3. A Church assures us thai ive are even now living in a spiriiu^ order. — This is implied in the record of the Patriarch's * 0. A. E. Moberly, Dulu Domum, 7.
GENESIS XXVIII. i6, 17 227
Vision. The angels are represented as " ascending and descending." Ascending first : earth, that is man's home, is the habitual scene of their ministry. And again, St. Paul tells us in direct words : " God has made us to sit with Christ in heavenly places." And again we read : " We have come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumer- able hosts of angels in festal assembly . . . and to the spirits of just men made perfect." Heaven is not distant and future, but here and now. And we habitually claim, in our Communion office, fellowship "with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven." Life, in a word, is shown within our Churches under its spiritual aspect in all its critical vicissitudes. Powers of heaven are seen to mingle at each point with faculties of earth. We are impressively reminded of the greatness of life. If life is on one side the vision of God, it is on the other side the welcome of God's gifts that they may be used in His service. It is from first to last a personal Divine companionship. The Church with its services is the sign and pledge of blessings answering to all our need, but then we are ourselves the living sanctuary: we live as knowing that the Lord is with us all the days.
Faith's ladder pales not, Angels yet are found
All beauteous in calm and holy light; Their silver robes have skirted many a cloud
Thronging the purple night.
Swift from the golden gates they come and go, And glad fulfil their Master's high behest,
Bringing celestial balms for human woe. Blessing and being blessed.
And have not we sore need the faith to hold Of the surrounding of the Angel bands;
Mid aU earth's dust to trace their steps of gold, And feel the uplifting hands?
Ah ! yes, I think so, then with firm believing. With reverence, hail each soul's celestial guest;
Till they shall come, God's final will revealing. To fold us into rest.^
^ Lyra Anglicana, 136 (Grod's Angels).
Spiritual Wrestling.
LITERATURE.
Almond (H. H.), Christ the Protestant, 251, Bramston (J. T.), Fratribus, 58. Bright (W.), Morality in Doctrine, 199. Chapman (J. W.), The Power of a Surrendered Life, 29. Davidson (A. B.), Tht Called of God, 107. Dods (Marcus), The Book of Genesis, 297. Ewing (A.), Revelation considered as Light, 1. Eyton (R.), The True Life, 385. Greer (D. H.), From Things to God, 205. Harrison (W.), Clovelly Sermons, 101. Hutchings (W, H.), Sermon- Sketches, 2nd Ser., 95. Lockyer (T. F.), The Inspirations of the Christian Life, 177. McFadyen (J. E.), The Divine Pursuit, 17. McNeill (J.), Regent Square Pulpit, i. 193. Matheson (G.), Searchings in the Silence, 108. Mitchell (S. S.), The Staff Method, 135. Moore (E. W.), Christ in Possession, 180. Moorhouse (J.), Jacob, 35.
Nash (L. L.), Early Morning Scenes in the Bible, 76. New (C), The Baptism of the Spirit, 98. Parker (J.), The City TempU (1869-70), 373.
Pentecost (Q. F.), Bible Studies : Pentateuch and the Life of Christ, 96. Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, i. 73. Robertson (F. W.), Sermons, Ist Ser., 36. Trench (R. C), Sermons in Ireland, 1.
Vaughan (C. J.), The Family Prayer and Sermon Book, ii, 531. „ (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), 2nd Ser., i. No. 251. Churchman's Pulpit (Second Sunday in Lent), v. 456 (Watson). Homiletic Review, xiii. 518 (Sherwood). Treasury, xi. 1047 (Moment); xv. 762 (Kershaw).
Spiritual Wrestling.
And Jacob was left alone ; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. — Gen. xxxii. 24.
TfflS is one of the strangest stories under which the Bible, in a fashion suitable to the age in which it was written, presents eternal truth to us — strange in itself, strange in its setting, yet charged with deep meaning and full of most consoling instruction for those who have insight to pierce the shell of its Jewish complexion and colouring, and to seize its underlying and essential features.
The narrative is of manifold attraction. The highest poetical interest gathers round that dark wrestling by the rushing brook, while
The sentinel stars set their watch in the sky.
Our historical interest also is excited : what was it, actually, that touch of God ? But the spiritual interest of the scene is the intensest, as we inquire what the conflict signified for Jacob's inmost soul.
Let us take the subject in three parts — I. The Occasion of the Wrestling. II. The Nature of the Wrestling. III. The Result of the WrestHng.
L
The Occasion of the Wrestling.
1. The past and the present. — The time when this occurred was when Jacob was returning from the East to Canaan, in very different circumstances from those in which he left it. He went
232 SPIRITUAL WRESTLING
out with his staff in his hand ; he came back increased to " two bands." He went out alone, with life before him, hopeful perhaps of happiness, and full of aspirations, fresh and eager to run the race of life. He came back an altered and sobered man, with life behind him, with what there was to enjoy of it mainly enjoyed ; and, perhaps, the cup did not now seem so sweet as he thought it would be, before he put it to his lips. At all events he had drunk it fully. He had lived a many-sided life. Of sensual enjoyments he might seem to have had his fill ; and he was not averse to use the petty passions of others as the means of gratifying his own larger ones. In business he was always fortunate. In those higher things which men's hearts crave, though foiled at first, he was at last victorious.