The flame may rise, the bush may burn
In deserts lone and bare : There is no waste of any bloom
While God is present there.
EXODUS III. 2 273
The sun of human joy may set
Behind the stormy Cross : While faith within the twilight kneels
There is not any loss.
Some homeless prayer may be at night
A wanderer on the moor, But while it names the Blessed Name
It never can be poor.
(4) We find a meaning for the vision in history. — This vision would teach Moses, and surely it should teach us, that — in spite of all appearances to the contrary — there is permanence under- lying God's purposes and will, and the love which informs those purposes. Moses may have heard of the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, concerning their descendants, that they should become a great nation and should be a bless- ing to all the world. How had God kept His promises? The Israelites for centuries had been degraded and ill-used as hardly any other nation before or since. Would it not seem that God had changed His intentions and had forgotten to be gracious? But no, it was in appearance only — as the bush burned but was not consumed. And now at last the time had come which was to explain the past and make glorious the future.
IT Let us believe that God's will is unchangeable, and at the very moment of seeming frustration is completing itself. Exercise tliis faith with regard to any question that perplexes. It is not the will of our Heavenly Father that one of earth's little ones should perish. He willeth that, all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Believe that He will have His will. If it is written that "our God is a consuming fire," it must be a fire that consumes only the chaff, only the evil in men. This is the meaning of all sorrow and discipline on earth, and I believe it will one day be seen to be the meaning of what we speak of as eternal punishment. So far as there is a spark of good left in a bad man, the fire of God's love will burn, but not consume. Believe that God's purpose will not be frustrated in the accomplishment of that " one far-off Divine event to which the whole creation moves." And believe meanwhile
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroy'd,
Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete.
GEN.-NUM. — 18
The Eternal Name.
»7^
LiTERATURB.
Chadwick (0. A.), The Book of Exodus, 64.
Gibson (J. Q.), Stepping -Stones to Life, 181.
Leckie (J.), Sermons Preached at Tbrox, 36.
Pierce (C. C), 27k Hunger of the Heart for Faith, 71.
Sadler (M. F.), Sermon Outlinetfor the Clergy and Lay Preachere, 118
Stanford (C), Symbols of Christ, 74.
Vaughan (J.), Sermoru (Brighton Pulpit), xxii. No. 1242.
Christian World Pulpit, xxx. 269 (Pryce) ; lix. 362 (Clifford).
Churchman's Pulpit (Fifth Sunday in Lent), vi. 175 (Peabody).
Thdnker^ i. 324 (Lowe).
The Eternal Name.
And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them. The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you ; and they shall say to me, What is his name ? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM : and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.— Ezod. iii. 13, 14.
A NEW day was dawning for Israel — the day of exodus — the era of national development — in which each man was to have a part unknown before. National expansion always involves new views, new terms, fresh adjustments, and changed ideals. And as Israel faced a new life, there was given a new view of God and new terms were chosen for its definition.
The text suggests three things — I. The Necessity for the Nama II. The Meaning of the Name. III. The Bevelation in the Name.
The Necessity foe the Name.
1. Why did Moses ask to know the name of God ? — The reason, as the text tells us, was not primarily to satisfy himself, but that he might possess credentials wherewith he could approach this stubborn people. He had just been gazing at the burning bush, and by that sight he had been taught that the place where God reveals Himself is holy ground and that His presence should ever inspire reverence and holy fear. God appeared to Moses with a message, and Moses was charged to deliver it. Whereupon, over- whelmed by the commission, he urged : " But who am I that I should go in to Pharaoh and that I should bring forth the Children of Israel out of Egypt ? " Moses recognized his own
278 THE ETERNAL NAME
insufl&ciency. Unless he could tell the Israelites and Pharaoh in whose name he was sent, he knew that it would be useless to undertake the commission.
IF The naming of an heir to a throne is regarded as not un- worthy of debate and argument by grave and aged ministers of State. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, on succeeding to the throne, styled himself Edward vii., thus making an appeal to the noblest traditions of the English past. It was with deliberate intention that the late Emperor of Germany called himself Frederick William, and that his son, the present Emperor, chose the name of William. So the assumption of a title by the Popes, who at their accession to the tiara drop their own names, and choose a new one from those borne by the first Bishops of the Eoman See, is watched with great interest as affording an in- dication of the probable policy and character of the coming pontificate. It was with relief that the world heard Cardinal Eicci take the style of Leo xiii., rather than that of Pius, or Gregory, or Clement, or Sixtus. No one can imagine that the late Emperor of the French could have held his throne for sixteen years had he, whose baptismal appellation was Louis Napoleon, preferred to be known as Louis xix., instead of Napoleon iii.^