I have not sought Thee, I have not found Thee,
I have not thirsted for Thee: And now cold billows of death surround me, Bufi'eting billows of death astound me, —
Wilt Thou look upon, wilt Thou see
Thy perishing me ?
Yea, I have sought thee, yea, I have found thee,
Yea, I have thirsted for thee, Yea, long ago with love's bands I bound thee: Now the Everlasting Arms surround thee, —
Through death's darkness I look and see
And clasp thee to Me.*
^ John BachAB. ' Ohristiiia 6. Bossetti.
GENESIS III. 8, 9 85
2, What does God's question contain ? The question is, Where art thou ?
(1) It contains the suggestion that the man is lost. Until we have lost a thing we need not inquire about it ; but when God said, " Where art thou ? " it was the voice of a shepherd inquiring for his lost sheep; or better still, the cry of a loving parent asking for his child that has run away from him, "Where art thou ? "
(2) It contains also the promise of merey. It shows that God intended to have mercy upon man, or else He would have let him remain lost, and would not have said, " Where art thou ? " Men do not inquire for what they do not value. There was a gospel sermon in those three divine words as they penetrated the dense parts of the thicket, and reached the tingling ears of the fugitives — " Where art thou ? " Thy God is not willing to lose thee ; He is come forth to seek thee, just as by and by He means to come forth in the person of His Son, not only to seek but to save that which now is lost.
3. And what is the effect of God's question ?
(1) It rouses men to a sense of their sinfulness. Sin stultifies the conscience, it drugs the mind, so that after sin man is not capable of understanding his danger as he would have been without it. Sin is a poison which kiUs conscience painlessly by mortification. Men die by sin, as men die when frozen to death upon the Alps — they die in a sleep. One of the first works of grace in a man is to put aside this sleep, to startle him from his lethargy, to make him open his eyes and discover his danger.
^ One of the holiest of the Church's saints, St. Bernard, was in the habit of constantly warning himself by the solemn query, " Bernarde, ad quid venisti ? " " Bernard, for what purpose art thou here ? " ^
(2) It brings repentant and confession. The question was meant to convince of sin, and so to lead to a confession. Had Adam's heart been in a right state, he would have made a full confession of his sinfulness. It is easier to make a man start in his sleep than to make him rise and bum the loathsome bed on which he slumbered ; and this is what the sinner must do, and what he will do if God be at work with hioa. He will wake up
^ E. Morgan,
86 FELLOWSHIP
and find himself lost ; conviction will give him the consciousnesu that he has destroyed himself, and then he will hate the sins he loved before, flee from his false refuges, and seek to find a lasting salvation where alone it can be found — in the blood of Christ.
^ When Fletcher was a boy he lived in Switzerland, near the mighty mountains. He used to like to go out, when he was only seven years old, by himself, in the beautiful valleys and mountains, and think about God. He used to think that the mountains were like those where Elijah was. He had several brothers and sisters, and one day he was very cross, and quarrelled with them. When he went to bed he was told how very wrong it was. John did not say anything. When in bed, of course he could not sleep, and he did a very wise thing. He jumped out of bed, and he knelt down and asked God to forgive him. And Fletcher said, after he was a man, " Oh, that was a happy night! and that was the first time I ever tasted sweet peace." ^
(3) But above everything else, and indeed as including every- thing else, it calls forth a response to God's love. "Where art thou?" is no doubt the question of the righteous Judge from whose wrathful eye no leafy tree can shadow. Adam must not imagine that his sin is a light matter in the estimation of Him who claims unqualified obedience. But it is at the same time the voice of the compassionate Father, who Himself goes forth in search of the lost one who has strayed from Him, and whose heart is no less penetrated with the misery into which His child has flung himself than with the guilt of his palpable error. It is, above all, the voice of the compassionate Saviour, who haa it already in His heart to guide the sinner through the darker depths of judgment to the glorious heights of an eternal salvation. " Where art thou ? " It is the first word of Grod's advent to the world, His salutation of peace before the utterance of the alarming prophecy, " I will put enmity " — a word which at the same time may be called the free act of eternal compassion, and whence still, after centuries, the echo recalls to us this comforting assurance, "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked."