The Earnests of the Morning
The true morning has not yet broken; hardly does it give forth any sign of breaking, save the deeper darkness that is the sure foreteller of the dawn.
It is still night upon the earth; and the children of the night ’’ are going to and fro in the world’s streets, doing the unfruitful works of darkness;” walking in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries;” yielding to the ‘flattering lips” of the seducer, that ‘‘ lieth in wait at every corner,” in “the black and dark night” (Prov. vii. 9 — 21); making ‘‘ provision for the flesh,” by “living in rioting and drunkenness, in chambering and wantonness, in strife and envying” (E-om. xiii. 13); compassing themselves about with sparks of their own kindling, which only sadden the gloom and make us feel more truly that it is night.
It is still night to the church; a night of danger, a night of weariness, a night of weeping. Her firmament is dark and troubled. The promise of morning is sure and she is looking out for it with fixed and pleading eye, sore tried with the long gloom. Yet it has not arisen. It is still deferred — deferred in mercy to an unready world, to whom the ending of this night shall be the closing of hope, and the sealing of ruin, and the settling down of the infinite darkness. For the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
But though it is mht there are times.
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both in the saint’s own history and the church’s annals, which may be spoken of as mornings even now. Such was the morning” to Adam when Seth was born to him after Abel’s death. (Gen. iv. 25.) Such was the morning” to Noah when the flood dried up, and the face of the earth was renewed. Such was the morning” to Jacob when the tidings came to him that Joseph was yet alive. Such was the morning” to Naomi when Ruth and Boaz wiped off the tears of widowhood, and when in her old age she saw her seed,” and took the child and laid it in her bosom.” (Ruth iv. 16.) Such was Hannah’s morning” when, after long years of bitterness, the Lord granted her petition,” and she went her way and was no more sad.” (1 Sam. i. 18.) Such was the morning” that dawned on Job when the Lord accepted him, and turned his captivity, giving him twice as much as he had before, blessing his latter end more than his beginning.”* Such was Israel’s
morning” when the Lord turned back the captivity of Zion, making them like men that dream,” filling their mouth with laughter and their tongue with singing,” in the day of their deliverance from exile.
Thus there are mornings” ever and anon bursting on us now. They are indeed little more than brief brightenings of the darkness — lulls in the long tempest that is to rage unspent till the Lord come. Still we may call them mornings,” just as we give the name of mid-day to the dim kindlings of the sky at daily noon, in the six months’ arctic night, when the sun
* Job xlii. 9 — 12. Yet even here there seems an allusion to the true morning yet to come, and an intimation that all this restored fulness was but an “earnest.’*’ For, as has been remarked, while Job has all his sheep, oxen, &c. exactly doubled to him, his children are oiot doubled. He had lost seven, and he gets back but seven; for he must look to the resurrection-morning for the restoration of his seven lost ones, and not till then is he to get the double.
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keeps below the horizon. Or, better and truer, we may call them earnests of the morning — that morning which is to outshine all mornings, and to swallow up alike the darkness and the light of a present evil world. Dim and transient as are these earnests, they are unutterably gladdening. They cheer the heavy darkness and are pledges of sun-rise.
Our life on earth, the life that we now live in the flesh,” is thus made up of many nights and many mornings. It is not all one night, nor is it all one day. Every thing pertaining to it seems to revolve or alternate. It is a life of sinking and rising, of going and returning, of ebbing and flowing, of shade and brightness. The health of the soul seems in some measure to need such changes, just as the soil owes much of its fruitfulness to the vicissitudes of the seasons.
As there is no even continuance of constant good so there is no equal pressure of unbroken evil. As the season of calm is brief, so is the burst of the storm. The days of darkness are many — more in number than the days of light, yet they do not last always. Many are the afflictions of the righteous,” yet there are breaks in the line of evil, for it is added, the Lord delivereth him out of them all.”
Our God has so fashioned us, and so regulated our circumstances, that each grief has its crisis, its spring-tide, after which it seems, as if by a law, to recede. Not only can the soul not bear beyond a fixed amount of pain or pressure without giving way, but it cannot be kept too long upon the stretch. If the tension is protracted, the spirit fails,” the mind breaks down. Or if this is not the case, callousness comes on; we grow stupid and insensible. Affliction loses its power by being too heavy or too long.
The highest mountain has its summit;
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the deepest mine-shaft has its lowest level. Nor, in general, are these long in being reached. So even when there is sorrow upon sorrow, there is respite between, or gladness at the close of the dark series. The outer and the inner world have, to some extent, the same laws of alternation and relief. Tides and variations seem needful in both. Thus it was in the life of David. At one time he stood with gladness in the courts of his God; at another he bemoaned himself, saying, When shall I come and appear before God?” At one time he went with the multitude; at another he wandered in solitude and exile. At one time he kept holy day with the thousands of Israel, joining in the voice of joy and praise; at another his tears were his meat day and night. At one time his soul was cast down and disquieted within him; at another he praised Jehovah as the health of his countenance. At one time he could look with open eye upon the glory of Jehovah in his house; at another he could only remember him from the land of Jordan and of the Hermonites from the hill Mizar. At one time deep called unto deep, all God’s waves went over him; at another the Lord commanded his loving-kindness and opened his mouth in song. Such were the tides of David’s history — the vicissitudes of day and night in his varying course. True type of every saint’s history, not only in the old age of shadows, but in our own! True example of the changes and tossings marked out for the church in her course on earth from shame to glory! What else are we to look for till the Lord come? In the first age of the church, in the time of righteous Abel, it was so. The evening and the morning were the first day.” In the last age of the church, just ere the second Adam is brought in, it shall be no less so. The evening and the morning were the sixth day.” Then comes the world’s seventh and
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brightest day — a day of cloudless splendour unbroken and unending.
How wise, how gracious that it should be so! One firmament of gloom, spanning our whole life-time, would be intolerable. One long heavy chain of grief, with which we could never get familiar, and on which we could never learn to look calmly; or one linked succession of griefs, ever tearing open old wounds and adding new ones, would wither up existence and blight life before its prime. Man’s nature could not bear it; man’s heart would sink under it, unless made totally callous by some unnatural process, or sustained by daily miracle; in which case grief would cease to be grief, and there could be no such thing as trial or chastisement at all.
Hence, He who knoweth our frame and remembereth that we are dust,” not only stayeth his rough wind in the day of his east wind;” but often, for a season, bids both be still, and breathes on us only with the freshness of the mild south. For thus has he spoken, I will not contend for ever, neither will I he always wroth; for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made.” (Isa. lvii. 16.) Such then is God’s purpose concerning us, and such his reasons for it. The purpose is a gracious and a tender one; no less so are the reasons for it. He tells us, that though he does, at seasons, contend with us, yet he will not prolong the contest beyond a certain time or limit; for in such a strife, who could stand before the Mighty One? In measure when it shooteth forth thou wilt debate with it” (Isa. xxvii. 8); that is, he will set hounds to the sorrow and the smiting which cannot he overpassed; he will say to them, even in their fiercest course, Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.” For were he to allow that tide to roll on unhindered, who, even of his own chosen and beloved ones, could
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withstand its rush or sustain themselves amid its deepening waters?
Yet let us not forget what the sorrow has done for us while it lasted; and what the night has been though dark and sad.
It has been a night of grief yet a night of blessing; a night in which there may have been many things which we could wish forgotten yet many more which we should wish to be remembered for ever. Often during its gloom, we called it
wearisome,” and said, When shall I arise and the night be gone?” (Job vii. 4.) Yet how much was there to reconcile us to it; nay, to fill us with praise because of it! It was then that the Lord drew near, and the world was displaced, and self was smitten, and our will conquered, and faith grew apace, and hope became brighter and more eager, and the things that are unseen were felt to be the real and the true: J erusalem that is above was seen by us as our proper home.
It was then that we had songs in the (Psa. xlii. 8.) Our reins instructed us in the night seasons.” (Psa. xvi. 7.) It was in the night that we remembered the name” of our God, (Psa. cxix. 55,) and desired him with our souls” (Isa. xxvi. 9); meditating on him in the /^/^/t-watches.” (Psa. lxiii. 6.)
It was in the night” that he led us with a light of fire.” (Psa. lxxviii. 14.)
It was in the night that the dew lay upon our branch,” (Job xxix. 19,) and with the dew there came down the manna; for the manna and the dew fell together, (Num. xi. 9,) so that out of the bosom of the darkness there came at once nourishment and freshness. It was then that we ’ were taught sympathy with a groaning creation, taking part in its earnest expectation,” and waiting for resurrection even as it is looking out for restitution; it was then that we were taught to know our high office, as those who have the first-THE EARNESTS OF
fruits of the Spirit, to lead (as one has written) the choir of all-complaining nature;” for it was then that the Spirit’s power came forth upon us to tune the chords of our manifold being, that they might give forth the true note of mingled hope and sadness, peculiar to creation in its present low estate; and when we were fretting under the touch, and perhaps, with sentimental weakness, talking of broken strings and a blighted life, the hand of the great Master-tuner was upon us, giving to each rebellious chord its proper tension, that from the re-tuned instrument there might come forth that special harmony which he desires to draw from it in this present age — that special harmony by which he is to be glorified on earth, until Eden comes again and the wilderness blossoms as the rose.*
* Thus even the philosophic German could express the apostolic thought respecting creation, and give utterance to his sympathies: “When I stand all alone at night in open nature, I feel as though it were a spirit It was then that we could make the utterance of Jacob’s patient faith our own I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord;” subscribing ourselves to our fellow saints as your companion in tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of Christ” (that is, in patient waiting for his kingdom). It was then that these words of blessed cheer fell so sweetly on our ears. He who testifieth these things saith. Surely I come quickly,” drawing forth from our lips the glad response, Even so, come. Lord Jesus.” And it was then that, while learning thus to plead make haste,” we also learned to say with the Bride, A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved
and begged redemption of me. Often have I had the sensation as if nature, in wailing sadness, entreated something of me, so that, not to understand what she longed for, cut through my very heart.” — Goethe, quoted by Olshausen on the Romans. And another has thus written: “Even in the things of the world around us there is an element of life, a yearning of what is bound, which, like that Memnon statue, unconsciously makes symphony when the ray touches it from above.** Schubert, cited by the same.
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unto me he shall lie all night in my bosom.” (Sol. Song i. 13.)
Blessed and profitable, however, as we have found the night with its still seclusion and solemn teachings, it is not the morning nor the day. And its very darkness makes us long the more for the anticipated sun-rise — for the flight of shadows and the eternal day-break.”
Nor are we hindered from desiring the day. Impatience is forbidden, but not desire. Let us possess our souls in patience, for he is neither the brave nor the believing man who says, Let me die, for the cup is bitterer than I can drink;” but he who under the sorest grief can say, Let me live on and be useful, whatever may be the bitterness of the cup.” But still we may long for the ending of the night. As in sickness we may long for health, and put forth all fit means for its attainment; so in darkness we may cry earnestly for the dawning, especially because we know that God has a day in store for us after the night is done — a day which is to be far more than a compensation for all previous sorrow. For every night God has provided a morning, so that as we have many nights, we have also many mornings even here. They are not indeed mornings without clouds,” but still they are mornings whose cheering light lifts up the heavy spirit and brightens the faded eye.
But for the world, the children of the night, the heedless, pleasure-loving world, what morning is there, or what earnest of the morning? None. Or at least it deserves not the name of morning. Their sorrows are multiplied,” because they have hastened after other gods. Their joy is but a moment. Their consolation is no better than a dream. They serve a god that cannot save, and that cannot comfort. Their portion here at the best is emptiness; and the end is the eternal blackness and the infinite despair. The tidings of God’s free love they heed not; but the tidings of his wrath they shall ere long be made to heed; if now they turn not to him who is entreating of them this one favour, that they would bring their sins to him for pardon, and let him hear all their griefs and carry all their sorrows.