"Where is the blessedness I knewWhen first I saw the Lord?Where is the soul-refreshing viewOf Jesus and His Word?"How blest the hours I once enjoy'd!How sweet their memory still!But they have left an aching voidThe world can never fill."Memory can travel back on Sabbaths and communion seasons when a sunshine of holy joy irradiated their spirits; when their Sabbath was one hallowed Emmaus-journey;—they, during its sanctuary-hours,travelling side by side with Jesus, and He causing their hearts, as He did those of the disciples of old, to "burn within them." They were wont to come and depart, saying, "This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven." Now they feel that all is sorrowfully altered. They have comparatively no joy, as once they had, when the Sabbath morning dawns. When they seat themselves in church, there is no fervour in their praises—no earnestness in their prayers—no childlike teachableness in hearing. There is more criticising of the preacher than worshipping God. There is no living flame on the heart-altar; their befitting exclamation is that of the prophet, "My leanness! my leanness!" They are ready, in the bitterness of their spirits, to say, "When I remember these things, my soul is poured out within me."Sad it is to havenomeat; but sad, too, when wehavefood and cannot enjoy it! Sad it is, as exiles in a strange land, to have no Sabbath-gates flung open to us, and no Sabbath-bells to welcome the day of God; but sadder still to have these solemn chimes within hearing;—to have our sanctuaries open, and faithful ministers proclaimingthe words of eternal life, and yet to listen with the adder's ear;—to listen as the dead in our churchyards listen to the tears and laments of the living!What should be done in such a case as this? Trace the muddy and turgid stream to its source. Discover what earthly clouds are dimming the spiritual firmament, and hiding the shinings of the Divine countenance. Sin, in some shape or other, must be the fruitful cause. It may be some positive and persevered-in transgression; indulgence in which, shuts up the avenues of prayer, and denies all access to the mercy-seat. Or it may be some no less culpable sin ofomission. That mercy-seat may have become unfrequented; the rank grass may be waving over its once beaten foot-road; the altar-fire languishing in the closet, must necessarily languish in the sanctuary too. How can the House of God be now fragrant with blessing, if the life is spent in guilty estrangement fromHim? Religion cannot be worn as a Sabbath garment, if garments soiled with sin be worn throughout the week.Self-exile from the joys of the sanctuary! return henceforth to God. If it be positive sin which is marring former blessedness, cast out the troubler inIsrael. If it be duties omitted, or perfunctorily discharged, return to former earnest-mindedness. Cultivate more filial nearness to the Hearer of prayer. Seek, on your bended knees, to obtain more tenderness of conscience regarding sin;—to have more longing aspirations after the beauties of holiness.Anddelaynot the return. By doing so, the growing languor and listlessness which is creeping over you, may settle into positive disrelish of God's house. Imitate the example of the Spouse in the Canticles, who, in mourning over similar spiritual declension, resolves on aninstantaneousseeking of the forfeited presence of her Lord. "Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?"[24]Go with the words which this exile of Gilead employs in the sequel to this Psalm, written on the same occasion—"O send out Thy light and Thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto Thy holy hill, and to Thy tabernacles. Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy."[25]Yes! go, and prove what the God of the sanctuary can do in the fulfilment of His own promise. Heseems now to be saying, "Put me to the test." "Prove me now herewith, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."[26]Every church is aPeniel, where God meets His people, as He met the patriarch of old at the brook Jabbok. Go and see what may be effected byonelowly, humble, seeking soul—some wrestling Jacob, who, like "a Prince," has "power with God, and prevails!" The lowliest tabernacle on earth is glorified as being theHouse of God—the dwelling-place of Omnipotence and Love—the hallowed "home," where a loving Father waits to dispense to His children the garnered riches of His grace! The time may come when the holy and beautiful sanctuary where we worship may become a heap of ruins. The fire may lay it in ashes—the hand of man may raze it—the slower but surer hand of time may corrode its walls and crumble its solid masonry stone by stone; but as sure as it is God's own appointed treasure-house of spiritual mercies, may we not believe that there will be deathless spirits who will be able to point to it in connexion with imperishable memories,—"buildings of God,""eternal in the heavens," beyond the reach of human violence, and wasting elements, and corroding years? Does not the promise stand unrepealed in this Bible;—let it ever be the inscription on our temples of worship,—"OfZIONit shall be said, This and that man was born in her; and the Highest himself shall establish her. The Lord shall count, when He writeth up the people, that this man was born there?"[27]Oh that ours may at last be the blessedness of that better Church above, which knows no banishment, no exile, no languor, no weariness;—where "the holy-day" is an eternal Sabbath;—the festive throng, "a multitude which no man can number"—the voice of joy and praise, "everlasting songs;"—where God's absence can never be deplored;—where He who now tendeth His temple-lamps on earth, feeding them day by day with the oil of His grace, removing the rust perpetually gathering over them by reason of their contact with sin, will, with the plenitude of His own presence, supersede all earthly luminaries, and ordinances, and sanctuaries;—for "they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever!"VII.Hope."When the water-floods of griefRound thy helpless head shall rise,When there seemeth no relief,Lift thy gaze to yonder skies;There behold how radiantlyBeams the star of Hope divine!Yesterday it shone for thee,And to-day it still shall shine.Ask no aid the world can give,Looking unto Jesus,live!""When I ask the question, 'Why art thou cast down, O my soul?' I am ashamed of the answer that must be returned. What if property, credit, health, friends and relatives were all lost; thou hast a Father, a friend, an advocate, a comforter, a mansion, a treasure in heaven."—Bishop Hall."Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance."—Verse 5.VII.HOPE.Take the wings from a bird, and it is the most helpless of animals. Bring the eagle from his eyrie, and rob him of his plumage, and he who an hour before was soaring monarch of the sky, is more powerless than the worm crawling at his side, or than the bleating lamb that trembled and cowered under his shadow.Such was David now. The wounded bird of Paradise flutters in the dust. The taunting cry everywhere assails him, "Where is thy God?" The future is a mournful blank, and the past is crowded with joyous and happy memories, which only aggravate and intensify the sorrows of the present.But though soiled and mutilated, the wings of faith are not broken. He struggles to rise from his fall. In the verse we are now to consider, he plumes his pinions for a new flight. We found him a shorttime before, making his tears a microscopic lens, looking through them into the depths of his own sorrowing and sinning heart. So long as he does so, there is ground for nothing but misgiving and despair. But he reverses the lens. He converts the microscope into a telescope. In self-oblivion, he turns the prospect-glass away from his own troubles and sorrows, his fitful frames and feelings, his days alike of sunshine and shade, to Him who is above all mutation and vicissitude. In this position, with his eye God-wards, he begins to interrogate his own spirit as to the unreasonableness of its depression. He addresses a bold remonstrance to guilty unbelief. In the preceding verse, he alluded to the dense multitude—the many thousands of Israel—he was wont to lead in person to the feasts of Zion. Now he is alone with one auditor—that auditor isHIMSELF. "Why art thou cast down,O my soul?"And what is his antidote? What is the balm and balsam he applies to his wounded spirit? "Hope thou in God!"Hope!Who is insensible to the music of that word? What bosom has not kindled under its utterance? Poetry has sung of it; music has warbledit; oratory has lavished on it its bewitching strains. Pagan mythology, in her vain but beautiful dreams, said that when all other divinities fled from the world,Hope, with her elastic step and radiant countenance and lustrous attire, lingered behind.Hope!well may we personify thee, lighting up thy altar-fires in this dark world, and dropping a live coal into many desolate hearts; gladdening the sick-chamber with visions of returning health; illuminating with rays, brighter than the sunbeam, the captive's cell; crowding the broken slumbers of the soldier by his bivouac-fire, with pictures of his sunny home, and his own joyous return.Hope!drying the tear on the cheek of woe! As the black clouds of sorrow break and fall to the earth, arching the descending drops with thine own beauteous rainbow! Ay, more, standing with thy lamp in thy hand by the gloomy realms of Hades, kindling thy torch at Nature's funeral pile, and opening vistas through the gates of glory!If Hope, even with reference to present and finite things, be an emotion so joyous,—if uninspired poetry can sing so sweetly of its delights, what must be thebeliever'shope, the hope which has Godfor its object, and heaven its consummation? How sweet that strain must have sounded from the lips of the exile Psalmist amid these glens of Gilead! A moment before, his sky is dark and troubled, but blue openings begin once more to tremble through the clouds. The mists have been hanging dense and thick, hiding out the water-brooks. But now the sun shines. They rise and circle in wreaths of fantastic vapour, disclosing to the wounded Hart "the springs in the valleys which run among the hills; which give drink to every beast in the field, and where the wild asses quench their thirst." The wilderness has become once more "a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water." Rebuking his unworthy tears, Faith once more takes down her harp, and thus wakes its melodies,—"I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in His word do IHOPE." "Let IsraelHOPEin the Lord."[28]And is it not well for us from time to time to open the gates of our own souls, and hold a similar consistory?—to make solemn inquisition with our hearts in their seasons of trouble and disquietude?"Why art thou cast down?" Is it outward trialthat assails thee? Has calamity abridged thy earthly comforts? Have the golden heaps thou mayest have been a lifetime in amassing, dissolved like a snow-wreath;—the waxen wings of capricious fortune, when thou wast soaring highest, melting like those of fabled Icarus of old, and bringing thee helpless to the ground? Or is it sickness that has dulled thine eye, paralysed thy limb, and ploughed its furrows on thy cheek; shutting out from thee the din of a busy world, and chaining thee down to a couch of languishing? Or is it the treachery of thy trusted friend that has wounded thee; blighting thine affections, crushing thy hopes, dashing thy cup of earthly bliss to the ground? Or is it bereavement that has made gaps in thy loved circle; torn away the fixtures which gave thy dwelling and life itself all its gladness and joy?"Hopethou inGod." The creature has perished. God is imperishable! Thou mayest be saying in the bitterness of thy spirit, "All these things are against me;" there may be no gleam of light in the tempest, no apparent reason for the dark dispensation; you feel it is with stammering lips anda misgiving heart you give utterance to the reluctant word, "Thy will be done." But, "My soul, wait thou only upon God;" (or, as Calvin translates this, "Be silentbefore God;") "for my expectation is from Him."[29]"Commit also thy way unto the Lord, and He shall bring it to pass."[30]Here is the province of faith,—implicit trustin dark dealings. God brings His people into straits; sends often what is baffling and unaccountable, to lead them devoutly to say, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." Oh, beautiful is it thus to seeHopesitting, like the sea-bird, calmly on the crested wave! While others (strangers to the peace of the gospel) are beating their breasts in tumultuous grief, indulging in wild paroxysms of rebellious sorrow,—beautiful is it to see the smitten one prostrate at the feet of the greatChastener, saying through tear-drops of resignation, "Even so, Father; for so it seems good in Thy sight!" Believe it, in the apparently rough voice of thy God, there is, as in the case of Joseph to his brethren, tones of dissembled love, disguised utterances of affection—"Although thou sayest thou canst not see Him, yetjudgment is before Him; therefore trust thou in Him."[31]Besides, this lofty grace of Hope requires stern discipline to bring it into exercise, and to develop its noble proportions. It is the child of tribulation. The apostle thus traces its pedigree—"Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience,Hope."[32]As there can be no rainbow in the natural heavens without the cloud, so Hope cannot span the moral firmament, with its triumphal arch, without the clouds of tribulation. As the mother eagle is said, when other expedients fail, to put a thorn in the side of her nest to urge her young brood to fly, so tribulation is the thorn which drives Hope to the wing."And thou shalt yet praise Him." "Yet!" We cannot venture to scan or measure that word. It may be after many bitter tears of sorrow;—it may be after many struggles with a murmuring heart;—many storms may still sweep—many hours of pining sickness may be endured—many a rough and thorny path may have to be trodden—the harp may be muffled in sadness to the last; but, "at evening-timeit shall be light." There is a season infallibly coming when the fettered tongue shall be loosed—the lingering cloud dispelled—and faith's triumph complete; when, with regard to the very dispensation on earth which caused you so much perplexity, you will be able triumphantly to say, "I know" (yea, ISEE) "that Thy judgments are right, and that Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me."[33]But your depression may proceed from a different cause. It may not be outer trial, but inward sources of disquietude which are causing despondency and doubt. It may be thoughts regarding yourspiritualcondition. Latent corruption in a partially renewed and sanctified heart,—the power of remaining sin robbing you of your peace; at times leading you to question whether you have any real interest in Gospel blessings and Gospel hopes—whether you have not long ago quenched the strivings of the Holy Spirit by your impenitence and unbelief—whether your hopes of heaven may not after all be a shadowy delusive dream. "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?" Who, I ask, is teaching you to breathe out these penitential sighings after ahappiness to which at present you feel you are a stranger? Who is it that is teaching you thus to interrogate yourself about the erring past? It is notNature'swork. If there be within you one true breathing after repentance and return, that secret aspiration is the work of that Spirit who, although He will not always strive, is hereby shewing you that Heisstriving still withyou! Think of all that God hath done for you in the past, and is still willing to do. After the gift of His Son,—after such an expenditure of wrath and suffering on the head of a guiltless Surety, and all this that a way of reconciliation might be opened up,—think how dishonouring it would be to distrust either His ability or His willingness to save you. Having bestowed this greatest boon, He will "with Him alsofreelygive youall things." Turn away from self,—sinful self, righteous self, condemned self,—and direct your believing regards to Him who is "theHopeof Israel and the Saviour thereof." Keep your eye steadily fixed on the infinite grandeur of His finished work and righteousness. Look to Jesus and believe! Look to Jesus and live! Nay, more; as you look to Him, hoist your sails, and buffet manfullythe sea of life. Do not remain in the haven of distrust, or sleeping on your shadows in inactive repose, or suffering your frames and feelings to pitch and toss on one another like vessels idly moored in a harbour. The religious life is not a brooding over emotions, grazing the keel of faith in the shallows, or dragging the anchor of hope through the oozy tide-mud, as if afraid of encountering the healthy breeze. Away! with your canvas spread to the gale, trusting in Him who rules the raging of the waters. The safety of the timid bird is to be on the wing, if its haunt be near the ground,—if it fly low, it exposes itself to the fowler's net or snare. If we remain grovelling on the low ground of feeling and emotion, we shall find ourselves entangled in a thousand meshes of doubt and despondency, temptation and unbelief. "But surely in vain the net is spread in the sight ofTHAT WHICH HATH A WING"[34]—(marginal reading.) "They that wait (or hope) in the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles."[35]Hopestrengthens and invigorates her pinions thehigher she soars. She gathers courage from the past, and looks with eagle eye to the future. "I know," says Paul, "in whom I have believed," (hoped, or trusted,) "and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him." "I will hope continually," says David, "and will yet praise Thee more and more."[36]Again, using a kindred emblem—the bird in the tempest rushing for shelter under the mother's wing—"Thou hastBEENmy help,THEREFOREin the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice."[37]Can such be said of the world's hopes? Does experience lead to repose inthemwith similar implicit confidence?Hope—the hope of earthly good, and earthly joy, and earthly happiness—is often (too often) the mirage of life; the bubble on the stream, tinted with evanescent glory, a flash of prismatic beauty, and thengone! Multitudes flock to this enchantress in her cave, and though mocked and duped, and mocked and duped again, still they haunt her oracle, and kiss her magic wand. She has built for them again and again air castles—turret on turret, buttress on buttress, gilded domeand glittering minaret, and these have melted like frost-work. But yet these Babel builders, with the same avidity as ever, return to the work, and again the fantastic battlements are piled high in mid air!We do not condemn these noble aspirations and struggles of this noble emotion;—far from it. What would the world be without Hope? It is the oil which keeps its vast machinery in play; it is the secret of all success—the incentive to all enterprise. Annihilate hope, and you blot out a sun from the firmament. Annihilate hope, and the husbandman would forsake his furrow, the physician his patient, the merchant his traffic; the student would quench his midnight lamp; science would at this hour have been lisping its alphabet, and art and philosophy would have been in their infancy.But this we say, that if so much is perilled on a peradventure;—ifhope—theignis fatuusof earth—be so greedily pursued,—why the cold and careless indifference regarding "the hope which maketh not ashamed"—the hope which is beyond the possibility of disappointment; promises which never fail; words which rest on a firmer and surer basis than the foundations of earth and the pillars of heaven?Shall the disappointed hewer still go on patching the shivered and brokenearthlycistern? Shall the man of science, undeterred by successive failures, pursue his unwearied analysis? Shall the merchant remain unbaffled by adverse markets that have drained his coffers, or successive storms that have stranded his vessels and wrecked his cargo? Shall the fragments of a brave army re-muster at the bugle call, and, amid dying comrades around and a shower of iron hail in front, return with undaunted hearts to the charge? Shall pining captives in a beleaguered garrison, pressed by famine, decimated by disease, outnumbered by force—shall these light their beacon-fires ofhope, and sit to the last by their smouldering ashes, struggling on, either till calm endurance win its recompence, or until hope and life expire together? And shall the spiritual builder, or merchant, or soldier, be left alone coward and faint-hearted, and give way to unworthy distrust, or pusillanimous despair; and that, too, when the guarantees oftheirhope are so amazing? Listen to them! What words could be stronger? what pledges more inviolable? "In hopeof eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised beforethe world began."[38]"Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil."[39]Oh, beautiful figure! Hope casts its anchor into the Rock of Ages within the veil. The ship may be tossing in the surging sea below, but a chain of everlasting love and grace links it to the throne of God.I love to walk through the Bible, and gaze on its many delineations ofHope. It is a picture-gallery of this noble grace! As the great painters of the middle ages clung to favourite subjects, soHopeseems ever to meet us in some form or other, as we tread this long corridor of inspired portraits.Here is the earliest. A picture hung in a framework of sorrow. Its subject is two drooping exiles going with tears out of Eden. But, lo! a tinge oflight gleams in the dark sky, and the angel ofHopedrops in their ears healing words of comfort.Here is another. An ark is tossed in a raging deluge. The heavens are black above. Neither sun nor stars appear. All around is a waste wilderness of waters. But, lo! by the window of the ark a weary bird is seen fluttering, and bearing in its mouth an olive branch ofHope!Here, again, is a picture called "The Father of the Faithful." Its subject is a solitary pilgrim, one of the world's gray patriarchs. He is treading along amid some wild pastoral hills, all ignorant of his destiny; but he has a staff in his hand—it is the staff ofHope!Here is another. It is an Arabian Emir, once a Prince of the East, sitting amid ashes, the victim of a loathsome disease; and worse than all, of Satanic power. ButHopetunes his lips to sing, "I know that my Redeemer liveth."Here is a vast exodus of six hundred thousand slaves from a land of bondage, separated by an inhospitable desert from the land of their fathers; butHopesilvers the edges of their pillar of cloud, and gleams by night in their pillar of fire.Here is another picture, of exiled patriots seated by the waters of Babylon. They have hung their harps on the willows. They refuse to sing the Lord's song in that strange land. ButHopeis represented restoring the broken strings; and with their eyes suffused with tears, yet glistening with joyous visions, thus they pour out their plaintive prayer—"Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south."[40]Time would fail to traverse these halls and walls of ancient memory.Hope, in every diversified form and attitude, is portrayed in the history of the glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of prophets, the noble army of martyrs,—ay, sustaining too, in the midst of His sufferings and sorrows, the very bosom of the Son of God—for was it nothope("the joy that was set before Him") that made Him "endure the cross, despising the shame?"[41]And whatHopehas proved in the history of the Church collectively, it is in the life of every individual believer. By nature he is a "prisoner," but "a prisoner of hope."[42]The gospel is a "gospel of hope." Itsmessage is called "the good hope through grace."[43]The God of the gospel is called "the God of Hope."[44]The "helmet of salvation" is the helmet of "hope."[45]The "anchor of the soul" is the anchor of "hope."[46]The believer "rejoices in hope,"[47]and "abounds in hope."[48]Christ is in him"the hope of glory."[49]Hopepeoples to him the battlements of heaven with sainted ones in the spirit-land. He "sorrows not as others, who have noHope."[50]When death comes,Hopesmoothes his dying pillow, wipes the damps from his brow, and seals his eyes. "Now, Lord, what wait I for? myhopeis in Thee."[51]Hopestands with her torch over his grave, and in the prospect of the dust returning to its dust, he says, "My flesh shall rest in hope."[52]Hopeis one of three guardian graces that conduct him to the heavenly gate. Now abideth these three, "Faith,Hope, and Love," and if it be added, "the greatest of these is Love," it is because Hope and her companion finish their mission at the celestial portal! They proceed no further, they go back to the world, to thewrestlers in the earthly conflict. Faith returns to her drooping hearts, to undo heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free.Hopegoes to her dungeon vaults, her beds of sickness, her chambers of bereavement and sorrow. To take Faith or Hope to heaven, would be to take the Physician to the sound man, or to offer crutches to the strong, or to help to light the meridian sun with a tiny candle;Faithis then changed to sight, and Hope to full fruition.Lovealone holds on her infinite mission.FaithandHopeare her two soaring pinions. She drops them as she enters the gates of glory. The watcher puts out his beacon when the sun floods the ocean—the miner puts out his lamp when he ascends to the earth.Hope'staper light is unneeded in that world where "the sun shall no more go down, neither for brightness shall the moon withdraw itself, but where the Lord our God shall be an everlasting light, and the days of our mourning shall be ended."VIII.The Hill Mizar."All scenes alike engaging proveTo souls impress'd with sacred love!Where'er they dwell, they dwell in Thee;In heaven, in earth, or on the sea."To me remains nor place nor time;My country is in every clime;I can be calm and free from careOn any shore, since God is there."While place we seek, or place we shun,The soul finds happiness in none;But, with a God to guide our way,'Tis equal joy to go or stay."Could I be cast where thou art not,That were indeed a dreadful lot;But regions none remote I call,Secure of finding God in all."—Cowper."It is profitable for Christians to be often calling to mind the dealings of God with their souls. It was Paul's accustomed manner, and that when tried for his life, even to open before his judges the manner of his conversion. He would think of thatday and that hour in the which he did first meet with grace, for he found it support onto him. There was nothing to David like Goliath's sword. The very sight and remembrance of that did preach forth God's deliverance to him. Oh, the remembrance of my great sins, of my great temptations, and of my great fears for perishing for ever. They bring afresh into my mind the remembrance of mercy and help—my great support from heaven, and the great grace that God extendeth to such a wretch as I."—John Bunyan."O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar."—Verse 6.VIII.THE HILL MIZAR.In the preceding verse, we found the Psalmist chiding his soul for the unreasonableness of its depression—calling upon it to exercise hope and trust in God, under the assurance that he would "yet praise Him for the help of His countenance."But "what will ye see in the Shulamite?" Another experience testifies afresh, "As it were the company of two armies."[53]Hopehas no sooner risen to the surface than despondency returns. The struggling believer threatens to sink. The wave is again beat back. His soul is again "cast down!" But one word—an old monosyllable of comfort—is borne on the refluent billow, "O my God!" This "strong swimmer in his agony" seizes hold of that never-failing support, the faithfulness of a covenant-keeping Jehovah. With this he breasts the opposing tide, and will assuredly at last reach the shore. The very tribulations that are casting him down,—threateningto submerge him,—are only nerving his spirit for bolder feats; leading him to value more the everlasting arms that are lower and deeper than the darkest wave.We have heard of a bell, set in a lighthouse, rung by the sweep of the winds and the dash of the billows. In the calm, stormless sea, it hung mute and motionless; but when the tempest was let loose and the ocean fretted, the benighted seaman was warned by its chimes; and beating hearts ashore, in the fisherman's lonely hut, listened to its ominous music. We read in the previous verse, of the lighthouse ofFaith, built on the rock ofHope. God has placed bells there. But it needs the storms of adversity to blow ere they are heard. In the calm of uninterrupted prosperity, they are silent and still. But the hurricane arises. The sea of life is swept with tempest, and, amid the thick darkness, they ring the peal of heavenly confidence, "My God, my God!"My God!What a heritage of comfort do these words contain—in all time of our tribulation—in all time of our wealth—in the hour of death, and at the day of judgment! They describe the great Being who fills heaven with His glory, as the covenant portionand heritage of believers. His attributes are embarked on their side; His holiness and righteousness, and justice and truth, are the immutable guarantees and guardians of their everlasting well-being. Hear His own gracious promise—"I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God."[54]Moreover, He is the only possession which is theirsabsolutely. All else they have, is in the shape of a loan, which they receive as stewards. Their time, their talents, their possessions, their friends, are onlyleasedby them from the Great Proprietor of life and being. But theycansay unreservedly, "The Lord is my portion." "God, even ourOWNGod, shall bless us." Ay, and we are told, "God is not ashamed to be calledtheir God."[55]"Thenameof the Lord" is thus "a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe."[56]That salvation purchased by Jesus,—the amazing method by which every attribute of the Divine nature has been magnified,and every requirement of the Divine law has been met,—is "for walls and bulwarks." The believer not only can lay hold on higher blessings—"the good hope through grace," "glory, honour, immortality, eternal life,"—but even with regard to the circumstantials of the present, the appointments and allotments in the house of his pilgrimage, he can feel that they are so regulated and overruled as best to promote his spiritual interests; and that "all things" (yes, "ALLthings") are "working together for his good." Take then, desponding one! the opening words of David's lamentation. They quiet all apprehensions. This all-gracious Being who gave His own Son for thee, must have some wise reason in such discipline. Oh, confide all thy perplexities, andthisperplexity, into His hands, saying, "I am oppressed, undertakeThoufor me!" Who can forget that it was this same monosyllable of comfort that cheered a greater Sufferer at a more awful hour? The two most memorable spots in His midnight of agony,—Gethsemane and Calvary, the Garden and the Cross,—have this solitary gleam of sunshine breaking through the darkness, "O my Father!" "My God, my God!"Let us now proceed to the main feature in this verse. We have already noted how the exiled King had tried to reason his soul out of its depression by the exercise ofHope—by looking beyond the shadows of the present to a brighterfuture. But the torch flickered and languished in his hand. He adopts a new expedient. Instead of looking to thefuture, he resolves to take aretrospectivesurvey; he directs his eye to thepast. As often at eventide, when the lower valleys are in shadow, the mountain-tops are gilded with the radiance of the setting sun; so from the Valley of Humiliation, where he now was, he looks back on the lofty memorials of God's faithfulness. He "lifts his eyes unto theHILLS,from whence cometh his help." "O my God, I will rememberThee!" "This ismyinfirmity," he seems to say, when he thinks of the weakness of his faith, and the fitfulness of his frames and feelings: "but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the works of the Lord; surely I will rememberThywonders of old."[57]With this key he proceeds again to open the door ofHope. And ashe treads the valley of Achor, he "sings there as in the days of his youth."[58]In connexion with this remembrance of his God, David alludes to some well-known places in his Kingdom—"The land of Jordan, and the Hermonites, and the hill Mizar."What means he by this reference? His language may admit of a twofold interpretation.1. He may possibly refer to his present sojourn in the region beyond Jordan, with the Hermon range in sight; and which had this peculiarity, that it was beyond the old boundary-line of the Land of Promise, making him for the time, "an alien from the commonwealth of Israel."We know from a passage in Joshua (chap. xxii.) how sacredly the division between the covenant people and the neighbouring tribes was preserved. The latter were denominated a "possession unclean;" the former, "the land of the possession of the Lord, wherein the Lord's tabernacle is." How bitter must it have been to a patriotic heart like that of the Psalmist, thus to be cut off (even though for a brief season) from all participation innational and sanctuary blessings,—to stand outside the land trodden by the footsteps of angels, consecrated by the ashes of patriarchs, and over which hovered the shadowing wings of Jehovah!But he exults in the persuasion that Israel's God is not confined to lands or to sanctuaries. "I will remember Thee," says the banished monarch. "Though wandering here beyond the region Thou hast blest with Thy favour, I will not cease still to call Thee and claim Thee as my God, and to recount all the manifold tokens of Thy mercy, even though it be from the 'land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.' My foes may drive me from my home,—they may strip me of my regal glories,—they may make me the butt of scorn, the mark for their arrows;—but they cannot banish me from the better portion and heritage I have in Thy blessed self!"If we should ever be in circumstances when, like David, we are denuded of the means of grace—shut out from the public ministrations of the sanctuary,—or, what is more common, placed in a disadvantageous position for spiritual advancement;—when our situation as regards the world, the family,business, pursuits, companions, society, is such as to prove detrimental to the interests of our souls,—let us still "remember God!" Let the loss of means, and privileges, and opportunities, and congenial intercourse, draw us nearer the Source of all knowledge, and peace, and true joy. If the starlight be wanting, let us prize the sunlight more. If the streams fail, let us go direct to the fountainhead.Yes, and God can make His people independent of all outward circumstances. In the court of an Ethiopian Queen there was a believing Treasurer. In the household of Nero there were illustrious saints. Down in the depths of the briny ocean, imprisoned in the strangest of tombs, a disobedient prophet "remembered God," and his prayer was heard. Joseph was torn away from the land of his birth, and the home where his piety had been nurtured, but in Egypt "the Lord was with Joseph." "At my first answer," says the apostle of the Gentiles, "nomanstood with me, but allmenforsook me.... Notwithstanding,the Lordstood by me, and strengthened me." Comforting thought! that the true Sanctuary, of which all earthly ones arethe shadowy type, is ever near: God himself, the refuge and dwelling-place of His people to all generations, and who, wherever we are, can turn the place of forlorn exile—our "land of Jordan, the Hermonites, the hill Mizar"—into scenes bright with manifestations of His covenant love.2. But the references to these several localities may admit of a different interpretation. David may be reverting to some memorable epochs in his past history—some green spots in the waste of memory, where he enjoyed peculiar tokens of God's grace and presence.We spoke in last chapter ofHope'spicture-gallery.Memoryhas one, stranger still—filled with landscapes of imperishable interest! Who has not such a gallery in his own soul? Let Memory withdraw her folding-doors—and what do we see? The old homes of cherished infancy may be the first to crowd the walls and arrest the eye;—scenes of life's bright morning, the sun tipping with his rising beam the dim mountain-heights of the future! In the foreground, there is the murmuring brook by which we wandered, and theumbrageous tree under which we sat;—countenances glowing with smiles are haunting every walk and greeting us at every turn—the ringing laugh of childhood at some—venerable forms bending at others.But more hallowed remembrances crowd the canvas. Ebenezers and Bethel-stones appear conspicuous in the distance—mute and silent memorials, amid the gray mists of the past, which read a lesson of encouragement and comfort in a desponding and sorrowful present.David thus trod the corridors of memory. When the future was dark and louring, he surveys picture by picture, scene by scene, along the chequered gallery of his eventful life! With Jordan at his feet, the Hermon range in the distance, and someMizar—some "little hill" (as the word means)—rising conspicuous in view, he dwells on various signal instances of God's goodness and mercy in connexion with these localities—"I will remember Thee" (as it may be rendered) "regarding the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar."[59]We know the other names to which he here adverts, but what is this "hill Mizar?" The answer can only be conjectural. It may be some small mountain eminence among the hills of Judah associated with the experiences of his earlier days. May not memory possibly have travelled back to the old home and valleys of Bethlehem, and lighted perchance on the green slope where the youthful champion measured his prowess with the lion and the bear. As the soldier reverts with lively interest to his first battle-field, so may not the young Shepherd-Hero have loved to dwell on this Mizar hill, where the God he served gave him the earnest of more momentous triumphs?Or, to make one other surmise, may it morelikely refer to "the little hill" he most loved,—the home of his thoughts, the earthly centre of his affections, the glory of his kingdom, the joy of the whole earth—"Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King?"[60]We find Zion spoken of by him emphatically as "alittle hill." In one of the sublimest of all his Psalms, he represents the other loftier mountains of Palestine,—Bashan with its forests of oak, Carmel with its groves of terebinth, Lebanon with its cedar-clad summits,—as looking with envy at the tiny eminence amid the wilds of Judah which God had chosen as the place of His sanctuary: "Why look ye with envy, ye high hills? this is the hill where God desireth to dwell in; yea, the Lord will dwell in it for ever."[61]Is the hypothesis a forced or unlikely one, that, in this his season of sore depression and sorrow, he loved to linger on manifold experiences of God's faithfulness associated withZion,—its tabernacle, its festivals, its joyous multitudes—his own palace, that crowned its rocky heights, where his harp was oft attuned and his psalms composed and sung, and in which midnight found him risingand giving "thanks to God because of His righteous judgments?" In the mind of the Sweet Singer of Israel, might not "glorious things" have been thought as well as "spoken of thee, O city of God?"But, after all, we need not limit the interpretation to any special locality. The speaker's past history, from the hour when he was taken from the sheepfolds till now, was crowded with Mizars—hill-tops gleaming in the rays of morning. The valley of Elah, the wood of Ziph, the forest of Hareth, the streets of Ziklag,[62]the caves of Adullam and Engedi,—all would recall some special memorial of God's delivering hand. He resolves to take the goodness and mercy vouchsafed in the past, as pledges that He would still be faithful who had promised to "David His servant," "My faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him: and in my name shall his horn be exalted."[63]"Thou whohastdelivered my soul from death, wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?"[64]The saints of God, in every age, have delighted to dwell on these memorable spots and experiences intheir past pilgrimage.Abrahamhadhis"hill Mizar" between Bethel and Hai. "There," we read, "he builded an altar, and called upon the name of the Lord."[65]On his return from Egypt he retraced his steps to thesamelocality. Why? Because it was doubly hallowed to him now, with these former experiences of God's presence and love. It is specially noted that "he went on his journeys from the southeven to Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai;unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first: andTHEREhe called on the name of the Lord."[66]Jacob's"Mizar" would doubtless be his ladder-steps at Bethel, where the fugitive wanderer was gladdened with a vision of angels, and the voice of a reconciled God.Moseswould think ofhis"Mizar" either in connexion with the burning bush or the cleft of the rock, or the Mount of Prayer at Rephidim.Isaiah's"Mizar" would be the vision of the Seraphim, when his faithlessness was rebuked, and confidence in God restored.Jeremiahtells us specially ofhis—some memorable spot where he hada peculiar manifestation of God's presence and grace. "The Lord hath appeared ofoldunto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee."[67]Or shall we look to the New Testament? TheRoman Centurionwould remember as his Mizar-height, the spot at Capernaum where mingled Omnipotence and Love uttered the healing word. TheMagdalenewould remember as hers, the Pharisee's banquet-hall, where she bathed the feet of her Lord with a flood of penitential tears. TheManiac of Gadarawould recall as his, the heights around Tiberias, where the demon-throng were expelled, and where he sat calm and peaceful at the feet of the Great Restorer. TheWoman of Samariawould remember as hers, the well of Sychar, where her Pilgrim Lord led her from the earthly to the eternal fountain.Peterwould remember as his, the early morn, and the solitary figure on Gennesaret's shore. TheSisters of Lazarus, go where they might, would recall as their hallowed memorial-spot, the home and the graveyard ofBethany.Paul of Tarsuswould ever remember as his, the burningplain near Damascus, where a light, brighter than the mid-day sun, brought him helpless to the ground, and a voice of mingled severity and gentleness changed the persecutor into a believer—the lion into a lamb.John, the beloved disciple, as he trod the solitary isle of his banishment, or with the trembling footsteps of age lingered in his last home at Ephesus—John would recall as the most sacred and hallowed "Mizar" of all, the gentle bosom on which he leant at supper!And who among us have not their "Mizars" still? It has often been said that, next to the Bible, there is no book so instructive as that volume which all God's people carry about with them—the volume of their own experience.Thatis my earliest and fondest "Mizar," says one, the mother's knee where I first lisped my Saviour's name, and heard of His love. Mine, says another, is that never-to-be-forgotten sermon, when God's messenger reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to come; when conviction was first flashed on my torpid mind, and peace brought to my troubled soul! Mine, is another's testimony, is that bed of sickness on which I awoke from the long life-dreamof indifference, and gave heed for the first time to the things which belong to my peace. Mine, says another, is that chamber—that closet of devotion—(alas! too long and guiltily neglected) hallowed and associated with a renewed consecration to God, and with manifold tokens of His grace and goodness. That hour of resisted temptation, says another, is the "Mizar" on whose summit my stone of gratitude is raised;—when I was trembling on the edge of some precipice, and God's hand interposed and plucked me as a brand from the burning. That awful bereavement is mine, says still another, which tore up my affections by the root, and led me to seek in God, the heritage and portion which no creature-blessing could bestow. It seemed at the time to bode nothing but anger, but I see it now the appointed herald of mercy sent to open up everlasting consolations. That solemn death-bed is mine, says another, when I saw for the first time the reality of gospel hope in the departing Christian, the sweet smile of a foretasted heaven playing upon the lips, as if the response to the angel-summons, "Come up hither!"It is well for all of us, and especially in our seasonsof depression and sorrow, thus to retraverse life, and let our eyes fall on these Mizar-hills of God's faithfulness. In seasons of spiritual depression, when apt in our sinful despondency to distrust His mercy, and question our own personal interest in the covenant;—when tempted to say with Gideon, "If the Lord be with us, why has all this befallen us?"—how encouraging to look back, through the present lowering cloud, on former instances and memorials of Jehovah's favour, when we had the assured sense of His presence; and with an eye resting on these Mizar-hills on which He "appeared of old to us," disappointing our fears, and more than realizing our fondest hopes,—to remember, for our comfort, that having "loved us at the beginning," He will love us "even to the end!" If we can rest on one indubitable token of His mercy in the past, let it be to us a Covenant-keepsake, a sweet and precious token and pledge, that, "though for a small moment He may have forsaken us," yet that "with great mercy He will gather us," and that "with everlasting kindness He will have mercy upon us."[68]Why not thus seek, in the noblest sense of theword, to rise above our trials, and perplexities, and sorrows, by taking the bright side of things. There are two windows in every soul. The one looks out on a dreary prospect,—lowering clouds, barren wilds, bleak, sullen hills, pathways overgrown with rank and noxious weeds. The other opens on what is bright and beauteous,—sunny slopes, verdant meadows, luscious flowers, the song of birds. Many there are who sit always at the former—gazing on the dark side of things, nursing their sorrows, brooding over their trials. They can see nothing but Sinai and Horeb—the trail of serpents and the lair of wild beasts. Others, with a truer gospel-spirit, love, with hopeful countenance, to watch the breaking of the sunbeam in the darkened sky. Like Paul, they seat themselves at the bright lattice, saying, "Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, rejoice." Both look on identically the same landscape. But the one descry only dull heaths and moors draped in sombre hue. The others see these glorified with sunlight. The one gaze on nothing but inky skies and drenching torrents. The others behold the bow of heaven arching the sky, and the rain-drops glittering like jewels on leaf, and grass,and flower. The one can descry only "Hill Difficulties" and "Doubting Castles." The others love to gaze on Hermons and Mizars, on "the Palace of the Beautiful,"—the land of Beulah;—and, bounding the prospect, the towers and streets of the Celestial City. They are ready to acknowledge that, however many may have been their tribulations, their mercies are greater and more manifold still;—that however many the shadowy valleys, the bright spots outnumber the dreary.Are any who read these pages cast down by reason of trouble, and perplexity, and sorrow? Is God's hand lying heavily upon you—are you in darkness, and in the deeps? Seek to lift the eye of faith toHim. Seasons of trial must either bring us nearertoHim, or drive us furtherfromHim. It is an old saying, "Affliction never leaves us as it finds us." It either leads us to "rememberGod," or to banish andforgetHim. How many there are (and how sad is their case) who, when Providence seems to frown,—when their hearts are smitten like grass, their cherished hopes blighted, their gourds withered,—are led, in the bitterness of their spirits, to say, "My soul is cast down within me.therefore, I will pine away in disconsolate sorrow. I will rush to ruin and despair. My lot is hard, my punishment is greater than I can bear;—all that made life happiness to me has perished;—THEREFORE, I will harden my heart. I do well to be angry, even unto death. Existence has no charm for me. I long to die—my only rest will be the quiet of the grave!"Sorrowing one! be yours a nobler philosophy. Look back from these valleys of death and tribulation, to the gleaming summits of yonder distantMizar hills! Mark, in the past, the tokens and memorials of unmistakeable covenant love. "Call to remembrance your song" in former nights. Wounded Hart! on the hills of Gilead, forget not thy former pastures. Go! stricken and smitten, with the tears in thine eyes, bathe thy panting sides in the cooling "water-brooks." When the disturbers of thy peace have gone, and when hushed again is thy forest home, return to "the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense." Go, minstrel monarch of Judah, weeping exile! seat thyself on some rocky summit on these ridges of Hermon, and, surveying mountain height onmountain height, in the land of covenant promise,—each associated with some hallowed memory,—take down thy harp, and sing one of thine own songs of Zion. "Thou who hast shewed me great and sore troubles shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth!"[69]
"Where is the blessedness I knewWhen first I saw the Lord?Where is the soul-refreshing viewOf Jesus and His Word?"How blest the hours I once enjoy'd!How sweet their memory still!But they have left an aching voidThe world can never fill."
"Where is the blessedness I knewWhen first I saw the Lord?Where is the soul-refreshing viewOf Jesus and His Word?"How blest the hours I once enjoy'd!How sweet their memory still!But they have left an aching voidThe world can never fill."
"Where is the blessedness I knewWhen first I saw the Lord?Where is the soul-refreshing viewOf Jesus and His Word?
"Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and His Word?
"How blest the hours I once enjoy'd!How sweet their memory still!But they have left an aching voidThe world can never fill."
"How blest the hours I once enjoy'd!
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void
The world can never fill."
Memory can travel back on Sabbaths and communion seasons when a sunshine of holy joy irradiated their spirits; when their Sabbath was one hallowed Emmaus-journey;—they, during its sanctuary-hours,travelling side by side with Jesus, and He causing their hearts, as He did those of the disciples of old, to "burn within them." They were wont to come and depart, saying, "This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven." Now they feel that all is sorrowfully altered. They have comparatively no joy, as once they had, when the Sabbath morning dawns. When they seat themselves in church, there is no fervour in their praises—no earnestness in their prayers—no childlike teachableness in hearing. There is more criticising of the preacher than worshipping God. There is no living flame on the heart-altar; their befitting exclamation is that of the prophet, "My leanness! my leanness!" They are ready, in the bitterness of their spirits, to say, "When I remember these things, my soul is poured out within me."
Sad it is to havenomeat; but sad, too, when wehavefood and cannot enjoy it! Sad it is, as exiles in a strange land, to have no Sabbath-gates flung open to us, and no Sabbath-bells to welcome the day of God; but sadder still to have these solemn chimes within hearing;—to have our sanctuaries open, and faithful ministers proclaimingthe words of eternal life, and yet to listen with the adder's ear;—to listen as the dead in our churchyards listen to the tears and laments of the living!
What should be done in such a case as this? Trace the muddy and turgid stream to its source. Discover what earthly clouds are dimming the spiritual firmament, and hiding the shinings of the Divine countenance. Sin, in some shape or other, must be the fruitful cause. It may be some positive and persevered-in transgression; indulgence in which, shuts up the avenues of prayer, and denies all access to the mercy-seat. Or it may be some no less culpable sin ofomission. That mercy-seat may have become unfrequented; the rank grass may be waving over its once beaten foot-road; the altar-fire languishing in the closet, must necessarily languish in the sanctuary too. How can the House of God be now fragrant with blessing, if the life is spent in guilty estrangement fromHim? Religion cannot be worn as a Sabbath garment, if garments soiled with sin be worn throughout the week.
Self-exile from the joys of the sanctuary! return henceforth to God. If it be positive sin which is marring former blessedness, cast out the troubler inIsrael. If it be duties omitted, or perfunctorily discharged, return to former earnest-mindedness. Cultivate more filial nearness to the Hearer of prayer. Seek, on your bended knees, to obtain more tenderness of conscience regarding sin;—to have more longing aspirations after the beauties of holiness.
Anddelaynot the return. By doing so, the growing languor and listlessness which is creeping over you, may settle into positive disrelish of God's house. Imitate the example of the Spouse in the Canticles, who, in mourning over similar spiritual declension, resolves on aninstantaneousseeking of the forfeited presence of her Lord. "Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?"[24]Go with the words which this exile of Gilead employs in the sequel to this Psalm, written on the same occasion—"O send out Thy light and Thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto Thy holy hill, and to Thy tabernacles. Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy."[25]
Yes! go, and prove what the God of the sanctuary can do in the fulfilment of His own promise. Heseems now to be saying, "Put me to the test." "Prove me now herewith, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."[26]Every church is aPeniel, where God meets His people, as He met the patriarch of old at the brook Jabbok. Go and see what may be effected byonelowly, humble, seeking soul—some wrestling Jacob, who, like "a Prince," has "power with God, and prevails!" The lowliest tabernacle on earth is glorified as being theHouse of God—the dwelling-place of Omnipotence and Love—the hallowed "home," where a loving Father waits to dispense to His children the garnered riches of His grace! The time may come when the holy and beautiful sanctuary where we worship may become a heap of ruins. The fire may lay it in ashes—the hand of man may raze it—the slower but surer hand of time may corrode its walls and crumble its solid masonry stone by stone; but as sure as it is God's own appointed treasure-house of spiritual mercies, may we not believe that there will be deathless spirits who will be able to point to it in connexion with imperishable memories,—"buildings of God,""eternal in the heavens," beyond the reach of human violence, and wasting elements, and corroding years? Does not the promise stand unrepealed in this Bible;—let it ever be the inscription on our temples of worship,—"OfZIONit shall be said, This and that man was born in her; and the Highest himself shall establish her. The Lord shall count, when He writeth up the people, that this man was born there?"[27]
Oh that ours may at last be the blessedness of that better Church above, which knows no banishment, no exile, no languor, no weariness;—where "the holy-day" is an eternal Sabbath;—the festive throng, "a multitude which no man can number"—the voice of joy and praise, "everlasting songs;"—where God's absence can never be deplored;—where He who now tendeth His temple-lamps on earth, feeding them day by day with the oil of His grace, removing the rust perpetually gathering over them by reason of their contact with sin, will, with the plenitude of His own presence, supersede all earthly luminaries, and ordinances, and sanctuaries;—for "they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever!"
"When the water-floods of griefRound thy helpless head shall rise,When there seemeth no relief,Lift thy gaze to yonder skies;There behold how radiantlyBeams the star of Hope divine!Yesterday it shone for thee,And to-day it still shall shine.Ask no aid the world can give,Looking unto Jesus,live!"
"When the water-floods of griefRound thy helpless head shall rise,When there seemeth no relief,Lift thy gaze to yonder skies;There behold how radiantlyBeams the star of Hope divine!Yesterday it shone for thee,And to-day it still shall shine.Ask no aid the world can give,Looking unto Jesus,live!"
"When the water-floods of grief
Round thy helpless head shall rise,
When there seemeth no relief,
Lift thy gaze to yonder skies;
There behold how radiantly
Beams the star of Hope divine!
Yesterday it shone for thee,
And to-day it still shall shine.
Ask no aid the world can give,
Looking unto Jesus,live!"
"When I ask the question, 'Why art thou cast down, O my soul?' I am ashamed of the answer that must be returned. What if property, credit, health, friends and relatives were all lost; thou hast a Father, a friend, an advocate, a comforter, a mansion, a treasure in heaven."—Bishop Hall."Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance."—Verse 5.
"When I ask the question, 'Why art thou cast down, O my soul?' I am ashamed of the answer that must be returned. What if property, credit, health, friends and relatives were all lost; thou hast a Father, a friend, an advocate, a comforter, a mansion, a treasure in heaven."—Bishop Hall.
"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance."—Verse 5.
Take the wings from a bird, and it is the most helpless of animals. Bring the eagle from his eyrie, and rob him of his plumage, and he who an hour before was soaring monarch of the sky, is more powerless than the worm crawling at his side, or than the bleating lamb that trembled and cowered under his shadow.
Such was David now. The wounded bird of Paradise flutters in the dust. The taunting cry everywhere assails him, "Where is thy God?" The future is a mournful blank, and the past is crowded with joyous and happy memories, which only aggravate and intensify the sorrows of the present.
But though soiled and mutilated, the wings of faith are not broken. He struggles to rise from his fall. In the verse we are now to consider, he plumes his pinions for a new flight. We found him a shorttime before, making his tears a microscopic lens, looking through them into the depths of his own sorrowing and sinning heart. So long as he does so, there is ground for nothing but misgiving and despair. But he reverses the lens. He converts the microscope into a telescope. In self-oblivion, he turns the prospect-glass away from his own troubles and sorrows, his fitful frames and feelings, his days alike of sunshine and shade, to Him who is above all mutation and vicissitude. In this position, with his eye God-wards, he begins to interrogate his own spirit as to the unreasonableness of its depression. He addresses a bold remonstrance to guilty unbelief. In the preceding verse, he alluded to the dense multitude—the many thousands of Israel—he was wont to lead in person to the feasts of Zion. Now he is alone with one auditor—that auditor isHIMSELF. "Why art thou cast down,O my soul?"
And what is his antidote? What is the balm and balsam he applies to his wounded spirit? "Hope thou in God!"
Hope!Who is insensible to the music of that word? What bosom has not kindled under its utterance? Poetry has sung of it; music has warbledit; oratory has lavished on it its bewitching strains. Pagan mythology, in her vain but beautiful dreams, said that when all other divinities fled from the world,Hope, with her elastic step and radiant countenance and lustrous attire, lingered behind.Hope!well may we personify thee, lighting up thy altar-fires in this dark world, and dropping a live coal into many desolate hearts; gladdening the sick-chamber with visions of returning health; illuminating with rays, brighter than the sunbeam, the captive's cell; crowding the broken slumbers of the soldier by his bivouac-fire, with pictures of his sunny home, and his own joyous return.Hope!drying the tear on the cheek of woe! As the black clouds of sorrow break and fall to the earth, arching the descending drops with thine own beauteous rainbow! Ay, more, standing with thy lamp in thy hand by the gloomy realms of Hades, kindling thy torch at Nature's funeral pile, and opening vistas through the gates of glory!
If Hope, even with reference to present and finite things, be an emotion so joyous,—if uninspired poetry can sing so sweetly of its delights, what must be thebeliever'shope, the hope which has Godfor its object, and heaven its consummation? How sweet that strain must have sounded from the lips of the exile Psalmist amid these glens of Gilead! A moment before, his sky is dark and troubled, but blue openings begin once more to tremble through the clouds. The mists have been hanging dense and thick, hiding out the water-brooks. But now the sun shines. They rise and circle in wreaths of fantastic vapour, disclosing to the wounded Hart "the springs in the valleys which run among the hills; which give drink to every beast in the field, and where the wild asses quench their thirst." The wilderness has become once more "a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water." Rebuking his unworthy tears, Faith once more takes down her harp, and thus wakes its melodies,—"I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in His word do IHOPE." "Let IsraelHOPEin the Lord."[28]
And is it not well for us from time to time to open the gates of our own souls, and hold a similar consistory?—to make solemn inquisition with our hearts in their seasons of trouble and disquietude?
"Why art thou cast down?" Is it outward trialthat assails thee? Has calamity abridged thy earthly comforts? Have the golden heaps thou mayest have been a lifetime in amassing, dissolved like a snow-wreath;—the waxen wings of capricious fortune, when thou wast soaring highest, melting like those of fabled Icarus of old, and bringing thee helpless to the ground? Or is it sickness that has dulled thine eye, paralysed thy limb, and ploughed its furrows on thy cheek; shutting out from thee the din of a busy world, and chaining thee down to a couch of languishing? Or is it the treachery of thy trusted friend that has wounded thee; blighting thine affections, crushing thy hopes, dashing thy cup of earthly bliss to the ground? Or is it bereavement that has made gaps in thy loved circle; torn away the fixtures which gave thy dwelling and life itself all its gladness and joy?
"Hopethou inGod." The creature has perished. God is imperishable! Thou mayest be saying in the bitterness of thy spirit, "All these things are against me;" there may be no gleam of light in the tempest, no apparent reason for the dark dispensation; you feel it is with stammering lips anda misgiving heart you give utterance to the reluctant word, "Thy will be done." But, "My soul, wait thou only upon God;" (or, as Calvin translates this, "Be silentbefore God;") "for my expectation is from Him."[29]"Commit also thy way unto the Lord, and He shall bring it to pass."[30]Here is the province of faith,—implicit trustin dark dealings. God brings His people into straits; sends often what is baffling and unaccountable, to lead them devoutly to say, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." Oh, beautiful is it thus to seeHopesitting, like the sea-bird, calmly on the crested wave! While others (strangers to the peace of the gospel) are beating their breasts in tumultuous grief, indulging in wild paroxysms of rebellious sorrow,—beautiful is it to see the smitten one prostrate at the feet of the greatChastener, saying through tear-drops of resignation, "Even so, Father; for so it seems good in Thy sight!" Believe it, in the apparently rough voice of thy God, there is, as in the case of Joseph to his brethren, tones of dissembled love, disguised utterances of affection—"Although thou sayest thou canst not see Him, yetjudgment is before Him; therefore trust thou in Him."[31]
Besides, this lofty grace of Hope requires stern discipline to bring it into exercise, and to develop its noble proportions. It is the child of tribulation. The apostle thus traces its pedigree—"Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience,Hope."[32]As there can be no rainbow in the natural heavens without the cloud, so Hope cannot span the moral firmament, with its triumphal arch, without the clouds of tribulation. As the mother eagle is said, when other expedients fail, to put a thorn in the side of her nest to urge her young brood to fly, so tribulation is the thorn which drives Hope to the wing.
"And thou shalt yet praise Him." "Yet!" We cannot venture to scan or measure that word. It may be after many bitter tears of sorrow;—it may be after many struggles with a murmuring heart;—many storms may still sweep—many hours of pining sickness may be endured—many a rough and thorny path may have to be trodden—the harp may be muffled in sadness to the last; but, "at evening-timeit shall be light." There is a season infallibly coming when the fettered tongue shall be loosed—the lingering cloud dispelled—and faith's triumph complete; when, with regard to the very dispensation on earth which caused you so much perplexity, you will be able triumphantly to say, "I know" (yea, ISEE) "that Thy judgments are right, and that Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me."[33]
But your depression may proceed from a different cause. It may not be outer trial, but inward sources of disquietude which are causing despondency and doubt. It may be thoughts regarding yourspiritualcondition. Latent corruption in a partially renewed and sanctified heart,—the power of remaining sin robbing you of your peace; at times leading you to question whether you have any real interest in Gospel blessings and Gospel hopes—whether you have not long ago quenched the strivings of the Holy Spirit by your impenitence and unbelief—whether your hopes of heaven may not after all be a shadowy delusive dream. "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?" Who, I ask, is teaching you to breathe out these penitential sighings after ahappiness to which at present you feel you are a stranger? Who is it that is teaching you thus to interrogate yourself about the erring past? It is notNature'swork. If there be within you one true breathing after repentance and return, that secret aspiration is the work of that Spirit who, although He will not always strive, is hereby shewing you that Heisstriving still withyou! Think of all that God hath done for you in the past, and is still willing to do. After the gift of His Son,—after such an expenditure of wrath and suffering on the head of a guiltless Surety, and all this that a way of reconciliation might be opened up,—think how dishonouring it would be to distrust either His ability or His willingness to save you. Having bestowed this greatest boon, He will "with Him alsofreelygive youall things." Turn away from self,—sinful self, righteous self, condemned self,—and direct your believing regards to Him who is "theHopeof Israel and the Saviour thereof." Keep your eye steadily fixed on the infinite grandeur of His finished work and righteousness. Look to Jesus and believe! Look to Jesus and live! Nay, more; as you look to Him, hoist your sails, and buffet manfullythe sea of life. Do not remain in the haven of distrust, or sleeping on your shadows in inactive repose, or suffering your frames and feelings to pitch and toss on one another like vessels idly moored in a harbour. The religious life is not a brooding over emotions, grazing the keel of faith in the shallows, or dragging the anchor of hope through the oozy tide-mud, as if afraid of encountering the healthy breeze. Away! with your canvas spread to the gale, trusting in Him who rules the raging of the waters. The safety of the timid bird is to be on the wing, if its haunt be near the ground,—if it fly low, it exposes itself to the fowler's net or snare. If we remain grovelling on the low ground of feeling and emotion, we shall find ourselves entangled in a thousand meshes of doubt and despondency, temptation and unbelief. "But surely in vain the net is spread in the sight ofTHAT WHICH HATH A WING"[34]—(marginal reading.) "They that wait (or hope) in the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles."[35]
Hopestrengthens and invigorates her pinions thehigher she soars. She gathers courage from the past, and looks with eagle eye to the future. "I know," says Paul, "in whom I have believed," (hoped, or trusted,) "and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him." "I will hope continually," says David, "and will yet praise Thee more and more."[36]Again, using a kindred emblem—the bird in the tempest rushing for shelter under the mother's wing—"Thou hastBEENmy help,THEREFOREin the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice."[37]
Can such be said of the world's hopes? Does experience lead to repose inthemwith similar implicit confidence?Hope—the hope of earthly good, and earthly joy, and earthly happiness—is often (too often) the mirage of life; the bubble on the stream, tinted with evanescent glory, a flash of prismatic beauty, and thengone! Multitudes flock to this enchantress in her cave, and though mocked and duped, and mocked and duped again, still they haunt her oracle, and kiss her magic wand. She has built for them again and again air castles—turret on turret, buttress on buttress, gilded domeand glittering minaret, and these have melted like frost-work. But yet these Babel builders, with the same avidity as ever, return to the work, and again the fantastic battlements are piled high in mid air!
We do not condemn these noble aspirations and struggles of this noble emotion;—far from it. What would the world be without Hope? It is the oil which keeps its vast machinery in play; it is the secret of all success—the incentive to all enterprise. Annihilate hope, and you blot out a sun from the firmament. Annihilate hope, and the husbandman would forsake his furrow, the physician his patient, the merchant his traffic; the student would quench his midnight lamp; science would at this hour have been lisping its alphabet, and art and philosophy would have been in their infancy.
But this we say, that if so much is perilled on a peradventure;—ifhope—theignis fatuusof earth—be so greedily pursued,—why the cold and careless indifference regarding "the hope which maketh not ashamed"—the hope which is beyond the possibility of disappointment; promises which never fail; words which rest on a firmer and surer basis than the foundations of earth and the pillars of heaven?Shall the disappointed hewer still go on patching the shivered and brokenearthlycistern? Shall the man of science, undeterred by successive failures, pursue his unwearied analysis? Shall the merchant remain unbaffled by adverse markets that have drained his coffers, or successive storms that have stranded his vessels and wrecked his cargo? Shall the fragments of a brave army re-muster at the bugle call, and, amid dying comrades around and a shower of iron hail in front, return with undaunted hearts to the charge? Shall pining captives in a beleaguered garrison, pressed by famine, decimated by disease, outnumbered by force—shall these light their beacon-fires ofhope, and sit to the last by their smouldering ashes, struggling on, either till calm endurance win its recompence, or until hope and life expire together? And shall the spiritual builder, or merchant, or soldier, be left alone coward and faint-hearted, and give way to unworthy distrust, or pusillanimous despair; and that, too, when the guarantees oftheirhope are so amazing? Listen to them! What words could be stronger? what pledges more inviolable? "In hopeof eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised beforethe world began."[38]"Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil."[39]
Oh, beautiful figure! Hope casts its anchor into the Rock of Ages within the veil. The ship may be tossing in the surging sea below, but a chain of everlasting love and grace links it to the throne of God.
I love to walk through the Bible, and gaze on its many delineations ofHope. It is a picture-gallery of this noble grace! As the great painters of the middle ages clung to favourite subjects, soHopeseems ever to meet us in some form or other, as we tread this long corridor of inspired portraits.
Here is the earliest. A picture hung in a framework of sorrow. Its subject is two drooping exiles going with tears out of Eden. But, lo! a tinge oflight gleams in the dark sky, and the angel ofHopedrops in their ears healing words of comfort.
Here is another. An ark is tossed in a raging deluge. The heavens are black above. Neither sun nor stars appear. All around is a waste wilderness of waters. But, lo! by the window of the ark a weary bird is seen fluttering, and bearing in its mouth an olive branch ofHope!
Here, again, is a picture called "The Father of the Faithful." Its subject is a solitary pilgrim, one of the world's gray patriarchs. He is treading along amid some wild pastoral hills, all ignorant of his destiny; but he has a staff in his hand—it is the staff ofHope!
Here is another. It is an Arabian Emir, once a Prince of the East, sitting amid ashes, the victim of a loathsome disease; and worse than all, of Satanic power. ButHopetunes his lips to sing, "I know that my Redeemer liveth."
Here is a vast exodus of six hundred thousand slaves from a land of bondage, separated by an inhospitable desert from the land of their fathers; butHopesilvers the edges of their pillar of cloud, and gleams by night in their pillar of fire.
Here is another picture, of exiled patriots seated by the waters of Babylon. They have hung their harps on the willows. They refuse to sing the Lord's song in that strange land. ButHopeis represented restoring the broken strings; and with their eyes suffused with tears, yet glistening with joyous visions, thus they pour out their plaintive prayer—"Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south."[40]
Time would fail to traverse these halls and walls of ancient memory.Hope, in every diversified form and attitude, is portrayed in the history of the glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of prophets, the noble army of martyrs,—ay, sustaining too, in the midst of His sufferings and sorrows, the very bosom of the Son of God—for was it nothope("the joy that was set before Him") that made Him "endure the cross, despising the shame?"[41]
And whatHopehas proved in the history of the Church collectively, it is in the life of every individual believer. By nature he is a "prisoner," but "a prisoner of hope."[42]The gospel is a "gospel of hope." Itsmessage is called "the good hope through grace."[43]The God of the gospel is called "the God of Hope."[44]The "helmet of salvation" is the helmet of "hope."[45]The "anchor of the soul" is the anchor of "hope."[46]The believer "rejoices in hope,"[47]and "abounds in hope."[48]Christ is in him"the hope of glory."[49]Hopepeoples to him the battlements of heaven with sainted ones in the spirit-land. He "sorrows not as others, who have noHope."[50]When death comes,Hopesmoothes his dying pillow, wipes the damps from his brow, and seals his eyes. "Now, Lord, what wait I for? myhopeis in Thee."[51]Hopestands with her torch over his grave, and in the prospect of the dust returning to its dust, he says, "My flesh shall rest in hope."[52]Hopeis one of three guardian graces that conduct him to the heavenly gate. Now abideth these three, "Faith,Hope, and Love," and if it be added, "the greatest of these is Love," it is because Hope and her companion finish their mission at the celestial portal! They proceed no further, they go back to the world, to thewrestlers in the earthly conflict. Faith returns to her drooping hearts, to undo heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free.Hopegoes to her dungeon vaults, her beds of sickness, her chambers of bereavement and sorrow. To take Faith or Hope to heaven, would be to take the Physician to the sound man, or to offer crutches to the strong, or to help to light the meridian sun with a tiny candle;Faithis then changed to sight, and Hope to full fruition.Lovealone holds on her infinite mission.FaithandHopeare her two soaring pinions. She drops them as she enters the gates of glory. The watcher puts out his beacon when the sun floods the ocean—the miner puts out his lamp when he ascends to the earth.Hope'staper light is unneeded in that world where "the sun shall no more go down, neither for brightness shall the moon withdraw itself, but where the Lord our God shall be an everlasting light, and the days of our mourning shall be ended."
"All scenes alike engaging proveTo souls impress'd with sacred love!Where'er they dwell, they dwell in Thee;In heaven, in earth, or on the sea."To me remains nor place nor time;My country is in every clime;I can be calm and free from careOn any shore, since God is there."While place we seek, or place we shun,The soul finds happiness in none;But, with a God to guide our way,'Tis equal joy to go or stay."Could I be cast where thou art not,That were indeed a dreadful lot;But regions none remote I call,Secure of finding God in all."—Cowper.
"All scenes alike engaging proveTo souls impress'd with sacred love!Where'er they dwell, they dwell in Thee;In heaven, in earth, or on the sea."To me remains nor place nor time;My country is in every clime;I can be calm and free from careOn any shore, since God is there."While place we seek, or place we shun,The soul finds happiness in none;But, with a God to guide our way,'Tis equal joy to go or stay."Could I be cast where thou art not,That were indeed a dreadful lot;But regions none remote I call,Secure of finding God in all."—Cowper.
"All scenes alike engaging proveTo souls impress'd with sacred love!Where'er they dwell, they dwell in Thee;In heaven, in earth, or on the sea.
"All scenes alike engaging prove
To souls impress'd with sacred love!
Where'er they dwell, they dwell in Thee;
In heaven, in earth, or on the sea.
"To me remains nor place nor time;My country is in every clime;I can be calm and free from careOn any shore, since God is there.
"To me remains nor place nor time;
My country is in every clime;
I can be calm and free from care
On any shore, since God is there.
"While place we seek, or place we shun,The soul finds happiness in none;But, with a God to guide our way,'Tis equal joy to go or stay.
"While place we seek, or place we shun,
The soul finds happiness in none;
But, with a God to guide our way,
'Tis equal joy to go or stay.
"Could I be cast where thou art not,That were indeed a dreadful lot;But regions none remote I call,Secure of finding God in all."
"Could I be cast where thou art not,
That were indeed a dreadful lot;
But regions none remote I call,
Secure of finding God in all."
—Cowper.
—Cowper.
"It is profitable for Christians to be often calling to mind the dealings of God with their souls. It was Paul's accustomed manner, and that when tried for his life, even to open before his judges the manner of his conversion. He would think of thatday and that hour in the which he did first meet with grace, for he found it support onto him. There was nothing to David like Goliath's sword. The very sight and remembrance of that did preach forth God's deliverance to him. Oh, the remembrance of my great sins, of my great temptations, and of my great fears for perishing for ever. They bring afresh into my mind the remembrance of mercy and help—my great support from heaven, and the great grace that God extendeth to such a wretch as I."—John Bunyan."O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar."—Verse 6.
"It is profitable for Christians to be often calling to mind the dealings of God with their souls. It was Paul's accustomed manner, and that when tried for his life, even to open before his judges the manner of his conversion. He would think of thatday and that hour in the which he did first meet with grace, for he found it support onto him. There was nothing to David like Goliath's sword. The very sight and remembrance of that did preach forth God's deliverance to him. Oh, the remembrance of my great sins, of my great temptations, and of my great fears for perishing for ever. They bring afresh into my mind the remembrance of mercy and help—my great support from heaven, and the great grace that God extendeth to such a wretch as I."—John Bunyan.
"O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar."—Verse 6.
In the preceding verse, we found the Psalmist chiding his soul for the unreasonableness of its depression—calling upon it to exercise hope and trust in God, under the assurance that he would "yet praise Him for the help of His countenance."
But "what will ye see in the Shulamite?" Another experience testifies afresh, "As it were the company of two armies."[53]Hopehas no sooner risen to the surface than despondency returns. The struggling believer threatens to sink. The wave is again beat back. His soul is again "cast down!" But one word—an old monosyllable of comfort—is borne on the refluent billow, "O my God!" This "strong swimmer in his agony" seizes hold of that never-failing support, the faithfulness of a covenant-keeping Jehovah. With this he breasts the opposing tide, and will assuredly at last reach the shore. The very tribulations that are casting him down,—threateningto submerge him,—are only nerving his spirit for bolder feats; leading him to value more the everlasting arms that are lower and deeper than the darkest wave.
We have heard of a bell, set in a lighthouse, rung by the sweep of the winds and the dash of the billows. In the calm, stormless sea, it hung mute and motionless; but when the tempest was let loose and the ocean fretted, the benighted seaman was warned by its chimes; and beating hearts ashore, in the fisherman's lonely hut, listened to its ominous music. We read in the previous verse, of the lighthouse ofFaith, built on the rock ofHope. God has placed bells there. But it needs the storms of adversity to blow ere they are heard. In the calm of uninterrupted prosperity, they are silent and still. But the hurricane arises. The sea of life is swept with tempest, and, amid the thick darkness, they ring the peal of heavenly confidence, "My God, my God!"
My God!What a heritage of comfort do these words contain—in all time of our tribulation—in all time of our wealth—in the hour of death, and at the day of judgment! They describe the great Being who fills heaven with His glory, as the covenant portionand heritage of believers. His attributes are embarked on their side; His holiness and righteousness, and justice and truth, are the immutable guarantees and guardians of their everlasting well-being. Hear His own gracious promise—"I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God."[54]Moreover, He is the only possession which is theirsabsolutely. All else they have, is in the shape of a loan, which they receive as stewards. Their time, their talents, their possessions, their friends, are onlyleasedby them from the Great Proprietor of life and being. But theycansay unreservedly, "The Lord is my portion." "God, even ourOWNGod, shall bless us." Ay, and we are told, "God is not ashamed to be calledtheir God."[55]"Thenameof the Lord" is thus "a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe."[56]That salvation purchased by Jesus,—the amazing method by which every attribute of the Divine nature has been magnified,and every requirement of the Divine law has been met,—is "for walls and bulwarks." The believer not only can lay hold on higher blessings—"the good hope through grace," "glory, honour, immortality, eternal life,"—but even with regard to the circumstantials of the present, the appointments and allotments in the house of his pilgrimage, he can feel that they are so regulated and overruled as best to promote his spiritual interests; and that "all things" (yes, "ALLthings") are "working together for his good." Take then, desponding one! the opening words of David's lamentation. They quiet all apprehensions. This all-gracious Being who gave His own Son for thee, must have some wise reason in such discipline. Oh, confide all thy perplexities, andthisperplexity, into His hands, saying, "I am oppressed, undertakeThoufor me!" Who can forget that it was this same monosyllable of comfort that cheered a greater Sufferer at a more awful hour? The two most memorable spots in His midnight of agony,—Gethsemane and Calvary, the Garden and the Cross,—have this solitary gleam of sunshine breaking through the darkness, "O my Father!" "My God, my God!"
Let us now proceed to the main feature in this verse. We have already noted how the exiled King had tried to reason his soul out of its depression by the exercise ofHope—by looking beyond the shadows of the present to a brighterfuture. But the torch flickered and languished in his hand. He adopts a new expedient. Instead of looking to thefuture, he resolves to take aretrospectivesurvey; he directs his eye to thepast. As often at eventide, when the lower valleys are in shadow, the mountain-tops are gilded with the radiance of the setting sun; so from the Valley of Humiliation, where he now was, he looks back on the lofty memorials of God's faithfulness. He "lifts his eyes unto theHILLS,from whence cometh his help." "O my God, I will rememberThee!" "This ismyinfirmity," he seems to say, when he thinks of the weakness of his faith, and the fitfulness of his frames and feelings: "but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the works of the Lord; surely I will rememberThywonders of old."[57]With this key he proceeds again to open the door ofHope. And ashe treads the valley of Achor, he "sings there as in the days of his youth."[58]
In connexion with this remembrance of his God, David alludes to some well-known places in his Kingdom—"The land of Jordan, and the Hermonites, and the hill Mizar."
What means he by this reference? His language may admit of a twofold interpretation.
1. He may possibly refer to his present sojourn in the region beyond Jordan, with the Hermon range in sight; and which had this peculiarity, that it was beyond the old boundary-line of the Land of Promise, making him for the time, "an alien from the commonwealth of Israel."
We know from a passage in Joshua (chap. xxii.) how sacredly the division between the covenant people and the neighbouring tribes was preserved. The latter were denominated a "possession unclean;" the former, "the land of the possession of the Lord, wherein the Lord's tabernacle is." How bitter must it have been to a patriotic heart like that of the Psalmist, thus to be cut off (even though for a brief season) from all participation innational and sanctuary blessings,—to stand outside the land trodden by the footsteps of angels, consecrated by the ashes of patriarchs, and over which hovered the shadowing wings of Jehovah!
But he exults in the persuasion that Israel's God is not confined to lands or to sanctuaries. "I will remember Thee," says the banished monarch. "Though wandering here beyond the region Thou hast blest with Thy favour, I will not cease still to call Thee and claim Thee as my God, and to recount all the manifold tokens of Thy mercy, even though it be from the 'land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.' My foes may drive me from my home,—they may strip me of my regal glories,—they may make me the butt of scorn, the mark for their arrows;—but they cannot banish me from the better portion and heritage I have in Thy blessed self!"
If we should ever be in circumstances when, like David, we are denuded of the means of grace—shut out from the public ministrations of the sanctuary,—or, what is more common, placed in a disadvantageous position for spiritual advancement;—when our situation as regards the world, the family,business, pursuits, companions, society, is such as to prove detrimental to the interests of our souls,—let us still "remember God!" Let the loss of means, and privileges, and opportunities, and congenial intercourse, draw us nearer the Source of all knowledge, and peace, and true joy. If the starlight be wanting, let us prize the sunlight more. If the streams fail, let us go direct to the fountainhead.
Yes, and God can make His people independent of all outward circumstances. In the court of an Ethiopian Queen there was a believing Treasurer. In the household of Nero there were illustrious saints. Down in the depths of the briny ocean, imprisoned in the strangest of tombs, a disobedient prophet "remembered God," and his prayer was heard. Joseph was torn away from the land of his birth, and the home where his piety had been nurtured, but in Egypt "the Lord was with Joseph." "At my first answer," says the apostle of the Gentiles, "nomanstood with me, but allmenforsook me.... Notwithstanding,the Lordstood by me, and strengthened me." Comforting thought! that the true Sanctuary, of which all earthly ones arethe shadowy type, is ever near: God himself, the refuge and dwelling-place of His people to all generations, and who, wherever we are, can turn the place of forlorn exile—our "land of Jordan, the Hermonites, the hill Mizar"—into scenes bright with manifestations of His covenant love.
2. But the references to these several localities may admit of a different interpretation. David may be reverting to some memorable epochs in his past history—some green spots in the waste of memory, where he enjoyed peculiar tokens of God's grace and presence.
We spoke in last chapter ofHope'spicture-gallery.Memoryhas one, stranger still—filled with landscapes of imperishable interest! Who has not such a gallery in his own soul? Let Memory withdraw her folding-doors—and what do we see? The old homes of cherished infancy may be the first to crowd the walls and arrest the eye;—scenes of life's bright morning, the sun tipping with his rising beam the dim mountain-heights of the future! In the foreground, there is the murmuring brook by which we wandered, and theumbrageous tree under which we sat;—countenances glowing with smiles are haunting every walk and greeting us at every turn—the ringing laugh of childhood at some—venerable forms bending at others.
But more hallowed remembrances crowd the canvas. Ebenezers and Bethel-stones appear conspicuous in the distance—mute and silent memorials, amid the gray mists of the past, which read a lesson of encouragement and comfort in a desponding and sorrowful present.
David thus trod the corridors of memory. When the future was dark and louring, he surveys picture by picture, scene by scene, along the chequered gallery of his eventful life! With Jordan at his feet, the Hermon range in the distance, and someMizar—some "little hill" (as the word means)—rising conspicuous in view, he dwells on various signal instances of God's goodness and mercy in connexion with these localities—"I will remember Thee" (as it may be rendered) "regarding the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar."[59]
We know the other names to which he here adverts, but what is this "hill Mizar?" The answer can only be conjectural. It may be some small mountain eminence among the hills of Judah associated with the experiences of his earlier days. May not memory possibly have travelled back to the old home and valleys of Bethlehem, and lighted perchance on the green slope where the youthful champion measured his prowess with the lion and the bear. As the soldier reverts with lively interest to his first battle-field, so may not the young Shepherd-Hero have loved to dwell on this Mizar hill, where the God he served gave him the earnest of more momentous triumphs?
Or, to make one other surmise, may it morelikely refer to "the little hill" he most loved,—the home of his thoughts, the earthly centre of his affections, the glory of his kingdom, the joy of the whole earth—"Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King?"[60]We find Zion spoken of by him emphatically as "alittle hill." In one of the sublimest of all his Psalms, he represents the other loftier mountains of Palestine,—Bashan with its forests of oak, Carmel with its groves of terebinth, Lebanon with its cedar-clad summits,—as looking with envy at the tiny eminence amid the wilds of Judah which God had chosen as the place of His sanctuary: "Why look ye with envy, ye high hills? this is the hill where God desireth to dwell in; yea, the Lord will dwell in it for ever."[61]Is the hypothesis a forced or unlikely one, that, in this his season of sore depression and sorrow, he loved to linger on manifold experiences of God's faithfulness associated withZion,—its tabernacle, its festivals, its joyous multitudes—his own palace, that crowned its rocky heights, where his harp was oft attuned and his psalms composed and sung, and in which midnight found him risingand giving "thanks to God because of His righteous judgments?" In the mind of the Sweet Singer of Israel, might not "glorious things" have been thought as well as "spoken of thee, O city of God?"
But, after all, we need not limit the interpretation to any special locality. The speaker's past history, from the hour when he was taken from the sheepfolds till now, was crowded with Mizars—hill-tops gleaming in the rays of morning. The valley of Elah, the wood of Ziph, the forest of Hareth, the streets of Ziklag,[62]the caves of Adullam and Engedi,—all would recall some special memorial of God's delivering hand. He resolves to take the goodness and mercy vouchsafed in the past, as pledges that He would still be faithful who had promised to "David His servant," "My faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him: and in my name shall his horn be exalted."[63]"Thou whohastdelivered my soul from death, wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?"[64]
The saints of God, in every age, have delighted to dwell on these memorable spots and experiences intheir past pilgrimage.Abrahamhadhis"hill Mizar" between Bethel and Hai. "There," we read, "he builded an altar, and called upon the name of the Lord."[65]On his return from Egypt he retraced his steps to thesamelocality. Why? Because it was doubly hallowed to him now, with these former experiences of God's presence and love. It is specially noted that "he went on his journeys from the southeven to Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai;unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first: andTHEREhe called on the name of the Lord."[66]
Jacob's"Mizar" would doubtless be his ladder-steps at Bethel, where the fugitive wanderer was gladdened with a vision of angels, and the voice of a reconciled God.Moseswould think ofhis"Mizar" either in connexion with the burning bush or the cleft of the rock, or the Mount of Prayer at Rephidim.Isaiah's"Mizar" would be the vision of the Seraphim, when his faithlessness was rebuked, and confidence in God restored.Jeremiahtells us specially ofhis—some memorable spot where he hada peculiar manifestation of God's presence and grace. "The Lord hath appeared ofoldunto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee."[67]
Or shall we look to the New Testament? TheRoman Centurionwould remember as his Mizar-height, the spot at Capernaum where mingled Omnipotence and Love uttered the healing word. TheMagdalenewould remember as hers, the Pharisee's banquet-hall, where she bathed the feet of her Lord with a flood of penitential tears. TheManiac of Gadarawould recall as his, the heights around Tiberias, where the demon-throng were expelled, and where he sat calm and peaceful at the feet of the Great Restorer. TheWoman of Samariawould remember as hers, the well of Sychar, where her Pilgrim Lord led her from the earthly to the eternal fountain.Peterwould remember as his, the early morn, and the solitary figure on Gennesaret's shore. TheSisters of Lazarus, go where they might, would recall as their hallowed memorial-spot, the home and the graveyard ofBethany.Paul of Tarsuswould ever remember as his, the burningplain near Damascus, where a light, brighter than the mid-day sun, brought him helpless to the ground, and a voice of mingled severity and gentleness changed the persecutor into a believer—the lion into a lamb.John, the beloved disciple, as he trod the solitary isle of his banishment, or with the trembling footsteps of age lingered in his last home at Ephesus—John would recall as the most sacred and hallowed "Mizar" of all, the gentle bosom on which he leant at supper!
And who among us have not their "Mizars" still? It has often been said that, next to the Bible, there is no book so instructive as that volume which all God's people carry about with them—the volume of their own experience.
Thatis my earliest and fondest "Mizar," says one, the mother's knee where I first lisped my Saviour's name, and heard of His love. Mine, says another, is that never-to-be-forgotten sermon, when God's messenger reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to come; when conviction was first flashed on my torpid mind, and peace brought to my troubled soul! Mine, is another's testimony, is that bed of sickness on which I awoke from the long life-dreamof indifference, and gave heed for the first time to the things which belong to my peace. Mine, says another, is that chamber—that closet of devotion—(alas! too long and guiltily neglected) hallowed and associated with a renewed consecration to God, and with manifold tokens of His grace and goodness. That hour of resisted temptation, says another, is the "Mizar" on whose summit my stone of gratitude is raised;—when I was trembling on the edge of some precipice, and God's hand interposed and plucked me as a brand from the burning. That awful bereavement is mine, says still another, which tore up my affections by the root, and led me to seek in God, the heritage and portion which no creature-blessing could bestow. It seemed at the time to bode nothing but anger, but I see it now the appointed herald of mercy sent to open up everlasting consolations. That solemn death-bed is mine, says another, when I saw for the first time the reality of gospel hope in the departing Christian, the sweet smile of a foretasted heaven playing upon the lips, as if the response to the angel-summons, "Come up hither!"
It is well for all of us, and especially in our seasonsof depression and sorrow, thus to retraverse life, and let our eyes fall on these Mizar-hills of God's faithfulness. In seasons of spiritual depression, when apt in our sinful despondency to distrust His mercy, and question our own personal interest in the covenant;—when tempted to say with Gideon, "If the Lord be with us, why has all this befallen us?"—how encouraging to look back, through the present lowering cloud, on former instances and memorials of Jehovah's favour, when we had the assured sense of His presence; and with an eye resting on these Mizar-hills on which He "appeared of old to us," disappointing our fears, and more than realizing our fondest hopes,—to remember, for our comfort, that having "loved us at the beginning," He will love us "even to the end!" If we can rest on one indubitable token of His mercy in the past, let it be to us a Covenant-keepsake, a sweet and precious token and pledge, that, "though for a small moment He may have forsaken us," yet that "with great mercy He will gather us," and that "with everlasting kindness He will have mercy upon us."[68]
Why not thus seek, in the noblest sense of theword, to rise above our trials, and perplexities, and sorrows, by taking the bright side of things. There are two windows in every soul. The one looks out on a dreary prospect,—lowering clouds, barren wilds, bleak, sullen hills, pathways overgrown with rank and noxious weeds. The other opens on what is bright and beauteous,—sunny slopes, verdant meadows, luscious flowers, the song of birds. Many there are who sit always at the former—gazing on the dark side of things, nursing their sorrows, brooding over their trials. They can see nothing but Sinai and Horeb—the trail of serpents and the lair of wild beasts. Others, with a truer gospel-spirit, love, with hopeful countenance, to watch the breaking of the sunbeam in the darkened sky. Like Paul, they seat themselves at the bright lattice, saying, "Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, rejoice." Both look on identically the same landscape. But the one descry only dull heaths and moors draped in sombre hue. The others see these glorified with sunlight. The one gaze on nothing but inky skies and drenching torrents. The others behold the bow of heaven arching the sky, and the rain-drops glittering like jewels on leaf, and grass,and flower. The one can descry only "Hill Difficulties" and "Doubting Castles." The others love to gaze on Hermons and Mizars, on "the Palace of the Beautiful,"—the land of Beulah;—and, bounding the prospect, the towers and streets of the Celestial City. They are ready to acknowledge that, however many may have been their tribulations, their mercies are greater and more manifold still;—that however many the shadowy valleys, the bright spots outnumber the dreary.
Are any who read these pages cast down by reason of trouble, and perplexity, and sorrow? Is God's hand lying heavily upon you—are you in darkness, and in the deeps? Seek to lift the eye of faith toHim. Seasons of trial must either bring us nearertoHim, or drive us furtherfromHim. It is an old saying, "Affliction never leaves us as it finds us." It either leads us to "rememberGod," or to banish andforgetHim. How many there are (and how sad is their case) who, when Providence seems to frown,—when their hearts are smitten like grass, their cherished hopes blighted, their gourds withered,—are led, in the bitterness of their spirits, to say, "My soul is cast down within me.therefore, I will pine away in disconsolate sorrow. I will rush to ruin and despair. My lot is hard, my punishment is greater than I can bear;—all that made life happiness to me has perished;—THEREFORE, I will harden my heart. I do well to be angry, even unto death. Existence has no charm for me. I long to die—my only rest will be the quiet of the grave!"
Sorrowing one! be yours a nobler philosophy. Look back from these valleys of death and tribulation, to the gleaming summits of yonder distantMizar hills! Mark, in the past, the tokens and memorials of unmistakeable covenant love. "Call to remembrance your song" in former nights. Wounded Hart! on the hills of Gilead, forget not thy former pastures. Go! stricken and smitten, with the tears in thine eyes, bathe thy panting sides in the cooling "water-brooks." When the disturbers of thy peace have gone, and when hushed again is thy forest home, return to "the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense." Go, minstrel monarch of Judah, weeping exile! seat thyself on some rocky summit on these ridges of Hermon, and, surveying mountain height onmountain height, in the land of covenant promise,—each associated with some hallowed memory,—take down thy harp, and sing one of thine own songs of Zion. "Thou who hast shewed me great and sore troubles shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth!"[69]