Part 8

OVER this letter a strange mystery hangs, such as is attached to no other writing of man. This is a letter to King Jehoram, a letter of stern rebuke, of terrible denunciation: it stands as a death-warrant issued by the Almighty on the idolater, the oppressor, the murderer, whose hands were stained with the blood of his six brethren, the sons of the noble Jehoshaphat.

But by whom was this letter written? The Bible informs us by Elijah; but—before Jehoram had ascended the throne, or had committed his fearful crime, Elijah the prophet had gone up to Heaven in a chariot of fire! Hence arises a difficulty which has perplexed the minds of the learned, and which has given rise to various conjectures. Some have imagined that for Elijah we should read Elisha; but, as has been forcibly remarked, "we have no evidence whatever that any mistake has been made by the copyists, but all the evidence lies on the other side. The Septuagint version, which was very early made, and very widely spread, has it Elias—that is, according to Greek, 'Elijah'; and not Elisha, which latter word in Greek is 'Eliseus'. Again, the Jewish historian Josephus, referring to this event, has expressly the word Elijah."

Krümmacher appears to hold that the mysterious writing actually came from the world of spirits; that that hand which had never known corruption had traced the letters denouncing judgment upon a most wicked king. There is a third conjecture, which seems to bear with it much of probability; that the prophet, foreknowing both the crimes of Jehoram and their punishment, wrote the letter before his ascension, and left it to be delivered in the ripeness of time. If either of these latter conjectures point to the actual fact, what a solemn interest attaches to this message from the departed, the letter to a monarch of earth from one who dwelt upon earth no more!

It is interesting to reflect on the power and influence which writings may possess after the death of the writer, nay, in consequence of his death. A parent's letter, received after his departure from this state of being, may penetrate a heart that was closed against all the warnings of that parent when alive. We set an especial value upon "last" messages, "last" words; they are like proofs of an engraving made more precious from the plate being broken.

An instance is given by the traveller Palgrave of a writing left as a legacy, in itself so beautiful, and written under circumstances so interesting, that I cannot forbear transcribing the greater part of it. The reader will, I trust, forgive what may appear as a digression.

Palgrave received the following account, on the occasion of his visit to Moharreb, an island on the eastern coast of Arabia, from a learned Arab named Mogheeth, who was scarcely able to finish his recital from the emotion which it caused him.

The famous Ahmed el Ghazalee, native of Toos in Persia, a poet who lived in the twelfth century, said one day to his disciples, "Go and bring me new and white garments, for the King hath summoned me to his presence."

They obeyed, and on their return they found their master lifeless. By the side of the corpse lay a paper, on which were inscribed the following lines. It is impossible not to be struck with the spirit breathing through the poetry, which appears not to be Mohammedan, but Christian. Some of the ideas seem actually to be gleaned from the writings of the apostles; there is St. Paul's sublime view of death, St. John's lofty revelation of God as love, though there is no allusion to the great doctrine of justification by faith. As the religion of Christ prevailed in early ages in the islands of the Persian Gulf, we cannot but think that it left traces behind, as the "garden flower grows wild" where it once was carefully cultivated, springing up in congenial soil, though no longer tended by man. These are the lines by which the dead Ahmed el Ghazalee spake, as if from the realm of spirits:

"Tell my friends who behold me dead, Weeping and mourning my loss awhile, Think not this corpse before you myself; That corpse is mine, but it is not I. I am undying life, and this is but my body, Many years my house, and my garment of change. I am a bird, and this body was my cage; I have winged my flight elsewhere, and left it for a token. I am a pearl, and this my shell Broken open and abandoned to worthlessness. I am a treasure; this was a spell Thrown over me, till the treasure was released in truth. Thanks be to God who has delivered me, And has assigned me a lasting abode in the highest. There am I now the day conversing with the happy, And beholding face to face unveiled Deity; Contemplating the Mirror wherein I see and read Past and present, and whatever remains to be."

* * * *

"I have journeyed on, and left you behind; How could I make an abode of your halting-place? Ruin then my house, and break my cage in pieces, And let the shell go perish with kindred illusions; Tear my garment, the veil once thrown over me, Then bury all these, and leave them alike forgotten.

"Deem not death—death, for it is in truth Life of lives, and goal of all our longings. Think lovingly of a God whose name is Love, Who joys in rewarding, and come on secure of fear: Whence I am I behold you, undying spirits like myself, And see that our lot is one, and you as I."

XXVIII.

Jonah's Gourd.

WE look on a dry and withered thing, killed by the worm, shrivelled by the heat. Not so appeared the plant when its broad leaves, full of life and beauty, afforded a cool green shade to the prophet Jonah. The gourd formed a kind of bower, under the shadow of which the weary could rest, and was thus a beautiful emblem of that charity which "covereth a multitude of sins."

It was a worm at the root which destroyed it; and when we read in the sacred story how, with Jonah himself, charity was so dried up and withered that God's mercy to thousands could afford him pain instead of joy, we naturally ask,—What was the worm at the root with him? If we search a little under the surface, we shall find that the worm was "pride;" and that, not only with Jonah, but too often with ourselves, hidden pride eats the life out of charity, and leaves but a dry, sapless skeleton, worthless in the sight of God and His angels.

There is something to admire, but little to love, in Jonah, as his portrait stands in the gallery of Scripture, drawn by his own vigorous hand. We admire the straightforward truthfulness of the man who softens not one harsh feature, but represents his own defects with unsparing fidelity. We admire Jonah's calm courage when he bade the mariners fling him into the raging billows, and save their own lives by sacrificing his. We admire the faith which sustained him, and made him look towards God, even When the depth closed him round about, and the weeds were wrapped about his head.

But we shrink from the severity of character which marked this prophet, who could contemplate the destruction of a large heathen city with stern satisfaction, and betray irritation because the mercy of God far exceeded his own. We imagine that, if Jonah had lived in these days, though he would have been a man of spotless integrity and unblemished life, he would probably have appeared as a severe master, or a hard landlord, far more just than merciful; that little ones, who "cannot discern between their right hand and their left," would not have clung to his neck, or smiled up into his face, reading there—as children intuitively do —the impression left there by a spirit of kindliness.

We contrast the character of Jonah with that of St. Paul; the hardness of the prophet with the intense desire of the apostle that sinners might be spared, and his readiness to spend and be spent for others: "To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak. I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." Paul's charity, like the gourd of miraculous growth, spread its glorious branches far and wide; nor did opposition, cruelty, or ingratitude, destroy its vigour or wither its leaf.

Perhaps the chief cause of St. Paul's tender indulgence and yearning sympathy towards sinners, is to be found in his deep sense of personal sin. When he was a proud, self-righteous Pharisee, we find in him no trace of mercy towards those who differed from him in religious opinions. We have no reason to suppose that the perishing state of the Gentile world ever then cost him a sigh. Saul might have seen a Nineveh destroyed with as much cold indifference as Jonah himself would have done. But he who deemed himself the least of saints and the chief of sinners, loved much, because he had been forgiven much; he delighted in dwelling on the free grace which had saved his own perishing soul; he felt that that grace alone had made him to differ from others, and his heart's desire was that Jew and Gentile should participate in the blessing.

Now, this deep sense of sin does not appear in Jonah. He confessed, indeed, to the sailors, that the storm was a judgment upon his flight from duty; but we discover in him none of the lowly humiliation on account of sin which marked a David, a Peter, or even a righteous Job. Perhaps the very nature of his punishment rather fostered the pride than abased the spirit of the prophet. The elements were moved on his account; his transgression had raised a storm—his generous sacrifice quelled it. God wrought a special miracle for his preservation from death. Then, scarcely had Jonah declared the Almighty's message to Nineveh, than the whole mighty city repented in dust and ashes. When did the voice of preacher ever command more sudden, more marvellous success? Truly, Jonah was set on a very high pinnacle indeed! He was reverenced by monarch and people as the inspired oracle of God. We cannot marvel that pride was fostered in the heart of Jonah; and are less surprised that it had such an effect upon his charity—that, to maintain his lofty position as a prophet, he would have been content that the judgments which he had threatened should all be terribly fulfilled.

How gently did God, in His love and wisdom, deal with the haughty Jonah! He who had seemed to grasp the thunderbolt was taught that he was but man—but a weak, sinful man. The bodily frame, once miraculously preserved, was shown to be subject to pain and fatigue, even like those of others; the mere force of the wind, the mere heat of the sun, were sufficient to exhaust its strength. Jonah was ready to faint. The soul that had been so lofty and firm in the prospect of instant death, was prostrated and brought to despair by the withering of a gourd!

Where was his courage—where his power of endurance? Jonah, under a common form of trial, shows, not the dignity of a prophet, but the impatient querulousness of a child. It must have been with shame that he afterwards recorded the almost impious complaints which bodily discomfort drew from his lips.

The story is abruptly ended. Jonah tells not the effect on his own mind of the gentle rebuke of the Lord; but we may trust that it caused him to bow down in shame, and search for the worm at the root, and learn to extend to others that mercy which he found that he so greatly needed himself.

What are our feelings towards "them that are without," those whom we deem grievous sinners, like the men of Nineveh? Is there a cold, self-righteous complacency, in the thought that we are not as they are-something of satisfaction in the belief, that, though they may revel in prosperity now, judgment will ere long overtake them? When the tower of Siloam falls, are we eager to show that those crushed beneath it were sinners above all that dwell at Jerusalem?

Let us beware of a censorious spirit, ready to judge and to condemn. If we see the leaf of our charity shrivelling, let us search for the worm at the root. Many a sorrow and many a fall may God permit His servants to suffer, in order to humble and to prove them, and to teach them, as He taught Jonah, that they are but dust. The most exalted saints have nothing wherein to glory but the Cross of Christ; through which alone they, as well as the lowest and worst of transgressors, can be delivered from the righteous judgments of God.

XXIX.

The Fetters of Manasseh.

WE bless the Lord for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but how strange are some of the things which the white-robed saints on high will number amongst these blessings! There may be heard a Nebuchadnezzar praising for the blessing of madness; a pardoned thief for the torments of a cross; and a Manasseh, remembering, in a song of loud thanksgiving, those Babylonish fetters of which the iron entered into his soul!

Manasseh, King of Judah, had perhaps descended into lower depths of depravity than any other sinner of whose conversion we read in the Bible. He might have been thought beyond reach even of the mercy of God, so deep had he sunk in the pit of iniquity. Dr. Kitto thus sums up the list of the transgressions of this most wicked man: "The crimes of all former kings seem light in comparison with those which disgraced his reign. He upheld idolatry with all the influence of the regal power, and with such inconceivable boldness, that the pure and holy ceremonies of the temple were superseded by rites of an idol image, set up in the very sanctuary . . . The practice which was, of all others, the most abhorrent to Jehovah, the king sanctioned by his own atrocious example, for he devoted his own children by fire to strange gods, in the blood-stained valley of Ben Hinnom. Wickedness reigned on high, and, as usual, persecuted righteousness and truth; so that, by a strong but significant hyperbole, we are told that innocent blood flowed in the streets of Jerusalem." It is said that the prophet Isaiah was martyred by the command of Manasseh, and underwent a terrible death, by being sawn asunder!

"God spoke unto Manasseh, and to his people, but they would not hearken." Who could have marvelled, then, if the sentence had gone forth, "Manasseh is joined to idols—let him alone?" "He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy."

But Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, had doubtless been the child of many prayers, and the Spirit of his heavenly Father yearned still over this worse than prodigal son. God sent other messengers, to whom Manasseh could not choose but hearken. The Lord brought on him "the captains of the King of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon." Those chains were as the cords of love, with which mercy would draw the wretched sinner back from the gulf of destruction into which he was plunging.

"When he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers." The prayer attributed to Manasseh, though not contained in the inspired record, nor perhaps written by Manasseh himself, well expresses what must have been the feeling of his broken and contrite heart. "I have sinned above the number of the sands of the sea. My transgressions, O Lord, are multiplied, my transgressions are multiplied, and I am not worthy to behold and see the height of heaven, for the multitude of my iniquities. I am bowed down with many iron bands, that I cannot lift up my head, neither have any release; for I have provoked Thy wrath, and done evil before Thee. I did not Thy will, neither kept I Thy commandments. I have set up abominations, and have multiplied offences. Now, therefore, I bow the knee of my heart, beseeching Thee of grace. I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned, and I acknowledge my iniquities. Wherefore, I humbly beseech Thee, forgive me, O Lord, forgive me, and destroy me not with mine iniquities . . . For Thou art the God, even the God of them that repent; and in me Thou wilt show all Thy goodness, for Thou wilt save me, that am unworthy, according to Thy great mercy."

"The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." The history of Manasseh is a most striking comment upon such a text as this. If "he" was saved, who need despair? If "he" was granted true repentance, what heart so dead in sin that it cannot be quickened by the Spirit of Life!

When God released the prisoner from captivity, and brought him again to Jerusalem to reign on the throne of his fathers, Manasseh proved the sincerity of his contrition by the change in his life. "He took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built, and cast them out of the city. And he repaired the altar of the Lord, and sacrificed thereon peace-offerings and thank-offerings, and commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel."

We believe that amongst the ransomed of Christ, Manasseh will at the last day be found with the pious Hezekiah his father, and the holy prophet Isaiah, whose inspired words were so touchingly fulfilled in the case of his own cruel murderer. "Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

The history of Manasseh is fraught with hope and comfort, not only for those bowed down under the weight of manifold sins, but for parents enduring that anguish which is only second to that of remorse, grief for the wickedness of a child. Hezekiah was a man of prayer; he had, we doubt not, often fervently prayed for his boy, and long after his own decease his prayers were abundantly answered. The supplications of Hezekiah may have helped to forge these fetters for Manasseh, they may have helped to draw the Assyrians upon him.

Let us close our meditations upon this most striking history of God's abounding grace, in the words of one who was himself a miracle of pardoning love,—"Godly sorrow worketh repentance not to be repented of. The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

XXX.

The Deed of Purchase.

A LIFE of bitter trial was that of Jeremiah, the messenger of wrath and of woe, the prophet who announced evil tidings of disgrace and ruin to a profligate court and a wicked people. Jeremiah stood like a light-house on a desolate rock, exposed to the fury of the blast of calumny, the fierce billows of persecution. What would be the position of a seer, even in these days, who should announce the utter devastation of our land by famine and sword, who should declare amongst us that we should become "an execration and an astonishment, a curse and a reproach," who should pronounce a sentence of death upon monarch and noble, bid our soldiers sheath their swords, and our volunteers submit to a foreign foe without so much as a struggle? Jeremiah has recorded his own sufferings in language which shows how deeply he felt them. "I am the man that hath seen affliction. He hath made me desolate. I was a derision to all my people, and their song all the day."

Nor were hatred and mockery all that the prophet had to endure. His liberty was taken away; his life was in imminent peril;—it is said that he fell at last a victim to his countrymen's hatred. When we consider also that the ruin of his nation was the source of deep affliction to one who was a patriot as well as a prophet, that—like the blessed Saviour—Jeremiah wept over Jerusalem while he foretold her destruction, we shall conclude that amongst God's saints few drank more deeply of the cup of sorrow and will scarcely wonder that in his anguish Jeremiah cursed the day of his birth.

But the deed of purchase which we are now contemplating reminds us of an occasion when a gleam of joy may have shone on the darkened path of the prophet, a drop of sweetness have been mixed in his cup. The whole transaction connected with it is very remarkable.

When Jeremiah was shut up in the court of the prison at Jerusalem,—when the Chaldeans were investing the doomed city which he knew must fall into their hands—then received he an intimation from God that he should purchase a field in his native place Anathoth, of which the right of redemption was his.

"What have I to do with buying land!" may have been the first thought of the wondering seer; "is this a time to receive olive-yards and vineyards? I am a prisoner and cannot get forth; Anathoth is now in the hands of the enemy, and soon will Jerusalem be so also. My people will be led into captivity; the Gentiles will rule in the land: what profit can there be in this field to me or to mine!"

But if such a thought arose, Jeremiah's faith suffered it not to influence his conduct. The purchase was to be made as a pledge and token that the captivity of Judah was not to last for ever; that the ransomed of the Lord should return to Zion; that Anathoth of Benjamin should again belong to the chosen race. Jeremiah would not live to see the return of his people, but he foresaw it by faith, and in faith bought the field as the Lord had appointed. We see the prisoner with calm thankfulness weighing out the seventeen shekels * of silver in the balances; a small sum, and yet probably deemed by many a desponding Jew too large to be thrown away upon what might seem to be a worthless claim. Mocking smiles may have been interchanged between the witnesses to so strange a transaction, when the prisoner subscribed and sealed the deed, and gave it to the faithful Baruch to be carefully preserved for a time yet remote. But Jeremiah had full assurance that such a time would arrive; for thus said the Lord of hosts to His prophet: "Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land . . . for I will cause their captivity to return."

* Not much above forty shillings. See note in D'Oyly and Mant's Bible.

We look upon Jeremiah's deed of purchase as a type of that claim which both Israel and Judah hold still on the land of their fathers. Jerusalem, with all the inheritance bestowed by God upon Abraham, is now in the possession of the followers of the false prophet; Judea, for the sins of her people is again in captivity, and her sons are scattered abroad amongst the Gentiles. The olive-yards and vineyards of Palestine are now—and for many ages have been the spoil of strangers. But it shall not be so for ever. Not by purchase but by promise is the whole land reserved for the sons of Abraham. The deed has been carefully preserved, not—as Jeremiah's—in an earthen vessel, but in God's own Book. The whole deed is too long for transference to these pages, but a portion may be transcribed, gathered from various books of the Old Testament Scriptures; each prophet, as it were, setting his seal to the precious document.

"I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." *

"Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord hath taken away thy judgments, He hath cast out thine enemy: the king of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more." †

"At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you: for I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth." ‡

"All nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of Hosts." §