Review of the Whole

Matthew i–xxviii

ALMmIcHTY God, thou art slow to anger, but we are swift to do that which is evil. Because thy compassions fail not, therefore do we rebel against thee with a high hand and with an arm outstretched. Judgment is thy strange work, mercy is thy delight, and the heart of man is set in him to do evil, for he knows that the Lord will not smite until the last, and that his mercy endureth for ever. This we have learned through Jesus Christ thy Son, our one and only Saviour: he wept over us; though we had stoned the prophets and killed them that were sent unto us, yet he wept over us as over those whom he would gladly have redeemed. Thou lovest the sons of men, thine heart is moved towards them in great love and in continual compassion and hopefulness. Therefore is thy providence a revelation of thy mercy, and therefore is every day a token for good unto our souls, if we could but read upon it thy sweet and gracious purpose. Thou hast no thought of evil towards us, thine heart looks out upon us wistfully, with the yearning and expectation of love that cannot be satisfied until the last prodigal has returned and the whole household is complete.

We come to thee now with songs of delight far above an words to utter — a love that has no speech because of thy lovingkindness and thy tender mercy. Thou hast stooped very low to find us, thou hast gone out of thy way to recover those who have strayed, thou hast lighted the house and swept it diligently to find the meanest piece that was lost. We were as sheep gone astray, now we are returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, and safely enfolded upon the high mountains of Israel, we will be glad in the Lord and praise him with a new song. Once we were blind, now we see, once we knew not what was above the blue sky which we called the day, now we see beyond it into the upper spaces and wider liberties of thy creation, and behold how high is God’s sanctuary and how wide the temple of the Lord.

Bless us, we humbly pray thee, in the name of Jesus Christ the Priest and Saviour of the world, with daily revelation of truth, and daily delight in thy wisdom. Wean us from all forbidden things, overcome the fascinations of time and sense with some mightier attraction of thine own, destroy within us him who rules over our life, set up thine own kingdom in the heart and be our one Master. We would be slaves of thine, we would be captives of the Lord, we would be bound hand and foot, head and heart, by the chains of thy love, and seek no other liberty than the range of thy will and purpose. For this desire we bless thee: it is the marvel of our misspent life: we knew not that thou wouldst bring us even so far as to lay down our will at thy feet. This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.

Continue thy ministry within the soul, break down every barrier, drive away every cloud, and cleanse the whole sanctuary of the life and make it a fit dwelling-place for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Give us the eye which sees the inner meaning of things, give us the hearing ear and the heart which listens for the lowest tones of thy music and all the subtle suggestions of thy revelation in the Book, in life, in history, and in providence. Deliver us from supposing that we are bounded only by things seen and temporal, and give us such a consciousness of other presences and other distances as shall ennoble our whole thought and lift up our life to the heavenly level.

We have done the things we ought not to have done, and left undone the things that we ought to have done, and our lamentation is a sorrow that should have no end. But thou dost interrupt our reproaches and confessions with assurances of love and offers of pardon: ere we have completed the tale of our shame, thou hast called for a robe to clothe us, for a ring for our finger, and thou hast lighted the house with a new glory and filled it with ineffable gladness. This is thy wondrous way, this the very mystery and glory of thy love; because thy compassions fail not, therefore are we not consumed, therefore have we a great hope.

Thou knowest what hearts are burdened, what lives are strained by difficulty and bewildered by perplexity; thou knowest where the shadow of death has broadly fallen, and where the grave has been dug in the household. Thou knowest those who are feeling inward pain and weakness and distress hitherto concealed, thou knowest all the wants of our life, its pain and its poverty are continual prayers unto the heavens. We humbly desire therefore that thou wouldst, in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ, come to us with answers larger than our prayers, and with revelations that shall astound our vision by their beauty and magnificence.

Let our houses be precious to thee, may they be homes indeed, wherein dwells the spirit of rest, and broods the angel of peace. Make our fire in the winter time, and fill our windows with light when the summer comes round, and out of every flower may we bring some new lesson of thy care. Let the little ones all live and grow strong and wise, and become sources of gladness in the house. Let the old grandfather and grandmother, those who represent the older generation, be comforted with very rich solaces, and be made quite young again — not in their flesh, but in their Christian inspiration and hope. Dry our tears when we dare not touch them, soothe the grief too sensitive to be approached by the kindest human love, and into the ear that is dying, pour the last earthly word of comfort, and speak of the resurrection and the life.

As for our enemies, do thou forgive them with great pardons; when the abjects gather themselves against us and we know it not, the Lord dispel their illusions, and preserve their lives. Amen.

REVIEW OF THE WHOLE.

E have come to the end of this gospel of Matthew, and if you ask me what I think of the gospel now that I have closed it, I will tell you. I am like a man who has been ina strange land, whose speech and usages he cannot wholly comprehend, and about which there is a touch of infinite charm. All the people wore unfamiliar garments, no man spoke my native tongue, the whole population moved in urgent haste, and often whispered with keenest energy. Amongst them stood a Man like no other man I ever saw, with a face that burned, an eye that changed from pity to judgment and ffom judgment to pity with startling rapidity, a voice in which thunders were chained and all the mysteries of music hidden. A voice marvellous; now so like other voices that it moved no sense of wonder, and now so unique that all other voices sounded shallow and commonplace as compared with its compass and solemnity. A strange Man — now shrunk from like a mountain on fire, now sought as a garden of delight in which palms grew for wounded hearts, and flowers bloomed that were fit for festivals of unutterable joy. Loved by all women, kissed by all children, longed for by all sufferers, besought, entreated with tears, honoured, worshipped, hated with all the malignity of hell.

His name was Jesus. He was a Man of strange ways: so fond of loneliness that he stole away secretly to the mountain long after the sunshine had fled from its slopes and crags, and when the cold stars looked glitteringly upon the cold dew of the still night. There he was, there within the crags as within a holy church, there on his. knees, with his face upturned to the starry canopy, and his lips moving in the eloquent agony of speechless prayer. No human creature was at hand; angels thronged the steps, and the low winds brought fragrance from sweetest paradises, and the planets attested the solidity and beneficent rigour of infinite law — but no man was there, no child, no woman, not Mary who bore him: he stood off like a Priest, he stood above, like a Sun that cannot be touched.

Then in the morning when I saw him on common ground again, how weird he looked, how solemn, how unlike all other men, so old, yet so young, so commonly clothed, yet so dignified, speaking the language of all with an accent which none could imitate, as ready for good work as he had been ready for holy prayer. Men never knew what to call him, he was almost the anonymous one; he was called ‘‘ JESUS” by the angel, but to others he was all but Nameless. I never heard him called by his name to his face; every one said thou, or he, or Rabdi, but no lips could be so far irreverent as to call him familiarly by his name, except when away from him, and then the name was spoken with tender gratefulness — ‘‘ A Man that was called Jesus said unto me,’’ — ‘‘ But Jesus said.”’

His shape was as a cloud that changes every moment into some new suggestion of magnificence or beauty. His movement was through an uncalculated orbit, his outlook rested upon points which no astronomy had mapped. Like a bird he sometimes came so near as to be almost familiar, then like a bird with outspread wings that carried him to the entrances of other worlds. O those wings, wings of the soul, wings of almightiness, wings that told all the world that he was here but for a time, and that he had brought with him the power to return — those wings that give the life that carries with them so much liberty, the soul-wings that bear him away above the range and above the uproar of the thunder, which makes the timid earth afraid. O that I had wings like a dove, then would I flee away and be at rest! The sun of righteousness is risen with healing in his wings.

If you ask me what further I think of the gospel now that it is closed, I will tell you. I shut my eyes and see it all, I betake me to some quiet dream-spot where the flocks lie down at noon, and ina waking dream I hear and see everything once more. What voices of the night are these like silver bells that sweetly sound? Is it the plash of some gentle stream flowing through gardens that slope towards the sun? Is it converse between spirits that speak to one another some tender secret of the heart? It is in very deed a song: it rises and falls with the rhythm of some other and infinite movement to which the throbbing stars beat time, and which all Heaven accepts as the law of its own security. What song is that? It is a birth-song: it is no prophecy of mere hope, it is the joy-song of an immediate blessing — ‘‘ A Child is born, a Son is given: the second Adam has appeared to retrieve the fortunes of the first, and to work out some unknown mystery of grace. Glory to God in the highest!’’ ‘That song leaves us until it becomes but a whisper in the air, further, further it goes — -‘‘ On earth peace, and good will toward men.’’ That song comes downward, it broadens and it rolls and fills the whole earth with musical thunder. That was the song I heard. ‘The first Adam came in silence, the second with songs of angels; the first a dying body, the second a quickening spirit. He came with music, he came to make music, he loves music, he will reign till all nations repeat his song and call him blessed.

Such is the impression with which I came out of that gospel scene. Quickly the scene changes and enlarges, and many a wonder crowds upon my eyes. ‘The Man who was born amid the songs of angels goes out to make the whole world glad. He himself will be the song. That is the purpose of our being, not to listen to music only, but to make it and to deit. He is asa Father standing at the wide-open door, wistfully longing for the prodigal’s return. ‘Then swiftly he isa King that says he will make a marriage feast for his Son, and fill the whole house with radiant guests, and make it glow with sacred fire. Then suddenly, he is as a mother that will gather all her children within her arms and press them to a heart that never felt towards them other than with unutterable love. She will give them rest, wine, milk, and honey. Then he is as a tender nurse who will take into the custody of his love all little children and helpless lives.

He does not care for mere Zi#eral consistency in the figures under which he represents himself. He is a broken-hearted Father, bitterly disappointed because his last born is not at home, a great King who takes out of his wardrobe all the wedding dresses and sends out invitations to the whole universe. Jother, and Shepherd, and Nurse, and Friend, and Teacher, — he will condescend to assume amy figure and condition that will touch the pathos of the occasion with which he has to deal. Tell him that the brother is dead, and he will cry over the vacancy in the family circle, — but he will cry in fuller and bitterer floods over the city which has stoned the prophets and killed them who were sent to it.

So weak, yet so strong — amid the weakness of tears there is the energy of almighty power. The Man touches the blind eyes and they are blind no more. The deaf ear he unstops, and blesses it first of all with the music of his own voice, after which all other - music must be commonplace. He turns the desert into a banqueting hall, walks upon the sea, summons the dead from the winding sheet, and in the presence of his health all disease flies away, ashamed of its own corruption. He went about doing good. He came not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. In a moment of supreme passion of love, he confounded all sense and reason and literal understanding by saying that he would give his flesh and his blood for the life of the world. We must bea long time with him before we can enter into the mystery of that gift.

Again the scene changes before the vision of my memory, and Isee a man who boldly announces that he has come to set up what he calls the kingdom of heaven upon the earth. Not to raise a house, but to establish a throne; not to be one of many, but to be the all-including One; not to consult other kings, but to rule them; not to offer homage, but to claim it from all masteries and dominions, from all chiefs and potentates. This Man’s subject of speech is a kingdom, this Man’s kingdom is heaven, this Man’s heaven is not a distant city but a presence in the soul. It was the royal element in this Man’s teaching that troubled the great ones of his time; it was the royal element that troubled Herod and all Jerusalem with him — he did not send to ask where the Shepherd was born, but where was born him that is Kimg of the Jews. It was the royal element that threw Pilate’s mind into perplexity and involved the throne of Caesar in mysterious and threatening clouds. Christ would be royal, there was royalty in his voice as he reviewed the morals of the ancient world and replaced them by principles of his own; there was royalty in his parables as he spread in them a feast for the hunger of all nations; there was royalty in his spirit as he declined all flattery, resented all patronage, called all men to himself as the centre of completeness and rest.

The royal element in his thought and action contradicted all that was mean and lowly in his outward circumstances, and those circumstances in their turn seemed to mock with bitter irony the claim of royalty which he continually set up. Royal, yet he had not where to lay his head; royal, yet he had not a stater for the tax-

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gatherer when he called; royal, but not recognized as one of the brotherhood of kings or invited to dine with that charmed circle. How then was he royal? In the magnificence of his thought, the sublimity of his purpose, the infiniteness of his love, and the splendour of his priesthood. Royal, and therefore he could stoop; royal, and therefore he could wash the disciples’ feet; royal, and therefore he could accept the cross and triumph over its’ shame and pain. ‘This is kinghood, this is royalty — not a decoration which perishes, but a splendour self-created and self-sustaining, evermore.

We have lost the royal elemen, in our preaching; we are now making apologies, we are now asking permissions, we are now requesting to be allowed that Christ should be heard along with teachers venerable by their antiquity and dignified by the general pureness of their tone. The preacher now has no kingdom to set up, but some little apology to offer. Now the cry is not “‘ Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be yet lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory ’shall come in,’’ — it is some weaker cry, some paltry tone of excuse, or some dainty endeavour to escape the tragedy of the occasion. Christianity is nothing if not a kingdom. This doctrine does but palter with the shattered fortunes of humanity, if it does not come with royal credentials and offer royal bounties to the soul. Again and again, day by day, do I, in the hearing of my memory, listen to this weird, mysterious Teacher, talking about ‘‘ THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.’”

Then comes the strangest scene of all the scenes so strange in this exciting gospel. No such spectacie ever appalled the human imagination; the mere historian cannot touch it with his tool of cold iron, language dare not take within its prison bars a story so tragical as if it could hold it up. Every word has an atmosphere of its own, between the lines deep rivers roll with apocalyptic images reflected from their gleaming waters. The very punctuation hides hints of mysteries yet to be explored, or marks our progress towards glories yet to be revealed. We are lost in worlds whose paths we have not known. Marvellous vision, this, A prisoner, held ina cruel grip; a silent Man in the presence of imperial power, a Man deserted by the few followers whose uncertain worship seldom passed beyond the point of selfish or troubled

A GRAND MAN. 307%

wonder. A great grim cross, stoutly built, and built with savage delight, and thrust into the stony ground with the joy of cruel triumph. An unresisting victim, with nails driven through his hands and feet, with the crown of thorns crushed into his temples, with the spear thrust into his side. I see darkness at midday, a field ot solid rocks throbbing under my feet; above are clouds through which innumerable eyes may be peering, and soughing around the whole circle of visible things are winds in which innumerable travellers seem to be hastening to the cross. Then a cry of orphanage, an uprising of the sheeted dead, the cry, ‘‘ It is finished,’’ and I see and hear no more — for the praying fails beneath the accumulated fear. Be quiet for a little while: in such a presence speech would be profane: but a little while be quiet — a day or two be quiet.

Then the light comes back, the blue sky sheds its blessing on the terror-stricken earth, and away yonder on a mountain stands the risen Man, possessed of all power, sending out his gospel to the whole world, and having spoken of his great last word of love he rises, he enters into a descending cloud sent down to receive him, as in a chariot, and into the skies where the angels sang the birth-song rises the Conqueror who has made that lofty song the possible music of all human life. Hark! A grand Man, Even so, Amen. —

Son of man, what seest thou? I see a handful of corn upon the top of the mountains scattered by a sower who went forth to sow. I see first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the

ar: field after field of golden grain, all the hillsides rich with corn, all the valleys rejoicing in the abundance of its sunny harvest. I see reapers going forth to reap, I see the shocks of corn fully ripe, I hear the angels’ song — ‘‘ Harvest home.”’

Son of man, what seest thou? I see a good Shepherd going forth to seek the sheep that was gone astray. I watch him threading his way through stony places and looking wistfully for some footprint to guide him. I see him climbing hills, crossing streams, and cleaving through rank brushwood. I see his eye brighten and his face flush as he lays the lost one on his shoulder and returns to the fold with thankful, shepherdly joy.

Son of man, what seest thou? I see a Father, looking tenderly and wearily into far-off space, if haply he may catch sight of a figure well known and long wished for. On his face are the stains of many tears, in his eyes is the glitter of an expectancy daily disappointed. Old age has come upon him with the prematureness of sorrow overmuch. He can find no home in the house though the house is ample and grand. Now he suddenly starts, now his breast heaves with emotion, he runs, he falls on his son’s neck and kisses him, and with many a sob he says, ‘* This my son was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found.’’

Son of man, what seest thou? I see the shining of a great light, the outbursting upon all nations of the glory of the Lord. Gentiles are coming to his light and kings to the brightness of his rising. The abundance of the sea is being converted, and the forces of the Gentiles are hastening to the cross. Midian and Ephah, Sheba and Tarshish, Kedar and Nebaioth are moved by new sensations. City is saying to city, ‘‘ Let us go up speedily to seek the Lord of Hosts.’? Men are beating their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks, and idols are being cast to the moles and to the bats. I hear a shout; it outswells the mean eloquence of the thunder, and rises in towering pride of strength, ‘‘ Hallelujah! The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, for ever and ever. Hallelujah, Amen. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour - and glory and blessing, for ever and ever, Amen. Blessing and honour and glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. Hallelujah, Amen.”’

Despised and rejected of men, he is now the Light of the universe and the joy of the whole creation. He sees of the travail of his soul and is satisfied, for his boundless Universe is a boundless Heaven. Sweet, sweet Gospel!

The following discourses are supplementary, yet illustrative of several points in the main line of inquiry.