
 when to hold their tongues ? They would do exceedingly 
 well if they had not so many people in their confidence; 
 but there are some people who chatter, chatter, chatter, 
 always telling what they are going to do — what they are 
 going to do to-morrow, what they are going to do the day 
 after to-morrow, — and they never do it. How can they — 
 talking so much about it beforehand ? It is like running 
 five miles before leaping over a wall — you are so tired with 
 the running that when you come to the leap you cannot 
 do it. Be quiet sometimes — keep your own counsel. “ How 
 is it. Commodore,’' said a man to old Mr. Vanderbilt, who 
 is just now dead, ‘‘that you have succeeded so well in life?" 
 “Well," said the old man, “first, by minding my own 
 business, and secondly, by never telling anybody what I 
 was going to do, but just doing it." Ben-hadad was no 
 Commodore Vanderbilt in this respect. He called all the 
 people together and said in effect, “ I know now what I 
 shall do," and he told them all about it, and thus split 
 himself up in a dozen different directions. He lost that 
 concentration, that consolidation, that cannon-ball-like 
 compactness of perfect solitude which gives a man supreme 
 power in supreme and definite crises in life. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 137 
 
 Let us see then what happened after all this talk. ‘‘ And 
 the man of God sent unto the king of Israel, saying, 
 Beware that thou pass not such a place ; for thither the 
 Syrians are come down. And the king of Israel sent to 
 the place which the man of God told him and warned him 
 of, and saved himself there, not once nor twice,” but many 
 a time. So the thing got abroad. Well, now, here is 
 Elisha. Elisha is no soldier. No; Elisha, to use a modern 
 phrase, never fired a gun in his life. No — he knew more 
 about a plough than about firearms — excuse my modern- 
 izing the instance. What did he do ? “ There was a little 
 
 city, and few men within it ; and there came a great king 
 against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks 
 against it ; now there was found in it a poor wise man, 
 and he, by his wisdom, delivered the city.” What did 
 Elisha do } What you, dear little child, can do : what 
 you, feeble woman, can do : what you, man of no public 
 status or influence, can do. What was that ? He warned 
 — he gave warning, he gave caution, and suggested pru- 
 dence. He pointed out the difficulty and how to avoid it. 
 Just observe, then, how we serve one another in life. The 
 Apostle Paul complains that if a man do not give a certain 
 sound upon the trumpet the soldiers cannot prepare them- 
 selves for battle. But do we want trumpeters as well as 
 soldiers ? A man that gives an uncertain blast on the 
 trumpet ruins the fight on his own side ; the man whose 
 trumpet is in tune, whose breath is equal to the occasion, 
 who blows a blast that strikes inspiration into an army, is 
 himself a crowd of soldiers. Just observe how we serve 
 one another. Elisha was a man of thought — a man of 
 prayer — a man of contemplation, and yet he sends warn- 
 ing to the king of Israel, and by a warning word he saves 
 the king of Israel from the arrows of the Syrian assailants. 
 Now there be some persons who cannot reckon up the in- 
 fluence of people who do nothing but talk, and teach, and 
 pray, and warn. They have not got the true conception of 
 work. Their conception of work is limited to the arms. 
 Only give a man plenty to do with his hands and they 
 claim him as a working man. But if a man so live as 
 apparently to have nothing to do with his arms at all, then 
 it is impossible for the people to whom I am now referring 
 to consider the man as anybody working — whereas Elisha 
 
138 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 did more with his one warning word than if he had gone 
 to the head of the Israelitish army and led the hosts into 
 the thick of the fight. That is a word for you, mother — 
 that is a word for you, sister — that is a word for you. letter- 
 writer, you who only sit at home and write a few kind notes 
 to your friends — for you, more public writer — for you, 
 student — for you, minister — for you, praying soul. We 
 can all serve one another. The men that came back from 
 Jerusalem and spoke to Nehemiah had done nothing 
 whatever themselves to repair the wall — they only told 
 Nehemiah about it, and Nehemiah went and did it. 
 
 So Elisha heard of this, and warned the king of Israel, 
 and saved him from a great battle with the Syrians. Use 
 your influence; do what you can. You want greater 
 power — use the talent you have. You shall see Rome also 
 if you live faithfully in the cities and villages in which 
 Providence appoints your place. Have you ever warned 
 anybody? This Book excels all other books in this one 
 particular — monition — warning — caution. Other books are 
 always controverting, discovering, fighting illuminated 
 battles, and registering things and putting things in order, 
 and settling debates, and strifes, and contentions with 
 some other book somewhere else in the world. But this 
 dear old Book is full of warning, and sympathy, and 
 direction, and practical counsel ; it gets into the soul, it 
 takes the language of our necessity, it prays with us, sings 
 with us, gives us words wherewith to express our best emo- 
 tions, helps our life upward and onward — a right positive 
 Book, a grandly affirmative Book. Yes, if I could but 
 listen to its voice — and you — we should always find our- 
 selves on the right road, in the right temper, in the right 
 spirit, with a very grateful heart and two very industrious 
 hands, in the service of God. Don’t, then, snub men who are 
 not working in your own particular way. This is the great 
 difficulty we have with one another. There is only a man 
 here and there, a very rare man indeed, who sympathises 
 with other people’s way of working, who does not think if 
 you don’t do just what he does and nothing else, you are 
 not working. But an ordinary man thinks if you go to his 
 meeting, read his books, dance his dances, and fuss away 
 in his little fussinesses, then you are working. But if you 
 have any other conception of service, and are working from 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 139 
 
 any other conception of stewardship in the sight of God 
 which he cannot understand, you will very likely be 
 troubled in your progress by his very small censure, by his 
 vicious malediction. Oh that we could just know that we 
 are all working in the way we can. I see a man yonder 
 working in a way I cannot — I wish I could — but I must 
 work in the way I can. Another says, I can only pray — 
 that is, only move Omnipotence, only help to bring Al- 
 mightiness to your side — only speak to God for you — it is 
 a wonderful ‘‘only'' that. You be faithful to that “only" 
 and you will help all men, you will help the universe. 
 
 Now then Elisha, the quiet, contemplative, observant 
 man, with an ear quick to all-but-infinite sensitiveness, 
 hearing whisperings where any other man could hear 
 nothing but a great silence, and he is warning and thus 
 saving, teaching and thus delivering — and it will be a bad, 
 black, woeful day for this England when you lose the 
 teachers and the warhers, the seers, the prophets who dream 
 dreams and see visions, and can lift themselves up in all 
 the erectness of a majesty higher than their own, to declare 
 to men what they ought to do and what they ought not to 
 attempt. Let us pray for our prophets, and say, “ God 
 bless our teachers, every one." “ Therefore the heart of the 
 king of Syria was sore troubled for this thing." There he 
 is again — Oh that men should live on such poor flats, poor 
 planes, low levels ! The king is troubled and he calls his 
 servants. Oh if he had only been a wise king, if he had 
 only looked upward and inward, if he had only been quiet 
 with a prayerful quietness and reverence, he might have 
 done something more in that contest. But he lives among 
 men, a social man, a chattering man, one of those people 
 who could not spend an evening at home — one of those 
 persons who always want to get away from their own com- 
 pany, one of those men who says, “ you know — what I can 
 do, sitting here ? what can I do — I wish somebody would 
 come in — I wonder where I can go to, I do so want to 
 talk ! " What do they do in life ? Nothing — but make a 
 noise. O my friend, when thou art in trouble, call upon 
 God — call upon the Divine, call upon the Supernatural 
 It does you good to think that the firmament above, if it 
 be but blue steel, brightened here and there with a patine 
 of fine gold — it does you good to think you can catch hold 
 
140 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 of that great blue arch and lift yourself up an inch ! That 
 will do you good. But it is this motion that does you harm 
 — getting down, as if the help were yonder. The help is 
 never yonder. Whatever your perplexity or difficulty, the 
 help is always up — never down, never lateral. There it is 
 that religion, in any true and grand sense of it, does a man 
 infinite good —just to get into his head the idea that there 
 is a greater power than himself, if it be but the wind, or 
 the great solemn thunder, or the mighty rolling stars and 
 suns. To fall down on your knees and look up at the sun, 
 clasping your hands in reverence before his brilliant image 
 — that will do you good. It is this curse of always living 
 on a low level that ruins us — calling in our equals, calling 
 in our inferiors, calling in the people that are round about 
 us. It is all right enough under given circumstances, as a 
 secondary palliative and as a help in many a misery — all 
 right enough. But there ought to be a supreme, glad, re- 
 ligious aspiration going out of the heart to find the big, 
 the mighty, the All, the circumference of things. O my 
 friend, if thou couldst but do that, everything would be 
 under thy feet. Thou shouldst be calm, and h^ppy, and 
 very glad always ; but as long as you look, and look, along 
 the line of your eye- — have everything hung so that you can 
 get it there, you are dwarfing the universe, you are dwarf- 
 ing yourself, limiting <the infinite and forgetting the eternal. 
 But in distress, in difficulty, call upon God — ay, and if He 
 be but a wooden stick, a poor deaf, dumb stone, a blind 
 thing thou hast thyself chiseled out of the forest, it will do 
 thee good, if thou canst but lay hold, however dimly, of the 
 idea that there is something greater than thyself, and out 
 of that greatness thy help will come. How much more 
 then to lay hold of the Father in Heaven — called with 
 such infinite pathos and delicacy the God and Father of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh how full these words! what 
 sap, what juice, what blood, what life, what music, what 
 light I The God — Oh how grand ! The God and Father — 
 more tender ; equally majestic, but condescending : a King 
 stooping. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 — humanized, standing beside us, looking into our eyes, 
 offering infinitude as our help and eternity as the grand 
 duration of our growth and progress ! 
 
 ** And one of his servants said. No, my lord the king,’* 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 141 
 
 you are quite wrong in your supposition — there is no 
 treachery among your servants, but Elisha, the prophet 
 that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that 
 thou speakest in thy bedchamber/’ Yes, it is this ghostly 
 element in life that ought to make the highest man amongst 
 us pause. I have often said this ; I do not know why I 
 should hesitate to say it again. If there was nothing but 
 what we could see, nothing behind, above, beyond — begin 
 here, pass over there, end yonder — if this were all, then I 
 do not see why the old heathen programme should not be 
 re-written in coloured ink on silken banners, waved over all 
 the concourse of humanity everywhere — let us eat and drink, 
 for to-morrow we die ! Let us die fat, let us die drunk, let us 
 die intoxicated with empoisoned delight ; if we begin here, 
 tarry there, fall yonder, up with the banner — eat and drink, 
 to-morrow we die ! But it is this ghostly element, the 
 shaking of the veil, the unaccountable noise, the whistling 
 in the window, the creaking on the floor, the upsetting of a 
 whole scheme of probabilities we thought were built up to- 
 gether with something stronger than the strongest cement 
 ever used in the uniting and cohesion of materials, the up- 
 setting of our calculations, the shaking down of all our little 
 plots, plans, schemes, and arrangements, the laying things 
 down there, and saying we shall find them in the morning, 
 and when the morning comes, they are gone ! — saying. 
 Good-bye, to a man, and hearing the man is dead in the 
 morning ! It is these ghostly things that make us uncer- 
 tain and troubled and insecure, and that makes an atheist 
 fit a clause of reservation in all his cold covenants and 
 mercenary agreements. Even he must have his ‘‘ if.” O 
 poor coward and fool — why not develop him, that he can 
 put his arms around the whole firmament. “ I hold it fast, 
 and will do with it what I like ” — why not ? Develop 
 him, and that great great God lets us get the tower a long 
 way up, and then He comes and puts one foot on it, and 
 down it goes. 
 
 ‘‘ And the king 'of Syria was troubled,” and the word 
 rendered troubled is a very remarkable word — “ tempested.” 
 There were in his spirit counterblasts of wind from the 
 east, from the west, from the north, from the south, whirl- 
 ing, swirling, raging, roaring, storming his soul. He called 
 his servants in — just what we do when we hear noises we 
 
142 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 do not like. We ring the bell — we are not afraid, you 
 know, but we just like to see what this is. Are you not 
 afraid, you lying man } If you had seen yourself two 
 seconds ago with a face blanched as death, and now that 
 your servants have come in you are looking as if you were 
 never afraid in your life. Better make our account with 
 these invisible presences, these incalculable quantities, these 
 ghostly elements, these subtle unnameable, incalculable 
 ministries that are about. He only has settled the account 
 with them who has made his peace with God, and says, 
 ‘‘ God is our refuge and strength, therefore will I not fear 
 though the mountains be carried into the midst of the 
 sea. God is our refuge and strength, and a very present 
 help in trouble. There is a river the streams whereof make 
 glad the city of God.’' There have been men in that high 
 calm, in that imperturbable peace, in that infinite tranquil- 
 lity. Such peace have they, O God, who love and follow 
 Thy holy law. 
 
 Well, the king of Syria having found out that this was 
 the case, plucked up his courage again — said, I am not 
 afraid— do not suppose it ; if this is all, I will soon end it. 
 Have you ever read the histories of the Welsh preachers, 
 those grand old thunder-storms that spoke from the hill- 
 sides to thousands of people and made them quail } One 
 of these men, whose son is a Member of Parliament in our 
 own House of Commons to-day, was preaching away, and 
 saying as only a Welshman can say, and only say it in 
 Welsh — “The day of judgment is come — the day of judg- 
 ment is come ! ” And there was an orchard between him 
 and a house in which dwelt a very ungodly squire, and this 
 man heard through the trees this funereal voice — “ The day 
 of judgment is come — the day of judgment is come ! ” and 
 he took down the prayer book at once and began to gabble 
 over his prayers ; rung the bell and called in his servant — 
 Ben-hadad’s old device, always get somebody up stairs to 
 talk with — and he said, “John, don’t you hear that strange 
 voice — ‘ The day of judgment is come ’ } ” “ Oh, no, sir, it’s 
 only old Mr. So and So, the Welsh preacher, preaching over 
 there ” — “ Oh, that’s it, is it — don’t imagine there’s anything 
 the matter with me — that’s it, is it } ” And away went the 
 prayer book. That is how it will be with you — some of 
 you. I have seen you in a thunder-storm, getting down 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 143 
 
 into the cellar, — into the coal-house, and shutting all the 
 windows and bolting the doors, as if you could bolt out the 
 lightning and exclude the infinite. And yet if all is right, 
 what do you care ? Ben-hadad said. Oh, that’s it, is it ? If 
 that’s the case, we’ll have him. Go and spy where he is, 
 that I may send and fetch him.” See ! that is the plan ; 
 spy where he is and fetch him. Very good. “Therefore 
 sent he thither horses, and chariots, and a great host ; 
 and they came by night and compassed the city round 
 about.” 
 
 That is one of the finest things in the history, and that 
 is occurring everyday. It is the unconscious tribute which 
 the material is always paying to the spiritual, the uncon- 
 scious homage which baffled men always pay to the Chris- 
 tianity they would destroy. Ay, how many Ben-hadads 
 have sent horses and chariots and a great host to take the 
 Cross ? What a compliment to Elisha. We thought he 
 would have said, “ Here, you young whipper-snapper — the 
 youngest of you — you can go — go and bring that man here 
 — two of you run down and fetch him.” No ; it is an 
 awkward thing, fetching a prophet ; an awkward business, 
 fighting the spiritual. So he sent horses and chariots and 
 a great host, and told them — “ Go by night and make a 
 cordon round uie city, and see that he does not escape 
 you.” Ben-hadad, why all this fuss about one man ? — a 
 quondam plough-boy, with nothing but the mantle upon 
 his shoulder ; why not send down anybody, any boy, any 
 Bashi-Bazouk, to fetch him along ? That is what they are 
 always doing, and so we have shops opened to put down 
 Christian teaching, and great hosts of people going to take 
 the cross, and vast armies and crowds of assailants, saying, 
 “ Now then, this is the critical moment — this is the tre- 
 mendous agony.” And where is Christianity to-day ? 
 Where it is most wanted — in the aching heart ; in the 
 bruised, wounded spirit ; in the contrite, self-accusing, self- 
 renouncing soul, repeating all its old miracles, and none of 
 its majesty is lost — none of its almightiness impaired. 
 Always understand this, my friend, that the more people 
 it requires to take a man, the greater that man is, in some 
 way. But you have been quite surprised, you who did not 
 know better, quite surprised how some people are exceed- 
 ingly distressed and annoyed if they see so much as a 
 
144 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 single paragraph in a newspaper against a man. The 
 finest thing would be to have the whole newspaper against 
 you, and twenty more papers, and nearly all the papers. 
 What would it mean } It would mean that there is some 
 grit in you, some stuff in you, some quality in you. Don't 
 suppose that all these people like to go and kick a gate 
 post simply for the sake of kicking. So if it is only a gate 
 post, why kick it } But the more men that are sent to take 
 you, the more they sneer, the more they assail you, de- 
 pend upon it, it is the unconscious tribute which a mean 
 man must pay to the majestic — that the false man must 
 pay to the true — that the disappointed man must pay to 
 the man who is successful. And this teaching finds its 
 supreme application in Christ and in His Church ; for all 
 the hosts of hell have been arrayed against Him, and no 
 impression has yet been made upon the Rock upon which 
 the Church has been founded. 
 
 And after Ben-hadad had sent all these things, “the 
 servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone 
 forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses 
 and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my 
 master ! what shall we do } " Of course, a very natural 
 question. I like to see a man natural ; the man comes 
 in and says, “ It's all over — there's no mistake about it, I 
 have seen it," and when a man has actually seen a thing 
 what can you say } He only thinks he has seen it, but 
 you can never persuade him better. Some people say, 
 seeing is believing. There was never a more sophistical 
 saying made, unless you define what seeing is ; but see- 
 ing, in the ordinary sense of the term, is not believing. No 
 man is so often befooled as through his own eyes, his 
 own eyesight. He thinks he sees everything, and he sees 
 nothing. And this man gave it up at once, and says, what 
 shall we do? He does right, he comes to the master. Did 
 Elisha send for the servant } No, the servant came to 
 him. That is the way to live, live so that you will be 
 master, whether you live in the parlour or the kitchen, 
 whether you are master in sagacity, in knowledge, in 
 sympathy, in reception of impressions, in grasp of details — 
 have the mastery of the situation, whatever it is, because 
 in the last result persons always send for the supreme 
 mind. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 145 
 
 Now this man says, ‘‘ How shall we do?'’ First of all, 
 Elisha says, “ Fear not.” Fear destroys power, fear takes a 
 man’s quality out of him ; no man is himself who is under 
 the chilling cloud of a fear. ‘‘ Do not fear ; ” but why ? 
 For this reason : ‘‘they that be with us are more than they 
 that be with them.” And Elisha said, “Lord” — the servant 
 came to the master, and the master went to his Master, 
 that is the ascending line ; and Elisha said, “ Lord, open 
 his eyes — open his eyes — that he may see.” “ But I have 
 seen.” “ Oh, no, open his eyes that he may see.” “ Why, I 
 have just been out, I got up early, I have seen.” Oh, no ; 
 that is just the battle we have as Christian teachers, and 
 as high teachers of any kind. Men think they see when 
 they do not see. “What,” a man says, “cannot I read 
 the Bible for myself as well as you can?” No; if you 
 are only reading the letter and I the spirit, you cannot. 
 If you are only an etymologist and not a sympathetic 
 reader of the word, you cannot read aright. Elisha’s ser- 
 vant had been out early and had seen, and Elisha prays 
 that his eyes may be opened that he may see. There 
 is seeing and seeing, reading and reading, hearing and 
 hearing. “ And the Lord opened the eyes of the young 
 man, and he saw; and, behold, the mountain was full of 
 horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha,” horse for 
 horse, chariot for chariot, fire for fire, God versus Ben- 
 hadad. It is a tremendous and terrible thing to fall into 
 the hands of the living God. Another horse and another 
 chariot from heaven till all your forces fall off in the 
 cloudy perspective, and the inner concentric circle makes 
 heaven round about you. Have you ever seen that 
 flashing circle ? I have, thank God — thank God. Have 
 you never seen it — Providences that you could not explain 
 on any other ground than merely kindness and bene- 
 ficence — deliverances perfectly superhuman ? Do you not 
 know what it has been, lying between four quaternions 
 of soldiers, with only six hours between you and the 
 guillotine, and the angel of God coming and melting 
 the irons and taking you out in the open air ? I do. 
 That is how I can read this dear old Book. If it is 
 only to be read as a book taken off the shelf, I say. 
 No, I cannot read such writing as that — I cannot under- 
 stand it — I give it up. But I do not come to it like 
 
146 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 that. You see, if I come to it thus — you know — in a 
 kind of — sort of — semi-philosophical way; ah — with a kind 
 of semi-philosophical eye-glass to look at it — then, 
 of course, I shut it up. How do I come to it? Just 
 in proportion as I can say — Thrice was I beaten with 
 rods, a day and a night have I been in the deep — in perils 
 in the city — in perils in the wilderness — in perils among the 
 heathen — in perils among mine own countrymen — in cold, 
 in weariness, in nakedness, in hunger — persecuted, cast 
 down, perplexed, impoverished, embarrassed, dismantled, 
 unmanned — death in the house, mother and child in one 
 coffin — no bread in the cupboard, no coal in the grate, no 
 friend outside ! Ah, if I come to this good old Book 
 through such processes, I say, ‘‘ This is my Book.*’ Are 
 you not puzzled by the miracles ? Puzzled by the mira- 
 cles ? I have lived them. I wanted this, these are the 
 words I have been hunting for — yearning for — I ' know 
 them all — it is my native tongue, it is the speech of my 
 bleeding, triumphant heart. I see so many people bring 
 up things like these, and they find them very burden- 
 some ; but if you can get down upon them out of 
 a tragical, tremendous, awful experience, you will find 
 them all written in plain language — you will need no 
 interpreter to help you through them — your own gashed, 
 half-dead heart has lived every syllable of the narrative — 
 has gone through every throb of that strange, that tragic 
 
 XVIII. J osiah. 2 Chron. xxxv. 21. Forbear thee from 
 77ieddllng with GodT 
 
 JOSIAH was an excellent king of Judah. There had been 
 none like him for many a long day. He was but an infant 
 when he came unto the throne, that is to say, he was eight 
 years old. The written law had been lost a very long 
 time ; Josiah had nothing by way of example to draw upon 
 that could lift him up towards the true notion of worship 
 and service to the real God. He was the son of a bad 
 man, he was the son indeed of one of the worst men that 
 ever lived in that time of the world’s history. Being so 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 147 
 
 young, what could he do? Well, he found something in 
 his own heart, as we should humanly say, that started him 
 on the right direction. He began in a very wonderful way 
 to do very excellent things. He seemed to be a kind of 
 instinctive or intuitional reformer ; for the law wjas lost, and 
 the priests and prophets seemed to be dumb, and the poor 
 young king wrought away with such light as he had, and 
 in the course of his working he did what you will do if you 
 will try — he found the law. 
 
 You would find more if you sought for more: he that 
 doeth the will shall know the doctrine : he who uses the 
 little candle that is at his disposal shall be led out into 
 solar light — twilight to begin with, but growing unceas- 
 ingly and unchangeably up into the mid-day blaze of 
 glory. 
 
 Josiah then found the law, had it read in his hearing, 
 learned from it that every king of Judah and of Israel had 
 been covenanted to keep that law with his own hand, and 
 he felt that all the judgments prophesied against the house 
 of Israel and of Judah would fall upon his own head, 
 because he had not obeyed the letter of the word of the 
 Lord. What was to be done.^ It was speedily discovered 
 that the wardrobe-keeper had a wife in whom was the 
 spirit of prophecy, and so to Huldah they went, and she 
 sent comfortable messages to the young king : she said, 
 “ Thus saith the Lord to the man who hath acted so, 
 because thine heart was tender and thou hast feared the 
 Lord, none of these judgments shall fall upon thee, but 
 thou shalt be gathered to thy fathers in peace, and after 
 that there shall come a black day upon the black people.” 
 So Josiah took heart again, and it came into his mind to 
 revive the old ceremonies and ritual of Israel, and to do 
 wonderful things in the way of the Passover, and we read 
 that there was no Passover like to that kept in Israel from 
 the days of Samuel the prophet. 
 
 Now Josiah will go down to his fathers in peace— if he 
 behave himself. He reigned one and thirty years, and in 
 the last month of that last year he may be tripped up. 
 You are not safe while you are on the water ; though there 
 be but eighteen inches between the ship and the land ; 
 there is room enough in eighteen inches to sink you down. 
 Get on the land before you sing— be on the rock before 
 
148 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 you take the trumpet and put it to your lips : risk nothing 
 of the detail of your life — an iota may ruin you, the miss 
 of the smallest writing in all the minutest detail may lead 
 to loss, to death, to hell. You are not saved by lumps of 
 good behaviour, by breadths of possible morality : he that 
 is unfaithful in the least will be unfaithful in the greatest. 
 Even yet Josiah may be smitten from Heaven after his one 
 and thirty years of very excellent service — so many people 
 get wrong just at the last, so many people fall into the 
 water just as they are stepping on land. What I say unto 
 one, I say unto all — Watch. 
 
 The miscarriage in the case of Josiah cam.e about in this 
 way. There was a king of Egypt called Pharaoh Necho, 
 an old foe of the Assyrian empire. He came up to fight 
 against Charchemish, by Euphrates, and Josiah at his own 
 instigation went out against Necho king of Egypt. ‘‘But 
 Necho king of Egypt sent ambassadors unto him, saying, 
 What have I to do with thee, thou king of Judah? I 
 come not against thee this day, but against the house 
 wherewith I have war ; for God commanded me to make 
 haste. Forbear thee from meddling with God who is 
 with me, that He destroy thee not.” A noble message — 
 the man who can speak so calmly, solemnly, religiously, 
 will fight well. Have no faith in the blustering assail- 
 ant — dread the man who challenges thee when on his 
 knees. 
 
 Josiah would not turn his face from Necho, but disguised 
 himself that he might fight with him ; he hearkened not 
 unto the words of Necho from the mouth of God, and 
 came to fight in the valley of Megiddo. And the archers 
 shot at king Josiah, and the king said to his servants, 
 “ Hav^ me away ; for I am sore wounded.” So he was put 
 into his second chariot, and carried home. And be died, 
 and was buried in one of the sepulchres of his fathers — he 
 who might have been gathered to his fathers quietly, in 
 the very peace, in the infinite sweetness of the benediction 
 of God, was shot like a dog. 
 
 Are you priding yourself upon your quarter of a cen- 
 tury’s good behaviour } If there is a day yet left to you 
 there is time enough for you to sponge out all the beauty 
 of the past and to find your way into perdition. The 
 question most deeply interesting to us is : what can we 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 149 
 
 learn from the words of the king of Egypt that will help 
 us to live a true and useful life ? 
 
 Do we not learn from Necho — unfamiliar name, unac- 
 customed minister — that our life is not a series of unrelated 
 accidents, but that it is a part of a Divine and immutable 
 scheme? The king of Egypt said in effect to Josiah : — 
 This is no doing of mine ; I am secondary in the matter ; 
 
 I am not following the lure of my own fancy ; I am im- 
 pelled by God ; I am here as His servant — treat me as 
 such, or God will cause His judgment to fall upon thee/’ 
 This is the only solid ground to occupy, if life is to be 
 more than a continual exasperation and a bitter dis- 
 appointment. This is the great doctrine of Providence 
 which Jesus Christ never ceased to teach, and never ceased 
 to live. When He began His life what did He say ? 
 Oh, to catch the first words from those eloquent lips ! — 
 what was the first note in the anthem of that tragic life? 
 “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s busi- 
 ness ? ” What was the last note in that same anthem ? 
 Will He be able to make His way around, so as to finish 
 where He began ? Hear Him on the cross : “ Father into 
 Thy hands I commend my spirit.” Father at first. Father 
 at last, and throughout all the teaching the same word 
 glowed like a sun that kept all the inferior stars in their 
 places. 
 
 Have you been centring in yourself, beginning with your 
 own little individuality, carving out a small system of 
 astronomy with your own shadow as a centre ? Then I 
 do not wonder that your faces are wrinkled, and that there 
 is a murmur in your speech, a cloud in your sky, and that 
 you are lost amid all the little, petty, fretful, vexatious 
 details of life. You are wrong. We are invited in the 
 Holy Scripture to believe that we are notour own creators ; 
 that we live because God wills it ; that the very hairs of 
 our head are all numbered ; and that our steps are of the 
 Lord’s ordering ; and that our downsitting and our uprising 
 are noted in Heaven ; that our outgoing is observed, and 
 our returning regarded in the Heavenly books, and at the 
 last our deeds and words will be judged by the wise God, 
 whose strength and wisdom are the stay of the universe. 
 If you accept that faith you cannot be troubled ; if you 
 have any other creed, the weather, the climate, will have 
 
EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 150 
 
 you up and down according to the fickleness of its own 
 movement. 
 
 The doctrine of the Bible is a doctrine of a Providential 
 plan — a Divine scheme. Every page is rich with the 
 promises of this doctrine, not a line is out of chord with its 
 solemn music. Yea, the cross itself is part of the infinite 
 plan, foreseen from eternity in every shadow^ of its gloom 
 and every pang of its agony. So then, we who are Chris- 
 tians believe that God is over all, that the earth is in the 
 hollow of His hand, and that nothing happens, even down 
 to the falling out of its nest of the youngest sparrow in the 
 early summer, without His notice. A grand conception, 
 if it be nothing more — a marvellous poem if only a flash 
 of fancy — an infinite rock if a Divine revelation. And yet 
 I have people round about me — we all have — who pray to 
 God but don’t trust Him. Wonder ye that their prayers 
 like birds with broken wings die on the threshold of the 
 closet in which they were conceived } I don’t. Any other 
 outcoming of such prayer would vex me as a practical 
 satire upon Providential ways. The great doctrine of 
 Divine Providence is like the sun, distant, inaccessible ; 
 but the exemplification of that doctrine in personal and 
 practical life is like the light which falls out of the sun, 
 which makes morning upon our window and the abundant 
 summer round about our houses. I propose therefore now 
 turning from the great general doctrine which underlies 
 the message which the king of Egypt addressed to Josiah, 
 to look at some of the minute and special colourings of 
 this doctrine which come to us through its personal trials 
 and realizations. 
 
 I. In the first place the king of Egypt considered that 
 the doctrine of a Providential plan was not inconsistent 
 with difficulty, contention, loss, and suffering on the part 
 of man. Does the king of Egypt say : “ This is Provi- 
 dence, brother king Josiah, sitting on my throne, my head 
 upon a pillow of down, my feet resting on velvet soft as 
 moss, my whole house glowing with every light and every 
 beauty”.^ No such foolish message does he send to the 
 king of Judah. Necho has come up from his own land, 
 come up to suffer, come up to fight, come up to shed 
 blood : yet he says, “ God sent me.” It is so seldom we 
 think God sends us to church on a wet Sunday : we think 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 151 
 
 He is so fearful of us taking cold that surely He would 
 never be so unreasonable as to ask us to go out on a wet 
 Sunday. In the old, old times, when heroes shook the 
 earth with their majestic step, they were not afraid of 
 insects and wet days — we are. “ ’Tis true, ’tis pity, pity 
 his his true.” 
 
 It was no holiday dream that had touched Necho’s 
 ambition or vanity : it was a service of severe discipline, 
 anxious preparation, daily watching, mortal strife, and yet 
 he saw God over it all, watching, directing, controlling. I 
 believe there are some of us who believe in Providence 
 when we are in a nice large boat and have the best seat 
 and the softest cushion, and when the water is like molten 
 silver, and the banks are near and green, and the sky far 
 off and blue, with many a keen light lodging in its fleecy 
 clouds. Then we say, Ah,” — pious sigh ! — “Ah, after all 
 he must be blind who does not see God in this.” It is sad, 
 it is discouraging, it sometimes makes me impious. But 
 to hear a poor woman — a widow — who has buried the one 
 boy in the family that could work for its sustenance — to 
 hear her say, — looking at all the little girls who are nearly 
 helpless, taking up the corner of her apron to wipe off the 
 tear from her poor eyes — ‘‘God’s will be done: the Lord 
 gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name 
 of the Lord ” — that converts me, brings me home, makes 
 me pray. 
 
 O full summer Christian, what art thou doing to bring 
 lustre upon thy faith, to make the world wonder if it does 
 not worship — stand aghast and amazed if it do not join 
 thy psalm of resignation } If Christians carried out their 
 creed, we should soon, by the blessing of God, convert the 
 heathen. 
 
 II. In the next place the king of Egypt acknowledged 
 and proclaimed the tender and ever comforting doctrine of 
 a special personal, detailed Providence. Did he say to 
 Josiah, “The Lord reigneth ” ? No. Did he refer Josiah 
 to great abstract principles 1 He did not. What said 
 Necho — man of the strange mouth and the unfamiliar 
 voice — He said, “God commanded me, God is with me.” 
 There is a deism which says that the whole is cared for, 
 but the part must take care of itself. The king of Egypt 
 reversed the doctrine, saw God caring for the part, and 
 
152 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 reasoned that therefore he cared for the whole. This is 
 the very teaching of Christ : Christ hath some strange 
 ministers, some irregular expositors, some preachers who 
 did not come through the orthodox gate, and therefore 
 much to be suspected by people who were cradled in 
 orthodoxy and will be buried in it. Jesus Christ and 
 Necho king of Egypt were at one in this high sweet note. 
 Jesus said, “Wherefore,” after having been looking at bird 
 and lily, and small things accessible to all generally, 
 “Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which 
 to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not 
 much more clothe you ? ” If we believed that, the remainder 
 of this day would be about the happiest portion of our life 
 we have had, in the individual heart or at the family table, 
 for many a long year. 
 
 My friend, God will take care of thee if thou dost live in 
 Him and for Him, and dost love Him. He will not let 
 thy grey hairs go down with sorrow to the grave, and He 
 will find the key of that shut door, and He will search for 
 a rod the shadow of which shall make the Red Sea sever 
 in two parts, and thou shalt go through on dry land. 
 Have faith in God — cast thyself upon Him and wait 
 patiently His will and the revelation of His purpose, and 
 if thou must perish, perish with thy belief upon thy lips. 
 No man was ever wounded to death by that dart. 
 
 God cares for the individual, for the unit. Do you care 
 for your family as an abstraction or as a reality } Do you 
 care for your children as a whole, or do you care for them 
 individually.^ Now how is it If you lump them, speak 
 of them as a poetical abstraction, I am very glad not to be 
 under your patronage. But if you pick out the eldest, and 
 the youngest, and the three or four or five between and 
 care for each of them as if that were the only child, then it 
 would be well to be one of the number. And so you do. 
 Very well : “ If ye then, being evil, know how to give good 
 gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father 
 which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him ” 
 — give the Holy Ghost to them that seek Him — give 
 direction to everyone of His children.^ Why, if one of 
 them went astray, what would He do } He would leave 
 the ninety and nine and would go after that which was 
 gone astray. The God that gave that representation of 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 153 
 
 Himself is all the God I want. The tenderness of that 
 suggestion shall stand for learning, for criticism, for history, 
 for logic — it shall be all in all. You will find me there 
 when heart and flesh do fail. 
 
 By constantly desiring to know and to do the will of 
 God, we seem to link our small life to the great chariot of 
 God’s Providence ; but when we take our life into our own 
 keeping, we detach ourselves from that chariot and grope 
 like cripples in the dark. By our faith we draw succour 
 from the very root of God’s own being, but by our unbelief 
 and self-sufficiency we lose the sustenance, and perish, 
 because we seek not to live on God’s word but on our own. 
 And to-day there are some people who imagine that they 
 can get along pretty well without God : who are the 
 people ? Debtors to His mercy. Who are the people 
 that have wounded you most keenly ? The people to 
 whom you have lent money and shown favours and been 
 kind. Nobody else can thrust the knife so far into the 
 heart. Barbarian and Scythian can give you an ugly 
 thrust that shall tear the skin, but man of your own house- 
 hold, child of your own bones, friend that has sucked the 
 blood of your love — he can thrust the blade up to the 
 hilt. 
 
 When a man has been born in a Christian land, has 
 been reared in a Christian atmosphere, and has had all the 
 advantages of a Christian example and Christian training, 
 it is impossible for that man to know exactly what he 
 would have been and what he would have done but for 
 those facts. Travelling the other day, I saw something 
 which illustrated this graphically. I was standing in the 
 railway station, and in there came a carriage, all by itself 
 • — no steam engine, just a carriage and nothing more. 
 And the carriage said, ‘‘ There is a notion abroad, an old- 
 fashioned but mistaken and sometimes mischievous notion, 
 that it is needful to have a steam engine in order to draw 
 a carriage. Gentlemen,” said the carriage, looking to the 
 few persons on the platform, “ if you seek an argument to 
 disprove that fallacy, circumspice, look around.” And we 
 all looked around, and we all saw it, and we all said, Car- 
 riage, this is very wonderful : you brought yourself into 
 this station apparently, now take yourself out of it.” And 
 the carriage is standing there still, and will stand there till 
 
154 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMOXS AND OUTLINES 
 
 it rots, — it cannot turn a wheel. It was a detached carri- 
 age ; the great engine that brought it along with mighty 
 sweep went on, and this was left behind to spend its 
 momentum, and it just came into the station so nicely and 
 thought it had brought itself in. And there be many 
 human detached carriages. They have had fathers, 
 mothers, ministers, schools, lectures, books : they have 
 been brought up under Christian culture, taken so far 
 along the line : by some means or other become detached 
 — asked to be detached, and in spending their dying 
 momentum, they think they are using an original force. 
 Be it mine to be drawn on by the great God : I would live 
 and move and have my being in God ; my smallest affairs 
 I would spread before Him ; I would ask Him to my bed- 
 chamber that He may give me sleep ; I would see Him at 
 my table as the Giver and Sanctifier of my daily bread. 
 He shall keep my door lest an enemy enter or a friend 
 go out — when I pass through the valley of the shadow 
 of death I will ask no other comfort than His rod and 
 staff*. 
 
 The text is in 2 Chronicles xxxv. 2i. It is very notable 
 that we should have this great saying from the mouth of 
 a king of Egypt. This would have come well from the 
 lips of Jeremiah who prophesied in the days of Josiah 
 king of Judah. It would have befitted the burning lips of 
 Ezekiel — it would have fallen well from the eloquent 
 mouth of Isaiah. But we get this doctrine from Necho 
 king of Egypt. This is indeed water in an unexpected 
 place — behold, a fair flower in a wide, bleak desert : 
 hear the music of Heaven played upon a strange instru- 
 ment. 
 
 But do you think it cannot be true because Necho the 
 heathenish king of Egypt said it ? Then you know not 
 that it is part of the Divine plan to bring strange prophets 
 into the ministry of the word. Were there not ten lepers 
 cleansed? Yes. How many have returned to give glory 
 to God ? One. Who is he ? A stranger. Did not one 
 man stoop to pity the wounded traveller on the road, to 
 pour in wine and oil, to set him on his beast, to bring him 
 to his inn, and to take care of him "! Yes. Who was it ? 
 A Samaritan. Was there not a woman who surprised the 
 Son of God Himself by the abundance and vividness of 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT, 
 
 155 
 
 her faith — did she not seem to turn back the going of the 
 Eternal? She did. Who was she? A woman — a Syro- 
 phenician — no well dressed Jewess who was caught within 
 the cordon of the old covenants and seemed to have a 
 hereditary right to the Divine ministrations and privileges. 
 Was there not a man who once said, preaching- the gospel 
 before the time, “ it was expedient that one man die for 
 the people”? Yes. Who was it — Peter? No. John? 
 No. Who ? Caiaphas. Certainly — it is God’s way. If 
 we hold our peace He will make the stones cry out. If 
 we English Christians, stall-fed, if we hold our peace, He 
 will make the stones cry out. If we who swallow three 
 sermons a week, and would kill the finest preacher that 
 ever breathed by drawing from him and never giving any- 
 thing in return — if we hold our peace. He will make the 
 stones cry out. If we who know about Nazareth and 
 Bethlehem and Capernaum and Jerusalem and Golgotha 
 and Bethany — if we who have seen the blood and felt the 
 hot healing drops fall upon our guilt — if we are dumb, 
 the heathen shall take our places and we shall be shut 
 out. 
 
 j. p. 
 
 XIX. Job. JoBi. 8, 9. ^^And the Lord said unto Satan, 
 Hast thou considered My servant Job, that there is none like 
 him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth 
 God, and escheiveth evil 2 Then Satan answered the Lord^ and 
 said, Doth Job fear God for nought 2 
 
 Among the mysteries of God’s providence, there is, per- 
 haps, no mystery greater than the law by which suffering 
 is meted out in the world. It is not a mystery that sin 
 should bring forth sorrow ; it is not a mystery that pain, 
 disease, and death should be the fruit of man’s fall. He 
 who has ever reflected on the nature of sin will not wonder, 
 that, by God’s irreversible law, sin should bring its own 
 chastisement with it. There is such a moral heinousness 
 in the defection of one made in the image of God, from 
 the image of his Maker ; there is something so appalling 
 in the assertion of the will of the creature in independence 
 of, and in opposition to, the will of the Creator, that we 
 
156 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 cannot question the justice of the sentence : In the day 
 
 thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” The act of re- 
 bellion against a holy God must carry with it in its teem- 
 ing womb the whole vast burden of human misery and 
 pain. We feel that, were it otherwise, the moral majesty 
 of God would be assailed. To introduce disorder into the 
 moral order of God, to mar His works — that it should be 
 possible for man to do this, is, no doubt, evidence of man’s 
 greatness ; but could man do this with Impunity, that 
 would certainly be an indisputable proof, either that no 
 God existed, or that the God of this world was not one 
 whom His creatures could worship. The conscience of 
 men in all ages — the heathen conscience as well as the 
 Jewish conscience and the Christian conscience — has ac- 
 quiesced in the justice of that great moral constitution of 
 things by which sin becomes its own chastisement. The 
 avenging furies haunt the evil-doer, and suffering is the 
 expiation of guilt. 
 
 But the really difficult problem is not the problem of 
 suffering in the abstract ; it is the problem of the meting 
 out of suffering on any theory of sin ; it is the problem 
 why the innocent are called upon to suffer, whilst the 
 guilty too often escape ; it is the problem why the purest, 
 the saintliest of our race, should drain to the dregs the cup 
 of sorrow, while the ungodly have more than heart could 
 wish, and have neither afflictions in their life, nor bands in 
 their death. This is the problem which comes before us 
 in that grandest of all poems which has ever sounded the 
 deeps of the human heart — the Book of Job. 
 
 Job is a righteous man, living in the fear of God, and 
 eschewing evil. He is a man of large wealth and posses- 
 sions ; but he does not spend his wealth in selfish gratifi- 
 cation. He is charitable to the poor, hospitable to the 
 stranger, bountiful to all. He was not only the greatest of 
 all the men of the East, he was, it would seem, the best. 
 He not only sat as a king amongst the tribes of the Kore- 
 ish, his heart was as comprehensive as his wealth ; when 
 the ear heard him, then it blessed him ; when the eye be- 
 held him, it gave witness to him. But in a moment, the 
 sky of his prosperity is overcast ; lightnings leap out upon 
 him from the dark thunder-cloud ; blow follows blow wnth 
 fearful rapidity. Arab hordes sweep away his cattle, and 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 ^S7 
 
 plunder his homestead, and kill his servants. A hurricane 
 destroys the house in which his children are feasting, and 
 buries them in its fall. All this in a single day ; and, as if 
 this were not enough, he is smitten himself with a ghastly 
 and loathsome form of leprosy ; and then, that the last 
 aggravation of his bitter trial may not be wanting, his 
 wife, breaking down under the load of her misery, pours 
 venom into the cup of his suffering, bidding him renounce 
 his faith in that Being who was visiting such punishments 
 upon the head of His servant, and die with a blasphemy 
 upon his lips. 
 
 On what principle of justice is such a man made to 
 suffer ? Here is a man exemplary in his life, devout, pure, 
 charitable, of sterling integrity, of pronounced piety, hav- 
 ing a living and sincere faith in God. Why is he crushed 
 with this awful suffering? This is the problem we have 
 before us in this magnificent drama. Contrast the prob- 
 lem for one moment with that which meets us in the most 
 impressive of Greek tragedies, with that drama of ^schy- 
 lus the Proinetheus VinctuSy of which the poet Coleridge 
 said truly, that it was not so much a tragedy, as tragedy 
 itself Prometheus has been the benefactor of mankind. 
 He has entered into a sublime conflict with Zeus, the 
 supreme Deity. In his efforts for the good of the race, he 
 is crushed by his adversary, and he dies with defiance on 
 his lips. The conception, no doubt, is grand, but the chief 
 element of grandeur lies in the fact that it is Power, and 
 not Righteousness, which sits on the throne ; and re- 
 bellion against supreme Power, which is not supreme 
 Right, must always be grand. But the struggle in the 
 history of Job is far nobler. He knows that the God he 
 worships is not supreme Power only, but supreme Right- 
 eousness also. This it is that makes his trial so hard. 
 With him the difficulty is to reconcile the God of his con- 
 science and his faith, with the God who is Ruler of the 
 world. On the throne of his heart sits One who is abso- 
 lutely righteous. On the throne of the universe sits One 
 who, judging by the facts of life, is not absolutely righteous. 
 And the end of the struggle in the drama of Job is in- 
 finitely more instructive, and infinitely more consolatory, 
 than the close of the Prometheus. It is not the defiance of 
 Power, it is not the arrogant assertion of self-righteous- 
 
158 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 ness ; it is the confession of ignorance of self, and ignor- 
 ance of God ; it is the submission of the sorely-tried man 
 to the revelation of that God whose revelation he had 
 longed for : ‘‘ I have heard of thee by the hearing of the 
 ear ; but now mine eye seetK Thee. Wherefore I abhor 
 myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” 
 
 The problem of the book, as I have said, is that hardest 
 of all problems to faith, as to unbelief, — the problem of 
 innocent suffering. What is the solution of it ? You have 
 in this book the problem worked out, and three answers 
 given. The first is the answer of the three friends who 
 came to condole with Job in his affliction. They are evi- 
 dently men of position, of education, of intelligence, of re- 
 ligious knowledge. As compared with their neighbours, 
 they may be said to constitute the elite, the intellectual 
 and social aristocracy of the country. There are repre- 
 sentatives, moreover, of different modes of thought. Eli- 
 phaz is the man of prophetic insight ; Bildad is the sage, 
 familiar with ancient lore, well versed in the traditions of 
 the fathers ; Zophar is the average religious man of his 
 day, orthodox, pious, sincere, but withal, bigoted, fanatical, 
 uncharitable, a man who expects every one to agree with 
 him, not only to believe what he believes, — neither more 
 nor less, — but to express that belief exactly in the same 
 rigid formula. But the three friends, though representing 
 three different types of character, all concur in one thing : 
 they all hold the same theory of the Divine government, 
 and, on the strength of that theory, they all condemn Job. 
 One after another, these officious friends take up their 
 argument against Job; and one after another, they repeat 
 the same commonplaces of their creed. God is just, and 
 therefore God rewards the righteous, and punishes the 
 wicked. If a man suffers, he suffers because he deserves it. 
 If you do not concede this, they say you arraign the 
 justice of God. Job may have been apparently moral, 
 upright, religious, but he must have cherished some secret 
 sin, and it is this which has called down upon him the 
 vengeance of the Most High. This is their compendious 
 system of theology. This was the system in which they 
 had been been trained. This was the system with which 
 they were content, because their experience had probably 
 furnished them with no glaring violation of it ; or because. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 159 
 
 like other good men in all ages, they shut their eyes to 
 inconvenient facts which clashed with their system. But, 
 like all compendious systems of theology, it breaks down. 
 It is not large enough to cover the facts. You cannot sum 
 in little the mysteries of the universe. You cannot still 
 the anguish of beating hearts, crying out for God in their 
 desolate misery, by giving them the dead dry sand of 
 some formula which you presumptuously label as«the truth. 
 It is all too little ; the facts of God’s world are too broad 
 for your system. “ Who did sin, this man or his parents, 
 that he was born blind? Neither did this man sin, nor 
 his parents ; but that the works of God might be made 
 manifest in him.” Centuries of teaching could not root 
 out of men’s minds the obstinate belief that the suffering 
 is the measure of the sin. But the sufferer himself repu- 
 diates this. Job is stung to the quick ; his spirit is roused 
 at these insinuations, when he knows how unjust they are. 
 He can accept the current theology in its generalities ; he 
 does not doubt that suffering is the fruit of sin ; but that 
 general principle does not touch his own case. God has 
 not smitten him for his sin. His conscience is clear. He 
 can look into his own heart, he can review his life, and he 
 is sure that neither in thought nor in act has he departed 
 willingly from God. Never has he been tempted by the 
 idolatries around him. True and loving obedience to his 
 Maker has been the law of his life. This, indeed, it is that 
 makes his anguish so intense. This is the terrible dilemma 
 in which he is placed. The righteousness of God, that is 
 the fundamental article of his creed — that, nothing shall 
 induce him to forego ; and yet thence comes his greatest 
 perplexity. The book is moistened, it has been truly said, 
 with the bitterest tears that the human creature can shed 
 — the tears of a wounded conscience. Job does not main- 
 tain his absolute freedom from sin. He admits the force 
 of Bildad’s statement that God will not cast away the 
 perfect man, neither will He help the evil-doers. That is 
 Job’s theology too. “ I know it is so of a truth, but how 
 should man be just with God ?” But this does not cover 
 the facts. This does not explain why he, who had never 
 wilfully transgressed, should be punished with such ex- 
 treme severity. It is of no use to tell him that he has been 
 a hypocrite and an evil-doer. He indignantly denies the 
 
i6o 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 accusation. This is not the explanation of his case. He 
 will be true to God, and to the method of His justice so 
 far as he knows it ; but he must be true to his conscience. 
 He will not say, “ I am guilty,” when he knows that he is 
 innocent. 
 
 Who does not feel the pathos of the cry as he exclaims, 
 “ Thou knowest that I am not wicked ; ” and as he adds, 
 trembling yet trusting, as in the grasp of one from whom 
 there was no escape, “ There is none that can deliver out 
 of Thine hand ? ” For a moment he is tempted, as who 
 has not been tempted, to take refuge in a blind submission. 
 
 It is of no use ; He will give no account of any of His 
 matters. I must take up my burden, and trudge on along 
 the weary road to the end as well as I can.” But, in spite 
 of himself, his inmost heart cries out, ‘‘ God must be right- 
 eous,” and again and again there bursts from his lips the 
 passionate desire that the eternal righteousness should be 
 vindicated. He will not be beaten from his belief in that 
 righteousness, though the darkness that shadows him be 
 intolerable. “ Though He slay me, yet will I trust in 
 Him. I will maintain mine own ways before Him.” And 
 again: “Oh that I knew where I might find Him, that I 
 might come even to His seat ! I would order my cause 
 before Him, and fill my mouth with arguments.” And so 
 to the very last word he utters. He reviews his life, he 
 describes in a strain of magnificent poetry the integrity of 
 his career, and the happiness he had enjoyed, and, con- 
 trasting it with his present misery, he concludes with the 
 same passionate assertion of his innocence, the same pas- 
 sionate appeal to God to come out of the darkness in which 
 He is hidden : “Oh that one would hear me ! Behold, my 
 desire is that the Almighty would answer me, and that 
 mine adversary,” — so he boldly speaks of God, — “that mine 
 adversary would write his accusation against me.” And 
 we know that Job was right, still needing, no doubt, as we 
 all do, a deeper knowledge of God, a deeper knowledge of 
 himself ; needing the lesson, above all, that his very right- 
 eousness was not his own : — but right in maintaining his 
 innocence against his friends ; right in holding fast his in- 
 tegrity ; right in trusting God through all ; right in appeal- 
 ing to Him to declare His righteousness where it seemed 
 to be hidden in cloud. God Himself bears witness to the 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 i6i 
 
 sincerity of His servant, and condemns the specious but 
 hollow theology of his friends. In His sight, a frank and 
 loyal heterodoxy is of more worth than a strict, but hard 
 and freezing orthodoxy, which would make God Himself 
 the accomplice of its error. Job was learning his theology 
 not from books, or from the traditions of the fathers, but 
 in the midst of God’s furnace, and by the teaching of 
 God’s Spirit; and, therefore, though it was defective, it 
 was true. 
 
 But there is another theory of suffering, which approaches 
 much more nearly to the truth, which is also given us in the 
 Book of Job. When Job’s three friends ceased to answer 
 him, a fourth appears, who is indignant with Job for his 
 obstinacy, and with them, because they failed so completely 
 to vindicate the righteousness of God. Elihu has been 
 taught, apparently, in a different school ; at any rate, he 
 has seen reason to question the received opinions ; and, 
 with many apologies for his want of experience and know- 
 ledge, he boldly assails them. He is the representative of 
 a younger theology ; and a younger theology, remember, 
 is not necessarily worse than the old. It is often better, 
 more generous, has a larger faith in God, and a wider grasp 
 of the complex relations of the world. How narrow, how 
 poor, how unfruitful, is the mere repetition of the past, 
 even when it is true ! What would the Church be now, if 
 her children had never ventured beyond the interpretations 
 of ancient doctors and fathers ? How meagre, how poor 
 would be her theology ? And if the Church is true to the 
 indwelling spirit within her, if that indwelling is a reality 
 to be claimed and cherished by her children, then she will 
 advance, not by a denial of the old fact, for that had its 
 use and served its purpose, but by vindicating the genius 
 of the old revelation in its ever new application to the 
 emergencies of the time, and the contests in which she 
 is engaged. She will gladly make use of the teaching of 
 facts, and the lessons of experience, and as well fulfil her 
 prophecies in the newness of the spirit and not the oldness 
 of the letter. This was what Elihu did. His observation 
 of life had been of service to him. He rejects the hard law 
 of retribution. God’s purpose in chastisement he declares 
 to be the purification of His servants. If He puts those 
 whom He loves into the crucible, it is to purge away their 
 
 M 
 
EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 162 
 
 dross, to cleanse them from past sins, and to keep them 
 from falling in the future. Here, certainly, is a step in 
 advance. We are standing on a loftier platform. We are 
 breathing a purer atmosphere. To see a purpose of love 
 in the affliction is to turn it into a blessing. Even if the 
 conscience does not acknowledge it as merited, to be able 
 to say, “ It is a Fathers hand that chastens, and He is wiser 
 than I — this is surely to rob chastisement of its sting. 
 And you will observe that Job accepts in silence this in- 
 terpretation of his suffering. Evidently it has wrought in 
 him that submission which prepared him for the words of 
 Jehovah, when He answers him out of the whirlwind, and 
 for the humble confession that follows : “Behold, I am vile, 
 what shall I answer Thee ? I will lay mine hand upon 
 my mouth ! 
 
 Let us pause for a moment on this aspect of suffering. 
 Do you say: “Why have I been thus smitten? Why 
 has sorrow so deep visited me 't All God’s waves and 
 billows are gone over me. All that I loved most has been 
 taken from me. I have eaten ashes for bread, and mingled 
 my drink with weeping ? ” Do you say : “ I have not sinned. 
 I have been obedient to God’s will, so far as I knew that 
 will } ” But was He supreme in your heart ? Were there 
 no idols usurping His place? Had you made no gods to 
 go before you ; no visible divinities to divide your heart; 
 no wife or children whom you loved with a passionate love, 
 for whose step you listened, whose voice made you gladder 
 than all the music of earth and sky, with whom earth was 
 heaven, without whom there was no heaven for you ? And 
 God put away your idol, and left you in your loneliness. 
 Why? Not surely that He might wound and break your 
 heart, but that He might draw you to Himself. He came 
 to you amid the ruins of your earthly happiness, and He 
 spoke with His penetrating voice ; He put His hand upon 
 your heart ; He offered you His divine consolation. Then 
 you said, like John the Baptist, “ Verily’', I knew Him not;” 
 or, like Job, “ I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the 
 ear ; but now mine eyes seeth Thee.” You understood 
 His word and His love better. His words assumed a 
 deeper meaning for you, and now you know, as you never 
 knew before, what treasures of strength and peace He was 
 laying up for you ; and you have found the promise true 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 163 
 
 as you never found it before : ‘‘ My peace I give unto you. 
 Not as the world giveth give I unto you.’’ 
 
 And then you are trained to a new obedience. Then, in 
 the language of the Epistle to the Hebrews, God is making 
 you a partaker of His holiness. He is transforming you 
 to the image of His Son. For what is perfect holiness but 
 perfect obedience ; and where can this obedience be so 
 fully learned as in the hour of affliction ? Is it not then 
 that we are compelled to confess that God’s ways are not 
 as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts ? In the 
 presence of the great sorrow which has come upon us we 
 quiver with agony ; our soul is troubled in our Gethsemane. 
 We are grappling with a terrible principle of contradiction. 
 We may doubt God’s love ; but if then we are able to say 
 from the bottom of the heart, “ Thy will be done,” we have 
 gained the noblest victory of which man on earth is capable. 
 When the day of that painful obedience dawned, though it 
 dawned on the most terrible disaster, it was a day of in- 
 finite grandeur and beauty. You are raised to the very 
 summit of moral life, — a rugged thunder- blasted summit 
 like some Alpine peak, but one which pierces the clouds, on 
 which there rests the light and the sunshine of God. One 
 with Christ, a sharer in His Gethsemane, nailed to His 
 cross, you become partaker of His holiness ; and you con- 
 fess that though. the chastening for the present seemeth not 
 to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward ityieldeth 
 the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exer- 
 cised thereby. 
 
 But the mystery of evil is not fully dispelled even when 
 this purifying power is assigned it. The author of this 
 sublime poem is made the instrument of revealing to us 
 another purpose of affliction. He does not altogether deny 
 a portion of the truth contained in the argument of Job’s 
 friends. There is a connection between sin and suffering; 
 but there are cases to which neither of these explanations 
 will apply. There is a suffering to which you cannot give 
 the epithet of retributive ; there is a suffering which is not 
 even for the chastisement or the purification of the in- 
 dividual soul, but for the glory of God. If our attention 
 has been fastened only on the earthward aspect of the 
 problem, we should have missed this most important lesson ; 
 nay, the end of the story, if we were to read it only by the 
 
1 64 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 conclusion of the book, would bring us back to the old 
 theology, that, in the long run, virtue has its reward here. 
 But if we revert to the prologue of the book, we learn a far 
 grander lesson. A door is opened in heaven. The great 
 opposer of our race, the adversary who watches our conduct, 
 presents himself before God in the midst of the heavenly 
 hierarchy, and he insinuates that the piety of Job is a selfish 
 piety. Doth Job fear God for nought } '' It is a mere bar- 
 gain, it is a mere calculation. Honesty is the best policy ; 
 religion brings with it wealth, honours, position, length of 
 life ; therefore, it is worth while to be religious. Satan 
 tells God to His face that His servants serve Him, not from 
 disinterested motives, from sincere affection, but in the 
 spirit of a hireling, on the lowest and most mercenary con- 
 siderations. ‘‘Doth Job fear God for nought.^ Hast not 
 Thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and 
 about all that he hath on every side } Thou hast blessed 
 the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in 
 the land. But put forth Thine hand now, and touch all 
 that he hath, and he will curse Thee to Thy face/’ This is 
 the challenge given. It is one that strikes at the honour 
 of God Himself. It means this, that He is incapable of 
 inspiring a genuine, disinterested affection. It means this, 
 that those who worship Him, worship Him, not for what 
 He is, but for what He gives ; not because He is alto- 
 gether lovely, but because in His right hand is length of 
 days, and in His left hand riches and honour. And God 
 accepts the challenge. “ Go forth and do Thy worst. 
 Take away all that is dearest to him. Rob him of wealth, 
 of children, of happiness. Make his life bitter with sick- 
 ness and sorrow, and let the issue be tried. Let it be seen 
 whether he honours Me because he loves Me, or because he 
 is prosperous in this world. Let it be seen if his homage 
 is the homage of the heart, or the homage of a mercenary, 
 servile adulation.” This is the key to the enigma. Job 
 knew nothing of this. The interpretation was not given 
 to him. Enough for him to learn that he was in the hand 
 of a wise and righteous and loving God. Enough for him 
 to know that God was teaching him the hard lesson of 
 obedience. Enough for him to come out of the trial as 
 gold that is purified in the fire. But for us the veil is lifted. 
 We are ushered into the inner sanctuary. God reveals to 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 165 
 
 us His counsel. He bids us see that He may inflict suffer- 
 ing, not because there are sins to chastise, not because there 
 are faults to correct, or evil tendencies to extirpate, but 
 because God Himself is honoured in the trial. Surely no 
 more honoured position could be assigned to man than 
 thus to be the champion of God. Think of it, you who are 
 called to endure long hours of agony ; you to whom God 
 has appointed days of pain and nights of sleepless suffer- 
 ing. Think of it, you who cannot comprehend His purpose, 
 and your fainting heart asks, “ Why is this That mother, 
 who, for twenty years, has been laid on a bed of pain, de- 
 prived of the happiness of watching over and training her 
 children ; that honest and industrious father, whose strength 
 is fading away under the protracted and excruciating tor- 
 ture of an incurable malady, and that at the very time his 
 efforts are most needed for the support of his family ; that 
 upright merchant, that honest tradesman, who, because he 
 would not consent to some fraud or some act of business 
 dishonesty, sees himself and his children exposed to the 
 shame of bankruptcy and to the privations of poverty : 
 these no doubt will look into their hearts, they will inter- 
 rogate their lives, they will beseech of God to show them 
 if there be any way of wickedness in them ; but if, when 
 they have done all, they still find in their affliction that 
 which they cannot fathom, then let them not doubt the 
 justice, or question the love of Him that chastens. Can 
 you not understand now, why it is that some of the purest 
 and saintliest have had the largest share of suffering t 
 They are God’s elect. You marvel as you look at that 
 pale face, which is like the face of an angel,— you marvel 
 that it blesses the Lord: but you see that heaven is opened 
 beyond ; you see the accuser, and God the Judge of all ; 
 you see the triumph of Divine love in man. Yes, and by 
 the light that shows you the cross, you see more, — you see 
 One who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth, 
 crushed beneath His weight of suffering. You see Him, 
 who was the Son of the Father’s bosom, learn obedience 
 by the things which He suffered, made perfect through 
 suffering. His trial, you know, was not the trial of punish- 
 ment, or of purification from earthly dross, but it was 
 the glory of God, it was the redemption of man. He 
 gathered into His passionate embrace all our sins, and 
 
EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 1 66 
 
 all our sorrows, that He might take them away. Is there 
 no strength there } Is it not a sublime thing to be called 
 on to share His suffering? And if an ungodly world still 
 says, ‘'Doth Job fear God for nought ? ” stretch out Thine 
 hand, and see if Thou art worthy to inspire any heart 
 of man with love ? Will you not answer the question ? 
 Will you not be partakers with God, and cast that grievous 
 burden into the arms of God, confessing that He has ap- 
 pointed it in love } They may mock at the Gospel and 
 its promises ; they may charge the followers of Christ with 
 selfish aims and mercenary motives. One saint who knows 
 that the glory of God is in his hands shall answer the 
 sneer. His noble submission, his unwearied self-sacrifice, 
 his love which takes upon it the burden of the world, will 
 compel the world to confess that God is love, and that 
 man loves Gad for Himself. 
 
 J. J. S. P. 
 
 XX. The Book of Job.— r. 
 
 I HAVE chosen the Book of Job as the subject of a short 
 course of lectures, for more than one reason. First, and 
 foremost of all, I would place its intrinsic, its marvellous 
 interest and beauty. Why should I repeat to you what 
 this man of genius or that man of letters has told us of his 
 estimate of the book } Of this there can be no question. 
 The story which ushers in what is after all the main sub- 
 stance of the book, is one of the most pathetic and tragical 
 in all literature, and it is told with touch after touch of a 
 simple and transparent eloquence which will never cease to 
 move the hearts of men. The long dialogue which follows, 
 and which contains, as I have said, the real problems 
 with which the book deals, is often no doubt exceedingly 
 obscure. It is difficult to read in our present translation 
 many verses continuously without the sense breaking down, 
 so to speak, under our feet, and leaving us in a path of 
 perplexity. But it contains for all that, now isolated 
 verses, now whole passages, which have taken their place — 
 to say nothing more — in poetry of the highest order, among 
 the permanent and enduring possessions of the human 
 race. Whatever its difficulties, whatever its obscurities, no 
 intelligent person could read our Authorised Version of the 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 167 
 
 Book of Job without something of a sigh to understand it 
 more fully, to master its contents more correctly. 
 
 And secondly, I would add — and this in no spirit of 
 undervaluing of the past — that the beauty and interest of 
 the book have been greatly enhanced by the light of 
 modern studies of the language in which the original is 
 written. Every step which has been made towards a 
 clearer and more correct rendering of the more difficult 
 passages of the book has revealed fresh beauty. So much 
 has been effected by the aid of many learned men who 
 have devoted themselves to clearing away the difficulties 
 which beset the reader, that the careful student may feel 
 like one who has entered a gallery where picture after 
 picture, long concealed by the accumulated dust and rub- 
 bish of centuries, has at last been revealed in something of 
 its original significance and colour. If some time-honoured 
 interpretations have been more than shaken, if one or two 
 precious texts can no longer be quoted as a correct repre- 
 sentation of the meaning of the original, a crowd of others 
 which once were vague and meaningless have been re- 
 covered from obscurity, and riches have been disinterred 
 that have long lain buried. Yet it is obvious that it is only 
 the most general results, with such light as recent in- 
 quiries have thrown on the meaning of the book, that I 
 should have to bring before you in this place. I shall 
 certainly not detain you by discussions as to the mean- 
 ing of this or that once obscure verse or still perplexing 
 phrase. 
 
 And, thirdly, it is well that prevailing misconceptions as 
 to the purport of the book should be discountenanced and 
 corrected, not merely in small and learned circles, but as 
 widely and publicly as possible. I shall rejoice if I can 
 contribute, however humbly, to open to those who have 
 little leisure for study and very few opportunities of access 
 to the learned writers, the treasures which are locked up in 
 one of the most instructive but least generally appreciated 
 books of Holy Scripture. Let me say a word on this 
 point at once. The general impression as to the substance 
 is something — is it not ? — of this kind : that it contains 
 the history of one who was greatly tried, who showed under 
 his trials the profoundest resignation ; resisted, first the evil 
 one, next the suggestions of his own wife, and, finally, 
 
EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 1 68 
 
 maintained his ground in some vague way against his false 
 friends. The popular conception of him is fairly repre- 
 sented in a picture of a patriarchal saint, with a halo round 
 his head, seated on his ash-heap, putting to shame the 
 tempter, rebuking his wife, bearing up against miserable 
 comforters, and finally triumphing over all his sufferings 
 and all his false advisers. So entirely has this view pre- 
 vailed over all others, that it has been embodied in proverbs 
 that are not confined to our owrf language, and which hold 
 him up as a typical instance, now of destitution, now of 
 patience. “As poor as Job,’' “As patient as Job,” are 
 expressions which have gone round the world, and with 
 which we are all familiar. And yet nothing in the world 
 could convey a more inadequate — I will not say a more 
 false — idea of the teaching of the book than to look on it 
 as merely a history of patient submission to overwhelming 
 calamities. Its interest, its enduring, its main interest for 
 us in modern days, lies in its subject being almost precisely 
 the very opposite of this. I shall try and show you that 
 it brings before us, not merely Job the patient, but Job 
 the impatient. Job the perplexed. Job the questioner. Job 
 the sceptic. Job the audacious, Job the all but rebellious ; 
 that ancient as this book is — so far removed in its sur- 
 roundings, in its language, from our own day — yet it deals 
 with problems that are as fresh, as undying, and as per- 
 plexing here and now in this modern life, and in the 
 swarming streets of our crowded cities, as in the days when 
 Roman civilization was in its cradle and the literature of 
 Greece was in its infancy, and as when they are represented 
 as pervading the heart of the Arabian patriarch beneath 
 the skies of Asia. 
 
 Let me put before you in the very shortest and truest 
 form the real contents of the book. It begins with two 
 chapters written in prose. A man of the highest piety 
 and the greatest wealth is suddenly bereft of all ; he is left 
 stripped of everything ; plunged in bereavement, poverty, 
 and disease. He refuses to despair, bears all with a super- 
 natural sweetness and resignation. “ The Lord gave,” he 
 says, “ the Lord hath taken away.” This is the prologue, 
 and it ends with the arrival of three friends, and between 
 these and himself there follows a long dialogue, and this 
 dialogue, remember, is no longer in prose in the original, 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 169 
 
 but in poetry. Even in the English you may trace that 
 parallelism, as it is called, that succession of couplets, of 
 two lines, each couplet with its rhyme, not of sound but of 
 sentiment and idea, that is so characteristic of Hebrew 
 poetry. Open any passage at random, — “There the wicked 
 cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest.’’ So 
 again, “ There the prisoners rest together : the captives 
 hear not the voice of the oppressor.” And this dialogue 
 between Job and his friends forms the bulk of the book — 
 is the book itself, to which the two chapters are an intro- 
 duction or prologue in prose ; only we must notice that 
 when the dialogue has been maintained through thirty-six 
 chapters, a fresh speaker, or actor, as we might say, is 
 introduced — a young friend, who takes up the dialogue 
 where his elders have abandoned it. Six chapters later 
 on, Jehovah Himself appears on the scene; and finally, 
 when Job has uttered his last words, the poem ends, and a 
 short narrative in prose is added, in which we are told of 
 Job’s justification by God — not for his patience, remem- 
 ber, that of course needed no justification at all ; but we 
 might say for, or in spite of, his impatience, — and of his re- 
 newed happiness and prosperity. You will see, then, that 
 it is quite impossible to understand the meaning of the 
 book if we omit the study of its longest and most import- 
 ant part — in fact, of the book itself — and only confine 
 ourselves to the short passage which ushers in the real 
 poem, the initial verses of the book, and those which follow 
 to its completion, with a very short return, the narrative 
 which introduces it. It is the poem itself, let me say once 
 more even with a wearisome iteration, not its prose intro- 
 duction, nor its prose conclusion, that supplies the main 
 and the surpassing interest of the book. And what is 
 the subject of the poem itself? I will only indicate it at 
 present for a moment. It is the very greatest problem, 
 the very sorest perplexity, with which the human soul can 
 vex itself : “ How is it that a good man can suffer unde- 
 served affliction, if there is a good God in Heaven ? Can 
 the wise and righteous God leave evil in possession of the 
 world “ Impossible,” say Job’s friends. “ You, sufferer, 
 must have sinned ; confess your sin and ask for forgive- 
 ness, and all will be well.” But Job cannot say this ; he 
 protests his innocence. Remember the description of him 
 
EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 170 
 
 in the prologue, as a man who feared God greatly, and 
 eschewed evil, and so again and again he breaks out into 
 audacious questionings of the whole government of the 
 world, and into passionate pleadings with God as his 
 persecutor. And while his friends plead, or seem to plead, 
 for God, he pleads, or seems to plead, against Him, and 
 after all God pronounced for him and against them. The 
 poem, then, is one of the most moving, one of the most 
 sacred and Divine, as well as one of the most human 
 of all poems. It deals, as I hav^e already said, with 
 one of the most appalling of human problems. It is 
 a meditation, so to speak, in the form of a dialogue, or 
 a world of questioning about injustice and miseries. 
 And Job represents not the calm and contented sayer 
 of smooth things, but the bold questioner, in the agony 
 of indignation of one who feels that the whole world 
 is out of joint. Is it not to some of us a new thing to be 
 told that such questionings cannot find a place, I might 
 almost say an honoured place, between the covers of the 
 Bible } Yet so it is, as we shall see further on ; and the 
 discovery may open the eyes of some of us to the treasures 
 yet to be found in that ancient book, that unexhausted 
 mine of teaching and wisdom. 
 
 I think a few words more on the general position of the 
 book may possibly interest you. It belongs neither to the 
 historical nor to the prophetical books of the Bible. The 
 mere arrangement of our own Bibles will show you this. 
 It stands side by side with the Psalms, the Proverbs, the 
 Canticles, and Ecclesiastes ; and between these two great 
 divisions, like the four books I have named. It belongs to 
 what we call the poetical books of the Old Testament, 
 yet its poetry is not a series of detached hymns, the very 
 highest teachings and uplifting of the human soul towards 
 God, like the Book of Psalms ; nor is it the common sense 
 of the many embodied into maxims by the wisdom of the 
 one, like so much of the Proverbs ; nor meditations, often 
 sweet meditations, on life, like the Ecclesiastes ; nor poetry, 
 half mystic, half Idyllic, like the Songs of Solomon ; it 
 stands apart by itself, this great book of the Bible — apart, 
 we might almost say, in the literature of the whole world. 
 If it resembles the Book of Proverbs or Ecclesiastes as 
 dealing with the great practical and speculative questions 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 171 
 
 of human life, it differs from them both as gathering all its 
 teaching round a single person who forms the centre of a 
 group of speakers; and whatever the lessons it details, or 
 the problems it raises, they come to us, never through the 
 lips of the author of the book himself, but always of the 
 individuals who, one after another, come forward on the 
 stage to utter them. The author himself speaks only to 
 introduce to us, if I may say so, the dramatis personcBy for 
 so they are. 
 
 Yet drama we can hardly call it. For within the poem 
 itself there is no action, no event, no movement. The 
 action is not action in the common sense of the word ; it 
 is only the torture and the writhing and the agony, the 
 movement, the swerving to and fro, and the doubts and 
 the falling off, and the questionings, and the faith, between 
 a single soul and the catastrophe of the coming face to 
 face of that soul with its God. Nor is it a philosophical 
 or didactic dialogue, advancing steadily towards a clear 
 conclusion. The problem it deals with is too dark and 
 complex, too high for this ; and the teaching too varied, 
 too conflicting, too merely suggestive. The solution, so 
 far as solution is given, is left for the reader to draw for 
 himself, — often remember, as is the case with so many of 
 the great Teacher’s parables, — it is left in the reader’s hands 
 to deal with as he can ; and it is, or seems, strange how 
 long and how constantly its true purport has been over- 
 looked. Turn to many of the commentaries on the book, 
 and you will find various views taken of him whose name 
 it bears. Sometimes he is, as I said before, a model of 
 submission, of resignation, which forms the popular esti- 
 mate of his character, and all else that is characteristic of 
 nine-tenths of his language is put into the background, or 
 explained away. Sometimes he is represented as a merely 
 mystical teacher of Christian truths — of truths not yet 
 revealed to the w^orld ; sometimes he is looked on merely 
 as the inspired and unconscious utterer of what to his 
 hearers must have been quite untelligible predictions; as a 
 mere preacher before his time, of Jesus and the resurrec- 
 tion. Successive schools of thought have written them- 
 selves into his thoughts, and those of his interlocutors. It 
 seems a bold assertion, yet it is, I venture to suggest, not 
 quite unwarranted, to say that partly owing to the more 
 
172 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 profound study of the language in which he speaks, and of 
 cognate languages, partly from a certain marked tendency 
 in modern commentators, it has been reserved for the 
 present generation to read the book in something, at all 
 events, more nearly the sense of him to whom it was given 
 to produce it ; — that modern study often presumptuous, 
 often decried, often frowned upon, has been rewarded by 
 bringing to light a fresh and almost untouched vein of 
 thought in those unexhausted, those inexhaustible treasures 
 of the Scriptures. 
 
 One word more may add to the interest which some here 
 may possibly bring to the fresh perusal of so little studied 
 a portion of Scripture. In what age, we may naturally 
 ask, and in what country was the book written ? Who was 
 its author ? I need hardly say that on such questions we 
 have no authoritative guide of any kind. The dictum 
 of this or that Jewish Rabbi, this or that Father of the 
 Christian Church, may be received with due respect, but 
 it is impossible to find any sure ground in the vague tradi- 
 tions or later theories that came into being centuries after 
 the book had been — we know not exactly when — placed 
 in the roll of the Hebrew canonical books. We must look 
 for any answer in the book itself — not outside the book, 
 the reader who has with moderate attention gone through 
 those forty-two chapters, may be inclined to ask, “ How 
 came this book in the Hebrew Scriptures at all ? '' There 
 is nothing, we may say, saving that it is written in Hebrew, 
 and in confessedly difficult Hebrew, that points to the 
 Hebrew nation, or to the land in which that nation dwelt, or 
 to its history, or traditions, or institutions, or ceremonies, or 
 mode of life, or ideas, or law. Where is Moses or the law 
 of Moses here ? Where is there any mention of the land of 
 promise or of the heroes who won that land, or of the kings 
 who ruled it, or of the patriarchs to whom it was promised } 
 Where is the yearning love for Jerusalem or for the Temple, 
 that burns now so fiercely, now so tenderly, through so many 
 Psalms? The author of the book passes by all these 
 things and persons in entire and absolute silence. Pales- 
 tine and its great history ; Jacob and his twelve children ; 
 Moses and his law, might never have existed so far as an 
 allusion can be detected to them from the first chapter to 
 the forty-second. Instead of these persons, and events, 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 173 
 
 and places, we have a background very different, as we 
 may see in any further study of the book. The great 
 plains of Asia, traversed by the slow caravans, swept over 
 from time to time by marauding tribes like those plun- 
 dering, and, as we know, too often murderous Bedouins of 
 modern days, yet inhabited by nations with a civilization 
 and government of their own, and families with the ideas 
 that belong to people among whom the administration of 
 justice and the value of free deliberation and a sense of 
 the value of human rights and liberties have made some 
 way — these form the scene of the drama, if drama we 
 may call it. And above it were those lucid skies which 
 bent over those Asiatic plains, skies from which the stars 
 glittered with a brilliancy unknown in these Northern 
 climes, the land in which astronomy and astrology alike 
 had their birth. And those who tread the stage speak not 
 only of the poetry and legends of those heavenly bodies, 
 but of the ancient and marvellous land of Egypt once the 
 centre of the civilization of the world. They are familiar 
 with palm trees, bulrushes, with the hippopotamus and the 
 crocodile ; they are familiar with smelting of metals, the 
 driving of mines through the bowels of the earth, with the 
 pilgrim stories of far-off lands, with the war horse of the 
 desert, and with the animal creation. How or when could 
 an inhabitant of Palestine, a child of the covenant, who 
 looked with scorn on the uncircumcised, uncovenanted world 
 — how, we might say, independently of the Jewish character 
 of his world, could he have written a book steeped in a 
 Gentile atmosphere with every allusion to the land of his 
 forefathers studiously, it would seem, excluded ? The 
 question is a very interesting one. Many of the ancient 
 writers cut the knot at once. Job, they said, taking him 
 for granted as the author of the book, lived before the 
 days of Moses, and the book wa? written some even say 
 by Moses himself before the revelation of the law from 
 Sinai, so that it is the oldest book in the Bible, perhaps 
 in the world, and has come down to us from a dim, prehis- 
 toric, immemorial antiquity. It is, I need not say, a very 
 attractive and interesting theory. It is almost with reluct- 
 ance that we listen to arguments which seem fatal to ascrib- 
 ing to the book so vastly remote a date. The language, 
 we are told, the grammar, the vocabulary, above all the 
 
174 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 style of the original, are fatal to the supposition. Such an 
 evidence, if it rests on sufficient grounds ; is almost unan- 
 swerable. If the analogy holds good, we could not for a 
 moment suppose that Milton could have written before the 
 age of Chaucer ; but besides this we must remember, ac- 
 count for it how we may, that the same absence of peculiar 
 Jewish allusions and ideas may be found elsewhere in the 
 Old Testament. Many of the Psalms, almost the whole of 
 the Book of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, bear no trace of 
 Hebrew scenery, or of allusions to Palestine, and, finally, 
 and what will interest us all perhaps far more, the great 
 problem of the book, the great riddle that vexes Job, is not 
 one that springs into life with the earlier stage of human 
 progress. Those awful questionings as to the mysteries of 
 life, its strange inequalities and seeming injustices, they 
 are the offspring of a more confused and tangled social 
 web than that of the primaeval and simple life of a 
 patriarchal family. They would have found no voice, 
 no echo, in the times of Isaac, Abraham, Jethro, or of 
 Jacob, and God’s Spirit does not transport men out of 
 their own epoch. Great and lofty as are the utterances 
 of the book, they would have been wholly unnatural and 
 inconceivable till the problems with which they deal had 
 been brought home to the hearts of men by a series of 
 unexplained sufferings, much meditation, long and painful 
 questionings. We may, therefore, accept what we may 
 call now the generally received view, that the author of 
 the book lived late enough to have seen woe after woe 
 fall upon God’s people ; to have pondered over those 
 sufferings, as falling not on the most evil, as national 
 chastisements for national sins, but as miseries, unde- 
 served miseries, of good and God-fearing men, and that 
 he found no sufficient answer to the doubts that stirred 
 within his breast as to tlTe simple faiths of his forefathers, 
 which only tell him that the righteous were always pros- 
 perous and the wicked always afflicted. He had travelled, 
 it may be, far, and had seen with his own eyes, or heard 
 from the lips of others, much of the great world into 
 which adventurous Jews were steadily pushing their way; 
 and when at last God’s Spirit stirred him to his great 
 task, he was guided to lay the scene of the marvellous 
 poem in which his meditations were to be embodied, in 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 175 
 
 a scene far from the narrowing associations of his own 
 race, and to 
 
 “ Rise to the heig^ht of his great argument,” 
 
 above the limits of the law of Moses to the serener heights, 
 from which his words might go forth and be judged on 
 their own merits, divested as far as possible from any direct 
 connection with the traditions or tenets of his own country- 
 men ; and if this be true, we have in him one who, almost 
 more than any other Old Testament speaker, was able to 
 breathe air in which the Saviour, and he who walked so 
 closely in his Saviour’s steps, lived, worked, and died, — to 
 grasp the truth that the Jehovah he speaks of in his poem, 
 and whose Spirit spoke to his own heart, was a God, not as 
 many of his countrymen believed before, and with him, 
 of a single nation, but the God and Father of the whole 
 human family. And whatever its exact date, whether he 
 lived, as may well have been the case, at the fall of 
 Samaria and the crash of the northern kingdom, and before 
 the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian cap- 
 tivity, or was removed from this time by a few genera- 
 tions, we may hail him as in this sense, though in this 
 sense only, as one who ‘‘ died in faith, not having re- 
 ceived the promises, but having seen them afar off, and 
 been persuaded of them, and embraced them ” ; and thus 
 going in his measure before his Lord to prepare His way 
 before Him. 
 
 G. G. B. 
 
 XXI. The Book of Job.— 2. 
 
 I PURPOSE to bring before you that which I have already 
 spoken of as the introduction in prose, the prologue so 
 to speak, to the poem ; — in a limited sense, I have already 
 explained, we may venture to call it, the dramatic poem 
 of the Book of Job. It is, remember, only an introduction ; 
 yet for all that, it is a thoroughly integral and essential 
 feature of the book, which could not possibly be dispensed 
 with. It gives not merely tone* and colour and emphasis, 
 but its whole meaning and significance to all that follows. 
 Yet our work to-day is simple. The greatest and darkest 
 problems of the book will not meet us. Yet I have no fear 
 
176 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 of any lack of interest at any step. The opening words of 
 the first chapter are the key to much that follows : “ There 
 was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job ; and 
 that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God 
 and eschewed evil.” The scene is the land of Uz. I will 
 not detain you for one moment with a description of its 
 precise locality. It is important, however, to remind you 
 that it is far beyond the confines of the Holy Land, and 
 if much of the Book of Proverbs, much of Ecclesiastes, 
 many of the Psalms, are so far unlike the rest of the 
 Bible that they have no local colouring at all, are not 
 redolent with the air of Palestine, this book, with all — 
 every word — that is contained in it, is so distinctly re- 
 moved from the confines of that land, that its atmosphere 
 is not merely non- Jewish but distinctly and positively 
 something other than Jewish, — truly Gentile. It is the 
 only book of the Old Testament which, not indirectly but 
 directly, from the very first word to the very last, anticipates 
 the words of St. Peter, that God is no respecter of persons ; 
 but that in every nation, he that feareth Him and worketh 
 righteousness is accepted of Him. The history, so far as 
 it is a history, is that of a Gentile patriarch. Here, then, 
 in this Gentile land dwelt Job, who is fearlessly described 
 as “ perfect and upright ; ” though the word perfect means 
 rather whole-hearted, sound, sincere, than technically or 
 theologically without sin, and words are added to show 
 that this was no skin-deep or pharisaical uprightness — 
 “ one that feared God and eschewed evil.” This, remember, 
 this high and blameless character of Job before God and 
 before man is a necessary element in the tragedy that is to 
 come. 
 
 His goodness, then, is the first element in the story, and 
 the second is his well-doing. He was rich in all the wealth 
 of that early world. First he is rich in sons and daughters 
 — above all, we remember, in that far-off world of the East, 
 in the former, — seven sons and three daughters. He is 
 rich also in the possessions that mark the stage — the 
 transitional stage — of civilization in which this great parable 
 is placed ; — a mingling of •some traces of the nomadic life 
 with the pastoral on the one hand, and settled and agri- 
 cultural, and even city life, on the other — in thousands of 
 sheep, in camels, in oxen, and in as.ses. Rich also in slaves ; 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 177 
 
 in a very great household and retinue, of his treatment and 
 bearing towards whom he himself speaks later on. “ If I 
 despise the cause of my bondsmen, what shall I do when 
 God riseth up, and when He visiteth, what shall I answer 
 Him ? Did not He that made me make him } and did not 
 one God fashion us both in the womb? He speaks as no 
 Greek or Roman could ; I might almost say, as no slave- 
 master has ever spoken. He is one that respecteth his 
 brother man : who, in the Apostle’s words, honoured all 
 men.” And his position is summed up in the third verse 
 as that of the very greatest sons of the East, a term often 
 applied to the Arab races ; kindred to, but not of the same 
 family as the sons of Jacob, and who lived between the 
 Nile and the Euphrates. And the story goes on to tell us 
 of the mutual festivities and gatherings of his children. 
 This touch brings out, and it is meant to bring out, the 
 picture of affluence and prosperity ; it is not merely this, 
 for the next touch is one other of the two marked features 
 of Job’s early career : — his affluence, his blamelessness, — his 
 more than blamelessness, — his active affection and piety. 
 As he thinks of his feasting children he would commend 
 them to God. 
 
 There is some obscurity in the translation, but there is 
 nothing to mar the picture of fatherly love. Probably he 
 sends for his children, and bids them join him in some acts 
 of ceremonial performed at his home. Certainly he rises 
 early, when the feast is done, and stands by the altar side. 
 You see at once how far we have travelled from the Levi- 
 tical or Aaronic priesthood. And this Gentile and layman 
 (to use modern language) offers to God his sacrifice for 
 each child in turn, interceding, in the simple faith of his 
 day and region, for any chance or secret utterance of sin or 
 folly. He sums up all in the words, “ It may be that they 
 have cursed God in their hearts, and sinned.” The form of 
 worship may be the form of the religion of the land of Uz. 
 But who does not see beneath it, the Christian parent 
 pleading with the same God for the unguarded hours of 
 unwatchful and thoughtless youth ? 
 
 But now the scene shifts at once from the land of Uz, 
 and we are carried upwards, as in a vision, to the halls of 
 heaven ; and there Jehovah holds His court like an Oriental 
 sovereign, and His sons — His creatures of other than 
 
 N 
 
178 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 human mould come before Him ; and among them is 
 one malignant spirit, called Satan, or the accuser, the 
 denouncer. He represents himself as fresh from travelling 
 to and fro on the face of the earth, and spying out evil 
 therein. And Jehovah calls his attention to His own 
 servant Job, and bears His testimony, a more than human 
 testimony, to his goodness, repeating the very words in 
 which the author had introduced him — ‘‘There is none like 
 him on the earth, perfect and upright, one that feareth God 
 and escheweth evil.’’ But the evil spirit hath his answer 
 ready : “ Doth Job fear God for nought ? ” He represents 
 at once that only too common view in the world, that there 
 is no such a thing as disinterested goodness. Such a 
 question as the spirit asked is not confined, be sure, to such 
 evil spirits, or to the story of the man of Uz. It was one 
 of the questions which had already been raised when this 
 book was written, we know not when. It is one of the 
 questions with which this book is meant to deal. You 
 have heard it raised, you may hear it raised again, in the 
 chance conversation in which you join with a fellow-traveller. 
 There is no such thing, it is said, as the love of goodness for 
 its own sake ; there is always some ulterior, some selfish 
 motive. Or even religion, you will be told, is merely a matter 
 of self-interest ; it means nothing more than this, even if it is 
 sincere ; it means nothing more than a desire to escape pain, 
 and to enjoy happiness hereafter. “Doth Job serve God 
 for nought ? ” Can men or women care for goodness and 
 righteousness and truth for their own sakes ? Can they 
 feel, can God, can Christ inspire, a disinterested love ? 
 Happy those who can answer such a question, from some- 
 thing of the experience of their own hearts, or from the 
 lives of those whom they have known through and 
 through. 
 
 But the Evil One proceeds to describe God’s favour to 
 Job. “ Thou hast made an hedge about him,” he says, “ to 
 shield him from all trial.” “ How easy,” says the modern 
 satirist, “ to be good on an abundant income. Let a man 
 live in a crowded lodging-house, let him know not where 
 to-morrow’s bread is to come, where will his goodness be ? ” 
 “ Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance 
 is increased in the land.” No doubt, therefore, he is perfect 
 and upright ; “ but put forth Thy hand and touch all that 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 179 
 
 he hath, and he will curse Thee to Thy face/’ The chal- 
 lenge is accepted by the good man’s friend, and power is 
 given to Satan (who is represented here, you will observe, 
 not at all as the tempter to or suggester of evil to the 
 human heart, but, as more than once in the New Testament, 
 as a being whose power to inflict pain is derived from One 
 who is his master), to torment upright and perfect Job 
 with the loss of that on the possession of which, the 
 accuser says, his seeming goodness is ba^ed : power, not in 
 the first place over Job himself, but over all that belongs 
 to him. 
 
 And once more we are upon the earth, in the land of Uz, 
 on a festal day, with the children of happy Job. Blow falls 
 after blow : the message comes that a wild tribe has burst 
 into the cultivated land, and carried away all his oxen and 
 his asses and slain his labourers. “ I only,” says the bringer 
 of evil tidings, ‘‘am escaped to tell thee.” And another 
 tells of the destruction of his grazing flocks and shepherds 
 by the terrific lightning. The fire of God has fallen on 
 them from heaven. And even as he was yet speaking 
 another comes to say that the still wilder tribe, the Chaldeans, 
 the Kurds of to-day, had made a foray from the highlands, 
 and, divided like skilled marauders into three bands, had 
 swept away his wealth of camels, and slain their guardians, 
 and all his wealth is gone from him at once ; — three kinds 
 of wealth, representing as it were three stages in the growth 
 of early human progress ; and sorrows come not singly, 
 but in full battalions. They come on even as he is listening 
 to these terrible tidings ; worse, far worse follows. 
 
 The scorching wind that sweeps over the desert plains 
 of Asia has buried his children, one and all, in the ruins of 
 their eldest brother’s house. All are dead ; the messenger 
 alone survives ; and the man of wealth is stripped of all 
 his riches, and the happy father is left bereaved and child- 
 less. It is like the close of some dark, brief tragedy, 
 coming in its opening scene. And Job arose, we are told. 
 The news tore his heart. There was no need to tell him, 
 like the bereaved father in Macbeth, to give his sorrow 
 words. He made no attempt to smile impassively, or to 
 bear it like a stoic. He rent his clothes and shaved his 
 head, like a true son of the East, in overwhelming grief. 
 But this was not all. His past life bore its fruits. Accu- 
 
i8o 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 mulated years of service to God stood him in good stead, 
 as they have stood others. In this sudden tempest of 
 bereavement, he resigned himself to the hand that afflicted 
 him : in the memorable words that rise at once from prose 
 to poetry, and in which the Church tries to guide the 
 hearts of sorrowing mourners, “Naked came I from my 
 mother’s womb, naked shall I return to mother earth : the 
 Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away ; blessed be the 
 name of the Lord.” 
 
 The Evil One, then, was foiled, and Job’s innocence and 
 sincerity were vindicated even at this terrible price. But 
 the story does not end here. The trial is to be renewed 
 after an interval, how long, how short, we know not. Once 
 more we have a vision of the courts of heaven, and once 
 more we see the sons of God presenting themselves before 
 Jehovah, and, as before, with the repetition of the same 
 words, that remind us for an instant of the simplicity of 
 Homer, Satan is questioned whence he comes, gives his 
 answer, is told to turn his eyes to the blamelessness of 
 God’s servant, who still, in spite of all his causeless woe, 
 holdeth fast his integrity. And Satan’s answer is in the 
 same spirit as before : “ Skin for skin,” he says. The phrase 
 is not easily explained. Possibly it has some such meaning 
 as, anything in the way of a bargain man will submit to : 
 all that he hath will he give away cheerfully to redeem his 
 life. But he challenges Him that, as He has allowed all 
 these successive waves of woe to fall upon His own servant’s 
 head, to go one step farther. “ Do what Thou hast not yet 
 done ; touch,” he says, “ his own person, his bone and his 
 flesh, and he will curse Thee to Thy face.” And once 
 more the challenge is accepted, and the fiat goes forth : 
 “ Behold, he is in thy hand ; but save his life.” 
 
 And we are brought back once more to Job : from the 
 sole of his foot to the crown of his head, he is attacked with 
 the direst form of the sorest of Eastern diseases, the terrible 
 leprosy. Into all that is told of its horrors by Eastern 
 travellers, dreadful stories of horrors which you may look 
 for in vain in the wards of a London hospital, I will not 
 enter. He cowers among the ashes, loathsome alike to 
 others and to himself. His cup seems full. One further 
 turn of the rack, so to speak, is yet possible : it is not 
 spared him. From the one human quarter from whence 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 i8i 
 
 comfort might have come, comes only a suggestion of des- 
 pair. “ Dost thou still,” said his wife, who comes across 
 the scene only to heighten for one moment the tragical 
 impression of her husband’s wretchedness, ‘‘ dost thou 
 still retain thine integrity.^” (that is, thy blamelessness). 
 “ Curse God,” she says, ‘‘ and die.” ‘‘ Renounce this God 
 who thus leaves thee to such a fate, and quit life, life 
 that has nothing left to live for.” It seems hard indeed, 
 hard above all to those who have known Christian or 
 English homes, that such a suggestion should have come 
 from such a quarter. It pains us with an unwelcome shock. 
 Let me remind you that when the poet-painter drew, nearly 
 sixty years ago, some wonderfully powerful illustrations to 
 the Book of Job, the English husband of the most loyal 
 and affectionate of wives refused to follow the detail of the 
 narrative in this terrible feature. All the rest could be 
 pourtrayed step by step ; but here his love for his own wife 
 stayed the painter’s hand, and those who have ever seen 
 his drawings will see Job’s wife kneeling beside her hus- 
 band, sharing his misery with him through all his trials 
 that are yet to come, and restored with him to happiness 
 at the end. There was something in the roll of Job’s 
 suffering too remote, may we not thankfully say, from the 
 accumulated experience of English and Christian married 
 life, something too keen for the poet and the artist, often 
 on the borderland where genius runs into madness, to bear 
 to reproduce. It well might be so. The depth of human 
 agony seemed sounded. How many might, in more senses 
 than one, have cursed God and died ? A Roman might 
 have turned upon those unjust gods, and died by his own 
 hand with defiance on his lips ; left the world in which he 
 felt he was nobler than they. Vicirix causa Diis placuit^ 
 sed victa Catoni, Others might have sought refuge in dull 
 despair: not so Job. “ What,” he says, ‘‘ shall we receive 
 good at the hands of God, and shall we not receive evil } ” 
 “ In all this,” says the writer, who so rarely speaks a word 
 in his own person, “in all this did not Job sin with his lips.” 
 We have here, then, the highest and most perfect type 
 of patience in the sense of human resignation ; the calm, 
 untroubled, and profound acquiescence in the will of God 
 which (in words which are not my own) is one of the 
 qualities which marked Eastern religions when to the West 
 
i 82 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 they were still quite unknown, and which even now is more 
 remarkably exhibited by Eastern nations than among our- 
 selves. “ Thy will be done,” is a prayer which lies at the 
 root of all religion. It stands among the foremost petitions 
 in the Lord’s Prayer, and it is deeply engraven in the whole 
 religious spirit of the sons of Abraham, even of the race of 
 Ishmael. In the words “God is great,” it expresses the 
 best side of Mohammedanism, the submission to the will of 
 the Heavenly Father. Yes, we can feel that to be ready 
 to leave all in God’s hands, not merely because He is 
 great and powerful, but because we hold Him wise and 
 good, is the very essence of religion in its highest form ; 
 and the great English divine, Butler, has well said, that 
 though such a passive virtue may have no development in 
 itself, no fitting sphere in another and a better world, yet 
 the frame of mind which it produces, and of which it is the 
 sign, is the very frame, of all others, to fit men to be active 
 fellow-workers with God in a larger sphere and with higher 
 faculties. And the very highest type of such entire sub- 
 mission we have thus far in Job : poor as he now is, he is 
 rich in trust and in nearness to God, and pious souls will 
 feel that if there is a God and a Father above us, and if 
 there is another life inconceivably more enduring, and with 
 a larger range than this, that it is better to have felt as he 
 felt, than to be the lord of many slaves and many herds 
 and flocks, and the possessor of unending happiness on a 
 happy earth. 
 
 And here ends the introduction properly so-called. It 
 ends with Job miserable but resigned, and patient on his 
 dung-heap. Had the story ended there, it might have 
 remained in our memories as, it may be, an overdrawn, an 
 excessive ideal, yet not wholly an impossible picture of 
 what is sometimes seen, or something like it, in real life — 
 trouble after trouble coming upon some human soul. We 
 may have turned aside from the picture, yet it may have 
 recurred to us once and again in the course of life’s ex- 
 perience, as after all, a type of tragedies that are in their 
 way possible in this tangled world, a type of many an over- 
 true story. But the story does not end here. We have 
 only passed within the portal of the book, not yet entered 
 the gallery of conflicting thoughts that we have to tread, 
 and one more touch comes, the transition to all that iollows. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT, 
 
 183 
 
 Three of Job’s friends — their name and race is given- 
 men, it would seem, of the race of Abraham though not of 
 Jacob, have heard of his calamity and have come from 
 far to comfort him ; but as they raised their eyes and saw 
 the change, the horrors and the miseries of that spectacle 
 overcame them. They lifted up their voice and wept, we 
 read, and used every sign of Eastern lamentation, and then 
 they found no phrase to comfort him. How should they ? 
 They sat by him in silence, says the story, seven days and 
 nights, for they saw that his grief was very great. If the 
 imagery is of the East, Eastern, the sentiment that under- 
 lies it is neither of the East nor of the West, but something 
 world-wide. There are troubles in whigh we can show our 
 sympathies best, not by idle words, but by silence and by 
 sorrow. 
 
 So far, my friends, we may draw our own lessons from 
 Job’s submission, and Job’s patience, and from the mute 
 sympathy of those who visited him. They preach, surely, 
 their own sermon, if we had come, as we did not come, to 
 hear a sermon. 
 
 Before I close, let me bring clearly before you the results 
 of what we have thus far reached. As we read, the narra- 
 tive has tended in one direction to heighten the growing 
 and growing contrast between Job’s deserts — if 1 may dare 
 to use such an expression — and Job’s lot in life. The two 
 are brought before us in the opening verses of the first 
 chapter as in entire and absolute harmony ; but from that 
 moment they have parted company, parted at every step, 
 and have become more divergent. If he was, when the 
 story opens, perfect and upright, fearing God and hating 
 evil, how much more does he deserve such a description 
 now — now, when the sad, sweet uses of adversity have 
 done their best work upon him, and when he comes before 
 us purified in the furnace of such sore affliction, his fear of 
 God and his hatred of evil proved and tried to the very 
 uttermost ; yet, on the other hand, the shadows that had 
 begun to darken the happiness of his life have grown at 
 every verse, not longer only, but thicker and blacker. The 
 spectacle before us is that of one who combined the highest 
 and most beautiful piety and love of God of which the 
 human soul was then capable, with the darkest and most 
 tragic misery. Such a spectacle would be perplexing to 
 
i 84 expository SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 the advanced and most enlightened Christians. The Book 
 of Job, I need scarcely remind you, does not come within 
 range of New Testament teaching. What a problem must 
 such a spectacle have seemed to the pious Hebrew, — to one 
 who had no further Gospel as yet than that the Lord 
 ordereth a good man’s going, that God shows mercy unto 
 thousands of those that fear Him, that the righteous are 
 never forsaken, that even in this life men are rewarded for 
 their righteous dealing, that whatsoever the good man doeth 
 shall prosper, that it is the ungodly whose prosperity is like 
 chafif which the wind scattereth away, that it is on those 
 that delight in wickedness that God rains down snares, 
 fire and brimstone, storm and tempest, — all the woes and 
 sorrows that have fallen on the head of Job. Surely it 
 might well seem to such that the foundations were cast 
 down — the very foundations of their faith ; surely they 
 might well say, ‘‘ What hath the righteous done Such 
 is the problem that will come before us when next we 
 meet. We leave Job and his friends seated in silence, yet 
 we feel that the sky above them is troubled, and that there 
 is thunder in the air. We shall hear the storm break as 
 we pursue our course through the book. 
 
 G. G. R 
 
 XXII. The Book of Job.— 3. 
 
 We have considered the two opening chapters of the Book 
 of Job. I shall remind you once more that, interesting 
 in themselves as these chapters are, and important and 
 direct as is their bearing on what follows, yet that they are 
 not, as is sometimes supposed, the main portion of the 
 work, followed by a long appendix, but that they are 
 simply an introduction, the best of introductions, let me 
 say once more, to the great poem that follows. At their 
 close we left Job crouching in utter misery, yet calm and 
 patient, the very model of resignation and acquiescence in 
 the will of an unseen Master. In no single instance do 
 we read that he sinned with his lips ; and of this attitude 
 of resignation as an element in the Christian and religious 
 life I have spoken fully. Friends, too, you remember, were 
 by his side, who sympathized with, and respected his 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 185 
 
 heavy calamities. They sat silent, and none spake a word 
 unto him, for they saw that his grief was very great. And 
 now we close the introduction and open the book itself. 
 We turn to its opening verses and all is changed. Job’s 
 silence is turned to loud and clamorous outcries. He 
 was Job the patient ; he is now Job the impatient. Indeed, 
 the whole of the third chapter is one long wail. He curses, 
 in all the wealth of wild but measured and elaborate 
 Eastern poetry, the day of his conception — the day of his 
 birth. In another stanza, so to speak, he craves for death 
 as the one sovereign anodyne to human woe ; as the great 
 leveller that brings alike the hope of rest to kings and 
 councillors in their solitary and stately tombs, and the 
 sleep of freedom to the slave. ‘‘ Wherefore,” he cries, is 
 light given to him that is in misery, and life to the bitter 
 in soul ; which long for death but it cometh not ; and dig 
 for it more than for hidden treasures } ” It is a very 
 moving chapter The obscurities of language are com- 
 paratively few. The very intensity and passion of feeling 
 seem as it were to fuse them away. It flows on in one 
 broad and human current even in its agony. One of 
 its phrases has passed, as we know, just as it stands, into 
 recent poetry ; but parallels to others abound. And it 
 is very true, essentially true, to nature. Great calamities, 
 great losses, are sometimes not fully felt by communities, 
 by nations, or by churches, at the first blow, at the moment 
 they fall. The loss of the wise counsellor, or the guiding 
 brain, is felt more keenly later. So it is still more with 
 individual sorrows. Some griefs men can meet bravely 
 at the very first shock. They do not fathom their full 
 depth of bitterness till later on. “ God’s will be done,” 
 men have said at the graveside, but the waking of the 
 morrow has brought, perhaps, other feelings. Some here, 
 perhaps, may have learned that sad lesson. 
 
 But moving and natural as the chapter is, it is a symbol 
 of, and a key to, much that follows. It shows us at once 
 that the main and substantial portion of the book on which 
 we have now entered, is separated, as by a great gulf, from 
 that which came before ; that we breathe another, a more 
 troubled, and a more stormy atmosphere. All there was 
 calm and still, even if the skies were sombre. But now, 
 the winds begin to moan, and the thunder to roll, and the 
 
EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 1 86 
 
 change is not confined to Job. Eliphaz the Temanite, or 
 Arabian chief, the eldest, doubtless, of his friends, breaks 
 his long and kindly silence, and his words, though he saw 
 but a little way into the depths of that troubled heart, are 
 not unkindly words, and are not meant to be so. They 
 also are the key to all that follows, on the side of him and 
 of his friends ; though in form they are different. Mild as 
 yet, they are well weighed and dignified, even apologetic 
 intone. ‘'Wilt thou be grieved,'' he says, “if we essay 
 to commune with thee ? " He was shocked at Job's wild 
 words of despair. “ Once," he says, “thou didst instruct 
 and strengthen and uphold others, and now, lo ; when evil 
 toucheth thee, thou faintest and art troubled." And having 
 said this, he handles for a moment tenderly, and half 
 indirectly, the barbed arrow which is soon to rive the very 
 heart of Job, and to bring to him a pang, even greater than 
 any which has yet torn and tried him. “ Who ever," he 
 says, “ perished being innocent } When were the righteous 
 cut ofif.^" His own experience in that simple Arab life 
 tells him that the proverb is true, that they that plough 
 iniquity and sow wickedness reap the same. But he speaks 
 oracularly, and relates in striking language, how in the 
 visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, a 
 shape, if shape it were where shape was none — a formless 
 spirit, passed before him, and awe fell upon him as a 
 mysterious voice came forth, telling of human blindness, 
 and human weakness ; and he darkly hints that his friend 
 should forbear from calling too bitterly on that great 
 and wise Being, which doeth great and wise things, and 
 unsearchable ; the Lord of creation who giveth rain upon 
 the earth, and sendeth water on the fields ; the Ruler 
 of creation, who disappointeth the devices of the crafty, 
 and taketh the wise in their own cunning ; who saveth, 
 he tells him, the poor, and sets on high the lowly. He 
 bids him commit his case to Him, accept His correc- 
 tions as a blessing, and despise not His chastisement, for 
 His chastisement is correction. It is the only light in 
 which he can view his friend's misery, and if he does this, 
 he promises him in a series of Eastern images, that typify 
 all the forces of nature once more enlisted on his side, 
 God's renewed favour, all the blessings of a prolonged life 
 that He shall give to His servant, so that he shall come to 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT, 
 
 187 
 
 his grave in a full age, like to a shock of corn gathered in 
 his season. But his language, however well meant, falls 
 wide of its mark. It prepares the way for, though it does 
 not yet provoke, the fierce explosions that come later on. 
 At all events it brings little comfort to his afflicted friend. 
 How could it? 
 
 And, once more, in the sixth and seventh chapters. Job 
 returns, not exactly to the exceeding loud and bitter cry 
 of his first utterance, yet to the prolonged moan of sorrow. 
 ‘‘Not without reason,” he says, “do I lift up my voice. 
 The wild ass brays not, even the very ox lows not when fully 
 satisfied ; and my cries come from a wounded heart, from 
 a deep sense of agony.” And once, once more he turns 
 from his friends to his Maker and prays for death ; that it 
 would please God, he says, to let loose His hand and cut 
 him off ; that He would give him the rest in death for 
 which he sighs, as a slave toiling beneath the sun of Asia 
 longs to claim his freedom, as the labourer looks for 
 the wages of his work ; and then, in full tone, he pleads 
 against his sufferings, the mystery of life and the ter- 
 rible finality of death. “Oh! remember,” he says, “that my 
 life is but breath or wind, and that as a cloud is dissolved 
 and is no more seen — so he that dies returns no more 
 from the under-world to the home he has left, neither 
 shall his ancient place know him any more.” And then 
 he recounts his weary night when he craves for the dawn 
 of the day that passes without hope ; he resents the un- 
 sympathizing words of the oldest of his friends, friends 
 who are to him in the hour of his sore need like a 
 treacherous torrent that dries up in the sultry desert, and 
 turns to despair the hopes of the thirsty traveller ; and 
 then he half angrily pleads once more with his God 
 to remove from him these haunting visions, and these 
 wearying bonds : “ Pardon so frail a being, pardon, 
 
 oh 1 Thou Watcher of mankind, pardon, ere he dies in 
 sin that he has committed, ere it be too late.” Its 
 imagery is very plaintive — and it is wholly natural. 
 But it is far removed from Mohammedan resignation — 
 further still removed from that Christian hope of those who 
 out of weakness are made strong, and who in the very 
 valley of humiliation, in the valley of the shadow of death, 
 feel God’s hand leading and supporting. 
 
i88 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 And now in the eighth chapter, the second friend, 
 Bildad the Shuhite, of another Arabian tribe, stands for- 
 ward. He, like the first speaker, puts himself in the 
 attitude of pleading before his God, and of rebuking one 
 whose faith is weak. ‘‘ Doth God pervert judgment ; or 
 doth the Almighty warp justice } ” 
 
 And he too offers a suggestion, shocking to us, but which 
 gives force to the view against which so much of the teach- 
 ing of this book is directed, the suggestion that Job’s chil- 
 dren suffered for the sins of their father. He appeals no 
 longer to the revelation made in the vision, but to tradition, 
 to the authority of a primitive anc} a wiser age, against one 
 whose words are rash. He cannot too soon turn to God 
 and make supplication to the Almighty. God, he assures 
 him, will not cast away the perfect man ; but neither will 
 He accept evil-doers. Job finds scanty comfort in these 
 words. The mighty stream of misery is sweeping him to 
 his grave, and his friends are merely throwing him straws. 
 
 How,” he says, ‘‘ can I vindicate myself with God. The 
 thoughts that burn within me, how dare I bring them out 
 to Him } He removes the mountains and He shakes the 
 earth. He stays the sun, and seals up the starlight, and 
 gives their lights to the bright spheres. Were I never so 
 convinced of the justice of my cause, I dare not plead 
 with Him. Better to condemn myself than answer 
 Him.” 
 
 See how his soul sways to and fro in his misery. This 
 one thing,” he says, “I see that He destroys the righteous 
 with the wicked, that evil is triumphant on the earth, that 
 if I prove my innocence to be white as snow, this mighty 
 Being can plunge me, as it were, in foulness, and there is 
 no superior judge,” he cries, “ to decide between us.” Alas ! 
 no mediator between God and man. “ Oh, that He would 
 take away these heavy woes, and let me plead my cause 
 fairly.” And after these audacious words he turns to God 
 in the very bitterness of his soul, and ‘‘ Show me,” he says, 
 “wherefore Thou contendest with me. Thy hands have 
 made me and fashioned me long ago. Why, like a malig- 
 nant human foe, dost Thou deal so cruelly with Thine own 
 creature, one whose innocence Thou knovvest. Oh, why 
 didst Thou give me the gift of this weary life ? Having 
 given it, why not give me some respite that I may take 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 189 
 
 comfort some little before I go where I shall never return, 
 to the land of darkness and the shadow of death, a land 
 of darkness as darkness itself, without any order — where 
 the light is as darkness — from the sunlight to the sunless 
 land." 
 
 There is not, you see, one word, as it were, left of resigna- 
 tion or patience. Only a moan, now loud, now low, of one 
 who feels himself wronged, deserted of the God who loves 
 him, who lifts up his cry for mercy and relief. Neither is 
 there, so far, a word of hope for redress beyond the grave. 
 His friends' words seem full to overflowing of the even cur- 
 rent of pious and indisputable truths ; his much the reverse. 
 Yet somehow, as we read, our hearts go, and seem meant 
 to go, with him, rather than with them. 
 
 And now the third friend speaks. It is in the same key 
 as those that went before. His language is sharp and stern. 
 He deals no longer in hints and suggestions : “ Should thy 
 falsehoods," he says, ‘‘make other men silent.^" He taxes 
 Job with self-flattery, self-righteousness, with the sin even 
 of profanity in saying to his Maker “ I am clean in Thine 
 eyes." He declares to him that whatever his sufferings, 
 God is exacting from him less than he deserves, and then, 
 after dwelling in striking language on the holy, mysterious 
 nature of Him whom he is charging by his loud cries, he 
 bids him put iniquity far away, and then he shall forget all 
 his miseries, then the rush of sorrow shall pass away, and 
 he shall be restored to the noonday of God's favour, and 
 therefore to happiness. It is too much for Job. The whole 
 world is against him. He stands alone in his doubts and 
 in his misery. 
 
 These three friends represent, not the majority only, but 
 the sum total of the religious thought, the religious world, 
 the Church, we may say, of his day — the quod semper^ quod 
 ubique^ quod ab omnibus ; and they no more share his 
 anxious questionings than they share his bodily pangs. 
 In the twelfth and two following chapters, he bursts forth 
 afresh in a strain of sorrow and upbraiding that dies away 
 into despair as he turns away from them to the God who 
 has so afflicted him. “No doubt," he says, “ye are the 
 people, ye represent the whole world, and wisdom, doubt- 
 less, will die with you. And me — me whose footsteps are 
 slipping on life's hard course, you who sit at ease can 
 
EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 190 
 
 scorn. Would you tell me of God’s greatness ? All crea- 
 tion knows and all history teaches, the beasts, the fowls, 
 the fishes, earth and sea, kingdoms and nations tell us of 
 His power. What ye know, I know also. Sorrowful 
 counsellors are ye all, poor pleaders for your God.” And 
 then bidding them hold their peace, he declares that, come 
 what will, he will yet plead with God. ‘‘ Though He slay 
 me, yet will I so far trust Him as to plead before Him.” 
 And then, with another sad appeal to his Maker, to with- 
 draw that heavy hand and let him plead face to face, he 
 implores Him again to let him know what is his trans- 
 gression, what is his sin. “Wherefore hidest Thou Thy 
 face, and boldest me for Thine enemy ? Thou writest 
 bitter things against me.” We see that the imagery here, 
 as elsewhere, is drawn from the formal processes of the 
 registers and deeds of judicial courts in no uncivilized land, 
 and it makes him still responsible for the forgotten iniqui- 
 ties of his youth. And then his spirit dies within him, 
 and in the fourteenth chapter we have one of the most 
 wonderful of utterances that ever passed from human lips : 
 “ Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and is full 
 of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut 
 down; he fleeth as the shadow, and continueth not.” And 
 can God enter into conflict with one so frail ; or expect 
 strength and perfection from so poor a weed } Let him 
 rest till his short day is over. And then in words of 
 solemn and sustained hopelessness he paints man’s ephe- 
 meral nature in images which poet after poet have scarcely 
 yet exhausted — “ there is hope of a tree,” he says, “ that 
 if it be cut down it will spring up again, at the scent of 
 water.” How natural the language ! At one vivifying 
 touch of rain in the sunburnt East, it will bud forth and 
 bourgeon. “ But man lieth down and riseth no more ; till 
 the heaven of heavens above be no more the dead shall 
 not awake nor be raised out of their sleep.” What a 
 chill and despairing cry. Then a sort of faint gleam of 
 hope ! He breathes a prayer that God would hide him 
 for awhile in the grave till the storm of His wrath were 
 over. “ Let me, let me wait even in death, for a better 
 time,” till his Maker should yearn over the creature to 
 whom he had given his being. But no ; the hope vanishes 
 as soon as seized. God’s sentence is gone against him. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 191 
 
 It is sealed and fixed. And he turns in utter agony to 
 the great Creator as the great destroyer. The solid 
 mountains,” he says, “ come to nought ; the waters wear 
 the stones.” If the words are those of an Arabian patri- 
 arch, the thoughts are those of one who in the light of 
 modern science sees the slow action of the dissolving rains 
 and the rushing torrents of the broad river, sowing the 
 dust of continents to be. 
 
 Nature, he says, as well as life, tell us the same sad tale. 
 Change, and decay, and destruction are everywhere ; the 
 individual withers and the world is more and more. “ Thou 
 destroyest the hope of man ; Thou prevailest for ever 
 against him ; Thou changest his countenance and sendest 
 him away. His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it 
 not ; they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not. The 
 same doom is over all Thy works.” His language is the 
 very reverse of the psalmist's words : “ All Thy works 
 praise Thee, and Thy saints give thanks to Thee.” 
 “All Thy works pass away, and thou regardest them 
 not.” 
 
 Once more, then, we have pleading, agony, contention, 
 questioning, despair. We have everything in the world, 
 we might say, except patience ; and the climax is not 
 reached even yet. The dialogue is resumed. Each of 
 the three friends rises in turn to speak once more, and 
 each is followed in due course by Job. And yet again, 
 two out of the three return to the argument, and are 
 followed by a long soliloquy, as we might call it, from 
 Job himself. 
 
 It would clearly detain us far too long to go, as we have 
 thus far done, chapter after chapter through the whole 
 dialogue. Let me summarize — it is easily done — the posi- 
 tion maintained by those whom Job calls in his bitterness 
 his miserable comforters. They represent, and are obviously 
 meant to represent, the class of good and God- fearing men 
 who do not feel at all acutely the perplexities and the 
 problems of life, and who resent as merely mischievous 
 and misleading the doubts which these perplexities and 
 problems suggest. Much of what they say is most strik- 
 ing. It is not until they are shocked and pained at Job’s 
 presumption that they plead, and seem to have a right to 
 plead, that the wisdom of antiquity is all on their side ; 
 
EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 192 
 
 what wise men had told from their fathers* day were 
 genuine traditions better than the mere idle tale of some 
 passing stranger, and that they bring against him the 
 wisdom, and thought, and experience of grey-headed and 
 very aged men, much older than his father. Much, also, 
 that they say is very true as well as very striking, on God’s 
 greatness, the greatness and omniscience of Him in whose 
 sight not even the very heavens are clean. On human 
 weakness and sinfulness they enlarge in language which 
 will never lose its force. So, too, on God’s readiness to 
 receive those who will turn to Him under chastening they 
 preach almost as preachers of the Gospel before the Gospel 
 came ; and for a most striking picture of the force and 
 power of an evil conscience haunting the evildoer even in 
 the height of prosperity, a dreadful sound ringing in his 
 ears, a voice within telling him that a sword is waiting him 
 in the darkness, and an inward trouble and anguish causing 
 him more terror than kings arrayed against him in battle, 
 we may turn to the second speech of Eliphaz in the fifteenth 
 chapter. Throughout all these runs the unshaken and 
 unfailing conviction that God hates evil and loves good, 
 that the Divine power is a power that works, and works 
 actively for righteousness. 
 
 The cursory reader, nay, the attentive reader, may 
 naturally as he reads, anticipate the close, and ask himself 
 how is it possible that men who speak so wisely and so 
 well, and who evidently are full of the conviction of what 
 they say, who are doing their very utmost to rise to the 
 height of the greatest of all arguments, to justify the 
 ways of God to men, are at the end of the book rebuked, 
 while Job, of whose bold questionings and repinings and 
 doubts and murmurs we have only yet heard a part, is 
 justified. 
 
 Let me end this with one more word on the attitude 
 of the three friends, true friends as their visit showed, 
 devout men as their language showed, orthodox men 
 after the prevailing belief of their day, as their entire 
 agreement with each other, and their appeals to the con- 
 sent of the good and the aged shows, — yet, after all, utterly 
 mistaken men. In the first place their sympathy with him 
 with whom they reason soon left them. “ Who is weak 
 and I am not weak ? who is offended, and I burn not } ” 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 193 
 
 That Divine cry of sympathy was not their language. On 
 the contrary, the tempests in Job’s soul only lower him in 
 the eyes of the men who sat watching him safely on the 
 mainland. They were shocked at his failure in faith, as it 
 seemed to them, and they soon began to upbraid and to 
 denounce him. They set an example which Christian 
 controversialists have been only too ready to follow ; they 
 tried to break that much-bruised reed, to quench that 
 smoking flax. Their language grows harsh and stern just 
 where harshness and sternness were most wholly out of 
 place. 
 
 And secondly they were in possession of certain un- 
 doubted truths, truths which I have already indicated, and 
 to utter these in season and out of season seemed enough. 
 Whether they were the truths needed for the special trial 
 with which they had to deal did not matter to them ; it 
 was enough that they were true ; and the result was what 
 was to be expected. The wholesome medicine became 
 poison in their unskilful hands, the remedy only aggra- 
 vated the disease. How often and with what evil results 
 have good Christian men and women trodden in their 
 steps, and repeated the same error ! 
 
 And finally, all that they said was tainted with one 
 fundamental error, that error against which the whole of 
 the book is one long protest. God was teaching the world 
 in the sufferings of Job a truth new to the early world, and 
 very hard, as we see centuries later, for the Hebrew world 
 to realize. One great object of the book is to announce 
 the truth that God’s hand may be heavy, very heavy, on 
 those whom He dearly loves ; that individual suffering is 
 no proof of individual wrongdoing. The words, “Think 
 ye that those on whom the tower of Siloam fell, were 
 sinners above all men ? ” or again, our Lord’s answer to 
 those who asked Him “ Whether did this man sin or his 
 parents, that he was born blind?*' were addressed to men 
 who still clung to the belief that personal suffering proved 
 personal guilt. They were the true heirs, the spiritual 
 children of those in this book, who, beginning with gentle 
 hints could end with taxing their friend, to whose blame- 
 less life before his trials came, God and man alike had 
 borne their witness, with a life of hypocrisy and double 
 dealing, and infinite injustices and meannesses, — with having 
 
 O 
 
194 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 in the midst of all his wealth taken a pledge, as one said, 
 from his brother, and of having stripped the naked of their 
 clothing. It is the conflict of these narrow ideas with the 
 new and Divine light dawning as sunlight on the summit 
 of Alpine mountains in some solitary hut, the light that 
 was to gather one day round the Cross of Calvary, and 
 was to gild many a bitter hour of poverty, of failure, of 
 bereavement, of humiliation, of sickness, and of the hour 
 of death, that lies at the very root of all these reiterated 
 arguments, all of this that seems to us a long monotony 
 of protest and appeal that makes up this book. 
 
 G. G. B. 
 
 XXIII. The Book of Job —4. 
 
 I so far anticipated what still lies before us in my last 
 lecture, as to give you a general summary of the language 
 of Job’s three friends, at the supreme moment when, at the 
 opening of the thirty-second chapter, we are told that they 
 ceased to answer him because he was righteous in his own 
 eyes. What had been meantime the effect of their argu- 
 ments on one whose despairing words at the close of the 
 fourteenth chapter we noticed in our last? What had 
 he gained from their well-meant counsels ? They had con- 
 vinced him at least that there was no human consoler left 
 him. He felt this keenly ; and in answer to the words 
 — the often eloquent and often true, but still inoppor- 
 tune words — of the gentlest of his interlocutors, he drily 
 replied : I have heard many such things ; miserable com- 
 
 forters are ye all.” And so again in answer to another, 
 ‘‘ How long will ye vex my soul and break me in pieces 
 with your words?” “Not so,” he says very touchingly, 
 would he have treated them. “Had your souls been in 
 my soul’s place, I would have strengthened you with my 
 mouth, and the moving of my lips should have assuaged 
 your grief ; ” but for the rest he turns his back on those 
 ill-judging friends, and pleads (pleads for his very life) no 
 more with them, but with the God who is afflicting him. I 
 shall put before you samples only, but they shall be fair 
 samples, of his language. 
 
 First, what I have already spoken of as his long wail is 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 195 
 
 not yet over ; it breaks forth, rising to the surface like a 
 bitter spring, from time to time, in various forms and ex- 
 pressions, under various, often very curious and interesting 
 figures, almost to the end of all that he says ; and the 
 careful reader will find much that is exceedingly interesting 
 and suggestive in these hymns, if I may so call them, of 
 pain and suffering, often seeming to have little direct re- 
 ference to Job’s actual state, which passed, from time to 
 time, from his lips. Read, for instance, that which begins 
 with the 6 th and ends with the 22nd verse, chap. xix. ; it 
 will remind you, verse after verse, of some of the very 
 saddest and most solemn of all the psalms, pointing on- 
 wards, even as they do, to One whose sorrow was above 
 all human sorrow. “ He hath put my friends far from me ; 
 and my familiar friends have forgotten me ; ” and ending 
 with the heart-rending appeal, Have pity upon me, have 
 pity upon me, oh ye, my friends, for the hand of God hath 
 touched me.” Read, again, that strange description of 
 some lower and conquered aboriginal race, whose fathers 
 had ranked, he says, in his eyes below the very dogs of his 
 father’s flocks, which ushers in the thirtieth chapter. How 
 vivid, how life-like the picture of the scanty and scorned 
 tribe, thinned by want and famine— driven from the haunts 
 of civilized man — cried after as thieves when they passed 
 men’s doors — dwelling in caves, and amongst the rocks, 
 and feeding on wild roots — braying, as he says, in their un- 
 intelligible half-articulate chatter among the bushes, where, 
 viler than common clay, they crouched, as he says once 
 more, with the lower animals ! 
 
 But the whole book is full of vivid pictures, vivid touches 
 of the life of that early world, often lying covered up 
 beneath the obscurity of our version as — I used, I think, 
 the figure before — as the treasures of Pompeii under the 
 ashes of Vesuvius. If I were to follow them, I should lead 
 you aside from the broad human highway of the book into 
 its strange by-ways and interesting recesses. Let me go 
 back to the one thread which runs clear and strong through 
 the twisted and tangled strand, alike in its earlier and its 
 later subjects ; the quivering sense of pain, the cry, the 
 complaint, the outspoken agony. 
 
 Secondly — side by side, with this — there is another 
 stream of thought that heightens and gives poignancy to 
 
196 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 his other pangs. It is the moral pain, the spiritual torture, 
 the bewildering sense that these woes, which God has laid 
 upon him — for never for a moment does he doubt that 
 they come from God — are causeless, unaccountable ; that 
 he has not merited such terrible, such signal, such excep- 
 tional chastisement. If I am to lie down in misery that 
 makes me cry for death, if I am to go in unrelieved 
 misery down to the land of darkness, it is for no act of 
 injustice that soils my hands.'’ “My prayer,” he cries, 
 “ is pure ; ” and then, goaded with a sense of wrong — 
 “ Earth, earth,” he cries, — there seems to be (I will not 
 speak too positively) a rare allusion to the Book of Genesis, 
 a reference to the innocent blood of Abel, crying from the 
 ground, — “ earth,” he says, “ cover not my blood, hide not 
 my cry. I cry out for my wrong, but I am not heard ; 
 and I cry aloud, but I have no redress,” and he appeals 
 to his Sovereign to bear witness whether he has gone back 
 from His commands, whether he has not esteemed the 
 words of His mouth as dearer than his daily bread ; nay, 
 he feels bound to assert his innocence against the charges 
 of his accusers. “ My righteousness I will hold fast, and 
 I will not let it go.” And then in a chapter, the twenty- 
 ninth, more pathetic, more moving, if I may say so, than 
 words of mere lamentation, he recalls the happy days of 
 the golden past, when the “ candle of God shone upon my 
 head, and by His light I walked through the darkness of 
 life ; when the Almighty was yet with me, and my lost 
 children were about me ; ” and he recalls those days as 
 not merely days of well-being, but of well-doing. It was 
 not only, you will see if you read that chapter, that the 
 young men, and the aged princes and nobles had done him 
 honour, but he could add that ‘‘ When the ear heard me, 
 then it blessed me ; and the eye when it saw me, gave 
 witness to me.” And why } “ Because I delivered the 
 
 poor that cried, the fatherless, and him that had no helper; 
 because I won the blessing of him that was ready to 
 perish, and caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy. Be- 
 cause I was a righteous judge, and because I rejected not 
 the stranger’s plea. I searched out to do him justice, and 
 so I dwelt,” he says, “ among men as a king among his host, 
 as a beneficent king, as one that comforteth the mourners.” 
 And so, later on, “ Did not I weep for him that was in 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 197 
 
 trouble “Was not my soul grieved for the poor?” 
 And in his last appeal, in the thirty-first chapter, to the 
 God who sees his woes, and counts all his steps, he asserted 
 his innocence of sins of the flesh, of niggardliness, of fraud, 
 of avarice, of oppression, of deadness to the woes of others. 
 The very slave, he says, he regarded and treated as his 
 fellow-creature. “Did not He that made him make me?” 
 The fleeces of his sheep had warmed the loins of the poor 
 Never has he eaten the fruits of his land without due pay- 
 ment to his labourer. Never has he exulted in the sorrows 
 of his ill wishers. Never has he cursed his adversary. 
 Never has he eaten his food alone and left the orphan 
 unfed. Never has the generous Arab allowed the stranger 
 to lodge beneath the cold night sky. Never, again, has 
 the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in its bright- 
 ness through that transparent sky, tempted his heart to 
 worship or his hand to do homage. Never has he denied 
 the God who so afflicts him. We, who have been ele- 
 vated, by the slow process of God’s Spirit speaking to us 
 through the ages, to a higher level ; we who have been 
 born into the dispensation of that Spirit that was to con- 
 vince the world, not only of righteousness, but also of 
 sin ; we may be startled by such broad and unflinching 
 assertions of human innocence ; but the sequel shows that 
 in one sense, and that a very essential sense, they were 
 well founded, the whole book would be meaningless if they 
 were false. Yet they do have in all of them an element 
 of error and imperfection, and it is the mingling of these 
 two currents that forms the keenest and most searching 
 of his trials, and yet perhaps the very one into which it is 
 most easy for many here, and now, thoroughly to enter. 
 His wealth had gone from him, we know, in a moment ; 
 but great riches are, after all, exceptional, and the sudden 
 transition from opulence to utter destitution is the lot of 
 few. His children, whom He so dearly loved, had been 
 swept away at a stroke, sudden and signal. Such has had 
 its parallels, its sad and its very rare parallels in modern 
 experience. Health had gone and his frame was racked 
 with sore diseases. It is an accumulation of woes on a 
 single head, such as we may say is seldom or never seen 
 on the stage of daily and of practical life. Yet all this he 
 had borne with a profound, an absolute submission to Him 
 
198 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 who gives and takes away the joys of life, our life itself. 
 It recalls to us, as I said before, not only Christian sub- 
 mission, but that which forms the true greatness, the re- 
 deeming feature in the life of the pious Mohammedan, who 
 when wealth and children and health had gone, something 
 yet remained to him; he walked with unseen glory crowned 
 in a sense of his dependence on his Maker and his God. 
 But now the rebukes of his unwise friends had given birth 
 to something not from without, but from within, that made 
 the solid earth reel beneath his weary frame. Their hard 
 and ready dogmatism had forced upon him a question for 
 which his soul travailed in vain to find an answer. This 
 mighty, this almighty Being, whose greatness, and whose 
 justice, and whose omniscience they discussed so fully, was 
 he after all a righteous Being ? was the ruler of the world 
 a just Ruler? Did the Judge of mankind judge rightly? 
 Powerful He is, no doubt. Nature, he feels, tells His 
 power. In His hand, he says himself, is the life of every 
 human being, the health of all rnankind. History, such as 
 he knows it, tells His power. Nations, he says, rise and 
 fall, and kings exchange the royal girdle for the cord that 
 encircles the loins of the captive horde. What if all this 
 power is wielded by one who looks with indifference on 
 right and wrong, and smiles alike on the good cause and 
 the bad ; who leaves the world to be misgoverned, pain 
 and pleasure to flow through creation at random, or, worse 
 still, to be distributed in the interest of wrong-doing ; and 
 all the wise saws of his friends intensify the agony of this 
 doubt. They tell him that from of old, from the day when 
 men were first placed on the earth, the triumph of the 
 wicked has been short ; that God had been invariably and 
 at all hours the good man's friend ; that he himself is 
 paying the penalty due to his hypocrisy and ill living, and 
 he knows that this is false, and dark thoughts stir within 
 him, and bitter doubts — doubts that have tried many a 
 heart that have never tasted of his exceptional and tragic 
 cup of misery — fill his brain, and shake the faith that 
 Satan’s malice had vainly tried. “ Mark me,” he says in 
 the twenty-first chapter, ‘'and be astonished, and lay your 
 hands upon your mouths.” The thought that stirs within 
 that pious patriarch he hardly dares to utter. “ Even when 
 I remember Him I am afraid, and a trembling takes hold 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 199 
 
 of my flesh.” Yet speak he must. He looks out with 
 changed eyes on the spectacle of life, and beneath the 
 dress of the patriarch of the Old Testament, honoured in 
 all the Churches, the friend of God, we see the questioner 
 of the most fundamental of all religious, of all moral truths. 
 “ Wherefore,” he says, “ do the wicked live and become 
 mighty in power ? ” Their seed is established ; their 
 families, as we should say, are founded under their eyes ; 
 all goes well with them. Their wealth increases, and all 
 prospers. They send forth their little ones like a flock ; 
 and their children dance to the timbrel and the harp. We 
 see beneath that Eastern imagery the prosperous family in 
 all ages founded on wrong-doing. They spend their days 
 in wealth ; in a moment, in due time, they go down un- 
 punished to their graves. Where is the God that rules 
 the world with righteousness ? And he tries to find satis- 
 faction for his doubts in retribution falling one day on 
 their posterity. But no, he comes back uncomforted to 
 the same question, the inequalities, the injustices of life. 
 One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease and 
 quiet ; another dieth in the bitterness of his soul, and never 
 eateth bread with pleasure. They lie down alike in the 
 dust, and the worms cover them. It is the opening scene 
 of Dives and Lazarus, without its sequel. The rich man 
 died ; the beggar died also. And we, my friends, need 
 not go through Job’s preliminary tortures to feel the 
 problem that vexed him. An hour’s walk in London, a 
 day, it may be, in a country village, may stir the same 
 question ; and think, too, how much darker and more cruel 
 the world must have seemed, when thus regarded, to one 
 who lived in the religious atmosphere which Job breathed. 
 Not one word all his friends whispered to him of the world 
 beyond the grave. Amidst all the visions that haunted 
 him, there is none of One who tasted shame and desolation 
 and death, and was in all points tempted like as we are, 
 yet was He infinitely dear to His God, to His father, and 
 lives at God’s right hand. The voice that spake of a life 
 to come, was not wholly, absolutely dumb. If he dare 
 not cherish that full embodiment of the Christian hope 
 which meets all that is mortal of our friends, high or low, 
 as we bear them to their graves, yet through its darkness 
 and obscurity, there is at the very least, a looking forward 
 
2 CO 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 to the sight of God, when the bodily frame must return to 
 dust ; and once or twice we hear the accents of that better 
 voice, but its accents are faint and low and overborne by 
 that louder voice, the dreary touch of the simple sense 
 that speaks of death as the final and eternal end of each 
 human soul. 
 
 And so he stands at bay. He has to face the spectres 
 of his mind ; his foes are indeed those of his own house- 
 hold — his wife, his friends, the teaching of his age, the 
 traditions of the past, his own sorrows, his own experiences, 
 his own tumultuous thoughts ; and what is left him, what 
 severs him from the mere cynical denier of God’s provi- 
 dence and God’s goodness, or from him who smiles at 
 all distinctions between right and wfong 1 What is it that 
 gives him his place in the roll of God’s servants? Much 
 is left him still, much that in all times it is well to re- 
 member is dear to God. There is the eager, the passionate 
 desire for truth, “ Give me light and let me die” ; and there 
 is the firm persistance in calling on his God to reveal that 
 truth to him. Through all the darkness that surrounds 
 him, does not the search for God still haunt his soul ? He 
 thirsts for the living God, for God and His truth. “Be- 
 hold, I go forward, but He is not there ; and backward, 
 but I cannot perceive Him ; on the left hand, but I cannot 
 behold Him ; He hideth Himself on the right hand that I 
 cannot see Him,” and so “ Oh, that I knew where I might 
 find Him, that I might go even to His throne.” He tries 
 to comfort himself by drawing pictures, even as his friends 
 had done, magnificent pictures of the greatness of Him 
 at whose reproof the pillars of the heavens tremble and 
 are astonished, and he lays his fingers for a moment on 
 the immortal truth, that all these are but parts of His 
 ways, that we hear but a small portion, that we see, in 
 modern language, but the skirts of creation, and he speaks 
 of truth and wisdom as sorely hard to find ; as hidden 
 from the eye, as veins of metal which can only be reached 
 by the dark miner’s path ; a hidden path like that beneath 
 the earth, which the vulture’s eye hath not seen, the lion’s 
 whelps have not trodden, nor hath the fierce lion passed 
 by it. Yet for all that, he speaks of human wisdom as 
 consisting in the fear of God and avoidance of evil ; and 
 he cannot believe that to do justice, and to love mercy, and 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 201 
 
 to walk humbly with God, can alienate a man from God. 
 And just before his last words had died away, he breaks 
 forth into one last piteous appeal, obscured though it be 
 in our rendering of his imagery, that the God who seemed 
 his adversary would reveal to him His will, would only hear 
 and answer him. ^‘The words of Job are ended.’' Such is 
 the close of the thirty-first chapter. That most eloquent 
 of voices is hushed. His friends who listened to him were 
 pained and shocked, and they forebore to argue with him 
 any more, because he was righteous in his own eyes. But 
 we may feel as we read through the book, that it was not 
 only the full, the desperate, the proud avowal of the in- 
 tegrity of his early life that silenced these representatives, 
 as I have called them before, of the religious thought of 
 the age of Job. It was the upheaval of a new stratum of 
 ideas, if I may so speak, that revolted them. The question 
 that Job had stirred was one that had disarranged all their 
 hereditary creed. He was the teacher, the unconscious, 
 the half-articulate teacher, of a doctrine that would cut 
 across all their views of the government of the world, — of 
 a doctrine that would one day be a very Gospel of life, — 
 that God might be the friend, the living friend of one 
 sorely afflicted, and who was not therefore to be listened 
 to or argued with longer. Their feelings were very natural. 
 We, as I said before, feel that there is something that is 
 not of the very highest type of religious thought even in 
 those simple and moving appeals to his blameless life 
 which fell from the lips of Job ; and, at all events, we can 
 sympathize in the outcries of the men whose creed con- 
 tained few articles, but among them one to which they 
 clung as the fundamental article of their faith — that suffer- 
 ing was always and invariably the sign of sin, great and 
 overwhelming calamity a sure sign of great and signal 
 criminality. And if Job’s assertions of innocence were 
 well founded, a well-ordered universe would be resolved 
 into chaos. With such questions they might well fail to 
 sympathize. The very foundations of the great deep 
 seemed broken up ; and their creed must dissolve and 
 construct itself afresh. It is not the first time in the 
 history of the world that the majority of religious pro- 
 fessors have been wrong. The solitary thinker, the philo- 
 sopher, the heretic, the forlorn monk, the rejected of their 
 
202 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 day, have been sometimes, even in spite of many errors, 
 in the right. That little group in the unknown land of 
 Uz, who tried to silence the one among them who was in 
 his world like the herald and the apostle of a truth that 
 was one day to be embodied in the symbol of Christ’s 
 religion, may warn us against thinking that truth is always 
 to be found on the side of numbers — that the God of truth 
 marches always with the largest battalions. How startling 
 to those who heard it, how instructive to those who read 
 it, are the words which we shall find when next we meet ! 
 “Ye, ye, who have been so earnest, so rigid in justifying 
 My ways and asserting your righteousness, ye have not 
 spoken the thing that is right, as My servant Job hath.” 
 And surely a new meaning must be found for the word 
 patience, as elsewhere in the New Testament, so also in 
 the words, which some will remember, of St. James : “Ye 
 have heard of the patience of Job, and ye know the end of 
 the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender 
 mercy.” There may be a higher patience than that of 
 submissiveness ; a holding out of a corner of the fortress 
 against desperate odds — the resistance of a charge by a 
 handful may determine the issues of a campaign. He that 
 shall endure to the end, said a greater than the Apostle 
 James, shall be saved. “ If ye have faith as a grain of 
 mustard seed, ye shall remove mountains ; ” remove, and 
 raise, and elevate what is more precious than a mountain, 
 the human soul. 
 
 a G. B. 
 
 XXIV. The Book of Job.— 5. 
 
 We are reaching the closing scene. We are in sight of 
 what may be called the catastrophe of the Book of Job. 
 The three friends are silenced ; the words of Job are ended ; 
 the ground seems clear. But before the close, there comes 
 what appears to be an episode, a pause in, a diversion from, 
 the main progress of the story. A fresh character under 
 the name of Elihu appears on the scene. He was unmen- 
 tioned before ; he will be unnoticed at the close, where all 
 but himself are passed in review, and receive their meed of 
 praise or blame. And there are many who, from various 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 203 
 
 reasons, hold that the chapters devoted to him — the thirty- 
 second to the thirty-seventh inclusive — are not parts of the 
 original Book of Job, but were added later on, possibly by 
 the writer himself, to mitigate the shock produced on pious 
 readers by the sudden reversal, by the judgment of God, of 
 the judgment of what almost might be called the Church 
 of the day as represented by the friends of Job. 
 
 I need not enter into so vexed, and thorny, and difficult 
 a question. Yet you would wish me, I feel sure, to glance at 
 the substance of the new speaker’s words, and to indicate his 
 attitude, which seems to me to go far to explain his words. 
 He is younger than those who have yet spoken. He has 
 listened to the words of his elders with that outward defer- 
 ence shown by a true son of the East to age and experience. 
 ‘‘ I am young,” he says expressly of himself, “ and ye are 
 old ; wherefore I was afraid, and durst not show to you 
 mine opinion.” Yet, as he listened, his anger, we read, 
 was kindled against Job, because he justified himself against 
 God ; also against the three friends was his anger kindled, 
 because they had found no answer, and yet had condemned 
 Job. He represents, it would appear, something different ; 
 a younger generation, more open to new ideas, less reso- 
 lutely set against fresh shapes of truth, and more fit to be 
 the means of transition from one stage of religious know- 
 ledge and spiritual life to another. So much we may fairly 
 say. And it is well that we who are older should remem- 
 ber that if youth is often presumptuous, age is almost 
 invariably averse to change ; somewhat intolerant of what 
 seems novel, and therefore revolutionary ; and as slow to 
 do justice to the new forms in which God may be fulfilling 
 Himself, as were Job’s friends to bear with the new truth 
 to which his, as it seemed to them, profane and daring 
 language was the prelude. 
 
 Into the full details of his long discourse I, of course, 
 shall not enter. We must not look for the carefully con- 
 structed argument of a Platonic dialogue. The accents 
 of the last human speaker in this book are, we must allow, 
 correctly described as somewhat trembling and hesitating; 
 the argument is somewhat confused and complicated. 
 Doubtless he too, like his friends, censures Job for speaking 
 of himself as clean and without transgression, and as treat- 
 ing God as his enemy ; and he speaks of pain and suffering 
 
204 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 as a discipline, and of God as raising up the penitent from 
 the very edge of death to be enlightened once more with 
 the light of the living ; yet for all this, he does not do much 
 to lift them out of the difficulty. He is shocked at the 
 thought that he attributes to Job, that it profiteth a man 
 nothing that he should delight himself with God ; “ God 
 forbid,’* he says. The work of a man will God render 
 unto him, and cause every man to find at last according to 
 his ways.’* ‘‘Yea, surely,** he says (the words, my brethren, 
 are sure words), “ God will not do wickedly ; neither will 
 the Almighty pervert justice.** “ Shall,” he asks, “he that 
 hateth right govern.'^” “Shall the Judge of the whole 
 world do wrong } ” we read elsewhere ; “ and wilt thou con- 
 demn Him that is most just?** He has not felt (how 
 should youth have felt .^) Job’s trials ; and he cannot sym- 
 pathize, therefore, with Job*s anxious questionings. So far, 
 also, as we understand his language, he seems to miss the 
 real and vital core of the problem that Job’s case has brought 
 to light. He speaks, or seems to speak, as though, because 
 God was so great and high, therefore Job’s righteousness, 
 or Job’s innocence, or Job’s guilt, however important in the 
 sight of man, mattered little. Yet it may be that we are 
 wrong in judging thus, and that he is only obscurely indi- 
 cating the surpassing greatness of God, of whom he says 
 very strikingly in his closing words, that, unsearchable 
 as He is, and past finding out, yet that He is certainly 
 excellent, not in power only, but also in judgment and 
 in abun dance of justice, and that He will not afflict His 
 children. 
 
 With these words he passes from the scene which he has 
 merely traversed, to speak once with a kind of balanced 
 judgment, — that may remind us, perhaps, of more than one 
 utterance of the chorus in some Greek tragedy, — which a 
 hasty critic would scarcely wish to cancel ; and then, 
 when human advisers and human censors have done their 
 best and done their worst, God answers Job out of the 
 Whirlwind. 
 
 And what is that answer ? How eagerly may we lean 
 forward, as it were, to listen ! Those who have in any way 
 followed Job’s sad history and feverish pleading might well 
 have hoped that, with such a knot to untie, the voice of God 
 would not have been heard at all unless to solve the whole 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 205 
 
 enigma for him and for us. But it is not so in fact ‘‘ God 
 speaks, but it is not'’ — I quote the words, or nearly the 
 words, of a recent and excellent English commentator — “it 
 is not to say, Let there be light, where all was darkness ; ” 
 and when He has spoken, you and I must close the book with 
 the sense that the question of questions, as it seems to us, 
 has received no full, entire, adequate solution. What is the 
 answer that Job receives in reply to his repeated, his 
 clamorous, appeals that God would speak to him ? In the 
 first place, it is much to him that his appeal is answered at 
 all. As he hears the words, ‘‘ Gird up thy loins like a man, 
 for I will demand of thee, and answer thou Me,” he feels 
 at least that he is no longer forsaken of his ancient Friend ; 
 he is no longer left alone in a world ruled by evil or ruled 
 by chance. And what next ? He is asked the solution of 
 one riddle — his own hard destiny. “ Can,” he says, “ that 
 Voice read other mysteries ? Is this the only dark spot in a 
 world radiant and transparent elsewhere with light ? or is he 
 not rather surrounded on all sides by clouds which he can- 
 not pierce, riddles which he cannot read ? He has darkened 
 counsel — that is, misread God’s designs by words without 
 knowledge on one point. Can he read the mysteries of the 
 universe, of creation, of all the varied forms of life, fair or 
 monstrous, that swarm around him ? Can he,” he is asked 
 later on, “abase the proud, tread down the wicked ? Has 
 he penetrated into the secrets of the government of the 
 world, and seated himself in the centre of the great forces 
 that rule the distribution of good and of evil ? Or is he 
 not rather weak and ignorant, able to read only a fragment 
 of the mighty laws which shape alike the courses of the 
 stars and the destinies of mankind ” 
 
 Such seems the substance of the answer that he receives, 
 when we strip it of its noble scenery and its splendid illus- 
 trations, Let us glance at it more closely for a moment. 
 Job is called on to consider the greatness, the immensity 
 of nature; not, I need scarcely say, of the forces, as we call 
 them, of nature, as seen and interpreted with modern eyes, 
 but still of the awful and overpowering phenomena of nature 
 and of life as they were revealed to Job. He is carried 
 back to the regions of earth and sea and light, and with 
 each question comes, as it were, a lightning flash of poetic 
 beauty. We hear the angelic host, the morning stars, the 
 
2o6 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 stars of dawn, fitly hailing the dawn of life in a new-born 
 world, when the morning stars sang together and all the 
 sons of God shouted for joy;” or the wild and capricious 
 sea subjected to law and order — ‘‘ Hitherto shalt thou come, 
 and no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed ; ” 
 or we see the sudden sunrise in a land of briefest twilight 
 flash on the dark earth, and its scenery, coming out sharp 
 and clear, as the shapeless clay receives the impress of a 
 seal. The sunshine even there hath a glorious birth. 
 
 Where wast thou,” said the Voice, “when these things had 
 their birth } ” and then his brain is, as it were, made dizzy 
 by challenges to penetrate, now the homes of light and of 
 darkness ; now the regions of stored and accumulated 
 snows ; now the clouds feeding here the streams that, swift 
 or slow, mould the mountains and shape the earth, now 
 falling on the broad desert steppes in beneficent and fertilis- 
 ing rain ; now the realms of ice, the frozen seas ; now the 
 majestic heavens and the laws that move the stars. “ Where 
 is thy hand ? what is thy knowledge among these things } ” 
 he is asked. 
 
 And then he — and Job, remember, is here the type of 
 all our race, though the language used to him is couched 
 of course in a form suited to his day and generation — is 
 bidden to look upon the forms of wild, untamed, untame- 
 able life that filled in those early days so vast a portion 
 of the earth’s surface. He is called to look upon those 
 kingly lions that needed not the aid of man ; on the wild 
 ravens whose cry, to the poet’s ear, went up as a very 
 prayer to the Father of all life ; and the rock goats and the 
 wild ass, creatures so strong, so vigorous, so rude, so free, 
 rejoicing in a noble liberty, scorning, he is told, the multi- 
 tudes of the city, neither regarding the cry of the driver ; 
 then on the mighty and primeval buffalo, unfortunately 
 rendered by the meaningless heraldic unicorn, whom none 
 can train to draw the plough, none force to carry home the 
 garnered wheat ; then the sullen ostrich, so dull to natural 
 feeling, so hardened against her young ones, yet able to 
 put to scorn the steed and its rider. Then the words, 
 “ Hast thou given the horse strength } Hast thou clothed 
 his neck with thunder.^” usher in the stirring, the splendid 
 description of the horse, not as with the Greek poet, the 
 servant of man, but in the form known to Hebrew or Arab 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 207 
 
 or Egyptian, as the fiery, neighing, snorting warhorse of 
 the Arabians, '' who saith among the trumpets, Ha, Ha! 
 who smelleth the battle afar off/’ And the list of pictures 
 which began with the king of beasts ends with that of the 
 queen of birds, who builds her nest upon the rock, upon the 
 crags of the rocks, her young ones also suck her blood, 
 and where the slain ones are there is she ; and once more, 
 after a few simple words from Job, there follow, too, ela- 
 borate pictures of monstrous untameable creatures, the 
 behemoth and the leviathan, the hippopotamus and the 
 crocodile of the sea-like river of Egypt. 
 
 The language, we all feel, if we read it, reaches the very 
 high-water mark of poetic beauty. Nothing in the world 
 can excel its dignity, its force, its majesty, or the freshness 
 of its pictures of nature and of life. But what next ? we ask. 
 No answer, we may say here, to Job’s agonized question- 
 ings, no answer to the sore riddles and problems of life 
 which still vex ourselves. Quite true. There is at least 
 no direct answer at all. Even those partial answers which 
 have been touched on from time to time by speaker after 
 speaker, are not glanced at in those final words. It is as 
 though the voice of God did not care to repeat that His 
 power works on the side of righteousness. He only hints 
 it. Nor does He enforce, but leaves for the present where 
 it stands, the undying truth, already mooted in this book, 
 that sorrow does its best work when it purifies and raises 
 the human soul ; nor is any light thrown on that faint and 
 feeble glimmer of hope, that streak of light not yet fully 
 born into the world, of a life beyond the grave, where there 
 shall be no more sorrow and sighing, where Rachel and her 
 lost children. Job and his lost sons and daughters, shall be 
 once more reunited. The thoughts that we should have 
 most looked for are not here. 
 
 One other thought and one only is brought forward into 
 the foreground, one lesson ; it is this : The world is full of 
 mysteries, strange, unapproachable, overpowering, insoluble, 
 that we cannot read. Trust, trust, in the power, in the 
 wisdom, in the goodness of Him who rules it. Turn from 
 the problem of your own destiny ; good men have said 
 their best, wise men have said their wisest ; we are still left 
 to bear the discipline of questions too hard for us to solve. 
 We cannot answer them. Turn to the belief that all is 
 
2o8 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 good, all is wise, and that one day, not here, the riddle will 
 be read ; that behind the veil which we cannot pierce lies 
 its solution in the hands of God. 
 
 And yet, strange as it may seem, to Job this answer, 
 which may appear to many so inadequate, was ample and 
 sufficient. 
 
 It was much, as I said before, that God had answered 
 him ; and his tortured heart is calmed, and he turns trust- 
 fully to his Answerer. “ I know,” he says, “ that Thou art 
 Lord of all, and knowest all wisdom. I have uttered things 
 beyond my knowledge. I know Thee better now. I feel 
 Thee nearer to me ; mine eye seems to see Thee. Before 
 it was only the hearing of the ear, and to know Thee here 
 and by me is all I need. I have misjudged Thee. I repent 
 my rash words,” he says ; “ do Thou forgive them.” And 
 Job is reconciled to his God, and his friends are censured. 
 All the truths, the many truths in what they had said, did 
 not compensate for their hasty, their coarse, we may call it, 
 and ill-judged application of these truths to God’s afflicted 
 servant. And Jobs wild words and audacious questionings 
 are freely forgiven for the sake of his firm conviction that 
 righteousness and mercy were, and must be, dear to God ; 
 that if under any pretext or under any system they were 
 not dear to God, it would be a hideous universe under an 
 unjust master ; for it is after all by goodness, and in 
 virtue of goodness, that God is God. Is it not so, that if 
 God were not good, not all power, not all wisdom, would 
 make him God t 
 
 “Ye have not spoken of Me,” says that God, “the thing 
 that is right, like My servant Job;” for even when he 
 seemed to assail his Divine Friend, he was pleading for His 
 unchangeable. His dearest attributes of justice and of good- 
 ness. And God’s unfailing love for His afflicted servant, 
 over whom His heart had yearned in all his sufferings and 
 in all his outcries, and not less in all his doubts, is shown 
 by his renewed prosperity, of which we read at the end — 
 restored life, greater riches, other sons and daughters, 
 other friends, honoured and lengthened days. By all the 
 accumulated conditions of human happiness, the Lord 
 blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning. 
 
 These things, as I said before, prove God’s love for one 
 who had suffered much, and they do something also to re- 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 209 
 
 lieve the tension, the pang that we should all have felt at 
 Job being left to die, whether in resignation, or in patience, 
 or in sadness on his dunghill. But they do not, we all feel, 
 undo his sufferings. The lost child does not come back ; 
 “ the vanished hand,” the voice that is still,” are not, and 
 were not to be replaced ; and the world is full of instances 
 where the clouds and shadows of life are not followed by 
 such countervailing sunshine. Hence, it is, perhaps, that 
 in the very ancient version of the book which formed for a 
 very large portion of the Jewish race even in our Lord’s 
 day their authorised version of the Old Testament, we find 
 averse added in quite another key and by a later hand. It 
 is written, that Job will rise again with those whom the 
 Lord raiseth. 
 
 One word more before we part. >We close the book 
 with a sense of its treasures, not exhausted, of interest and 
 beauty ; but also, it may be, with something of a natural 
 disappointment that it contains no direct, complete, and 
 cheering answer to questions against which the human 
 soul has beaten itself from Job’s days to ours. It stirs, 
 if we choose to say so, great doubts that it does not 
 answer. We see Job, as it were, led to the verge of a 
 sea-shore ; a great and limitless and pathless ocean which 
 he cannot pass is before him ; he can go no further, see 
 but a little way on ; he must rest where he is and trust. 
 All that he is told is, that God most surely loved him ; 
 that He will not answer his eager and passionate questions, 
 but that through them all, and in spite of them all, he 
 is dear to Him because he had loved righteousness and 
 hated iniquity, and that for these things God cares, and 
 cares infinitely; and in the sense of this and of God’s 
 power and wisdom, he must rest content. And he is told 
 also that trouble and affliction do not prove God’s dis- 
 pleasure ; that the very heaviest, the most overwhelming 
 blows may come from a Maker who is full of love to him 
 on whom they fall ; may come, as did Job’s, from causes 
 far beyond his power to comprehend or guess, and that he 
 need not look on God as his persecutor or his enemy — not 
 shrink from Him, but draw closer and closer to Him in 
 his trouble, and trust Him more wholly. 
 
 And his story reminds us also of God’s mercy and for- 
 bearance to those who are under sorrow ; of the larger, the 
 
 V 
 
210 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 other eyes with which He may look on the impatience, the 
 bewilderment, the fretfulness, even the doubts and ques- 
 tionings, of His servants. The impatience, as it seems 
 to us, of Job is answered by the patience and pitifulness 
 of Job’s God: — The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender 
 mercy” — and this, surely, is much. 
 
 The book marks, as I have said before, an era, an epoch, 
 a stage of progress in God’s education of His people. It 
 suggests lessons that must have been precious beyond 
 words to those who had been trained to identify suffering 
 with sin. 
 
 We, my friends, who have long left behind us that simple 
 answer to life’s hard problem which satisfied Job’s friends, 
 and well-nigh broke Job’s heart, we feel our darkness still ; 
 yet as we take our place by his side, whether in his anguish, 
 or in his restored brightness of life, we feel that we have 
 light given to- us which was denied to him. The whole 
 revelation of the Christian life, of the life of Christ, the 
 upward course, the forward course, of One who was despised 
 and humiliated and scourged and slain, ‘‘ made perfect 
 through suffering,” has brought a new ideal into the world 
 like vernal airs on to a frozen soil, — something which the 
 age of Job could hardly have conceived of, and which the 
 Jewish nation later on steadfastly rejected. It has leavened 
 race after race with the sense that the highest, the divinest 
 life, may be compatible with sorrow, and rests upon pain 
 and self-sacrifice. How many thousands has it taught that 
 the truest use of pain is to brace us to do work for God 
 and man ! And even as the life of Christ would be mean- 
 ingless if the other world of which He spoke were a mere 
 delusion ; if God, whose nature He reveals to us, had 
 suffered His Holy One to see corruption and final extinc- 
 tion, so to us these difficulties and mysteries are inseparably 
 linked with the sense, not only of God’s undying love for 
 the human race, but with the hope which in that love He 
 holds out to us of another and a larger and an unseen 
 world, of a greater dispensation, of which this life’s puzzles 
 and wounds are only a part. Even as it is, prophets and 
 kings and patriarchs have desired to see even the truths 
 that we see so dimly, and have not seen them, and we, too, 
 must be content to look forward for larger light. What 
 I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.” 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 2II 
 
 Meanwhile, we must repose in the sense of God’s love and 
 goodness, as in that of His power and v/isdom. 
 
 G. G. B. 
 
 XXV. The Second Psalm. Psalm ii. ^^Why do the 
 heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing ? The kings 
 of the earthy etcP 
 
 I PURPOSE to deal with the whole of this psalm. The 
 1st and this 2nd psalm form a kind of prelude to the whole 
 of the Psalter, and taken together, contain the two tones 
 to which the rest give voice. The two great ideas of the 
 Old Testament considered as revelation are : first. Law ; 
 second, Prophecy. The two elements of the Old Testament 
 religion then are : first, loving obedience to the law ; second, 
 faithful anticipation of the prophecies. And the ist psalm 
 deals with the picture of the good man, and the bad man, 
 in their attitude respectively to the law of God ; while this 
 2nd psalm, with the other great element of Old Testa- 
 ment revelation — the Old Testament religion, with the 
 great promises that men were called upon to trust ; and 
 sets forth the antagonism and opposition which rages upon 
 earth against God, and the firm purpose of the unalterable 
 Will, which sets its ‘‘ King upon the holy hill of Zion.” So 
 the two psalms together fitly stand as preface and intro- 
 duction to the whole of the Psalter, and sound the tones 
 which are ever echoing throughout its whole range. I 
 must necessarily deal with it superficially and briefly here, 
 and must, therefore, put the general case of it, rather than 
 any specific portion of it. 
 
 You will see that it falls very artistically and regularly 
 into four very distinct parts, vividly separate from each 
 other. First of all, in the first three verses the picture of 
 the hurry and bustle of the conspiracy of the rebels down 
 here upon earth. And then there comes crashing into the 
 midst of that, in the next three verses, the contemptuous 
 ease with which the fixed Divine purpose crushes all that 
 swarming bustle of the little ant-hill down below. And 
 then there comes into the next three verses, breaking into 
 the very middle of this, the first attestation of the Divine 
 King. And then there comes the psalmist himself, or the 
 
212 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 prophet himself, speaking, in the final triad of verses, the 
 summons to surrender. First of all then, we get, what I 
 have ventured to call the picture of the futile conspiracy 
 of the busy rebels down below there. The psalmist, the 
 seer, has before him the picture. He does not describe it, 
 but with true artistic and dramatic power he brings forth 
 the question : Why do the heathen rage '' and band them- 
 
 selves together. Why do they mutter and meditate a vain 
 thing. The kings of the earth, and people and the rulers 
 taking counsel together. What is the meaning of this 
 universal laying of their heads together, all bending them- 
 selves and whispering, and setting themselves in antago- 
 nism, and consulting for a thing of naught against the 
 Lord and against His anointed ? So he sees the whole of 
 the conspiracy hatching, the eager antagonism which is 
 being developed, in which all classes and all ranks unite, 
 and that it has all no reason, no issue. What are they 
 doing it for.? There is no ground for it. To what end are 
 they doing it .? It is a vain thing. It will go up in smoke, 
 and all come to nothing. The conspiracy against the 
 dominion, which is not twofold, but one — the Lord and His 
 Anointed — the dominion of the Jehovah exercised through 
 His Son, saying, “ Let us break their bands asunder, and 
 cast away their cords from us.’’ So they are rebels, and 
 their opposition is rebellion ; and they are attempting to 
 shake off the yoke which exists, to get to a freedom which 
 they do not now possess. These are the outlines of this 
 chapter : first, the antagonism of the kingdom of God as 
 against the existing kingdom. That is to say, you and I, — 
 by His love. His mercy. His sweetness. His goodness, His 
 grace, by His Christ, and by His passion, — we have been 
 made the subjects of His loving realm ; and for us to lift 
 up our puny wills in opposition to that great throne and 
 Sovereign Will, is not merely warfare, but revolt ; not merely 
 opposition, but rebellion. And then, the other two points 
 upon which I do not touch, but simply mention, are these : 
 this antagonism, every single act of opposition between my 
 will and God’s will, is, first of all, truly absurd and ground- 
 less ; and, secondly, perfectly futile, perfectly vain. It is 
 the paradox of human history, the one unanswerable ques- 
 tion of the whole universe — Wherefore do the people set 
 themselves against the Lord ? No reason that will stand 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 213 
 
 for a moment can be given to the question, Why does the 
 creature lift itself against God. No answer is possible 
 except the one answer — Because we are fools ! Wherefore 
 do the people rage ? The existence of evil, the existence 
 of sin, my opposition, is the unanswerable mystery of all 
 human history ; the one standing puzzle of the whole 
 universe is the possibility of antagonism, and still more 
 the reality. There is nothing so strangely unreasonable in 
 the whole history of man, as man setting himself against 
 God. The other thought also, is vehemently expressed 
 in this first picture ; that not only is this antagonism 
 wanting in all basis and reasonable explanation, so that 
 it can never be reconciled with common sense ; but also 
 it is wanting in all issue ; it will all come to nothing. 
 They set themselves and band themselves together, and 
 according to the vivid saying of the old hymn triumphal. 
 The Lord, the Lord did blow upon them, and they were 
 scattered, they sank, etc.” We may hurt ourselves, we 
 may rob ourselves of the sweetness of entering into 
 His will and finding rest, but we can make no impres- 
 sion upon that kingdom, — “ the people imagine a vain 
 thing.” 
 
 So I come to the second stage, the phase of this 
 vision which comes into the next three verses, where in 
 picturesque and vivid opposition to the busy multitude 
 down in the world, we get the one figure “ He that sitteth 
 in the heavens shall laugh, etc.;” “Yet have I set My 
 King upon My holy hill of Zion.” So there is something 
 that seems very grand and very full in that contrast. On 
 the one hand, the gathering opposition, the whispering 
 conspiracy, the vehement banding together of the multi- 
 tudes ; and, on the other, the calm King sitting throned 
 there in the heavens, and not even arising from His throne, 
 nor stretching out His hand, and meeting it all with but a 
 God-like smile upon His face, which means no favour, but 
 which expresses the Divine recognition of the utter futility 
 and nothingness of all that is going on below, the boldness, 
 the audacity of the conflict ; and the very incongruity be- 
 tween the thoughts of the rebels, and the calmness of the 
 Divine Nature and such a love as that, is intended to 
 strengthen and impress not only the essential ludicrous- 
 ness of antagonism to His will, but the calmness with 
 
214 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 which that Divine power contemplates it all. And then 
 notice, that just as the climax of the conspiracy was given 
 us by the quotation of the whispered words that were 
 passed from lip to lip amongst the rebels, so the climax of 
 the Divine calm antagonism is given by the quotation of 
 the Divine words, “Yet have I set My King upon My 
 holy hill of Zion.’’ That is to say, to put it into more 
 abstract words, the one weapon of antagonism to all that 
 human opposition to the Divine kingdom, is only, the 
 Word — the Word of God — the utterance of His Will. 
 That is all that is needed to crush it into nothingness. I 
 need not, then, notice the thought, what tremendous force 
 there is put against the busy multitudes, — the one single 
 Personality. And what a power and grandeur there is in 
 the “yet /” — we can easily fill up.the ellipsis. “ I ” have 
 set My King, in spite of all the opposition, notwithstand- 
 ing all the antagonism, yet /” have set My King. That 
 is to say, one Divine purpose, one sovereign Divine pur- 
 pose, stands there erect, and the antagonism of men, and 
 of kingdoms, of individuals, of social systems, of schools of 
 thought, of forms of life, and of the world in all its varied 
 forms, hurled against that rocky purpose, is broken up 
 into feathery spray, and falls back into the tossing sea. 
 There stands the throne, one great hand holds it up, and 
 the only answer that is given to all the conspiracy heat 
 and enmity is, “ I ” have set My King upon My holy hill 
 of Zion. 
 
 And so, still further, look now for a moment at the third 
 phase here. We get next, coming in with startling sudden- 
 ness, without prelude, we get another voice speaking, the 
 voice of the King seated upon the holy hill, — what I may 
 call the self-attestation of the King. “ I will declare the 
 decree : the Lord hath said unto Me, Thou art My Son ; 
 this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I shall give 
 Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost 
 parts of the earth for Thy possession.” So suppose the 
 King set upon the holy hill of Zion ; and I am not going 
 to enter into the question whether the words of it may 
 have applied to some historical king of Israel — whether 
 it be so or not, does not matter, in my judgment, to the 
 truly pure Messianic character of the psalm. There is the 
 great promise to the house of David, which is so often 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT, 
 
 215 
 
 heard of in the psalms, which is, in fact, but a version and 
 explanation of that great promise which applies simply to 
 Jesus Christ Himself. So let me just try to bring out the 
 three great main ideas which lie here in the self-attestation. 
 There is first of all Sonship. If you go back to the 
 original passage in the Book of Samuel, you will find 
 there the conception of the day of the Son’s birth does not 
 mean the beginning of the man’s life, but the day of the 
 coronation of the King ; the day of His entrance into His 
 Kingdom ; the day of His birth in reality is exactly the 
 day of His resurrection from the dead. Turn to the thir- 
 teenth of the Acts of the Apostles and you will find that 
 Paul quotes the words of my text as having a distinct 
 bearing upon the resurrection of our Lord ; and so what I 
 want to fix upon for one moment is, that the sonship whicn 
 is here set forth is our Lord’s exaltation in His humanity 
 by the resurrection from the dead, and the visible and 
 manifest dominion in His human nature over earth and 
 hell. We do not sufficiently remember that when Chrisi: 
 rose from the dead He arose with His human body, and 
 His human nature was lifted to the royalty of the universe. 
 And that is that which is here specially referred to. 
 
 The next point is, the universal and the delegated 
 dominion: ^'Ask of Me, and I shall give Thee the 
 heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of 
 the earth for Thy possession.” That is a world too wide 
 for any human monarch that ever reigned, or ever could 
 hope to reign, over the little strip of sea-board on the 
 Mediterranean ; and yet here is the Divine, not the univer- 
 sal, monarchy received from the Father. That is to say, 
 Christ’s reign and God’s reign. Christ’s reign — delegated 
 dominion that is vested upon Him. And these words are 
 the last words that He Himself spoke : “ All power is 
 given to Me upon earth, go ye and preach, etc.” 
 
 The last point is the destructive energy of this great 
 King ; “ Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron ; Thou 
 shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” “ Ay,” 
 people say, “ that is the Old Testament idea of a vengeful 
 and warlike king.” It is the idea of the King that smites, 
 and that is Old Testament, and it is New Testament, too. 
 Do not let us forget that the difference between the Old 
 and New Testament is not that the New weakens or 
 
2i6 expository sermons and outlines 
 
 reverses the Old, but that it adds another thought to it, 
 leaving the Old intact, but completing and supplementing 
 it by another. Christ the King is the King whose mission 
 it is to break and dash in pieces as well as to complete and 
 build up. Thank God that it is so. There are plenty of 
 things in this world that cannot be sanctified, and there- 
 fore must be altered. The task is, to break and bring to 
 naught that which obstinately and ultimately sets kself 
 against Him. Therefore we rejoice that sin, — social, poli- 
 tical and individual evils, are all to be crushed and 
 broken by the iron sceptre of the Universal King. Lift 
 up your heads, redemption draweth nigh, and the ancient 
 tyrannies — blood-cemented — that have been builded up 
 through all the generations of the earth, are tottering to 
 their fall. And so there comes the final word, the sum- 
 mons to surrender : Be wise now therefore, O ye kings ’’ 
 
 — things being so — and ‘‘ be instructed, O ye judges of the 
 earth.’' All opposition is folly. Wisdom points to sur- 
 render, and that surrender is twofold ; one in reference to 
 the Lord, and one in reference to the Anointed. “ Serve 
 the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the 
 Son.” And, though I do not think that anything doctrinal 
 depends upon it, I take it we have to read here, as our 
 Bible has it, Do homage to that Son lest He be angry, 
 for His wrath is swiftly kindled.” And then after that 
 solemn warning — beautiful and tender — how wonderfully 
 the whole psalm rises to another height, Blessed are all 
 ye that put your trust in Him.” The religious emotions 
 of faith and confidence which in the Old Testament be- 
 long to Jehovah, are transferred to that Anointed. And 
 so the iron sceptre and the dominion are all explained, or 
 rather elevated into a higher region, and we can trust the 
 love, and nestle close to it, and enter with glad submission 
 into the dominion of the King, and find that they that 
 trust Him need never to know the weight of His iron 
 sceptre and the terror of His wrath. Brother, let us crown 
 Him King in our lives, as well as share with Him in His 
 monarchy and His rest. 
 
 A. M. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 2iy 
 
 XXVI. The Preaching of King David in the 
 Psalms. Psalm xxvii. 8. “J/y /learf hath talked of 
 Thee, seek ye My face ; Thy face, Lord, will I seekT Psalm 
 xxxvi. I. “ My heart showeth me the wickedness of the 
 ungodly T 
 
 I SUPPOSE that, if any of us were asked, from which of the 
 books of the Old Testament he had learned the most 
 about his own heart, about the nature of sin, its effects and 
 cure, about the faithfulness and forgivingness of God, he 
 would answer without hesitation that it was from the 
 Psalms. No book of the Old Testament has had really 
 half as much influence upon the religious thought of the 
 world as this most wonderful collection of the spiritual 
 songs of Israel. And that, not only because for nearly 
 three thousand years the voice of prayer and praise has 
 gone up to God from the dwellings of the righteous, articu- 
 lated in these forms, first in the Jewish Church and then in 
 the Christian Church ; not only because in ages, in which 
 all or nearly all the other books of the Bible were in a 
 measure sealed up in strange tongues, this book was made 
 familiar and put into the hands of all who learned to pray ; 
 not only because by reason of this use, the psalms may be 
 said to have moulded religious thought itself, and not 
 merely expressed it ; to have led man to the footstool of 
 the Most High as well as placed words in his mouth when 
 he reached it ; the cause is deeper still, and the words are 
 found to fit in with the case of the man who is just turning 
 to God, as well as with his who has set God always before 
 him. It is surely because is there a revelation in them of 
 the heart of man to itself, a glimpse, seen as God sees it, 
 of what is in the heart of the sinner, the penitent, and the 
 saint. And is not this as great a wonder as any of the 
 other miracles of inspiration? For, taking the Psalms of 
 David alone, and excluding from the list all that either 
 ancient tradition or modern criticism claims for other ages 
 and other writers, setting aside the direct prophecies of the 
 Messianic Psalms, and even those utterances which we are 
 justified by our Lord’s own application of them in believing 
 to be prophetic, and to contain prophetic reference by type 
 and shadow to his own work, his sufferings, and exaltation. 
 
2i8 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 there is enough in what we may call the experimental 
 psalms to deserve the name of a miracle of inspiration. 
 They at least are David's ; the words of the sweet singer 
 of Israel. 
 
 And then when we look again on David himself, they 
 are yet more wonderful. What was there in his lot, in 
 even his varied history, in the condition of his age, in the 
 society in which he lived, to suggest such thoughts } A 
 shepherd boy, a royal favourite, a banished man, outcast 
 and fugitive, a rising prince, at the last a mighty, compara- 
 tively powerful, king ; a great offender against laws human 
 and divine, a great penitent, humbled by trouble and shame 
 and by the sins and shame of his children, at last restored 
 to good conscience and peace, and dying in old age, dis- 
 quieted still by domestic alarms, and outliving mental and 
 physical strength. In all this there is variety of experience, 
 it is true ; but of what experience ? Of a state of society 
 most difficult for us to realize ; perhaps more like that of a 
 modern chieftain of some wandering Asiatic tribe than of a 
 Christian prince ; the companion of rude, rough, cruel men, 
 standing on a border line between ancient and most 
 corrupt civilizations, such as those of Egypt and Assyria, 
 and an absolutely wild shepherd-life like that of the nomad 
 races which people the same border lands to this day ; in- 
 heriting the prophecies and traditions of Moses and the 
 priesthood and the tabernacle, and a conviction, in itself 
 exceptional and miraculous, of the destiny of the people; — 
 but how little more, and how little at all and altogether, 
 unless that conviction be regarded as itself a miracle. Yet 
 this wild, wanton, ruthless chieftain, not less than his 
 fellows a man of blood, a rough man, impulsive, hasty, 
 generous, thoughtless, a very Esau, a very Ishmael, is the 
 teacher of self-knowledge to all the world; to the Jew of 
 the kingdom, the cultivated and civilized philosophers of 
 the age of Solomon, to the long generations of ritual- 
 worshippers in the temple that he had not been holy 
 enough to build. That is conceivable ; we can look on him 
 as a great educator of his nation with awe but without 
 astonishment ; but when we look farther ahead, and into 
 the Christian ages, and into the spiritual city and kingdom 
 of which he could have known only by revelation of God ; 
 and for whose citizens he, singing a thousand years before. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 219 
 
 prepared a body of spiritual thoughts which seem to be- 
 come the spontaneous language of the redeemed people ; 
 when we look on to the far regions which contain so little 
 of the forms that mould the imagery of the pastoral poetry 
 of Judah, to the civilizations that pride themselves on 
 having cast away all that is old and barbarous, ay and to 
 the opening, widening future of the Church in far-off lands, 
 where as soon as the word is heard and received, it calls 
 forth thoughts and words that admit no readier, no more 
 perfectly fitting dress than this ; what say we, what can we 
 say, but this is the Lord’s doing, and, much as we know of 
 His other dealings, accustomed as we are to the wonderful 
 workings of His hand, here is an ever fresh wonder, it is 
 marvellous in our eyes. 
 
 David is the great preacher of the Old Testament, first 
 to his own nation, then to the whole world ; ages before 
 Homer he sings the national songs that mark out his nation 
 from all other people of the earth ; ages before Socrates 
 and Plato he reveals the mysteries of self-knowledge, 
 conscience, and immortality, in language that needs no 
 interpreter. ‘‘David the son of Jesse said, and the man 
 who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of 
 Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel said : The Spirit of 
 the Lord spake by me, and His word was in my tongue.” 
 
 How was this, and how is it exemplified ? 
 
 We ask the question, not doubting the direct action of 
 God in the action of His servants. Out of the mouth of 
 babes and sucklings He ordaineth strength ; He chose the 
 ass to reprove the madness of Balaam ; but ordinarily He 
 allows us to see the fitness of His messenger to deliver the 
 message. And so here. David’s first and foremost, con- 
 tinuous, characteristic was a sense that God was by his side 
 and before him. “ I have set God always before me,” he 
 says in the i6th Psalm. And that not only in that he 
 trusted in Him as a defender, although that profound con- 
 viction is the key-note of many of the psalms, and makes 
 us look on David’s whole career as one great lesson of faith 
 and faithfulness between his Lord and himself ; but in the 
 direct and general sense, he felt that he was living before 
 God. Sometimes we think that all the people of whom we 
 read in the Bible share this characteristic, and that in this 
 consists the main difference between the lives of the men 
 
220 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 of old and the lives of the men of to-day, so that David 
 may be only a more prominent example of what may have 
 been a general type. Possibly we may be wrong in such a 
 generalisation, for, reading God's account of men's deeds 
 as He tells them in His Revealed Word, naturally we 
 come in some degree to look on them chiefly in their 
 relation to Him, and so regard them through the medium 
 of an atmosphere of which they were hardly conscious. 
 
 But allowing for this in the case of the general rule, it 
 does not affect the case of David, of whom we know, from 
 his own mouth and from the minute record of the Books of 
 Samuel; so much more than we know of the others. In 
 every detail of his life we see him living before God. It 
 was not an equal, uniform, or consistent life : there was in 
 it, as I said, much sin and shame, sorrow and trouble, too, 
 as well as success. If it had not been so varied, David 
 could scarcely have been so fit a preacher for all time. 
 But, throughout it, he lives consciously before his Lord. In 
 his troubles he rests in the Lord ; in his labour he works in 
 and for his Lord ; his very sins present themselves to his 
 mind as sins done against the Lord, against the love of the 
 Faithful Guardian and Good Shepherd. This, I think, is 
 clear and important ; for, if it is true, it justifies us in 
 regarding David as one of the first and greatest of our 
 teachers of morals. Sin in his mind is not so much an 
 offence against law, although the law of God is an undefiled 
 law converting the soul, and although the law of God in 
 many of the Psalms is practically and equivalent for the 
 presence of God or influence of God upon the conscience ; 
 still, it is not so much against a positive enacted and pub- 
 lished law, as against the ever- instant presence of the 
 Almighty that he sins. If he has forgotten his God’s 
 presence for a moment and fallen, a moment’s thought 
 both brings back the sense of it and brings the penitence 
 that the sin*required. It is not so much, then, the notion 
 that sin has weakened his moral nature, or has involved 
 offence to his neighbour, or that it entails remorse or 
 deserves punishment, as that it is an offence against a lov- 
 ing Presence. And I cannot help thinking that this, which, 
 as it marks the psalmist's sense of sin, more clearly and 
 distinctly still marks his sense of God's protectiomand guid- 
 ance, his delight in God’s service, his faith in justifying God's 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 221 
 
 ways, his hope, long and far-reaching, of ends that God will 
 bring about in due time, his certain looking for of pardon 
 and rest, and awaking in the Divine image ; I cannot help 
 thinking that this is one of the chief things that are meant 
 when David is spoken of as the man after God's own heart. 
 Certainly it cannot mean that his whole life was ordered in 
 conformity with God's commandments ; that it assuredly 
 was not. Holy Scripture itself tells the story of many lives 
 far more innocent and holier than David's, and far more 
 like our Saviour’s. On the other hand it must mean more 
 than that David was a chosen instrument in God’s hand 
 for performing work that was in His heart, a chosen 
 founder for the monarchy of the chosen race, and a type of 
 the royalty of the Son, the Redeemer. It was in the con- 
 sciousness of the Divine presence, the continuance in that 
 measure of the law of liberty that was imparted to him, the 
 ruling desire, not always prevailing, nor always unthwarted, 
 nor always absolute and alone, but still the ruling desire, 
 to keep 'his heart right with his Lord’s. This then, being 
 as it seems the chief feature of David’s life as revealed 
 to us in the history, is the first of the great qualities 
 that fits him to preach to us. It is not holiness, not 
 example, not direct admonition, not circumstantial and 
 particular direction, but a profound feeling of God all 
 around him ; the sense of being before and in God. 
 
 The second great mark is that which the opening words 
 of the 36th psalm more especially illustrate, the psalmist's 
 knowledge of the heart of man ; that, scarcely less than the 
 other, looks like a revelation ; from the study of his own 
 heart, from the study of his heart under the illumination 
 of God’s presence, he has a sympathetic and most real 
 knowledge of what is in men’s hearts. A sympathetic 
 knowledge, I say ; that is a knowledge of the heart of 
 others gained by knowledge of his own; of their desires 
 learned by his desires, of their sins learned by his own sins, 
 of their self-deception and defiance of God, learned by 
 his own self-deceptions and defiance of God. I do not say 
 that very much sympathy with other men's sins appears 
 in the psalms ; though there is sympathy with penitence 
 and renewed effort after purity and holiness : rather the 
 psalmist treats sinners as God’s enemies and his own, 
 and there are denunciations of vengeance that show far 
 
222 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 more of the judicial than of the mediatorial side of the 
 dealings of Jesus with us. The mystery, the whole mystery 
 of godliness is not revealed even to the man after God’s' 
 own heart. Prophets and kings desired to see the things 
 that we see, and did not see them ; and to hear the things 
 that we hear, and did not hear them. To bear our sins and 
 carry our sorrows was a depth of love that could be showed 
 only by the Saviour Himself. It cost more than David 
 could count to redeem our souls. But short of that Divine 
 compassion, by means of which there were laid upon Him 
 the iniquities of us all ; short of that feeling of our infir- 
 mity with which surely none but the High Priest, who 
 Himself was without infirmity, could be so touched, there 
 is in the psalms a very distinct realization of what is in the 
 heart of man. We read in them, if we will look for it, an 
 analysis of the origin and development and full growth of 
 men’s sins ; of our sins. We see exemplified, in the very 
 penitential forms in which David rehearses his story, how 
 lust when it is conceived bringeth forth sin, and sin when 
 it is finished bringeth forth death. The original inclination, 
 the resistance to good influences, the secret growth of evil 
 desire ; My heart showeth it me, the wickedness of the un- 
 godly : the weakness of the betraying will ; ‘‘ There is 
 
 no fear of God before his eyes : ” the self deception ; “ I 
 can go on up to a certain point, and then stop short, stop 
 short before my evil has taken the actual form of sin ; ” 
 “ God is afar off and He will never see it ; ” or He 
 is such a one as myself, why has He made me fit and 
 inclined to the thing I long for, and then forbid me to 
 enjoy. So the thought dwells on the thing forbidden, 
 until it seems not to be forbidden : the words of the 
 tempter, “Yea, hath God said. Ye shall not eat of every tree 
 of the garden ; ye shall not surely die ; ” are echoed in the 
 heart, “ Tush, the Lord will not see.” And then the sin is 
 done. And there follows, perhaps first a surprised and be- 
 wildering sense of humiliation ; what a fool I was to yield : 
 and then the sense of the loss of God’s blessing ; “ Thou 
 didst turn Thy face from me and 1 was troubled : ” and 
 then the self-abhorrent mortification, “ I abhor myself and 
 repent in dust and ashes ; ” and as yet perhaps no more : 
 for penitence does not always in one impulse complete its 
 perfect work, and there is a sorrow of the world that 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 223 
 
 worketh death. It may be that the temptation recurs, and 
 the self-deception betrays the soul again, and the sin and 
 the mortification return again and again, until the fear of 
 God no more works to retard it, and the sinner flatters 
 himself in his own sight that God has forgotten him or 
 does not regard his sin as sin. And then comes the 
 awakening ; for, in all David's knowledge of the heart, we 
 must remember that we have to trace the record of the sin 
 through the record of the penitence, and the sorrow of the 
 sinner through the joy of the pardoned and restored child : 
 and so on until we can realize the full meaning of both 
 halves of the 51st psalm; “Have mercy upon me, O 
 Lord," and “ Thou shalt open my lips, O Lord, and my 
 mouth shall show Thy praise." 
 
 He who would struggle with temptation, he who having 
 fallen, would rise from his sin, he who, having been strength- 
 ened to rise, wants still more strength to stand, to stand 
 without presuming and yet without morbid fear of another 
 fall : he who has awakened to the misery of separation 
 from God and yet cannot free himself altogether from 
 lingering and longing looks after the things that would 
 separate him from Him ; he who has learned the wretched- 
 ness of this state and has not yet come to know the love, 
 so freely bestowed, of Him who died to deliver not only 
 from the penalty but from the nature and working and 
 effects of sin on the conscience ; he who is learning the 
 virtue of the great and only sacrifice, not merely to save 
 from a hell whose torments must be everywhere where 
 God is not — for the heart that God made for Himself can- 
 not but without Him breed the worm undying and the fire 
 unquenchable ; not merely to save from death eternal, but 
 to win wholly the affections, and to content the affections 
 which if they are given to anything else but Him must 
 lead to death ; to purify the soul, “ purge me with hyssop 
 and I shall be clean," cleansing the desires ; to purify 
 the memory, enabling it to cast aside the remembrance 
 of sin for all purposes but to enhance the love of the 
 deliverer ; to purify the conscience, that it shall bear true 
 witness how the old things have passed away, and all things 
 become new ; the love of Jesus has won the heart, and the 
 Holy Spirit rules, creating, prompting, assisting, and per- 
 fecting the holy desires, good councils and just works, that 
 
224 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 as by new nature form the habits of the new-born : — every 
 man who passes through any or all of these experiences, 
 finds a voice and a guide in the Psalms. 
 
 Beloved, David is the preacher of all the phases of re- 
 pentance. Mark him well ; the busiest man of the whole 
 Bible ; and in this respect certainly scarcely below the 
 greatest. 
 
 May He who has put the words of this Book into our 
 hands for our daily lessons, and so wonderfully adapted 
 them to all the forms and phases and stages of the life of 
 our souls, so open our hearts that we may realize the full 
 import of them. “ Open Thou our lips, O Lord, and our 
 mouths shall show forth Thy praise.’' 
 
 To have God always before us, to learn the windings and 
 waverings of our own hearts, two chief points of the Christ- 
 ian’s safeguard over himself, must be supplemented still 
 with that crowning power of faith, the certain conscious- 
 ness that no self-knowledge of ours, no knowledge even 
 of our God, is enough to keep us from falling without His 
 constant help. His perpetual watching and guarding. And 
 where can we find a better mould and model for the thought 
 that would rest and rely wholly on Him, than in the words 
 in which the Saviour Himself, when He, in His own Person, 
 and for our sins, realized on the cross the nature and lot 
 and offence and penalty of all men, found expression for 
 His sorrow and trust : “ Into Thy hands I commend My 
 spirit ; ” and we add, with the fullest of full conclusions, 
 ‘‘ For Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, Thou God of 
 Truth.” 
 
 W. S. 
 
 XXVII. Penitence. Psalm li. 5. Behold^ Thou desirest 
 truth in the inward paids : and in the hidden part Thou shalt 
 make me to know wisdoinT 
 
 All sin, as distinguished from mere error, consists essen- 
 tially in the violation of some dictate of our conscience. 
 That is what it really comes to when we go to the root of 
 it instead of attempting to disguise its character by dwell- 
 ing on the temptations which led to it. But that dictate of 
 the conscience is interpreted in the Scriptures as the voice 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 225 
 
 of the living God speaking to us as person to person. The 
 Scriptures draw back the veil from the invisible world and 
 reveal to us the character of those great spiritual influences 
 of which our hearts and consciences are sensible. Thus 
 we learn that the human spirit is in constant union with the 
 Divine spirit, and that in God we move and live and have 
 our moral as well as physical being. This is confirmed by 
 the deepest moral reflections. It is this conviction alone 
 which exhibits the evil and taint of sin to those who have 
 had the truth brought home to them. 
 
 That men should recognise that a living God is calling 
 upon them to obey His voice, and to do His will, and that 
 they should, nevertheless, allow themselves to be attracted 
 away to thoughts, and words, and deeds, which they know 
 to be repugnant to Him, ought to evoke from our hearts 
 contrition like that of the psalmist : “ For I acknowledge 
 my transgressions : and my sin is ever before me.” This 
 acknowledgment of sin is the first step to repentance, and 
 the psalmist proceeds to lead us to see its relation to God 
 and ourselves. “ Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, 
 and done this evil in Thy sight : that Thou mightest be 
 justified when Thou speakest, and be clear when Thou 
 judgest.” In other words, if the expression may be allowed, 
 it is the confession of God’s justice in the matter of our 
 sins. It recognises that all His influence upon us has 
 been in support of what is righteous and true, and that it 
 is our sin alone which is responsible for our sorrow. And 
 here we may consider what St. Paul says, “Yea, let God 
 be true, but every man a liar ; as it is written. That Thou 
 mightest be justified in Thy sayings, and mightest over- 
 come when Thou art judged.” The moral history of 
 mankind is only read aright, when we recognise on the one 
 side a perfectly true and holy and righteous God, and on 
 the other side, men and women false to their consciences, 
 and in this sense all liars, all untrue. Such considerations 
 throw a not less vivid light on the struggles and sufferings 
 of mankind. They offer a profound problem, almost im- 
 possible of solution with our imperfect knowledge of our 
 own nature. When we consider them in connection with 
 the utterance of St. Paul, it is all the more forcible. Being 
 so, what marvel is it that this untruth of our nature has 
 involved us in the misery under which we labour ? Let us 
 
 Q 
 
226 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 look at our own experience, and consider it multiplied in 
 the race which live and have lived. Let us consider that 
 every individual member of the race has been in a more or 
 less degree false to the laws of his condition, and is it not 
 a w^onder that mankind should be making such progress as 
 it has ? Not merely for the purposes of our private opinions, 
 but for the sake of the efforts to remedy the sufferings of 
 the world, it would be well if we started more generally 
 from the acknowledgment that God is justified when He 
 speaks, and is clear when He judges. If we acted on the 
 words of St. Paul, and concentrated our efforts by the 
 example of our Lord, we should pray with greater hope 
 and greater success. 
 
 The psalmist accordingly goes on to recognise that the 
 evil of which he is thus conscious is rooted in his very 
 nature and that of his fellows. Behold, I was shapen in 
 iniquity ; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” The 
 statement is not made as an excuse, for every excuse has 
 been cast away in the words, “ Against Thee, Thee only, 
 have I sinned — it is simply a recognition of the fact that 
 the nature which he inherits is involved in the common 
 fall, and, to a great extent, in a common responsibility. 
 
 A clear acknowledgment of this truth is the next step 
 we are to take if we are to advance to any hope of remedy. 
 We have to recognise the fact that no effectual means of 
 recovery can be found in human nature itself. After every 
 one of the springs of conscience have been examined we 
 see that we are shapen in iniquity, in so far that our moral 
 nature has the seeds of corruption within it. The child 
 may be innocent of pollution or sin, but when the tempta- 
 tion comes the conscience is disregarded and the will 
 yields. If this be the case, if the very nature of man be 
 corrupt and weak at the source, what possibility can there 
 be of any regeneration by its own efforts 'i 
 
 But now it will be seen in what manner this brings us to 
 the true remedy for the evil, and how the psalmist is rooted 
 to his only hope. ‘‘Though every man be a liar” the 
 blessed reality remains that God is still true, and He will 
 make men true like Himself if they will but follow Him. 
 The two experiences are contrasted in the very form of 
 the expression, “ Behold, Thou desirest truth in the inward 
 parts : and in the hidden part Thou shalt make me to 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 227 
 
 know wisdom ; ” as much as to say, Although I and the 
 nature from which I spring, and the men around me, are 
 tainted with untruth and folly, yet Thou desirest to see Thy 
 truth in the very secret recesses of my heart, and I can 
 call upon Thee for this truth and righteousness. The very 
 nature of our sin thus reveals the means of our deliverance. 
 It is the revolt against the righteous influence of a loving 
 God, who, although grieved at it, does not love us less, and 
 still desires to see us true in our inward parts. To that 
 love and that gracious purpose of His we can at all times 
 appeal. We are always privileged to utter the prayer, 
 Search me, O God, and know my heart ; try me, and know 
 my thoughts. And see if there be any wicked way in me, 
 and lead me in the way everlasting.’^ 
 
 Contemplate man standing alone. Let us imagine our 
 own souls left to themselves, and what hope could we have 
 of truth and wisdom in the inward parts } It has been 
 observed that men are disposed to urge that forgiveness 
 may be granted to us without the Gospel. Allow it for a 
 moment. Is that all that the soul desires } Could any 
 one of us be content with mere forgiveness, if we were 
 allowed to remain in the imperfect condition to which sin 
 has brought us } What we need is truth and wisdom in 
 the very root of the soul. If there is to be any peace for 
 us in the presence of the righteous God, what we need is 
 to have all the corruptions of our soul cleansed away, and 
 some influence brought to bear upon us which could make 
 us new creatures. This, my brethren, is the blessing held 
 out to us in the text that God will grant truth in the inward 
 part and in the hidden part wisdom. 
 
 There is another point of great practical importance. 
 The Gospel brings us not only in contact with humanity 
 but with divinity ; and brings all the influence of an abso- 
 lutely perfect nature, alike human and Divine, to bear 
 upon our hearts and lives. In short, it makes the prayer 
 possible — we may almost say necessary — ‘‘ Create in me 
 a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.” 
 
 Of the various methods by which this purification is 
 WTOught I do not speak now. But there is one specially 
 important — it is the force of the perfect example of the 
 Saviour, not only in His life, but especially in His death 
 upon the cross. If we could but remember the exceeding 
 
228 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 great love of our Master ; could we bear in mind the blood 
 He shed, and that His very life’s blood is eternally sprinkled 
 upon all things that are pure and just and true — then, and 
 not till then, shall we derive an adequate motive for the 
 higher life, and conquer those affections for evil which are 
 our weakness and our shame. What a force is introduced 
 into the world when by our struggles to be pure we stand 
 with our Saviour Jesus Christ! If we regarded the matter 
 from a merely moral point of view, that struggle has been 
 stamped with the highest importance to those around us. 
 We have of late become only too familiar — God grant that 
 we may not become more familiar still 1 — with the manner 
 in which scenes of pain and bloodshed have harrowed the 
 soul. If we realized that in every impatient or sinful word, 
 act, or desire, we despised the blood of Jesus Christ, should 
 we not shrink from sin } Consider Him now as living, and 
 that each day, each moment, the righteous spirit within 
 you pleading for you to be pure and true and holy is that 
 of the suifering Lord Jesus, and is there a heart to resist 
 the appeal } It is scarcely conceivable. All our sins have 
 been committed in the absence of any such realization. 
 To the apostles and other immediate followers of Jesus it 
 was always present. The blood of Jesus Christ was not 
 only an atonement, but was ever present in their thoughts ; 
 it was sprinkled upon the entrance of their souls, so that 
 the enemy of souls could not enter. It is the privilege of 
 Christians to sanctify every duty however humble, to inten- 
 sify every dictate of the conscience however slight, by con- 
 sidering it as united with the passion and death of Christ. 
 The atoning efficacy of that sacrifice is revealed to us as a 
 fact. No mystery veils its relation to ourselves. It imparts 
 into our moral and spiritual life, and every thought and act 
 of that life, the most intense and vivid of all natural 
 influences, immeasurably heightened by the supernatural 
 relation in which we stand to the person who exercises it. 
 Let the power of Christ in His person and suffering be 
 understood by us, and in the appeal of the apostle, “ Let 
 this mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus,” and it will 
 possess an almost irresistible force. 
 
 H. W. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 229 
 
 XXVIII. Trust and Waiting. Psalm Ixii. i, 2. 
 
 '‘‘Truly my soul waiteth upon God : from Him cometh my 
 salvation. He only is my rock and 7ny salvation ; He is iny 
 defence ; I shall not be greatly movedl^ 
 
 Whenever and by whomsoever this psalm was written, 
 the circumstances which gave rise to it are plainly marked 
 upon its very face. The writer is surrounded by enemies 
 who have long been hypocritically professing to be his 
 friends, but have at last cast off the mask, and have now 
 manifestly confessed themselves and sought to cast him 
 down from some position of dignity and to destroy him. 
 These intentions fit of course most naturally to the super- 
 scription of the psalm, which states it to be the composition 
 of David, probably taking its rise from the persecution 
 of Absalom. But whether or no, this sweet psalm stands 
 very high indeed amongst those in the Psalter which ex- 
 press triumph and quiet confidence in God even in the 
 face of much that might tempt to the opposite disposition. 
 And my purpose is rather to take the whole of it, and try 
 to set before you the striking and lovely characters which 
 run through it. 
 
 If you will look at the psalm you will see that it is 
 divided obviously into three equal portions by the inter- 
 vention of “ Selah,” which comes at the end of the fourth 
 and the eighth verses. There are thus three portions in 
 the psalm, and I name the leading ideas of it here at the 
 commencement. 
 
 The first clause seems to me to set before us : the soul 
 in waiting upon God. The second section sets before us : 
 the waiting soul encouraging itself to wait. And the last 
 section sets before us : the triumphant confidence to which, 
 by waiting, the soul attains. I will then notice these 
 three points as they come up before us in the words of 
 the psalm. 
 
 The first section : the soul waiting upon God. There 
 follows upon the words of our text the opposite picture : 
 the psalmist turns away for a time, and conjures up the 
 enemies running round him, and has it — what is in our 
 version I venture to alter, without defending the altera- 
 tion of the third verse — how long will ye rush in upon 
 
230 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES' 
 
 a man?’' and then you will observe that in the next 
 clauses of the verse, with a very slight alteration of the 
 original, we shall get a continuation of the question, in- 
 stead of the imprecation, which seems here to be out of 
 place : “ how long will ye rush upon a man ? how long will 
 ye press against him ? ” the image being that of a hostile 
 pressure against a man ; supposing he were ready to fall 
 and to slip, they only consult to cast him down from dig- 
 nity. There are two portions here : the trustful contem- 
 plation of God, broken in upon by the trembling thought 
 of the enemies. You should follow that order in your 
 thoughts about your troubles. It makes all the difference 
 whether you begin with God, or whether you begin with 
 men. If these things had been turned round the other 
 way it would have been very hard for him to have been 
 found waiting upon God. But when we start from God, 
 we can venture to think, in the second place, of the 
 foes round about us. And now about his confidence : 
 that ‘‘truly” with which the psalm begins recurs over 
 and over again in this psalm, and does not mean “ truly ” 
 so much as “only” — “my soul waiteth upon no7te but 
 God.” 
 
 And then there is a beautiful literality, which is missed 
 in our Bible : “ my soul is silent,” or perhaps even “ my 
 soul is silence unto God.” Waiting upon Him, no doubt, 
 is the meaning of the expression, but the force of that 
 literal rendering we shall all perceive. What a lovely 
 simple description it is of the quiet spirit, that with no 
 influence of earthly passion, with no loud voices of human 
 will, with no buzzings and whisperings of its own desires, 
 has calmly settled itself in His presence and stands there 
 like’ an awe-struck priest in the presence of Divinity ! “I 
 will hear what God the Lord shall speak,” my soul is all 
 one great silence in His presence, and in that silence I 
 catch the utterances of His will. And if you and I rush 
 into His presence with the hot voices of earthly impreca- 
 tions and human desires, and these rebellious wills of ours 
 clamouring and bellowing all round about us, what chance 
 is there that we shall ever catch the secret of His voice 
 who “strives not, nor cries, neither causes His voice to be 
 heard in the streets” — “my soul is silence before God.” 
 And then, following upon the attitude of dumb submission 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 231 
 
 to the Lord, but in an equally beautiful metaphor : “ my 
 soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from 
 Him. He only is my rock and my salvation : He is my 
 defence ; I shall not be moved.'' 
 
 In general one would say about that repetition over and 
 over again of names and thoughts that are nearly synony- 
 mous, that it is not even tautology, although at first sight 
 it may seem so. Just as you and I in our homes, father 
 and children, mother and child, will dwell with reiteration 
 on tender names, so all true affection and all vivid trust 
 delights to turn the object of its love round and round, 
 so to speak, and to look at it from all points of view, and 
 to lavish names which may not have much difference of 
 meaning between them, but which in their accumulations 
 express the depth and security of affection. So the 
 psalmist, with like emotion and fondness of thought, deals 
 with the great and blessed contemplation, and repeats over 
 and over again those sweet names. Like that sevenfold 
 repetition of them in the psalm where he seems to lose his 
 breath in saying over and over again all that the Lord is 
 to him, and a cold-blooded critic steps in and says. Oh ! 
 you are saying the same thing over and over again. Yes, 
 but no repeating of the epithets can reach half-way up to 
 what He is to me, for my soul is silent before Him. And 
 yet is not all reiteration, there is a very lovely progress 
 of thought in these words. Notice: ^‘from Him cometh 
 my salvation." Well that is a great deal, that deliverance 
 shall flow from His hand ; but that is not all, there is some- 
 thing a great deal more than that — from Him cometh my 
 salvation," not what I am giving to you, a gift, not as a 
 man may give to another something that is separable from 
 him : “ He only is my rock and my salvation." And salva- 
 tion is much that comes from Him, but it is shallow com- 
 pared with the depth of the scriptural idea, in which He 
 is not only the giver and the source, but is Himself the 
 essence of the salvation which He giveth ; “ He only is 
 my rock and my salvation." And then as a consequence 
 of that loving contemplation of the realities of the refuge 
 that he has in God, there comes the assurance which he 
 utters, “ I shall not be greatly moved." A modest con- 
 fidence to be built on so broad a foundation. He recog- 
 nises the likelihood that he shall be moved, but he hopes 
 
232 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 that he shall not be much moved, either in the sense of 
 being overwhelmed, or agitated, or swept away from his 
 refuge : bending like the willow, and blown by enemy and 
 wind, he is sure that he will not be like the chaff in the 
 threshing-floor, which the wind drives away ; but when the 
 tempest is past the fluttering leaves and feeble branches 
 will come back to the upright position, and he “shall not 
 be greatly moved.” Our hearts and lives will be like one 
 of those Cornish rocking-stones, that a child’s finger can 
 set in motion, but which moves only through a very puny 
 arc, and comes back certainly to be poised on its central 
 point of rest : “ I shall not be greatly moved.” And then, 
 as if the very thought of his stability in the face of the 
 trouble brought up the trouble again in all its dreadful- 
 ness before him, there comes storming in upon his quiet 
 confidence the opposite sound and picture. Look at the 
 contrast between the two halves of the first section of our 
 text, — the holy stillness and the rapt vision of God that 
 is granted to the quiet spirit in the first two verses ; and 
 the hurly-burly, the tempest and antagonism, and the 
 bitterness and the lying and enmity, the pressing upon 
 him who is ready to fall, in the second half. So your life 
 and mine has got these two halves, the still rest, the end 
 of the sorrow and trouble, and the tossing and the seething 
 in this sea of troubles ; and no exercise of quiet confidence 
 makes facts other than they are, or annihilates this outer 
 ring of darkness and trouble that lies round about us all : 
 and so we have the two halves of the life to deal with, and 
 we all know how into the midst of our happiness and most 
 faithful moments of religious consideration and quiet con- 
 fidence, there force themselves, weed-like, dark thoughts 
 and care and trouble. 
 
 Turn now to the second section of this psalm, which, as 
 I said, is the waiting soul encouraging itself to wait upon 
 God. The first section began “only on God waiteth my 
 soul,” the second section, “ only upon God wait thou my 
 soul ; ” and so the psalmist stirs himself up to do the thing 
 he says he is doing, and animates and encourages his spirit 
 to continue in the posture of silent expectation which he 
 has already declared is his posture. A very plain and 
 simple lesson we want to draw from that, from the juxta- 
 position of these two things, and it is just this : the firmest 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT, 
 
 233 
 
 confidence, the happiest communion, the quietest submis- 
 sion has no guarantee in itself for its own continuance, and 
 needs a distinct and definite effort on our part in order 
 that it shall be continued by being repeated and shall 
 last because it is renewed. External things come to 
 sweep us away from our most rooted confidence, and our 
 sins darken so as to hide our clearest vision. I have seen 
 a great rainbow span the eastern sky near sunset, bright 
 and vivid with its prismatic rays. But all at once there 
 came storming up from the west a great black rain-cloud 
 and smote against the bright crown of the arches, and 
 all disappeared but the two broken fragments ; and so the 
 visible bow that is thrown athwart the stormy sky of our 
 lives is ever being smote upon by strong clouds of tempest, 
 and unless we take a leaf from the psalmist’s book here, 
 and instead of saying, “ my soul, waitest thou upon God ? ” 
 say, “my soul, wait thou upon God,” all the confidence 
 will be dissipated into fear. 
 
 So, then, the next point to notice is how this confidence 
 which the psalmist makes the effort to repeat is most 
 surely preserved and strengthened by the simple method 
 of renewed contemplation of the great truth on which 
 it rests: “my soul, wait thou only upon God; for my 
 expectation is from Him. He only is my rock and my 
 salvation : I shall not be moved.” That is the first and 
 second sections over again, word for word, with two very 
 significant alterations : instead of “ salvation ” in the first, 
 we read “ hope ” in the second ; and instead of “ greatly 
 moved ” in the first, “ I shall not be moved ” in the second. 
 You and I want to get our silence of spirit, our high con- 
 fidence, and our calm hope. The only way to do it is to 
 go back over and over again to the old simple truth on 
 which it rests, and to lose all thought of fear and unrest in 
 thinking upon the face of God. And thus while the con- 
 tinuance of the confidence needs perpetual effort, just as a 
 fire is sure to go out unless it be stirred and tended, the 
 issue of such discipline is a very much increased confi- 
 dence and quietness. The psalmist begins with “ I shall 
 not be greatly moved,” but in the second expression he 
 has got far in advance of that, he has left out that word 
 greatly — “ I shall not be moved ” at all. So has trust 
 grown by the renewed contemplation of the greater truth 
 
234 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 on which he has built. And instead of the picture of the 
 enemies, who came storming in and disturbing his con- 
 templation before, there comes only the continuance of the 
 quiet thought of what God is to him. He has got to a 
 point far higher up than he was before, and his devout 
 expectation is not broken and dashed by the tremulous 
 remembrance of what lay outside there. It is there all 
 the same and he knows that, but he does not need to 
 think about it now, he passes it by as not needful to 
 speak of I shall not be moved,” and the fact that I 
 am not moved is shown in this, that all the noise of the 
 enemies is storming all round about the gate where I sit, 
 yet here I sit, thinking not about them but about Him. 
 “ In God is my salvation : the rock of my salvation and 
 strength and refuge is in God.” Well, notice that is the 
 old language over again. He has already said, ‘‘ my rock 
 and my salvation.” This time he says more, he takes 
 each of these two words and he enlarges them : “ In God 
 is my salvation and my glory.” When I began, it was as 
 much as I could do to get hold of the half certain confi- 
 dence that He would deliver me, but I have got far in 
 advance of that this time. My salvation and my glory ; 
 not bare deliverance, but enriching me with something far 
 higher than that : from Him will come not merely an 
 escape from the trouble, but radiant lustre of joy, of rights 
 eousness, and of peace. These words lend themselve- 
 beautifully to the old Christian thought: ‘‘whom He justi- 
 fied them He also glorified.” ‘‘In God is my salvation 
 and not merely the negative side, but “ from God is my 
 glory, and from Him shall I be clothed with strength in 
 Christ, and all my darkness made radiant with the light of 
 His perfect likeness, and my life left in possession of His 
 love.” Such is the effect of that thought until he has found 
 out something more than that. And although it may 
 perhaps be fanciful, I cannot help thinking there is some 
 dim suggestion or anticipation of a great thought, that 
 God is certainly the rock on which we build and are safe, 
 the deliverer and the defender, but that most mysteriously 
 and most really there comes up from the rock, into us 
 building on the rock, the strength from the rock ; and He 
 is the rock, not merely because His strong hand is our 
 deliverance, but because He infuses into us something of 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 235 
 
 His own strength, His Spirit in the inner man. That is 
 better than outward deliverance : “ My refuge is in God.” 
 And so the spirit encouraging itself to wait and continue 
 waiting upon God, turns itself now to the men standing 
 round about him, to his little band of followers — if this be 
 David in one of his experiences of Saul’s persecution — 
 with the words : “ God is my refuge.” That is to say, 
 when a man has once been in silence and waiting submis- 
 sion before God, has deeply infixed into his spirit the con- 
 fidence that God is his refuge and his rock, the next thing 
 that is sure to come to him, is the desire that the brethren 
 and friends may share with him the safe place, and so 
 encouraging he next exhorts the men who stand round 
 about him. How wonderful that is ! that one poor man’s 
 experience, ours if we choose, may be so deep, our convic- 
 tion of the all-sufficiency of God’s power so strong, as that 
 we shall be saying, “ He is my refuge,” and then turn 
 round to the whole world and say, ‘‘ God is a refuge for all 
 the world.” And then whosoever has incorporated into 
 his own spirit the conviction that God is sufficient for his 
 joy and peace, that man’s lips must needs break into 
 exhortation ; and not far from the utterance of his own 
 personal confidence to God will be the utterance of His 
 message to man. And notice how in simple and beautiful 
 words there comes out here the setting forth of the con- 
 ditions on which God is a refuge to all men. Trust Him 
 at all times ; pour out your hearts before him, in the 
 frankness of humble trust, in the lowliness of humble 
 confession, acknowledging your weaknesses, and doing it 
 all in the simple confidence that He is by our side to 
 comfort. 
 
 And then there follows the last section, in which we 
 have the picture of the grateful sense of insight into the 
 temporal realities which comes to that waiting heart. The 
 reward of this waiting spirit is a profound conviction of 
 the absolute nothingness of human power, be it for me or 
 be it against me ; gather the whole mass up together and 
 put it into the scale, and put a breath into the other, and 
 it kicks the beam. It is because the man has seen 
 the strength and the power of God that everything has 
 dwindled to nothing. As George Fox used to say in his 
 quaint mystical way, “ He has seen every man and all the 
 
236 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 world, and has ascertained how hollow they are ; friends 
 and foes, it matters not, there is no help in one, there is no 
 danger in the other/' And then follows, ‘'trust not in 
 oppression, and become not vain in robbery ; if riches in- 
 crease, set not your heart upon them," upon the nothing- 
 ness of all material wealth, the external props and sup- 
 ports. 
 
 And then follows the great voice that tells us whom we 
 are to trust. “ God, my soul is silence before Thee," the 
 psalm begins ; and the psalm ends, “ God hath spoken 
 once ; yea twice have I heard," and I heard it because I 
 was silent before Thee. And this is the double proclama- 
 tion that he heard : “power belongeth unto Thee, O God*; 
 also unto Thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy." 
 
 These are the two things which God is — a God of power, 
 so trust ; a God of mercy, so trust : a God of power before 
 whom all the accumulated forces of humanity, high and 
 low, are less than nothing ; then a God of mercy, and 
 therefore safe for us to wait before Him. If thou wilt 
 thou canst, if thou canst thou wilt. Power without mercy 
 is brutish force, mercy without power is a shadow that no 
 man trusts ; but bring them together and they make the 
 firm will on which we may hang, nor fear that stand will 
 ever fail. And the demonstration of both the one and the 
 other lies in that great fact of the righteous retribution to 
 enemies and friends, wherein they that set themselves 
 against His power shall know His power ; and they that 
 trust themselves in His mercy shall find His mercy ; and 
 the paradox is solved for you and me that can say, “In 
 Christ is my righteousness, and in Christ the Judge is 
 mercy for us." The psalm halts far short of the blessed 
 New Testament proclamation wherein we can say, “we 
 may have boldness before Him in the Day of Judgment ; " 
 and although He judgeth every man according to his 
 works, we sinners shall find mercy in the Lord in that day, 
 and be found in Him, not having our own righteousness 
 but that which is of God. “Unto Thee belongeth power, 
 unto Thee mercy." Trust in Him at all times. God is a 
 refuge. 
 
 A. M. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 237 
 
 XXIX. Waiting. Psalm Ixii. 5, 6. sou/, wait 
 
 thou only upon God ; for my expectation is from Him. He 
 07 ily is my rock and my salvation : He is my defence ; I shall 
 not be movedP 
 
 Athanasius says : “ In all trial of the body, in all trial 
 of the faith, in all trial from men and devils, in all trial of 
 temptation, in all trial of defamation, sing the 62nd psalm.’' 
 The subject of this psalm is Wait upon God," and this is 
 the special subject, epitomised, of the two verses of the 
 text. The general subject is waiting for God, and this is 
 in particular ways. Let me go through the particulars, not 
 so much in the logical connection and sequence, as here 
 uttered by David. Next notice to whom the psalmist 
 speaks — “ my soul." If you look through the psalms, you 
 will find many illustrations of this principle. Generally we 
 shall find the psalmist is a leader of praise. In the 146th 
 psalm he says : “ Praise ye the Lord " — and then in the 
 same verse he simply continues ; as soon as he has said 
 this to the people, he goes on, “Praise the Lord, O my soul!' 
 If you want to awaken an oratorio in other souls, see that 
 you get the chords of your own soul in the right tune. But 
 he speaks also as a preacher. George Whitefield said he 
 had never preached a sermon to his congregation before he 
 had preached it to George Whitefield. It would be a good 
 thing for us if each one would speak to his own soul first 
 for a congregation. What word represents multitude as 
 this word soul ? An army in one, a great congregation of 
 faculties and vitalities and forces. Speak to that congre- 
 gation first for your own sake, for I speak to you indivi- 
 dually. Let the soul be wrong and the lips will be wrong 
 — everything will be wrong. F'or your own sakes, I re- 
 peat, speak to yourselves first ; but also for the sake of 
 others. 
 
 This is a peculiarity of David’s writing — he starts from 
 himself. His words express not only what he ought to 
 express but what he himself feels. How wonderful it is 
 that these songs which we sing were written perhaps in 
 some leafy covert where David was hiding from his 
 enemies, alone ; in these psalms where he pours out his 
 soul to God we are permitted to hear him speak. Now 
 
238 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 when David speaks to his own soul, all the world hears 
 him, and let us now hear him for our profit. Let us 
 catch the spirit of his words, and copy the example of his 
 utterance as he says : “ My soul, wait thou only upon 
 God.” 
 
 Next note the word ‘‘ wait” The word does not mean 
 spiritual laziness, but the most active of all activities. It is 
 difficult for persons of active nature to wait Wait in faith 
 first Let my faith wait upon God as the bough upon 
 the tree, waiting alway; wait as the house waits upon the 
 foundation ; so may my faith wait upon God. This is 
 what Christ tells us — Abide in Me.” Wait in patience. 
 God is never behind time. God hastes to perform His 
 word. You recollect the words addressed by the great 
 Igspirer to the prophet : when the latter said, ‘‘ I cannot 
 speak ; for I am a child,” the Lord said, ‘‘ Say not, I am a 
 child ; for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and 
 whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak.” Later on 
 we read, Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, 
 saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou } And I said, I see a 
 root of an almond-tree.” The Hebrew word for almond- 
 tree is “hasting” tree. God hastes to fulfil what He speaks, 
 and so that almond-tree, though you look in the winter and 
 see it with no sign of a bud on it and looking as if it never 
 would bud, that tree is the first tree to bud : while the white 
 grass crackles under foot, long before the other trees burst 
 forth into buds and flowers, this almond-tree puts forth its 
 buds and blossoms. So God’s promises are the blossoms 
 of God’s almond-tree. 
 
 However, God’s haste is not like man’s hurry, of which 
 we say “The more haste, the less speed.” It takes a century 
 sometimes for God to make haste. It is a long time 
 measured by the clock, and so we are sometimes out of 
 patience in waiting. David felt that tendency, and so he 
 said to his soul “ wait.” God never forgets ; God hastes His 
 word to fulfil it. Look at human life in its merely secular 
 aspect : you see two persons, one old and one young, 
 waiting for a certain thing. The old person does not look 
 like a person in impatience. Look at the youth: he won- 
 ders how it is the thing is so long. He looks at the clock 
 and is filled with impatience. So in spiritual things, we 
 are a long time learning to wait. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 239 
 
 God speaks about it in this word. We may say the 
 same to our souls as David said. This also implies ex- 
 pectancy. He goes on to say, My soul, wait thou only 
 upon God ; /or my expectancy is from HimP Sometimes 
 we wait expecting very vividly what we are waiting for, and 
 yet we know that after a night of waiting and peril the 
 morning will come ; but it seems a long time. You wait 
 expecting. You wait, and you notice keenly the first bark 
 of the dog, the rumble of the waggon, and the sun with 
 its glory lighting up the black sky. The first Moravian 
 missionaries who went to South Africa, found that the ship 
 was becalmed. It was death to be stricken with that still- 
 ness there. They waited upon God in that trial, and one 
 prayed, ‘‘ Help us in our journey. Thou who ridest upon the 
 waves and wind.” He was joyful after that, and said, “We 
 shall have that for which we have prayed ” Shortly after 
 one of the sailors said to the helmsman : “ It does not look 
 like a wind ; ” but in half an hour the wind came and the 
 ship was enabled to proceed on her way. I do not say 
 that a prayer for certain weather will bring that weather ; 
 but I know as a rule prayer is designed to get the blessing 
 God gives, and if it is one of the things He wished to give, 
 pray. Just try and expect. This is a summary of what 
 can be said for that word “ wait.” 
 
 The next word I would call your attention to is “only” 
 — “ wait only ; ” and you notice how frequently this word 
 “ only ” occurs in the Bible, especially in relation to God : 
 “Thou art the Lord, Thou only;” “Thou only makest me 
 to dwell in safety.” These are only two instances out of a 
 multitude. This psalm used to be called by certain 
 Hebrew scribes “The Psalm of the Onlies,” as some of the 
 psalms used to be called “ The Psalms of the Morning.” 
 In Hebrew the word occurs six times, 'but in our English 
 translation only four times. In fact, however, it occurs six 
 times, once being translated “truly.” Sometimes when a 
 great stroke of trouble comes, when health and fortune and 
 friendship goes, you are ready to say, “ I have now only 
 God left.” What would you have } Only God ! If you 
 could but realize what that means, you would not feel poor 
 to have only God. To have only God : why you have 
 infinite perfection and love. Do you want to mix up any- 
 thing with that which is only perfection } The sun only 
 
240 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 gives light : would it give light if you mixed up something 
 else with it? Your pure water: would you mix up any- 
 thing with that ? Say in full confidence, “ My soul, wait 
 thou only upon God/* Do you want two Gods, do you 
 want two Christs, do you want two infinite friends ? Does 
 your soul want two husbands ? Trust only in the one 
 God ; trust in Him who is the only God, and trust not 
 partially but totally. Some old divine, I think it is Father 
 Trapp, says : “When a man stands with one foot on the 
 edge of the cliff and one foot on the air with equal pressure, 
 he is sure to go down.’* You might as well stand with both 
 feet on the empty air. Trust God only, why? 
 
 Why, in the next place : you say because “ He only is 
 my rock and my salvation : He is my defence ; I shall 
 not be moved.** The whole of these meanings we have 
 summed up in that word “rock.” The Book of Deuter- 
 onomy is the first book of ail the Bible in which God 
 is spoken of as a rock. In the early ages the word 
 used for God was “ rock : ** because a rock is real, it is 
 not like a mist ; because a rock is settled, you build 
 upon a rock, not upon sand ; a rock is high above the 
 commotion of the world. So it was natural for the 
 first men to speak of what they trusted as God, to speak 
 of Him as a rock. So you find that Moses in that grand 
 passage in Deuteronomy, with grandest of all words of 
 command, with grandest sum of all experience, speaks 
 several times of God as a rock, and says : “ How should 
 one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, 
 except their rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut 
 them up ? For their rock is not as our rock.” Their rock 
 he says, has sold them. We use that expression in reference 
 to persons who are not to be trusted. 
 
 But to bring out the entire meaning you must of course 
 interpret the early part of the Bible by the final part. Our 
 rock is Christ : He is the fulfilment of that word “ rock.** 
 When David said : “ God is my rock and my salvation,” 
 he had a prominent reference to the rock that yielded water 
 in the wilderness. Moses, when he spoke so much about 
 God as the rock, had of course that in his mind. He looked 
 back upon a series of wonders, and one of the most won- 
 derful was that rock that yielded water. Travellers 
 point out a certain green cliff in the land of Tyre, and they 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT, 
 
 241 
 
 say, there is the rock from whence the water burst forth ; 
 and there the water is trickling now. Whether that be 
 or not, we know that God did get Moses to strike the 
 rock, and that stands for ever as the type of what Jesus 
 Christ is. Our “ rock was stricken/’ and out of our 
 stricken rock came all salvation. Our salvation, all 
 that makes refreshment to our souls — all that came 
 from the stricken Christ : He was stricken for us, and 
 now through Him we drink strength and beauty, as of old 
 the Israelites refreshed themselves at the rock that Moses 
 struck. So when you wait only on God, you wait only 
 upon the rock, Christ, that you may have the water of 
 salvation. 
 
 But further, this was not only so for the Jew but for the 
 heathen. Theologians speak of the Supreme in reference 
 to a rock. In the very heart of the American forests the 
 Indians used to make a rock their castles or defences : the 
 Jews did so. David makes frequent references to a rock 
 in this way. Sometimes this same word is translated 
 “strength” or “refuge.” All this is realized in Jesus Christ. 
 He is our castle. We have not to go far for Him. In 
 time of war the person had to run sometimes a long way, 
 but we have not to do so : Jesus our castle is very near, 
 and He is waiting. 
 
 All life has its foes. The life of the flower has a fight 
 with the blight, and the life of the child has a fight with 
 the sicknesses of childhood. There are deadly enemies 
 about. Run into the refuge: Jesus Christ only is our 
 rock and our salvation : He is our defence ; we shall not 
 be moved. When the law points its guns and Satan assaults 
 us with his armies, run unto Christ and you are beyond the 
 reach of harm, and you can say, “The Lord is my salva- 
 tion.” Also the Hebrews spoke about the rock as being a 
 place of shelter from the heat, a shadow from the heat. 
 Men journeying over the burning sand, fire above and 
 below and all around, feeling faint and ready to drop under 
 the blinding rays, feeling the heart nigh to stop: then they 
 see a rock, and in the shadow of that rock they fling them- 
 selves down and get refreshment. You have that ready at 
 hand: it is not that which is wanting — “My soul, wait thou 
 only upon God ; for my expectation is from Him. He 
 only is my rock and my salvation.” 
 
 R 
 
242 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 One word more : this is unlike all other rocks. David 
 said, “Our rock is not like other rocks,” our rock Jesus 
 Christ is a rock all feeling, all sympathy. This startles us 
 — it is one of the paradoxes of the Bible. Who would cry 
 out to a rock "i Why, David did. He prayed to the rock, 
 a certain rock, a rock so kind, so sympathetic that he was 
 astonished that no answer once came to his prayer, and he 
 said : “O God my rock, hast Thou forgotten me? ” When 
 we have sorrow, our rock is sorry for us ; when men are 
 cold to us, our rock has a warm heart ; when we are not 
 able to help ourselves, our rock will help us. 
 
 Trust in Him at all times : He is our strength. You 
 can take these words of strength and consolation. Trust 
 in Him at all times, all ye people : in times of weakness, in 
 times of strength, in times of sickness, in times of health, 
 in times of indifference : in all times, times of the night, 
 times of the day, times of girding on the sword, times of 
 striking with it, and times of dealing the blow back again ; 
 weeping times, dying times, working times, wrestling times, 
 trusting Him at all times. O ye people, pour out your 
 hearts to God in complete trust, in perfect faith. Amen. 
 
 C. S. 
 
 XXX. A Song for the New Year. Psalm cxxi. 
 “ I will lip up mhie eyes unto the hills^ from whence comeih 
 my helpP 
 
 It seems to me that this psalm is one which we may well 
 take for our encouragement and our strength at the begin- 
 ning of another year. 
 
 Always in season, it is especially seasonable at such a 
 time as this ; and in itself it is so comprehensive, covering 
 the whole ground of our necessities, that instead of isolating 
 a verse of it and talking about that, I would rather just 
 take the whole psalm, and try to bring out more of the 
 meaning than perhaps a superficial examination might 
 convey. 
 
 “ I will lift up mine eyes to the hills,” says some one ; 
 we do not know who, we do not know under what circum- 
 stances. Some people say an exile away in Babylon, 
 looking across the desert to the horizon, behind which 
 lay the mountains of his native land. Some people say a 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 243 
 
 pilgrim, going up to the city, and catching the first sight 
 of ‘'the mountains that are round about Jerusalem/' 
 
 It matters very little which of the two ideas we adopt ; 
 in either case the hills to which the eyes were lifted are a 
 symbol of the strength of the lofty, eternal God who is the 
 true helper of His people — “ I will lift up mine eyes to the 
 hills.” And then the next clause has far more force in the 
 original than in our Bible, for it is a question there, — 
 “ Whence does my help come ? ” He looks to the moun- 
 tains, and a question springs to his lips which may be a 
 question of longing, but I think is rather a question of, 
 almost, doubt. “ Does my help come from them ? I do 
 not see any help coming.” And then he lifts his eyes 
 higher than the hills, up above all symbols, away from all 
 material things, high up ; — not to the hills but to the 
 heavens. 
 
 “ My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven 
 and earth.” That is a loftier glance than to “ the hills that 
 are round about Jerusalem;” beyond symbols, above the 
 material, far in advance of everything creatural, however 
 strong, however lofty, however firmly rooted, — we must look 
 there if we are to look to the place from which our true 
 help comes. It is well when we can look to the hills, but 
 it is needful that we should look to the heavens. And when 
 a questioning soul can answer its own question, that is a 
 soul that is at rest. 
 
 When a man asks where his help is to come from, it is 
 a weariness and a misery for him unless he can give the 
 answer with that full-toned triumphant confidence, and 
 say : “ from the Lord which made heaven and earth.” 
 And then look how, in this exercise of faith, lifting up the 
 eyes above all the material, up to the infinite Father, look 
 how the man gets confidence and gladness from the one 
 thought, the thought of who it is into whose arms he is 
 flinging himself : " The Lord ! which made heaven and 
 
 earth.” 
 
 He grasps in that idea these two things, — Eternal Being, 
 which is implied in the name Jehovah, and infinite creative 
 power, which is implied in the Maker of the lofty universe 
 and of this low earth. These two things are the basis of 
 the confidence that his help will come from Him. 
 
 If it be true that between me and One who loves for 
 
244 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 ever, unchanging and undecaying, and who, by the breath 
 of His lips — His almighty respiration, if I may so say — 
 breathed out all this great universe ; if it be true that 
 between Him and me there are relations of sonship and love 
 and Fatherhood, then my help is sure, whatever befals. Let 
 us let the full sunlight of that thought, of how dear God is, 
 flood our hearts, that He is ‘‘the same yesterday, to-day, 
 and for ever ; that everything that is, or that ever has 
 been, or that ever shall be, is but the issue of His will, and 
 then we can stand in the centre and feel that we have got 
 to the heart of things, and that all that lives round about us 
 is living for our good, and that it is according to His will by 
 whose strength we stand. “ Up to the hills V No ! that 
 is too low. Up to the hills if we look only, we are only 
 dwelling in the region of questions, but if we look up into 
 the heavens we are dwelling in the region of affirmation 
 and assurance. 
 
 And so, if you notice, after this first verse the psalm 
 seems to change its tone, and a new speaker comes. 
 Instead of reading about the “I” and “my,"’ we read 
 about “ He” and “ thee.” “ He will not suffer thy foot to 
 be moved ; He that keepeth thee will not slumber.” And 
 so on. What is the meaning of this change of tone ? We 
 cannot exactly say that it is intended to represent two 
 different speakers, but we may come very near it. It is 
 the man communing with himself after a different fashion. 
 *He began with that weary cry as of a man whose eyes 
 have long been looking for help, and who has said a 
 hundred times: — “Do you see anybody coming?” He 
 begins with a voice of longing that quickly passes into the 
 voice of confidence ; and then he makes a pause, and in 
 the silence of his own spirit there rises up the assurance, 
 so deep, so vivid, so certain, that he is sure it cannot be 
 his own imagination, but somebody else that is speaking 
 to him. 
 
 That is to say : — if we will wait patiently before God, 
 and try in the midst of our troubles and conflicts and 
 doubts to fix our thoughts and our hopes upon Him, there 
 will presently be heard in our hearts a voice which, though 
 it be our own, is charged with a message from some one 
 else than ourselves, and speaks to us what is not our own 
 imaginations but is felt to be God’s faithful word. And so 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 245 
 
 the man that says : “ My help cometh from the Lord,’’ and 
 then says : “ Speak, Lord ! Thy servant heareth ! ” will 
 hear a still small voice, diviner than his own, whispering 
 to him : “ He will not suffer thy foot to be moved ; He 
 that keepeth thee will not slumber.” 
 
 And so the psalm goes on, from this general point of 
 view, to put in two or three different ways the great thought 
 of the perpetual help and all-sufficient presence of the God 
 who is the “ Keeper of Israel.” “ Keeper ” and “ keeping” 
 occurs half a dozen times in the psalm. Our translators 
 have made sad mangling work of it by their habit, of which 
 they were so fond, of varying the same expression ; and 
 they have hidden away from the English reader the beauti- 
 ful continuity of the psalm. “ The Lord that keepeth thee 
 will not slumber.” “ He that keepeth Israel shall not 
 slumber.” “The Lord is thy Keeper.” “The Lord shall 
 keep thee from evil : He shall keep thy soul.” It is “ keep 
 keep, keep,” all through : keeping and a Keeper are the 
 two main ideas that lie in the rest of the psalm. 
 
 “ He will not suffer thy foot to be moved.” If the psalm 
 is a pilgrim’s psalm, that is beautiful. The one thing that 
 a pedestrian pilgrim wants is a firm, sure foot, that will 
 carry him along the road and not be weary ; and here is 
 the promise for him. But at any rate here is the idea of 
 steadfastness against all temptation ; the main thought of 
 that first portion of the psalm, as I take it, is the suggestion 
 of the continual guard that this keeping Hand preserves 
 over us. When all the camp slumbers. He is awake ; 
 nothing ever breaks the uninterrupted continuity of that 
 Divine protection. Right on through the whole life it runs, 
 never slumbering, never changing. 
 
 And then there is another beautiful thing. I am a poor, 
 weak, insignificant unit ; can I venture to draw down upon 
 my head the thought of that almighty shield and ever- 
 present protection.^ Yes! “ He that keepeth Israel shall 
 not slumber.” I may be very small in myself, but I ally 
 myself with the whole body of those whom God loves and 
 cares for. The individual is lost in the Israel. It may be 
 almost too much for me to think that I, if I stood by my- 
 self, would get all those blessings, but I will knit myself to 
 the whole company of the faithful in all generations and in 
 all places ; and then I shall feel that is not altogether an 
 
246 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 unworthy thought of God and of His love and mercy, that 
 He is the Keeper of Israel ; and feel that all questions of 
 mine own unworthiness and my own feebleness are lost in 
 the broad thought that I may join myself to that family 
 and society of which God is the Shepherd and the Care- 
 taker. 
 
 And now about the ‘‘keeping.” “The Lord is thy 
 keeper ; the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The 
 sun shall not smite thee by day nor the moon by night.” 
 A strange mingling of metaphors. “ The Lord is thy 
 shade,” is one idea of protection which of course is very 
 much more vigorous than picturesque as a metaphor, when 
 we remember the sunny land from which the psalm comes, 
 than in our own cloudy sunlight. “ The Lord is thy shade,” 
 that is one ; “ the Lord is at thy right hand,” is another ; 
 but the psalmist, disregarding mere pedantic proprieties, 
 mingles both in order to express the thought that God is 
 at one and the same time doing both things as one and the 
 same act ; by us poor creatures He stands, giving us what 
 we especially need. 
 
 We want protection from the evils that threaten us, we 
 want some one to stand at our right hand who shall be our 
 strength as well as our protection. So he places the two 
 ideas side by side, and says : — If ever you want covering 
 from evils that threaten you, you will get it there ; when- 
 ever you want companionship from solitude, when you are 
 lonely, of Him you will get it ; whenever you want strength 
 poured into your feeble right hands, to do your work, you 
 will get it there. 
 
 The Lord is with thee as thy shade, with thee as the 
 Companion to cheer, with thee at thy right hand. “ I have 
 set Him always there, therefore I shall not be moved.” 
 And then he enlarges this one idea: “the sun shall not 
 smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.” The most 
 bright and blessed things may become full of evil : the very 
 sunshine may slay, the .very moonlight may make lunatic, 
 according to the old idea. Whether they be evils which 
 in themselves may be bright and good, whether they be 
 evils proper to the day of the sunshine of prosperity, or 
 whether they be evils proper to the day of adversity, of 
 sorrow and change, the one shade shall be a shade from 
 them all. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 247 
 
 And so we come to the last words of the psalm, the 
 expressions that put the idea in its broadest forms, and 
 these are : The Lord shall keep thee from all evil.” “ From 
 
 all eviir As if he felt that he could not enumerate all the 
 things which this presence of the Lord who made heaven 
 and earth, would be ; and so he gathers them all into that 
 one great sentence. Ah ! a sentence that no man can 
 receive except by the exercise of a very vigorous and 
 somewhat unusual faith. The Lord shall preserve thee 
 from all evil.” 
 
 Then, if anything has smitten you, it is not evil. And 
 if He has not preserved me from something that has made 
 my heart bleed and mine eyes to run, it has been because 
 it was for my good. ‘‘There shall no evil befal thee,” says 
 an old psalm, in the rapture of faith, “ neither shall any 
 plague come nigh thy dwelling.” So then, brother, let us 
 be sure that the evil in the evil is all taken out of it before 
 it is let fall upon our heads ; that the poison in the arrow 
 has been carefully wiped from its point before He fitted it 
 on the string to aim at our hearts, for He Himself sends 
 the things that we unbelievingly and precipitately are 
 tempted to call evil ; and if He preserves us from all evil, 
 what He sends is good. 
 
 Let us set our faces to the unknown future with that 
 confidence in an unseen Helper, who never is remiss nor 
 turns away His eyes from His charge ; in an almighty 
 Helper, who made heaven and earth ; in an ever-loving 
 Helper, who, from His own fulness of love, will guard our 
 lives. “The Lord thy Keeper will keep thee from all 
 evil. He shall keep thy soul.” That is the inmost pro- 
 tection, without which all other protections are nothing. 
 It is easy to keep the body, it is nothing to keep that ; it 
 is easy to keep fortunes, it is nothing to keep them, they 
 may come and go as they will ; but no man can keep his 
 own heart, howsoever diligently he may try it. 
 
 And there is the one hand that can preserve me, soul 
 and spirit, blameless unto the coming of the Lord Jesus, 
 and that is the hand that keeps from all evil the outward 
 life ; and will also, if we will trust Him, from all sin keep 
 the soul — the most wide and comprehensive, the most 
 unwearied protection. 
 
 And lastly ; “ The Lord shall preserve thy going out 
 
248 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for ever- 
 more : ’’ a protection which extends to all the activities of 
 life, great and small, and which lasts for ever and ever. So 
 that universal, unwearied, all-comprehensive, eternal, is the 
 keeping of the “ Keeper of Israel,” who “ slumbers not 
 nor sleeps.” 
 
 “ This God is our God for ever and ever : He will be our 
 guide even unto our death.” 
 
 XXXI. The Captives of Babylon. Psalm 
 
 cxxxvii. t-6. “ By the rivers of Babylon^ there we sat 
 
 down^ yea^ we wept^ when we remembered Zio7t, We hanged 
 our harps upon the willows hi the midst thei'eof For there 
 they that carried us aivay captive required of us a song; and 
 they that wasted us requBed of us r^iirth^ saying. Sing us one of 
 the songs of Zion, How shall we sing the Lord's song in a 
 strange land 1 If I forget thee^ O Jei'usalem^ let my right hand 
 forget her cunriing. If I do 7iot re77iember thee, let my to7igue 
 cleave to the roof of 77iy mouth ; if I prefer 7iot Jerusalem above 
 my chief joyi^ 
 
 “ By the rivers of Babylon ” — by the Euphrates and the 
 Tigris — by waters that were unfamiliar to us, — great, in- 
 deed, in themselves, but in their very greatness seeming 
 only to enhance and to deepen our despair. Here is dis- 
 tance — distance from home, distance from familiar scenes, 
 distance that may be measured in many miles. What, 
 then, can there be in a scene like this that can be profitable 
 to us 1 
 
 I wish to show you that this psalm, though old, is new, 
 and is as true, in its main and substantial features, of our- 
 selves as it was of the captive Jew. We are not distant 
 from our Jerusalem in the sense of measurement. No long 
 miles intervene between us and the place which is to our 
 hearts as Zion. We are in our own house to-day ; we are 
 upon our own chosen ground, and our own gates enclose 
 us. How, then, can we know aught of the dreariness and 
 vastness of interposing space which is known as distance 
 from the scene which is most loved and enjoyed 1 
 
 There is a distance other than that which is measurable 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 249 
 
 in miles. We may be in the sanctuary, and yet at an im- 
 measurable distance from all things that are holy, heavenly, 
 and pathetic. Distance is not altogether a question of 
 yard measurement. Distance may relate to sympathy, to 
 tone of mind, to the immediate temper of the soul ; so that 
 a man shall sit down to his musical instrument, and yet his 
 hands shall have no skill upon the keys, and out of his 
 heart there shall come no sound of melody. I speak, I am 
 sure, to the experience of some, in thus speaking. I have 
 myself again and again closed my eyes, and clasped my 
 hands, and put myself in an attitude of devotion, and yet 
 I seemed to have been at an infinite distance from the 
 altar ; and yet, may be, I was speaking words all the time, 
 and devotional words ; and people that do not read deeply 
 the inner man might mistake what was said for real .sym- 
 pathy and communion with the Eternal Now, whilst 
 it was sincere — whilst every word really did come from my 
 heart, and was a cry of want or an utterance of pain, yet 
 the soul itself was not in the sunlight of the Divine Face ; 
 and the heart felt that God was at a great distance, and 
 the spirit cried out, “Why standest Thou afar off*, O God ?” 
 So you may be in Babylon, and yet be in Jerusalem. You 
 may be in the sanctuary, and yet be in the wilderness. 
 Proximity is not identity. You may have an open Bible 
 before you, but no revelation of heaven shining upon the 
 inner eye. If you put these thoughts together, and com- 
 pare them with your own experience — not perhaps the 
 experience of this particular moment, but an experience 
 with which you are not unfamiliar — you will see that this 
 137th psalm, a moan of an ancient nation, really expresses, 
 in tenderer and loftier language than you can command, 
 the sorrow that consumes your heart and darkens your 
 eyes. 
 
 “They that carried us away captive” — “they that wasted 
 us.” Surely, there can be nothing in such words to remind 
 us of aught in our own condition. These tones at all 
 events are ancient. There is a sound of old time here, 
 and no sound in our life conveys such dreary meaning. It 
 is a strain with which we are unfamiliar. We never spoke 
 in language so despairing and sad and mournful. I have 
 spoken in this language. What is captivity ? A question 
 of gyves and fetters and plated doors and grating locks ? 
 
250 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 That is but the very poorest of all captivity. That is but 
 an exercise of mere strength. Babylon says to Judea, ‘‘I 
 am stronger than you, and whilst I am stronger I shall hold 
 you here.’’ That is nothing. Babylon is strong to-day, 
 but her strength may be wasted to-morrow, and Judea may 
 be uppermost. That is hardly captivity at all. We only 
 used the word ‘‘ captivity ” for the sake of convenience in 
 describing such circumstances. There is a captivity of the 
 soul. There is a possibility of being at liberty, and yet of 
 being in the deepest dungeon all the time, from which no 
 turnkey can hear our cry. There is a captivity of mind, of 
 memory, of affection, of all that goes out of us, in ordinary 
 circumstances, towards the light of heaven and the morning 
 of immortality. There are times when I come into this 
 house a captive. I can hold up my wrist, and say, “ There 
 is no mark there,” but many a man has been able to lift up 
 his wrists laden with iron, and to say, ‘‘ I am free.” Many 
 a man has been shut up within strong masonry, and yet 
 has had the enfranchisement of the universe and the 
 liberty of the skies. Captivity is a question of your moral 
 state — of your spiritual condition before God. Are any of 
 us captive to-day } Do we feel a long way from home } 
 And is there a great power that has the upper hand over 
 us ? Is there a severe mastery that mocks our endeavours 
 to rise into light and music and joy } Then you will know 
 that this psalm, which you thought a moment ago old and 
 worn out and obsolete, has come up into your English lan- 
 guage to say for you, in terms which, perhaps, your limited 
 experience and genius might never have devised, all that 
 is in your heart of a sense of enslavement and limitation 
 and abasement and feebleness. 
 
 I do not know that Babylon is to be charged, as at first 
 sight might seem to be natural, in reading these words, 
 with pure mockery and with cruel taunting in the case 
 of the captive Jew. They that carried us away captive 
 required of us a song ; and they that wasted us required of 
 us mirth, saying. Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” This 
 verse might be so read as to give us the picture of Babylon 
 pointing the finger of scorn to the oppressed Jews, and cry- 
 ing to them in bitter tones, “ Sing us one of your songs, 
 and let us see you laugh now.” I am not sure that such 
 would be the correct reading of the spirit of the text. I 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 251 
 
 think I see in these words a hint of clemency — a disposi- 
 tion rather to allure the Jews towards making the best of 
 their circumstances. Babylon says, “ Now you are in 
 captivity, make the best of it : be men : make yourselves 
 at home in this distant land : sing your own songs : be as 
 glad as you used to be. You know that you are in our 
 power: you are shut up within our empire. You cannot 
 get away, and, whilst you are here, be as happy as you can. 
 Sing night and day : we shall be quite glad to hear how 
 you do sing when you are at home.” 
 
 Now, this is an experience that is familiar to us if we 
 have lived honest lives — lives that are many sided and that 
 approach in some degree completeness. People have said 
 to us now and again, in variety of tone and circumstance, 
 ‘‘ Now you are in our company, make the best of it. You 
 have fallen into society that is not congenial to you, but 
 you are here by force of circumstances. You cannot get 
 your bread in any other place. We all are men of a 
 different mould from yourself. Why should you be groan- 
 ing and moaning all the day long ? Come, come, be one 
 of us, and if you want to sing a hymn or a song, sing it, 
 and we will join you in singing it, perhaps. You are qui*^e 
 at liberty to carry on any practices that will not break up 
 the spirit of this confederacy- — that will not rupture the 
 vitality of this relationship. Make yourself happy and 
 comfortable if you can. You are in Babylon, and you want 
 to be in Jerusalem, but you cannot get to your own city, so 
 when you are out make the best of it, and be as genial and 
 sunny as you can.” Is there not a temptation to yield to 
 hospitality of this kind ? May not a man say, “ Well, they 
 are certainly disposed to make large concessions to me : 
 they are not going to shut up my mouth in dumbness. If 
 I wish to speak God’s name, and utter God’s praise, they 
 are apparently quite willing that I should do so, only I must 
 be one of themselves. I cannot liberate myself from their 
 society, but still I think they are acting as noble a part as 
 they could possibly be expected to act. Well, I will think 
 no more of Zion and home and tender recollections and 
 blessed memories, but, being here, I will just make the best 
 of it.” Do not go down so. If you can for a moment 
 receive a concession of this kind from an enemy, and 
 regard it in the light of a favour — if the great birthrights 
 
252 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 of the kingdom of God should ever come to you in the 
 light of mere human favours or social concessions, and 
 you accept them as such — you have lost something of 
 the volume of your being and the quality of your best 
 nature. 
 
 The Jew said, “No, I cannot sing here. The air is 
 heavy ; the place is strange. If I have lifted up my voice 
 for a moment, it seems to have fallen back upon me as if 
 there were no outlet heavenward. When I touch the harp 
 it is but plain wood and plain metal. Behold there is no 
 resonance in it ; there is no comfort in playing under cir- 
 cumstances so terrible and disastrous.” So the Jew, as he 
 must do, entered into covenant, and spoke his souks feeling 
 in an oath. Old Testament men were wont to do this. It 
 
 was, “ God do so to me, and more also, if .” The Jew 
 
 was sublime in his oaths, grand in his covenants, and he 
 says, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand 
 forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my 
 tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth ; if I prefer not Jeru- 
 salem above my chief joy.” Please to observe the beautiful 
 harmony between the speech and the thing which is signi- 
 fied in action. “You ask me to play upon my harp — to 
 take it into my hands, and run over the strings. If I do 
 so, God strike the fingers dead upon the harp-strings, so 
 that they may never move again ; and let this right hand 
 and left, in which there is some power of music, forget their 
 cunning if I touch the harp at the bidding of an alien.” 
 You see the connection between the speech and the action 
 that was required. “ Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” 
 “ If I do, may my tongue, ere it utter the first note, cleave 
 to my gums, and be a tongue no more,” — the same fine 
 exquisite adaptation between the language of the oath and 
 the thing that was required to be done. 
 
 There was constancy. The world is now in need of con- 
 stant men. There is a great deal too much india-rubber 
 humanity abroad just now — elastic minds, elastic con- 
 sciences, great power of accommodation to circumstances, 
 marvellous ability to do things that are holy in unholy 
 places and at unholy biddings. What we want is constancy 
 in the Church — not bigotry, not exclusiveness, but con- 
 stancy to given principles, and to a given faith which has 
 been spoken in love and professed in seriousness. And 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 253 
 
 where such constancy is felt, and is exemplified, Babylon 
 must feel the presence of the Church. It must have been 
 a wonderful thing for Babylon to get hold of a number 
 of men who would not do as Babylon said, — who could 
 be made to bow down simply because the arm was 
 stronger than the individual that was being crushed, 
 but who could not be made to sing or to play upon 
 the harp. There you have no power. You can lay 
 a man down, throw him into the sea, cut him up, burn him, 
 blow his ashes away upon the winds, but you cannot make 
 him sing, or pray, or play upon an instrument before God, 
 and be joyful. There is a region over which you have no 
 power, and the world ought to be taught that, and that was 
 the first great lesson the Jews gave to Babylon. No, we 
 are taken away by a strong hand and a mighty arm and a 
 cruel power. We abide here : we are your slaves. You 
 may oppress us, but you cannot make us feel at home.” 
 Thank God for that home-hungering force that is in the 
 heart, — for that home-hunger which makes us restless even 
 when we are under the happiest circumstances from a social 
 point of view, but at a distance from the loved place. He 
 is not a bigot who loves his home : he is not a zealot who 
 loves his country before all the other countries of the globe : 
 he is not a narrow-minded man who says in the midst of 
 the wilderness, “Would God I had a draught of water from 
 the well of Bethlehem ! ” God has put these instincts into 
 our hearts, and it is here that we find the strength of pat- 
 riotism and the glory of the Church — in preferring it to all 
 other associations, and in yielding to it an undivided and 
 loyal homage — in the bending of the knee and the bowing 
 of the heart in all thankfulness and devout love. Have you 
 such feeling as that ? I have but little faith in a man who 
 wholly forgets his home, and forgets his friends, and who is 
 just as happy under one church-roof as another. I believe 
 in having attachments to particular places, and particular 
 persons, and particular ways of doing things. There is no 
 occasion for such preference to dwarf itself into narrowness 
 and exclusiveness ; but I do believe more in a man who 
 has such preferences than in a man who has them not. 
 
 “ I love it, I love it, and who shall dare 
 To chide me for loving that old arm-chair ?'* 
 
254 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 It is possible, I dare say, for some people to have just the 
 same feeling towards all arm-chairs ; but that is a better 
 heart — the sturdier, the truer, and the tenderer — that says, 
 ‘‘ No, it is this chair I love best.’’ 
 
 “ Would you learn the spell ? A mother sat there, 
 
 And a sacred thing is that old arm-chair.” 
 
 And SO the Jew in Babylon was no longer a happy man. 
 He did not say, ‘‘ I will take down my harp and make the 
 best of it. I have my harp here, and I can play the old tunes 
 over.” There was a home-hunger, a home-thirst, a pang 
 that made Babylon millions of miles farther off than it 
 could be according to the mere road. In that constancy 
 you find the element which grows up, when duly watched 
 by prayer and intelligent study, into strength and solidity 
 — into a force that becomes a solid and ruling and reliable 
 power in social life. 
 
 Here are men living in memory. Do you know what 
 it is to live in recollection ? It is the sweetest of all life. 
 There is a time in a man’s days when he comes to think so. 
 There is also a time when to live in hope is the best. That 
 is the young heart’s sunny time. I would not shorten it : 
 God forbid I should begrudge it. I like to see the light of 
 hope playing upon the young face, and to hear anticipating 
 words from young lips, but I declare there is something 
 sweeter, tenderer, mellower, richer, in living the old days 
 over again. Not so bright, not so glittering, not such a 
 flashing light, but a calm, subdued, sacred lustre bathes the 
 past. The Jews lived the old times over again. They 
 went back to Jerusalem — walked the old familiar roads, 
 reminded one another of words spoken in the light, and 
 spoken in the darkness. They lived in memory. 
 
 “ Oft in the stilly night. 
 
 Ere slumber’s chain hath bound me, 
 
 Sad memory brings the light 
 Of other days around me : 
 
 The smiles, the tears, of boyhood’s years 
 The words of love then spoken. 
 
 The eyes that shone, now dimmed and gone. 
 
 The cheerful hearts now broken.” 
 
 Have you any such recollections ? Among all those 
 recollections there will shine, the brightest of the whole. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 255 
 
 recollections of Christian fellowship, Christian communion, 
 Christian intercourse, bowing together at the altar, strug- 
 gling together bravely, with a tender, noble heroism, against 
 poverty and weakness and illness and difficulty, and coming 
 up again oat of the waters, and shaking them off, and say- 
 ing, We shall live yet and see the land again.” Oh, we 
 forget the roughness, the rudeness, it may be ; we forget all 
 that was merely accidental, and the solemn soul of the past 
 comes to us clothed with a body from heaven, and our 
 yesterdays are more charmful and luring than our morrows. 
 
 How then ? To-day you are making a yesterday. If 
 you, young friends, live nobly now, you are laying up for 
 yourselves an inheritance incorruptible and that fadeth 
 not away. You do not know the measure of what you 
 are doing now, — its reach and influence and pregnancy of 
 meaning and result. But ten years hence, or twenty, and 
 things will come up again, and the great law will repeat 
 itself — ‘‘ Be not deceived ; God is not mocked, for whatso- 
 ever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Hear it say, 
 “ Thou didst give unto me two talents — two little corn-seeds. 
 Here I am a whole ear of corn. Cut me and use me, or 
 sow me again, and I will still bring thee more.” If you 
 have once lost the past you cannot make it now. You 
 must be making it as you proceed, little by little, day by 
 day, here a little and there a little ; and you cannot tell 
 altogether what you are doing. But things shape them- 
 selves — get into order and come back upon a man, and say, 
 ‘'We are yours: take us.” I suppose that most of the 
 young people whom I see before me now may confidently, 
 according to ordinary calculation, look on to fifty years of 
 life. What if I conjure you to begin that fifty years’ period 
 now by an oath to Heaven — by a vow at the cross — that 
 you will live purely, wisely, nobly, usefully ; and then into 
 what Babylon soever of misfortune, adversity, poverty, you 
 be driven in the days that are to come, you will take Jeru- 
 salem with you, and the waters of Zion shall flow alongside 
 the waters of Babylon. 
 
 Some solemn lessons issue from this pathetic and mourn- 
 ful page that is before us. It will be for our souls’ health 
 if we lay them deeply to heart. You may be deprived 
 of religious privileges : you may be withdrawn from the 
 sanctuary : you may be called away from your chosen 
 
256 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 place, from your delights, and your habitations, and put 
 into circumstances where you cannot hear the old music, or 
 look upon the old relationships, or extract honey from the 
 flowers that have yielded so much sweetness hitherto. We 
 may fall into the hands of mockers. Whilst we are to- 
 gether sitting here, knowing one another and caring for one 
 another, we think all the world is an Eden, and that para- 
 dise has regained itself, and that all the earth is more or 
 less under the influence of Christian sentiment. We sit 
 here with our hymn-books, and we sing our psalm-tunes, 
 and read our Scriptures, and hear our favourite preachers 
 preach the gospel to us, and we think things are not, after 
 all, so bad as they are sometimes made out to be. The 
 minister says sometimes, in the heat of his argument, and 
 under the inspiration of his hope, that England is not anti- 
 christian. But, O my brother, what if England be 
 anti-moral ? Think of the revelations that are coming 
 before us every day of men of position and name and 
 status. What if England be nominally Christian, but 
 really anti-moral, — if under a great profession she is hiding 
 a great corruption "i One day, I say, we may fall into the 
 hands of mockers. They may taunt us, and revile us, and 
 take up the holy things, and throw them upon us with 
 violent hands. Are we prepared for that change of 
 thought We know the value of our privileges best when 
 we have lost them. It is possible to get so familiar with 
 the privilege as to forget it is a privilege at all. It is 
 possible to have so much comfort as to forget that it 
 is comfort. It is possible to see the sun so often 
 as not to know the great work it is doing — that by 
 its own unaided light it is throwing the morning upon 
 many worlds, bringing summer and autumn upon new 
 planets — worlds far away from ours. And it is possible to 
 hear your minister preach until you do not know that he is 
 anything special or particular to you, and you think that 
 you may go into the next house and hear a man who will 
 touch you just as much. You may, or you may not. You 
 may hear one voice so continually that it shall cease to be 
 a distinctive voice to you. They say the bird shows the 
 brightness of its wings most when it is in flight, — that you 
 see the colours upon the wings most vividly when the bird 
 rises, and flies away from you. We may see the beauty of 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 257 
 
 our Jerusalem better when we are in the darkness and 
 slavery of Babylon. 
 
 Do cultivate religious attachments. Do not let all things 
 be equally common : do let us have a little enthusiasm 
 about some men, and some places, and some books, and 
 some scenes. Oh, it is not living, to live with a person to 
 whom all places are alike, — who does not know what he is 
 eating, whether it is the very best or the worst. There is 
 no comfort in living with such an individual, on whom 
 the best of your things are wasted. There is no comfort 
 in living with an individual to whom all systems and all 
 Churches and all rituals are alike. Do have your prefer- 
 ences, — not that you may antagonise the preferences of 
 other people, and make yourself unpleasant to those who 
 may differ from you ; but do get to love some particular 
 seat in the church, some particular corner. A man can- 
 not go slick down to hell, surely, if he loves one little bit 
 of the sanctuary better than he loves any place else on the 
 earth. Oh, we can surely get hold of him there : we can 
 surely touch him through that one little preference. It is a 
 very poor hold to have upon him, but it is better than no- 
 thing. Do you mourn your distance from Zion, and are you 
 unable to sing when you are in far-off Babylon } There is 
 hope for you. One day, the Jew that hung his harp upon 
 the willow shall take it down. One day, the man who 
 prayed that his tongue might cleave to his gums (for that 
 is the true rendering of the passage), rather than he should 
 sing the Lord’s song in a strange land, will come out of his 
 captivity. You cannot hold a man like that down always. 
 The pathos that is in his soul means something, and one 
 day he will get the upper hand of Babylon, and will be 
 back again in Zion. 
 
 j. p- 
 
 XXXII. Isaiah. 
 
 Isaiah is the greatest of all the prophets of the Old 
 Testament in respect both of the style and tone of his 
 prophecy, and of the substance of his witness for God both 
 to his own age and to the ages of the future. I propose 
 to dwell only on the first thirty-nine chapters of his pro- 
 phecy, without prejudging that question which has been 
 raised as to identity or difference of authorship between 
 
 s 
 
258 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 this first section of the book and the portion which opens 
 at the fortieth chapter — a question, let me remind you, 
 of profound critical interest, but in no way affecting the 
 authority of this latter part of the book as an integral 
 portion of Holy Scripture. But the question need not be 
 touched upon now, because on any hypothesis there is a 
 distinct separation between the two portions of the book, 
 marking some interval, long or short, of time, and because 
 the former portion, which belongs to the period ending with 
 the establishment of Hezekiah’s kingdom, is more than 
 sufficient to occupy all our thoughts to-day. No book of 
 the Old Testament is comparable to the Book of Isaiah in 
 respect of its style and tone. ^The very language, in its 
 union of freshness with perfection, and of richness with 
 force and vigour, marks the golden age of Hebrew. The 
 variety and fulness of power, uniting pathos with stirring 
 encouragement, bold denunciation of sin with unfailing 
 tenderness, sense of burden and sorrow with predominant 
 hope, and fervent patriotic love of Israel with a clear con- 
 ception of the higher and wider purpose of God to all 
 humanity which the covenant of Israel served, seems to 
 concentrate on this one book all the elements of prophetic 
 mission and inspiration. Nor can even translation obscure 
 to us the extraordinary wealth of poetic beauty touched 
 by the higher fire of inspiration, both in imagery and in 
 thought. What can exceed the majestic sublimity of the 
 call of the prophet, in the sixth chapter, by the voice out 
 of the glory of the Lord ? or the terrible picture, in the 
 fourteenth chapter, of the fall of the king of Babylon, like 
 Lucifer, the son of the morning,” amidst the songs of 
 triumph of the rescued earth, and the taunting welcome of 
 the mighty dead in the realms of hell } Where can we 
 find utterances of tenderer love than in the lamentation of 
 the Lord over His unfruitful vineyard, or the invitation to 
 sinners, whose sins are as scarlet, to make them as white 
 as snow in the stream of the Divine mercy } What ex- 
 quisite music of peaceful beauty breathes through the de- 
 scription of the wilderness blossoming like the rose along 
 the highway of the redeemed, where they shall move with 
 songs and everlasting joy upon their heads, and sorrow 
 and sighing shall flee away ! What psalm of thanksgiving, 
 even in the Psalter itself, is deeper and fuller than that 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 259 
 
 triumphant cry, ‘‘God is my Salvation ; I will trust in God, 
 and not be ashamed. The Lord Jehovah is my strength 
 and my song ” Or that burst of adoration, “O Lord, 
 Thou art my God. I will praise Thy name. This is our 
 God ; we have waited for Him, and He will save us. This 
 is the Lord Jehovah ; we have waited for Him ; we will' be 
 glad and rejoice in His salvation^’? But if Isaiah thus 
 stands out pre-eminent in style and tone, how much more in 
 the substance of his prophecy ! No prophet ever ministered 
 more effectively to his generation. Through two great 
 crises of his country’s history he prophesied to Judah — 
 through the threatening danger of the confederacy of 
 Syria and Israel, in the reign of Ahaz ; through the yet 
 more terrible agony of the great Assyrian invasion in the 
 days of Hezekiah, fresh from its triumph over Israel, and 
 threatening to trample out the last spark of national life in 
 Jerusalem. In both it is clear that he stood forth as a 
 very tower of strength — the soul of patriotic resistance 
 and confidence, because the messenger of the light and 
 the grace of the Lord, the witness for the true moral and 
 spiritual strength of the nation, in victory first over sin and 
 faithlessness within, as an earnest of victory over enemies 
 without. Two eras of prosperity he saw: the one at the 
 beginning of his career, in the days of Uzziah and Jotham ; 
 the other at the close of this period of his ministry, in 
 the victorious strength and spiritual revival of Hezekiah’s 
 reign. 
 
 In both we see him raising the thoughts of the people 
 above the blessings of earth to the higher spiritual gifts of 
 which they were the means and the earnest, pleading 
 against the outward hollow service of the worldly heart, 
 and setting forth the devotion of a pure life, and the love 
 of God, not for His gifts, but for Himself. No element of 
 prophetic mission to his own time is wanting to guard the 
 spirituality of the law and the sacrifice, to witness against 
 selfish despotism in the king, and self-reliant trust of the 
 people in material strength. He is, indeed, the true pro- 
 phet of God to his own age, alike in national sorrow 
 and in national joy, nerving it in the agony of danger, and 
 calming it in the pride of triumph. Yet, of all Old Testa- 
 ment prophets, is he not also the one who looks forward 
 most distinctly to the future, and sends his peculiar message 
 
26 o 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 to us whose lot is cast in the kingdom of Christ ? As we 
 saw previously, there are two phases of this onward-looking 
 prophecy : the one we called Evangelical, anticipating the 
 teaching and spirit of the Gospel by a foresight of the 
 kingdom of God, in which the free obedience of the spirit 
 should supersede the bondage of the law, in which the 
 knowledge of God should be unveiled, not to a few only, 
 but to all, and in which suffering, sin, and death — those 
 three scourges of humanity — should give way to joy and 
 purity in an eternal life ; the other we rather named 
 Messianic, as fixing the eye in strong personal faith on a 
 Saviour and King of the whole world, to come both as the 
 Son of David and as the ruler of the Gentiles, in whom 
 should be at once the perfect exaltation of man and the 
 perfect revelation of God. Some prophets, perhaps, like 
 Jeremiah, are more Evangelical than Messianic ; others, 
 like Daniel, more Messianic than Evangelical. In Isaiah 
 both phases of revelation are united in perfect harmony. 
 As Micah in lesser measure, so he in greater, realizes both 
 elements of the great future, with a vividness which in earlier 
 prophecy we have but little trace. Nowhere does the Christ 
 of the Old Testament stand out with such vivid distinctness 
 — whether, as in the Christmas Day lessons. He is looked 
 upon as the Son who is given to us in all the attributes of 
 Divine majesty ; or, as in the Good Friday lessons, con- 
 templated as the great Sufferer, ‘Hhe man of sorrow, and 
 acquainted with grief.’' 
 
 Nowhere else does the unity of spirit between the Old 
 Testament and the New manifest itself so clearly. There 
 is in Him, as it were, a gospel before the Gospel ; and the 
 moral and spiritual teaching of Isaiah differs but in degree, 
 though that degree be great, from the teaching of St. Paul 
 and St. John. And what wonder this ; for did not Isaiah’s 
 prophecy on that famous day in the synagogue of Nazareth 
 furnish the Master Himself with a very description of His 
 own mission — to heal the broken-hearted, to preach de- 
 liverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, 
 “to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord ”? 
 
 The ministry of Isaiah is described as extending through 
 “the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings 
 of Judah,” a period of at least sixty-two years, even if we 
 reckon, as it seems probable, that his mission only began 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 261 
 
 in the very close of Uzziah’s reign, and take no account of 
 the ancient Jewish tradition that he survived to the evil 
 days of Manasseh, and died a martyr, sawn, as says the 
 history, assunder when Manasseh filled Jerusalem with 
 innocent blood. The book which bears his name contains 
 the chief utterances, no doubt, of that long ministry, 
 possibly including in some cases, as in one case we are 
 expressly told that it does include, words of the law spoken 
 long before. As in other prophetic books, it is not always 
 easy to disentangle from one another the separate utterances 
 of the prophet as they now stand, and it may not be always 
 safe to assume that the succession in the order of book 
 corresponds rigidly to the succession in order of time ; but 
 it seems probable on the whole that the order of time is 
 followed ; and in taking only the first thirty-nine chapters, 
 with which we are now concerned, we can discern, after the 
 first chapter, which is a solemn introduction to the whole 
 book, a succession of prophecies belonging to successive 
 epochs in the history of the time. Thus, the first section, 
 from the second to the fifth chapter, may belong to the time 
 of Uzziah or of Jotham, ending as it does in the sixth 
 chapter, which describes the prophet’s solemn call in the year 
 that King Uzziah died. Then follows, in the second place, 
 from the seventh to the twelfth chapters, the prophecies of 
 the first great crisis in the reign of Ahaz, when the danger 
 from Syria and Israel that threatened Judah was only 
 averted by the more formidable danger of the Assyrian 
 conquest. Then to this succeeds, thirdly, a series of various 
 burdens on the nations, of which we are told that the first 
 v/as uttered in the year that Ahaz died, extending from 
 the thirteenth to the twenty-third chapter. Next, the 
 fourth section of the book, from the twenty- fourth to the 
 thirty-fifth chapters, is occupied with the prophecies belong- 
 ing to the second great national crisis in the days of 
 Hezekiah, when the Assyrian power, before which Judah 
 lay prostrate and helpless, was broken by the arm of the 
 Lord ; and the whole ends, in the thirty-sixth to the 
 thirty-ninth chapters, with a historical narrative, transferred 
 by the compiler to the Second Book of Kings, which tells 
 how Isaiah’s prophecy of deliverance was fulfilled in the 
 destruction of the army of Sennacherib, and how the 
 danger from Babylon, though as yet far distant on the 
 
262 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 horizon, was seen by the prophet’s eye, and foretold to 
 Hezekiah in the very hour of his pride. Such in bare 
 outline is this great prophecy. Let us now fill it in, as far 
 as time allows, with some general considerations of the 
 substance of each section. 
 
 The first chapter, as I have said, seems undoubtedly a 
 preface to the whole book, containing in brief the very 
 gist of its moral teaching and its prophetic promise. I say 
 its moral teaching, for, much in the spirit of the Lord’s 
 controversy in Micah, we find there a picture of a faithless 
 and thankless falling away from God visited by His 
 chastisement, through which the whole head is sick and 
 the whole heart is faint;” and we hear the indignant 
 rejection of a hollow and outward service of sacrifice, and 
 the loving call for a deep and a true repentance bearing the 
 fruit of righteous life ; and I say its prophetic promise, for 
 it declares that all judgment is to be in the true sense 
 a tribulation — a winnowing, that is, of the chaff from the 
 wheat — and that when it is past Zion shall be redeemed 
 with judgment and her converts with righteousness. Then 
 after this preface opens the first section of the prophecy 
 which there is no means of assigning with certainty to any 
 one period, but which, I cannot but think, belongs to the 
 reign of Jotham ; for the vision in the sixth chapter 
 certainly seems to me to be the first call of the prophet, 
 and it is fixed in the year in which King Uzziah died. 
 That grand vision itself has impressed itself deeply on the 
 imagination and thought of man. In it we see revealed 
 the unspeakable glory of the Lord of hosts, surrounded 
 by the seraphic worship and hymned in the seraphic song. 
 The terror of the prophet before Him in his consciousness 
 of sin, until his lips are touched by the fire from the altar 
 of God, the call then gladly heard and accepted, the 
 message given telling of wilful deafness to God’s voice, and 
 the judgment it should call down, but telling also of the 
 undying life to live still in the faithful remnant, and to 
 shoot forth in luxuriant fruitfulness when the appointed 
 hour is come — must this not be, notwithstanding its position 
 in the book, the first call of Isaiah to his great prophetic 
 office ? If so, the first section of prophecy must follow this 
 and precede the utterance in the seventh chapter which 
 belongs to the reign of Ahaz ; and it must therefore be 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 263 
 
 referred to the transition period of Jotham’s reign, when 
 the people, as we read, did corruptly, although no apostasy 
 like that of Ahaz was dreamed of as yet. This section 
 opens brightly with a future vision of the exaltation of the 
 Lord’s house, and of nations gathered round it in a 
 kingdom of peace. Soon it turns to a rebuke of present 
 worldliness and present idolatry on which the hand of 
 judgment is to pass, turning the wisdom of counsel into 
 foolishness, giving to children the rule over men, and 
 scourging the oppressive pride of the princes and shaming 
 the frivolous and luxurious vanity of the women of Israel ; 
 but in the end it clears up to the former brightness, once 
 more telling how after chastisement shall come purity, after 
 judgment the love of God manifested as in the cloud and 
 the fire of old to be a tabernacle of rest and of peace. So 
 ends the first great utterance. But in the same section is 
 subjoined to it a sadder prophecy. As iniquity seems to 
 abound, and the coming storm of trouble darkens in it, 
 we hear the famous lamentation of the Lord over His un- 
 fruitful vineyard ; we listen to the series of woes against 
 rapacity and revelling, against scorn of God’s mercy, and 
 the denial of the very principles of goodness ; we see in the 
 prophetic vision the declaration of judgments already sent 
 and despised, and the great judgment of invasion and 
 destruction to come clouding the whole heaven of hope 
 and roaring for destruction like the waves of the sea. So 
 ends the warning to Israel in the days of Jotham, when all 
 seemed prosperous and the storm had not yet broken. 
 
 In the next section we find ourselves in the days of Ahaz, 
 when the first great crisis of trouble has come. And now 
 the message changes its character to comfort and to hope. 
 The prophet stands before Ahaz in his terror at the com- 
 bined invasion of Israel and Syria. He bids him be of 
 good cheer ; he gives him the promise of deliverance. Ere 
 a child soon to be conceived should “ know how to refuse 
 the evil and choose the good,” he warns him, although in 
 vain, against the great Assyrian power, which should be to 
 Judah both a greater danger and a heavier scourge; the 
 birth of a child whose name should be, Hasten the Booty 
 and Speed the Spoil, is made the sign of the approaching 
 fall of the great enemies of Judah. The call is given to put 
 aside hollow and dangerous confederacies and trust in the 
 
264 . EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 name of the Lord. Then out of the darkness resting on 
 the people was to come the dawn of the bright day of peace, 
 the gift of the child whose name is “Wonderful, Coun- 
 sellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince 
 of Peace.’^ So he speaks to Judah; and then on the 
 traitorous ally of Syria — the rebellious kingdom of Israel — 
 he utters a fourfold woe. Judgment succeeds judgment, 
 and the ominous words are repeated again and again, 
 “For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand 
 is stretched out still.” 
 
 Then the eye of the prophet rests on the Assyrian himself 
 — the rod of God’s judgment — falsely deeming the victory 
 to be wrought by his own strength, and to be used for his 
 own purpose. With a stern joy, Isaiah tells how in God’s 
 hand that terrible rod shall be used and broken, how he 
 shall serve the Divine purpose, and then for his own sin be 
 swept away ; for there rises now before the prophet’s eye 
 the bright vision of the kingdom of the true Son of David, 
 “ on whom the Spirit of the Lord shall rest in its sevenfold 
 gifts, whose reign shall be in righteousness and His govern- 
 ment in peace. Then shall the earth be filled with the 
 knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea ; then 
 shall the captives of the Lord return, and all enemies shall 
 perish in a deliverance like the great deliverance of Egypt 
 in the days of old.” What wonder that this utterance is 
 welcomed with a burst of exultant thanksgiving — “ Behold, 
 God is my salvation ; I will trust and not be afraid ; with 
 joy shall ye draw water out of the inexhaustible well of 
 salvation. Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion : 
 for great is the Lord in the midst of thee.” How striking 
 it is that the same voice which spoke in solemn warning in 
 the days of prosperity should now tell the tidings of com- 
 fort and hope in the dark days of trial ; and how unmis- 
 takable is the tendency by which, through the growing trials 
 and dangers of the present, the prophetic thought is borne 
 onward more and more to the completeness of the great 
 future glory of Israel ! 
 
 But now to this succeed — beginning at least in the year 
 in which Ahaz died — a series of what are called the burdens 
 on the nations, and working out with a magnificent fulness 
 that idea of God’s universal rule over the kingdoms of the 
 earth, of which in our study of prophecy we have heard 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT, 
 
 265 
 
 but little or nothing since the first simple utterance of the 
 prophecy in the opening of the book of Amos. Through 
 the whole there runs the twofold idea of the exclusiveness 
 of the law, and the catholicity of the Gospel — the view of 
 the heathen nations, simply as related to the chosen people 
 of God, and judged of enmity or friendship to them ; and as 
 being themselves also a part of God’s kingdom, having 
 blessing, probation, and judgment at the hand of the Creator 
 of all things, who hateth nothing He has made. First, 
 there is that magnificent vision of the judgment to come 
 upon Babylon, to which I have already alluded. Then the 
 prophecy turns to the nearer lands of Palestine and Moab, 
 to the northern kingdoms of Damascus, to the coast of the 
 south of Ethiopia and Egypt, for which, by strange symbolic 
 action of the prophet, is prefigured a captivity of shame in 
 Assyria ; to Edom and Arabia ; and, lastly, to Tyre, the 
 great queen of the sea, that harlot of the world's merchan- 
 dise and luxury — a grand survey from the watch-tower of 
 prophecy of all the kingdoms of the earth far and near, 
 claiming all as the field of righteousness and mercy, of the 
 Divine government, and all, as in different degrees, willingly 
 or unwillingly, working out the glory of the Lord. , 
 
 These utterances we may suppose, I think, to belong to 
 the interval between two great national crises — when the 
 first danger had passed away of ignoble vassalage to Assyria, 
 and before the yet greater storm of danger which Isaiah 
 then foresaw as bursting in the future upon Judah. 
 
 Now, in the next section, more varied and broken in 
 character than the former, full, I think, of a greater power 
 of intensity, both of joy and of sorrow, we have the utter- 
 ances of that terrible time when the full wrath of Assyria, 
 blaspheming in the very greatness of its pride, was turned 
 on the little realm of Hezekiah. These prophecies fall, I 
 think, into two chief groups, the one from the twenty-fourth 
 to the twenty-seventh chapters, and the other from the 
 twenty-eighth to the thirty-fifth. The first of these groups 
 opens with a passage making a link of connection with the 
 burdens of the nations. The prophet looks forth, and sees 
 the time of widespread trouble and distress upon all the 
 earth, probably from the cruel and oppressive power of the 
 great empire of Assyria ; but out of it he sees shall come 
 the establishment of the chosen Kingdom of Zion. “ O 
 
266 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 Lord, O Christ, Thou art my God. I will exalt Thee, I 
 will praise Thy flame. For all nations He shall spread the 
 spiritual feast in His holy mountain ; He shall take away 
 the veil from all the people ; He shall swallow up death 
 in victory. Lo, this is our God ; we have waited for Him, 
 and He will save us ; we have a strong city indeed ; salva- 
 tion is its walls and its bulwark. Open the gates that my 
 righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in. 
 The Lord Jehovah is our everlasting strength.” “Only,” 
 he cries, “ let us listen to the word of the Lord ; let us 
 see His hand ; let us bear the pains of travail ; let us wait 
 patiently for Him until the day of trial is past. If we do 
 this, then life shall rise out of death ; the earth itself shall 
 disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.” 
 How marvellously in this grand prophecy does Isaiah show 
 himself the prophet of an undying hope ! 
 
 Then follows, in yet more broken and varied strain, a 
 series of isolated prophecies. In one chapter we hear of 
 a woe on the two great empires of Assyria and Egypt, 
 between which Judah lay; in another a denunciation of 
 destruction on the drunken revelry of Samaria, then tottering 
 to its fall, and chastisement on the proud, worldly-minded 
 statesmen who ruled Judah; in a third there is a woe 
 against Ariel, the lion of God as in Judah the city of David, 
 because of its smooth hypocrisy ; in the fourth and fifth 
 there is a noble witness in the hour of terror against flying 
 to the desert, against alliance with Egypt, against base 
 submission to Assyria — there is a cry at once of patriotism 
 and prophetic warning to trust in the might of the Lord 
 and the might of the Lord alone. Then in mingled strain 
 we hear tell of the kingdom and the righteousness which 
 should be, of the worldly confidence and indulgence which 
 marred it in effect and which clouded its blessings with 
 judgment ; and finally, in magnificent prose, there is a call 
 to all nations to behold the desolation which shall pass on 
 the enemies of the people of God, and the final revelation 
 of His kingdom in all its phases of blessings — the fruitful- 
 ness in which the wilderness shall blossom like the rose, 
 the comforting of weakness, the healing of disease, the 
 opening of the lips of the dumb, the highway of holiness 
 stretching plain and straight through all the dangers of life, 
 and the end to which it leads, when the ransomed of the 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 267 
 
 Lord shall return to Mount Zion with everlasting joy upon 
 their heads/' when “they shall obtain joy and gladness, 
 and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Wonderfully 
 magnificent is this last prophecy, of which I can but give 
 you the very slightest sketch. In it, as in all that goes 
 before, we have surely the very loftiest strain of the pro- 
 phecy of the Old Testament to be the support of the 
 ancient people of God in their time of sorrow and of trial ; 
 but although time fails for any adequate description, I 
 cannot but remind you now, in conclusion, how constantly 
 in this wonderful book the vision of that Messianic hope 
 which we have inherited in possession comes out again and 
 again. With what true instinct, from the earliest days, 
 has the Church drawn from the Book of Isaiah her chosen 
 lessons of Christian prophecy ! In some places, notably 
 in the great prophecy of the seventh chapter, “ A virgin 
 shall conceive, and bear a son," there must clearly have 
 been some fulfilment at the time typical of the greater 
 fulfilment of the future, and it may well be that to the 
 prophet’s eye the type and anti-type blended in one ; but 
 it is notable that in every section of the book at which we 
 have glanced there is, as it were, an involuntary rise to the 
 glory of a great future hope, now of a universal kingdom, 
 now of a Divine King. In the first section, the prophecy 
 of the days of Jotham, we have the exaltation of the Lord’s 
 house to be the centre of the kingdom over the world ; we 
 have the expectation of the Branch of the Lord to be 
 beautiful and glorious in the restored glory of Jerusalem ; 
 in the second, the comfort that shall come in the great 
 crisis in the days of Ahaz. And here we have three great 
 utterances : “ Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a 
 son, and shall call his name Immanuel " — God with us ; 
 “ Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given ; and the 
 government shall be upon His shoulder ; and His name 
 shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, 
 The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace ; " “ There 
 shall be a rod of Jesse; and the Spirit of the Lord shall 
 rest upon it, the spirit of knowledge and understanding, 
 the spirit of ghostly strength, and the earth shall be filled 
 with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." 
 Allow as you will for poetical and P^astern hyperbole, what 
 can have satisfied such prophecies as these by any mere 
 
268 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 human kingdom ? What son of man can rise to the great- 
 ness of that destiny who is not also the Son of God ? 
 
 And in the next section, of the days of Hezekiah, we 
 have the declaration of the revelation which shall gather 
 all nations with the unveiled eyes of faith to Jerusalem, to 
 One who shall swallow up death in victory, and wipe off 
 all tears from all faces. 
 
 And the last section rises to the glorious climax of that 
 description of the kingdom of peace and holiness of which 
 in one kingdom alone there can be even any approach to 
 fulfilment. Yes, my brethren, as it were by a spiritual 
 necessity the end of every vista of thought, of every utter- 
 ance of joy or mourning, of judgment or blessing, is in 
 Christ Himself The visions of Isaiah here have in some 
 measure been fulfilled already in His kingdom, in some 
 points wait still for fulfilment ; and in the knowledge of 
 Christ they catch the very spirit of His Gospel of grace 
 and mercy until they almost seem to be a link between the 
 Old Testament and the New, and speak to us with even 
 deeper and fuller meaning than when from Isaiah’s lips, 
 touched with the fire of God, they were a light in darkness 
 and a comfort in sorrow to those who, with him, inherited 
 the blessings of the old covenant with David. 
 
 A. B. 
 
 XXXIII. The Cry of the Creatures. Isaiah vi. 1-3. 
 
 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting 
 upon a throne^ high and lifted up^ and His train filled the temple. 
 Above it stood the seraphi ms : each one had six wings; with 
 twain he covered his face^ and with twain he covered his feet^ 
 and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another., and 
 said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts : the whole earth is 
 full of His glory y 
 
 The vision of Isaiah is in many ways remarkable. First, 
 because of the time in which the vision came, and that time 
 brings to us all in passing a lesson. It happened, as you 
 know quite certainly, because the prophet leaves no doubt 
 about it, in the year that Jotham came to reign on the 
 throne ; after the reign of a man that had been most 
 distinguished for three characteristics which followed one 
 after the other as a natural consequence. He distinguished 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 269 
 
 himself for pride, pride quite naturally was followed by pre- 
 sumption, and then, as a necessary consequence, by sacri- 
 lege. He had begun, like other men since, in even modern 
 times, by thinking himself rather better than God ; he had 
 gone on to presume on the awful image of the Eternal; and 
 he ended by disregarding the very House of God, and by 
 thinking that while his palace ought to be adorned with 
 splendour of decoration, the House of God might be any- 
 thing under the sun ; that anything, however ugly or con- 
 temptible, was quite good enough for God. There have 
 been plenty of Uzziahs in ancient and modern times. He 
 died, and as he died, and Jotham his son came to the 
 throne, immediately a great change took place.. Why? 
 As long as there is, just as long as there was, pride, pre- 
 sumption, sacrilege, there is no vision ; God’s laws do not 
 change. He is not moved although we forget it. The 
 unchanging laws of His love are the same, and if people 
 are proud and presumptuous and sacrilegious they will get 
 what they like ; for Uzziah had been filled with pride, 
 presumption, sacrilege, and there had been no vision. 
 There followed, as you remember, the accession to the 
 throne of Jotham. And Jotham is one spot of blue in the 
 sky, in the long line of kings. No sooner had the spotless 
 king come to the throne and the sacrilegious one gone, 
 “ in the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord.” The 
 revelation was remarkable : and let us remember that the 
 way to see God is first to come to Him, and then with 
 confidence based upon His promises, which is no presump- 
 tion, and takes away your sorrow, you get a sense of His 
 presence which teaches you that there is nothing in worship 
 or in offering, external or internal, too good for God. That 
 is the meaning of the vision. But then the vision of Uzziah 
 was remarkable for a another reason, because it marks a 
 change in the life of the prophet, it cuts across that life 
 with a most splendid chasm. Before that, Isaiah was a 
 prophet of things of comparatively little interest, but after- 
 wards he prophesied of the kingdom of Christ. But the 
 vision is remarkable for a third reason. It points out, first, 
 a revelation, the unveiling of Him from whom we come, 
 and to whom we go, in whom we live and move and have 
 our being. It points out to us the nature of Him upon 
 whom we trust, every pulse that throbs, every thought that 
 
270 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 flashes across the brain, every affection that warms the 
 heart teaches us His nature, and that is important ; it re- 
 minds us very distinctly of the duty of the creature when 
 he is face to face with the Creator. It reminds us also of 
 distinguishing characteristics of the Church of God, as 
 distinct from all religions or half-religions that have taken 
 up a sort of appearance of being the tabernacle of the 
 Eternal. For that reason the vision is quite interesting ; 
 and therefore let us gaze upon that vision for a few moments 
 and try to learn some of the lessons that are in it. 
 
 The one great refrain of the prophet’s vision, if you bring 
 it up to its final result, is that which ought to occupy your 
 thoughts and mine. God ! God ! Well, I would remind 
 you that it is always well, in the great mercy of our 
 Creator, that times like this should come upon us, when 
 we are lifted, whether we will or not, out of that which is 
 apparent into that which is real. Let me speak upon a 
 theme too large to dwell much upon. We are living, I 
 speak with all sincerity, in a world of appearances. We 
 are carried away by the appearances of the moment, we 
 are borne away from the present ; the necessities of life, 
 the anxieties of business, the demands of the moment, 
 the cry of man around us, the awful sorrows of the poor, 
 the splendours and the troubles of increasing civilization, 
 our own needs, thoughts, intellectual characters, these 
 things are borne in upon us, are they not ? from moment 
 to moment. We are crushed by appearances, we forget 
 what is real. Oh ! is it not good for God to call us by 
 what we call circumstances, to remember that appearance 
 is one thing and life is quite another ; to remember that 
 there is a real world around us ; and that the prophet’s 
 vision is not a pretty picture like Raphael’s picture of 
 Ezekiel’s vision in the galleries of Florence, not a pretty 
 poem like Milton’s Paradise Lost, but is a revelation, the 
 most awful and beautiful, the most real that we can con- 
 template. When, for a moment, we come out of the world, 
 when we contemplate God as He is, we shall be His 
 people. 
 
 The vision of the prophet puts before us first, in a very 
 awful manner, God. We can apprehend, we cannot com- 
 prehend that. The mind can strike it, and it can strike 
 the mind, but it cannot grasp so great a thought. But 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 271 
 
 there is a thought about it which the mind can grasp. As 
 the prophet paints them in his vision there were creatures 
 in the temple of God that spread their wings, two of them 
 to cover the face, two to cover the feet lest they should 
 touch the soil, two with stretched-out wings that they might 
 do Him service. But, whatever they did else, they did with 
 great ecstasy of soul : — “ Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of 
 hosts.” They did that which the Church does or ought 
 to do, they did that which precisely, at the highest level, 
 you and I are bound to do, and which one day, please God, 
 we shall do. 
 
 The creatures were, in the first place, engaged in the 
 exercise of an intellectual satisfaction. There is about 
 what they did, not the outcome of a beautiful, prophetic, 
 inspired enthusiasm, not the outcome of a mere enthusiasm 
 at all. It lay upon a fact, that was a thing, and is what is 
 helpful to us now. Facts are the only reliable certainties ; 
 dreams, visions, theories, all other physical aspects will 
 vanish, scientific theories will go, while facts stand. A 
 man that denies or ignores a fact is a man that dashes his 
 head against a wall ; in plain English, he is a fool. And so 
 when we come face to face with the creatures, we shall see 
 that their cry is a cry of intellectual satisfaction, based 
 upon a fact, a quiet restrainedness which is worth our 
 attention. 
 
 Human nature is always the same, and man is frail, and 
 in modern times religion has sometimes taken the form 
 of a wild rhapsody. Now rhapsody is a kind of ecstatic 
 poetry, as in the rose-coloured light of dreams. Sometimes 
 it is beautiful, sometimes attractive ; but there is always 
 this distinguishing sorrow about it, that when it is past, 
 flitted across your brain like a dream, there is nothing left 
 like the basis of fact : a wild religion, like that of the 
 middle ages in a large part of Southern Germany, and like 
 a certain amount of religion in modern times amongst some 
 who strive to do good, therefore we wish them well, but a 
 religion made up of rhapsody and enthusiasm, and unlike 
 the religion of the Crucified. 
 
 Believe me, a religion of rhapsody, a religion strongest 
 when the nerves are weak and the body is excited, when 
 we take such a religion into the world, standing face to 
 face with awful changes, with terrible accident, with dread- 
 
272 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 ful death, then that religion fails. There is nothing at all, 
 as I submit, of rhapsody about the cry of the creatures. It 
 is the cry of an intellectual satisfaction. There is an actual 
 truth built upon it, a splendid consequence, the going out 
 of a lofty intellect ; a sweet restrainedness, a wise modera- 
 tion. Ah ! believe me that restrainedness and moderation 
 never die down into that which carries a mere majority. 
 They are always akin to truth. 
 
 There are rocks in the Atlantic far too high ever to be 
 touched by the most lofty spray. And there are thoughts 
 too lofty ever to be washed by the spray of mere empty 
 words, and so the cry of the creatures is the cry of intel- 
 lectual satisfaction. They are dealing with a fact, and I 
 should like you to remember that fact : “ Holy, holy, 
 holy is the Lord of hosts : the earth is full of His glory.” 
 We deal with a serious fact, and it is quite possible to 
 contemplate it Ly the intellect. You know that there are 
 intellectual men of great note in the intellectual world, 
 who think that our religion, and small blame to them, 
 considering the way in which it has been put before them, 
 — they imagine that our religion is a rhapsody. And 
 there are many faults in our religion — judging by the 
 voices of many politicians — but there is, at any rate, one 
 sin that cannot be laid to the charge of the Church, at 
 any rate she cannot be charged with rhapsody. No, no ! 
 rather the other way ; and after all, is it not a sacred and 
 a wise way } 
 
 The cry of the creatures is not only a cry of intellectual 
 satisfaction but an act of spiritual life. Suppose you ask, 
 ‘‘What is man } ” The Church answers, and the material- 
 ists join their voices in answering, “ Man is an animal, 
 man will die, dissolve into dust, pass away into gases, 
 disappear. But supposing you ask the question again, the 
 cry of the materialists will be silent, but the voice of the 
 Church of Christ would be loud, “ Man is a spirit.” The 
 cry of the creatures was a spiritual act. The Church speaks 
 truth, and if we are spirits we can understand it. What is 
 it } There is one act of the spiritual life that to me is most 
 true, and I can describe it in no better word than that the 
 cry of the creatures is an aspiration. We have all felt 
 aspiration some time or other. The boy is ever hoping 
 for manhood, the man struggles on to middle life ; yes ! 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 27.3 
 
 and when he reaches the confines of old age there is still 
 hope in him, kindled within in some dying embers of the 
 fire of the past. We are ever looking to the future, aspiring 
 always ; there is a poetry about even the lowest and the 
 basest if we can only get at it through the medium that 
 surrounds him, as mediums surround all of us — conven- 
 tionalism, fear of other people, pretence, respectability — ' 
 that wrap us all around unless we keep near to God. 
 
 There is always the aspiration, the hope for better things. 
 You read your newspaper each morning, as an ordinary 
 English citizen, and take note of this or that advantage, 
 amused sometimes when you see through the motive for 
 doing the things you see done. You go to your prayers 
 five minutes after, and think about what you have read as 
 a Christian — the disasters, the sorrow that prevails every- 
 where, the struggles of passion, jealousy, self-seeking, misery 
 that make up human existence and human history ; and 
 if you have a heart within you or a mind to think of it all 
 in the light from beyond the confines of time, and you 
 hope for something better than we dream of, you aspire 
 for the coming of a moral world when all the crime and 
 sin will be gone, when the scientific and commercial life 
 shall be purified. The act of a spirit is aspiration. We 
 have known what it is 
 
 “To rise on stepping-stones of our dead selves to higher things.” 
 
 We have known too — and the Lord help us — more self- 
 seeking, less lofty views, less pure determination as well 
 as higher purposes. Our path begins in hope ; possibly we 
 have gone on to a middle life, and the path is strewed with 
 dead leaves ; but there yet may be within us a rising of 
 hope, that is the first whisper of the hope of the glory, 
 that there is a higher life, a better future, where not the 
 lowest possessions but the highest faculties of man may 
 find their satisfaction. That is an act of a living spirit. 
 Now, most certainly the cry of the creatures was an act 
 of spiritual life — to see, to understand, in some measure, 
 the vision of Him who is the Beginning and the End of us 
 all. Therefore, as they gazed aspiring and yet satisfied, 
 satisfied and yet aspiring, rising more and more into the 
 high thoughts ot perfect brightness, goodness, holiness — and 
 the beauty and the truth is lofty as the heavens and deep 
 
 T 
 
274 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 as the deeps — they rose, as you and I may rise, day by 
 day into better thoughts, more responsible power, more 
 determined intention, purer, sincerer purposes ; they were 
 overwhelmed by the vision of His majesty, and they cried, 
 “ Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts/' They lost them- 
 selves in Him, and that is what the Christian may do by 
 His grace; they lost themselves in aspiration towards 
 God. 
 
 There is only one more act of the creatures that I should 
 like to notice. It was not only the exercise of an intel- 
 lectual satisfaction, nor yet only the act of a spiritual life. 
 No ! it was that which touches us more closely, the cry of 
 a warm embracing affection, of the heart of the creature 
 to the Heart from which his life came. 
 
 Ah ! surely none of us have sunk so low in lust or self- 
 ishness, or contemptible love of the world, as to have lost 
 the sense of affection. Surely each of us knows some- 
 thing of what it is to love, to love others, and if we love 
 others, to rise into the love of God. Well, if we do that 
 we have got a kind of whispered thought of that eternal 
 life, that view which is brought before us in the vision. 
 It was an act of affection that loved God. It is like a 
 picture of the human heart when it stands face to face 
 with the dear dear friend, and remembers the future when it 
 watches some strange vision in an open grave, and hopes 
 for a resurrection. It is like a picture of the human heart 
 in its better moments, its higher resolves, its sweeter visions; 
 and like the cry of affection it teaches us, O Lord ! Thou 
 art Holy, holy, holy! The whole earth is filled with 
 Thy glory." 
 
 Now let us ask ourselves are there any lessons to be 
 drawn from this, first about the soul, then about the 
 Church } 
 
 First about the soul. Let us learn that a human soul, 
 do what it may, can never do without God. Never in the 
 long run. All the intellectual processes of scientific in- 
 vestigation, I may add all those imaginations of scientific 
 poets which they sometimes put in place of fact, all the 
 dreams of the scientists lead up to one distinguishing con- 
 clusion, that there is one great cause that they, the scientists 
 do not quite understand. They cannot quite do without 
 God. We cannot do without Him intellectually. Oh, be- 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 275 
 
 lieve me, the best way to find that out is to try it as the 
 mathematicians try a problem, as we lads used to do at 
 school. Where does your intellectual criticism land you 
 if you try to do without God I Where } One of the Latin 
 poets, the greatest of any age, to my mind, tried it. He 
 put his striving doubting thoughts into poetry, he ac- 
 knowledged that he had to forget the vision of the life and 
 the death ; and he landed himself in philosophic despair, 
 where intellectual men have often since followed him. 
 There can be certainly no other end to your argument of 
 no God, but first despondency and then despair. 
 
 Try it where wealth and commerce and progress abound, 
 in its highest circles as in its lowest. Oh, I am afraid 
 we have, sometimes, practical testimony; I am afraid it 
 lands you in pure materialism, which is only the hard 
 language of earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. 
 It will only condemn your spirits’ aspirations to con- 
 fusion, dismay, corruption. There is something dignified 
 in intellectual despair ; there is nothing but what is de- 
 basing in materialism. 
 
 Try it another way. Ask yourselves what this great 
 world would be without God — who impels the stately 
 procession of the stars, who measures the circles of the 
 winds, who watches the changing of the seasons.^ Try to 
 reason to yourselves what is the reason and origin of the 
 universe; ask yourselves, ‘'How am I to admire all this 
 beautiful Cosmos^ this Order, this — what the old Greeks 
 used to call God } It lands you into the sense of an 
 awful and prevailing force of pitiless laws, the crushing 
 power of Everlasting Movement without a meaning, and 
 the human will is crushed under the machinery of the 
 universe. And you stand, like a lonely orphan creature, 
 looking at the merciless mechanism, how it would snap 
 your fingers off, tear you to pieces ; for you have dismissed 
 its Master — God. 
 
 Intellectual, scientific, material — none of these can do 
 without Him. And if you cannot tell the reason for it, 
 there is the intellectual satisfaction, the rest of the aspira- 
 tion, of the creature, the object of the heart’s affection ; 
 and it is all to be found in One, in whom is no spot, no 
 blemish, across whom there passes no cloud, in whom is 
 no darkness or shadow of turning, a Friend that never 
 
276 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 changes, a Father with loving tenderness, a Heart on 
 which we may always rest, a dear Companion to whom we 
 can always speak a word. One that leads us in common- 
 place work to higher things, that Saviour is the One that 
 sustains us though we forget Him, the sweet, kind, gentle 
 Nature who brings pardon and peace. Every one that 
 gains faith to go to Him in His revelation in His own dear 
 Son finds that He is holy, that “the whole earth is full 
 of His glory.” 
 
 There is material glory in the flashing heavens, there is 
 moral glory in a good man’s soul, there is supernatural 
 glory in the mysteries and the acts of the Church, of the 
 undying Mother Church. 
 
 Now what are the marks of the true Apostolic, historical 
 Church } First, the reality. The creatures saw a real 
 God, and they really worshipped Him. The Church 
 always loves the reality. There is another mark of the 
 true Church, and it is that she never talks about a 
 supernatural Word, as if it were supposed to be some- 
 times interesting, sometimes useful or profitable, but that 
 there is nothing real about it — as if there were a doubt 
 about it, sometimes holy and sometimes not. Your 
 principles are not those at all. The Church is definite 
 when she teaches, like her Master. The life and the 
 words of Jesus were definite, not like so-called modern 
 Christianity. 
 
 If we have the certain belief in the existence of an 
 immortal spirit, quite definite though invisible, each with 
 joys and sorrows of our own, we can realize that justice 
 is not done in this world, and that therefore there must be 
 a better country ; each of us knows that love has no 
 frontiers and that there must be an Eternal City ; and 
 that the Church, like the cry of the creatures, points to the 
 future. “The whole earth shall be filled with His glory” ; 
 but it does not always show its light, it is also full of dark- 
 ness ; the creatures were speaking of a future as if it were 
 accomplished, for they were gazing upon the coming 
 glory. 
 
 Ah! remember your God I your relation to Him. The 
 tones of your Church must be like the Old Testament 
 harmonies of the Church. And remember, it is quite 
 practical work when you are at church, or at your prayers, 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 277 
 
 commemorating the sacrifice of Calvary, listening to the 
 words of truth, worshipping God. And when you are 
 doing that you are not wasting time. What are called 
 practical men, — that is, materialistic men, — think they 
 waste time if they are with God. 
 
 Remember, the moments that you spend in prayer, in 
 contemplating Scripture, in worship, are fruitful for eter- 
 nity. You must not be contented with doing this for 
 yourselves. You must be apostles, you must get others to 
 love God, to perform duty, to seek to fulfil your conviction. 
 That is livmg God. That is climbing up to the love of 
 God ; and remember that as the creatures could gaze on 
 His glory, you and I can gaze on His humanity. Jesus, 
 the founder of the Sacraments, the Friend of humanity, 
 the Author of the Bible, the Builder of broken hearts, the 
 great Sacrifice for our iniquity, — He is the Revealer of 
 that awful vision. 
 
 Why > He loved lost women, and saved them ; little 
 children He loved, and He saved them ; despised not the rich 
 man, but corrected him. He gathered young and old to 
 Him by the beauty of His goodness. He was always 
 young although growing old, always fresh although the 
 centuries have travelled on. And you and I look at Him 
 in the midst of our sins, weakness, sorrows ; you and I 
 lean on Jesus with our breaking hearts and our despairing 
 fancies ; you and I follow His example, trying to do our 
 duty, to fulfil our vocation, to be kind and tender and true 
 and faithful, large of heart, generous, forgiving, patient. 
 You and I are doing, are we not } something like that. 
 We see the Godhead then when we look at Him and 
 worship Him. Oh ! live for God ; make your church 
 worthy of Him ; make your offerings worthy of God ; try 
 to follow the example of God in Christ ; then you will 
 feel your own unworthiness, your own misery in life and in 
 time. But you will feel this certainly and assuredly, that 
 you can look up, with the creatures, in intellectual satis- 
 faction, with the spirit’s aspiration, with the love of the 
 heart of the creature, on Him the Creator. You may cry, 
 “O my God ! my Saviour! Thou art awful and holy, but 
 Thou art a Man and a Brother, a Friend, a Helper. I am 
 broken-hearted, sin-stricken ; help me to come to Jesus, to 
 persevere in following Him, to attain to Him ; that we 
 
278 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 may each attain to His blessed side.” And when we v^ake 
 up with Jesus, after this world of weary conflict, we shall 
 indeed be satisfied in Him. 
 
 W. J. K. L. 
 
 XXXIV. The Vision of the Dry Bones. Ezek. 
 
 xxxvii. 3 . A7id He said unto me^ Son of man ^ can these 
 
 bones livet And I answered^ O Lord God, Thou knowestP 
 
 Those who have read the book of the Prophet Ezekiel — 
 and it is perhaps less read than any other book in the Old 
 Testament — will remember this vision of the dry bones. 
 Like many other visions before and since, it is partly 
 shaped by the circumstances of the times. The horrors of 
 the Chaldean invasion, which had resulted in carrying 
 away the Jewish people into Babylon, were still fresh in 
 the memories of men. In many a valley, on many a hill- 
 side in Southern Palestine, the track of the invading army 
 as it advanced and retired would have been marked by the 
 bones of the unoffending but slaughtered peasantry. In a 
 work written some years ago, Mr. Layard has described 
 such a scene in Armenia, an upland valley, covered by the 
 bones of the Christian population who had been plundered 
 and murdered by Kurds. Such a scene may well have 
 suggested to Ezekiel that the vision was so shaped as to 
 express a truth which Israel needed to know. Ezekiel, 
 wrapped in a spiritual ecstasy, was set down in a valley 
 that was full of bones. He was gazing upon them round 
 about, he marked their great number, he marked their 
 dryness. They were the bones of a multitude of men who 
 had been slain long since. He was asked by the Divine 
 Being, with whom he was the while in close communion, 
 “Son of man, can these bones live?” Ezekiel knew that 
 nothing was impossible with God ; he knew too, that what 
 was possible might be forbidden by necessities, by laws of 
 which he knew nothing, and he reverently answered, “ O 
 Lord God, Thou knowest,” and forthwith he was made the 
 instrument through which the question which had been 
 put to him was answered. “ He said unto me. Prophesy 
 upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear 
 the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 279 
 
 these bones ; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, 
 and ye shall live : and I will lay sinews upon you, and 
 will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and 
 put breath in you, and ye shall live ; and ye shall know 
 that I am the Lord.” And then Ezekiel continues : “ So 
 I prophesied as I was commanded : and as I prophesied, 
 there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones 
 came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, 
 the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin 
 covered them above : but there was no breath in them.” 
 That was the first stage of the revival ; it was still incom- 
 plete, something more was needed, something which the 
 prophet goes on to describe. “Then said He unto me, 
 Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to 
 the wind. Thus saith the Lord God ; Come from the 
 four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that 
 they may live.” Then he continues : So I prophesied 
 
 as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, 
 and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an ex- 
 ceeding great army.” That was the second stage of the 
 revival, and it is followed by the explanation or purpose 
 of the vision. 
 
 But let us at this point ask ourselves the question, what 
 are we to understand by the dry bones of the vision of 
 Ezekiel. The dry bones of Ezekiel's vision are doubtless, 
 to begin with, the bones of human bodies, bones from which 
 all the flesh had been completely stripped or decayed away 
 through exposure to the air. Ezekiel beholds the working 
 of God upon these bones, he sees them again clothed witli 
 flesh, with sinews, and finally the breath comes into them, 
 and they live, they stand on their feet. This is plainly a 
 picture of a resurrection, not, indeed, of the general resur- 
 rection, because what Ezekiel saw was clearly limited and 
 local, but at the same time it is a sample of what will occur 
 at the general resurrection, and on this ground the passage 
 is regarded by the Church as a proper lesson for Easter 
 Tuesday. It may be urged that this representation is 
 presently explained to refer to something quite distinct — 
 namely the restoration of the Jewish people from Babylon, 
 and, therefore, that what passed before the prophet’s eye 
 need not have been regarded by him as more than an 
 imaginary or even impossible occurrence intending to 
 
28 o expository sermons and outlines 
 
 symbolise a coming event. But if this were the case, the 
 vision, it must be said, was very ill adapted for its pro- 
 posed purpose. The idea of the restoration from Babylon 
 was humanly, or politically speaking, sufficiently improb- 
 able already, without heightening its existing improbability 
 by what is then supposed to have been a greater improba- 
 bility still. Men do not learn to accept difficult or un- 
 familiar truths through the assistance of truth still more un- 
 familiar, still more difficult. The fact is, that the form of 
 Ezekiel's vision, and the popular use which Ezekiel made of 
 it, shows that at this date the idea of the resurrection of the 
 body could not have been a strange one to religious views. 
 Had it been so Ezekiel’s vision would have been turned 
 against him. The restoration from the captivity would have 
 been thought more improbable than ever if the measure of 
 its improbability was to be found in a doctrine unbelieved in 
 as yet by the people of revelation. We know, in fact, from 
 their own Scriptures, that the Jews had had for many a 
 century, glimpses more or less distinct of this truth. Long 
 ago the mother of Samuel could sing that the Lord bringeth 
 down to the grave and bringeth up ; and Job could be sure 
 that though worms destroy his body yet in his flesh he 
 would see God ; and David, speaking for a Higher Being 
 than himself, yet knows that God will not leave His soul in 
 hell, nor suffer His Holy One to see corruption ; and 
 Daniel, Ezekiel’s contemporary, or nearly so, foresees that 
 many who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, 
 some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting 
 contempt;” and later on the courageous mother of the seven 
 IMaccabean martyrs cries to her dying sons that “the 
 Creator of the world, who formed the generations of men, 
 and thought out the beginning of all things, will also of His 
 mercy give you life and breath again, if you regard not 
 yourselves for His sake.” Undoubtedly there was among 
 Ijie Jews a certain belief in the resurrection of the body, a 
 belief which this very vision must have at once represented 
 and confirmed. Men shrink from admitting the id^a that 
 there will be a resurrection of the dead, on the ground 
 mainly that it involves an exertion of Divine power to which 
 nothing exactly corresponds within the range of everyday 
 experience. Whether it is quite right to make the range of 
 our experience the measure of what God can do may be 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 281 
 
 more than questionable, but at least the doctrine of the 
 resurrection of all men from the dead involves no greater 
 difficulty for a thoughtful man than that which he already 
 encounters, if he believes seriously in God at all. For 
 belief in God involves as a necessary part of itself a belief 
 in the creation cf the universe out of nothing. However 
 you may multiply the centuries during which man is sup- 
 posed to have existed on the surface of this planet ; how- 
 ever vast may be the common tracks of time which you 
 may demand as theoretically necessary to fill up the in- 
 terval between some primary chaos and man's first appear- 
 ance on the scene ; say what you will about the date of the 
 solar system, or of the fixed stars, or of the presumable 
 history of their evolution, still in the last resort, in the rear 
 of these theories amid which the scientific imagination may 
 run such splendid riot, the question of questions awaits 
 your answer, it cannot be ignored, it cannot be eluded — how 
 did the original matter out of which all that we see around 
 us itself took shape, how did this originally come to be? 
 That is the question into which all others ultimately re- 
 solve themselves, and upon the answer which is given to 
 it depends no less an issue than belief or disbelief in the 
 existence of God. For if you say that original uniform 
 unevolved matter always existed, then you deny the exist- 
 ence of the Being whom we call God. God is nothing if He 
 is not alone everlasting, if He is not the source of all else 
 that is, if He is not in His essence altogether spiritually im- 
 material. If there existed an everlasting side by side with 
 God, a something which you call matter which is not Him- 
 self, which is in its essence distinct from Himself, which did 
 not owe its existence to Him, and which, as being itself pre- 
 sumably eternal, contradicts the first law in nature as the 
 source of all that is besides Himself, then God the Creator 
 of all things has no existence. But if, having on dependent 
 grounds a clear and strong belief in God, you deny as you 
 must deny the eternity of matter, then you must trace the 
 origin of the raw material out of which this universe has 
 been fashioned, in whatever way, back to God. How did it 
 come from Him If it escaped from Him, — and what 
 would be this escape of matter from the immaterial } — if it 
 escaped from Him without or against His will, then He is 
 no longer master, not merely of His creation but of Himself. 
 
282 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 Being God, He must have summoned it into being by the 
 free act of His free will. There is nothing out of which to 
 frame it and therefore He must have summoned it out of 
 nothing. There was vacancy, and He bade the rude elements, 
 of matter to begin to be. It was something to fashion man 
 out of the existing dust of the earth, but to give existence 
 to the dust of the earth when as yet there was nothing, 
 was an infinite exercise of power. Think, my brethren, 
 think what this means, creation out of nothing, that act 
 which every thinking and sincere believer in God must 
 necessarily credit Him with, and then compare it with the 
 relatively puny difficulties which we are told ought to arrest 
 the hand of the Great Creator on the day of the general 
 resurrection. It is not for us to trace His methods of pro- 
 cedure by audacious guesses, or to say how He will restore 
 to each human body such of its proper materials as may 
 have drifted away into subtle connection with other forms ; 
 but this I take it is certain to any reasonable man, that no 
 difficulties about the resurrection of the body can seriously 
 suspend our belief in it if we do believe already in God as 
 really God, that is as the Creator, and believe further that 
 He has told us that He will one day raise the bodies of all 
 men from the dead. 
 
 Ezekiel’s vision, then, may remind us of wRat Christ our 
 Lord has taught us again and again in His own words of 
 the resurrection of the body. But its teaching by no means 
 ends with this. For the dry bones of Ezekiel’s vision may 
 well represent the conditions of societies of men at par- 
 ticular times in their history, the condition of nations, of 
 Churches, of less important institutions. Indeed, Ezekiel 
 as we have seen was left in no kind of doubt about the 
 divinely intended meaning of his vision. The dry bones 
 were pictures of what the Jewish nation believed itself to 
 be, as a consequence of the captivity in Babylon. All that 
 was left of it could be best compared to the bones of the 
 Jews which had been massacred by the Chaldean invader, 
 and which bleached the hillsides of Palestine. “ He said 
 unto me, These bones are the whole house of Israel : behold, 
 they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost : we are 
 cut off” Certainly, in the captivity little was left of Israel 
 beyond the skeleton of its former self. There were the 
 sacred books, there were royal descendants of the race of 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 283 
 
 Jacob, there were priests, there were prophets, there was 
 the old Hebrew and sacred language not yet wholly cor- 
 rupted into Chaldean, there were precious traditions of 
 the past great days of Jerusalem, — these were the dry 
 bones of what had been earlier. There was nothing to 
 animate them, they lay on the soil of heathenism, they lay 
 apart from each other as if quite unconnected. The form 
 of the representation changes as the explanation succeeds 
 the vision. They now lay buried beneath the soil, 
 beneath the thick layer of Pagan life, of Pagan worship, of 
 Pagan oppression, of Pagan vice, which buried them out of 
 sight To the captive people Babylon was not merely a 
 valley of dry bones, but socially and politically it was fatal 
 to the corporate life of Israel — Babylon was a grave ; ac- 
 cordingly the prophet was desired to address his country- 
 men : “ Thus saith the Lord God ; Behold, O my people, I 
 will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of 
 your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye 
 shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your 
 graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your 
 graves.’' And this is what actually did happen at the 
 restoration of the Jews from Babylon. Each of the 
 promises in Ezekiel’s vision was fulfilled. The remains of 
 the past history, its sacred books, its priests, its prophets, 
 its laws, its great traditions, its splendid hopes, these once 
 more moved in the soul of the nation as if with the motion 
 of reviving life. They came together, they were readjusted 
 into an harmonious whole, they received the clothing of 
 bone and sinew which originally belonged to them. And 
 the nation, thus reconstructed in the days of its captivity, 
 was lifted by the Divine power out of its grave, and restored 
 to the upper air of its ancient Temple in Palestine. It was 
 a wonderful restoration, almost if not altogether unique in 
 history. We see it in progress in the 119th Psalm, which 
 doubtless belongs to this period, which exhibits the upward 
 struggle of a sincere and beautiful soul at the first dawn of 
 the national resurrection, and we read of its completion in 
 the books of Ezra and Nehemiaii ; it was completed when 
 the Temple, the centre of the spiritual and national life, was 
 fully rebuilt, and when the whole life of the people in its 
 completeness was thus renewed in the spot which had been 
 the home of their fathers from generation to generation. 
 
284 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 And something of the same kind has been seen in por- 
 tions of the Christian Church. As a whole, we know the 
 Church of Christ cannot fail, the gates of hell shall not 
 prevail against it ; but particular Churches may fail in 
 their different degrees, — national Churches, provincial 
 Churches, local Churches. These, like the Seven Churches 
 in Asia, which stands as a warning for all the ages of 
 Christendom, these may experience their varying degrees 
 of corruption and ruin and the moral insensibility which 
 precedes death. So it was with the Church of Rome long 
 ago even as the tenth century. Those who know the 
 history of that century know that no man could ever have 
 violated the spirit and the law of Christ more flagrantly 
 than did the rulers of the Roman Church in that dark and 
 miserable age, and yet this age was succeeded by a striking 
 moral and religious restoration. And so it has been, though 
 in a somewhat different sense, with the Church of England, 
 and more than once since the Reformation. 
 
 When John Keble entered upon the work of his life, 
 the Church of England was to a considerable extent in 
 the condition which answered to Ezekiel’s vision of the 
 valley of dry bones. She had succeeded to a splendid 
 inheritance, but she understood her privileges very im- 
 perfectly. In large numbers of people the higher and 
 nobler sides of the Christian life, its pathos, its fulness, 
 its risks, its strength, its capacities for heroism, its capa- 
 cities for sacrifice, its great power derived from com- 
 munion with the unseen, and its magnificent prospects 
 had dwarfed down to insignificance — all that lifts above 
 the eye of sense — these had been forgotten. Then the 
 kingdom of heaven had come to the Church almost as 
 one of the kingdoms of this world. The episcopate was 
 merely a form of Church government approved of by 
 the State in this part of the Empire ; the sacraments 
 were old ceremonies, pleasing as a religious sentiment, 
 but very far indeed from being necessary to salvation ; 
 the Bible was a most venerable book, but nobody knew 
 what presently would be said of it ; and as for the 
 Prayer-Book, it was described as a human compilation just 
 three hundred years old. Think of the case of a soul 
 which might hope from the echoes of the Gospel reaching 
 down the centuries, when a home had been found for it on 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT, 
 
 285 
 
 earth — a home in which its sorrows may be consoled and 
 its aspirations encouraged, and then wending its way into 
 the Church which had so largely forgotten its first love as 
 this. There are those still living who can say what has 
 happened to such souls in that dreary period ; but it was the 
 high privilege of the man whom we are thinking of, more 
 perhaps than an}^ other man, to bring the remedy. Not from 
 any position which of itself commanded attention, but as 
 relying on the native course of duty and majesty of truth, 
 he published a collection of poems, unwillingly enough, 
 which has had more effect than a thousand volumes of a 
 more pretentious character. Nobody could think less highly 
 of '‘The Christian Year'’ than did its humbleminded 
 author; and it was, in the judgment of very competent 
 judges, inferior as poetry to other works of his pen, it was 
 merely fugitive, it was careless of finish, it was indistinct, 
 it was hard to be understood by those who had not the 
 key to understand it. It was eminently a book which was 
 not made, but grew, and it was marked by the rude ir- 
 regularities of growth as distinct from the polish and the 
 finish of mere manufacture. But underneath its language, 
 above and beyond its literary faults, whatever they were, 
 there was a subtle, fine, penetrating, I may almost dare to 
 say a Divine spirit, which told of the religious genius of the 
 spirit of its author, and which has renewed the face of the 
 Church of England. It breathed through this book upon 
 the dry bones around it, it clothed once more the chief 
 pastors of the Church in the garb of Apostles, it traced 
 beneath the Sacraments an inward grace which unites to 
 Christ, which supplied the point of view for reading the 
 sacred Scriptures intelligently, yet as an inspired whole 
 and with a constant sense of their profound and unfathom- 
 able meaning. It lighted up the Prayer-Book as a beautiful 
 relic of the past work of the Primitive Church, upon which 
 the sixteenth century, while removing blemishes and cor- 
 ruptions, has after all only lightly laid its hand. It did this 
 after such a fashion that at least we can understand it. 
 Even yet we are too near the date of the publication of 
 this book to take the correct measure of all that it has done 
 for the Christian Church, but we can see enough to be sure 
 that through it breathed the breath of Heaven by which 
 dying Churches are renewed, by which the dry bones of 
 
286 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 past ages of faith and love are again clothed upon with the 
 substance of life. 
 
 And some of us may have noted a like resurrection in 
 some institution, neither as defined as a Church nor yet 
 so broad or inclusive as a nation, in a school, a college, 
 a hospitable, a charitable building, a company. It is the 
 creation, it is the relic of a distant age, it is magnificent 
 in its picturesqueness, it lacks alone nothing but life. It 
 persists in statutes that are no longer observed, it observes 
 ceremonies and customs which have lost their meaning, it 
 constantly holds to a phraseology which tells of a past 
 time and of which the object has been forgotten. But 
 certain it is in each year its members meet, they go through 
 the accustomed usages, they signalise their meeting it may 
 be by splendid banquets, by commanding oratory, but in 
 their heart of hearts they know they are meeting in a 
 valley of dry bones. The old rules, usages, phrases, dresses, 
 these are scattered around them like the bones of Ezekiel’s 
 vision, a life which, once animated and clothed, has long 
 since perished away. They lie apart, without connection 
 with each other, without attempt at arrangement, without 
 the decencies of order, and the question is, who shall bring 
 them together, who shall restore to them movement and 
 power, who shall clothe them with flesh and blood, and make 
 them once more what they might be } But we can think, 
 it may be, of cases where a man has appeared who, instead 
 of contemptuously sweeping away all that the past has left, 
 .sets himself to arrange, to combine, it may be to recon- 
 struct, sets himself, above all, to invoke that Divine Spirit, 
 life, and grace which alone can restore life to the dead and 
 inaugurate a moral and social resurrection. Before he 
 began his work the thought came, “ Can these bones live } 
 but believing in God who is the resurrection as well as the 
 author of life, whether moral or physical, he went forward. 
 It was enough for him to say, “ O Lord God, Thou 
 knowest,” and he heard not long after the Divine voice 
 saying, “ Son of man, prophesy unto the breath, and say, 
 O breath, come into these bones, that they may live.'’ 
 
 Lastly, the dry bones of Ezekiel’s vision may be dis- 
 covered, and that not seldom, within the human soul. 
 When the soul has lost its hold of truth or grace, when it 
 has ceased to believe or ceased to love all the traces of 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 287 
 
 what it once has been, do not forthwith despair. There 
 are survivals of the old believing life, fragments and 
 skeletons of the old affection, bits of stray logic which 
 once created phrases that express the feeling which once 
 won to prayers ; there may remain amid the arid desolation 
 of every valley full of dry bones the aspirations which have 
 no goal, the actions which have no real basis, no practical 
 consequences, the friendships which we feel to be holy and 
 which are still kept up, the habits which have lost all 
 meaning ; we meet with writers, with talkers, with historians, 
 with poets whose language shows that they have once 
 known what it Is to believe, but for whom all living faith 
 has perished utterly and left behind it only these dried-up 
 relics of its former life. Such may be the case — partially 
 at least — of some who hear me, such a case must suggest 
 the solemn question — Can these bones live? Can these 
 phrases, these forms, these habits, and these associations 
 which once were part of the spirit life, can they ever again 
 become what they were } Is it worth while to treasure 
 them ? Were it not better, were it not more sincere, to have 
 done with them altogether, to disavow what we no longer 
 mean, to abandon habits of devotion which have become 
 for us only forms, to break with practices of piety or 
 benevolence which are only due now to the surviving force 
 of habit ? Why keep up this charnel place of the past } 
 why not clear it out and begin afresh with some such new 
 life as may now be possible } Brethren, it is better now, 
 believe me, to respect the dry bones, though they are only 
 the dry bones, for they have their value in that they witness 
 to the living past, for they have their value in that they 
 point to a possible restoration in the future. It is easy 
 enough to decry religious habit as only habit, as motiveless, 
 soulless, unaccepted service. Doubtless habit which is only 
 habit is not life, but it is better, I dare say, than nothing 
 at all, better if not in itself, yet surely for the sake of that 
 which it may lead on to. A man may have ceased to 
 mean his prayers, his prayers may now be but the dry 
 bones of that warm and loving communion which he once 
 held with his God ; but do not let him on that account 
 give them up, do not let him break with the little that 
 remains of what once was life. It is easy enough to decry 
 habit, but habit may be the scaffolding which saves us 
 
288 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 from a great fall, habit may be the arch which bridges over 
 a chasm which yawns between one height and another on 
 our upward road ; habit without motive is sufficiently un- 
 satisfactory, but habit is better, better far, than nothing. 
 Some of us it may be, surveying the shrivelled elements of 
 our religious life, cannot avoid the question which comes in 
 upon us from Heaven, ‘fCan these bones live?^' they seem ' 
 to us, even in our best moments, so hopelessly dislocated, 
 so dry, so dead ; but to this question the answer must 
 always be, ‘‘ O Lord God, Thou knowest.'' Yes, He does 
 know ; He sees, as He saw of old into the grave of Lazarus ; 
 He sees as He saw into the tomb of the Lord Jesus; so 
 He sees into the crypts of a soul of whose faith and love 
 only these dry bones remain, and He knows that life is 
 again possible — ay, that it is much more than possible, 
 that the Word of His power may again clothe with form 
 and with flesh, the breath of His Spirit may again impart 
 animation, warmth, movement, life, the quickening power 
 of Christ’s Resurrection, from which all recovery, whether 
 moral or social or physical, must go forth, — this may 
 assert itself victoriously in that desert soul, so that, like as 
 Christ Himself was raised up from the dead in the glory of 
 the Father, even so this soul shall walk in newness of life. 
 
 H. P. L. 
 
 XXXV. Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel iv. 37. Those that 
 walk in pride He is able to abase I 
 
 These are the words of King Nebuchadnezzar on his re- 
 storation from the deepest fall, from the most fearful exile, 
 that ever befel one of the children of men. The chapter 
 which records it is one of the most eloquent, one of the 
 most pathetic chapters in the Bible. There is inspiration 
 in the sound. If it were an allegory, if it were a parable, 
 if it were a poem, it would still have the breath of God in 
 it. We believe it to be history. We are not of those who 
 think lightly of the testimony of the Bible till it can bring 
 profane evidence to corroborate it. Well may it be said of 
 many of the records of the Old Testament Scriptures, If 
 these should hold their peace the very stones would cry 
 out.” Again and again the stones have cried out, to an 
 incredulous generation, in proof of a discredited Bible and 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 289 
 
 a forgotten God. Inscriptions of which the very language 
 had been lost for ages have yielded themselves to the patient 
 toil of modern discoverers, to the laborious induction of 
 modern philologists, and have confirmed the Word of God 
 in Scripture by an unsuspicious and unquestionable voice 
 from the deserts and ruins, from the very dens and caves of 
 the earth. If it has not yet been quite so with the particulars 
 of the mysterious eclipse and new splendour of the magni- 
 ficent king, whose destiny it was, in so many ways, to cross 
 the path of the theocratic people, and thus to secure for 
 himself unawares a share in the immortality of the Bible, 
 we can still believe that somewhere in the hidden archives 
 there may exist such a- confirmation to be revealed in due 
 time of Him with whom ‘‘a thousand years are as one 
 day ; ” and if not, the Bible record, alone and unsupported, 
 shall suffice for us : the dream and the interpretation, the 
 proud boast from the palace roof, and the voice from heaven 
 sentencing it, the alienation and aberration of the reason, 
 the banishment from the society of men, till humiliation 
 has had its perfect work, at last the return of the under- 
 standing, and with it of the glory of the kingdom, and the 
 tribute paid by the despot and the polytheist to the supreme 
 power of the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, 
 and His ways judgment, whose hand none can stay, nor 
 say to Him, ‘‘ What doest Thou ? ” 
 
 A man of great name in the Church of England, whose 
 recent departure, in the fulness of days and of good works, 
 has been the signal for an outburst of promiscuous and 
 somewhat indiscriminating panegyric, from a wider circle 
 than that of his own party and following, chose this book 
 of the prophet Daniel some twenty years ago, to quote his 
 own words, as the subject of his contribution against that 
 tide of scepticism which a particular publication had, in 
 his opinion, let loose upon the young and uninstructed 
 In his preface to that volume of lectures he used one ex- 
 pression with which I think we shall all be in sympathy. 
 “ This has been,” he says, ‘‘ for some thirty years a deep 
 conviction of my soul — that no book can be written in 
 behalf of the Bible like the Bible itself. Men’s defences 
 are men’s words : they may help to beat off attacks ; they 
 may draw out some portion of its meaning ; the Bible 
 is God’s Word : through it God the Holy Ghost speaks 
 
 U 
 
290 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 to the soul which closes not itself against it. Let us 
 hear that Word in one of its most searching, humbling 
 utterances ; “ Those that walk in pride God is able to 
 abase.'' 
 
 I. Pride and vanity. In one of our famous English uni- 
 versities an annual sermon is preached on “Pride." No 
 one will say that once a year is too often for a congregation, 
 young and old, to be bidden to meditate on that thesis. I 
 propose it to you to-day, not being so presumptuous as to 
 think of preaching it in a formal manner by definitions and 
 divisions more suitable to the lecture-room, but proposing 
 to draw one or two reflections upon it from the history here 
 opened before us, and to ask of you that spirit of self-appli- 
 cation, without which, on such a subject, we speak and we 
 hear in vain. 
 
 We see introduced abruptly, for it seems to be the turn- 
 ing point of the whole, that appearance of the great king 
 walking in his palace of Babylon, and saying, whether to 
 himself or in the hearing of his courtiers does not appear, 
 “ Is not this great Babylon, that I have builded by the 
 might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty ? " 
 
 Many learned things have been said and written upon 
 the nature and essence of pride. Probably none of them 
 could equal in depth and impressiveness this account of 
 pride-speaking, this repeated pronoun, the personal and 
 the possessive : “ Great Babylon, that I have builded by 
 the might of my power, and for the honour of 7ny majesty." 
 Whatever other definitions may be given of pride, certainly 
 this is true of it, that it is the contemplation of self, a con- 
 centration in self, the having self in the throne of the being, 
 as the one object of attention, of observation, of considera- 
 tion, always, everywhere, and in all things. 
 
 It is often assumed that this attention given to self is of 
 necessity the contemplation of supposed excellence, that 
 it is therefore, so far as it is characteristic of pride, of the 
 nature of self-complacency, or self-admiration, and yet some 
 of the proudest of men have been at the very antipodes of 
 self-satisfaction. 
 
 It is the very consciousness of their own deformity, moral 
 or physical, of their own inferiority in some prized or 
 coveted particular of birth, gift, or grace, which has driven 
 them in upon themselves in an unlovely and unloving iso- 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 291 
 
 lation. Self-complacency is not the only form of pride. 
 It is doubtful whether that self-complacency does not rather 
 belong to the very different title of vanity. A beggar may 
 be proud ; a cripple may be proud ; failure takes refuge in 
 pride — even moral failure, the experience of perpetual 
 defeat in that life-battle with which no stranger inter- 
 meddles. Pride is self-contemplation, but not necessarily 
 self-admiration ; self-absorption, but not necessarily self- 
 adoration. 
 
 It is not quite evident from the words of King Nebu- 
 chadnezzar whether his besetting sin was pride or vanity. 
 Something may turn upon the unanswerable question 
 whether he thought or whether he spoke the ‘‘ Is not this 
 great Babylon.^” I think that vanity always speaks. I 
 doubt if the vain man ever keeps his vanity to himself. I 
 am sure that pride can be silent ; I am not sure that pride 
 as pride ever speaks. If I would ascertain which of the 
 two was Nebuchadnezzar’s failing, I should look rather to 
 the hints dropped first in the judgment upon him, and 
 then in the account of the recovery. From the one I learn 
 that what he had to be taught was that the heavens do 
 rule ; from the other I learn that he then first praised and 
 honoured Him that liveth for ever. This decides me that, 
 however pride and vanity may have mingled (if they ever 
 do mingle) in his composition, pride was the differentia ; 
 that pride which contemplates self as the all in all of life 
 and being, not necessarily as beautiful, or perfect, or happy; 
 not necessarily as satisfactory, either in circumstance or in 
 character, but as practically independent of all above and 
 all below it— the one object of importance, and interest, 
 and devotion ; knowing neither a superior to reverence, nor 
 an inferior to regard. Vanity, though, or perhaps because, 
 a poorer or meaner thing, is also a shallower thing, and less 
 vital. Vanity may still be kind, a charity. Vanity may 
 stil love and be loved. Vanity, I had almost said, and I 
 will say it, vanity may still worship. Vanity does not 
 absolutely need to be taught the great lesson that the 
 Most High rules in the kingdom of men,’' or ‘'does accord- 
 ing to His will in the army of heaven.” Pride and vanity 
 both ask, " Is not this great Babylon } ” but vanity asks it 
 for applause from below, pride asks it in disdain of One 
 above. 
 
292 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 But in all this, brethren, we may not have found our own 
 likeness. There may be some, there may be many, here 
 present who are not by natural temperament either proud 
 or vain ; and yet when I think once again what pride is, I 
 doubt whether any one is born without it. We may not 
 dwell complacently upon our own merits. Certainly we 
 may not be guilty of the weakness and the bad taste which 
 would parade those supposed merits before others. Pride 
 itself often casts out vanity, and refuses to make itself ridi- 
 culous by saying aloud, “ Is not this great Babylon ? ” 
 
 But the question is not whether we are self-admirers, 
 but whether we are self-contemplators ; not whether we are 
 conceited in our estimate of gifts or graces, in our retro- 
 spect of attainments or successes, in our consciousness of 
 power, or our supposition of greatness ; but wTiether, on the 
 contrary, we have constantly in our remembrance the deri- 
 vation and the responsibility, and the accountableness of all 
 that we have and are ; whether there is a higher presence and 
 a diviner being always in our view, making it impossible to 
 admire or to adore that self which is so feeble and so con- 
 temptible in comparison ; whether we are so in the habit 
 of asking ourselves the two questions: ‘‘What hast thou 
 which thou hast not received ? ” and “ What hast thou for 
 which thou shalt not give an account ? as to maintain 
 always the attitude of worship, the attitude of devotion 
 within, and this superscription ever upon the doors and 
 gates of the spiritual being, “Whose I am and whom I 
 serve.’’ 
 
 II. God's judgment on pride. We have formed now 
 from the history perhaps some idea of pride. We have 
 heard what pride says to itself in the secrecy of its solitude. 
 The same history shall suggest another thought or two about 
 it, and the first of these is its penal, its judicial isolation. 
 “They shall drive thee from men.” We are not going to 
 explain away the literal, or at least the substantial fulfilment 
 of this prophecy. Though it would be untrue to say that 
 medical history furnishes a complete illustration of the 
 judgment threatened and executed upon King Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, yet medical history does afford a sufficient likeness 
 of it to render the fact, not credible only, for that its being 
 written in the Bible would make it, but approximately 
 intelligible. Some grievous forms of insanity in which the 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 293 
 
 sufferer finds himself transfigured, in imagination at least, 
 into an irrational creature, of which he adopts the actions 
 and gestures, the tones and the habits, under which, in that 
 harsh and cruel treatment of madness, from which even 
 kings down to our own age were not exempt, the dweller 
 in a palace might find himself exiled from the society and 
 companionship of men. Something of this kind may seem 
 to be indicated in this touching and thrilling description, 
 and the use now to be made of it requires no more than 
 this brief and general recognition of the particulars of the 
 history from which it is drawn. He was driven from men : 
 the Nemesis of pride is isolation. The proud man is placed 
 alone in the universe, even while he dwells in a home. This 
 is a terrible feature ; this is the condemning brand of that 
 self-contemplation, that self-concentration, that self-absorp- 
 tion, which we have thought to be the essence of pride. 
 The proud man is driven by his own act, even before judg- 
 ment speaks, if not from the presence, if not from the 
 companionship, at least from the sympathy of his fellows. 
 This isolation of heart and soul is the Cain-like mark set 
 upon the unnaturalness of the spirit which it punishes. No 
 sooner is self made the idol, than it shuts the windows of 
 the inner being alike against God above and man below. 
 “ They shall drive thee from men.” Thou hast driven thy- 
 self from God ! 
 
 Another thought comes to us out of the history. Mark 
 the words describing the recovery : “ Mine understanding 
 returned unto me ; my reason returned unto me.” What 
 was the first use of it ? ‘‘ I blessed the Most High ; I 
 
 praised and honoured Him that liveth for ever.” It is 
 deeply interesting to notice, and it fully accords with the 
 observations of medical men, that the return of reason is 
 here prefaced by a lifting up of the eyes to heaven as 
 though in quest of reconciliation and recognition. Yes, 
 prayer is no stranger to the hospitals and asylums of the 
 insane. Very pathetic is the worship offered within the 
 the walls of those chapels which modern humanity and 
 modern science have combined to append everywhere to 
 the once disconsolate homes of the disordered and deranged 
 intellect. “ I lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and then 
 mine understanding returned to me.” 
 
 Our moral is, the pride which will not worship is of itself 
 
294 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 an insanity. Worship is the rational attitude of the creature 
 towards the Creator. Pride, dreaming of independence ; 
 pride, placing self where God ought to be ; pride, telling of 
 the Babylon which it has builded ; refusing to recognise 
 any being above or below external to it, yet possessing 
 claims upon it, is a non-natural condition. Before ft 
 can recover intellect it must look upward. The first 
 sign of that recovery will be the acknowledgment of the 
 Eternal. 
 
 We have yet one word, and it is that of the text itself : 
 ‘‘Those that walk in pride Pie is able to abase.” Nebu- 
 chadnezzar puts it into his proclamation of thanksgiving : 
 “ Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the 
 King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and His ways 
 judgment : and those that walk in pride He is able to abase.” 
 King Nebuchadnezzar knew it by experience : he had lived 
 in ignorance, he had lived in defiance of it, he had reaped 
 as he had sown, he had walked in pride, he had been driven 
 from men. “ Seven times had passed over him.” Not till 
 he lifted his eyes to heaven, not till he knew that self was 
 not all, did reason return to him. Honour and brightness 
 came back with it. His counsellors and his lords sought 
 him. We in England know, by tradition at least, what the 
 rejoicings are when a monarch recovers his understanding, 
 though there may have been no judgment in that insanity 
 which was the calamity and the sorrow of an earlier genera- 
 tion of Englishmen. Nebuchadnezzar may have meant only 
 to enthrone the God of heaven as one God, though the chief 
 God, of the crowded Pantheon. That is nothing to us now. 
 We can read his words and put our own construction : 
 “Those that walk in pride He is able to abase.” Solemn, 
 awful, terrible confession ; verified day by day in history, 
 not modern only, but of to-day! How often in our ex 
 perience has a proud man, quite apart from act or deed of 
 his own, found himself under a treatment but too nicely 
 calculated to humble him 1 How often has a rich man, 
 building his house on the winnings of chance or of specu- 
 lation, found to his discomfiture that he has built it upon 
 the sand ! How often has a selfish man, having but one 
 tender spot or two in his whole moulding and making, staked 
 his very life, we will say, upon two well-beloved sons, and 
 then found, to use the Scripture similitude, that he has 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 295 
 
 ‘‘ laid the foundation of his prosperity in the first-born and 
 set up the gates thereof in the younger/’ to see them cut 
 off successively in the very moment of triumph by sharp 
 sickness or by sudden accident ! How often has a profes- 
 sional man, on the eve of the last step to greatness, developed 
 some fatal symptoms of palsy, or consumption, which made 
 him bid farewell to all his glory, and betake himself to his 
 last gloomy home ! How often has a statesman, brought 
 by the last turn of the wheel of politics to the very 
 summit of his ambition, been laid low by the impor- 
 tunate stroke of a jealous and envious rivalry, and com- 
 pelled to exchange earth for the melancholy Pantheon 
 of posthumous fame ! 
 
 But, brethren, these are great cases, illustrious examples. 
 Let us descend to our own level “ Those that walk in 
 pride ” are of all ranks, and the possible abasement also 
 has all ranks for its victims. Who shall tell the mortifi- 
 cations of pride which befal it ? Every day of pride is a 
 day of disappointment. The thousands and tens of thou- 
 sands who are living without God in the world, self-con- 
 templating, self-concentrating on the smallest and most 
 microscopic scale, offering to their idol, self, the poorest 
 and humblest of oblations — the mere chance invitation to 
 dinner, or supper, of the mortal creature man or woman 
 that is but one half-step above them on the social ladder, 
 or the hollow, unmeant compliment of one whose blame 
 would have been more honourable ; what a life of abasement 
 is theirs, themselves almost being the judges ! How many 
 slights for one salute ! How many rebuffs for one recog- 
 nition ! What a life ! Abasement is the word for it, even 
 in its triumphs. That climbing itself is grovelling — that 
 pushing is itself repulse. 
 
 But instead of dwelling upon the shame and contempt 
 of all this, let us think rather of the merciful design which 
 works in it. This king, this lord of the world’s empire 
 that then was, is thrust down from his throne, driven from 
 men, made “ to eat grass like the ox till seven times pass 
 over him.” You would call this a cruel and pitiless fate for 
 him. You would say that there was nothing but punish- 
 ment, nothing but judgment in it. But so did not he. 
 When his reason returned to him, he praised and blessed 
 God for his humiliation. He knew now that “ the heavens 
 
296 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 do rule.’* Men and women walking in pride, having self 
 for your aim, and self for your idol, pray God to break that 
 idol in pieces before your face. Pray God to make you 
 know and feel that “ the heavens do rule.” That is humility, 
 the opposite and antithesis of pride, not to think abjectly 
 of self, but to have a loving consciousness of One greater, 
 and better, and nobler. 
 
 Is not that a lesson worth any sacrifice, or any suffering 
 in the learning } What would earth be if each form of 
 flesh and blood were self-centred, and self-absorbed, elbow- 
 ing its own way to the rewards, and luxuries, and the 
 honours of earth } Where, then, would be either piety or 
 charity, where the sweet harmonies of souls at peace with 
 God, where the gracious influence of hearts, loving and 
 loved } Let us not resent, let us rather invite that abasing 
 which brings back the walker in pride to a truer under- 
 standing of himself and of his position. What hour of 
 earth is comparable to that in its sense of reality, and in 
 its consciousness of safety, which has made us feel that all 
 we have and all we are is of God alone, and that He of 
 His infinite love and mercy has taken us for His forgiven 
 children in Jesus Christ, all our sins laid upon Him, 
 and an inheritance of joy and glory reserved for us in 
 heaven ? 
 
 Brethren, one depth of uttermost abasement there is 
 before each of us. It is the hour of death ; it is the day 
 of judgment. The very approach of that hour is humilia- 
 tion ; the gradual decay of the brightness of the intellect, 
 the slow recollection, the faltering speech, the growing 
 tardiness of step and motion, at last the absolute helpless- 
 ness, the stretching forth of the hands for another to guide, 
 and then the being bound hand and foot by another with 
 graveclothcs, the being carried forth stiff and stupid, and 
 laid with our forefathers to see corruption. How shall 
 mortal man be proud for whom this is the last exit } But 
 oh, to wake up in a world unrealized, amidst countless 
 generations clad in bodies, not natural but spiritual, to find 
 ourselves face to face with a Saviour never before known, 
 or capable of being known, in His glory, who is now ready 
 to confess or deny us according as we in that former state 
 of being have confessed or denied Him ! How shall mortal 
 man be proud before whom lies this dread ordeal } Happy 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 297 
 
 is he who has so accepted here the Divine abasing that he 
 may receive there the benediction which has all honour and 
 all exaltation in it, “ Blessed are the poor in spirit, for 
 theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” 
 
 C J. V. 
 
 XXXVI. Daniel among the Lions. Daniel vi. 22. 
 
 God hath sent His angel ^ and hath shut the liond mouths^ 
 that they have not hurt meT 
 
 Try to realize old Babylon. Try to spirit your thoughts 
 from this place to that, from this time to that. That 
 great and glowing wonder we can hardly believe was 
 ever alive when we wander with step or with thought over 
 the secrecy and the silence and the darkness of the spot 
 where the glory once lived. But now, forget familiar faces 
 and familiar voices, and live back in that Babylon, and 
 try to feel as if you were there at the time when Daniel 
 was alive. 
 
 If you are making that effort of imagination, if you are 
 ready, I ask you now to go with me first into a royal palace 
 there and watch the workings of a strange conspiracy ; in 
 the next place, I would ask you to go to a private house 
 there, to see the object of that conspiracy ; and next I ask 
 you to go look at the lions’ den, to see the end of that con- 
 spiracy. 
 
 I. The conspirators. First go to the palace. Who is the 
 king } An old forgotten king. I say forgotten, for he would 
 not be owned now if he had not happened to keep lions, 
 and if there had not happened to be present near him 
 some who wanted to make those lions terrible instruments 
 of death to Daniel. He was a most mean king. He 
 was nothing in himself. There was no nobility ; there 
 was no kinghood in him. He was only circumstantially 
 conspicuous ; he was essentially obscure. His little name 
 comes down the stream of time on the raft of Daniel’s 
 story. Crown though he wore, and a sceptre though 
 he wielded, he was only an incidental creature — a tool, 
 not an agent ; a thing, not a man. Why, we are not 
 even sure that his name was Darius. There is no unani- 
 mous and absolute certainty of vote on that subject, for 
 
298 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 Darius is not the name of an individual ; it is not a 
 personal name, but an official name. We just know from 
 historical notices of him that he was a sensualist, and 
 nothing stamps the spark divine out of a man like sen- 
 suality. There was once an epitaph written — a ‘‘Sybarite 
 Epitaph.” It was said of a man that he could eat well, and 
 drink well, and sleep well, and he died. That might have 
 been his epitaph. I will not dwell upon him. It seems 
 that just at this time Cyrus was the real ruler, but he was 
 away. Just after the Medo-Persian work of conquest, Cyrus 
 was the real ruler, and this old man called Darius was the 
 uncle of Cyrus, and he was left in charge. Now remember 
 that you are still in the palace where this Darius lives. You 
 will see coming into the palace an influential deputation, a 
 great number of satraps, governors, and princes, speaking to 
 the king with falsetto tones of simulated reverence. They 
 ask him to make a law to this effect — that no man shall 
 within thirty days make a request to God or men save of 
 the king ; that if he should do so, he be cast into the den 
 of lions. What an enormous extravagance ! If the sun 
 should burn the land, there must be no request made to 
 the Lord of the elements for rain. If pestilence should 
 blast the people, there must be no request of Him to send 
 powers of healing, or to come between the living and the 
 dead for the plague to be stayed. If a fire should break 
 out, there must be no request to a man to help to put the 
 fire out. If a person were to be ill, there must be no re- 
 quest to a physician to prescribe. If a person should be 
 drowning, there should be no request to the man on the 
 shore to fling a rope and help the sufferer out of the water. 
 If any wrong had been done, there must be no request for 
 forgiveness. If the mysterious spirits supposed to dwell 
 in stone should thunder and lighten at any suspense to 
 their worship, there was to be no request, even then, 
 that these gods should wait with patience until the time 
 was up. 
 
 Now, he is just like the man I have described. There 
 is no hesitation, no word of inquiry, no word of surprise, 
 no word of resentment ; they catch the fly in their web. 
 He seems to say in spirit, “ Let me alone. Do what 
 you like, only let me be quiet.” That was the very spirit 
 of the man. 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 299 
 
 II. In the next place, leaving this palace and those 
 who were making this conspiracy, let us go into a pri- 
 vate house in Babylon and mark the object of the con- 
 spiracy. Who is it ? Daniel. And what is it for ? It is 
 difficult to say — impossible to say — with any clearness of 
 reason, or with any show of right. They hated him ; 
 but it was said of Jesus, “They hated Him without a 
 cause.” It is in the nature of the carnal mind ever to hate 
 God ; and so it hates that which has God in it. They 
 hated this man on account of his faith. Amidst the rabble 
 of deities, gods and goddesses, with all their splendour and 
 all their circumstantial authority, in Babylon, he was true 
 to his worship of the one living God ; true to Jehovah, and 
 true to the covenant ; true to the counsel of God. which 
 was then working under all events, and from time to time 
 flashing up through all secrecies, giving hints of what was 
 understood to be when Christ Himself would come ; and 
 the mighty spirit of revelation rose in the soul of Daniel. 
 While he was believing, he was lifted up in thought to an 
 immense height, commanding a view of after ages ; and 
 surely he, like Abraham, saw Christ’s day, saw it afar off, 
 “saw it and was glad.” If you look at some of the passages 
 in the 9th chapter of Daniel, you will find that he used words 
 about the coming Christ such as Paul himself might have 
 used. He was coming “ to make reconciliation for trans- 
 gression,” coming to “ make an end of sin,” coming to 
 “ bring in everlasting righteousness.” So Daniel was hated 
 for his strange, holy, eccentric faith ; he was hated for the 
 life that sprang out of faith. Men did not like that life. 
 When that life is the life of wealthy or influential or 
 scholastic Christians, they put up with it ; they speak with 
 respect of the wealth or the influence or the scholarship, 
 and they put up with the grace of God working through 
 these. 
 
 Now, in all ages it has been just so. There was in 
 Daniel’s life nothing that ought to have excited hatred ; 
 even amongst human immoralities it was irreproachable ; 
 there was no fraud ; there was no bribery ; he was abste- 
 mious ; he was righteous ; he was courteous, living like one 
 who lived at court — the court of the King of kings, where 
 every Christian ought to live and ought to show the influ- 
 ence of atmosphere, the nameless grace of patrician calm- 
 
300 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 ness and patrician influence, of lovely winning manner that 
 comes of a heart that belongs to God. It was so with 
 Daniel, and it was so in the time of his early youth. He 
 was the child of a very poor family, and the pride of his 
 father and mother — ripe, beautiful, bounding— when he was 
 snatched away from them— taken away right into Babylon, 
 for them never to see him more ; and now he was an old 
 man, very old, like a shock of corn fully ripe ; and all 
 throughout he had maintained his steadfastness of holy 
 life ; and they hated that holy life. They hated him also 
 because he was a man of rare gifts ; they sickened with 
 envy at the sight of those rare gifts. He was remarkable 
 for his wisdom when young, so that Ezekiel, when speak- 
 ing of Dives personified, said ironically, ‘‘ Thou art wiser 
 than Daniel.” He belonged by presidency to the Magi — 
 not to the sacerdotal, but to the scientific order. He was 
 a thinker ; he was gloriously educated ; he was an influ- 
 ential man, naturally, supernaturally, and educationally. 
 They hated that ; they hated the distinctions and gifts of 
 one who eclipsed them ; they hated him, too, for his supre- 
 macy in office. 
 
 You may read in this chapter how Darius divided the 
 empire. I believe 1 20 provinces were parted out, and there 
 were three presidents over these. Daniel was the president 
 of the presidents — not a native noble ; he was higher than 
 the native nobility ; and they reared their stately crests ; 
 they were haughtily proud ; they resented this altogether ; 
 they looked right and left, in and out, for something which 
 should be fatal in its discovery and presentment, fatal to 
 Daniel. They could find nothing. He was not violent ; 
 he was not cruel. There was no defalcation ; the accounts 
 were all right. There was perfect stainlessness as to 
 bribery ; but there was this one thing — he prayed. And it 
 was an open prayer. Every one knew it, for he threw his 
 windows open every day three times. He was most metho- 
 dical in his prayers, and he turned towards Jerusalem. I 
 think he built his house with his windows that side on 
 purpose. Jerusalem was the place of the mercy-seat; Jeru- 
 salem was the place where the footsteps cf God’s glory had 
 been seen, where the voice of His love had been heard. It 
 was the scene of his prophecies. He turned that way, and 
 that was his way of expressing his faith in that great sacri- 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT, 
 
 301 
 
 fice and that exalted Saviour who was typified by all that 
 was done from age to age at Jerusalem; and because of this 
 they invented this remarkably ingenious conspiracy, a 
 conspiracy that was sure to catch this man. He was 
 sure to pray. 
 
 In the next place, notice the effect of this conspiracy. 
 The effect of this conspiracy in the first place was to bring 
 out Daniel’s confession. My subject is a Hebrew confessor. 
 This is one of the grand Hebrew confessors who, lifted up 
 above the mists of time, are for you to see, living in this 
 Christian age, and who are to be conspicuous as our 
 examples to the very end of time. He knew that the writ- 
 ing had been signed. What then } Was he politic ? There 
 are many things that I think you might have said if you 
 had been there. I wonder what the effect would be if such 
 a law as this could be possible in any land where you live. 
 Would it make any difference to the prayer meetings? I am 
 afraid not much. I think it would make some difference, 
 however, if your habit of prayer had been in form like that 
 of Daniel’s. He might have said, “ Well, I shall pray, but I 
 shall shut the windows.” That mere question of open and 
 shut as to the windows has nothing to do with the question 
 of prayer or no prayer. ‘H shall pray, but I think not in 
 that room.” There are other rooms not so conspicuous. 
 Prayer in a cellar will be just as acceptable to Him who 
 is on the throne of thrones as prayer in the most splendid 
 apartment. He said, or he would have said, or might have 
 said, “ I will pray, but I need not pray with the lip. God 
 looks not at the lip, but at the life. It is not what we say, 
 but what we mean. 
 
 “ ‘ Prayer is the burden of a sigh, 
 
 The falling of a tear, 
 
 The upward glancing of an eye, 
 
 When none but God is near.^” 
 
 Or perhaps he might have said, I will pray, but not 
 with such order, such method.” Now, apply this to your 
 own circumstances. You who are young Christians, I 
 beseech to make a good confession in this respect. I know 
 that in early life, when you are in the early stages of a 
 profession or trade, or when you are at school or college, 
 you may have even to carry on your private prayer in the 
 
302 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 view of others, and I know what young life is. I know 
 who has the majority of votes ; I know the tendency to 
 scorn that which is Christian, and that which is outspoken 
 in Christian life ; and I fear for some of you. I fear lest 
 you should be laughed out of your prayers. I am speaking 
 as plainly as I can, for I want every one to understand me 
 — every child who is not yet in public life or school. I 
 want every one to get ready ; and although prayer is not 
 a matter of form, although it is a thing of the life, although 
 you may pray when you say nothing, I beseech you not to 
 let go prayer. Not only do I say you must not let go the 
 spirit, but do not let go the form ; do not let go the method 
 and the rule ; for in this life we are such creatures of rule 
 and form and method, that it is dangerous to give way in 
 these outworks and these machineries ; for much that is 
 vital is connected with much that is external, and I pray 
 you to be like Daniel. Stand to it, and show that you are 
 like Christ not only by joining a Church, but being stead- 
 fast and immovable, always abounding in prayer at the 
 right time. Never give up ; keep on praying, and pray 
 without ceasing in spirit. But, besides that, have special 
 definite terms, and times, and forms. Keep on with your 
 confession and your prayers till you win. Daniel did so. 
 Was he a man that would alter his conduct towards God 
 in consequence of the conduct of an insect towards him- 
 self? Oh, but he is great. He keeps on, whatever may 
 be said about him. And do not we see amidst the great 
 movements of the actual world, symbols and emblems of 
 what I want to assert now } You find that the sun shines 
 whether you look or not. He never waits for your appro- 
 bation^ never asks for your praise. He shines on, whether 
 you open your eyes or shut your eyes. The sea rolls on in 
 tranquil majesty, without waiting for you to look or not 
 look ; and the great peaks and mountains of the world rear 
 their heads in wintry grandeur crowned, whether you look 
 or do not look. And so the great spirits, men of great 
 principle, do the same. They are not waiting to know 
 what man thinks. Daniel did not wait to ask who was 
 looking. What did he care about that ? There was no 
 ostentation ; there was no bluster ; there was no saying, 
 ‘‘ Now, I have determined to stand my ground and assert 
 my principles. I am determined to say, and do, and die 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 305 
 
 and I care nothing about these creatures of a day, these 
 reptiles of a court I shall still hold on my way, and I 
 know I shall wax stronger and stronger.’' But there was 
 no such boast ; there was no boasting at all ; there was no 
 effort about it He simply kept on with his confessor- 
 ship. 
 
 Passing on to the issue of this conspiracy, to tell you 
 fully, I must tell you further. See Daniel, in consequence 
 of this confession, thrown to the lions. In the heroic age 
 of Christianity, when in all likelihood to be a Christian 
 meant to be some day a martyr, Christians were often 
 seen to drop on the red sawdust at the stroke of a lion. 
 Once (it was in the days of Diocletian) there was a youth 
 named Pancratius who had in the beginning of life vast 
 and romantic possibilities of earthly greatness, but he 
 became a Christian, and that implied the probability of 
 soon being flung to the lions. It might have been said to 
 him, ‘‘What a pity you should do so! You will be so 
 rich, and you will do so much good. Think of your useful- 
 ness, think of what you are throwing away, think of your 
 mother, think of your father, think of the Christians whom 
 you might serve if you kept your Christianity still for a 
 while. No doubt it is right in the abstract to be a Christ- 
 ian ; but you will not throw your life away for an ab- 
 straction. It is right in itself to be baptized, but baptism 
 is only a sign ; Christ is the thing signified. You may 
 have the thing signified without the sign. It is, all things 
 being equal, right to make a confession before men of your 
 faith in Christ, but Christ looks not at what you say or at 
 what you are ; He judges not by the label, but by the life. 
 No doubt it is right, when all things are equal and fair, 
 to come out, as you propose to come out ; but oh ! say 
 nothing now! say nothing now; be still, hold your faith 
 in the dark ; the time will come when it may appear in the 
 light.” But Pancratius saw in the clear daylight of truth 
 that he was to believe, and then that he was, as a matter of 
 course, to confess that faith. So he believed and did con- 
 fess, and he was sentenced to the lions. There came a day 
 when a hundred Christians were sentenced to the lion.s, 
 and this young Christian was to come last. See him ! oh ! 
 look at him, the little, slim youth — for he was only a youth ; 
 see him there standing in the amphitheatre, with some 
 
304 
 
 EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES 
 
 25,000 people all round him, like one scared. There they 
 are, ring above ring ; there they are, all round him when 
 he stands there ; and presently there is a great rattle in 
 the far distance, and out from that cage springs a lion, and 
 he slips and wanders about. At last he sees the youth ; 
 he seems at once still as a stone ; he burns, as it seems, 
 into terrible beauty ; then he drops on to the sand, and 
 looks at him at a distance — looks and looks at him ; then 
 he trails, and trails, and trails, gets nearer, and nearer, and 
 nearer, walks round, and round, and round, and stops ; 
 round again— stops ; and then, with a bound and a blow, 
 and a flash of black lightning, down he drops on to that 
 quivering young life ; there is a moment's paralysis, and 
 then the sacred, high, eternal noon." 
 
 We ought not to think of our lions : they are chained. 
 Would you be ready, if the call were to come forth to the 
 lions for Christ’s sake, would you be ready } There is 
 none of us feel ready now ; but if we do trust Christ, we 
 who do trust Him now, we shall be ready whenever that 
 call shall come. Daniel was ready for the lions that were 
 set about him ; and to the lions he was hustled, to the 
 lions he was flung. 
 
 Now, under this last head, one more remark. Think of 
 the night Daniel had with the lions — the night and the 
 morning. The night ! Did you ever dream of such a 
 thing as that ? Night is the time for rest ; day is for 
 action. If in the day we court peril, in the night we seek 
 repose ; if in the day we like to be abroad, at night we like 
 to be at home ; in the day our Heavenly Father, whose 
 other name is Love, surrounds us with light, vivacity, and 
 movement, and everything that can inspire thought, rouse 
 activity, and stimulate the Divine ; but when the night 
 comes, He hushes the sounds, puts the lights out, stops the 
 songs of birds, draws the curtains of tender darkness, and 
 says, Hush !’’ and with a love beyond all conception, 
 more exquisite and tender than ever love was that ever 
 rocked a cradle or sang the cradle’s song. He gives us and 
 all His ‘'beloved sleep.’’ Nights we have heard of have 
 been spent in fasting and amidst the incongruities. We have 
 heard of a night passed amidst the silence and shadows of 
 Westminster Abbey ; we have heard of a night passed 
 alone on a spar in the sea ; we have heard of a night passed 
 
ON THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 305 
 
 by one who was lost amidst the snows of Salisbury Plain ; 
 we have heard of a night passed amongst the lions — 
 amongst these terrible lions. But God sent His angel 
 to stop the lions mouths ; and you may imagine their 
 bland, caressing movements, as John Foster has it, round 
 Daniel just as they used to be round Adam in Paradise. 
 So in the morning when the cry came, “ Daniel ! Daniel ! 
 servant of the living God, is He able — -the God whom thou 
 servest continually — to keep thee alive, to keep thee from 
 the lions? are you alive?” You know what the answer 
 was. My text is the answer — Daniel lived. Daniel lives 
 now, — lives in heaven, lives in this Book, and lives for you. 
 You are not placed in similar circumstances, but every one 
 of you is tried sometimes to the fullest extent of your 
 powers. You have lions of some kind to face; and oh, I 
 beseech you, open your windows towards Calvary, open 
 your windows towards the great sacrifice. Look to the 
 Lord Jesus ; let your hopes be there ; draw your light from 
 thence. Be real Christians, making the solemn vow of 
 consecration, first alone, and giving yourselves right up 
 to Jesus when no one sees you. Then come out — come 
 out from the world, out from the laughers, out from those 
 who are making their way and getting their fortune and 
 their influence, perhaps, by compromise ; perhaps by in- 
 definiteness. Be distinct ; be decisive ; let every one who 
 sees you know what you are, and know what Christ can 
 do for you. You know that He whom you serve is able 
 to give, able to teach, able to sustain, able to console, able 
 to do above all that you can ask or think. 
 
 C. S. 
 
INDEX OF SUBJECTS, 
 
 Abraham, 25. 
 
 Abraham’s Death, 30. 
 
 Balaam, 63. 
 
 Barak’s Faith, 89. 
 
 Captain of the Lord’s Host, The, 
 82. 
 
 Captives of Babylon, The, 248. 
 Cry of the Creatures, The, 268. 
 
 David, loi, 
 
 Daniel among the Lions, 297. 
 David in the Psalms, The 
 Preaching of, 217. 
 
 Elijah’s Faith, The Failure of, 
 
 III. 
 
 Elijah’s Flight, 121. 
 
 Enoch, I. 
 
 Isaac, 39. 
 
 Jacob at Bethel, 45, 
 
 Jacob’s Death, 50. 
 
 Job, 155. 
 
 Job, The Book of, 166, 175, 184, 
 194, 202. 
 
 Joshua, 75. 
 
 Josiah, 146. 
 
 King Conquered, The, 134. 
 
 Marah, The Waters of, 58. 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar, 288. 
 
 New Year, A Song for the, 242. 
 Noah, 9. 
 
 Penitence, 224. 
 
 Psalm, The Second, 211. 
 
 Ruth, 96. 
 
 Trust and Waiting, 229. 
 
 Vision of the Dry Bones, The, 
 278, 
 
 Waiting, 237. 
 
INDEX OF TEXTS. 
 
 Genesis. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 V. 21-24 I 
 
 XXV. 7, 8 25 
 
 „ 8 30 
 
 XXXV. I 45 
 
 Exodus. 
 
 XV. 23-25 58 
 
 Numbers. 
 
 xxiv. II 63 
 
 Deuteronomy. 
 xxxiv. 9 75 
 
 Joshua. 
 
 V. 13-15 82 
 
 Judges. 
 
 9 89 
 
 Ruth. 
 
 2 Samuel. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 xii. 7 
 
 lOI 
 
 I Kings. 
 
 xix. 13 
 
 1 1 1 
 
 V 
 
 I2I 
 
 2 Kings. 
 
 vi 
 
 134 
 
 2 Chronicles. 
 
 XXXV. 21 
 
 146 
 
 Job. 
 
 i- 8, 9 
 
 155 
 
 Book of, I 
 
 166 
 
 „ 2 
 
 175 
 
 3 
 
 184 
 
 „ 4 
 
 194 
 
 » 5 
 
 202 
 
 Psalms 
 
 PAGE 
 
 xxvii. 8 217 
 
 li- 5 223 
 
 Ixii. I, 2 229 
 
 » 5,6 237 
 
 cxxi 242 
 
 cxxxvii. 1-6 ... 248 
 
 Isaiah, 
 
 Book of 257 
 
 vi. 1-3 268 
 
 Ezekiel. 
 
 xxxvii. 3 278 
 
 Daniel. 
 
 iv. 37 288 
 
 vi. 22... ... 297 
 
 Hebrews. 
 
 xi. 7 9 
 
 „ 20 39 
 
 « 21 150 
 
 1. 22 ... 
 
 96 
 
 ii. 
 
 211 
 
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 using apt and simple illustrations, and of repeating good anecdotes, begets a faculty 
 and power which are of value. This volume is a treasure which a hundred pastors will 
 find exceedingly convenient to draw upon.” — N. Y. Evangelist. 
 
 PULPIT PRAYERS BY EMINENT PREACHERS , 
 
 Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. (Being the 4th vol. of the Clerical Library.) 
 
 The British Quarterly says: “ These prayers are fresh and strong; the or- 
 dinary ruts of conventional forms are left and the fresh thoughts of living hearts 
 are uttered. The excitement of devotional thought and sympathy must be great in 
 the offering of such prayers, especially when, as here, spiritual intensity and de- 
 voutness are as tnarked as freshness and strength. Such prayers have their char- 
 acteristic aaoantages.** 
 
 London Literary World: “ Used aright, this volume is likely to be of great ser- 
 vice to ministers. It will show them how to put variety, freshness and literary beauty, 
 as well as spirituality of tone, into their extemporaneous prayers.” 
 
 Anecdotes ninstrative of Nei Testament Texts. 
 
 With 600 Anecdotes. Crown 8vo, 400 pages. Cloth, $1.50. (Being 
 the 5th vol. of the Clerical Library.) 
 
 London Christian Leader says : “ This is one of the most valuable books of 
 
 anecdote that we have ever seen. There is hardly one anecdote that is not of first- 
 rate quality. They have been selected by one who has breadth and vigor of mind 
 as well as keen spiritual insight, and some of the most effective illustrations of 
 Scripture texts have a rich vein of humor of exquisite quality.** 
 
 The London Church Bells: *‘The anecdotes are given in the order of the texts 
 which they illustrate. There is an ample index. The book is one which those who 
 have to prepare sermons and addresses will do well to have at their elbow.” 
 
 N. V. Christian at Work: “As an apt illustration often proves the nail 
 
 WHICH FASTENS THE TRUTH IN THE MIND, THIS VOLUME WILL PROVE AN ADMIRABLE 
 AND VALUABLE AID, NOT ONLY TO Cl ERGYMEN, BUT TO SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHERS 
 
 AND Christian workers generally.” 
 
 N. Y. Observer : “A book replete with incident and suggestion applicable to every 
 occasion.” 
 
 Sent on receipt of p^ice, charges prepaid. 
 
 A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON, 714 Broadway, New York. 
 
STANDARD RELIGIOUS WORKS 
 
 TALKS WITH YOUNG MEN. 
 
 By J. Train Davidson. i2mo, in handsome cloth binding, illuminated 
 cover. Price, $1.25. 
 
 “ These talks are direct, practical and pungent, such as young men like to hear. 
 They are crowded with points of counsel and direction ; they will be invaluable to any 
 young man, and all so plainly and forcibly told, and so fully illustrated, that one can but 
 pursue the reading of them to the end. The graphic descriptions of human nature, and 
 sharp laying open of motive in worldly and selfish living, show an unusually keen 
 sense of observation and understanding of the human heart. It should have a wide 
 circulation.” — N, V. Evangelist, 
 
 Rev. Mr. SPURGEON says : “ The author gives young men fine 
 advice — full of grace and thought — enlivened by story and proverb ^ fresh 
 with sympathy^ and on fire with zeal. These short talks are just what 
 they should be^ and all that they further need is to be largely distributed 
 among the crowds of our advancing manhood, jo BECIN TO READ IS 
 TO BE BOUND TO CONTINUE; THE TALKS ARE SO SENSIBLE 
 THAT NO ONE WISHES TO SILENCE THE TALKER->BY LAYING 
 ASIDE THE BOOK.** 
 
 N. Y. Christian Advocate and Journal says : ** This volume will find 
 readers wherever it is known. The talks are fervent and DIBECT AP- 
 PEALS TO THE HEART. THE STYLE IS ANIMATED AND PICTUR- 
 ESQUE, AND THE BOOK WILL BE READ BY ALL WHO BUY IT.” 
 
 The Parabolic Teaching of Christ 
 
 A Systematic and Critical Study of the Parables of our Lord. By Rev. 
 Prof. A. B. Bruce, D.D. i vol., 8vo, cloth, 527 pp. Price, $2.50. 
 
 “A work which will at once take its place as a classic on the Parables of our Sa- 
 viour. No minister should think of doing without it.” — American Presbyterian Review. 
 
 American Literary Churchman says : “ We recommend this book with the most 
 confident earnestness. It is a book to be bought and kept ; it has both depth and 
 breadth and minute accuracy ; it has a living sympathy with the teaching of the Para- 
 bles and with the spirit of the Master.” 
 
 ENGLISH NOTICES. 
 
 ** Prof. Bruce brings to his task the learning and the liberal and finely sympathetic 
 spirit which are the best gifts of an expositor of Scripture. His treatment of his subject 
 is vigorous and original, and he avoids the capital mistake of overlaying his exegesis 
 with a mass of other men’s views.” — Spectator. 
 
 ” The studies of the Parables are thorough, scholarly, suggestive and practical. 
 Fullness of discussion, reverence of treatment, and sobriety of judgment, mainly char- 
 acterize this work.” — Christian IVorld. 
 
 “Each Parable is most thoughtfully worked out, and much new light is thus thrown 
 on the difficulties which surround many of these beautiful and suggestive examples of 
 Divine teaching.” — C'ergymen' s Magazine. 
 
 “This volume has only to be known to be welcomed, not by students alone, but by 
 all earnest students of Christ’s oracles. On no subject has Dr. Bruce spoken more 
 wisely than on the question why Jesus spoke in parables. The one end the author sets 
 before himself is, to find out what our Lord really meant. And this he does with a 
 clearness and fullness worthy of all praise. Familiar as W6 are with SOme of 
 the best and most popular works on the Parables, we do not know any to 
 which we could look for so much aid in our search after the very meaning 
 which Christ would nave us find in His Nonconformist. 
 
 Sent on receipt of piice^ charges prepaid. 
 
 A. C. ARMSTRONG A SON, 714 Broadway, New York 
 
STANDARD RELICiOUS WORKS. 
 
 New and Enlarged [4^h] Edition, in Cheaper Form, 
 
 OF 
 
 CHARLES L, BRACE'S HESTA CHRISTI. 
 
 A HISTORY OF HUMANE PROGRESS UNDER CHRIS- 
 TIANITY. With New Preface and Supplemen- 
 tary Chapter. 540 pp., cloth. 
 
 Price reduced from $2,^0 to 
 
 “It is especially adapted to assist the clergyman and religious teacher in his strug- 
 gles with honest, thoughtful infidelity.” 
 
 It presents a storehouse of facts bearing on the influences of Christianity upon 
 such important topics as the paternal power, the position of woman under custom and 
 law, personal purity, and marriage, slavery, cruel and licentious sports, and all matters 
 of humanity and compassion, etc. The thoughtful reader will here gather in- 
 formation WHICH COULD ONLY BE OBTAINED FROM LIBRARIES OR MANY VOLUMES.” 
 
 B,ev. jyv. H. S. STORMS says: ‘‘IT IS A BOOK THAT 
 DESERVES THE VERY WIDEST CIRCULATION FOR ITS CAREFUL- 
 NESS AND CANDOR, ITS AMPLE LEARNING, its just, diseriminor 
 ting analysis of historical movements as initiated or governed by 
 moral forces, and for the fine spirit which pervades UP 
 
 “ The skill and industry with which Mr. Brace has gleaned and sorted the vast ac- 
 cumulation of material here gathered together, the better to show forth the power and 
 influence, direct and indirect, of Christ’s teachings, is not only praise-worthy, but even 
 in a certain sense wonderful. He has a complete mastery of his subject, and many 
 chapters in the book are of exceeding value and interest.” — London Morning Post. 
 
 A NEW and REVISED EDITION, with NEW MAPS and ILLUSTRATIONS, 
 
 STANLEY'S SlNAf A1 PALESTINE. 
 
 In Connection with their History. By Dean A. P. STANLEY, 
 With 7 Elaborate and Beautifully Colored 
 Maps, and other Illustrations. 
 
 Large Crown 8vo Vo/., Cloth, 640 pp. Price reduced from $4 to $2.^0. 
 
 The late Dean Stanley published a new and revised edition of his 
 “ Sinai and Palestine.” In it he made considerable editions and cor- 
 rections, giving the work the final impress of his scholarship, taste and 
 ability. This edition has been carefully conformed to the last English 
 edition — including the new maps and illustrations, and is herewith com- 
 mended anew AS THE MOST READABLE AS WELL AS THE 
 MOST ACCURATE WORK ON THE SUBJECT IN THE ENG- 
 LISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Rev. Dr. H. M. Field, Editor of “A'. Y. Evangelist/' says of Stanley's ** Sinai 
 and Palestine" : “We had occasion for its constant use in crossing the desert, and in 
 journeying through the Holy Land, and can bear witness at once to its accuracy and to 
 the charm of its descriptions. Of all the helps we had it was by far the most cap- 
 tivating." 
 
 Sent on receipt of price, charges prepaid. 
 
 A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON, 714 Broadway, New York. 
 
STANDARD RELIGIOUS WORKS 
 
 A MANUAL OF PREACHING. 
 
 Rev. Franklin W. Fisk, D.D., Professor of Sacred Rhetoric in Chicago 
 Theological Seminary, Crown octavo voL, cloth. $1.50. 
 
 This woik sets forth and illustrates the principles and rules of Homiletics in a brief 
 and practical manner. Although chiefly designed for theological students and young 
 ministers, it is believed that the treatise will be of service to older pastors. Reference 
 is made to the most recent literature, both of the pulpit and of works on Homiletics. 
 The method followed in the volume is, first, to take a sermon in pieces . and inspect its 
 principal parts, ancf then to show how to gather materials and form a sermon. 1 he aim 
 has been to make the work, in a brief and practical way, as helpful as possible to the 
 preacher. 
 
 “Many will welcome this manual for its clear, logical and thorough presentation 
 of the whole subject.” — N. V. Independent. 
 
 Chicago Interior szys : “The book is precisely what it claims to be — a practical 
 manual of Preaching. Its style is simple and perspicuous, and just what the author com- 
 mends in the sermon. On every page the meaning stares the reader full in the face.” 
 
 Presbyterian Review : “ Back of this modest inanual lie twenty-five years of diligent 
 study and valuable experience. The volume carries on every page the characteristics 
 that we should expect to find in it. It is unpretending^ direct^ honest, manly. Its 
 pages are full of references to authorities and illustrations.” 
 
 REVIVALS; HOW AND WHEN? 
 
 By Rev. W. W. Newell, D.D. With steel portrait, i vol., i2mo. 
 $1.25. {3d thousand.) 
 
 This is no ordinary book on the subject of Revivals of Religion. It does not com- 
 mend great excitement followed by depressing apathy. It favors a religious quicken- 
 ing and an ingathering of souls every passing year. It does not commend a theory. It 
 is eminently practical. It gives the exact experience of persons who, in the greatest 
 variety of seemingly hopeless conditions, have been taught of the Lord just how to 
 secure a spiritual blessing. It shows how the Revival has been secured and conducted 
 in the Church, the Household, the Bible Class, the Sabbath School, the Missionary and 
 the Temperance circle. 
 
 ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON’S BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 With Notes and Selections from his Writings. By William Blair, D.D. 
 Handsomely bound in white parchment, gilt top and side. $1.25. 
 
 “The memoir is admirably composed, . . . the general contents include va- 
 
 rious rare spiritual treasures, in which the mind of Leighton was so fruitful.” — New 
 York Churchman. 
 
 NEW WORK BY REV. W. M. TAYLOR, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 JOHN KNOX. 
 
 With a fine Steel Portrait. Engraved by Holl, from a Painting in the 
 possession of Lord Somerville. i2mo, cloth. $1.25. 
 
 This work gives a vivid, comprehensive and accurate account of the life and work 
 of the great Scottish Reformer. It includes a careful and well ordered summary of the 
 career of Knox in England, as that has been brought to light by the recent investiga- 
 tions of Lorimer and others. Particular attention has been given to the course of 
 events in Scotland during the last thirteen years of the Reformer’s life, and his inter- 
 views with Queen Mary, as well as his work in the reconstruction of the Scottish 
 Church, are described with fullness of detail and independence of judgment. The story 
 IT admirably told, the interest being maintained from first to last, so that the booK 
 will be at once delightful to the young and instructive to those of maturer years. 
 
 Copies sent by mail, post paid, on receipt of price. 
 
 A. C. ARMSTRONG A SON, 714 Broadway, New York. 
 
REV. DR. WM. M. TAYLOR’S WORKS 
 
 Contrary Winds and Other Sermons. 
 
 Crown 8vo Volume, Cloth. $1.75. 3d Edition. 
 
 “This work touches on numerous phases of life and thought and 
 experience, showing that the author has lived through a vast deal and 
 has been made the richer and stronger by it. It leaves the impression 
 of wisdom that comes from actual experience, dealing with life rather 
 than speculations, and so comes home to the heart and conscience. It 
 
 SHOWS A WIDE RANGE OF READING AND CLOSE GRAPPLE WITH THE 
 DIFFICULT PROBLEMS OF OUR TIME. Such preaching is tonic and in- 
 vigorating. It strengthens the heart and fortifies the will to overcome 
 trials and conquer temptations and achieve victory.” — N. Y. Christian 
 at Work. 
 
 The Congregationalist says : “Its variety of theme and the never- 
 failing intellectual power which it illustrates, the author’s reverent posi- 
 tiveness of faith, his broad and intimate knowledge of human nature, 
 and the richness of his personal spiritual experiences — never obtruded 
 but always underlying his words — render it a volume of rare and precious 
 value to the Christian believer, and A capital specimen of manly, 
 BUSINESS-LIKE DISCUSSION TO ALL OTHERS WHO CARE TO READ 
 
 WHAT A Christian has to say for his religion.” 
 
 N. Y. Churchfnan : “Sermons practical in their nature, full of 
 deep thought and wise counsel. They will have as they deserve a wide 
 circulation. 
 
 Now Ready— 4th Edition of 
 
 THE LIMITATIONS OF LIFE 
 
 AND OTHER SERMONS. 
 
 By WM. M. TAYLOR, D.D. 
 
 With a Fine Portrait on Steel by Ritchie. Crown 8vo 
 VoL., Extra Cloth, $1.75. 
 
 “In variety of theme, in clearness and penetration of vision, in 
 distinctness of aim, in intensity of purpose, in energy and well-directed 
 effort, etc., this volume is perhaps without its equal in the language.” 
 
 — The Scotsman, 
 
 Providence Journal : “ The directness, earnestness, descriptive and 
 illustrative power of the preacher, and his rare gift for touching the con- 
 science and the heart, are fully exemplified in these eloquent discourses.” 
 
 N. Y. Evangelist'. “They have the noble simplicity and clearness 
 of the truth itself, and which, fixing the attention of the reader from the 
 beginning, holds it to the end. It is impossible to read them without 
 the constant sense of the personality of the author.” 
 
 Copies sent on receipt of price, post-paid, by 
 A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON. 714 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.