422 BRAND PLUCKED OUT OF THE FIRE
as he knows, is only his Judge. That is the difficulty, and it is fearful. Is there any hope ?
^ In fearful truth, the Presence and Power of Satan is here ; in the world, with us, and within us, mock as you may ; and the fight with him, for the time, sore, and widely unprosperous. Do not think I am speaking metaphorically or rhetorically, or with any other than literal aud earnest meaning of words. Hear me, I pray you, therefore, for a little while, as earnestly as I speak.
Every faculty of man's soul, and every instinct of it by which he is meant to live, is exposed to its own special form of corruption ; and whether within Man, or in the external world, there is a power or condition of temptation which is perpetually endeavouring to reduce every glory of his soul, and every power of his life, to such corruption as is possible to them. And the more beautiful they are, the more fearful is the death which is attached as penalty to their degradation. . . .
Now observe — I leave you to call this deceiving spirit what you like — or to theorize about it as you like. All that I desire you to recognize is the fact of its being here, and the need of its being fought with. If you take the Bible's account of it, or Dante's or Milton's, you will receive the image of it as a mighty spiritual creature, commanding others, and resisted by others. . . . If you take a modern rationalist's you will accept it for a mere treachery and want of vitality in our own moral nature exposing it to loathsomeness or moral disease, as the body is capable of mortification or leprosy. I do not care what you call it, — whose history you believe of it, — nor what you yourself can imagine about it ; the origin, or nature, or name may be as you will, but the deadly reality of the thing is with us, and warring against us, and on our true war with it depends whatever life we can win. Deadly reality, I say. The puff-adder or horned asp is not more real. Unbelievable, — those, — unless you had seen them ; no fable could have been coined out of any human brain so dreadful, within its own poor material sphere, as that blue-lipped serpent — working its way sidelong in the sand. As real, but with sting of eternal death — this worm that dies not, and fire that is not quenched, within our souls or around them. Eternal death, I say — sure, that, whatever creed you hold ; — if the old Scriptural one, Death of perpetual banishment from before God's face; if the modern rationalist one, Death Eternal for us, instant and unredeemable ending of lives wasted in misery.1
1 Buskin, Time and Tide, § 51 ( Works, xyii. S61).
ZECHARIAH in. i, 2 423
III.
The Vindication.
11 The Lord said unto, Satan The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan ; yea, the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee : is not this a brand plucked out of the fire ? "
The speaker here is the Angel of the Lord before whom Joshua stood, and when He says, " The Lord rebuke thee," there is the same distinction made between Him, the manifested Jehovah, and the invisible Jehovah that we find made in the account given of the destruction of the cities of the plain in Gen. xix. 24, where we read, " Then the Lord [i.e. the Angel of Jehovah who had visited Lot] rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven." There is a distinction between the two, and yet the incommunicable name " Jehovah " belongs to both, and both are on an equality in respect of attribute, power, and honour. The language of the Lord here is not that of petition or desire ; it is that of performance. As He " rebuked the Eed Sea also, and it was dried up" (Ps. cvl 9), so here He rebuked the adversary, and he was silenced and rebuffed.
1. Satan is silenced, not by argument, but on this simple ground — the election of God. What though this is a sin-defiled and unworthy servant, shall that hinder the riches of God's free grace ? Is he not chosen of the Father ? and wherefore chosen but that he should be holy and without blame before Him in love ? And shall His design be foiled, and the very object of His gracious purpose be set aside ? What though he has followed too much the devices and desires of his own heart ? — " There are many devices in a man's heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand."
To our Divine Lord, when on earth, the mystery of election was a theme for praise. " I thank thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father ; for so it seemed good in thy sight." How strange these words sound from the lips of Jesus ! But with His knowledge we could rise to His praise. In heaven it is Christ's silencing answer to