Appendix: God's Blessedness and His Statutes

I am tempted to reproduce here a discourse prepared not altogether without some careful thought, — because it brings out somewhat more fully both the peculiar nature of Moral Law, and the a@ priort argument for the doctrine of the Trinity, as presented in the closing chapter of this volume.

GOD’S BLESSEDNESS AND HIS STATUTES. “Blessed art thou, O Lord: teach me thy statutes.” — Ps. exix. 12,

THE blessedness of God; subjection to His statutes; and the relation between these topics; — such are the threefold materials of thought furnished by this verse. Depending on the blessed God himself to teach us, we take the three topics in their order,

Sut First,
The Blessedness of God.

The blessedness of God! It is a great deep, it is a dazzling bright abyss. We can look into it only as with shaded eyes; we can speak of it only as with lisping tongue, like children. Yet if with childlike spirit we look, and listen, and meditate, our exercise may neither be unacceptable to the “blessed God,” nor destitute of blessing to ourselves.

The blessedness of God! It is the result of His possession of all

23 * 269 perfections, natural and moral. ‘“God is light;” “God is love.” Infinitely wise to devise the best conceptions, to entertain the infinitely true and good and grand ideals, and infinitely powerful to carry them out into accomplishment, His intelligent nature cannot but be characterized by that combination of inviolable repose and unhindered activity which constitutes a great element in our worthiest ideas of blessedness. His moral nature also in its glorious attributes severally, as also in the unison of their fulness and in the harmony alike of their indwelling in His being and of their outgoing into action, is at once suggestive of the highest conception we can form of blessedness. Speaking even negatively — which to our feeble intellects is often the best means of grasping truth and guiding our own intelligence — speaking even negatively of God’s moral nature, it must be very apparent that He is “the blessed God.” In Him is no darkness, no gloom, no shadow; no variableness, or shadow of turning. In Him is no malevolence; no pleasure even in the death of the vilest or most wicked of the wicked. In Him is no unrighteousness, no inequality. Hig nature and His ways are “equal.” Beautiful is that word “equal,” as applied to God’s nature and His ways; and blessed is that which it implies. There is nothing unequal in Him; there is no inequality; no excess; no defect; no incongruity, no conflicting element, no discord; no stain, no blemish, no shade, no spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing. In all the boundless fulness of His being He is right, and only right — right, righteous, upright; even as one of His adoring servants hath sung: “To show that the Lord is upright: He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him” (Ps. xcii. 15). How then can we think of Him as other than the “blessed God”?

But again: the blessedness of God is intimately connected not only with the absolute perfections of His being, but with His absolute natural supremacy and moral sovereignty. These may be distinguished, His natural supremacy is His necessary and absolute independence and superiority over all that exists; His moral sovereignty is His kingly rule over intelligent, responsible beings. And in each of these relations Scripture assigns to Him the attribution of “blessedness.” For in one passage He is designated as “God over all” — that is, the Supreme — “blessed for evermore” (Rom. ix. 5); and in another, “The blessed and only Potentate” (1 Tim. vi. 16) — the Sovereign; King of kings, and Lord of lords. As the Supreme He is blessed: “God over all, blessed for evermore.” As the sovereign God He is blessed: “the blessed and only Potentate.”

Nor is it difficult to see the grounds of these glorious assertions. He is in the fullest, the deepest sense, “God over all,” and therefore blessed. He is independent — absolutely so. He has relations to that which is without His own being; but He is independent of all that is outside His own being. All except Godhead exists by His will and at His pleasure: “Of Him and through Him, and to Him are all things.” “For His pleasure they are, and they were created.” His is the uncreated, self-existent, independent Being; infinite, eternal, unchangeable, inviolable. In virtue thereof, the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him, and He dwelleth in light that is inaccessible. Language fails to tell, and thought fails to body forth unto itself, the secret dwelling-place of the Most High, where the omnipotent and self-sufficient Godhead sits enthroned above all being beside, in His supreme and absolute, yet not self-secluding independence; exalted above all circumstances, above all creatures, above all changes, above all influences; “God over all,” in blessedness which no contingencies can invade, affect, control; which no creature-will can cross, no alien influence, overshadow, or approach; which no voice of querulousness or questioning can even penetrate or ruffle, even though a million of apostate creations should unite to ery, “What doest thou?”

For God is not only naturally, necessarily, and, so to speak, physically, the Supreme; He is morally and judicially the absolute Sovereign of the universe: and herein also He is blessed. “Blessed art thou, O Lord.” Thou art the Lord, the Master; the Ruler. God is Judge, Lawgiver, King. The Church welcomes and glorifies Him very especially in this relation, with emphatic, reiterated, rejoicing recognitions; and perilling and binding in her salvation with her recognition of it: “The Lord is our Judge; the Lord is our Lawgiver; the Lord is our King: He will save us:” as such — in this capacity in which we give Him threefold recognition; as J udge, Lawgiver, King — Sovereign Lord Most High — as such, “He will save us.”

And in this moral sovereignty God is blessed. For it is the outcome of His moral nature which is blessed; and is therefore a high exercise, expression, enjoyment of conscious blessedness. For His kingly rule is at once the outgoing of His blessed nature and the fitting action of His blessed supremacy, when He deals with intelligent and moral beings: and if His nature and His supremacy are blessed, then blessed is He also in that sovereignty which is the adequate expression alike of His nature with its perfections, and of His supremacy with its rights and claims. And the more pure and simple we perceive this sovereignty to be — the more absolute, independent, uncontrolled; the more we see it to be the pure and simple expression of His sheer and absolute will; so much the more will we see that it is blessed, and be disposed to acquiesce and rejoice in it. For if His will cannot contradict His nature, which is light and love, beneficence and righteousness; and if it vindicate to moral beings His supremacy and independence; why should it not be sheer and absolute — the mere good pleasure of His will? Shall we plead for its being brought down beneath His natural supremacy, as He is God over all, blessed forever? Shall we plead for its being taken outside the boundless glory of His blessed nature as light and love — the only wise, the only good; in whom is nothing tortuous, perplexed, unequal, unright, unrighteous? Would we not thereby impair His blessedness as our Sovereign? or rather would we not impair and destroy our own perceptions of His blessedness? And would we rather serve a sovereign whose blessedness we could not recognize, than one whom we cannot but perceive to be the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, absolute and uncontrolled? Nay; it concerns me much, if I am to be His subject and His servant, to see His sovereignty as ruled by nothing but His nature, — His will controlled by nothing but His perfections, — His reign worthy of His absolute supremacy, and unimpaired by influences that must be of infinite inferiority. Let Him do what seemeth good in His own sight alone. Let me rejoice that He taketh counsel with none — whose counsel would be infinitely beneath His own, incongruous with His own, degrading to His own. “Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in Thy sight.” Thy sovereign rule is blessed as Thy nature is blessed. Thou art the blessed and only Potentate. Thy kingdom come: ‘by will be done on earth as it is done in heaven!

But further: the blessedness of God subsists in fellowship — fellowship worthy of His eternal being and Godhead; worthy of His glorious nature and its infinite perfections; worthy of His absolute supremacy and uncreated independence — fellowship in the everlasting relations of the ever-blessed Three in One.

So far as I can see, after much and frequent thought, the doctrine of the Trinity enters indispensably into the blessedness of God. For it provides the element of fellowship — fellowship fully worthy of God’s nature, and alone adequate to God’s infinite capabilities of fellowship; and without fellowship, I confess, I cannot conceive of “blessedness”’ either in the creature or the Creator, I cannot conceive of a Unitarian’s God as a blessed being. A uni-personal Deity inhabiting a past eternity, absolutely without all relations, without converse, without reciprocations, without all love or aught to love; in solitariness, solitude, silence; — such a past eternity inhabited by absolutely one only unrelated Person, contemplating naught and in naught conversing, alike unloving and unloved, seems to me to add only the element of infinity to the idea of all that is blank, and cold, and terribly repulsive, — to add the character of boundlessness — of illimitable magnitude — to that of the very grave itself; — the most unchristian idea even of the grave, “the cold grave to which we haste, where everlasting silence reigns.”

I cannot imagine a uni-personal Deity blessed in contemplating Himself — contemplating His own nature in His own only person, however replete with all possible perfections that nature might be. I doubt whether it is even possible to imagine Him as self-conscious at all, or capable of saying from eternity, “I am;” and I do not wonder at the particular Oriental heathen doctrine which represents a uni-personal deity, Brahm, as asleep from all eternity, until he wakens up in the act of creating. And, so far as I can see, the profoundest modern doctrine of what is called the absolute Being faints and fails because it proudly shuns to borrow light from revelation, and draw upon

S the glorious revealed truth that Godhead subsists as Three in One. I do not say that reason may discover that truth; but I do say that that truth being from any quarter suggested, reason cannot fail to justify it more fully than has, so far as I can see, been generally admitted. For how an absolutely unrelated unity — and God must assuredly be One — how an absolutely and eternally unrelated unity should ever begin to enter on relations, I utterly fail to understand; and, I think, as against such a notion of a personal God — a uni-personal Deity — Pantheism, which affirms that God is all and all things are God, is not without something reasonable to say on its own behalf. How such a God, subsisting in one eternal Person alone, ever should begin to create, I cannot possibly imagine; more especially how He ever could call persons — personal beings — intelligent, moral persons into being. A personal God, self-conscious, can utter from all eternity the great word, “I am.” A dependent intelligent being created by Him, conscious of his own being, gives forth a created reflection of that utterance; and being in the image of God, self-conscious though dependent, expresses the essential dignity of highest created being by also saying, “I am.” It is a result of the uncreated “I am.” That any creature in the universe can say, “I am,” demonstrates that there must be One who from all eternity could say, “I am,” — in His case, “I AM THAT I am,” Jehovah. But then besides the great word “I am,” there is another which seems to be as great — yea, it would appear, the necessary reciprocal and complement — “Thou art.” A created intelligence can say, “I am,” but that is not the first time that great word has been uttered; Jehovah was from everlasting the eternal utterance of it, — “ITam;” “T AM THATI AM.” A created intelligence looking to his Creator can, in the instant following first consciousness, exclaim, “THou ART;” and his Creator, looking to His intelligent creature, can say, “Thou art.” Is this the first time that this great word has been uttered or utterable? Is it right that the great word “THou ART,” expressing relation, expressing recognition, expressing reciprocation, expressing fellowship, should begin to be uttered in time, and should have no place in eternity — should have no eternal root to grow upon, no eternal fountain to flow from, no eternal rock to lean and rest upon? I cannot think so. Is it right, is it fitting, is it conceivable, that God and His first intelligent creature should be on equal terms, in that each of them should, for the first time, begin reciprocally in recognizing each other to say, each unto the other, “Thou art”? They are not on equal terms in saying “I am.” God has from everlasting been the “Iam;” “Iam THATI am.” There was no beginning of circumstances to enable Him to say, “I aM.” Shall there be a beginning of circumstances to enable Him to say, “Thou art”? Is it right and fitting that this self-existent God, who has no beginning of being, should have beginning of fellowship, the very crown jewel and diadem of being? that He should begin in time, and only on the poor frail platform of created. things, to say, “Thou art”? Nay. “To which of the angels said He at any time, Thou art — thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee?” But to His eternal Son He has eternally — in the unbeginning, unending now — the day that knows no morning and no evening — been saying, “THOU ART.” All along the eternal line of His having said, “I am,” to His own Son He has been saying, “THOU ART — thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.” And not reflecting merely on self, the Father hath seen, and been the blessed God in seeing, the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person in His Son: and in Him hath He

also seen, and hath admired — in no self-seclusion, selfhood, or exclusiveness, but in fellowship, He hath seen and hath admired — and been blessed in admiring, Godhead’s sovereignty; and unto the Son He saith, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.”

Yes; I cannot imagine a uni-personal God as a Creator at all. I cannot imagine God beginning to say “Thou art” to a creature, if He has not been eternally saying “THOU ART” to one altogether worthy to say “I am”?-=to say “I am” in all the same exhaustless fulness of meaning in which Jehovah says, “I am tHATI AM?’ Withottt an eternal “THOU ART,” we search in vain for a beginning of creation: we meet with nothing but an-eternal gulf between a uni-personal Deity and contingent created being. Reason fails to find a possibility of a beginning till she hear it said of a second Person in the Godhead, that “He is the beginning of the creation of God;” “The eternal

Son;” the indispensable divine Mediator of creation — afterwards the divinely congruous divine Mediator of redemption. I repeat, I cannot possibly imagine a uni-personal eternal God, having in His own being no relations, no fellowship, no “THou ART;” no one, therefore, to whom to say even, “I AM;” and therefore no voice, no word — no wordat all. I cannot imagine a beginning to creation from such a God. But there has been a “beginning,” for there has been a “word” — the eternal Word; and I adore the wisdom that links that Word and that beginning thus: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God” — there was fellowship: “and the Word was God” — it was fellowship adequate for Godhead — fellowship of God with God: yea, fully adequate, for the “same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”

Tell me not of a dark, blank, cold, and cheerless past eternity, with one only, eternal, self-inclusive, self-contemplating Person dwelling in it, however you may accumulate into your description of His being all possible perfections. The more you tell me that He is self-subsisting, self-sufficient, self-complete, and absolutely independent, so much the more do you remove Him far away from every idea of blessedness that reason, as it seems to me, can frame or can accept, It is a dark abyss of solitude and silence, from which I shrink back in terror, and from which I cannot possibly believe that any bright and blessed creation could ever spring — any bright beginning, or blessed work, could ever emanate. I demand some inward, living, bright, and blessed relation in the eternal God himself ere I can imagine Him beginning to give birth to blessed and bright created beings. And if the problem of an absolute unit, such as reason tells that Godhead must necessarily be, combine with relation, such as reason and heart alike demand, be a problem insoluble, in which I can but doubtfully and darkly grope my way, my reason is more than satisfied, and my heart is more than joyful, when from what were otherwise the dark and blank abyss of uni-personal solitude and siJence I hear an eternal Person — an eternal Word — saying: “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His work of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, ere ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. When He prepared the heavens, I was there; when He set a compass on the face of the depth, when He appointed the foundations of the earth, then I was with Him as one brought up with Him, I was daily His delight” — blessed art thou herein, O God! — ‘“I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him” (Prov. viii. 22-32).

O thou everlasting Son of God! — thou art the deepest depth of all philosophy truly so called; the solution of all profoundest problems; the satisfaction of our reason; the joy of our heart; the Saviour of thy people. Thou art alike the light of men and the explanation of the Godhead’s blessedness; thou fillest with boundless uncreated bliss thy Father’s boundless bosom. Blessed art thou, O thou Father of an Infinite Majesty: and Thou, O Word of God, His true and honorable Son: also the Holy Ghost. For the communion of two Personalities is saved from being a mere mutual enjoyment of reflected selfhood, by being communion concerning a third Personality. The fellowship of two, each of whom can say, “I AM,” and each of whom can say, “THOU ART,” seems incomplete, and still only a kind of reciprocal and mutually reflected selfhood, till, going beyond themselves, they can add that other great word, “Huts.” But in Trinity there is provision for this also. And the Father and the Son having fellowship in the Spirit and concerning Him; the Father and the Spirit, concerning the Son; and the Son and the Spirit, concerning the Father: blessedness in Godhead is in all relations and every light complete; complete in every kind and in every degree — complete in every kind beyond degree. “Blessed art thou, O Lord.”

Dart Second.
God’s Law, Statute Law.

I fasten on the leading thought, the thought suggested by the word statutes — ‘‘thy statutes.” So that the law of God is statute law — statute and ordained. It is strictly moral law; it is commandment; it is judicial, authoritative, peremptory.

It is statute and ordained: “Thou shalt.” Thou shalt love the Lord thy God: thou shalt not covet.

Two modern errors contradictory of this simple truth present themselves.,

I. There are those who hold that the moral law is of the same kind and nature as natural and physical laws: and they would explain the consequence of breach of it, not as punishment, penalty, retribution, wrath inflicted by a personal offended lawgiver; but as the reaction caused by striking against the law itself; as when one leaning incautiously over from the summit of a lofty tower, falls by the law of gravitation, and by the law of the impenetrability of matter is dashed to pieces, or taken up bruised and bleeding. So, they hold, does God rule intelligent men, much as He rules the planets, — as when, “from His rounded palm, He bowled them flaming on the plains of night,” leaving them to circle round the sun in virtue of the laws of attraction and inertia; or as when He gave properties to fire which substantially say to man, Thou shalt not touch me, for when thou touchest me thou shalt be burned.

Now, I ask, is this a fair account of moral law? Does God as little consult my will, does He lay as little responsibility upon me, as when he rolls the moons and planets in their orbits, or sends a comet forth into the distant realms of space? and does He, by moral law, address Himself to me no more directly or personally, than when He leaves me to find that by violating the law of fire I am burned, or violating the law of inertia and of prudence alike I dash my foot against a stone? Away with the futile absurdity! It is most. miserable science — still more wretched philosophy. It is destruction of morals; it makes Christianity an impertinence, an impossibility, Nay, it overthrows all evidence of the personality of God, and refuses all recognition of the personality of man. For if God deals with me in such a fashion, I may recognize Him as a Power, but I am not shut up to see Him as a person. And I do not see that He deals with me as with a person; He seems to count me only a THING. I ask also, Is this the sort of law by which earthly monarchs rule, and earthly kingdoms are conducted and conserved? Are the laws — the statutes — the laws statute and ordained in this favored land of ours, like physical and material laws that lay no responsibility upon us, and address themselves in no respect to our free-will and sense of obligation? Does our earthly monarch rule her subjects after such a fashion? When our gracious Queen desired to send a General to give deliverance to the captives and to quell the savage, did she bowl him into the distant land bound to a camel or a car, and leave him there to work as laws of gravitation, of metals, of fire, of projectiles, might allow, — observing these laws, but without any law or commandment authoritative from his sovereign? Nay. She called him to her counsels. Personally she gave commandment; she dealt with him as her responsible subject — a free agent, able to accept or to refuse responsibility. And in mutual action of her sovereign free-will, and his subject free-will, she laid responsibility upon him, and duty: — Thy duty shall be to give deliverance to the captive and to quell the heathen’s pride. And he accepted the responsibility; and under the weighty burden of it, his soldier soul sprang up elastic in its chivalry; and he went, bound in duty, free in will; and in full free-will he did his duty, and he did it all; and he gave deliverance to the captive, and he quelled the savage, and he sheltered and comforted the heathen widow’s death-bed, and he took her son to be the ward and pupil of a man of God and missionary of the Cross; * and he praised the Lord Most High for his success, and he praised his soldiers under Him; and he shall return to hear his monarch’s “Well done, good and faithful servant,” and to hear his country’s proud acclaim of gratitude and praise. Wot ye not how his monarch honored him by saying to him, “Thou shalt”?

It is even so that God puts honor — perilous, yet grandest honor — on intelligent responsible man; not dealing with him as with dead material substance, but consulting his free-will, calling it into play, laying it under obligation. He shows me that I am under jaw: I, personally under law to Him, a living Person, Sovereign, and giving me commandment. He shows me that I have broken that commandment, and He is justified in thence condemning me. He shows me also a glorious One to whom He gave commandment also — a very different commandment — a commandment to lay down His life for the sheep;

* This discourse was written and preached at the close of the Abyssinian war.

and He accepted the commandment and the responsibility; and not at the loss of the sinner’s life, but the surrender of His own, He brings deliverance to the captive, and quells the sinner’s pride, and maketh him the ward and the pupil, not of any man of God merely, but of the everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace. He shows me a warfare in which not a single life was lost, but one was freely given; and from the altar, where that life was given, He takes a live coal and lays it on my lips, and He says, “Lo! this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin is purged.” Then I hear Him saying, “Who will go for us, and whom shall we send?” and He enables me in personal responsibility, and personal free-will to say, “Here am I; send me.” And He answers, “Thou shalt go unto all to whom I send thee, and thou shalt preach the preaching that I bid thee — deliverance to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; and all that I shall say unto thee thou shalt speak.” He gives me peremptory authoritative commandment. I am under law to Him, He is always saying to me, “Thou shalt.” He is my Lord, my Sovereign, my Lawgiver, my King; and when my commission is at last finished, if it has been at all faithfully fulfilled, He will say: “Thou hast been faithful over a few things:” “Go thy way; thou shalt stand in thy lot in the end of days.”

And that, I submit, is more honorable to my nature and my person far, than if, making me swift as Mercury, and bright as Sirius, He moved me about upon the broad plains of His government as if I were susceptible of but planetary and stellar movements, rather than of free and willing obedience to His sovereign word and will. It concerns me greatly to prefer being under express, authoritative, statute law to the “blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords.” Yes; “blessed art Thou, O Lord,” my Lawgiver and King; “teach me Thy statutes,”

II. There is a second perversion of this truth. Some would have it that although the moral law is categorically imperative in itself, it is not so to the believer. Regenerated by the Spirit of God, the law is im his heart as the law of his heart; and now he needs no outward commandment to rule, and bind, and obligate him. Inward principle moves him spontaneously; and external imperative law is removed.

Is it so? Was it so with the first Adam? or with the second Adam? either of them? — and they are the two representative men of the race.

(1.) How was it with our first parent? If ever outward law, categorical and imperative, might have been dispensed with, it might in his case. God’s law was in his heart. In all the compass of his holy blessed nature, there was nothing adverse to the law of God. He was a law unto himself. He was the moral law unto himself; loving God with all his heart, and his neighbor as himself, in all things content, in nothing coveting. Was imperative, authoritative, sovereign commandment therefore utterly unnecessary? Did God see it to be needless to say to him, Thou shalt, or, Thou shalt not? It was the very thing that infinite wisdom saw he still needed; ere being proved thereby he might obtain the crown of life, otherwise incompetent to him and unattainable. And therefore did He give commandment, sheer and sovereign, commandment that was not written on his heart and could not be by nature, but must be enjoined upon him from without by sovereignty: “Thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

(2.) How was it with the second Adam? All God’s law was in His heart. Operating there, an inward principle of grace acted in Him by the Spirit of holiness His immeasurably, He surely, if any, might have dispensed with strict, imperative, authoritative law and commandment. “I delight to do Thy will, O God; Thy law also is within my heart.”’ Was no commandment, therefore, laid upon — no obedience statute and ordained unto Him? Or did He complain if there was? Nay; I hear him specially rejoicing in it. Every word He uttered, every work he did, was by commandment; and I hear Him rejoicing that it was so. “My Father which sent Me, He gave Me commandment what I should say and what I should do; as He gave Me commandment therefore, so I speak.” And grand beyond compare as was His willing priestly act of laying down His life; and only second to it in grandeur as was His kingly act of taking it again; both these acts of Zion’s royal High

Priest were done in obedience to strict imperative commandment, statute and ordained. “I lay down My life of Myself, and I take it again: this commandment received I of My Father.” Aye, and at this moment, while He pleads at the right hand of the throne, an Advocate for sinners, He is acting by commandment, by the imperative law and obligation of official duty; and the vilest sinner seeking His aid can appeal to Him by the obligation of His office and by the force of -His Father’s commandment, that “him that cometh to Him He may in no wise cast out.” He at least counts it not dishonor to be under imperative commandment — to hear the Father saying to Him, “Thou shalt.” And oh, how blessed for me it is that it should be so! For I hear the Father’s “Thou shalt” unto the Son take gracious, glorious forms like these: “The bruised reed Thou shalt not break, and the smoking flax Thou shalt not quench, till Thou bring forth judgment unto truth.”

(3.) And shall His members, though the regenerating Spirit dwells in them, claim an exemption from what the Son was not exempt, from what the Son counts it honorable not to be exempt even in His heavenly glory? for even there He shall for — ever be “subject to the Father, that God may be all in all.” Shall believers, because the Spirit puts the law into their hearts, claim a right to act merely at the dictate of inward gracious principle, untrammelled, uncontrolled by outward peremptory statute? I appeal to Paul in the seventh chapter of the Romans, where he says “The law is holy,” and adds, as if to show that it was no inward actuating law of the heart, but God’s outward commanding law to the will: “The law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and just, and good.” And I appeal to the sweet singer of Israel, a man whose heart was after God’s own heart, yet trusted not his obedience in:the keeping of inward principle, but bowed to outward categorical commandment. For I find in this psalm, which is all throughout the breathing of a heart in which the law of God is written — I find him, over and above that, owning himself with joy as under peremptory external law: “Thou hast COMMANDED us to keep Thy precepts diligently. O that my ways were directed to keep Thy statutes. Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect to all Thy commandments,”

Dart Third, Relations between God’s Blessedness and His Statutes.

What are the relations, the practical relations, between these two topics? They are not expressly indicated in the text. The two topics are simply placed in juxtaposition, without any formal link of connection. The bond that binds them is like a deep sea electric line; yet the soul that understandeth will read without difficulty the silent telegraphic message that hidden line conveys. It is a twofold message or lesson — its parts reciprocal and mutually supplementary — and may be stated thus: (1.) If I would effectually learn His “statutes,” let me constantly contemplate His “blessedness.” (2.) If I would safely contemplate His “blessedness,” let me habitually cherish subjection to His “statutes.”

I. If I would effectually and loyally learn His statutes, let me contemplate Him as the blessed God. If I would in good faith and love accept Him as my only King and Potentate, let me dwell much upon the thought He is the “blessed” and only Potentate. For if I am to be His obedient servant hearkening to the voice of His commandment, under stringent, strict, imperative law to fulfil His will, it concerns me much to know what sort of God He is, and, in particular, whether He be “blessed for evermore.” My perceptions of His blessedness will enter deeply into the style of Spirit with which I set myself to learn His statutes.

Take the case as it appears in the infinitely lower sphere of relation to a human teacher or master. I am to be indentured to a master as his servant or his pupil. I ask not only, Is he justminded? Is he kindly? But is he a happy-minded man? Is he equable in temperament and temper? Is he genial and joyful? — in a word, a blessed man? Or, righteous and good, it may be, in the main, — is he dark, moody, gloomy, fitful? Is he such that, like the schoolboys in the “Deserted Village,” I might “learn to trace the day’s disaster in the morning face”? That, certainly, would make my obedience to him greatly more difficult, my relation to him greatly more uncomfortable.

I have seen — thank God, oftener than once — I have seen a truly blessed man, a father, a brother in the ministry; his face gleaming with gladness and with love; and as he turned it upon me, I could have gladly served him to the uttermost that health of body and power of soul could have permitted me. And as the sweet memory has come across me of that shining countenance, — ripe alike in the rich joy of pious silvered age, and in the golden youthfulness that “shall be fat and full of sap, and aye be flourishing,” — I have felt as if I could understand somewhat of the depth of that prayer: “God be merciful unto us and bless us, and cause Thy face to shine upon us.” And if a brother’s or a father’s blessedness could make me serve him gladly, if God would but show me the blessedness of the blessed and the only Potentate, I think I would ery out imperiously: “O blessed God, I will not let Thee go until Thou bless me; till Thou bless me by teaching me Thy statutes. The commandments of a God so blessed cannot possibly be grievous. Thy statutes cannot but be blessed too.”

I. IfI would safely contemplate His blessedness, let me cherish subjection to His statutes. I say “safely.” For there is risk, there is danger — the danger of envy, dark, malignant envy — grudging God His blessedness.

Is this said to be a devilish and fanciful idea? Devilish? Yes. “Tis precisely that which made angels devils, Fanciful? No. ’Tis too terribly real, as must be confessed by the children of two bright blessed beings who fell from their integrity by their desire to be “as gods” themselves; and it is too truly but the veritable reading of the carnal mind, which is enmity against God, and is not subject to the statute-law of God, neither indeed can be. Rightly probed, and rightly interpreted, that carnal mind is envious of God, envious of His inviolable, independent blessedness, and would excuse its own unholiness, if it dare, by saying, It is very easy for such a God to be holy — blasphemously fretting and grudging that it is not independently blessed too, — or at least comfortable,

It-is a most insidious form of our malignant unbelief and vanity — this envious desire to be ourselves independent. And both by law and by gospel, both by wrath and by grace, God will have it avenged or annihilated. The very reconciliation proclaimed in “the gospel of the blessed God” is expressly framed and instinct all throughout with faculty and force for overthrowing it. For that reconciliation takes place as a justification; — legal, judicial, in terms of law; — contemplating the saved sinner as a subject under strict, imperative, inviolable law — standing at his Sovereign’s throne condemned and self-condemned. Never more is the soul of man made to feel subject to the law of God, than in being justified freely by His grace. The believer, in the very act of receiving forgiveness and acceptance in the Beloved, is presented to God, to himself, to all the universe, in the most express conceivable aspect and attitude of a subject of his Sovereign, under peremptory obligation to authority and law, even by his very faith “submitting himself to the righteousness of God” (Rom. x. 3). Never am I more profoundly in subjection than when tremblingly I take hold on that righteousness of Christ. Never do I more profoundly own the stringency and strict severity of law, than when I essay to make use of that death of Christ which in such severity and stringency the law demanded in the case of Him who took my place, and came to magnify the law and make it honorable. Most blessed is our reconciliation to God. It is a real reconciliation. It is the sweet composing of a quarrel the most painful. It is the sweet and happy restoration of friendship with the Most High. All elements of handsomeness, generousness, good taste, good feeling — of finest feeling and delight — are in it; and “blessed is the man whose iniquity is forgiven, whose sin is covered, to whom the Lord imputeth no iniquity.” Nevertheless, formally, and fundamentally, and primarily, it is a justification — a legal act, a sovereign deed; in terms of law, in court of law, where all is statute and ordained.

Is not that, indeed, its charm and its strength — its exhaustless charm, its strength eternal? And again, I say, it is good that it should be so, for this as for other reasons — good, I mean, that I should be made to feel under imperative commandment, under authoritative law to God — because, save for that conviction, I might come to envy Him His blessedness by very reason of its supreme and infinite independence; its high, supernal, inviolable repose; its absolute and indestructible equipoise; resting, as it does, on eternal, unchangeable perfection, and on sovereign supremacy above all creatures, all influences whatsoever; enshrined in fellowship of infinitely equal and adequate reciprocal delights unfathomable. What is my relief against the snare and risk of envying the blessedness of God? Is it, on the one hand, the conviction that He rules me only as He rules material substances, binding me like a planet or a satellite, as by hard and iron fate, to circle round His throne? That, certainly, will never teach me to rejoice in contemplating His blessedness, as He is “God over all, blessed for evermore.” Is it, on the other hand, an indolent resigning of myself up to some inward principle, be it even the grace of this blessed God himself, within my heart? Nay; as little will that even qualify me to rejoice in the blessedness of “the blessed and only Potentate.” What I need is a cordial recognition, a personal, practical acknowledgment of His supremacy, His absolute sovereignty — a personal, cordial recognition that the Lord God omnipotent reigneth; that He reigneth over me; that I am under statute-law in His kingdom, “hearkening,” like the angels, “to the voice of His commandment.” That, and that alone, will keep me safe, as I gaze into the bright and fathomless abyss of the blessedness of God, That, and that alone, shall be my own reflected blessedness; while beholding the blessedness of God, I am changed into the same image from glory to glory, from blessedness to blessedness, as by the Spirit of the Lord. I may be in some measure like unto God in righteousness, by cultivating similar righteousness; or like unto God in wisdom, by cultivating similar wisdom, in my measure, by the Spirit of wisdom, I may be like unto God in holiness by sharing His holiness, being made partaker of His holiness, “partaker of a divine nature through His exceeding great and precious promises.” In all these I may be like unto God by cultivating similarity. But I can be like unto God, I can bear the image of God, in His sovereignty, as the blessed and only Potentate, only by cultivating dissimilarity. That is the paradox, and it has its real ground in reason. I sympathize with God in righteousness, in holiness, in wisdom, by sharing these attributes in their direct reflection, T sympathize with Him in His sovereignty only by a reverse reflection or obverse image here, I sympathize with His sovereignty only by being in subjection — subjection absolute, unconditional, unqualified, even as His sovereignty is absolute, unqualified, unconditional. By affecting to share with Him here, T would be repudiating His sovereignty, envying Him His independence, invading, if I could, the inviolable blessedness which is His as the only Potentate. I have no relief against this risk and snare but learning His statutes; and the more T learn, and the more T am subject, the more do I see, and the more deeply do I rejoice in seeing, that He is the blessed and the only Potentate. I can safely see His blessedness then. Blessed art thou, O Lord; teach me thy statutes.

I close with two brief appeals.

First; I appeal to you to cherish a deep sense of God’s statutes as authoritative, imperative, of absolute and unchangeable obligation. ‘Thou hast commanded us to keep Thy precepts.” They are His “commandments,” for ever binding all men, regenerate and unregenerate alike; and they are enforced by authority most absolute, from which there is and can be no appeal. Unless we feel that we are in this sense under law to God, piety or spiritual life is utterly impossible to us. We are under an error not merely of great magnitude, but an error that is fundamental, all-pervasive, and fatal. Unless we realize God’s law as continually and absolutely binding, we will be incapable of understanding what sin is, for sin is the transgression of the law; incapable of conviction of sin; incapable of self-condemnation; incapable of contrition, of repentance unto life; incapable of faith in Jesus Christ, who magnified the law; incapable of receiving the sprinkling of His blood, which is just God’s infinitely wise device for placing a once dishonored law again in perfect honor in the conscience, unto its perfect peace and salvation and adoring gratitude for ever. We will be incapable, therefore, of sanctification; for a man is sanctified in so far as, and no further than, he is obedient to the law of God. I know of no spirituality that is not unqualified, unconditional obedience to God’s unconditional, sovereign authority. “If any man think himself to be spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of God.”

Secondly; I appeal to you to ascribe blessedness to our God.

My text is not a cold, didactic assertion of the proposition that God is a blessed Being. It is the warm adoring direct ascription of blessedness to Him by a soul in communion with Him, rejoicing in His blessedness: “Blessed art Thou, O Lord.” Therefore, brethren, join with me in thus ascribing blessedness unto our God. Bless ye God in the congregations, even the Lord from the fountain of Israel. Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Yea, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David. And blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to His abundant mercy, hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead. And blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who keepeth not His blessedness unto Himself, but hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. His name shall endure forever; His name shall be continued as long as the sun; and man shall be blessed in Him — all nations shall call Him blessed. Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things; and blessed be His glorious name for ever. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting, and let all the peoplesay, Amen. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy. From every voice upon the crowded battlements of Zion let the joyful shout ascend, and let it be echoed back from all that are around the throne. BueEss the Lord, ye His angels that excel in strength, that do His COMMANDMENTS, hearkening unto the voice of His Word. Bless ye the Lord, all ye His hosts; ye ministers of His that do His pleasure. Bless the Lord, all His works, in all places of His dominions. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Amen and Amen.