Part 7

"_Why art thou cast down?_" Is it outward trial that 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?

"HOPE _thou in_ GOD." 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 and a 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 silent_ before 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 trust_ in 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 see HOPE sitting, 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 great CHASTENER, 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, yet judgment is before Him; therefore trust thou in Him._"[31]

[29] Psalm lxii. 5.

[30] Psalm xxxvii. 5.

[31] Job xxxv. 14.

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.

[32] Rom. v. 3, 4.

"_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-time it 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, I SEE) "_that Thy judgments are right, and that Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me_."[33]

[33] Psalm cxix. 75.

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 your _spiritual_ condition. 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 a happiness 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 not _Nature's_ work. 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 He _is_ striving still with _you_! 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 also _freely_ give you _all things_." Turn away from self,--sinful self, righteous self, condemned self,--and direct your believing regards to Him who is "_the_ HOPE _of 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 manfully the 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 of_ THAT 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]

[34] Prov. i. 17.

[35] Isaiah xl. 31.

HOPE strengthens and invigorates her pinions the higher 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 hast_ BEEN _my help,_ THEREFORE _in the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice_."[37]

[36] Psalm lxxi. 14.

[37] Psalm lxiii. 7.

Can such be said of the world's hopes? Does experience lead to repose in _them_ with 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 then _gone_! 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 dome and 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;--if _hope_--the _ignis fatuus_ of 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 broken _earthly_ cistern? 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 of _hope_, 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 of _their_ hope are so amazing? Listen to them! What words could be stronger? what pledges more inviolable? "IN HOPE _of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the 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]

[38] Titus i. 2.

[39] Heb. vi. 17-20.

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 of _Hope_. It is a picture-gallery of this noble grace! As the great painters of the middle ages clung to favourite subjects, so HOPE seems 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 of light gleams in the dark sky, and the angel of _Hope_ drops 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 of _Hope_!

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 of _Hope_!

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. But _Hope_ tunes 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; but _Hope_ silvers 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. But HOPE is 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]

[40] Psalm cxxvi. 4.

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 not _hope_ ("the joy that was set before Him") that made Him "endure the cross, despising the shame?"[41]

[41] Heb. xii. 2.

And what _Hope_ has 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." Its message 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] HOPE peoples to him the battlements of heaven with sainted ones in the spirit-land. He "sorrows not as others, who have no HOPE."[50] When death comes, _Hope_ smoothes his dying pillow, wipes the damps from his brow, and seals his eyes. "_Now, Lord, what wait I for? my HOPE is in Thee._"[51] _Hope_ stands 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] _Hope_ is 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 the wrestlers in the earthly conflict. Faith returns to her drooping hearts, to undo heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free. _Hope_ goes 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; _Faith_ is then changed to sight, and Hope to full fruition. LOVE alone holds on her infinite mission. _Faith_ and _Hope_ are 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's_ taper 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."

[42] Zech. ix. 12.

[43] 2 Thess. ii. 16.

[44] Rom. xv. 13.

[45] 1 Thess. v. 8.

[46] Heb. vi. 19.

[47] Rom xii. 12.

[48] Rom. xv. 13.

[49] Col. i. 27.

[50] 1 Thess. iv. 13.

[51] Ps. xxxix. 7.

[52] Ps. xvi. 9.

VIII.

The Hill Mizar.

"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 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.

"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 that day 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] HOPE has 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,--threatening to 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.

[53] Sol. Song vi. 13.

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 of FAITH, built on the rock of HOPE. 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 portion and 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 theirs _absolutely_. 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 only _leased_ by them from the Great Proprietor of life and being. But they _can_ say unreservedly, "_The Lord is my portion._" "_God, even our_ OWN _God, shall bless us._" Ay, and we are told, "_God is not ashamed to be called_ THEIR GOD."[55] "The _name_ of 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, "ALL things") 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, and _this_ perplexity, into His hands, saying, "_I am oppressed, undertake_ THOU _for 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!"

[54] Zech. xiii. 9.

[55] Heb. xi. 16.

[56] Prov. xviii. 10.

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 of HOPE--by looking beyond the shadows of the present to a brighter _future_. But the torch flickered and languished in his hand. He adopts a new expedient. Instead of looking to the _future_, he resolves to take a _retrospective_ survey; he directs his eye to the _past_. 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 the_ HILLS, _from whence cometh his help_." "_O my God, I will remember_ THEE!" "This is _my_ infirmity," 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 remember _Thy_ wonders of old."[57] With this key he proceeds again to open the door of HOPE. And as he treads the valley of Achor, he "sings there as in the days of his youth."[58]

[57] Psalm lxxvii. 10, 11.

[58] Hosea ii. 15.

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.