(2) The will is wooed and won by the unspeakable tenderness
of Jehovah. There is a very wide chasm between the animal
appetites of the sinner and the self-conscious resolves of the saint.
" Not my will, but thine, be done " are words which represent the
acme of spiritual volition. But before this height is reached,
there are delicate moral fibres to be straightened and strengthened,
and selfish inclinations to be reversed. This is to be achieved, not
by the compulsion of might, but by the touches and attractions of
Divine benignity. We cannot be terrorized into intelligent and
^ R. C. Trench, Sermons Preached in Westminster Abbey, 342. ' Marcus Dods, Chrid and Man, 130.
3i6 GOD'S GENTLENESS
whole-hearted submission to the will of heaven ; it is under the softening influences of love that our stubborn wills are subdued, and made to flow into the harmony and rhythm of the Divine intent. This love will gradually rectify our declinations from truth and righteousness, and restore us to perfect accord with the will of the Supreme.
^ The will itself is governed by that love which rules it and shapes it. Now the Love of God is supreme above all other loves, and that so entirely, that unless it holds sovereign sway it must perish altogether.^
^ The Almighty will never come in His omnipotence to Ireak our will. What is the good of a moral creature with a broken will ? You might as well break a child's leg to teach it to walk, as break a child's will to teach it to obey. The heavenly Father bends the will, but never breaks it, and that only by patient love and gracious promptings ; by the discipline of life, its fears and sorrows, and above all, by the shame and sorrow of the Cross, He softens the will that He may bend it. Our God loves and respects us too much ever to keep us at home with Himself as slaves or servants. Eather will He suffer us to go away into the far country until the hunger and loneliness do make the heart cry out in its sorrow. Then at last is shaped the purpose, " I will arise and go to my Father," and lo ! He runs and falls upon the neck and kisses us. He stands upon no stately etiquette and makes no terms. Then it is that, arrayed in the best robes, with the ring on the finger, seated at the Father's table, full of the glad- ness of that joyous welcome, amazed at His infinite goodness, so patient, so eager to bless us — then it is that we learn the deep meaning of the words — " Thy gentleness hath made me great." ^
(3) The conscience is pacified, purged, and perfected by the gentle ministrations of infinite love. Greatness, in the Divine sense, is impossible to man apart from a restful, rectified, refined conscience. The smile of the Supreme soothes, stimulates, sanctifies this delicate organism. Love alone can rehabilitate this " receiver," and make it ever vibrate with communications from the eternal rectitude. Under the ministries of God's grace, this deranged and stultified faculty becomes an unerring discriminator between good and evil, and an infallible reporter of messages from the supreme equity. In the atmosphere of God's gentle love, ^ St, Franfiis de Saloe, ^ M. G, Pearse, The Gospel for the Day, 58.
PSALM XVIII. 2,5 317
this Divine power becomes imperturbably graceful and healthily active. A conscience " void of offence toward God and toward men " is the grand result of the beneficence of the Supreme.
^ When a man can endure his sins no longer, and must go to some one for relief, to what sort of person will he repair ? Will he feel strongly drawn towards some severely upright man — cold, hard, and unsparing towards all transgressors ? No ; he will keep out of his way. He would be as likely to pour forth his con- fessions and griefs into the bosom of a November cloud from which the sleet was falling, or into the chills of a cavern of icicles. When a boy has got into trouble and is sorry for it, — for a good boy will sometimes be ensnared by temptation, and is sure to regret it with all sincerity, — and does not know what to do, where will he go first for counsel and succour ? Will it be to his father or his mother ? Mostly to his mother. There are men womanly in tenderness ; and there are women, though very rare, unwomanly and without sympathies ; but commonly there is more gentleness in the mother ; and to his mother the boy is sure to turn in his extremity. I know where I should have gone, and I dare say you do too. The mother's gentleness is a sun that never pales nor wanes, down to her life's end ; and in the hour of its setting has resigned none of its warmth and splendour.
The gentleness of God performs precisely the same office to sinning and sorrowing men. Penitent sinners cannot have too vivid an idea of the gentleness of God. They will never attain to an apprehension of it too large and bright for the reality, or in excess of their own need. Their moral helplessness will require it all. There is wrath in God, and there ought to be ; but not wrath only. God is a Judge ; but if He were nothing but a Judge, then for a sin-stricken soul there would be nothing but despair. But the gentleness of God is a firm and unfailing hope.^