_PART V._
Ahab and Jezebel, two of the worst characters in sacred story, had a son; and with such blood as theirs in his veins, no wonder that Joram, on succeeding to the throne of one parent, exhibited the vices of both. His mother does not seem to have had a drop of human-kindness in her breast. Yet he was not altogether dead to humanity, as appears by an incident which occurred during the siege that reduced his capital to the direst extremities. The ghastly aspect of a famished woman who throws herself in his way with a wild, impa.s.sioned, wailing cry of "Help, my lord, O king!" touches him; and he asks, "What aileth thee?"
Stretching out a skinny arm to one pale and haggard as herself, she replies, with hollow voice, "This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to-day, and we will eat my son to-morrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him; and she hath hid her son." Struck with horror at the story, Joram rent his clothes. He had pity, but no piety.
"Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will but revolt more and more." Never were these words, never was the fact that unsanctified afflictions have the same hardening effect on men which fire, that melts gold, has on clay, more strikingly ill.u.s.trated than on this occasion. So far from rending his heart with his garment, and humbling himself before the Lord, Joram flares up into fiercer rebellion; and turning from these victims of the famine to his courtiers, he grinds his teeth to profane G.o.d"s name and vow vengeance on his prophet, saying, "G.o.d do so and more also to me, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat shall stand on him this day." Impotent rage against the only man who could have weathered the storm, and saved the state! The prophet"s head stood on his shoulders when that of this son of a murderer--as Elisha called him--lay low in death in the dust of Naboth"s vineyard. The day arrives which sees the cup of Joram"s iniquity full, and that of G.o.d"s patience empty--drained to the last drop. The chief officers of the army are sitting outside their barrack, when one wearing a prophet"s livery approaches them. Singling out Jehu from the group, he says, I have an errand to thee, O captain!
The captain rises; they pa.s.s in alone; the door is shut; and now this strange, unknown man, drawing a horn of oil from his s.h.a.ggy cloak, pours it on Jehu"s head. As if it had fallen on fire, it kindled up his smouldering ambition--so soon at least as this speech interpreted the act, "Thus saith the Lord G.o.d of Israel, I have anointed thee king over the people of this land. Thou shall smite the house of Ahab thy master; dogs shall eat Jezebel in the portion of Jezreel, and there shall be none to bury her." Having spoken so, the stranger opens the door, and flies. But faster flies G.o.d"s vengeance. Ere his feet have borne the servant to Elisha"s door, the banner of revolt is up, unfurled; troops are gathering to the sound of trumpets; and soldiers, eager for change and plunder, are making the air ring to the cry, Jehu is king!
Launched like a thunderbolt at the house of Ahab, Jehu makes right for Jezreel with impetuous, impatient speed. A watchman on the palace tower catches afar the dust of the advancing cavalcade, and cries, I see a company! Guilt, which sleeps uneasy even on downy pillows, awakens, on the circ.u.mstance being reported to him, the monarch"s fears. A horseman is quickly despatched with the question, Is it peace? Thus, pulling up his steed, he accosts the leader of the company, who, drawing no rein, replies, in a tone neither to be challenged nor disobeyed, What hast thou to do with peace? Get thee behind me! Failing the first"s return, a second horseman gallops forth to carry the same question and meet the same reception. Sweeping on like a hurricane, the band is now near enough for the watchman to tell, "He came near unto them, and cometh not again;" and also to add, as he marks how their leader is shaking the reins and lashing the steeds of his bounding chariot, "The driving is like the driving of Jehu, the son of Nimshi; for he driveth furiously." Displaying a courage that seemed his only redeeming quality, or bereaved of sense, according to the saying, Whom G.o.d intends to destroy He first makes mad, Joram instantly throws himself into his chariot, advances to meet the band, and demands of its leader, Is it peace, Jehu? What peace, is the other"s answer, so long as the wh.o.r.edoms of thy mother and her witchcrafts are so many? With the words that leave his lips an arrow leaves his bow to transfix the flying king--entering in at his back and pa.s.sing out at his breast; and when he is cast, a b.l.o.o.d.y corpse, into Naboth"s vineyard, and dogs are crunching his mother"s bones, and Jehu has climbed the throne, and Elisha walks abroad with his head safe on his shoulders, and the curtain falls on the stage of these tragic and righteous scenes, it was a time for the few pious men of that guilty land to sing, "Lo thine enemies, O Lord, lo thine enemies shall perish; but the righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree: they shall grow like a cedar of Lebanon."
Such was the mission of Jehu, the son of Nimshi. How different that of Jesus, the Son of G.o.d! They might have been identical; presented at least grounds of comparison rather than grounds of striking contrast.
Yet so remarkable is the contrast that Jehu"s mission--and therefore have we related the story--forms as effective a background to Christ"s, as the black rain-cloud to the bright bow which spans it.
The cause of the difference lies in G.o.d"s free, gracious, sovereign mercy--in nothing else; for had mankind, at the tidings that the Son of G.o.d, attended by a train of holy angels, was approaching, met Him on the confines of our world with Joram"s question, "Is it peace?"
that question might justly have met with Jehu"s answer, "What hast thou to do with peace?"--what have you done to obtain it, or to deserve it? Yet, glory be to G.o.d in the highest, it is peace--peace more plainly and fully announced in these most gracious words, "It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things to himself, whether they be things on earth, or things in heaven."
IX.
JESUS BRINGS PEACE TO THE SOUL.
Having reconciled us to G.o.d by the blood of His cross, Christ is "our Peace," as the apostle says. He is called so, first, because He restores us to a state of friendship with G.o.d; and, secondly, because a sense of that fills the whole soul with a peace which pa.s.seth understanding. So, speaking of the righteousness which Christ wrought out for us, the prophet says, "The work of righteousness is peace"--His righteousness being the root, and our peace the fruit--that the spring, and this the stream. To describe for the comfort of the Church the constancy of the last and the fulness of the first, another prophet borrows two of nature"s grandest images, "Thy peace shall be like a river, and thy righteousness like the waves of the sea"--the believer"s peace flowing like a broad, deep stream, with life in its waters and smiling verdure on its banks; and a Saviour"s righteousness covering all his sins, as the waves do the countless sands of their sh.o.r.e, when, burying them out of sight, the tide converts the whole reach of dull, dreary sand into a broad liquid mirror, to reflect the light of the sky and the beams of the sun.
Christ"s imputed righteousness is bestowed equally on all believers--none, the least any more than the greatest sinner, being more justified than another. Feeling a.s.sured or not of their salvation, all His are equally safe--"those whom Thou hast given me I have kept, and none of them are lost." There is no such equal enjoyment among believers of peace in believing; some walking all their days under a cloud, and some who walk in darkness and have no light, only reaching heaven, like a blind man guided homewards by the hand of his child, by their hold of the promise, Who is he that feareth the Lord and obeyeth the voice of His servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light; let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay himself in his G.o.d. But where there is peace springing from a sense of forgiveness, of all the fruits of the Spirit that grow in Christ"s fair garden, this is sweetest. Among the blessings enjoyed on earth, it has no superior, or rival even. It pa.s.seth understanding, says an apostle. Nor did David regard any as happy but those who enjoyed it--p.r.o.nouncing "blessed," not the great, or rich, or n.o.ble, or famous, but "the man," whatever his condition, "whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." And so he might. With this peace the believer regards death as the gate of life: enters the grave as a quiet anchorage from seas and storms; and looks forward to the scene of final judgment as a prince to his coronation, or a happy bride to her marriage day. A sense of forgiveness lays the sick head on a pillow softer than downs; lightens sorrow"s heaviest burdens; makes poverty rich beyond the wealth of banks; spoils death of his sting; arms the child of G.o.d against the ills of life; and, lifting him up above its trials, makes him like some lofty mountain, at whose feet the lake may be lashed into foaming billows, and adown whose seamed and rugged sides clouds may fall in gloomy folds, but whose head, shooting up into the calm blue heavens, reposes in unbroken peace, rejoices in perpetual sunshine.
Happy such as obtain a firm hold of Christ, and, having made their calling and election sure, enjoy unclouded peace! Feeling that there is now no more condemnation for them, because they believe in Jesus, and walk not after the flesh but after the spirit, they see a change come on objects such as imparts pleasure and surprise in what are called dissolving views. Where death, with grim and grisly aspect, stood by the mouth of an open grave, shaking his fatal dart, we see an angel form opening with one hand the gate of heaven, and holding in the other a shining crown--from the face of G.o.d we see the features of an angry, stern, inexorable judge melt all away, and in room of an object of terror we behold the face and form of a kind, loving, forgiving Father, with open arms hastening to embrace us. The G.o.d of hope give you joy and peace in believing, is the prayer of the apostle--a prayer in many cases so fully answered that the dying saint has been borne away from all his earthly moorings; and, ready to part from wife and children, has exclaimed with Simeon when he held the infant Saviour in his joyful arms, "Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."
"Be at peace among yourselves," is a blessed injunction which an apostle lays on families, on friends, and on churches. In happy contrast to the storm which, hurtling through the troubled air, and shaking doors and windows, goes raving round every corner of the house, let peace reign on the domestic hearth, and also within the church, when, like the ark of old, she drifts on the billows of a sh.o.r.eless sea--G.o.d only at the helm.
It is good to be at peace with our brethren, but to be at peace with one"s-self is better. At peace with conscience, one can afford, if G.o.d will have it so, to be at war with all men. It is painful, when we cannot be at peace with all men--to have enemies without; but his case is infinitely worse who lodges an enemy in his own breast--in a guilty, uneasy conscience, in self-reproaches, in terror of death, in the knowledge that G.o.d and he are not friends, nor can be so, so long as he cherishes his sins. There is no peace, saith my G.o.d, to the wicked. There cannot be. Drugged with narcotics, you may sleep as quietly on a bed of thorns as of roses. Drugged with narcotics, you may lie down on the cold pavement, and fancy as you throw your arms around the curbstone that it is the wife of your bosom. Drugged with narcotics, you may go to sleep in a cell with visions of home playing round the head that shall be capped for hanging to-morrow. But no more than I call these peaceful sights, can I apply the name of peace to the insensibility of a conscience seared by sin; to the calmness, or rather callousness of one who has allowed the devil to persuade him that G.o.d is too merciful to reckon with us for our transgressions. The peace we are to seek, and, seeking to pursue, is not that of death, but life,--not that the lake presents in winter, when no life appears on its sh.o.r.es, nor sound breaks the silence of its frozen waters; but that of a lake which, protected from tempests by lofty mountains, carries life in its waters, beauty on its banks, and heaven mirrored in its unruffled bosom. Being justified by faith we have peace with G.o.d through our Lord Jesus Christ. Such is the peace which we are to seek--a peace which, springing from a sense of reconciliation through the blood of the Lamb and wrought within the soul by the in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit, has so raised the saint above all fears of death, and shed such a flood of glory around his dying head, that wicked men have turned from the scene to exclaim, May I die the death of the righteous, and may my last end be like his!
X.
JESUS SHALL BRING PEACE TO THE WORLD.
How many pages of history are written with the point of the sword--not with ink, but tears and blood? It is chiefly taken up with the recital of wars. What age has not been the era, what country the scene of b.l.o.o.d.y strifes? What soil does not hold the dust of thousands that have fallen by brothers" hands? Our glebes have been fattened with the bodies of the slain? On those fields where, with the lark carolling overhead, the peasant drives his ploughshare, other steel than the sickle has glanced, and other shouts have risen than those of happy reapers bearing some blushing, sun-browned maid on their broad shoulders at the Harvest Home. The tall gray stones, the h.o.a.ry cairns, tell how on other days these quiet scenes were disturbed by the roar of battle, and lay red with another dye than that of heath or purple wild flowers. Go wherever our foot may wander, we find tokens of war; and select what age soever we may, since Abel fell beneath a brother"s hand, we find in man"s first death, and the earth"s first lone grave, a b.l.o.o.d.y omen of future and frequent crimes. What a commentary is human history on these words of Holy Scripture, "The whole creation groaneth, and travaileth in pain till now!--nor shall it cease to groan, or hail the day of its redemption, till the Prince of Peace is enthroned in the heart of all nations, and the labours of missionaries have extended that kingdom to the ends of the earth, whose triumphs are bloodless--whose walls are Salvation and her gates Praise."
Without disparagement to the happy influence of education, the extension of commerce, and the efforts of benevolent men, the real Peace Society is the Church of G.o.d; the olive branch which the Spirit, dove-like, is bearing on blessed wing to a troubled world, is the Word of G.o.d; and the gospel"s is the voice which, like Christ"s on Galilee"s waves, shall speak peace to a distracted earth, and change its wildest pa.s.sions into a holy calm. Till all nations receive the Bible in its integrity and own it as their only rule of policy, till kings reign for Christ and lay their crowns at His feet, a lasting peace is an idle dream. Treaties will no more bind nations that lie under the influence of unsanctified pa.s.sions, that chains him who dwelt among the tombs, and within whom dwelt a legion of devils. Till other and better days come, the best cemented peace is only a pause--a truce--an armistice; the breathing-time of exhausted combatants. Alas, that it should be so: yet true it is, that that nation dooms itself to disaster, if not destruction, which, pursuing only the arts of peace, leaves its swords to rust, and its navies to rot, and forts with empty embrasures to moulder into ruins. The trumpet of the world"s Jubilee has not yet sounded, nor have all the vials of the Apocalypse been emptied of the wrath of G.o.d. And so, till the nations have emerged from spiritual darkness; till G.o.d"s Word is an open book, and duly honoured in all lands; till immorality has ceased to weaken the bonds of social happiness, discontent to rankle in the bosom of the people, and ambition to fire the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of kings, the world may expect ever and anon to hear the voice of Joel sounding out this trumpet call, "Prepare ye war; wake up the mighty men; let all the men of war draw near--beat your ploughshares into swords and your pruning-hooks into spears--put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe."
Better days are coming--some think near at hand. Turning a seer"s eye on futurity, Isaiah descried them in the far distance--saw the reign of the Prince of Peace--Jesus crowned King of kings and Lord of lords--swords beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning-hooks--every man, whether at hall or cottage door, sitting under the shade of his vine and fig-tree--the whole earth quiet, and at rest. And glad is the Church, as, weary of strife and sin and sorrow, she looks up into the darksome sky, and cries, Watchman, what of the night? to get a hopeful response,--to catch any sign, in break, or blush, or gray gleam however feeble, that seems to reply, The morning cometh! Come blessed morn, come Prince of Peace--come Lord Jesus--come quickly! Let wars cease unto the ends of the earth! Scatter Thou the people that delight in war.
The vision tarries, but come it shall. In answer to the cry of blood that rises to heaven with a different voice from that of Abel"s, peace shall reign and wars shall cease. By the hands that men nailed to a cross G.o.d will break the bow, the battle, and the spear--burning the chariot in the fire. And though any peace which our age may enjoy should be only a breathing-time, but a pause in the roar of the b.l.o.o.d.y tempest, let us improve it to remedy all wrongs at home; to educate our ignorant and neglected ma.s.ses; to eradicate the vices that disgrace and degrade our nation; to build up the Church wherever it lies in ruins; to extend not so much Britain"s empire as Christ"s kingdom abroad, and so hasten forward the happy time when the Song of the Angels shall be echoed from every land, and the voices of the skies of Bethlehem shall be lost in the grander, fuller, n.o.bler chorus of all nations, singing, Glory to G.o.d in the highest, peace on earth, good will toward men!
_PART VI._
Though the last to be dropped into its place, the keystone is of all the stones of an arch the first in importance; the others span no flood, carry no weight, are of no value, without it. It gives unity to the separate parts, and locking all together, makes them one. Of such consequence to the other parts of the Angels" Song is its last clause.
It was not simply Glory to G.o.d, nor peace on earth, but good will toward men, which made the angels messengers of mercy, and the news they brought tidings of great joy. Glory to G.o.d! Amid the rush of the waters that drowned the world, and the roar of the flames that laid Sodom in ashes, they sang glory to G.o.d. G.o.d is glorious in acts of judgment as well as in acts of mercy--"the G.o.d of Glory thundereth."
So on sh.o.r.es strewn with the corpses of the dead, beside a sea which opened its gates for the escape of Israel and closed them on Egypt, burying king and bannered host beneath its whirling waves, Moses and Miriam cried, Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath He cast into the sea! Then the deep lifted up its voice, and all the waves of the sea sang Glory to G.o.d!
as, bearing the dead in on their foaming crests, they laid them at Moses" feet. And when that judgment comes to which these are but as the big drops that prepare us for a burst of thunder and the rushing rain, when the great white throne is set, and the books are opened, and the Judge rises in awful majesty to p.r.o.nounce words of doom, the voices of ten times ten thousand saints shall add, Amen; and in an outburst of praise that drowns the wail of the lost, the whole host of angels shall sing, Glory to G.o.d! With such ascription of praise Christ"s heralds would have announced His advent, had He come not to save, but to destroy.
"Glory to G.o.d," the first clause of this song, does not, therefore, necessarily involve good will towards men; and no more does the second, "peace on earth." Peace! Peace was in the valley where the prophet stood with the grim wrecks of war around him,--friend and foe sleeping side by side, skeletons silently turning to dust, and swords to rust. Peace is in the battle-field when the last gun is fired, and, the last of the dying having groaned out his soul in a gush of blood, the heaving ma.s.s is still. Peace was on the sea and the storm suddenly became a calm, when the waves leaping up against the flying ship obtained their prey, and from the deck where he stood summoned by the voice, Arise, O thou that sleepest, and call upon thy G.o.d, Jonah was flung into the jaws of death. Peace was in that land he had ravaged of whom men said, "He made a solitude, and called it peace,"--all its homesteads lay in ashes, and its cities stood in silent ruins. Peace was in Israel, when, provoked by their sins, G.o.d cast His people out: swept them all into captivity. The land had its Sabbaths then. The Angels" Song might have announced a similar, but greater, judgment--that, as a landlord clears his estate of turbulent, lawless, bankrupt tenants, G.o.d, who had repented long ago that He had made man, was at length coming to clear the earth of his guilty presence, and make room for better tenants; a purer, holier race. It is the last clause of this hymn, therefore, that gives it an aspect of mercy--the revenue of glory which G.o.d was to receive, and the peace which earth was to enjoy, flowing from that fountain of redeeming love which had its spring in G.o.d"s good will. Of this Christ was the divine expression, and angels were the happy messengers.
Happy messengers indeed! No wonder they hastened their flight to earth, and having announced the good tidings, lingered over the fields of Bethlehem, singing as they hovered on the wing. To announce bad news is the unenviable office often imposed on ministers of the gospel; and recollecting with what slow, reluctant steps my feet approached the house where I had to break to a mother the tidings of the wreck, and how her sailor boy with all hands had perished; or, in the news of a husband"s sudden death, I had to plant a dagger in the heart of a young, bright, happy wife. I never have read the story of Absalom"s tragic end, without wondering at the race between Ahimaaz and Cushi who should first carry the tidings to David. It had been easier, I think, to look the foe in the face and hear the roar of battle than see the old man"s grief, and hear that heart-broken cry, "O Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, would G.o.d I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" I can enter into the feelings of the two Marys, when, to quote the words of Holy Scripture, "they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy, and did run to bring the disciples word." I see them, as, regardless of appearances, and saluting no one, they press on, along the road, through the streets, with panting breath and gleaming eye and streaming hair and flying feet, striving who shall be first to proclaim the resurrection, and burst in on the disciples with the glad tidings, crying, "The Lord is risen!" Teaching the Churches how to strive, their only rivalry who shall first carry the tidings of salvation to heathen lands, I dare to say those holy women never took such bounding steps, nor sped on their way with such haste before. And never, I fancy, did angels leave the gates of heaven so fast behind them, pa.s.s suns and stars in downward flight on such rapid wing, as when they hasted to earth with the tidings of great joy. May we be as eager to accept salvation as they were to announce it! May the love of G.o.d find a responsive echo within our bosoms! Would that our wishes for His glory corresponded to His for our good, and that His good will toward us awoke a corresponding good will toward Him--felt in hearts glowing with zeal for Christ"s cause, and expressed in lives wholly consecrated to His service.
In studying this, we shall now consider the persons to whom good will is expressed.
XI.
THE PERSONS TO WHOM GOOD WILL IS EXPRESSED.
It is expressed to men--to all men; so that if we are finally lost, the blame as well as the bane is ours. G.o.d has no ill will to us, or to any. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked; nor is He willing that any should perish, but that all should come to Him, and live. His good will embraces the world.
"When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the Son of man, that thou visitest him?" So said the royal psalmist. And, in a sense, time should only have deepened the astonishment which this question expresses. For man"s ideas of the magnificence of the heavens have grown with the course of ages; and though the stars in the transparent atmosphere of Palestine shone with a brilliancy unknown to us, our conceptions of the heavens are grander and more true than David"s--thanks to the discoveries of modern science. As navigators, so soon as by help of the mariner"s compa.s.s they could push their bold prows into untravelled seas, were ever adding new continents to the land and new islands to the ocean, so, since the invention of the telescope, science has been discovering new stars in the heavens; filling up their empty s.p.a.ces with stellar systems, and vastly enlarging the limits of creation. And since every new orb has added to the l.u.s.tre of Jehovah"s glory, another world to His kingdom, another jewel to His crown, these discoveries, by exalting G.o.d still higher, have added point and power to the old question, "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the Son of man, that thou visitest him?"
Yet, apart from man"s sinfulness, I cannot feel that he is beneath the regards of the Maker and Monarch of the starry heavens. I can fancy that an earthly sovereign who, dwelling apart from his people, is jealous of their intrusion within his palace gates, and sits enthroned amid an exclusive though brilliant circle of proud and powerful barons, may neither know nor care about the fortunes of lowly cottagers; but there could be no greater mistake than out of such a man"s character to weave our conceptions of G.o.d, or fancy that because we are infinitely beneath His rank, we are therefore beneath His notice. A glance at the meanest of His creatures refutes and rebukes the unworthy thought. It needs no angels from heaven to inform us that G.o.d cherishes good will to all the creatures of His hand, nor deems the least of them beneath His kind regards. Look at bird, or b.u.t.terfly, or beetle! Observe the lavish beauty that adorns His creatures, the bounty that supplies their wants, the care taken of their lives, the happiness, expressed in songs or merry gambols or mazy dances, which He has poured into their hearts. The whole earth is full of the glory of G.o.d"s infinite benignity and good will.
Insignificant as I--a speck on earth, and earth itself but a speck in creation--seem to myself when, standing below the starry vault, I look up into the heavens, yet, apart from the thought that I am a sinner, I cannot say, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? How can I, when I see Him mindful of the brood that sleep in their rocking nest, of the moth that flits by my face on m.u.f.fled wing, of the fox that howls on the hill, of the owl that hoots to the pale moon from ivy tower or hollow tree? Are you not of more value than many sparrows? said our Lord. Fashioned originally after the divine image, with a soul outweighing in value the rude matter of a thousand worlds, able to rise on the wings of contemplation above the highest stars and hold communion with G.o.d himself, man, apart from his sinfulness, was every way worthy of divine good will; that G.o.d should be mindful of him.
But we are sinners--sinners by nature as well as practice; polluted; unholy; so unclean that our emblem is that hideous form which, from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet, is wounds and bruises and putrifying sores; and the news that G.o.d cherishes good will to such guilty creatures may well evoke the old, wondering cry, Hear, O heavens; be astonished, O earth! On recalling the happy days of early life, when, a child, he lay in his father"s arms; a boy, he sat on his knee; a youth, he walked by his side--the tears that at parting streamed over the old man"s cheeks--his kind counsels, his tender warnings, his warm kisses, and how he had stood and watched his departing steps till the brow of a hill or a turn of the road hid him from view, the poor prodigal ventured to hope that his father would not turn him from his door; for the sake of the past and of his mother in the grave, would grant him at least a servant"s place. Weighed down by a sense of guilt, his hopes rose to no higher flight--expected nothing beyond a menial"s office. To be received with open arms, to be welcomed back again like some youth who has gone abroad to win a fortune or be crowned with laurels--that his should be the fairest robe, the finest ring, the fatted calf--that instead of stealing in under the cloud of night to be concealed from strangers" eyes, the old house on his return should ring to the sound of music, and floors should shake to the dancers" feet, and the whole neighbourhood should be called to rejoice with a father whose shame and sorrow he had been, was a turn of fortune he never dreamt of; never dared to hope for. On the part of that loving, forgiving father, what amazing good will! But how much more amazing this which G.o.d proclaimed by the lips of angels, and proved by the death of His beloved Son!
I have known fathers and mothers who were sorely tried by wayward, wicked children--I have seen their gray hairs go down with sorrow to the grave. With hearts bleeding under wounds from the hands of one they loved, I have seen them welcome the grave; saying as they descended into its quiet rest, "the days of my mourning are ended." It is a horrid crime to wring tears from such eyes, to crush such hearts: but was ever patient, hoping, loving parent tried as we have tried our Father in heaven? Not without reason does He ask, "If I be a father, where is mine honour? if I be a master, where is my fear?" And who that thinks of his sins, their guilt, their number, and, as committed against infinite love and tender mercy, their unspeakable atrocity, but will acknowledge the truth of these words, "Because I am G.o.d, and not man, therefore the children of men are not consumed"--just as it is because the ship rides by a cable, and not a cobweb, that, when sails are rent, and yards are gone, and breakers are foaming on the reef, she mounts the billows and survives the storm. That we are not suffering the pains of h.e.l.l, that we have hopes of heaven and ever shall be there, we owe not to our good works, but to G.o.d"s good will; to that only. Till converted, man does not desire this good will; and never deserves it. We have no claim to it whatever. It is "not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy G.o.d saves us, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost"--therefore His good will has no root in any good works of ours. A sacred mystery, we may apply to it the words which Job, contemplating the grand mysteries of nature, applied to our earth when, seeing this great globe floating in ethereal s.p.a.ce, sustained by no pillars, nor suspended by any chain that linked it to the skies, he said, Thou hast hung it upon nothing!
XII.
THE PERSON WHO EXPRESSES "GOOD WILL."
The person is G.o.d--He who spake by holy men of old, speaking here by the lips of angels. Where there is a will, there is a way, is a brave and admirable proverb. Yet, though comparatively true in most cases, to some it is altogether inapplicable. Look, for example, at the women who, when the men had turned cowards, boldly follow our Lord to Calvary, bewailing and lamenting Him! What tears they shed, what a wail they raise, when the door opens, and, surrounded by armed guards, Jesus comes forth from the Judgment Hall, bleeding, bound, crowned with thorns. When He sank down on the street under the weight of the cross, and His blessed head lay low in the dust, had there been a chance of saving Him, how had they rushed to His help; and, giving their naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s to the Roman spears, burst through the circle to rescue Him; to die with Him rather than desert Him. But they were helpless. Their good will availed the loved object nothing--beyond this, that the sympathy flowing in their tears and expressed in their looks, somewhat soothed the sorrows of His heart, and fell like balm drops on His smarting wounds.
Again, what good will did David bear to Jonathan! Did Jonathan love David as his own soul? and under circ.u.mstances calculated to dissolve all common friendships, and work such change on the heart as wine suffers when it turns into vinegar, did Jonathan"s sentiments continue unchanged, his affection unabated to the last? His love was strong as death; many waters could not quench it. But it was amply requited.