2. It is the law of God that keeps the stars in their courses, regulates the movements of the seas and the revolutions of the earth, develops the plant and organizes the animal, works in our instincts and guides our reason, marks out the path of humanity and determines the rise and fall, the weal and woe, of nations, and measures out to virtue and vice their due rewards in time and eternity. It is not truly separable from God Himself, but is the whole of the modes in which He manifests His power, and wisdom, and goodness in the universe, — the whole of the ways in which He operates through matter and spirit, in creation, providence, and redemption, as Father and King and Judge. Hence it is that we say it is not only most wonderful but includes in itself all that is wonderful. The wonders of physical nature, of the human soul and human history, and of redeeming love and grace, are all wonders of that law of God which the Psalmist longed and prayed
' Carlyle, Reminiscences, i. 10. PS. xxv.-cxix. — 28
434 THE WONDROUS LAW
to behold — that law which ruleth alike in what is least and in what is greatest, to which all things in heaven and earth do homage, the seat of which is the bosom of the Eternal, the voice of which is the harmony of the universe.
^ I read in the Bible that God has " set his glory in the heavens," but in merely reading this I do not see that glory ; it is only to be seen by " considering the heavens, which are the work of God's fingers ; the moon and the stars, which he has ordained." This terrible law — " the wages of sin is death " — has been published in the Bible, but it does not exist and work in the Bible ; it exists and works in the lives of sinful beings like you and me, and if we do not see it in ourselves we shall never see it at all, although we read a thousand times the words which announce it. So with its gracious counterpart — " the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ." These blessed words point us to the most consoling law in all the universe, but they point us away from themselves ; and only by our souls coming into communion with a living God through a living Saviour can they behold the wonders of mercy and truth which are in that law.^
^ Really, so far as spiritual vision is concerned, the angels must look upon this earth as a big blind asylum. We see close to us, but not afar off; we see the surface, and miss the depths ; we see not as wide awake, but as those who rub their eyes hardly knowing whether they wake or sleep. Have I seen the " wondrous things " out of God's law — the things which accompany salva- tion. Many feel the intellectual interest of God's Word, enjoy its eloquence, extol its moral worth, or they appreciate its pru- dential wisdom, like Napoleon, who put it in the political section of his library ; but they do not grasp its spiritual, saving message. They gather shining pebbles and painted shells, and overlook the pearl of great price. Oh ! to see the wondrous depths of redeem- ing love ! Whilst I study systems of theology and search the com- mentaries of exegetes do I sufficiently remember the promised Revealer and wait His illumination ? " Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and know all things." *
III.
1. The most wonderful of all laws are God's moral and spiritual laws. They are the laws of God in a far liigher sense than other laws. The laws of the physical world might have been quite
1 Robert Flint. * W. L. Watkinson.
PSALM cxix. 1 8 435
different from what they are. God made them to be what they are by making the phyaical world itself what it is. If He had made quite a different material world with quite other laws, He would have been none the less God, the true object of our worship. But He did not make the fundamental laws of moral life to be what they are by any mere forthputting of His will. They are eternal and unchangeable. That God should alter them would be for Him to cease to be wise and righteous and holy and loving. It would be for Him to cease to be God. The wonders of these laws are thus the wonders of the Divine nature, and far greater, therefore, than any wonders of created nature. At the same time, these laws are the laws of our natures, of our spirits, of what is much higher and much more wonderful than anything else to be beheld in nature. " On earth," it has been said, " there is nothing great but man, and in man there is nothing great but mind." And certainly a soul is a far more wonderful thing than even a star, a spiritual being than a material world, and its laws are far more wonderful. It is spiritual law that determines men's relations to their God and to one another, and it is on obedience or disobedience to it that the weal or woe of individuals or societies chiefly depends, so that all the marvels and mysteries of human nature and destiny gather round it.