^ Robert Kelly Weeks.
i86 THE SIN OF MEROZ
light of such excited feelings, and to suppose that Meroz drew on itself, not merely the invective of Deborah, but also the dis- pleasure and condemnation of a Eighteous God ?
No doubt, " Curse ye Meroz " is always out of place on the lips of falUble men ; only supernatural direction could justify in point of reason what, perhaps, nothing could justify in point of charity — an anathema on opponents. When St. Paul, starting his missionary journeys, inaugurated, with whatever justification, the melancholy record of religious coercion by solemnly cursing his most conspicuous opponent, we are specially told that he was supernaturally directed, "filled with the Holy Ghost." Such super- natural direction alone, indeed, could redeem the Apostle's action from injustice and unreason — injustice because he could not read his opponent's heart, or know his motives ; unreason, for he could not easily reconcile such violence with " the meekness and gentleness of Christ." It is certain, however, that we have no apparently supernatural direction in the affairs of life. None of us enjoys immunity from error, or monopoly of wisdom. Even if we can concede to an inspired Apostle the terrible privilege of anathema, we cannot decently claim it for ourselves.
2. Are we to say, then, that this language, though it may be in keeping with the stern spirit of the Law, is out of place in the religion of the Gospel? This, indeed, is often said. But it assumes too hastily that the Gospel repealed not merely the ceremonial but the moral teaching of the Law, not merely its forms of worship but its representation of the Divine attributes, not merely its carnal weapons of warfare but its loyalty to and zeal for truth. In point of fact, the Gospel explained or it en- larged the teaching of the Law. It removed misconceptions which had gathered round that teaching. It did not destroy what God Himself had given. God's earlier revelation of Him- self as a whole, as well as its particular gifts and promises, was, in Apostolic phrase, " without repentance"; it did not admit of repudiation or recall. The Divine attribute of mercy, sufficiently revealed in and insisted on by the Law, acquired under the Gospel a practical and concrete shape in the life and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. The duties of charity, loving-kindness, patience, benevolence, unselfishness, already prescribed by the Law, were
JUDGES V. 23 187
elaborated and enforced with a new determination and precision in the Gospel. But the Gospel revelation did not thereby repeal the earlier revelation of the justice of God as a necessary- principle of His government; nor did it define the virtue of charity to mean indifference on the subject of moral evil or of intellectual falsehood.
The advance which the New Testament makes upon the Old Testament morality consists largely in this, that the Old said, " Do not commit this or that open sin," while the New says, " Do not neglect this or that clear duty." The morality of the older revela- tion is typified by the Ten Commandments — nearly all negative : Thou shalt not make graven images, take God's name in vain, work on the Sabbath, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness. True, there are positive elements also ; but in large measure the formulated ethical rules of the Old Testament are rules forbidding. It was natural that a Jew should ask, " What actual evil have I wrought in transgression of a Divine word that forbade it ? " It was natural that the Pharisee, who exaggerated every evil tendency of Judaism, should be found exclaiming, " God, I thank thee that I am not an extortioner, nor a thief, nor an adulterer." But Christianity supplies another standard to the conscience. " Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." " What do ye more than others ? " " He that abideth in me . . . the same beareth much fruit." And the penetrating judgment of Jesus is not satisfied on finding men guiltless of sinful acts. He separates the sheep from the goats on another principle. Those on the left are not accused of positive ill-deeds ; they may have kept every one of the Ten Commandments from their youth up, but they have neglected the sick, the prisoner, the poor. " Inasmuch as ye did it not " — it is the curse of Meroz, the doom awaiting inactivity — " because they came not to the help of the Lord."i
^ There are three places in the records of our Lord's words and deeds where the same truth finds emphasis. Look first at the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew, the parable of the Talents, and see the curse pronounced by Jesus upon the inactive servant who had but the one talent and failed to use it. There is not a
V J. H. Rushbrooke.
i88 THE SIN OF MEROZ
line in the parable that suggests any infidelity or sin otherwise than that of inaction, and yet hear the Master's words, " Take therefore the talent from him. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness : there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Can you not hear in these words of Jesus the very curse of Meroz ? Look again at Christ standing before the barren fig- tree. He looks to find the luscious fruit and finds none, and so He curses it and it withers away. Here again we find the curse against unfruitfulness and inactivity. Look once more. Our Lord has ascended ; with a last leaning of His heart He bends from heaven to speak through St. John to the Churches. This is the last word of the Master to His Church, found in the Book of Revela- tion. Hear those words to Laodicea. She is not charged like Ephesus with cherishing heresy, nor like Pergamum with holding the doctrine of Balaam, nor like Thyatira with adultery and forni- cation, nor like Sardis with defiling her garments. None of these fearful sins is chronicled against Laodicea, and yet the bitterest curse of all is pronounced against her. " I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot : I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." What is this but the echoing of the curse of Meroz against lukewarmness, against inactivity, against the shirker and deserter from the battle of the Lord.^