(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 out with lust, and he says : " It cannot be. The song is false. Man is too vile to claim the care of the holy God," and the old doubt breaks forth afresh.
What is man, that thou art mindful of him ? And the son of man, that thou visitest him ?
Jesus is the triumphant vindication of the high origin of man. He came to reveal God, to tear aside the veil human fear had
^ P. M'Adam Miiir, Modern Suhstitutcs for C'hrif>tianify, 112.
PSALM VIII. 5 243
woven across the face of Deity. He succeeded, and said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." But He came also to reveal man, to tear away the disguises sin had woven around the human, to show the higher, the finer, the Divine possibilities there are for every soul in Him. He has succeeded here also. " Whoso- ever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." We see the world's vastness and man's littleness, and say, " What is man that thou art mindful of him ? " We see God's holiness and man's sinfulness, and say, " What is man that thou art mindful of him ? " Then we see Jesus. We see how low Divine love can stoop and how high it can lift ; and once more the ancient song arises without a broken note —
" Thou hast made him but little lower than God ! "
Thou hast, 0 Lord, a wondrous plan, To build a tower to reach the skies;
Its base is earth, its progress man, Its summit sacrifice.
'Tis only for the summit's sake
Thou layest the foundation-stone; The mornings of creation break
For sacrifice alone.
Thou wouldst not have prepared one star
To float upon the azure main, Hadst Thou not witnessed from afar
The Lamb that should be slain.
Thou wouldst not have infused Thy life
Into the insect of an hour, Hadst Thou not seen 'neath nature's strife
Thy sacrificial flower.
To Him that wears the cross of pain
Thou leadest all Thine ages on; Through cloud and storm, through wind and rain.
Through sense of glories gone. . . .
Thou wilt not let me live alone ;
Thou wilt not let me keep my rest ; Thy blast on every tree has blown
To throw me on Thy breast.
244 THE GREATNESS OF MAN
Thou madest me for Him whose love From dawn to eve made His will Thine,
And all my ages only move Within that light to shiue.^
^ The creation was the work of a word. The redemption was the work of a life — of a life of self-denial, of a death on the Cross. The creation cost God nothing. The redemption cost the death of His Son, and all that that death implied. Measure the distance between the words " Let there be light " and the words " Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani," and that will show the interval which separates the value of the created universe from the value of man. Christians can ask no other measure of the greatness of the human soul. Christians can ask no further proof of the infinite importance of human life and human action. The self- conquests that seem so small, the resistance to temptation, the triumphs over besetting sin, the keeping of the temper, the sacrifice of self, the adherence to truth — measure them by their share in the Cross of Christ, and see who can call them little things. And in this, too, as in so much else, revelation does but proclaim what is ever whispered in the inmost shrine of the spirit given to man. The creation that we see is vast, and its forces are mighty, but vaster far and mightier far out of all comparison are those eternal differences between right and wrong on which rest for ever the feet of the throne of God.^
* G. Matheson, Sacred Songs, 13. ' Archbishop Temple.
0
Knowing and Trusting.
Literature.
Bonar (H.), Light and Truth: Old Testament, 188.
Cook (F. C), Church Doctrine, 215.
Hutton (R. E.), The Grown of Christ, 187.
Leacli (C), Sermons for Working Men, 112.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions of Holy Scripture : Psalms i.-xlix., 16.
Pierson (A. T.), The Making of a Sermon, 41.
Simeon (C), Works, v. 32.
Spurgeon (C. H.), New Park Street Pulfit, vi. (1860) 10.
Voysey, Sermons, vi. (1883) No. 7.
Webb-Peploe (H. W.), The Titles of Jehovah, 1.
Homiletic Review, New Ser., .xxxviii. 414 (Belireuds).
Literary Churchman, xxxv. (1889) 260 (Hardnian).
346
Knowing and Trusting.
And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee ; for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.— Ps. ix. lo.
This Psalm is the foundation of many ancient Collects. Dante quotes it to St. James in Paradise. He says hope had first come to him
From him who sang The songs of the Supreme, himself supreme Among his tuneful brethren. " Let all hope In Thee," so spake his anthem, " who have known Thy name."i