Restored Harmony—Exposition of Psalm 19:4
3. The Advantages of the Expository Methods
There are many advantages in the Expository Method. 1. It saves the preacher from getting into ruts. One of the holiest and best informed ministers I ever knew died in comparatively young life, before he had won that position in the great city of his adoption which his powers merited. His congregation was small, and his church weak. On enquiring the reason, I found that he was always dwelling on the one subject of sanctification, till the people wearied of it. He would return at the end of the week from a series of convention meetings, where his words had fallen on the hearts of the people like rain on newly-mown lawns, and repeated from his own pulpit, Sunday after Sunday, the discourses which had produced such evident and blessed results. The effect on a stated audience was, however, disappointing, simply because of the iteration of the same lessons, the retreading of the same paths.
Every minister has his special aptitudes. We feel, each one, the drawing of certain subjects. Those which have been our own guiding stars and beacon lights naturally and frequently occur to us for public discourse. It is easy to talk of the old time-worn themes which have become fitted to our hand. And the only hope for many of us is to be compelled to handle those new aspects of the old truths which are suggested by continuous exposition.
It is related by Dr. John Dick, the well-known professor of theology in Scotland, that he went, in the early days of his ministry, to a neighbouring clergyman in the deepest distress, saying: “What shall I do? I have preached all I know to the people, and have nothing else to give them. I have gone through the catechism; and what have I more?” To which his friend replied: “The catechism! Take the Bible, man. It will take you a long while to exhaust that.”
To use Martin Luther’s simile, the Bible is like a fair and spacious orchard, in which all kinds of trees grow, and I quite agree with a friend of mine, that the preacher has no right to inflict nothing but his special fruit on his congregation. Granted that he prefers apples, there may be many in his congregation who prefer plums, pears, or cherries; and surely he is not justified to leave these wasting on the trees whilst he serves up only apples, apples, apples. He is sent into the Land of Promise to bring back specimens of the fruits that grow there, and should return with the grapes of Eschol, the pomegranates and melons, the golden oranges in baskets of silver filigree work, as well as the apples that seem to him the very quintessence of delight.
2. Continuous exposition compels the preacher to handle big themes. We are all tempted to evade the greatest texts because of their transcendent glory and majesty. We assure ourselves that some day we shall have reached a plateau of such eminence, either of holiness or knowledge, that we shall be able to take a snapshot of the Himalaya ranges that stand as a wall against the sky, and for the present we will postpone the execution of the intention we have formed of dealing with these stupendous themes.
Take for instance the Prologue of the Fourth Gospel, or the high-priestly prayer of the seventeenth chapter, or the opening verse of Hebrews 1, or the closing verses of Romans 8; a minister puts these away, saying: “I am not able to handle themes like these, and I do not desire to announce them as my text, lest I excite hopes that I cannot fulfil, and make myself a laughing-stock. Mine is the sparrow’s wing, and I have no pinions for these heaven-piercing peaks. I am not sufficient for these things.” Therefore some of us never preach on the greatest texts of the Bible. We choose little snippets but not great tracts of truth. It is a profound mistake. If you are conscious of being the man with one talent, exercise it on a big text; the text will insensibly lift up yourself and your congregation. To announce it will appeal to the heightened imagination of your congregation, and this will telepathically react on you.
But these reasonings do not arise or are deemed unworthy of consideration when the course of exposition brings you suddenly on one of these outstanding paragraphs. It is as when a ship that had been pursuing the tortuous wanderings of some high-banked river suddenly emerges on the wide still waters of a lake, mountain-encircled. The passengers expect to be carried across the waters as they have been conducted along the stream; and as they congregate on deck, possibly they think less than ever of the skill which is guiding them than of the noble panorama unfolded to their gaze.
It is a sad discovery to find the woeful ignorance which prevails in congregations to-day of the great basic truths of religion, which should underpin the Christian experience. Probably we all shrink from preaching doctrinal sermons as such. The days are past when our people can stand chunks of doctrine piled on their plates for their digestion. They are not able to masticate or digest them. Minced meat—and minced small—is more to their mind. But if we deal systematically and continuously with the Word of God, we come on the classic passages, on which theology has been built. When the geologist stands with you at the foot of the chalk-cliffs it is both easy and natural for him to pass from the single fossil he is handling to discuss the age out of which it came, and its relative position with other ages that have registered themselves above or below the stratum to which it belongs. Your people might present it. But what can they say when you announce as your text 1 Peter 1:1–5, because you have determined to take that epistle as the subject of your next Expository course! The advantages are enormous in this direction; and the wise minister will alternate the various books of the Bible, following a book of the Old Testament with one of the New, or the story of our Lord or of His apostles with the study of the Epistle to the Hebrews or a letter of the Apostle Paul.
3. The expositor will be led to handle subjects which would not otherwise occur to him. In every congregation there are touchy people, who need to be dealt with in regard to some duties they omit, or indiscretions or faults they commit. If the pastor were to select a text bearing on these points, they would almost certainly suppose that he was levelling his sermon on them and holding them up before the congregation for criticism and reproof. Men will stand a direct challenge in private. David did not resent Nathan’s “Thou art the man,” when they two met in the inner chamber of the palace. But when the unnamed prophet from Judah rebuked Jeroboam before all the people that were gathered around the altar, he resented the impertinence bitterly, putting forth his hand from the altar, and crying, “Lay hold of him.” Men cannot endure being preached at.
A continuous course of exposition, however, obviates any such imputation. If a passage seems unusually pertinent to some person in the audience, he cannot resent the warning or appeal which the preacher bases upon it. If, for instance, there is a wealthy farmer in the congregation who is a notorious skinflint, and not too careful of the interests of his labourers or of the poor around him, he cannot accuse the minister of personalities if, in the regular course of teaching, the sermon is based on Amos 8:4–7. In the course of my ministry I have often found that the old Hebrew prophets would say for me all that I wanted to say on Social Economics. Or suppose there is a family quarrel afoot, arising from the bitter disposition and caustic tongue of man or wife, the whole family cannot resent the plain instruction of the pulpit, which in the ordinary course is dwelling on Colossians 3:18–21. Young women who overdress will not think that the pastor is hitting at them if he has come, in expounding Isaiah, to 3:16–26.
There is not a phase of character or experience which is not touched on and treated in the contents of Scripture; and it is a profound loss to a congregation if it is not fed on the entire wheat of the Divine Word. Eliminate from our food-stuffs one ingredient, and the children around your board will pay dearly for your neglect. Similarly it is impossible to omit any of the teachings, reproofs, corrections, or instructions of Scripture without leaving the man of God incomplete and inadequately furnished unto good works. “Every Scripture inspired of God is profitable.”
This is why the short term of ministry, too much in vogue in the present day, is so greatly to be deplored. It does not give the minister the chance of unfolding the Bible to his people. He therefore wanders aimlessly over the entire surface of the boundless prairie, browsing here and there, according to his whim, instead of leading his flock systematically from one fenced-in portion to another, until in due time the whole has been covered and has yielded its contribution to their health and well-being.
Continuous exposition not only saves a minister from the imputation of personalities, but creates a well-instructed congregation. It is surprising how low is the average of Bible knowledge among our people, which arises in part from the use of selected texts and passages. It will shock some people to hear it said, but I profoundly believe it, that the widespread habit of using these booklets, in which tiny tit-bits are served up for consumption, is as hurtful spiritually as it would be physically were we always to stand at a quick-lunch bar to get our meals. They are very well if used with the Bible, but extremely harmful when used alone; and to the widespread habit of confining our Bible study to these may be attributed the surprising ignorance of the Book which is acknowledged to be the Book of books, whose praises are on every tongue, but the real knowledge of which is less than of the standard works of fiction or poetry.
An amusing instance of this ignorance occurred a generation ago in the British House of Commons. Mr. John Bright, a distinguished member of the Society of Friends, alluding to Mr. Robert Lowe and others, who rebelled against the Reform Bill of the Liberal leader, said that they had gone into a Cave of Adullam. Two members, leaving the House, were overheard discussing the metaphor. One said to the other, “I say, where did Bright get that illustration of his to-night about the cave?” “Oh,” was the reply, “I see what you’re up to; do you suppose I haven’t read the ‘Arabian Nights’?” These men were probably church-goers, for in those days most public men attended church, for appearances’ sake. But let us not smile at this mistake, lest we be liable to be held up for repeating it. There are parts of our Bible which we peruse pretty frequently, and they begin to show signs of wear and tear, but other and much more considerable portions are almost as fresh and new as when they came from the printer, twenty years ago.
The expositor of Scripture occupies a field in which he has no rival. If we discuss politics, the professional politician or leader writer can easily distance us. If we deal with social questions, the pages of our monthly magazines will furnish better material, more up to date, and more highly spiced. We might go further and say that questions of metaphysics or philosophy are more likely to be handled well by brilliant thinkers and writers than by the majority of our hard-driven ministers. But when we leave these subjects and bend ourselves to the careful and studied unfolding of the treasures hidden in Scripture, we are monarchs of all we survey, and our right there is none to dispute. What a mistake it is to vacate an unassailable position as the expositors of Scripture and descend into lower levels, where we expose ourselves to invidious comparisons! Our prerogative is to command ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God by manifestations of the truth, and by this sign alone can we conquer.
When Richard of England, on his way back from the Crusades, was waylaid by his enemies, and imprisoned in a remote castle in Austria, his bereaved subjects had no clue to his whereabouts. But in his household there was a French musician, Blondin, who resolved to discover his master. If he had used the methods which the statesmen of the realm were employing, he would have stood at a great disadvantage, because they were adepts in their business; but there was one art in which he stood alone. The king and he had spent long hours together as true troubadours, inventing lays and sonnets, with which they two were alone acquainted. This was his perquisite, his talisman, his clue; and singing these lays through Europe beneath the windows of each frowning fortress, he finally heard them repeated by a manly voice which he knew and loved, and in that repetition was assured that he had discovered the prison of his captured lord. This led to Richard’s emancipation by the payment of a heavy fine. So the minister of the gospel, like another troubadour, has to go through the world with one instrument in his hand—the Bible—the strains of which he must elicit with no uncertain touch, confident that they will secure a deep response from the heart of man. From each man’s conscience in God’s sight the answer comes back to the Word of the Eternal, which proves that the Creator of the one was the Author of the other. No one can vie with the minister in this special office, which has been entrusted to him by Christ when He said, through the apostle, to all His Timothies: “I charge thee in the sight of God … preach the Word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and teaching; for the time will come when they will not endure sound (i. e., healthful doctrine); but, having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts.”
But the last argument that we will advance here for continuous exposition is that, while it honours the Word of God, it gives immense force to the ministry that is based upon it. We are so familiar with the spectacle that it fails to impress us that during the delivery of a sermon the Bible lies open, as though the preacher were giving it an utterance. In a sense we may apply to the gospel ministry statements originally made of our Lord. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld its glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father.”
This has been the stronghold of the Protestant Church. Before the Reformation the priest occupied almost the entire space in the eye of his contemporaries. The sacraments became an unintelligible mummery, the truths of the gospel receded further and further into the distance and were veiled by the grossest superstitions. The Bible was practically a lost Book, and it was the desire of the ecclesiastics of the age that it should remain so.
Luther’s discovery of the Bible on the shelves of the monastery dated a new epoch in the history of Europe. True, Wyclif and Huss had striven to give it to the common people, but their efforts had been largely overborne by the opposition with which they were confounded. By the peculiar providence of God, and because the times were ripe, Luther not only survived all the plottings of the enemies of the Truth, but was able to translate and print the Scriptures in the tongue of his people. In addition he was a massive expositor and preacher of what he had discovered. His expositions remain to the present day as magnificent contributions to expository literature. There is probably no more illuminating commentary extant than his on the Galatians.
Thus the Bible superseded the altar, and the expositor the priest. “No greater change,” says Green, the historian, “ever passed over England during the reign of Elizabeth. England became the people of one Book, and that Book the Bible. It was read at churches and read at home, and everywhere its words, as they fell on ears which custom had not deadened, kindled a startling enthusiasm. When Bishop Bunner set up the first six Bibles in St. Paul’s, ‘many well-disposed persons used much to resort to the hearing thereof, especially when they could get any that had an audible voice to read to them.’ But the goodly exercise of readers, such as Porter, was soon superseded by the continual recitation, both of Old Testament and New, in the public services of the Church!” This recitation and exposition has been the glory and strength of an evangelical ministry from that time onwards.
The expositor of the Bible is therefore in the line of a great succession. The Reformers, the Puritans, the pastors of the Pilgrim Fathers were essentially expositors. They did not announce their own particular opinions, which might be matters of private interpretation or doubtful disputation; but, taking their stand on Scripture, drove home their message with irresistible effect with “Thus saith the Lord.”
Surely we may go beyond that great age through the centuries to Augustine and Ambrose, to Chrysostom and Athanasius, always their appeal was to Scripture, and their strength in its systematic unfolding. The sermons of the apostles were little else than quotations and applications of Old Testament Scriptures, and our Lord’s own appeals were enforced by citations from the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets.
When the minister is always turning to the Word of God for his authority, when his finger falls naturally on the open page where the proof text awaits his appeal, when each argument is clenched by the endorsement of the Divine Word, he not only places himself on the highest vantage ground possible, but compels his people to stand before the Supreme Tribunal.
Of course we understand that things are true so far as they are so in the nature of things. Speaking of the ultimate sanctions of right and wrong, we may say that they are to be found in the moral constitution of the universe, which is necessarily what it is; but as the chart reveals the headlands and indentations of the coast, so does the Bible reveal the inexorable demands of God, which were established before the foundations of the earth were laid. Therefore, when the minister buttresses his words on Scripture, and shows that he is warranted in his assertions by the Word of God, he is bringing into court not only the sacred record of the experiences, revelations and meditations of the chosen channels of the Divine Spirit, but he is summoning the very foundations of the moral universe to affirm that what he says is true. This enables him “to speak with authority, and not as the scribes.”
For the most of us it is unwise to enter into detailed defence of the Bible. The familiar humorous story of the verger who said that he had heard all the Bampton lectures and was thankful to be still a believer, suggests that the effect of such sermons on ordinary people is rather in the direction of disturbing than of reassuring them. Probably the Bible is better left to give its own witness to itself. We are not sent to defend the Bible, but to give it utterance, and it will defend itself and its expositor. Your congregations, seeing your deference to the authority of Scripture, will come to honour it as you do. They will regard it as the ultimate appeal, the judge that ends all strife. There is, of course, a gradation in its teachings, from the twilight of the earlier portions to the meridian of the Epistles of John, but it stands for evermore not only as the Illuminator and Comforter of the soul, but as the power-house from which the energy of God is passed into the sermons of the preacher and the resolutions of his congregation.
Restored Harmony—Exposition of Psalm 19:4
“Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.” (Psalm 19:4.)
This word translated “line” is very interesting. In the first instance it means a measuring-cord, such as is used by an architect for purposes of surveying. Thence it derived the further idea of a cord tightly stretched which gives a musical sound. This is the interpretation taken by the Septuagint, and reproduced by the Apostle Paul when he quotes this verse in Romans 10:18: “Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.” He uses the same word, indeed, in 1 Corinthians 14:7, of the sweet sounds of the pipe and harp. It is held also by an eminent commentator on the Psalter that the word really means chord or keynote; and this view is supported by Eusebius, who paraphrases the verse thus: “The voices of days and nights, to those who are able to perceive them, shout so loudly that their rehearsal reaches every ear. Accordingly the whole world of human beings is filled with their well-measured, alternate, choral singing.” In this regard the heavens maintain for all creation the time and rhythm in the great concert of songs without words; and is not this what the ancients taught, that there is music in the spheres? Addison sings:
“What though, in solemn silence, all
Move round this dark terrestrial ball?
What though no real voice, nor sound,
Amidst the radiant orbs be found?
“In reason’s ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice;
For ever singing as they shine—
The Hand that made us is Divine.”
1. The Order and Harmony of Nature. The Eighth Psalm begins with the words, “When I consider thy heavens, the moon and stars;” so, clearly, it was composed under the aspect of night. Here the sun is depicted as a bridegroom emerging from the glowing chambers of the east, which clearly stamps this psalm as having been composed under the aspect of the morning glory. There were three ideas in the psalmist’s mind:
(1) The personality of the Creator. The azure blue, which to us speaks of infinite depth, to David appeared as a piece of blue tapestry which had been woven on the Divine hand-loom: “The firmament showeth his handiwork.” The materialist speaks of the eternity of matter, and argues that Nature contains, locked within herself, the plan and potency of her own existence. The idolator is disposed to believe that the sun and moon and heavenly bodies are deities who determine the lot of human life, and need to be propitiated. But against each of these David put the conviction that the heavens declared the eternal power and Godhead of the Almighty. Comte, the philosopher, ventured to say that the heavens declared the glory of the astronomer, not of God; but, as has been truly said, wherever there is order there must be thought, and wherever there is thought there must be a thinker; and who is that thinker but God? He hath not left Himself without witness. His invisible things are clearly seen through the things that are made. Through the solar realms the anointed ear detects a voice saying, “God is; God made us; God is here.”
(2) The silence with which the testimony is given. The Authorised Version rendering obscures the sense; e.g., “There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.” How incomparably; majestic is the original: “There is no speech, there are no words, all inaudible is their voice!” The silent splendour of the midnight sky, of sunrise smiting the Alps, of the Aurora at night, of the noiseless revolutions of the worlds, fill our hearts with awe. The contrast with the hubbub and storm of human life is so absolute, and yet the psalmist says one day “wells over” into the next with speech, and night signals on to night. This blending of speech with silence is the best restorative of the overwrought brain. It is only when we are still as to the physical ear that we can detect the harmonious voice of Nature. Alas for those who will not or dare not expose their souls to these eloquent and silent preachers!
(3) The energy that thrills through nature. The sun is depicted as a strong man. Modern science has demonstrated the truth of this conception of strength as attributed to the sun. We know that the ultra-violet rays, or actinic rays, contain a virtue, an energy, which is probably the source of all power in the natural world. The coal of the mine, the electricity stored more or less in all substances, the power that drives our factories, locomotive and motors, the life-giving power in all vegetable and animal existence, are all variations of solar energy.
But, after all, the supreme thought suggested by the heavens is their purity and order. One looks up into the blue of the mid-day sky, conscious that there at least is perfect purity. There is no discord between them and the Divine nature, no want of harmony in their relations to each other, no stain of impurity or evil. Silently they have witnessed scenes of outrageous crime upon our earth, but they have not been infected or inflamed. And as we look towards them our hearts condemn us. Here are the ninety and nine that have not gone astray; but woe is unto us that we are people of unclean lips and our dwelling is in a world of uncleanness. For us there is but one confession to the Shepherd of these hosts, who calleth them all by their names, “We have gone astray like lost sheep.”
2. The Order and Harmony of the Moral World. The psalmist in the second division of this sublime ode turns to the moral world, which underpins the physical, and which fashions the Scriptures. A German writer has said that the two things which struck him with the feeling of the sublime were the starry heavens outside and the moral sense within. Instead of the “moral sense” let us substitute “God’s Revealed World,” and you have the precise contrast of this psalm.
We cannot stay to notice the affectionate terms in which he refers to it. Six different words are used: “the law,” “the testimony,” “the precepts,” “the commandment,” “the fear,” and “the judgments” of Jehovah. Note that whereas for the description of the book of Nature he uses the Hebrew EL for the Almighty, in this description of the Scriptures of Truth he employs the name Jehovah, which always describes the Redemptive aspect of the Divine Nature.
We must concentrate our thought on the life which the moral law intends. If we were to obey the impulses and intentions of that silent moral world with the same precision as the worlds obey the motions impressed on them by their Creator, there would result the light, the music, and the order that are so evident in Creation. They are perfect—i. e., without flaw; and if we were ruled by them, our soul should be “converted”—i. e., established and kept in the original divine ideals. They are sure—i. e., steady, not fitful or intermittent in their effect, communicating infallible wisdom to any soul that will open its windows and doors to receive their radiance. They are right—i. e., they prescribe the true and direct road towards man’s goal. They are pure—i. e., they have a radiance like the sun, only of a higher quality than this. They are clean—i. e., absolutely free from the loathsome impurities of the human heart. They are true and wholly righteous—i. e., corresponding to the facts of God and of humanity. They rival the wealth of gold and the sweetness of honey.
We may paraphrase the words of the psalmist thus: “The Scriptures declare the glory of God, and inspiration shows his handiwork. Book unto book wells over with speech of him, mystery after mystery shows knowledge. There is no speech nor language which the ungodly can hear. Their voice is not heard, yet the music of their speech has gone forth into all the world, and their words to every nation under heaven. In them there is provided a tent for Jesus the Christ, the Sun of Righteousness; and as the clouds of the Eastern sky glow with glory, when the sun emerges from the night to begin the labour of the day, so do the Scriptures glow in every line and verse with the reflected glory of the King of Glory. None are hidden from the heart of his heart, or the love that he hath towards the children of men.”
3. The Disorder and Discord of the Inner World. What is this that we meet? What is this about errors and secret faults and presumptuous sins and the great transgression? Why does the psalmist appeal to Jehovah as his Rock, and notably as his Redeemer? Let Milton answer:
“Disproportioned sin
Jarred against Nature’s chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair music that all creatures made
To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed.”
There are four words here demanding careful thought. “Who can understand his errors?” The Hebrew word indicates sins of ignorance or inadvertence; we might call them unsuspected sins. How well I remember, years ago, my first lesson in elocution. Though I had no special conceit of myself, I had no idea how faulty my speech was till my master imitated it. It startled me as much as when first I heard my voice come back from the phonograph. Probably all of us are committing sins daily of which we know nothing. Below our outward action there is a whole world of thoughts, impulses and emotions which we accept as ordinary and human, but would be the first to condemn if we saw them as God does. Traitors are in the camp! White ants are eating out the pith. Gray hairs are on our heads, though we know it not. We are unkempt and ill-dressed because we have shaved and dressed in the dim morning twilight. We are perpetrating habits that are undermining our spiritual health as certain other habits are sapping our physical. We have contracted disease which is at work in our nature, dragging it down imperceptibly, though we wist it not. The Delilah razor is creeping over our locks of strength, though we are unaware. We call vices by euphonious names, as when we call anger “righteous indignation,” or passion “a warm nature,” or the love of money “a prudent care for our own.” David flared up when he heard the story of the rich man who took the poor man’s ewe lamb, but had no sort of idea that he was doing the same thing himself. If we were to take the poor daub of our character and place it alongside the perfect beauty of Christ, we should have very little to think or say of ourselves thereafter.
Cleanse Thou me from secret faults. We may take those as being the faults which we hide from the eyes which are closest and quickest. A little while ago the papers reported that the cloud by day and fire by night which hovers over Vesuvius has ceased, and that instead invisible vapours, full of poison, arise from the crater. Better the visible than the invisible emission of destructive gases. So secret faults are more perilous than open ones. Dr. Watkinson has told us that elephantiasis may be occasioned by a mosquito bite. The worst diseases to which we are heir begin with infinitesimal bacilli. It is wise in physical health to watch for those secret warnings which portend coming disaster. Hide these, and the full power of some terrible disease will presently assert itself. Are any yielding to secret sins, sins which they dare not speak of, which their dearest would be paralyzed to know of, which they would be the first to judge, and judge harshly in others? Let such emulate the psalmist in his desire to regulate his life in its most secret springs. If you would deal successfully with a child’s character, says one, you must begin with its mother’s mother. And if you would be kept from a fall which will bring disgrace on your name and family, begin with David’s prayer. The oak would never fall before the gale had it not been the prey of the insidious insects which had eaten out its heart.
Keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins. The word “presumptuous” literally means that which boils and bubbles. This is a befitting term for the sins into which we are hurried by the agitation of excited impulses and passions in spite of the remonstrances of our conscience. They are sins that the doer, when he does them, knows to be wrong. Do we not all recall moments when we knew that a certain deed was wrong, but we have set our teeth to do it, and have done it? Now, of course, such sins may so frighten us that to have committed them once will set us against them for ever. David’s agony over his sin with Bathsheba, like a prairie fire, burnt his heart bare, and no similar act could find aught to feed upon. And a man’s sin may prove his salvation, but it is not always so. Presumptuous sins may get dominion over us. The physiologist tells us that the repetition of the same action for but a few times deeply affects the particles, tissues, and nerves of the body, establishing a strong tendency in the same direction. The track, once trodden, becomes more and more a path. The rill that trickles through the dyke will become the flood. The weed which is but a single plant today will become a mass of floating vegetation to-morrow. One pair of grey squirrels filled Regent’s Park with that species and drove out all the little brown ones that had held undisputed sway. “Look, therefore, carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise.” The collier who descends the pit and walks through the long galleries, guarding his lamp, has our profound sympathy; but what shall we say of him when he opens his lamp to light his pipe! Alfred Nobel, the great inventor of explosives, faced the most tremendous perils in carrying out his experiments. On one occasion he crept up to a large cask of dynamite and cut out an explosive in the very nick of time. But how different such an attitude to the presumptuousness of the fools that would play with nitro-glycerine. This world of ours is by no means fool-proof, and we need to ask daily that we may not be led into temptation or may enter the fire with our powder saturated with moisture.
So only shall we be preserved from great transgression. This means rebellion and revolt. Here is the result of tampering with temptation, that there is an entire casting off of all allegiance to God. This is the terrible sequel. He who toyed with evil becomes mastered by evil. “His servants ye are whom ye obey.” The secret obedience of the traitorous heart to the enemy of our Master prepares the way for His enthronement and crowning. First, unsuspected sin, unsuspected through unwatchfulness; then secret sin, known to the soul, but hidden from others; then presumptuous sin, impetuous and barefaced; lastly, the great transgression, when the soul disowns God. “Lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin; and sin, when it is full grown, bringeth forth death.”
See, then, what has happened. Yonder is the Order and Beauty of the Physical World; within is the Order and Beauty of the Moral World. But now we are face to face with the Disorder and Discord of the Inner World of Man Soul. What can be done? Man cannot right himself. The forces of evil are too strong, because generations of evildoers lie behind us. What, then, shall we do? To whom can we turn? To none save to our God. He is our Rock, the eternal ground of all Being, of all Truth and Right and Holiness; but He is also our Redeemer, our God, having tender pity for our fallen and sorrowful state.
Rock stands for strength, and we need strength. Redeemer means love, and we need love. Both are blended in Jesus Christ. Here is that of which Creation and the Moral Law cannot speak. In them there is apparently nothing but Law, swift to smite, merciless and unsparing. But the missal of Gethsemane, Calvary, the open grave, declare the glory and handiwork of God as neither of the other books could do. Is there no speech, no language from those mute wounds, more eloquent than all the speech of suns and worlds?
But what will He do? First, He clears from guilt; and next He keeps back from presumptuous sin by the saving strength of His right hand; and next He brings us into At-one-ment with God, and so into accord with the fair music that all creatures make to their great Lord.