the Divine love which has been poured out upon me. No one
ever deserved it less. I am sure if I do not know what free grace
means, or use the expression as a mere cant one, I am more to
* TJie Lift of Frederick Denison Maurice, L 528.
300 THE CROWNED CHRIST
blame than all. It seems to me, from the highest to the lowest, from the manner of God's redemption to the kind look and obedience of a servant, all is grace ; all are parts of one living chain which is let down upon me and which is meant to draw me up.^
Seven vials hold Thy wrath: but what can hold Thy mercy save Tliine own Infinitude, Boundlessly overflowing with all good.
All loving kindness, all delights untold ?
Thy Love, of each created love the mould; Thyself, of all the empty plenitude ; Heard of at Ephrata, found in the Wood,
For ever One, the Same, and Manifold.
Lord, give us grace to tremble with that dove Which Ark-bound winged its solitary way And overpast the Deluge in a day. Whom Noah's hand pulled in and comforted:
For we who much more hang upon Thy Love Behold its shadow in the deed he did.^
^ The Life of Frederick Denison Maurice, i. 527. ' Christina G. Rossetti, Foetical Works, 264.
Perfect through Sufferings.
Literature.
Aitken (W. H. M. H.), The Revealer Revealed, 177.
Albertson (C. C), The Gospel According to Christ, 77.
Buslinell (H.), Christ and His Salvation, 219.
Eaoies (J.), The Shattered Temple, 162.
Egan (R. B.), The Unknown God, 149.
Figgis (J. N.), Antichrist, 73.
Greenhough (J. G.), Christian Festivals and Anniversaries, 38,
Hamilton (J.), Faith in God, 195.
Henson (H. H.), The Creed in the Pulpit, 139.
Home (W.), Religious Life and Thought, 49.
Jones (J. D.), TJie Unfettered Word, 204.
Kingsley (C), National Sermons, 254.
Little (W. J. K.), Characteristics of the Christian Life, 98.
Maclaren (A.), A Rosary of Christian Graces, 231.
Momerie (A. W.), The Origin of Evil, 12.
Reichel (G. P.), Cathedral and University Sermons, 121.
Kendall (G. H.), Cliarterhouse Sermons, 70.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, viii, (1862), No. 478.
Temple (W.), Repton School Sermons, 292.
Westcott (B. F.), Christus Consummator, 19.
Christian World Pulpit, liii. 22 (J. G. Binney) ; Iv. 235 (C. G. Lang) ;
Ixxxiii. 49 (R. J. Campbell). Expositor, 4th Ser., iv. 34 (G. F. DArcy). Homiletic Review, Ix. 404 (N. D. Hillis),
Perfect through Sufferings.
For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the author of their salvation perlect through sufferings. — Heb. ii. lo.
1. When we read a biography, when we study the plot of a novel or a play, or when we try to understand a character in history, the question we put to ourselves is — Is it true to life ? Is this the man as he really was and lived ? Does he fit together as a living whole ? The profit and the pleasure of such books, and certainly the moral interest, lie largely in their setting forth a vital unity, in their assuring us of the reality and the individuality of the man or woman whom we are studying and giving us the assurance that we are following the true story of a human soul. Every great life comes to us as something of a surprise : perhaps the greater the life the greater the surprises are apt to be. We begin by saying to ourselves, " He could never have acted so. Why should he have taken that course ? why risk that venture ? why court that reverse ? Now, if I had been he," we say, and begin to reconstruct conduct upon the lines of instinct and of motive most familiar to ourselves. And then we turn back to our text and penetrate a little deeper into the secret springs of character, and incidents arrest us that do not square with our assumptions, and lights flash unexpectedly from words or acts which show that he was not the manner of man that we supposed, that after all it was humility not pride, it was courage not cowardice, it was simplicity not cunning, it was unselfishness not self-seeking, that made him act as he did. Little by little we discern a unity that was not there before, that removes inward contradictions, that makes the hero a consistent and intelligible whole, made up not of conflicting fragments but of a living and coherent self. And when we return to our first little criticisms and surprises, they look thin and bdlow in presence of the truth, and we say to ourselves, " Now
304 PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERINGS
I know better ; I understand more clearly what he was, by what lights he lived. Being what he was, he could not have said, done, acted otherwise. I have caught the secret; I hold the clue; I feel quite certain of the truth ; all fits so perfectly that I must have hold of the right interpretation. It becomes him in a way that no other explanation does or could."
2. The writer of this Epistle was addressing himself to Hebrew Christians, who had not yet quite reconciled themselves to a suffering Christ. They still shared in that Jewish conception of the Messiah which made the cross an offence. Why should the Anointed One, the chosen Messenger of God, pass through that wine-press of shame and agony instead of marching on in joyous triumph and planting His feet on the necks of His enemies ? Why all that weakness and yielding and intolerable suffering, if He was indeed the beloved Son in whom the Father was well pleased ? How could that awful and heartbreaking Calvary scene be the sign and seal of God's approval ? These questions, and questions like them, which are sometimes asked to-day, were answered in these words : " It became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings." The writer here expounds to us the Divine philosophy of suffering, and declares that only by a suffering Saviour could God's thought and purpose in redemption be expressed and fulfilled. It became Him. It was right and reasonable and necessary that He should take the way of suffering to reach His glorious end.