Appendix

“Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man, to bring back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living.”

One of the most widely read among recent religious books is Professor James’ Varieties of Religious Experience. The author was one of the most eminent psychologists of the age, and in this work he applied his psychological skill to the phenomena of religion, showing how varied are the means by which a living interest in religion may be awakened in different persons.

The same title might be applied to the passage in the Book of Job of which the two verses above cited form the close, because the theme is the same — namely, the various ways in which the Spirit of God deals with the spirit of man — and it is interesting to compare the experiences of human beings in our own time, with which Professor James is concerned, with those of the men and women dealt with by the author of the Book of Job. This is a very old book; indeed, it used to be considered the oldest in the canon, going back as far as Moses or even earlier; and, though an antiquity as high as that is not now

* See p. 172.

24I Q assigned to it, it carries us back to an age of the world when everything differed from the aspects of the present age. Were, then, the dealings of the Spirit of God with the spirit of man also different then from what they now are, or were they identical? This is the interesting inquiry upon which we are to enter.

The passage begins at the fourteenth verse with the words: “For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not.” Then, in four verses, the first way in which God speaks is described — namely, In Dream or Vision:

In a dream, in a vision of the night,

When deep sleep falleth upon men,

In slumberings upon the bed;

Then He openeth the ears of men,

And sealeth their instruction,

That He may withdraw man from his purpose,

And hide pride from man;

He keepeth back his soul from the pit,

And his life from perishing by the sword.

This may seem to carry us at once far from modern experience back into a visionary and unfamiliar past. But those who think so are not well acquainted with Christian biography; for in any collection of such experiences, even the most recent, there will be found instances in which a dream or vision has played a decisive part.

The state of the human mind in sleep is one of the great mysteries of existence. Some of those who have studied it most deeply have been led to the conclusion that the mind never sleeps, but, during the hours when the body is slumbering, goes wandering on through mazes of fancy and amidst phantasmagories of ever-changing splendour. Of such phantastic fabrics the great majority are valueless, and are swept out of the memory with the return of waking consciousness. But now and then something that is of value remains from the wreck. One of the most remarkable of thepoems of Coleridge is the recollection of a dream. One of the most noted among living story-tellers pretends, I know not with what amount of seriousness, that his plots come to him in dreams; and there are few, I should think, who cannot remember some valuable impression which, first visiting them in sleep, materialised in waking hours. Now why, among such impressions, should not religious ones have a place? We know that the forces of temptation are not idle whilst we are sleeping; because evil dreams are among the worst distresses of many a man striving after purity of soul. If, then, the powers of evil have access to the mind in sleep, why should not the Spirit of God have access to it too, to touch it to fine and noble issues?

Of course it would be easy to press this too far. If every religious notion or spectacle which presents itself in the dreaming state were to be regarded as an inspiration of the Spirit of God, the region of religious belief would be invaded by destroying hordes of caprice and confusion. But there is a plain rule which, if observed, will guard from such error: nothing of a religious nature occurring to us in dreams has any value if it be not in harmony with the Word of God. This rule will save us from anything like fanaticism. But, if an impression reaching us in dreams makes any truth or fact of God’s Word more vivid and real, disposing us to act in accordance with it, then we are justified in believing that there may be in our dream or vision a leading of the Spirit.

This first method in which God speaks is not, then, to be neglected; yet it may be called rare.

The second method in which God speaks is

THROUGH ILLNESS:

He is chastened also with pain upon his bed,

And with continual strife in his bones:

So that his life abhorreth bread,

And his soul dainty meat.

His flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be seen;

And his bones that were not seen stick out.

Yea, his soul draweth near unto the pit,

And his life to the destroyers.

It would be difficult, in the whole compass of human literature, to find a more vivid description of illness. For instance, v. 19 speaks of “continual strife in his bones,” though the old version was even more picturesque, when it spoke of “the multitude of his bones.” In good health we scarcely know that we have bones; or, at all events, we have no sense of the complexity of the osseous structure; because, hidden under its comfortable integument, it does its work unfelt and as a whole. But in rheumatic fever and other maladies this wholeness is broken; we are conscious of every bone in our body, for there is a pain in every one of them; so that we know what Job meant by “the multitude of his bones.” In v. 20 another feature of severe illness is given with equal realism: “His life abhor - roth bread, and his soul dainty meat.” Everyone who can remember a prolonged and prostrating illness will recall this aversion to food. The very sight of it fills the soul with loathing; and, although kind hands may have done their very utmost to make a choice morsel look dainty and appetising, the patient begs that it may be taken away out of his sight. In v. 21 the aspect of the sick man is described at a later stage, as, gaunt and deathlike, he raises himself up in bed, with sunken cheeks, hollow eyes, thin arms; or as, when he is not able for even this, he draws up his shrunken knees, so that they look as if they would actually pierce the coverlet. No wonder the next verse says:

Yea, his soul draweth near unto the pit,
And his life to the destroyers.

In those ancient days it was sometimes by bringing a man into this condition that God spoke to him; and here at any rate there is nothing antiquated, for this is still a common way in which the Spirit of God deals with the spirit of man. To lay him down on a bed of trouble may be the only way in which God can get a man to think. Many are so involved in the rush and excitement of business that they have no time for reflection; and others are so engrossed in the pursuit of the gaieties and follies of the world that, though they have time enough for meditation, they have no taste for it. Is it not merciful if God lays such a one down on a bed of trouble? He is sequestered from company and forced to face his inner self, which he sees to be mean, squalid and unfurnished. Though he may have been becoming rich in worldly goods, this has been at the expense of inner poverty. He sees all that he has been laboriously acquiring taking flight, whilst he is about to enter into the presence of God, to give in his account.

Or it mayjDe in another form that the shadow of death appears in the home. Illness may fall upon one near and dear; death may carry off the pride of a man’s heart and the light of his eyes; and, as he gazes into the pale kingdoms of death and hears the mighty waters breaking on the shore of eternity, folly dies in him, and he turns round to estimate the prizes of life with sane and altered eyes. It is often in the vast silence which falls on the heart bereaved that the voice of God is heard. The body of one has to die that the soul of another may live; and thus on many a grave in the churchyard there may be said to bloom flowers of immortality. This method of the divine dealing may be called the common.

The third way in which the Spirit of God dealt in those ancient times with the spirit of man was through testimony:

If there be with him an angel, An interpreter, one among a thousand, To show unto man what is right for him; Then He is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom. His flesh shall be fresher than a child’s; He returneth to the days of his youth: He prayeth unto God and He is favourable unto him; So that he seeth His face with joy: And He restoreth unto man his righteousness.

He singeth before men, and saith,

I have sinned, and perverted that which is right,

And it profited me not:

He hath redeemed my soul from going into the pit,

And my life shall behold the light.

If the first method is rare, and the second common, this is the most common; and it succeeds where others have failed. But, in the Revised Version, the reader is put entirely off the track by the translation, which makes the bearer of the testimony an “angel.” It is no angel, unless it be the angel which dwells in every good man and woman. The translation of the Authorised Version is correct — “a messenger” — and what makes anyone such a messenger is that he has found the secret for himself. This is the inner compulsion which sends him to the assistance of those who are far from God. There must be in his heart a spark of that love which brought the Son of God down from heaven, to seek and to save that which was lost.

An equally suggestive title borne by the bringer of the testimony is “an interpreter.” Elsewhere in Scripture this name is given to the prophets; and to bear the testimony here intended is a truly prophetic function. But the reason for the use of the title here is that the two methods previously tried by God are supposed to have failed. This is why He finds it necessary to resort to another. Even the message of illness may altogether fail to enter the mind for which it is intended, until someone better acquainted than the patient with the ways of Providence appears on the scene and says, “This is what your suffering means.” This is the philosophy of the visitation of the sick, in which so large a portion of the work of the clergyconsists.

To interpret thus, however, to those with whom the Spirit of God is dealing, the meaning of their experience is no common gift: on the contrary, he who possesses it is “one among a thousand.” Those who try to carry God’s message to sinners are few and scattered. Rare even among professing Christians are those who have any real passion for the salvation ot the souls of men or put forth any kind of sympathetic effort on their behalf. Is the proportion greatly larger than one in a thousand? Of the thousands of people encountered by any of us on the journey of life, how many have seemed to be really concerned about our salvation or taken any trouble for our awakening? If we can say that two or three have done so we have been more fortunate than the majority. Yet the testimony of man to man is the most effective means employed by the Spirit of God for doing His work in the human soul.

It will be remembered how the exquisite language of v. 23 affected the mind of Bunyan, creating the Interpreter’s House, which is nothing but the Church of the living God, as well as the portrait, so incomparably painted, of God’s messenger, who was “one ot a thousand.” But there is pretty satisfactory evidence that this chapter arrested the attention of One far greater than Bunyan. Nothing about any Old Testament passage is so touching as evidence that it fell under the eye of Jesus and awoke reflections in His mind; and this is not wanting here. The third attempt to reach the soul is supposed to be effective; and its success is described in several forms. First:

Then He is gracious unto him, and saith,
Deliver him from going down into the pit,
I have found a ransom.

But to every mind this will recall the saying of Jesus about Himself, that the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many. Then the result is described again:

His flesh shall be fresher than a child’s; He returneth to the days of his youth.

But who could read this without remembering what was said by our Lord to Nicodemus about the new birth? Further on, the person with whom the dealing of the Spirit of God has been successful is made to say, as he looks back on his own past:

I have sinned, and perverted that which is right, And it profited me not.

But, “Father, I have sinned,” are the very words put by Jesus into the mouth of the returning Prodigal; and the two lines just quoted may well be the seed out of which the parable of the Prodigal Son was developed.

This poem within a poem is summed up in the words,

Lo, all these things doth God work,
Twice, yea thrice, with a man,
To bring back his soul from the pit,
That he may be enlightened with the Kght of the living.

The translation “oftentimes” in the Authorised Version suggested the pleasing reflection that these workings of the Spirit of God on the spirit of man, so remarkably similar to those with which we are familiar ourselves, took place on a large scale even before the Advent; but the more correct translation, “twice, yea thrice,” confirms the view we have taken that the poem describes not only the two ways of speaking which fail, but a third, which was effective; and the warmth and expansiveness with which the third is treated confirm the belief that this was the most usual and effective method of the Spirit of God in ancient, as it still is in modern times.