43

III

THE ATONEMENT.

PSALM iii. 1, 2, 3, 4.

THIS is a morning psalm, as the fourth, which follows it, is an evening psalm. There is a high probability that the tradition which refers them both to the time when David fled from Absalom's advance to Mahanaim is a true tradition. The third psalm would then belong to the first morning after that on which David left Jerusalem, and the fourth to the evening following.

David left Jerusalem early in the morning. He passed through the outskirts, over the brook Kidron, and took the ascent of Olivet, amid the loud wailing of the people of the city. He reached the mountain-top at noon; there he met Hushai, and sent him back to confound the counsel of Ahitophel. As he descended the rugged path on the other side, there rained upon his head the stones and curses of Shimei, adding their store of sorrow to that which was too much. It was not till evening fell that he reached the ford of Jordan.

There he snatched a short slumber, while he waited for the news of how things were going in Jerusalem. 'I laid me down and slept.' At midnight he was roused with the message- All is safe for a time; the pursuit is delayed; get over the river at once to Mahanaim.' David sprang to his

feet, his old energy returning. I rose up again, for the Lord sustained me;' and at break of day they had all reached the other side in safety.

Then, as the sun rose, making into a blaze of glory all the dew-drenched western bank-seeming like God's summons to activity-David's impulsive, poet heart began to thrill with gratitude and courage, and this psalm rushed in a moment to his lips.

If this be true, a vivid interest draws us to the psalm. It is the unpremeditated expression of the passionate feeling of a great man's heart at a great crisis in his life. We seem to look for a moment into his inmost heart.

Men are

It is in times like these that we see character. true when passion is profound. The first agony of sorrow wears no mask. Anger, at its fiercest, lays the secrets of the heart bare. Fear is a magic glass, through which we see the long-hidden evil or weakness of the soul. Joy at deliverance has the same power.

This is still more true when the character is impulsive, and the impulsiveness is under the power of a strong will. Such a character had David-impulsive, always ready to gratify or express the feelings of the moment, but capable now and then of holding them in with the steadiest curb. When the curb was withdrawn by the will-then-only observe how most of his psalms burst out with a cry, like the leap forward of a beautiful wild animal held in bonds too long.

And David's passion and David's impulsiveness, now at their height, swelled by the repression of twenty-four hours -swelled by an awful sorrow-swelled by a terrible anger— were suddenly let loose by the sense of safety. He looked round upon his followers and rejoiced; he felt the exhilaration

of the morning; he saw the sun rise, like hope, after a night of storms. Silence seemed shameful in that moment, and the

psalm arose into life.

How the words come rushing like waters.

'Jehovah!'.

mark the cry at the beginning-' how many are become my oppressors; many are they that rise against me. Many say my soul--"No help has he in God."'

of

But yesterday a king, and now an exile; only yesterday in his own city-the people weeping for love and sorrow round him! What were they doing now? And David heard, in the ear of his imagination, the shouts which welcomed Absalom, the darling of the people-The king is dead! long live the king!'-fancied the sneer and scoff which circulated among the rebel officers; caught the sleek murmur of Ahitophel's insidious, hateful voice, and saw with startling distinctness among the crowd the face of Shimei sharpened with hate. He realised the thought which gleamed in every eye and hung on every lip-They say of my soul,' he cried, 'there is no help for him in God.'

Such is the judgment of the world. Misfortune means God's anger. Is that judgment true? That is the first question the psalm suggests.

We answer, first, that God is never angry in our sense of the word. Sacred indignation at evil is inseparable from His Being, because it is the natural repulsion of holiness from sin; but from this we must, so far as we can in thought, remove all suspicion of angry passion. It is all but impossible for us to do this, for it is so rarely in our lives that we feel unmixed indignation. Jealousy steps in; sometimes fear, sometimes a wish to display, sometimes wounded vanity, sometimes selfish motives-till at last, or in a moment, indignation is

degraded into violence, and violent passion brings about revenge.

It is owing to this almost necessary inability to conceive pure indignation that the idea of God's wrathful anger has taken such lodgment in the heart of men. Few superstitions-I call it such, for it is born of ignorance and fear— have ever done more harm in the world. It lay at the root of the popular cry which forced persecution on the Roman governors; the gods were jealous of their honour. It has lain at the root of all persecutions-of the cruelties of the Inquisitors, who attributed to God the desire to revenge Himself upon the Jews, and the nursing of endless rancour against heretics; of the persecution of those sects who represented God as vindictive, vain, and touchy. It has lain at the root of the perishing doctrine of eternal punishment.

It is the superstition which the Church of Christ ought above all to cast out now. It is the thing above all else on which we want clear notions.

How shall I best explain it, illustrate it? What is God's indignation? It is love doing justice. Suppose that you saw in the streets a brutalised man beating a woman: your feeling would be indignation, you would inflict punishment; but there would be, for the most part feelings of contempt, of violent anger, of horror, combined with your indignation. In vindicating the woman's cause there would be no pity for the man. That is anger doing justice. But the indignation of God would punish as severely as you, more severely in the end; but there would be no anger in the sense of passion; and there would be infinite pity, compassion, and love for the man-more so than even for the woman. 'So lost, so brutalised, so fallenmy son, I must redeem him.'

This is love doing justice; this

is the indignation of God. The offender is punished, the sin is abhorred, but the offender is not detested; the tie of Fatherhood is not dissolved, the necessity of saving the lost is not forgotten. 'You have done this wrong,' God says to you and me; you must suffer for it. I am a consuming fire to your evil. But I do not love you less; My love is shown in insisting on the punishment. For the pain points to the disease, and says to you, "Get rid of the evil thing, or you die."'

Moreover, anger like ours is capricious, easily roused, easily lost; punishes too much or too little; does not fit the punishment to the guilt so that it may seem natural to the guilty and touch the conscience, but takes whatever punishment lies next to hand. Want of justice, want of balancing all the motives and circumstances on both sides, want of natural fitness, characterise the inflictions of our anger; for it has no time for all this slow work, and no thoughtfulness. Let it wait to work or think, and it ebbs away like Esau's, or quickens into revengefulness like Saul's.

There is an absolute freedom from all these faults in the indignation of God, and it is this which gives it its awfulness. It is based on law-or, I should say, on the eternal truthfulness of God to Himself. If God ceased to punish wrongdoing He would cease to be God; if He did not apportion the exact measure of punishment to the wrong, making it the natural result, and felt as such, of the sin; if He did not see the wrong in all its excuses and all its aggravations, and make both tell, and be felt as telling in the punishment, He could not be the just Omniscient Being we conceive Him to be. If He acted hastily, and without full thought of the results of the punishment upon the character of the person punished, we could not believe in His love.