Chapter V: Part 5

Child of trial! "vessel of mercy!" your God sees meet at times to bring you into the graving-dock, that He may put His tools upon you, and refit and prepare you for the great voyage of immortality. When He opens the sluices of trial, you may see no mercy in His dealings. It may be "deep calling to deep"--the roar and heaving of antagonist waters; they may at first, too, stir up nothing but the dregs and sediment of sin,--expose the muddy pools, the deep corruptions of the heart. But be still! He will yet vindicate the rectitude and wisdom of His own procedure. Ere long, these surging waves will settle peacefully around you, the shadows of heaven reflected in their glassy surface; and better still, strengthened and renovated by that season of trial, you will go forth from the Graver's hands more ready to brave the billows, grapple with the tempest, and reach at last the haven where you would be!

It is _hard discipline_--the undowny pillow, the trench-work and midnight vigils--which makes the better soldier. The type of strength in the kingdom of inanimate nature is not the sickly plant of the hot-house, or the tree or bush choked in the dark jungle; but the pine rocked by Alpine or Norwegian tempests, or the oak mooring its roots in the rifted rock! David would neither have been the King nor the Saint he was, but for the caves of Adullam and Engedi, the rocks of the wild goats, the forest exile of Hermon and Gilead. He had to thank _affliction_ for his best spiritual graces. The redeemed in glory are ready to tell the same. "We would never have been here but for these storms of 'great tribulation.' But for the loss of that child--that worldly calamity--that protracted sickness--that cutting disappointment--that wounding of my heart's affection--that annihilation of earthly pride and ambition--that 'deep calling to deep'--I would not now have been wearing this crown!" Trials have been well compared to the winds God employs to fill our sails and fetch us home to the harbour of everlasting peace![84]

[84] See "Life Thoughts." The author has been more than once
indebted, in this volume, to this suggestive little book.

* * * * *

One word of caution ere we close this chapter. From all we have said--of "deeps" and "floods," storms and water-spouts, and midnight darkness--are any to leave these pages with the feeling that Religion is a gloomy, repulsive thing;--that the believer's life is one of darkness and despair;--that better far is the world's gaiety and folly--the merry laugh of its light-hearted votaries--than a life of sadness like this? Mistake us not! We repeat what we have already said. The experience we have been now considering is, in many respects, peculiar; one of those dark passages which stand alone in the diary of the spiritual life. _Religion gloomy!_ Who says so? Shall we take St Paul as our oracle? What is his testimony? In all his letters he tries to crowd as much as he can into little space. In one of these, he has room for only two injunctions. But instead of giving two that are different, he prefers to repeat the _one_. It is the emphatic tautology, "_Rejoice in the Lord alway: and_ AGAIN _I say_, REJOICE."[85] Or shall we seek a different tribunal? Go gather together all the philosophers of antiquity--Plato, Socrates, Aristotle. Bring together the wise men of Greece--the philosophers of Alexandria--the sages of Rome. Ask if their combined and collected wisdom ever solved the doubts of one awakened soul, as have done these leaves of this Holy Book? Which of them ever dried the tear of widowhood as these? Which of them ever smoothed the cheek of the fatherless as these? Which of them ever lighted the torch of hope and peace at the dying bed as these, and flashed upon the departing soul visions of unearthly joy? O pagan darkness! where was _thy_ song in the night? In the region and shadow of death, where did _thy_ light arise?

[85] Phil. iv. 4.

But WE have a "more sure word of prophecy, to which we do well to take heed, as unto a light shining in a dark place." The Christian is _the_ man who alone can wear the sunny countenance. The peace of God, keeping the heart within, cannot fail to be mirrored in the look and life without! And if (as often is the case) he has his appointed seasons of trial--the sea of life swept with storms of great tribulation--it is with him as with yonder ocean. To the eye of the young voyager, gazing on its mountain billows, it would seem as if its lowest caverns were stirred, and the world were rocking to its foundations; while, after all, it is only a surface-heaving! There are deeps, unfathomed deeps, of calm rest and peace, down in that ocean's undisturbed recesses.

Believer in Jesus! with all thy trials, thou art a happy man. Go on thy way rejoicing. Tribulation may fret and ruffle the calm of thy outer life, but nothing can touch the deeps of thy nobler being. Troubles may rise, and "terrors may frown," and "days of darkness" may fall around thee, but "_Thou wilt keep him, O God_, IN PERFECT PEACE _whose mind is stayed on_ THEE!"

XI.

Faith and Prayer.

"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!"

"The soul of man serves the purpose, as it were, of a workshop to Satan, in which to forge a thousand methods of despair. And therefore it is not without reason that David, after a severe conflict with himself, has recourse to prayer, and calls upon God as the witness of his sorrow."--_Calvin on the Psalms._

"I will say unto God my rock, Why has thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?"--_Verses 9, 10._

XI.

FAITH AND PRAYER.

Touching was that scene which occurred three thousand years ago on the borders of Palestine: aged Naomi, in returning to the land of her own kindred from her sojurn in Moab, pausing to take a last farewell of her two loving daughters-in-law! One of these refuses to part from her. Strong may be the inducement to Ruth to return to the home of her childhood, and, above all, to the spot where hallowed dust reposes (the buried treasure of her young affections). But ties stronger than death link her soul to the one who had shared for ten years her joys and sorrows. With impassioned tears, she announces her determination! Her resolve may entail upon her manifold sacrifices. She may be going to an alien people--to a home of penury--to bleak and barren wilds, compared with her own fertile vales. But she is ready for any toil, any self-denial, if only permitted to retain the companionship of that living, loving heart, which had been to her all that earthly tenderness could be.

Such, if we may compare an earthly with a heavenly affection, were the feelings of the banished King of Judah, at this time towards his God. All the temptations that have been assailing him have not repressed the ardour of his faith, or diminished the fervour of his love. Unbelief had done its best to sever the holy bond which linked him to his Heavenly Friend; but, like the tender-hearted Moabitess from whom he sprung, he will submit to any privation rather than be parted from Him whose favour is life. "Entreat me not to leave Thee," is the spirit at least of his fervid aspiration; "nor to return from following after Thee. Where Thou goest I will go, and where Thou dwellest I will dwell; and death itself shall not separate between Thee and me." As Peter, in a future age, rushed to the feet of that Saviour he had again and again wounded, so these many waters (the "deep calling to deep") cannot quench the Psalmist's love, nor many floods drown it. The voice of malignant taunt and scorn, "Where is now thy God?" might have driven others to despair; but it only rouses him up, in the midnight of his struggle, to the exercise of new spiritual graces. "I shall not," he seems to say, "surrender my holy trust; I know the graciousness of the God with whom I have to deal. Nothing will tempt me to abandon my interest in the covenant. I shall take a new weapon from the Divine armoury; with it I shall seek to decide the conflict. No gibes of the scoffer, no rebellious son, no crafty Ahithophel, can rob me of the privilege of PRAYER." "_I will say unto God my Rock, Why hast Thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?_"

It is, then, a combined exercise of _faith_, and _prayer_, on the part of David, we are now called to consider. Out of weakness he is made strong, waxes valiant in fight, and turns to flight the armies of the aliens.

Let us advert to each in their order.

FAITH regards God here under a twofold aspect.

1. _It looks to Him as an_ IMMUTABLE GOD.

Amid the fitfulness of his own feelings, this was the Psalmist's consolation--"_God my_ ROCK!" What a source of comfort is there here in the _immutability_ of Jehovah. All else around us is unstable. External nature bears on every page of its volume the traces of mutation. Earth has the folds already on its vesture--the wrinkles of age on its brow. The ocean murmurs of change, as its billows chafe on altered landmarks. Human friendships and human associations are all fluctuating. So are our habits, and tastes, and employments. The old man looking back from some hoary pinnacle on the past, almost questions his personal identity; and these emptied chairs!--these faces, once glowing at our firesides, now greeting our gaze only in mute and silent portraits on the wall! "Here we have no continuing city," is the oracle of all time.

"_But_ THOU _art the same, and Thy years shall have no end._"[86] "Heaven and earth may pass away," but there is no change, and _can_ be none, in an all-perfect God! "The wheel turns round, but the axle is immutable." The clouds which obscure the sun do not descend from heaven--they are exhaled from earth. It is the soul's own darkening vapours, generated by unbelief and sin, which at times taint and obscure the moral atmosphere. Behind every such murky haze He shines brightly as ever. "_Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?_"[87] "Young sailors," says Rutherford, "imagine the shore and land moving, while it is they themselves all the while. So we often think that God is changing, when the change is all with ourselves!"

[86] Psalm cii. 27.

[87] Isaiah x. 28.

2. _Faith regards this immutable God as a God in covenant._

"MY _Rock_!" Believer! you have the same immovable ground of confidence! Look to YOUR God in Christ, who has made with you "_an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure_!" He, "_willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set_ _before us_."[88] The torch may flicker in your hand, the flame may be the sport of every passing gust of temptation and trial, but He who lighted it will not suffer it to be quenched. "_Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have thee, that he may sift thee as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not._"[89] The Great Adversary may attempt to rob you of your peace, but that peace is imperishably secured. He must first destroy THE ROCK, before he can touch one trembling soul that has fled there for refuge! He must first uncrown Christ, before he can touch one jewel in the purchased diadems of His people! Your life is "hid with Christ in God;" because He lives, "ye shall live also!" God himself must become mutable, and cease _to be God_, ere your eternal safety can be imperilled or impaired. "If we perish," says Luther, "Christ perisheth with us."

[88] Heb. vi. 17, 18.

[89] Luke xxii. 31.

* * * * *

Let us turn now to the Psalmist's PRAYER.

If _Faith_ be called the eye, _Prayer_ may be called the wings of the soul. No sooner does Faith descry God his "ROCK," than forthwith Prayer spreads out her pinions for flight. In the close of the preceding verse, (when in the extremity of his agony,) David had announced his determination to betake himself to supplication--"_In the night His song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life._" He follows up his resolution now with material for petition. He puts on record a solemn and beautiful liturgy--"_I will say unto God my Rock, Why hast Thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?_"

How wonderfully does God thus overrule His darkest dispensations for the exercise and discipline of His people's spiritual graces! In their overflowing prosperity they are apt to forget Him. He sends them afflictions. Trial elicits faith--faith drives to prayer--prayer obtains the spiritual blessing! It was the sense of want and wretchedness which drove the prodigal to cry, "Father, I have sinned!" It was the "buffeting" thorn which sent Paul thrice to his knees in the agony of supplication, and brought down on his soul a rich heritage of spiritual blessing. It was these surging waves--the "deep calling to deep"--which elicited the cry from this sinking castaway, "_My heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the_ ROCK _that is higher than I!_" "BEHOLD HE PRAYETH!" That announcement seems in a moment to turn the tide of battle, and change the storm into a calm. Well has a Christian poet written:--

"Frail art thou, O man, as a bubble on the breaker;
Weak, and govern'd by externals, like a poor bird caught in the storm:
Yet thy momentary breath can still the raging waters;
Thy hand can touch a lever that may move the world."

The struggle till now may have seemed doubtful; "_but they that_ WAIT _upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles_."[90] It is said, the beautiful plumage of the Bird of Paradise not only impedes its flight when flying against the wind, but often in the ineffectual effort it is brought helpless and exhausted to the ground--its golden hues soiled and ruffled. When, however, a gentle breeze springs up, it spreads out its feathers in a fan-like shape, and is borne joyously along! So with the believer. When he is called to do battle with unbelief, the wings of faith are often soiled, and mutilated, and broken; he falls a helpless thing to the earth. But when God's own south wind blows, he spreads out his glorious plumage, and, rising on the pinions of prayer, is borne onwards and upwards to the region of heavenly peace and joy!

[90] Isaiah xl. 31.

There are one or two characteristics in David's prayer worthy of note, with which we shall sum up this chapter.

1. Observe his INSTANT _resort to the "God of his life!"_

No sooner does the thought of prayer suggest itself, than he proceeds to the sacred exercise. Like the prodigal, not only does he say, "_I will arise and go_," but the next record in his history is, "_And he arose, and came to his Father_."[91] Oh, how much spiritual benefit we miss by procrastination! The cloud of blessing floats over our heads, but we fail to stretch forth the electric rod of prayer to fetch it down! We determine on embarking, but, by guilty delay, we allow the vessel to weigh anchor, and we are left behind. Many an afflictive dispensation thus loses its sanctifying design. When the heart is crushed and broken, the heavenly voice sounds startling and solemn! What a season, if timeously improved, for enrichment at the mercy-seat! When "things present" are disenchanted of their spell,--when time is brought to hold its relative insignificance to eternity, what a season for the self-emptied one, to go to the all-fulness of Jesus, and receive from Him every needful supply! But, alas! we often know not "the day of our merciful visitation." The heart, when the hammer might be falling on it, and welding it to the Divine will, is too often suffered to cool. Solemn impressions are allowed to wear away,--the blessing is lost by guilty postponement. David might now have been so absorbed in his trials, as to have lost the opportunity of prayer. He might have invented some vain excuses for procrastination, and missed the blessing; just as the disciples, by their sluggish indifference and guilty slumber, drew down the thrice-repeated rebuke from injured Goodness, "_Could ye not watch with me one hour?_" But the golden moment is not suffered by him thus to pass. No sooner does he get a glimpse of the path of prayer, than he proceeds to tread it. The very fact of the fire being so low, is the most powerful reason for stirring it. Her Lord being lost, is the strongest argument for the Spouse seeking Him without delay;--"_I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek Him whom my soul loveth._"[92]

[91] Luke xv. 20.

[92] Sol. Song iii. 2.

2. Observe David's _importunity_. He waxes into a holy boldness. He seeks to know from "the God of his life" the reasons of this apparent desertion--"'_Why hast Thou forgotten me?_' I cannot see or understand, as Thy covenant servant, the reason of all this depression--why, with all those promises of Thine, these hands should be hanging down, and these knees be so feeble."

The mother does not cast off her sick or feeble child. Its very weakness and weariness is an additional argument for her care and love, and draws her heart closer than ever to the bed of the tiny sufferer! David knew well that God, who had ever dealt with him "as one whom his mother comforteth," would not (unless for some wise reason) leave him to despondency. Looking to this immutable Covenant-Jehovah, and lifting his voice high above the water-floods, he thus, in impassioned prayer, pleads "the causes of his soul:"--"_In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in Thy righteousness. Bow down Thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be Thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me. For Thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for Thy name's sake lead me, and guide me. Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me: for Thou art my strength. Into Thine hand I commit my spirit: Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth._"[93]

[93] Psalm xxxi. 1-5.

3. The Psalmist _takes his_ SPECIAL TROUBLE _to God, and makes it the subject of prayer_. He names in the Divine presence the cause of his deepest perplexity. "_As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me, while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?_"[94]

[94] Verse 10.

"Generalities," says a good man, "are the death of prayer." The loftiest privilege the believer can enjoy is the confidential unburdening of his wants into the ear of a _Father_. Just as a child can freely unbosom to a parent what he can do to no one else, so are we permitted to tell into the ear of our Father in heaven whatever may be the heart-sorrow with which a stranger (often a friend) dare not intermeddle. See the _speciality_ in the Psalmist's confession of his sin. It is not the _general_ acknowledgment of a sinner. It is rather an humbled penitent carrying _one_ deep crimson-stain to the mercy-seat; bringing _it_, and _it alone_, as if for the moment he had to deal respecting _it_ only with the great Heart-searcher. "MY _sin_ is ever before me." "I have done _this_ evil in Thy sight." "Wash me from _mine iniquity_, and cleanse me from _my sin_." "I said, I will confess _my transgressions_, and Thou forgavest the iniquity of _my sin_."[95]

[95] Psalms li. and xxxii.

Let us not think that we can ever have comfort in merging individual sins in a _general_ confession. This is the great and pre-eminent advantage of secret closet-prayer. Social prayer and public prayer are eminently means of securing the Divine blessing; but it is in the quiet of the chamber, when no eye and ear are on us but that of "our Father that seeth in secret," that we can bring our secret burdens to His altar,--crucify our secret sins, acknowledge the peculiar sources of our weakness and temptation, and get special grace to help us in our times of need.

But we may here ask, Have we any assurance that the prayers of David, at this critical emergency, were indeed answered? Or,(as we are often tempted in seasons of guilty unbelief to argue regarding our prayers still,) did they ascend unheard and unresponded to?--did the cries of the supplicant die away in empty echoes amid these glens of Gilead? We have his own testimony, in a magnificent ode of his old age,[96] one of the last, and one of the noblest his lips ever sung, that Jehovah _had_ heard him in the day of his trouble. It is a Psalm, as we are told in the title, written by him on his return to his capital, when victory had crowned his arms, and his kingdom was once more in peace. The aged Minstrel takes in it a retrospective survey of his eventful pilgrimage. Many a Mizar-hill in the long vista rises conspicuously into view. He climbs in thought their steeps, and erects his Ebenezer! As his flight and sojourn beyond Jordan formed the latest occurrence in that chequered life, we may well believe that in uttering these inspired numbers, the remembrance of his memorable soul-struggle there must have been especially present to his mind. Let us listen to his own words: "_The sorrows of death compassed me, and_ THE FLOODS OF UNGODLY MEN _made me afraid.... In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto_ MY GOD: HE HEARD _my voice out of His temple, and_ MY CRY CAME BEFORE HIM, EVEN INTO HIS EARS." In the sublimest poetical figures of all his Psalms, Jehovah is further represented in this hymn of thanksgiving as hastening with rapid flight, in august symbols of majesty, to the relief and succour of His servant--"bowing the heavens"--"the darkness under His feet"--"riding upon a cherub"--"flying upon the wings of the wind"--"sending out His arrows, and scattering His foes"--"shooting out lightnings"--and "discomfiting them." And with the writer's mind still resting on the same emblems which he uses in his Exile-Psalm,--the "deep calling to deep"--the "noise of the water-spouts"--the "waves and billows,"--he interweaves other references and experiences with this unequivocal testimony to God his "_Rock_," as the HEARER OF PRAYER,--"_He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters.... Who is God save the Lord? or who is a_ ROCK _save our God?... The Lord liveth; and blessed be my_ ROCK; _and let the God of my salvation be exalted!_"[97]

[96] Psalm xviii.

[97] Psalm xviii. 16, 31, 46.

* * * * *

Reader! let me ask, in conclusion, do _you_ know in your experience the combined triumphs of _faith and prayer_--these two heavenly spies that fetch back Eschol-clusters of blessing to the true Israel of God? Do you know what it is, in the hour of adversity, to repair to "the _Rock_ of your strength?" Do you believe in His willingness to hear, and in His power to save? How sad the case of those who, in their seasons of trial, have no refuge to which they can betake themselves, but some fluctuating, perishing, earthly one;--who, when they lose the world, lose their all! The miser plundered of his gold, cleaving to the empty coffers;--the pleasure-hunter seeking to drain the empty chalice, or to extract honey out of the empty comb;--the bereaved grasping with broken hearts their withered gourd, and refusing to be comforted! The worldling is like the bird building its nest on the topmost bough of the tree. There it weaves its wicker dwelling, and feels as if nothing can invade its security and peace. By and by the woodman comes,--lays down his axe by the root. The chips fly off apace. The pine rocks and shivers; in a few moments it lies prone on the forest-sward. The tiny bird hovers over its dismantled home--the scene of desolation and havoc--and then goes screaming through the wood with the tale of her woes! The Christian, again, is like the sea-fowl, building its nest in the niches of the ocean cliff, which bids defiance at once to the axe and the hand of the plunderer. Far below, the waves are lifting their crested tops, and eddying pools are boiling in fury. The tempest may be sighing overhead, and the wild shriek of danger and death rising from some helpless bark that is borne like a weed on the maddened waters. But the spent spray can only touch these rocky heights,--no more; and the curlew, sitting with folded wings on her young, can look calm and undismayed on the elemental war. "What is the best grounds of a philosopher's constancy," says Bishop Hall, "but as moving sands, in comparison of the Rock that we may build upon!"

Yes! build in the clefts of that immoveable Rock, and you are safe. Safe in Christ, you can contemplate undismayed all the tossings and heavings of life's fretful sea! So long as the Psalmist looked to God, he was all secure. When he looked to _himself_, he was all despondency. Peter, when his eye was on his Lord, walked boldly on the limpid waves of Gennesaret; when he diverted _it on himself_, and thought on the dangers around him, and the unstable element beneath him, "he began to sink!"

Believer! is your heart overwhelmed? Are you undergoing a similar experience with the Psalmist? Your friends (perhaps your nearest and best) misunderstanding your trial, unable to probe the severity of your wound, mocking your tears with unsympathising reflections and cruel jests--"a sword in your bones!" Turn your season of sorrow into a season of prayer. Look up to the God-man Mediator, the tender Kinsman within the veil! _He knoweth_ your frame. When He sees your frail bark struggling in the storm, and hears the cry of prayer rising from your lips, He will say, as He said of old, "I KNOW _their sorrows_, and I will go down to deliver them! O wounded Hart! panting after the water-brooks, I was once wounded for _thee_. O smitten soul! seamed and scarred with the lightning and tempest, see how I myself, the Rock of Ages, was smitten and afflicted!" Ay, and thou canst say too, "_God_ MY _Rock_!" Thou canst individually repose in that sheltering Refuge, as if it were intended for thee alone. The loving eye of that Saviour is upon thee, as if thou wert alone the object of His gaze,--as if no other struggling castaway breasted the billows but thyself!

Blessed security, who would not prize it! Blessed shelter, who would not repair to it! Oh that the Psalmist's creed and resolution might be ours--"_I will say of the Lord, He is_ MY ROCK _and_ MY _Fortress, and_ MY _Deliverer._"--"_O come let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the_ ROCK OF OUR SALVATION!"

XII.

The Quiet Haven.

"Ah, if our souls but poise and swing,
Like the compass in its brazen ring,
Ever level and ever true,
To the toil and the task we have to do;
We shall sail securely, and safely reach
The heavenly Isle, on whose shining beach
The sights we love and the sounds we hear
Will be those of joy, and not of fear."

"David utters again strains of hope; not that faint and common hope of possibility or probability, that after stormy days it may be better with him, but a certain hope that shall never make ashamed; such a Hope as springs from Faith, yea, in effect, is one with it.... Faith rests upon the goodness and truth of Him that hath promised; and Hope, raising itself upon Faith so established, stands up, and looks out to the future accomplishment of the promise."--_Leighton._

"In that day, the light shall not be clear nor dark: ... but it shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light."--_Zech._ xiv. 6, 7.

"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God."--_Verse 11._

XII.

THE QUIET HAVEN.

We have now reached the close of this instructive Psalm--the last entry in the experience of the Royal Exile. Here is the grand summing up--"the conclusion of the whole matter." The curtain falls over the scene of conflict, leaving the believer triumphant. As he began with prayer, he now ends with praise; as he began with weeping, he now ends with rejoicing; as he began mourning over the loss of his God, he ends exulting in Him as "_the health of his countenance_." We are reminded of the Great Apostle reaching, by successive steps in his high argument, new altitudes of faith and hope,--beginning with "_no condemnation_," till he ends with "_no separation_,"--mounting with loftier sweep and bolder pinion, till, far above the mists and clouds of the lower valley, he can utter the challenge, "_Who shall separate me from the love of Christ?_"[98]

[98] Romans viii.

Joyful is it when a protracted war, which has been draining a nation's resources and rifling its homes, is drawing to a close,--when an army, amid hostile tribes, and the more fatal ravages of a hostile climate, has succeeded in trampling out the ashes of rebellion, and is returning triumphant from hard-contested fields of valour. Joyful is it when a noble vessel, that has for long been wrestling with the storm, enters at last the desired haven,--when the voyagers, who for hours of anxiety and terror have been hanging with bated breath between life and death, can now pass the gladdening watchword from mouth to mouth--"Thank God, we are safe!" Joyful, too, when the tried believer, as described in this Psalm,--"_persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed,_"--has surmounted wave after wave, that has been threatening to sweep him from his footing on the Rock, and is made "more than conqueror through Him that loved him!" The wounded Hart we found in the opening verse bounding through the forest glades, hit by the archers, with glazed eye and panting sides, has now reached the coveted Water-brooks;--the fainting soul is now drinking at the great fountainhead of consolation and joy. We have elsewhere an appropriate inspired comment on the whole Psalm, with its successive experiences: "_Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all._"[99]

[99] Psalm xxxiv. 19.

This concluding verse is so far a repetition of the fifth; and yet, as we cursorily noted in the introductory chapter, there is an important difference between them, to which we may again for a moment advert. In the former, it is on the part of the speaker the language of faith in the midst of despondency, expressing assurance that something _will_ be his, which he has not yet attained: "_Hope thou in God; for I shall_ YET _praise Him for the help of His countenance_." In the latter, he summons his soul to the exercise of the same hope and confidence; but he now can exult in the realised possession of God's favour and love--"WHO IS _the health of my countenance_." Nay, more, in the fifth verse he stops with the words, "_my countenance_;" but in the closing verse, he adds the expression of appropriating faith and triumphant assurance. It is the Key-stone of the arch. Two little words, which, like the ciphers following the unit, give an augmented value to all that goes before!--"MY GOD!" The two last divine expedients to which he had resorted (faith and prayer) have not been in vain. They have loaded the cloud of mercy, and it bursts upon the suppliant in a shower of blessing!

The 22d Psalm has been referred by commentators to this same period of exile among the mountains of Gilead. There is much to confirm this supposition in the general tone of the Psalm, as well as in its incidental references. There is the same deep, anguished depression of spirit,--words, indeed, denoting such an intensity of sorrow, that, though primarily applicable to David, we must look for their true exponent in the case of a Greater Sufferer. The challenge, "_Where is thy God?_" of the 42d, seems echoed back in the 22d by the mournful appeal, "_My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?_"

But in the latter, as in the former, (ere it closes,) light breaks through the thick darkness. By a similar exercise of faith and prayer, the Royal Mourner triumphs. "_Deliver my soul_," says he, "_from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth._" (Ver. 20, 21.) The prayer is heard while he is yet speaking! At this point of the Psalm, the language all at once passes from complaint into exultation--from prayer into praise; and the voice of victory rises higher and higher, till it reaches the close. God has taken off his sackcloth, and girded him with gladness. He already anticipates the happy time when again he shall be the leader of the festal throng on the heights of Zion. "_Thou hast heard me_," is his opening burst of triumph, "_from the horns of the unicorns. I will declare Thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise Thee.... My praise shall be of Thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear Him_."[100]

[100] Psalm xxii. 21, 22, 25.

Nay, further; what Psalm succeeds the 22d? Is it mere accidental arrangement which has given the beautiful 23d (the best known and loved of all David's Psalms) the immediate sequence? Is it a mere devout imagination which leads us to regard it (from the place it occupies in the Psalter) as the next his hand penned and his lips sung, after these plaintive elegies? This Song of the chosen flock is not, as many think, the Psalm of his boyhood, written in the days of his innocence, with his shepherd's crook and harp, in the Valleys of Bethlehem. The imagery of the Psalm _may_ indeed have been taken from this sunny season of his youth. But, as it has been suggested,[101] the emblem may as likely have been borrowed from seeing a flock of sheep in these grassy regions reposing by "green pastures" and "still waters"--or, at other times, wending their way out of some "dark valley;"--one, perhaps a timid wanderer, clenched in the arms of the shepherd, on his way with it back to the fold!

[101] See these references to the 22d and 23d Psalms well stated
in Blaikie's "David, King of Israel," pp. 322, 323.

We have witnessed, after a day of gloomy fog and rain and thunder, the dense curtain that overhung the landscape rolling away.--The clouds break, gleaming vistas appear through their golden linings; and the rays of the long-imprisoned sun shine down upon ten thousand sparkling pearls on grass and flower. The choristers of wood and grove had till then been silent; but now are they seen brushing the rain-drops from the branches, and filling the air with their music, and all nature is glad again. So it is with the Great Singer of Israel; so long as God's face is withdrawn, his wings are folded--his melody hushed--his harp unstrung. But when the thunder-cloud has passed,--when, as the clear shining after rain, the longed-for countenance again breaks forth,--when, in answer to those prayers that were mightier than the armies of Joab close by, his enemies are dispersed, and the way again open to a peaceful return to his capital,--may we not imagine the triumphant conqueror--strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might--making the Gilead valleys resound with the hymn of praise?--"_The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters!_"[102] As he thought of all the trying discipline to which he had been subjected to test his faith, drive him to prayer, and lead him to thirst more ardently for "the living God," he could say in the retrospect, what he was unable to do at the time--"_He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake._"[103] That path was a rugged one--that trial a severe one--when he was found setting out barefoot, and dim with tears, across Mount Olivet, compelled to take refuge beyond Jordan amid the wilds of Bashan. But he acknowledges now that these were "_paths of righteousness_." They were well and wisely ordered,--the hand of his God had appointed them. He can repeat with greater assurance his forbearing retort to the curses of Shimei--"LET HIM CURSE ON, FOR THE LORD HATH BIDDEN HIM." Moreover, all this wilderness-experience not only sustained him in the present--it nerved him for the future. God's renewed faithfulness in this trying hour was a pledge for all time to come. He had added another Mizar-hill to former memorials of the Divine goodness. With the prospect, at his advanced age, of the last and terminating trial of his pilgrimage, (the descent to the deepest and gloomiest ravine of all,) he could, with his eye on the guiding Shepherd, exclaim--"_Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me._"[104] Even temporal mercies had been largely and bountifully supplied him in the place of his exile. The powerful chiefs of the Transjordanic tribes, as we previously observed,--"Shobi of Ammon, and Machir, and Barzillai of Manasseh,"--brought the rich produce of their fields and pastures for the supply of himself and his army. He could say--"_Thou hast prepared a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over._"[105] And now, with the prospect before him of a joyful return to his throne, and the still more joyous prospect of being a worshipper in God's house on earth,--the type of the better Temple in the skies,--he can sing, as the closing strain of his exile--"_Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever._"[106]

[102] Psalm xxiii. 1, 2.

[103] Psalm xxiii. 3.

[104] Psalm xxiii. 4.

[105] Psalm xxiii. 5.

[106] Psalm xxiii. 6.

Reader! is this your experience? Is this the result of your temporal afflictions, the end of your spiritual conflicts,--to lead you to the same Shepherd of Israel, and to exult in Him as "the health of your countenance, and your God?" Elimelech, of old, was compelled by famine to leave Bethlehem, but his name signified, "_My God is King!_" When we are pressed with straits, and troubles, and perplexities, let _us_ make that name our strong tower! "MY GOD IS KING" is a glorious motto. Is it the heavings and convulsions of the world's nations--"kings of the earth setting themselves, and rulers taking counsel together," from motives of personal ambition, or political jealousy, or lust of conquest? Write upon all their schemes, ELIMELECH--"_My God is King!_" Is it the apparently mysterious discipline through which some may be passing--bereavements threatening your dwelling, or the hand of death already on your loved ones? Write on the darkened threshold, ELIMELECH--"_My God is King!_" Is it the prospect of your own death that is filling you with apprehension? Remember in whose hands, under whose sovereign control, that messenger is. Go to the vacant Sepulchre at Golgotha, and read that writing and superscription which the "Abolisher of death" has left for the comfort of all His people:--"_I have the keys of the grave and of death_." Christian! even here, in these gloomy regions, "_thy God is King!_"

How blessed thus to be able, both in temporal and spiritual things, to lie in the arms of His mercy, saying, "Undertake Thou for us!"--to feel that every thread in the web of life is woven by the Great Artificer,--that not one movement in these swiftly-darting shuttles is chance; but all is by _His_ direction, and all is to result in good! In having Himself as our portion, we are independent of every other;--we have the pledge of all other blessings. "Let the moveables go, the inheritance is ours!" Let the streams fail, we have the inexhaustible fountain! "Drop millions of gold," says good Bishop Hopkins, "boundless revenues, ample territories, crowns and sceptres, and a poor contemptible worm lays his _One God_ against them all."[107] "_Our_ all," says Lady Powerscourt, "is but two mites (soul and body). _His_ all--Heaven, Earth, Eternity, Himself." We have said in a previous chapter that the loftiest archangel can tell of no mightier prerogative than looking up to the Great Being before whom he casts his crown, and saying, "My God!" WE can utter them in a sense higher than he. He is OUR God _in Christ_. The words to us are written (which to the unredeemed angels they are not) in the blood of atonement! Imagine, for a moment, a conversation between a bright angel in heaven and a ransomed sinner from earth. The angel can point to a past eternity; he can tell of a glorious pedigree; he can point up to his Almighty Maker, and say, "He has been _my God_ for ages and ages past. I have been kept, supported, gladdened by His amazing mercy, long before the birth of time or your world!" "True," we may imagine the redeemed and glorified sinner to reply,--"but I can tell of something more wondrous still. He is _my God in covenant_! Thou art His by _creation_, but I am His also by _adoption_, _filiation_, _sonship_. Though grace has kept thee through these countless ages, during which thou hast cast thy crown at His feet, what is the grace manifested to _thee_, in comparison with the grace manifested to _me_? Grace made thee holy, and kept thee holy; but grace found me on the brink of despair, plucked me as a brand from the burning, brought me from the depths of woe and degradation, to a throne and a crown! _Thy_ God hath loved thee. _My_ God hath 'loved _me_' and GIVEN HIMSELF _for me_!"

[107] "Were it not for this word of possession, the devil might
say the Creed to as good purpose as we. He believes there is a God
and Christ, but that which torments him is this--he can say '_my_'
to never an article of faith."--_Sibbs._

* * * * *

And now we close our meditations on this beautiful and instructive Psalm:--a Psalm which, even since we have begun to write on it, we have seen clung to as a treasured solace in hours of sickness;--its sublime utterances soothing the departing soul, just as it was pluming its wings for flight to the spirit-world! Reader! in any future dark and troubled passages in your life, you may well with comfort turn to this _diary_ of an old and tried saint, remembering that it records the experiences of "the man after God's own heart." Tracing _his_ footsteps and tear-drops along "the sands of time," you shall cease to "think it strange concerning the fiery trials that may be trying you, as though some strange thing happened." You will find that "the same afflictions are accomplished in you," which have been "accomplished" in the case of God's most favoured servants in every age of the Church. Do not expect now the _un_clouded day. That is not for earth, but for heaven. God indeed, had He seen meet, might have ordained that your pathway was to be without cloud or darkness, trial or tear;--no poisoned darts, no taunts, no contumely, no cross, no "deep calling to deep,"--nothing but calm seas unfretted by a ripple, sunny slopes and verdant valleys, and bright Mizar-hills of love and faithfulness! But to keep you humble,--to teach you your dependence on Himself,--to make your present existence a state of discipline and probation, He has ordered it otherwise. Your journey as travellers is through mist and cloud-land;--your voyage as seamen through alternate calm and storm.[108] And much of that discipline, too, is mysterious. You cannot discern its "why" and "wherefore." To employ a former symbol, you are now like the vessel building in the dock-yard. The unskilled and uninitiated can _hear_ nothing but clanging hammers;--they can see nothing but unshapely timbers and glare of torches. It is a scene of din and noise, dust and confusion. But all will at last be acknowledged as needed portions in the spiritual workmanship;--when the soul, released from its earthly fastenings, is launched on the summer seas of eternity--

"Give to the winds thy fears,
Hope and be undismay'd.
God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears,
God shall lift up thy head:
Through waves, and clouds, and storms,
He gently clears the way;
Wait thou His time--so shall this night
Soon end in joyous day."[109]

[108] "Sometimes I can rejoice in the Mount with my Redeemer.
Sometimes I lie in the Valley, dead, barren, unprofitable.... I am
frequently wounded in the battle. Blessed be God that the
Physician, the Castle, and the Fortress, are ever at
hand."--_Bickersteth's Life._

[109] "David might have gone a thousand times to the tabernacle
and never found a thousandth part of the blessing he found in this
wilderness. It was in the absence of all that was dear to him as
man, he found his special solace in God."--_Harington Evans._

Above all, let this Psalm teach you that your _spiritual_ interests are in safe keeping. No wounded Hart seeking the water-brooks ever sought them in vain. When drooping, downcast, disconsolate yourself, remember "God is faithful." "He cannot deny Himself." "_He satisfieth the longing soul with goodness._" None is "able to pluck you out of His hand." There may be fluctuations--ebbings and flowings--in the tides of the soul; but "_He that hath begun a good work in you, will carry it on until the day of the Lord Jesus._" You may reach the heavenly fold with bleating cries,--with torn fleece and bleeding feet;--but you _will_ reach it, if you have learned to sing, "_The Lord is my shepherd!_" You may reach the water-brooks with languid eye and panting sides;--but you _will_ reach them, if you can truthfully say, "_My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God!_" You may begin your song in the minor-key, but if "MY GOD" be its key-note, you will finish it with the angels and among ministering seraphim!

Go then, Christians! and, as you see what FAITH, and HOPE, and PRAYER did for the Exile of Gilead, try what they can and _will_ do for _you_. With all your varied trials, with all your manifold sorrowful experiences, who, after all (this Psalm seems to say) so favoured as _you_? Who possess your present exalted privileges?--who your elevating hopes?--the consciousness, even in your trials, that each billow is wafting you nearer the haven of eternal rest? "_These see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. For He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet_; SO HE BRINGETH THEM UNTO THEIR DESIRED HAVEN!"

"Soul, then know thy full salvation,
Rise o'er sin, and fear, and care,
Joy to find in every station
Something still to do or bear.
Think what Spirit dwells within thee,
Think what Father's smiles are thine,
Think that Jesus died to save thee--
Child of heaven! canst thou repine?

"Haste thee on from grace to glory--
Arm'd by FAITH and wing'd by PRAYER;
Heaven's eternal days before thee,
God's own hand shall guide thee there!
Soon shall close thy earthly mission,
Soon shall pass thy pilgrim days;
HOPE shall change to glad fruition,
FAITH to sight, and PRAYER to praise!"

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