2. The soldiers are not only volunteers ; they are animated by a spirit of self-surrender and sacrifice. The word here rendered " willing " is employed throughout the Levitical law for " freewill offerings." It is a striking word in the Hebrew. We have a similar idea in Ps. Ixviii. 9, where we are told that God has poured forth a refreshing rain for His inheritance because it is weary. And as we receive the refreshing rain of God's Holy Spirit from heaven, in order that we may become a river pouring out His riches, so the real meaning of the Hebrew is this, " Thy people shall become a freewill offering in the day of thy power." It is in that host as it was in the army whose heroic self-devotion was chanted by Deborah under her palm tree — " The people willingly offered themselves." Hence came courage, devotion, victory. With their lives in their hands they flung themselves on the foe, and nothing could stand against the onset of men who recked not of themselves.
For there is this one grand thing even about the devilry of war — the transcendent self-abnegation with which, however poor and unworthy may be the cause, a man casts himself away, " what time the foeman's line is broke." The poorest, most vulgar, most animal natures rise for a moment into something like nobility, as
* W. M. Macgregor, Jesus Christ Uie Son o/ God, §9.
356 A VOLUNTEER ARMY
the surge of the strong emotion lifts them to that height of heroism. Life is then most glorious when it is given away for a great cause. That sacrifice is the one noble and chivalrous element which gives interest to war, the one thing that can be disentangled from its hideous associations, and can be transferred to higher regions of life. That spirit of lofty consecration and utter self-forgetfulness must be ours, if we would be Christ's soldiers. Our obedience will then be glad when we feel the force of, and yield to, that gentle persuasive entreaty, " I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice."
^ "I raised such men," said Cromwell, " as had the fear of God before them, as made some conscience of what they did ; and from that day forward, I must say they were never beaten."
^ To be true to himself, to renounce nothing which he knew to be good and yet bring all things captive to the obedience of Christ, was the problem before him. He hesitated long before he could believe that such a solution was possible. His heart was with this rich, attractive world of human life, in the multiplicity and wealth of its illustrations, until it was revealed to him that it assumed a richer but a holier aspect when seen in the light of God. But to this end, he must submit his will to the Divine will in the spirit of absolute obedience. Here the struggle was deep and prolonged. It was a moral struggle mainly, not primarily intellectual or emotional. He feared that he should lose some- thing in sacrificing his own will to God's will. How the gulf was bridged he could not tell. He wrote down as one of the first of the texts on which he should preach, " Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power," with the comment that " willingness is the first Christian step." Thus the conversion of Phillips Brooks becomes a representative process of his age. So far as the age has been great, through science or through literature, its greatness passed into bis soul. The weakness of his age, its sentimentalism, its fatalism, ho o\ercame in himself when he made the absolute surrender of his will to God. All that he had hitherto loved and cherished as the highest, instead of being lost, was given back to him in fuller measure. To the standard he had now raised there rallied great convictions and blessed experiences, the sense of the unity of life, tlie harmony of the whole creation, the consciousness of joy in being alive, the conviction that heaven is the goal of earth.i
* Phillip$ Brooks : Memories of his Life, by A. V. G. Allen, 82.
PSALM ex. 3 357
11.
Patriot-Priests.
" In the beauties of holiness."
The phrase " in the beauty of holiness " is frequently used for the sacerdotal garments, the holy festal attire of the priests of the Lord. So the soldiers are priests as well as patriots.
1. The King and Leader is Himself a Priest of God's making, another Melchizedek. In different ages of the world there have been men in whom a certain native priestliness has been apparent, men born to bring others into the secrets of God, and seeming to need no introduction or furtherance themselves ; men who, in the Scots phrase, are " far ben," for they always, with unveiled face, see God. It is their task to make the hidden things apprehensible to those who belong to the rough world outside. And God's King, when He comes, will be a priest of that kind, whose priesthood is a matter of native endowment and not of human ordination.
The mediaeval emperor was a deacon in the Eoman Church, just as the pope, on his side, was a great secular prince. In Israel, too, the king had something of priestly rank. But here is no such fictitious dignity. " Thou art a priest of my making," says God, " another Melchizedek." Professor Davidson comments on the picture which is given us of Melchizedek — without father, without mother, without descent. " He passes over the stage a king, a priest, living ; that sight of him is all we ever get. He is like a portrait having always the same qualities, presenting always the same aspect, looking down on us always with the same eyes, which turn and follow us wherever we may stand — always royal, always priestly, always individual, and neither receiving nor imparting what he is, but being all in virtue of himself."