IV.
Crowning.
" Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies."
So far the Psalmist has been thinking of God's action as it is defined in relation to sin. Now his thoughts take a grander flight, and he thinks of the Divine action when sin is taken out of the way, and no longer presents a barrier to the fellowship between God and His people. His words take on a finer mean- ing, and mould themselves into a more musical form. For he tries to represent the intercourse between God and the children of God, when sin is removed from between them. "Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies." These words are about the most musical and pathetic in the whole Bible, and they are as fine in meaning as they are in form.
IF God puts honour upon the brow of a forgiven man. He does not merely forgive, and that in a formal way, but, when He forgives. He crowns. He crowns me with the title of " son," and He places the coronet of heirship upon my head, for "if children, then heirs ; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ." Sweet picture this. Observe that it is not a crown of merit, for " He crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies." This is the only crown that I can consent to wear.^
> H. Drummond, The Idml Life, 149. " A. G. Brown.
PSALM cm. 1-5 297
1, ZovingJcindness. — Note how the translators of the Psahn have been constrained to tie two English words together in order to set forth the meaning of the original. These translators of the Bible were poets as well as scholars. They took the two words " love " and " kindness " and tied them together in order to shut out the weaker meanings of both, and from the union of them set forth a higher and better meaning than either alone could express. Love has always been recognized to be the strongest and best thing in the world of life, and in recent years it has come to even larger recognition. It really holds society together, is at the basis of family life, is the motive power of the highest activities of mankind. But while love is so and acts so, it may partake of the weakness or the selfishness of human nature. It may become fierce, jealous, regardless of the interest of the person who is its object. It may look at the person merely as belonging to itself, and fiercely insist on exclusive possession. No doubt ideal love would labour, toil, and spend itself for the good of the person loved. But all love is not ideal, and it may have more ferocity than kindness in it. So this fierce side of love is shut out, and only the ideal side is kept, and kept by uniting it with kindness. But kindness is apt to be weak, injudicious, and foolish. It is the kindness, perhaps, of a fond young mother who gives the baby whatever it desires, cloys it with sweets, or gives it unwholesome food because the child likes it, or, as George MacDonald suggests, gives the child a lighted candle because it cries for it. This foolish side of kindness is shut out by tying it to the firmer, wiser fact of love. So united, kindness becomes lovingkindness, and the two become, in their union, something higher and better than either of the two elements contained in it, when these are taken by themselves..)
^ Another young friend writes : " From such an array of beautiful characteristics as is called up by his name it is hard to choose the greatest, but his ' loving-kindness ' is the outstanding trait that not only those who knew him best, but those who came only casually into contact with him, will remember with tender- ness. How he loved every one, especially 'those who were of the household of faith ' ! How eagerly would he seek out, even when on holiday, the brother-minister, superannuated by aftliction from active work, to encourage and help him by his sympathy, to cheer him with his humour and his jollity, to stimulate him with
298 ALL HIS BENEFITS
his wide and varying interests ! And in what good stead that wonderful fund of quiet humour stood him through the days of pain and weakness and weariness through which God's veteran passed, and from which he is now released ! One revered him as a saint, but loved him as a man, a man who radiated such love as compelled a willing love in return." ^
^ It is twenty-five years since I first had my attention drawn to this clause. I went to college then, and one day a minister gave me a tract, and told me, " Take that and read it, and when you bring it back, tell me what you think of it." He said to me — and he proved a sound prophet — " I may not live to see it, but you will see it. The lad that spoke these words — his name will be heard wherever the English language is spoken," — the name was Charles Spurgeon. It was a discourse on this word — " He crowneth me with lovingkindness and tender mercies." He had never been to college, and had taken none of your envied degrees that seem to stamp a man as a Master of Divinity. My friend said : " I may not live to see it, but you will." A young man in his teens, not far up in the offices yet, Spurgeon- was under twenty-one when he preached a sermon that made my old friend prophetic. " When God takes a man's head out of the dust " — said this young fledgling Puritan preacher — " He crowns it with a crown that is so heavy with His grace and goodness that he could not wear it were it not lined with the sweet velvet of His loving- kindness." Not a classic figure perhaps, but Spurgeon's figure is graven on my memory while many a classic figure has faded away. Many a costly gift, given carelessly with lavish abund- ance, you have nearly forgotten : but one gift, given many years ago, you remember still. It was only a cup of cold water, perhaps, but given with a hand and with a look of lovingkindness. And when God crowns us with such love as this, when He smiles upon us, no wonder that it gladdens the heart so that a man never forgets it.^