^ We must hold on fast to the fact that God's forgiveness is a very real thing, and not a mere dramatic thing ; and that if we ' J, Brierley, Religion and To-Day, 64.
124 DE PROFUNDIS
have to sufifer what seems a disproportionate penalty for our fault, it is not sent us because God is merely an inflexible exactor of debts, but because by exacting them He gives us something that we could in no other way attain to. Where we go wrong is in com- paring God to a human disciplinarian. If a father says to a son, " I forgive you, but I am going to punish you just the same," we may frankly conclude that he does not know what forgiveness means. The fact that he punishes merely means that he does not really trust the son's repentance, but is going to make sure that the son's repentance is not merely a plea for remission. We have to act so, or we believe that we have to act so, on occasions, to other human beings ; but it is only because we cannot really read their hearts. If we knew that a repentance was complete and sincere, we should not need to exact any punishment at all. But with God there can be no such concealments. If a man repents of a sin and puts it away from him, and if none of the dreaded consequences do befall him, he may be grateful indeed for a gracious forgiveness. But if the consequences do fall on him, he may inquire whether his repentance had indeed been sincere, or only a mere dread of contingencies ; while if he is penalized, how- ever hardly, he may believe that his sufferings will bring him a blessing, and that by no other road can he reach peace.^
^ A. C. Benson Along the Hood, 244.
Unity.
MS
Literature.
Jowett (B.), Sermons Biographical and Miscellaneous^ 338.
McCook (H. C), The Gospel in Nature, 45.
Maclaren (A.), The Book of Psalms (Expositor's Bible), iii. 355.
Pentecost (G. F.), Bible Studies : Mark, and Jewish History, 305.
Simpson (J. G.), Christian Ideals, 93.
Voysey (C), Sermons, xxviii. (1905), No, 29 ; xxxiii. (1910), No. 9.
Christian World Pulpit, xiv. 281 (R. Tuck) ; Ivii. 279 (R. A. Armstrong).
Church of England Magazine, xxix. 24 (T. Preston).
Church of England Pulpit, xL 268 (O. F. S. P. Jenkins) ; liv. 19
(G. P. Home). Church Pulpit Year Book, 1905, p. 138 (M. Woodward). Guardian, Ixix. (1914) 139 (S. Bickersteth). Sunday Magazine, 1893, p. 643 (B. Waugh).
nd
Unity.
Behold, how gfood and pleasant it is
For brethren to dwell together in unity. — Ps. cxxxiii. i.
1. Herder says of this exquisite little song that " it has the fragrance of a lovely rose." Nowhere has the nature of true unity — that unity which binds men together, not by artificial restraints, but as brethren of one heart — been more faithfully described, nowhere so gracefully illustrated, as in this short ode. True concord, we are here taught, is a holy thing, a sacred oil, a rich perfume, which, flowing down from the head to the beard, from the beard to the garment, sanctifies the whole body. It is a sweet morning dew, which falls not only on the lofty mountain- peaks but on the lesser hills, embracing all and refreshing all with its influence.
2. The preservation of this unity was the object of the selection of one place to which the tribes should go up on pilgrimage three times a year. And the intercommunion with each other which the pilgrimages fostered was certainly one of the chief means by which the unity of feeling and sentiment was kept up among the scattered members of the nation century after century. The pilgrimages were to the Israelites what the meetings at the Olympic and other games were to the Greeks — at once witnesses to a belief in ethnic unity and a strong and efficient bond of union. This psalm was therefore admirably fitted for a " pilgrim song," which it is allowed on all hands to have been, and it must have greatly helped the various classes of pilgrims — the spiritual and secular authorities, the rich, the poor, the citizen, the peasant, and the widely divided members of the great Diaspora — to feel themselves united with each other and with Jehovah.
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128 UNITY
I.
The Secret of Unity.
There are innumerable ways in which we are bound together in life. There are ties of relationship or of friendship, nearer or more distant, of class and occupation, of common tastes, of personal likings, of religious feeling, of natural affection. There is that higher tie by which men are united in the endeavour to become better and to live above the world. There is still a higher union which, in our imperfect state, may be thought visionary or impossible, when the wills of men meet in God, and they know no other law or rule of life than His will. Yet there have been those in whom such a unity of the human and the Divine has really existed — it might exist in any of us. All these unities have in them elements of diversity arising out of circum- stances or character or education. And to preserve the " one in many " (as the ancient philosopher would have said) is the first duty of any society, of mankind, of a family, a school, a college, a church, a nation.