2. The greatness and prosperity of any people rest ultimately on character. " Thy people shall be all righteous " was Isaiah's great dream. The deep secret of their victories was that of the enthronement of Jehovah ; and resulting from it the people were seen as all righteous, and consequently the nation was seen as an instrument of the Divine purpose, possessing the land, bringing forth its beauties, realizing them. Thus the nation realized itself, and became in the midst of j the earth, the exhibition of the Divine purpose for all the world, the Divine intention for all humanity. It was the dream of a prophet in the midst of a decadent age. Actually the people were falling, soon were to be driven away, but here we have the holy and inspired vision of God's purpose, and out of the midst of it we hear these words : " Thy people shall be all righteous."
If So far at the outset of his Parliamentary life, the opinions of Benjamin Disraeli, if we take Sybil for their exponent, were the opinions of the author of Past and Present. Carlyle thought of him as a fantastic ape. The interval between them was so vast that the comparison provokes a smile; and yet the Hebrew conjurer, though at a humble distance, and not without an eye open to his own advancement, was nearer to him all along than Carlyle imagined. Disraeli did not believe any more than he that the greatness of a nation depended on the abundance of its possessions. He did not believe in a progress which meant the abolition of the traditionary habits of the people, the destruction of village industries, and the accumulation of the population into enormous cities, where their character and their physical qualities would be changed and would probably degenerate. The only 1 G. Campbell Morgan.
108 THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS
progress which he could acknowledge was moral progress, and he considered that all legislation which proposed any other object to itself would produce, in the end, the effects which the prophets of his own race had uniformly and truly foretold.1
T| Patriotism is doubtless a great and necessary virtue ; it must always regulate much that we do, but it should not therefore narrow our aspirations. A nation, as well as an individual, has much to learn, and must learn it, as the individual learns, mainly by sympathetic intercourse with like-minded nations. On this gradual education of nations, more than anything else, the hope of the world's future depends. Nations with like ideas of righteous- ness go forth on their separate ways, not that they may emphasize the differences which arise from differing experience, but that they may bring the results of their experience to a common stock. It is not enough that each nation should recognize and glorify the ideas on which its vigorous life is founded as it knows them. It must learn from the experience of other nations to understand them better and apply them more thoroughly. It is man's highest wisdom humbly to seek to understand God's will in things great and small ; in the concerns of a particular hearth and home ; in the questions which concern his country's welfare; and in those greater issues on which the future of the world's progress depends. Our personal efforts, whatever they be, only avail if they are in accordance with God's purpose. If we have done our best to discover this purpose, and with our whole heart to work for it, we cannot ultimately fail. This purpose floats before our eyes in the form of a vision, capable of realization here and now, of a time when all peoples shall be happy in the knowledge of the Lord as their God.2
3. The righteous nation serving a righteous king will enjoy security and peace. " Israel shall dwell safely." Such shall be the confidence of the spiritual Israel that they shall dwell even thoughtlessly and carelessly, as the original word implies — not careless as to their manner of life ; not thoughtless as to the nature of the Divine requirements and rightful claims of humanity ; but careless, as being free from care, since God careth for His own ; careless as knowing in whom they have believed, and persuaded that He is able to keep that which has been entrusted to Him. Happy people that thus dwell safely ! " Israel dwelleth in safety :
1 J. A. Froude, The Earl of Beaconsfield, 92.
2 Bishop Creighton, Counsels for Churchpeople, 37.
JEREMIAH xxiii. 5, 6 109
the fountain of Jacob [the progenitors of a great people] alone, in a land of corn and wine ; yea, his heavens drop down dew. Happy art thou, O Israel : Who is like unto thee, a people saved by the Lord!"
4. True, the ideal state foreshadowed by Jeremiah has not yet been realized ; the law of God is not yet written so indelibly upon the hearts of men that all can be said to act upon it instinc- tively, or that we can yet afford, as some strange sectaries have imagined that we could afford, to dispense with teachers and instructors, and other methods of reminding us what that law is. But it is upon a profound sense of the requirements of human nature that the prophet's declaration is based ; and it is one of the most far-reaching and comprehensive anticipations of the ultimate destiny of human history that are to be found in the Old Testament Scriptures. It sets vividly before us what should be the aim of our endeavours, and the goal of our aspiration. And so, every time that, in our public services, the Decalogue is recited, it is followed by the petition, expressed in the very words of the prophet, that the laws of which it is the sum may be " written in our hearts."