PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Great Texts of the Bible — Volume 3
James Hastings · 189,259 words · 196 reading sections
Section 61
JOB-PS. XXX. — II i62 HEARSAY AND EXPERIENCE written on the walls opposite him, " The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit ; a broken and contrite heart, 0 God, thou wilt not despise." It is the sweet, seraphic, and holy Saint Bernard who chants the same verse as his swan song as he passes on to the calm seas of God…
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^ Kedemption is the raising up of a man from the evil condition in which he feels sacrifice as pain, into a condition in which it is felt as joy, a condition of true and perfect life.^ ^ As in its purer parts the human nature is a prototype of the Divine, so hence we may form some conception of the mode in which human…
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There's lots of music in the Psalms, those dear sweet Psalms of old, With visions bright of lands of light and shining streets of gold; I hear them ringing, singing still, in memory soft and clear, "Such pity as a father hath unto his children dear." They seem to sing for evermore of better, sweeter days, When the l…
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Against this " iniquity," or " unrighteousness," the chief threatenings of the Psalter are directed, striking often literally and low, at direct dishonesty in commercial dealings, and rising into fiercest indignation at spiritual dishonesty in the commercial dealing and " trade " of the heart.^ 3. The first word in th…
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^ There must be a daring determination, if need be, to be singular ; not a preference for standing alone, not an abstinence from conventional signs of worldliness simply because they are conventional ; but there must be first of all close-knit strength, which refuses to do what men round about us are doing. The charact…
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I. The Counsel of the Wicked. 1. Who are these people who come before us at the first stage, and whom the Authorized Version describes as "the ungodly," and the Eevised as " the wicked " ? We may find a name for them that will bring them into clearer focus for us than either of these, and perhaps enable us to obtain …
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^ A poor little worldly maxim will have no attractions for a man who has been contemplating the Divine ideal. You know the sort of maxim to which I refer, the false lights which are offered me by the treacherous world. " Look after Number One ! " " The devil take the hindermost ! " " In Eome do as Eome does ! " " It do…
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3. Perhaps, amongst ourselves in modern times, a characteristic symptom of the settling into this still lower condition is a per- version of the gift of humour. Humour is not here the joyous bubbling out of a wayward spring that flows to cheer and refresh. It expresses not so much brightness and delicacy of perception …
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^ The world deifies and worships human nature and its im- pulses, and denies the power and the grant of grace. This is the ^ E. H. Hutton, Theological Essays, 347. i82 THE MAN THAT IS BLESSED source of the hatred which the world bears to the Church; it finds a whole catalogue of sins brought into light and denounced …
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But while I watched and wept there appeared among the i84 THE MAN THAT IS BLESSED pilgrims One of majestic mien, who came nigh and looked full into the face of this scorner. Unutterable sorrow beamed from His deep eyes, and His look of patient love might have riven a heart of stone. A crown of thorns was upon His bro…
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his struggle against images in churches. His Capitulare on the subject is almost a series of sermons, pleading against things which " dim instead of reveal the light of God's countenance." ^ ^ C. L. Marson, The Psalms at Work, 9. 187 i88 THE FOUR ACTS OF RELIGION 2, The fourth and fifth verses contain four acts, t…
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^ We do not like the hymns in which the whirlwind sweeps and drives. We prefer the hymns that are just filled with honey. And so the " sweet " hymns are the favourites, and the sweeter they are the more welcome they are to our palates. We have partially dropped the hymns which harrow and alarm, and which minister to ou…
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1. The " heart " is the seat, not only of the desires and emotions, but also of the conscience and the intellect. The Psalmist appeals, in these words, to the conscience and reason of his hearers. He would have them collect their thoughts, and " say in their heart " something like those words of Isaiah, " Come ye, and …
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^ Whoso goeth to his bed as to his grave, may go to his grave as to his bed,^ 3. The familiar maxim, " Know thyself," shows that self- knowledge has for ages been considered desirable. In the ethical codes of the wiser moralists of the ancient world, the duty of self-analysis was prominent. As it was recommended and p…
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^ It is not every " speaking in the heart " [the literal transla- tion of the words] that the Psalmist here engageth to ; for the fool speaks in heart, and saith in his heart, " There is no God " : the epicure speaks in his heart, and saith, " I shall never be moved " : the atheist speaks in his heart, and saith, " Tus…
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(2) Secondly, the Psalmist's self-communion is for the trial of a man's spiritual condition. " Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith ; prove your own selves." And the questions to be asked by one who sets about it are not merely concerning what he does, or what he feels, or what he fancies. The inquiry is not w…
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^ The great work is done by men who have in them a Divine dissatisfaction ; who are ever striving for something higher, who have not attained, but who press on toward the mark. The decline of this spirit is the beginning of the end. It is told of Thorwaldsen, the great Danish sculptor, that, feeling his freshness of co…
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III. Self-Confession. " Offer the sacrifices of righteousness." 1. What are " sacrifices of righteousness " ? It is probable that in this Psalm they are not sacrifices which, instead of con- sisting in slaughtered animals, consist in actions which are in accordance with God's will; they are sacrifices that are offer…
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^ George MacDonald, Poetical Works, ii. 358. 2 J. Lightfoot, Wtyrks, vi. 123. 2o6 THE FOUR ACTS OF RELIGION grant me that repentance and remission of sins which He is exalted to give." ^ How monstrous and shameful the nature of sin is, is sufficiently apparent from that great atonement which is necessary to cleanse …
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^ For a long time no equivalent could be found in the language of Aniwa for " faith," and my work of Bible translation was paralysed for the want of so fundamental and oft-recurring a term. The natives apparently regarded the verb " to hear " as equivalent to " to believe." I would ask a native whether he believed a ce…
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^ W. Robertson Nicoll, Ian Maclaren, 21. Rest after Toil. Literature. Jerdan (C), For the Lambs of the Flock, 15. , Jowett (J. H.), Thirsting for the Springs, 94. Moberly (G.), Plai7i Sermons Preached at Brighstone, 34. Power (P. B.), The "J Wills" of the Psalms, 1. Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, xi. 353. Vaughan…
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^ Beauty consists, says Euskin, in certain external qualities of bodies which are typical of Divine attributes, and in the appear- ance of felicitous fulfilment in vital things. Every one has heard of the repose of true beauty ; why is repose beautiful ? Because it is " a type of Divine Permanence," and satisfies The …
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This is the dormitive I take to bedward; I need no other laudanum than this to make me sleep ; after which I close mine eyes in security, content to take my leave of the Sun, and sleep unto the Eesurrection.^ 5. Often in the midst of life, often in the very spring-time of life, we are in death. But whenever it eomes —…
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^ Blauco White. 220 REST AFTER TOIL some great feat of self-sacrifice ; some " giving of my first-born for my transgression " ; some deed of self- mortification and self- crucifixion, after which the world shall be dead to me and I to the world ; this surely must be the life to which God calls one who, being a sinner…
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(4) It would be ungrateful if we did not add one more to these occasional restings of faith, one which depends not upon any circumstance, inward or outward, of human life, but is provided everywhere, of God's goodness, in that blessed communion and fellowship which is the Church and body of Christ. When faith droops, u…
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Thy Presence bright. A day's march nearer heaven And nearer Thee I am this night. For all the tenderness Which Thou hast shown To me this day, For strength in feebleness, To Thee alone My thanks I pay. Thy holy angels stand As guards above My lowly bed; And Thine own gracious hand. Thy hand of love, Is 'nea…
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The purpose of Jehovah seemed to be defeated when sin entered into the world, and the indispensable conditions of spiritual growth and pre-eminence ceased to exist, but it has PSALM VIII. 5 231 never been abandoned. It is realized through Christ, as Head of a new humanity, who, by uniting them to Himself, as partaker…
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* J. I. Vance, Tendency, 31. PSALM VIII. 5 233 Let us make man like to God. And the pine stood quivering In the Eden-gorges wooded, As the awful word went by; Like a vibrant chorded string Stretched from mountain-peak to sky! And the cypress did expand, Slow and gradual, branch and head; And the cedar's stron…
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2. Now there never has been a time when it was more necessary to keep in mind the truth that, in virtue of his relation to God, man is great above all that we call nature. For, apart altogether from the ubiquitous bhght of unbelief, the rush and crush of a civilization which is essentially selfish tends to dis- hearten…
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^ J. Fiske, Man's Destiny, 31. 238 THE GREATNESS OF MAN This earth too small For Love Divine ! Is God not Infinite ? If so, His Love is infinite. Too small! One famished babe meets pity oft from man More than an army slain! Too small for Love I Was Earth too small to be of God created ? Why then too small to be redee…
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(3) But the chief difficulty is sin and the fruits of it. What then ? Are we to abandon in despair our hopes for our fellows, and to smile with quiet incredulity at the rhapsodies of sanguine theorists like David ? If we are to confine our view to earth — yes. But there is more to see than the sad sights around us. All…
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(2) The second fact is Redemption. — Man looks not at the face of the stars, but into the faces of his fellow-men. He looks down into his own guilty heart and darkened mind. He looks at fallen, sinful human nature. He sees man imbruted, besotted, his face written over with the ruin of God's law, and his powers eaten ou…
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I. Knowledge of the Name of God. The name of God stands for His Person, His character. A man's name is often the exact opposite of himself, but God's names are revelations of God. The early patriarchs knew Him by the name Elohim. They knew Him so far, and adored Him with deep awe and absolute trust in His power, righ…
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The strict revenge of its calamities, Since in and of ourselves, perforce, are scored Exact effects for every deed and word, — Nor life, nor death forego the least of this! Nothing effects our destinies save we: Ours is the seed we sow, the fruit we reap — Yea, and the heart's one flame of ecstasy, And the soul's v…
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252 KNOWING AND TRUSTING which Boaz welcomes Euth, when he prays for her that the God of Israel may reward her, " under whose wings thou art come to trust." Such a figure as that is worth tomes of theological lectures about the true nature of faith, telling us, as it does, by means of a picture which says a great dea…
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3. Trust gradually deepens into love. The three letters GOD mean nothing, and there is no power in them to stir a man's heart. It must be the knowledge of the acts of God that brings men to love Him. And there is no way of getting that knowledge but through the faith which must precede love. For faith realizes the fact…
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Through thee, my soul has spread her folded wings.^ III. Experience of God. 1. The Psalmist is content to ground his deepest trust on experience. "They that know thy name" means "They that know thy fame." Faith is not credulity. It is built, says the Psalmist, on the law of averages — on a study of the census, " Tho…
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■[I Yesterday I preached at Kiel (one of the parish churches of Morven). It was a strange thing to preach there. As I went to the church hardly a stone or knoll but spoke of " something which was gone," and past days crowded upon me like the ghosts of Ossian, and seemed, like them, to ride even on the passing wind and …
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If Here is a Psalm well worthy to be called, as the margin of King James's Bible translates the Jewish heading, a "golden" Psalm. Golden indeed it is ; it belongs to that Bible within the Bible which the Christian instinct teaches all of us to rediscover for ourselves, and in which the New Testament writers took such k…
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266 A GOODLY HERITAGE out, where thou sowedest thy seed, and wateredest it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs : but the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven : a land which the Lord thy God careth for ; the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon …
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•^ When I lived in the woods of Indiana, I used to hear a great deal of talk about the inflorescence of the prairies in spring. I tried to imagine what it was. I had never seen a prairie, and ^ John Caird, Aspects of Truth, 211. 268 A GOODLY HERITAGE I was filled with curiosity to see one, especially at that season o…
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270 A GOODLY HERITAGE them in the measure in which we understand them, and sympathize with them, and love them. Knowledge, intercourse, sympathy, affection — these are the ways by which men can possess men, and spirits, spirits. A man who gets the thoughts of a great teacher into his mind, and has his whole being satu…
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272 A GOODLY HERITAGE True sunlight of the soul, Surround me as I go ; So shall my way be safe, My feet no straying know. Great love of God, come in, Well-spring of heavenly peace, Thou Living Water, come, Spring up, and never cease. Love of the living God, Of Father and of Son, Love of the Holy Ghost, Fill Thou …
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3. The life which the Psalmist knows to be undying is the continual energy of loving fellowship with God. The death to which this life can never yield is the silence of the land of forgetfulness, where there is no revelation and no praise of God. These two ideas are embodied for the Psalmist under the form of life in t…
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^ " Open the door and let in more of that music," the dying man said to his weeping son. Behmen was already hearing the harpers harping with their harps. He was already taking his part in the song they sing in Heaven to Him who loved them and washe'i them from their sins in His own blood. And now said the blessed Behme…
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^ William Law. PSALM XVI. 5. 6 279 bread, and the heavens in shedding their sweet influences on our path. For us the morning will dawn and the evening descend. For us " the winds will blow, earth rest, heavens move, and fountains flow." We shall be able to claim a peculiar property in the works of our Father's hand, …
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3S3 The Vision of God Here and Hereafter. As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness : I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. Ps. xvii. 15. 1. The investigations as to the authorship and the date of this Psalm yield the usual conflicting results. Davidic, says one school ; undoubedly post-e…
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Our heaven must be within ourselves, Our home and heaven the work of faith All thro' this race of life which shelves Downward to death. So faith shall build the boundary wall. And hope shall plant the secret bower, That both may show magnifical With gem and flower. While over all a dome must spread, And love shall…
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^ Thoreau's regard for Emerson and Mrs. Emerson was very deep and affectionate, and it was natural that a young man, even when possessed of Thoreau's strength of character, should be last- ingly influenced by so distinctive and commanding a personality as Emerson's. In has been remarked by several of those who knew bot…
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^ Professor Oman. JOB-PS. XXX. — 19 290 THE VISION OF GOD the soul. Or change the figure. You have looked upon the calm surface of a mountain tarn, lying like a lustrous jewel in its rocky hollow, and you have seen the sun and clouds reflected from that surface as though there were another firmament at your feet ; or…
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My heart is yearning: Behold my yearning heart, 4 And lean low to satisfy Its lonely beseeching cry, For Thou its fulness art. * C. Stanford, Symbols of Christ, 344. - Coventry Patmore. ^ The Life-Htory of 2'hovias Champness, 29. 292 THE VISION OF GOD Turn, as once turning Thou didst behold Thy Saint In deadly…
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^ Holman Hunt wrote an affectionate letter begging Shields not to grieve at the death of their great and good old friend, Madox Brown : — " He had done his work, and done it nobly and well, and it 1 Edith M. Thomas. PSALM xviT. 15 295 was evident that he could not have made much of further life in his art, and from…
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God's Gentleness. 1. The term rendered "gentleness" seems to have puzzled the early translators. Luther translated the text, "When thou humblest me thou dost make me great," and the older English version, which survives in the Prayer Book, conveys something of the same meaning. " Thy loving correction shall make me gr…
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^ I have never seen hard mountain summits but soft slopes were there, where hung the raindrop and the snow, where the ^ Canon Scott Holland, Personal Studies, 99. 2 Guide Guiiicelli, trans, by D. G. Rossetti. PSALM XVIII, 35 303 cbud loved to nestle, and the insect could find a home. The tenderest flowers grow on th…
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* H. Batchelor, The Incarnation of God, 60. PSALM XVIII. 35 305 impossible to every one besides than the might that called worlds into being, was the last evidence that could be given that God is God — the source of all good, the strength of all His creatures, in whom there ever remains capacity to repair all moral d…
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II Was Napoleon a great man ? If by " great " be intended the combination of moral qualities with those of intellect, great he certainly was not. But that he was great in the sense of being extraordinary and supreme we can have no doubt. If greatness stands for natural power, for predominance, for some- thing human bey…
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3. The proof of a man's true greatness is found in his humility. True moral greatness is a flower which seeks the shade ; and, like the other works of God, it has to be sought out by them who take pleasure therein. There is a lid for the vessels of the temple. Humility is one of the crowning graces, and it keeps the tr…
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^ Did you ever know a man converted by the Ten Command- ments, or by the Athanasian Creed ? Is it not rather some word of ineffable love, some manifestation of "him whom we have pierced," some yearning of great sorrow, that, filling our heart, has subdued it to penitence or constrained it to prayer ? Some calamity has …
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What ! was there a time when he bungled and blundered ? I looked up in amazement. " I mean it," he said, amused at my look. I was an artist then — if never since. He had come down and back to me and was himself again the little awkward beginner, and I was lifted up and linked on to him. That was gentleness, and it ma…
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(2) The will is wooed and won by the unspeakable tenderness of Jehovah. There is a very wide chasm between the animal appetites of the sinner and the self-conscious resolves of the saint. " Not my will, but thine, be done " are words which represent the acme of spiritual volition. But before this height is reached,…
959 wordsSource & rights
Public-domain historical edition (1910); OCR text from Internet Archive. OCR may contain scanning/transcription errors. Verify quotations against page images when precision matters.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.