"But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?"—2 KINGS viii. 13.
Hazael was the chief minister and prime favourite of Benhadad, the Syrian king. He had been raised from a humble lot and promoted to that high post by the partiality of his sovereign, who had doubtless discerned his exceptional abilities, and certainly placed implicit trust in him. Just now the king was dangerously ill, and Hazael had been sent to inquire of the prophet of Israel as to the probable issue of the sickness. He put the question with seeming anxiety: "Will my master recover?" He spoke as if that was his dearest wish; perhaps he did wish it. But there were evidently other thoughts half-formed, lurking and hiding themselves in the background. Suppose the king should die and leave the throne vacant, what then? May there not be a chance for me? Elisha read these hidden thoughts, and looked the man in the face long and steadfastly, until the face turned crimson and the head was lowered with shame. And then the prophet said, "Thy master need not die of the sickness; nevertheless, he will die, and I see you filling a throne won by murder, and I have a picture before me of the terrible things which you will do to my dear land of Israel." And as this vision passed before the prophet's eyes, he wept. Then Hazael gave the answer which stands at the head of this paper.
It is open to two interpretations. The Authorised Version gives one and the Revised Version the other. According to the first, it is an indignant denial; he recoils with horror from the picture of perfidy, cruelty, and enormous criminality which the prophet has sketched for him. I am not capable of such a thing, he says; "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?" According to the other reading it is not the crime that he revolts from, but the kingship and the greatness that he refuses to believe in. It seems so improbable and all but impossible that he, a man of obscure birth, should climb to such eminence. He exclaims against it as a piece of incredulous and extravagant imagination. "What is thy servant, which is but a dog, that he should do this great thing?"
Now, I doubt not that both readings may be allowed. For certainly both thoughts were in the speaker's mind. He did not believe at that moment that he could ever be brought to commit such infamous deeds, and he did not believe that he could ever attain such high ambitions and power. There was a dark moral depth predicted for him to which he was sure he would never fall, and there was a certain grandeur and elevation to which he was confident he would never rise. To both things he said, "It is impossible," and yet the impossible came to pass.
Now I would have you observe that this is one of the prominent lessons of the Bible; on many a page does it bring out an unexpected development like this. Again and again it is the unlikely that happens in the lives which figure on its pages. They rise or they fall in a way that no one looked for, and which they, least of all, anticipated themselves. We seem to hear them saying with Hazael, "Impossible," and then, before we get far, the thing is done. Impossible, we say, that king Saul should ever descend so low as to deal in witches; or that Solomon, the wise, God-fearing youth, should give himself up to the sway of lustful passions and idolatries. Yet that comes to pass. Impossible, we say, that the cunning, lying Jacob should ever develop into a man of prayer; and the outcast beggar, Jephthah, ever grow into a hero-patriot and king. Yet we see it. In the Bible stories greatness always comes to those who have neither marked themselves out for it, nor deemed themselves fit for it; and, on the contrary, its most infamous deeds are done, and its most shameful lives lived, by those who have given promise of fairer things, and who in their early manhood would have scouted the possibility of descending so low. The men whom it describes have no suspicion, to begin with, of the great power for good that is in them, or the equally great possibilities of evil. Tell the shepherd youth, David, that he has in him the making of a king and an immortal poet, and he will think you are poking fun at him. Tell him that he will one day fall into the crimes of adultery and murder, and make all Israel blush for him, and he will be indignant enough to strike you to the ground. Speak to the fisherman, Peter, of the commanding influence which awaits him in some coming kingdom of God, and he will think you are beside yourself: and then tell him that he will one day deny and curse his sworn Master and kindest Friend, and he will ask you, Do you think I am a dog or a devil that I should do this? Impossible! And yet the thing comes off.
Why do the sacred writers give us so many stories of this kind? Surely it is because we need both the warning and encouragement. It is to prove to us that on one side of our nature we are greater than we think, and on the other side weaker and lower than we believe. It is to inspire the diffident with courage, and the despairing with hope, while it pulls up the forward, the careless, and the over-confident with the wholesome and humbling word, "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall." These men of the Bible were strangely mixed. They were conspicuous instances of the contradictions and surprises which are in us all. For that is the point: the thing comes home to us.
Believe me, we are all a riddle to ourselves. Each man is to himself, and each woman too, the greatest of all mysteries save the one greater mystery, God. None of us know of what elements he is composed, and how strangely the good and evil mix and mingle and clash and strive in each day's doings, and through the whole of life. They who believe that the saint is all saint, and the sinner all sinner, are blindly and pitiably ignorant of human nature. God has made no man without putting some little bit of the Divine image in him. The worst has some lingering trace or ruin of it. And the best is not so entirely the temple of the Holy Ghost that no fouler spirits ever obtain entrance there. You may say that you do not believe in a devil. Well, that may be; but there is something like a devil in all of us at certain times, and I would rather believe that it comes from the outside than that it is born and bred and originates within. At any rate, there are in all of us the strange oppositions, the darkness and the light overlapping each other, the evil and the good ever contending, like Esau and Jacob, in the birth hour. The awful and the blessed possibilities are there, and which shall get the uppermost depends first on God, and then upon ourselves.
Remember first, then, that we have all a lower side.
There is in us what I may call a lurking, crouching, slumbering devil, which needs constant watching and holding down with the strong hand of self-mastery and prayer. "Praying always with all prayer, and watching thereunto," says the apostle. In every one of us there is the possibility of falling, however high we stand and however near God we walk. Bunyan says, in his immortal story, "Then I saw in my dream that by the very gate of heaven there was a way that led down to hell." No man, however ripe in goodness, however firmly rooted and grounded in faith, love, and Christian qualities, ever gets beyond the need of vigilant sentinel work—watching himself. He must always be buffeting himself, and keeping under his body, as Paul did, lest he himself should be a castaway. Let him grow careless, presumptuous, neglectful of prayer, and all the old tempers and passions slowly steal in, and bit by bit obtain the mastery, and the Christian disgraces his profession, and the saint becomes a sinner again. Every Christian knows this. He knows the evil powers that are in him.
It is the man who has never fought with his temptation, never prayed, who especially needs to be reminded of it; young men and women who have been well brought up, who have kept themselves moderately straight so far, and who are full of good resolutions. I hear them say, "Oh I am strong enough. I am not such a fool as to throw myself away in the stupid game of the prodigal, in drunkenness, and gambling, and unclean living. I can hold myself in. I can go just as far as I please. I can indulge to a certain extent, and pull myself up just at the moment I please; and as for prayer and seeking God's help, thank my stars I can clear a safe course without all that. I shall not overstep the line you may depend upon it." "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this?"
And I answer, yes—there is quite enough of the dog in you, or of the devil, if you like the word better, to do this and to do worse things—if you play with the dog and let it loose, and let it have a free run now and then. In my time I have heard scores of young men talk in this way. I have heard them laugh scornfully when danger was mentioned to them, and I have seen a few of them fortunate enough to grow up to manhood with a fairly unspotted character; a few, but not many—the greater part have gone wrong, and some deplorably wrong. There is hardly one of us can keep that dog fastened up and chained down always, unless we rely upon a stronger power than our own. It gets loose at times with the best of us—it runs wild and plays dreadful havoc with those who are not the best; there is always in you the baser self—always the dry torches of evil passions which a spark may kindle—always the moral weaknesses and lusts, half-sleeping, which some stronger blast of temptation may awaken and bring out; and if you wish to escape the evil and hold fast to the good, you will commit your way unto the Lord, and put on the Christian armour, and strengthen yourselves by prayer. Do not presume too much—better men than you have fallen every day. God only can save you from yourselves.
It is just as needful to remember the other side—the side of better possibilities.
Some of you are tempted to say at times with Hazael, "Thy servant is but a dog; how can he do these great things?" You are disposed to underrate your gifts, your opportunities, your happy chances in life—in a word, your possibilities. You despair of finding any opening; you are sure that you will never hear a call to come up higher; you think your lives must always be ill-paid drudgery, with no promotion. It is sad to work with a conviction of that kind. You never work well if there is nothing to look forward to, and it is cowardly to give way to a conviction of that kind. Perhaps you are not specially clever—no, but there are better things than cleverness in the world, and things which have more to do with life's real successes.
If you have in you some power of plodding, to do steady work, doing it always honestly; if you have perseverance, self-control, a sense of duty, a determination to do always the thing that is right, all will be well—these are the qualities which lift a man up to the best places, and one of those places is being prepared for you if you are worthy to fill it. You say, perhaps, "I can never be a good man. I can never be a Christian. I am not made for these high things; it is not in me." I answer, "It is in you, or if it be not in you now, God will put it in you if you diligently ask Him."
Nay, truly, there are the germs of goodness in every one of us. Thy servant is something more than a dog, though he calls himself that, and nothing else. There is something of the religious emotion in you, and that means there is something of the Divine. You have dreams at times of a beautiful life, you have longings for it, sometimes you even set out to reach it—and these are all touches of God. They all prove that the Holy Ghost sometimes pays at least a passing visit to your hearts. You do not know what God can make of you until you trust and try Him. There are greater things by far in you than you have guessed. Have confidence in Him, and He will bring them out. I can see a man of God in you, a pillar in the Church, an honour to the town. I can see a Christian mother in you, a half-sainted woman full of good works, bringing children up to noble lives. It is there in many of you, if you do not despise and neglect the gift that is in you, but use it and cultivate it prayerfully, and let God bring it to perfection.
"Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem."—2 CHRON. xxxiii. l.
Fifty and five years—he wore the crown a longer time than any other of the house of David. Of all the kings that reigned in Jerusalem, this man's reign filled the largest space; yet he is the one king of Judah about whom we are told least. In the modern city of Venice there is a hall which is adorned with the portraits of all the doges or kings who ruled that city in the days of its splendour—all except one—one who made himself infamous by evil deeds. Where his portrait ought to be, there is a black blank space which says nothing, yet speaks volumes; which says to every visitor, Do not think of him, let him be forgotten. In some such way Manasseh is disposed of by the sacred writers. They hurry over the fifty-five years; they crowd them into half a chapter, as if they were ashamed to dwell upon them, as if they wanted the memory of them and of the man to be forgotten. And that was the feeling of all the Jews. Century after century, and even to the present time, Jews have held the man's name in abhorrence. Do not speak of him, they say. He was the curse of our nation. He denied our faith. He slew our prophets. He brought Jerusalem to ruin.
Yet, strange to say, the man so hated and cursed was once a nation's hope and joy. When his father, Hezekiah, lay sick unto death, his greatest grief and the profoundest sorrow of his people was caused by the thought that he was dying childless. They prayed for his recovery mainly on that ground. He recovered, and married, and a child was born, and the glad father called him Manasseh, which means, God hath made me forget—forget my sickness and my sorrow; and all over the land the ringing of bells was heard and shouts of rejoicing, and the prophet Isaiah sang of the child's birth in those triumphant words which we have often heard since in another connection, "Unto us a son is born, unto us a child is given"; and they thought that all would go well now that there was an heir to the throne, and they prayed that he might be sturdy and strong, and get over all the ailments of childhood. They hoped more from the child than they did from God. Their prayers were granted. God gave them their desire, and the result was such as to make us doubtful whether we are always wise in pressing such prayers. We are never sure that it will be good for us, or good for our darling child, that its life should be spared and prolonged in some time of crisis. Often the early death which we dread may be far less cruel than the evil which waits beyond. Better to leave these things in God's hands, and say that will be best for all which seems right to Thee. A whole nation prayed for the birth and preservation of this son. That same nation came to curse the day on which he was born.
Strange that a father like Hezekiah had a child like this. Hezekiah was, I think, the best of the Jewish kings, wise and brave, gentle and strong, full of reverence and faith, pre-eminently a man who walked with God and strengthened himself by prayer, and fought as earnest and true a battle for religion and righteousness as we have recorded in the Old Testament. How came it that the son was in all respects his opposite? Did an evil mother shape him, or what? We cannot tell. These are among the saddest mysteries of human life. The law that a child's training and environment determine the character of the man, often fails most deplorably. The wisest man may have a most foolish son; the godliest home may send forth a reprobate; the child of many prayers may live a life of shame. When a young man goes wrong, it is often both unjust and cruel to lay it on the home training, and to say that there has been neglect or want of discipline, or want of right example there. It is adding another burden to hearts already weighted with intolerable grief.
For the most part, children will follow their parents in what is good, and those nursed in prayer will grow up praying men. But there are hideous exceptions, and sometimes the most Christlike people have this cross to bear; and it is the most heart-crushing of all to see children turning aside from all that they have held dear, and by the whole course of their lives mocking the religious ideals and hopes which were cherished for them. God save all you fathers and mothers from this calamity, and God save all our young people from crushing tender hopes in this cruel way.
Manasseh's life was spent in undoing what his father had done. It seemed to be his great ambition to overturn and destroy the sacred edifice which his father's hands, with untiring prayer and devotion, had raised. Hezekiah had taught his people to trust in God, and in reliance on His help to sustain a noble independence separate from heathen alliances. Manasseh hastened to join hands with Babylon, and make his nation the vassal of a great heathen empire. Hezekiah had swept the land clean of idols. Manasseh filled every grove and hillside with these vain images again. Hezekiah had restored the Temple worship and the Mosaic ritual, and the moral law, and laboured to establish a reign of sobriety, purity, justice, and order. Manasseh outraged all the moralities, and delighted in introducing everywhere the licentious abominations of the neighbouring peoples. Hezekiah had cultivated and encouraged prophecy, and gathered about him great and noble souls like Isaiah and Habakkuk. Manasseh drove them from his presence, and finally slew them.
There were new lights in those days, as there are now. Men who sneered at all the old thoughts and ways, who swept Moses aside with disdain, and thought that David's psalms were poor and feeble things, and that the old-fashioned religion was narrow and provincial, and that the stories of victories won by faith and miracles wrought by prayer were worn-out fictions. They said that if the nation would prosper, it must turn its back on all this stuff, and follow new methods, and profess a new religion. Let them make the great empire, Babylon, their model, with its advanced civilisation, and science, and literature, and vast stores of wealth, with its worship, too, of the sun, and stars, and fire, its religion full of jollity and license, which contrasted so happily with the sober and severe worship of Jehovah, and did not trouble men with unwelcome moral precepts. See how great that empire had become, and how stationary and unprogressive was their own little kingdom, because it clung to the old ways. That was what the new party said. Away with the old-fashioned thoughts and the old-fashioned trusts and beliefs and worship. We are wiser than our simple-minded fathers. We know a few things more than these narrow-minded and crazy prophets. We will have all things new.
And Manasseh, being a young man and as foolish as he was young, drank in greedily their counsels and made himself their leader. For it is ever the temptation of young life to think lightly of their father's wisdom, and to despise what they call the narrow religious beliefs, and the careful moral scruples of the old, and to fancy that they know all things so much better than those who have gone before. They want to try experiments of their own with life, and shake off the shackles of old moral laws and religious creeds, and be free to do and think as they please, and put the Bible away on the shelf, and shove prayer aside as a sort of worn-out heirloom, and have a merrier and better time than the old folks knew. That was the course which Manasseh took, just as headstrong and irreverent youths take it now.
Then followed that time which the Jewish people never speak of without shame—a hideous reign of idolatry, and immorality, and injustice; an awful period of persecution for the few righteous and God-fearing people who were left when the prophets had been sought out and slain. Isaiah sawn asunder, Habakkuk stoned to death, the faithful driven into dens and caves of earth. It is of this time that we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews, in that graphic account of the martyred faithful: "They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented: of whom the world was not worthy" (xi. 37, 38). A few years of this sufficed to pull down the whole fabric of religion which Hezekiah had so painfully and patiently raised. For it is so easy to destroy; so easy for folly and irreverence to pull down what wisdom and goodness have taken years in building; so easy for a vicious and irreligious son to bring shame and ruin upon the house which a godly father and mother have spent a lifetime in rearing with honour; so easy, by a few rash acts, to destroy the character and reputation which the prayers and training of years have sought to establish. It is the easiest thing in the world to undo and overturn; there is no cleverness and courage required for destroying, the cleverness and courage are called for in building it up.
Manasseh succeeded to his heart's content. People followed him greedily, except the steadfast few. And presently the prophets were all gone, and the worship of the true God was nowhere practised except in secret, and the sacred names were no more mentioned, and the land gave itself up to all the foul rites and the shameful indulgences of the heathen world, And then God's retribution came swiftly. Where the rotting carcase was, there the eagles gathered together. These same Babylonians whose ways the renegade Jews had so much admired and imitated, swept down upon them with the talons of a vulture, with cruelty that spared neither tender woman nor innocent child, and Jerusalem was burned with fire, and Manasseh carried off in chains and flung into a foreign prison to muse in solitude over the end of his projects, and to find out there that the old ways had been the best.
There we are told that he repented, that he was stricken with shame because of all the evil that he had done, and turned with prayer and humility to the God whom he had defied. And we are told that God was merciful and heard his entreaties, and accepted his repentance, and brought him back after sorrowful years of imprisonment to his land and throne. This is the part of the story which most people emphasise. That, they say, is the main lesson of the story—Manasseh's repentance, and how God accepted the rebellious sinner at the last and forgave him all his iniquities—and they draw from that the conclusion that it is never too late to turn to God, and that all the dark doings of a man's life are swept clean away, if at any time the heart repents and believes.
But this is not the part of the story which the sacred writers dwell upon. In the Book of Kings, where there is another version of Manasseh's doings, no mention is made whatever of the repentance, and here it is only briefly recorded, and in a somewhat sorrowful tone.
He came back humbled and forgiven, indeed, but not in a happy state of mind. He came back to a ruined kingdom; to a sinful and demoralised and destitute people; to see everywhere the sorrow, and the evil and the misery and shame which his doings had caused; to be reminded continually that his life had been a great wicked and foolish blunder, and that there was no undoing the mischief which he had done. For the sake of his repentance he was spared a little longer, but there could be little joy in the remaining years of a life like that.
I think that that is the experience of most men who turn away in their youth from the example and precepts of godly fathers, who reject the truths which make life sober and strong, who betake themselves to thoughts of infidelity and ways of sin, and fancy that they can live life happily without God and prayer. There comes a time when they are made to feel that their life has been a mistake, that it would have been far better for them to have stuck to the old ways, that those believing fathers whom they laughed at were right after all; perhaps they repent and go back to God at last, and He accepts them; but whether repentant or not, they always carry with them an awful burden. Shame is upon them for the evil they have done, shame for the life that has been spent to so little purpose, regret and humbling that they cannot undo the blind and guilty past. Repentance at the best is a poor business when it comes in the evening hours of life. Better then than never; but better far to have gone with God from the beginning. That, I think, is the lesson which the wise man will find in the story of the evil king.
"And Amaziah said to the man of God, But what shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the army of Israel? And the man of God answered, The Lord is able to give thee much more than this."—2 CHRON. xxv. 9.
Amaziah, King of Judah, belonged to that numerous class of men who wish to stand well with both worlds. He was what we call in religious matters half-and-half. He wanted to secure the favour and protection of God without losing much or anything of the ungodly helps and advantages. One hardly knows whether to describe him as a bad sort of good man, or a better sort of bad man. He was like those gentlemen in thePilgrim's Progresswhom Bunyan names Mr Facing-both-ways and Mr Pliable. It depended very much on the company he was in, whether he showed a religious face or assumed the other character.
We have an illustration of this doubleness in the incident recorded here. He was preparing to go to war against the neighbouring nation of the Edomites, or probably he had learned that they were about to make war on him. For these neighbours, like some others you know, were always ready to pick a quarrel. Edomite and Jew were never long without a scrimmage or a battle. Amaziah, with this business on hand, took count of his forces, found that he had three hundred thousand soldiers; big enough battalions if they had only had a leader with a big heart. David had scattered those Edomites with an army not one-twentieth part the size of that. But Amaziah was not a David. He must needs have more men. He sent, therefore, to the king of Israel to hire another hundred thousand, and paid him down an enormous sum of money for the loan. Now these men of Israel and their king had fallen away from God, and become heathen people, worshippers of Baal, foul and immoral as the Edomites themselves. But Amaziah thought that was of no consequence so long as he could increase his fighting force. The money was paid, and the hundred thousand hirelings came.
And then suddenly appeared another man whom he had not sent for, one of those prophets or preachers whom kings and other people find very troublesome at times, who upset all the nice arrangements, and stop the business which promises so well, with an unwelcome "Thus saith the Lord"; prophets who do not know how to flatter, who cannot be bought for a hundred talents, or for any price, and who say what God has given them to say whether the great folk like it or not. This man came uninvited, and told the king that he must pack off these mercenaries to their own country again, for God was not with them, and God would not be with him if he joined hands with idolaters and paid them to fight his battles.
It was an awkward position. Amaziah knew that what the prophet said was true, and he believed, moreover, that if God should turn against him, that business with the Edomites was likely to end badly for him. But, on the other hand, to send that goodly array of fighting men away and lose all that gold into the bargain, was both galling to his pride and a ridiculous waste of treasure. He knew well what was the right thing to do, but to do it at such a sacrifice, that was the difficulty. He was in a strait betwixt two, wriggling and hesitating, and at last he cries in his bewilderment, "What shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the army of Israel?" And the man of God answers, "Never mind the money, let that go; far better forfeit that than lose God's help. The Lord is able to do for thee much more than the hundred talents are worth."
And now, out of this old story, we learn some lessons for this and every day.
Our difficulties in the way of serving and obeying God are often self-made.
They are always more or less self-made. This man pleads his own wrong act as a reason why he should not do right now. He himself has raised the obstacle which now stands in the way of obedience. He ought not to have sought the help of an idolatrous king. He ought not to have bargained for these hirelings, he ought not to have paid the money. God had not put the difficulty in his way; his own foolish and wicked action had created it. And people are constantly talking as this man talked, declaring that there are hindrances and immense difficulties which prevent them from doing what is right, prevent them from doing what they know to be the will of God. They talk as if God was somehow responsible for those hindrances, when, in fact, their own wrong-doing has caused them.
For instance, some of you know perfectly well that you ought to be Christians, avowed Christians, that you ought to take the Lord's side in the great battle of life; you know that you ought to be His servants, followers, and soldiers; you know that that is your duty, you cannot help knowing it and admitting it, unless you reject the Bible altogether, and deny the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ. You have known from childhood that Christ has claims upon you, and that to live the Christian life is your solemn obligation. It is more than probable that you told your mother, your teachers, and yourselves long ago, and perhaps many a time over, that you fully intended to give your lives and hearts to Christ's service. But you have not done it yet, and the reason is that there are certain self-made difficulties which hold you back. God has not put them in the way—you have built them up yourselves. I hear young men and women say, in the very tone of this perplexed king. But what shall we do for the hundred talents? If we take up religion, how shall we bear the loss which it involves? How are we to get on without those pleasures, self-indulgences, and dearly-loved habits which Christ's service would cut us off from? How are we to abandon those very pleasant, but not very inspiring and pure, companionships, with and among which we spend most of our leisure time? How are we to resign all our free and easy and thoughtless ways, our loose talk, our vain and sinful imaginations?
These are your difficulties, are they? But who made them for you? Heaven did not send them. I am not sure, even, that the devil was the author of them. You made every one of them yourselves. It was your own weak yielding that formed those habits so dear to you. It was because you preferred your own way to God's that you took to pleasures and self-indulgences which were wrong in His sight. It was your own choice that sought out and formed friendships and companionships of the ungodly sort. If you have any joys, delights, and associations which Christ would compel you to resign, they are only such as you ought never to have entered upon. They are self-made difficulties which ought never to have been made; and now, with curious inconsistency, you are urging them as reasons why you cannot serve God. You are using the sinful things which you have done in the past as an excuse for not doing the right and noble thing now.
There are hundreds of people who, if they could begin again, would join the ranks of the religious—at least they think they would, and perhaps say it. If we could just start with a clean sheet, we would be Christians, we would walk in the noble and faithful way. But then, you see, we cannot undo the years that have been lived in the other way. We have committed ourselves to the irreligious side. We have made all who know us understand that we do not care about religious things. We have talked about them carelessly, perhaps contemptuously, as if we put no value upon them at all. We have made a reputation of that sort, and now it stands in the way. We cannot go back of all our old professions; the inconsistency would be manifest. No one expects it of us. No one would believe if we did it. There you have the self-made difficulties again. Because you did wrong all those years, you must needs go on doing wrong. Because you talked and acted in an unbelieving way, you must not now change into the higher and prayerful way. Because you have robbed God and your own souls so long, there is nothing for you but to continue repeating the offence. Yet these, when you name them, are so absurd, that one could almost laugh at them. The conviction that you have hitherto been on the wrong side is the one thing that ought to force you now to the right side. Why should you perpetuate blunders, follies, and misdoings? Why should the evil past chain you? Let the dead bury its dead—forget the things which are behind. You have paid the hundred talents to the wrong master. Why should you go on paying because you have done it once? Let God's mercy cover and forgive that. And now pay your vows and give your lives to Him henceforth.
We are held back from the right thing by the fear of the loss which it will involve.
We say with poor, frightened Amaziah, But what about the hundred talents? They will be clean gone if I obey the voice of God. The hundred talents take many forms, but the principle is always the same. We shall lose a little in the way of business, if we make up our minds to be scrupulously honest, and to speak the simple truth. We shall forfeit a little of our present popularity, if we take the course which conscience dictates. We shall have to forego and neglect certain things, and suffer loss, if we undertake Christian work. We shall have to give up many an easy hour, many a light and frivolous hour, many an open and secret sin, sweeter to us than honey, if we confess the Lord Christ, and take up the burden of discipleship. The hundred talents block the way, and rather than let them go, we let God go, and sacrifice all the sanctities, and all the precious and immortal things.
And this answer comes to all of us—the answer which the prophet gave to the hesitating king as he stood balancing the hundred talents against the duty of the hour: "The Lord is able to give thee much more than this." Better to win thy great battle and lose the talents, than keep the money and lose thyself and everything in the impending struggle. God is not so poor that He cannot pay His servants as ample wages as they ever get from other masters. It is not the same kind of pay, but it is always, in the long-run, larger and better. No man ever does the right thing at God's command, without receiving eventually sufficient wages for it—joy even in this life. Whatever immediate losses he may incur, there will be more than compensating gains. The man who lives an upright, conscientious, pure and kindly life, wronging no one, showing justice and mercy to all, is always the happier man; richer in all his thoughts and emotions, richer in friendships and affections, richer in peace of mind, in abiding satisfactions, richer in hopes. He has within him a well-spring of joy which never ceases to flow. Righteousness is not a losing business: it has the best part in this life, and in that which is to come.
Whatever you resign at Christ's call: whatever His service costs you in the way of sacrifice: however much you must give up in the shape of pleasure, ease, and agreeable habits—there will be more given to you in return. When Christ asked the disciples to leave all things and follow Him, He said nothing about the rewards—not just then. He told them to take up their cross and come after Him; that was all. He spoke often to them about the pains they would have to endure, the scorn they would meet with, the tribulation they would have to pass through. When he called the last of the apostles, Paul, He even said, and it was the only promise He gave, "I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name's sake" (Acts ix. 16). No talk of rewards and gains at first. He knew the men. He knew their eagerness to do what was right and to obey the voice of God. Men who have the right spirit, men with some fire of enthusiasm, do not need crowns held before them to draw them into the true and noble way. They are almost glad to think that crosses and self-sacrifices await them in that way. Christ spoke no words at the beginning about gains and rewards. Come, because I want you, and God asks you, and it is your duty: but afterwards, when they had obeyed His call, He talked to them often about the gains. They had begun to understand them then. There is no man who hath left anything for My sake, who shall not receive a hundredfold in this present time, and in the world to come, life everlasting.
And we all learn in a measure what that means, when we have faithfully served Christ for a little time. You talk about the sacrifices and losses of the Christian life. Yes, but no man is fit to be called a Christian who has not found in Christ ten or twenty times as much joy as he has lost. If there were no hereafter, no future crowns at all, it would be a terrible disappointment, but even, apart from that, the present life of every one who believes in Christ and does Christ's work, and loves as Christ loved, is richer, fuller, wider, and happier in almost every way than the life which knows Him not. What about the hundred talents? you say, and I answer with the prophet, "The Lord is able to give thee much more than this."
"And Jabez was more honourable than his brethren."—1 CHRON. iv, 9.
This is a curious fragment of biography, half-hidden in a dreary mass of wholly uninteresting names. We cannot conjecture how it got there. It seems to have no connection either with what comes before or what follows. It is like a sweet little poem in the midst of a dry, genealogical chart; or like a real, living face with the flush of warm colour in it, speaking amid endless rows of mummies or waxwork effigies.
It is indeed the short, incomplete story of a life with neither beginning nor end. We are not told who his father was, or who his mother was, or what tribe or family he belonged to. Not a word about origin, descent, pedigree. And there seems to be a purpose in this. For the sacred writer at this point is doing nothing else but tracing pedigrees. These four chapters are to us the most useless in the Bible: names, nothing but long-forgotten names. Names of everybody's father, grandfather, great-grandfather, back to a remote antiquity. I question whether there are many Bible readers who have ever laboured through the list. Yet these family trees, as we may call them, were very precious to the Jews. They thought as much of long descent as my lord Noodle does now. It swelled them immeasurably in self-importance if they could trace their lineage back in unbroken line to one of the twelve patriarchs, or to one of those who came out of Egypt. And the historian ministers to this prejudice or vanity by diligently recording the whole dry catalogue, and then, as if weary of the business, or, perhaps, with just a touch of scorn, he introduces this one name as something worth talking about.
Here was a god-made nobleman, whose heraldry need not be written on earth, because it is more surely written in heaven. All the rest were their fathers' sons, and that was about all. This man did not need a pedigree: he won a name and reputation for himself without the help of a distinguished ancestry. By prayerfulness, and energy, and courage, he fought his way from obscurity to honour. And when that happens, when a man has fought the fight with adverse circumstances and overcome them, when he has made his mark in the world by sheer force of work and character, no one cares to grope through musty fusty parchments in search of his progenitors. What does it matter! God has given him a certificate of noble birth; that was surely what the historian meant: "Jabez was more honourable than his brethren."
Now there are two or three touches in this little story worth noticing.God sends us some of our best joys in the guise of sorrows.
He came into the world without a welcome.
I venture to say, and I thank God for it, that there is hardly one of my readers of whom that can be said. No matter into what home you were born, there was a welcome awaiting you on the part of one at least. It may be that no one else was particularly glad, that every one else looked upon you as one too many; but your mother at least met you with a sweet kiss which plainly said, thank God for this gift. Here, however, there was not even that; this child was received with misgivings and fears, and awoke no joy in the mother's breast. She called his name Jabez, which means sorrowful, because she had borne him in sorrow.
Of course, we do not know what lies behind that, but it was something of a heart-burning or heart-breaking kind; either the father was dead, or the home was in a state of terrible poverty and distress, or the child was a child of shame; you can only guess, and all your queries will probably be wide of the mark. But the mother looked mournfully upon him, and wished he had not come, and could not believe that a life which commenced so untowardly would ever be anything better than a burden to her, and a misfortune and misery to himself. She expressed her fears and forebodings in the name which she gave him—Jabez, the child of sorrow.
And while she was gloomily predicting his future with the black colours of her despondency, God was writing the child's story in golden lines which would have set her heart leaping for joy could she have read them. This despised one was to win for himself a noble name, and build up the house in honour, and become his mother's pride, and make her young again in hope and gladness.
What fools we are when we set ourselves to forecast the future of our children! They rarely develop on the lines we draw for them; the most promising of them sometimes flatter us in the bud and blossom, and mock us in the fruit. Where we hope most there comes most heartache, our favourites are made our burdens, our pride is humbled by a harvest of sorrow. And where we have bestowed most tenderness we get most ingratitude—the child of many gifts, the joy of the household, the flower of the flock, turns out the nightmare of our lives, the one unhappy failure which costs us endless tears.
And perhaps it is partly our own fault, because we have pampered, flattered, and indulged them too much. Ah! and just as often the reverse is true—the child whom in our hearts we called Jabez; the slow, dull child so hard to teach, so unresponsive, or perhaps so wilful and obstinate that we never thought or spoke of him save with secret fears and misgivings—the child who was always to be a burden and a cross to us, develops by-and-by in beautiful and unexpected ways, grows into moral strength and religious grace, becomes honourable in the sight of all men, and saves our old age from going down with sorrow to the grave. The golden harvest of our lives grows not where we look for it, but often in the neglected places where God bids it grow. Where our pride built its palace of content we find emptiness and shame, and that which we almost cursed God for sending us becomes our crown of rejoicing. She called his name Jabez, my sorrow, and lo! he became her very consolation, most honourable of all.
Faith wins the battle of life against many odds.
Yes! this is indeed a romance of faith—faith overcoming the world. This child or youth starts out with all things against him. He is likely to grow up into an Ishmaelite if he grows up at all. He starts with an ill-starred name—a name that spells misfortune. He starts without his mother's blessing and without a glimmer of hope to cheer him; no father to give him a helping hand by the way—without endowment, fortune, family, or friends. What chance can there be in the race for one so heavily handicapped? Failure is written on his brow by the hand that nursed him. Failure is written on all his circumstances. It will be a desperate struggle all through. There will be none of the prizes of life for him. If he gets a bare living wage, it is as much as he may expect.
That is what he has before him, apparently! Well, for one thing, he puts on courage, and starts on his way singingNil desperandum. And then, knowing well that he has few or no human friends, he falls back on the Father of the fatherless and the Helper of those who have no other help. He relies on faith instead of fortune. He will make prayer his main weapon, and the light of the Lord his guide, and duty his pole star. He will pursue a straight course, avoiding evil, trying to feel the hand of God upon him, and the watchful eyes of God over him. And he will make a brave fight of it day by day, doing his best, and leave a higher power to determine what shall follow. That is what we read between the lines of this story. Nay, that is all expressed. "He called on the God of Israel." He committed his life to the ordering of the Almighty. And the Almighty promoted him. He became more honourable than his brethren.
They are poor creatures who complain that the battle is lost before it is even begun, who groan that the chances of life are all against them before they have made one brave venture and endeavour; and they are vain and self-deceiving men who fancy that the victory will be easy because somebody has given them a good start, and they have the backing of family, social position, wealth, and mental gifts. If some of you think because your fathers stand high, because your education has been well looked after, because there are unlimited money and plenty of friends to push you on—if you think that because of these things you can dispense with the fear of God, and the daily obligations of duty, and make pleasure and self-indulgence your main ends, and do without honest, persevering, self-denying toil, you will be miserably disappointed. God has some hard things to say to you before you get far on in years. It does not matter how promising one's beginnings, if there is no steady, conscientious brave self-discipline, and endeavour.
Life is always a failure and a disgraceful thing with a downward course, if there is no serious purpose in it and no great thoughts. And if you are ever tempted to say, as many do, that there is no hope for a life which commences heavily weighted; that all the chances go to those who are clever, and richly endowed; that if a youth begins with no money to back him and no friends to push him into promotion, he must remain chained down to that low condition to the end—then I point you to this little bit of biography. I could take you round a certain town and point you to a hundred men who have repeated that bit of biography in their own lives, and I tell you that even now the chances are plentiful: waiting at the feet of those who tread life's way, a brave heart within and God overhead, and that no one need despair, however unpromising his start, who makes God his guide, and prayer his inspiration, and duty his chosen companion, and shuns evil, and pursues that which is good. Faith and loyalty to conscience and a courageous temper are still the weapons which conquer in the fight. Jabez, the child of sorrow and misfortune, became more honourable than all his brethren.
And now I commend this prayer to all of you—the prayer which this youth offered when he went out carrying his unhonoured name and empty hand into the rough places of the world. It is a beautiful prayer. It is on the whole a wise prayer. There are better and more Christian prayers in the gospels and epistles; but in the Old Testament there are few prayers more worthy of imitation than this.
He asked that "God might bless him indeed," that is, above every human blessing and favour, that he might, by his life and conduct, deserve it He asked what we may all safely and humbly ask of God, provided that we give a large and not a low meaning. He asked that "God would enlarge his coast." If that meant broad estates, you had better drop it out of your prayer. But if it means to have your life enlarged, your sympathies and interests widened out, your influence and your power of service increased, it is such a prayer as Christ might have taught you. Never forget to offer it. He asked that "the hand of God might be with him"; that every day he might feel the leadings and take no step which was not a step approved by God. And he asked that the watchful and restraining power of the Almighty would "keep him from evil."
You will do well to offer that prayer at the beginning. You will do well to offer it every day to the end. It is a prayer that will keep; you will find it fresh each morning. And every day will be a better day which is thus commenced, and every life will grow honourable in the sight of men, and beautiful in the sight of God, which develops in the spirit of it.
The Temple shows to better advantage at the beginning of the Gospel history than at its close. As we follow our Lord through the events of the last week, we meet no winsome faces within its precincts. Annas is there, and Caiaphas; Pharisees too, blinded with envy; but there is no Zacharias seen there, no Simeon, no doctors of the law even, such as gathered around the Boy of twelve. If any successors of these still frequented the sanctuary, they are lost in the deep shadow cast by a nation's crime. Perhaps we may consider those whom we meet on the threshold of our Lord's life as the last of an old regime of prophetic souls, the last watchers passing out of sight as the twilight of a coming doom thickened and settled on the Holy City.
But there he stands, the gracious, winsome old man, whom death is not permitted to touch till the Star of Bethlehem has risen. "It was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ!" He is like a dweller of the spiritual world, who only returns to visit earthly ways. For him the veil, though not as yet rent, has worn thin, and he is more familiar with the voices from beyond it than with the voices of earth. The priest, the Levite, the Rabbi, pass him like shadows: the Holy Ghost is his living companion and teacher. Browning's Rabbi ben Ezra might well have borrowed his song from the lips of this aged saint:
"Grow old along with me!The best is yet to be,The last of life, for which the first was made:Our times are in His handWho saith, 'A whole I planned,Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'"
Consider his CHARACTER: "the same man was just and devout." Inward and outward are in equipoise; he does not make frequent prayers atone for equally frequent lapses in duty. He looks upon men in the light which has risen upon him through looking upon God. He brought with him, from the Throne of Grace, the tranquil beams which helped him to perceive what he owed to his fellow-men. He was so subdued to charity, that his one expectation was the consolation of Israel. He was no prophet of doom; perhaps he was even blind to the moral deterioration, the blight of ideals, growing more wasteful, every day, of the nation's best life. To him, Israel was still more in need of consolation than chastisement. Alas! for these gentle-souled patriots, whose hopes rise from their own heart's goodness, and not from their nation's worth! So obscure, so devout: while the great ones sin, they pray; while the popular priests lead in worldliness, they retire into God's hiding-places to intercede. They have private paths into God's Paradise: they do not always see the cherubim with flaming sword. God often calls them home before the stormy dawn of the evil day. So they live and die, waiting for the consolation.
Consider, again, his HOLY FELLOWSHIP: "the Holy Ghost was upon him." His heart became the ark of the Heavenly Dove, wandering over the grey waters; and to him was the olive leaf brought. He looked past the face of the Rabbi and the priest, not contemptuously, but wistfully, wondering why he must: he looked past them, and beheld in the dawning shadow a diviner Face. He heard secrets which would be foolishness to others, even to frequenters of the Temple and to robed priests. He thought of death peacefully; but that other Face always came, faintly but immutably, between him and the Last Shadow. The Lord's Christ first, death after. What gracious ways God has of treating some of these simply-trusting children of His! How graciously He orders the course of spiritual wants for them! "And the evening and the morning" are—each day.
"And he came by the Spirit into the Temple." He required no ecclesiastical calendar, no book of the hours. This obscure denizen of the sanctuary had a dial in his own soul, and the silent shadow on the figures came from no visible sun. Be sure that there are men and women still, just, and fearing God, who anticipate the days of heaven, and almost win their dawning. How often must Simeon have come, waiting: and yet how fresh was his hope each time! He fed on God's disappointments; the unfulfilled was his hidden manna.
Consider his ONE GREAT DAY. An obscure worshipper suddenly becomes the richest, most honoured man in all the world: in his arms he holds God's Incarnate Son. Yesterday was a day of earth, tomorrow also may well be a day of earth: but this, a day of heaven! Alas! but only to him. To others this, too, is a very day of earth. Did some officiating priest watch the little group of peasant parents showing their first-born to an obscure worshipper? And did he look, without a stain of contempt upon his vision? And yet Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome, had no such gift and prize as the arms of that humble dreamer held. Who would not have taken his place, had they known! It is well to be reckoned God's intimate, lest we miss the Child.
"The sages frowned, their beards they shook,For pride their heart beguiled;They said, each looking on his book,'We want no child.'"
But Simeon had dwelt nearer God than they—nearest God of all that came to the Temple that day. And so God trusted him with His Best.
Then, once more, consider his PROPHETIC PRAYER. He was now ready to depart. He had arrived at the house where the chamber of peace looks towards the sunrising: why should he return to the warfare again? He was unfitted for earth, by the face of that Child: he would go where such a vision would not be marred by earthly airs! "For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people: a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel." The sentinel has been long on duty: now the watch is done, "now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace." And as he passes from his well-kept post, his heart's charity overflows, and Gentile and Jew are covered with his blessing: the Gentile even coming first, as though, perhaps, he perceived that "the salvation of the Jews could only be realised after the enlightenment of the heathen, and by this means"—Godet suggests. To the darkened souls of the pagan world—light: to the humiliated Jewish people—glory. Israel had seen and lost many a glory: it had seen the glory of conquest, of wealth, of wisdom, of ritual, of righteousness: but in the little Child was the sum and essential radiancy of all glory that had been, the earnest of all glory that was to be. Eternally, Christ is "the hope of glory."
Consider also his PERFECT CANDOUR. He looked in the Child's face, he looked in the mother's face, with all the tenderness and love that made it half divine; and then this disciple of the Spirit, strangely moved from his wonted calm, described truth purely as he saw it. He scanned the future, heard the sound of many a fall, caught the hiss and cry of uneasy consciences against the "sign"; he saw the gleam of the sword, and the wounded mother's heart; he saw the revelations of good and of evil which the child would surely effect. One might not unnaturally conclude that these presentiments were of the day—of that very hour. He had hitherto walked and dwelt in the light of consolation; he had dreamed his tranquil dream "beside still waters." But in this moment of contact with God, he was made strong to see the darkness which is never absent from the azure of truth—"a deep, but dazzling darkness." So to young Samuel came the sorrowful vision of the fall of the house of Eli; so to the old prophet-saint now glittered the gleaming arrows of truth. But neither scorn nor wrathful eloquence moves him, in view of what he saw: he simply accepts this burden of the Lord, and bears it, without murmuring or exulting. He sees the "fall and rising again of many in Israel"; it is God's will: let His will be done! "A sword shall pierce through thy own soul also": bow, mother-heart, to the purposes of God's heart of love! "In peace" this servant of the Lord still stands; "in peace" he departs. Blessed are they whom darkling truths may grieve, but not distract; whom stormy revelations beat upon, but cannot shake. They live in the house founded upon a rock.
What presentiment of his nation's doom came to him in that moment of clearer insight, of more candid intercourse with truth? "The thoughts of many hearts"—"the uneasy working of the understanding in the service of a bad heart":—how much was revealed, how much was mercifully concealed? We cannot tell; but strength was given him to bear the gleam of the vision, and still wait. "O rest in the Lord; wait patiently for Him." He saw the Child go out of the Temple; and if, for a moment, a breath as of a chill wind smote his soul, he retired into the deeper consolations of God, where the sun smites not by day, nor the moon by night. If it was his last visit to the Temple, he had seen what would have made it worth his while to have gone there every day for seventy years or more. And let it not be forgotten that God still gives His Child to those who humbly, faithfully wait for the consolation of Israel.
Such a picture as that of Simeon gives piety its divinest charm. It is not simply that men have wished to be in his place; but—what is far better and far more practical—they have wished to be in his spirit. He draws them towards him, and after him. He stands in a glorious company of winsome souls, who not only lead to heaven, but attract men on the way.
"They are, indeed, our Pillar-firesSeen as we go;They are that City's shining spires,We travel to:A sword-like gleamKept man for sinFirst out; this beamWill guide him in."
In spite of the fact that he condemned Jesus to death, the Gospels present us a more favourable portrait of Pontius Pilate than that which we derive from secular historians. Josephus relates incidents that reveal him as the most insolent and provoking of governors. For instance, the Jewish historian ascribes to him a gratuitous insult, the story of which shows its perpetrator to have been as weak as he was offensive. It was customary for Roman armies to carry an image of the emperor on their standards; but previous governors of Judaea had relaxed this rule when entering Jerusalem, in deference to the strong objection of the Jews to admit "the likeness of anything." Nevertheless Pilate ordered the usual images to be introduced at night. When they were discovered, the citizens protested vehemently. Pilate had the crowd that he had admitted to his presence surrounded with soldiers, and threatened them with instant death. But they threw themselves on the ground, protesting that they would submit to this fate rather than that the wisdom of their laws should be transgressed. The governor had not reckoned on this. He was only "bluffing," and now he had to climb down, and the images were removed. On another occasion, described by the same historian, Pilate had seized the sacred money at the Temple and employed it in building an aqueduct, a piece of utilitarian profanity which enraged the Jews to such an extent that a vast crowd gathered, clamouring against Pilate and insisting on the stoppage of the works. Then the governor sent soldiers among the people, disguised in the garb of civilians, who at a given signal drew their clubs and attacked them more savagely than Pilate had intended, killing and wounding a great number. Although Josephus does not mention the incident recorded by St Luke (xiii. 1), in which Pilate mingled the blood of some Galilean pilgrims with their sacrifices, this is entirely in accordance with his brutality of conduct in the events the historian records. Philo goes further, giving a story told by Agrippa, according to which Pilate hung gilt shields in the palace of Herod at Jerusalem, but was compelled to take them down as the result of an appeal to Tiberius Caesar, and adding that Agrippa described Pilate as "inflexible, merciless, and obstinate." He says that Pilate dreaded lest the Jews should go on an embassy to the emperor, impeaching him for "his corruptions, his acts of insolence, his rapine, and his habit of insulting people; his cruelty, and his continual murders of people untried and uncondemned, and his never-ending, gratuitous, and most grievous inhumanity." Josephus is not trustworthy, always writing "with a motive," and Philo must be considered prejudiced, since he saw too much of the worst side of the Roman treatment of Jews; and the wholly unfavourable verdict of these two writers should be qualified by what we read in the New Testament concerning the subject of them. The interesting point is that we have to go to the Christian documents for the more calm and just estimate of the man who crucified Christ. This fact should deepen our sense of the fairness of the evangelists. They evince nothing of that bitterness of resentment which the Jews, quite naturally, as the world judges, cherished towards their oppressors. They were the followers of One who had taught them to love their enemies, and who, when in mortal agony, prayed to God to forgive the men who had inflicted it. But further, the early Christians discriminated between the Jewish authorities, who planned and purposed the death of Christ and really compassed it, and Pilate, who was but a weak instrument in the hands of these men. The fact that the evangelists so clearly mark this distinction is a sign that they are in close touch with the events, and that they faithfully record what they know to have taken place. In a word, it is clear that we have a more just and accurate portrait of Pilate in our Gospels than the representations of him by Josephus and Philo, who are thus seen to be less trustworthy historians than the New Testament writers.
The word "Pilate" as a proper name has been variously explained. Some have derived it from the Latinpileatus, meaning one who wore thepileus, the cap of a freed slave, and so have regarded the Roman governor by whom Jesus was tried as a man who had been raised from the ranks of slavery. The worst condemnation of slavery is, that it degrades the characters of its victims, developing the servile vices of cowardice, meanness, and cruelty—all of which vices are manifest in Pilate's character. But such a promotion as this theory implies would be most improbable. A more likely explanation connects the name withpilum, a javelin. The earlier name Pontius suggests the family of the Pontii, of Samnite origin, well-known in Roman history. It was customary to confine such an office as that which Pilate held to knights, men of the equestrian order. Nevertheless, it was not a very dignified office. It is described indefinitely in the Gospels as that of a "governor." But Pilate is designated more distinctly by Tacitus and Josephus asprocuratorof Judaea. This official served under the Legate of Syria. His proper duty was simply to collect the taxes of the district over which he was appointed. Thus he would be likely to come into contact with the chief local collectors, such as Zaccheus; and in this way he may have heard, and that not unfavourably, of One who was known as the "Friend of publicans and sinners." But in the turbulent districts—such as Judaea and Egypt—the procurators were entrusted with almost unlimited powers, subject to an appeal to Caesar on the part of Roman citizens. Soldiers were sometimes needed for the forcible collection of taxes, and the disturbed condition of these parts demanded an official in residence who could act at once and on the spot. The punishment of turbulence was with the rigour of martial law, which really means no law at all, but only the will of the man in charge of the army. A subordinate official lifted to a position of almost irresponsible power—such was Pilate. We can well understand how a man with no moral backbone would succumb to its temptations. Pilate was a much smaller man than Gallic the proconsul at Corinth, and that other proconsul at Cyprus, Sergius Paulus, whom St Paul won over to Christian faith. But his pettiness in the eyes of Roman society would lead him to magnify his importance in the little world he was trying to rule like a king, though often with consequences humiliating to himself.
Pilate's headquarters were at Caesarea, by the sea coast, the Roman capital of Palestine; but he came up to Jerusalem with a troop of soldiers at the Passover, to prevent any disturbance among the vast hosts of pilgrims then gathered together in the city, just as Turkish soldiers now mount guard at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre during the Easter celebrations, to prevent the Christians from quarrelling and fighting. That is how it was he happened to be present when Jesus was arrested and brought up for trial. In this fact also we may see why the Jewish authorities felt it necessary to hand their Prisoner over to the Roman governor; although, a few years later, they were able themselves to execute the death sentence on Stephen in the Jewish mode, by stoning, and still later to do the same with James, the Lord's brother.
All four Gospels refer to the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate; but the fullest information is to be obtained from the third and fourth. St Luke throughout both his works seizes every suitable opportunity for setting out the scene of his story on the large stage of the world's history, and he is especially interested in showing it in relation to the imperial government. Thus, while Matthew only connects the time of the birth of Jesus with the reign of Herod, a Jewish note of time, Luke also associates it with Caesar Augustus and the chronology of Rome; and later, while Matthew does not say when John the Baptist began his work, but notes the imprisonment of John as the occasion of the commencement of our Lord's public ministry, Luke carefully records that it was "in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea" (Luke iii. 1), that John the Baptist began preaching and baptizing. It is this same evangelist only who refers to Pilate's savage slaughter of the Galileans at Jerusalem. The author of the Fourth Gospel does not mention Pilate before the time of our Lord's trial, but he gives us a much fuller account of that trial than any of his companion evangelists. Next to John, our fullest account is in Luke. On these two authorities therefore we must mainly rely. But John's is not only the most ample and fully detailed narrative; it also furnishes us with by far the most vivid and convincing portrait of the Roman governor. This is one of the numerous cases of life-like character-drawing with which the Fourth Gospel abounds. Nicodemus, the woman of Samaria, Thomas, Judas, Mary Magdalene, and now Pilate, are all known to history from St John's portraits of them. Should not this significant fact lead us to attach great weight to his portrait of Jesus Christ, which soars above the Christ-pictures of the synoptics in the most exalted Divine glory?
Jesus had been tried soon after His arrest before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, the supreme council of the Jews, and there He had been condemned to death, not on the charge for which He had been arrested—threatening to destroy the Temple—for the evidence against Him had broken down, but for blasphemy during the course of His trial, when adjured by the high priest to declare whether He was the Christ. But the presence of Pilate prevented the council from executing their sentence (as doubtless they would have done if he had been away at Caesarea), in defiance of the law, which was entrusted to a weak and capricious governor. Accordingly they brought their Prisoner to the procurator's residence—probably Herod's palace, a magnificent building with two marble wings, containing large rooms sumptuously furnished, and spacious porticos surrounded by gardens and enclosed in a lofty wall with towers, situated in the western district of the city, and approached by a bridge across the Tyropaean valley. The facts that a later governor, Gestius Florus, resided here, and that Pilate lived in Herod's palace at Caesarea when in that city, and that he hung the shields about which there was so much trouble in the Jerusalem palace, make this view more probable than the traditional idea that the trial of Jesus took place in the Castle of Antonio, the imperial barracks, close to the Temple.
The Jews objected to enter this fine palace, because as a Gentile residence it was defiled, and therefore defiling, and they wished to be "clean" for the feast they were to eat in the evening. Pilate humoured them, and had his conferences with them outside the building. Seeing their object and observing their temper, he must have discovered at once their miserable hypocrisy. These were the men who affected to be the leaders of the one pure faith on earth, a faith which looked with scorn on the "idolatry" of the cultured Roman. He must have regarded them with immense contempt. If his tone is cynical, it is but a match for the unmitigated cynicism of their conduct.
Pilate inquires as to the crime with which the Prisoner is charged. At first, the Jews do not give an explicit reply, only stating that they have already found Him guilty. Pilate catches at that. His weakness, so pitiably apparent throughout the whole proceedings, appears at this early stage. Desiring to shirk the responsibility of deciding the case—he would use the first apparent loophole of escape. Since the Jews have taken this case in hand, let them carry it through, dealing with it according to their law. They are not to be caught by that flattering suggestion. They know that they have not the power of life and death. Pilate would not let them kill Jesus. His proposal, which on the surface looks like the granting of a privilege, amounts to this, that they may exercise ecclesiastical discipline, excommunicate their Prisoner, or perhaps fling Him into jail, possibly scourge Him. But the worst of these punishments will not satisfy their determined hatred, or rid them of the haunting fear inspiring it, that Jesus will undermine their influence with the people. Nothing less than His death will put an end to that danger; so they thought, although the event proved that it was this very death of Christ that was to lead to the victory of Christianity over Judaism. This, however, even His own disciples could not foresee, much less could it enter into the minds of His enemies among the Jews.
Thwarted in his first attempt to escape, and compelled to try this difficult case, Pilate enters the palace where Jesus is kept under arrest, and questions Him. He has been informed that Jesus claims to be the king of the Jews. Is that so? Is the charge but a piece of malicious slander? If it is, there is an end of the matter. Pilate is not going to lend himself to humour the whim of those hateful Jews, whom he affects to despise while in his heart he is mortally afraid of them. There is nothing of the bearing of the violent insurgent in this calm peasant who stands before him. Surely this is some stupid mistake, or there is more Jewish malice in it than Pilate can fathom. But the Roman magistrate soon discovers that he is dealing with no ordinary man. Jesus takes his measure in a moment. Pilate is a feeble creature, with no character, insincere, dishonest. He must be made to feel his littleness. We can imagine how our Lord would fix on him a penetrating gaze before which the shallow nature of the man would become apparent, as He asked whether this cross-examination was genuine, or whether Pilate was prompted to it; whether, as we should say, it was "a put-up affair"—"Sayest thou this of thyself, or did others say it concerning Me?" Picture the situation—the great marble palace, the representative of Imperial Rome clad in the purple robe of office, and seated in his chair on the dais, the surrounding officials and bodyguard; and then the peasant from Galilee, alone, unattended, undefended, come straight from insult and mockery in another court, and that after a night of mental agony. Observe how completely the relative position of judge and Prisoner are reversed, at least, to the eyes of the onlooker. Jesus calmly questions Pilate, calmly tells him of the limit of his power, and calmly claims the kinship for himself—there of all places—in the Roman governor's residence, speaking to this governor himself, knowing that it must seal His own fate. The two powers are now face to face—the world-power of Rome, outwardly so imposing, but at this moment shrinking to insignificance, looking so vulgar, so mean, so sordid, so unreal, so essentially weak, in the person of the paltry governor; and the heavenly power, the power of truth and goodness, the Kingdom of God represented by the provincial Prisoner whose inherent dignity of Presence is seen to be all the more sublime for the contrast. And Pilate? How does he view this? He is manifestly disconcerted, but he tries to hide his awkwardness under a mask of Roman scorn. "Am I a Jew?" he exclaims, in a tone of measureless contempt. It is like the contempt of Agrippa when, in response to St Paul's enthusiastic appeal and close home-thrust, he cried, "With but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a Christian!" Pilate reminds Jesus that He has been given up by His own people. Jews might be expected to stand by a fellow-Jew under the Roman tyranny. How comes it to pass that the Jewish people have brought a man of their own race to the foreign tribunal, prosecuting Him before this alien power, seeking His death from the hated Imperial government? What can He have done to bring about so unusual a situation? Pilate is perplexed; and the answer of Jesus does not clarify the magistrate's ideas. It seems only more mystifying. Jesus describes His kingdom, so different from any institution bearing the name that Pilate has ever heard of. It is not of the order of things in this world. If it were, of course Christ's servants would fight, as do the servants of the claimants of earthly thrones. But they do not resort to violence. The kingdom and its methods of government are both unearthly. Pilate is interested, perhaps amused, with what now seem to him the fancies of a fanatical dreamer. He pursues the inquiry, we may suppose, with a smile on his lips, "Art thou a king, then?" he asked. There is no ambiguity in his Prisoner's reply. He is a king. This strange kingdom, not resting on any basis of earthly power, dispensing with fighting, with all that an army suggests, with force, is the very opposite to Pilate's idea of a state. Rome was materialistic to the core. Her rule rested on brute force. The Empire, theImperium, was the dominion of theImperator, that is to say, of the commander-in-chief of the army. It was a military despotism. Nominally the government was still republican, and the older and more peaceable provinces were administered by proconsuls, whose appointment rested with the senate, or was supposed by a legal fiction to rest with that body. But the newer and more troublesome provinces were governed as conquered territory directly by the emperor as the head of the army. Now Judaea came in this latter division. Pontius Pilate and his superior, the Legate of Syria, were both directly responsible to Tiberius Caesar. Pilate was Caesar's officer under military direction. Military methods characterised the procurator's rule. To a man placed as Pilate, the notion of a ruler independent of fighting supporters, and that in territory held down by force of arms, was simply absurd.