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Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.
Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained
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original text.
* * * * *
THE HART
AND
THE WATER-BROOKS;
A PRACTICAL EXPOSITION OF
THE FORTY-SECOND PSALM.
BY THE
REV. JOHN R. MACDUFF,
AUTHOR OF "MORNING AND NIGHT WATCHES," "MEMORIES OF GENNESARET,"
"WORDS Of JESUS," ETC. ETC.
"The portion of God's Word that is specially precious to me, more so
than I am able to express, is Psalm forty-second."--HARRINGTON
EVANS' LIFE, p. 399.
"What a precious, soul-comforting Psalm is that forty-second!"--LIFE
OF CAPTAIN HAMMOND, p. 289.
LONDON:
JAMES NISBET AND CO., 21 BERNERS STREET.
M.DCCC.LX.
EDINBURGH:
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY,
PAUL'S WORK.
THE FORTY-SECOND PSALM.
¶ _To the Chief Musician_, MASCHIL, _for the Sons of Korah._
1 As the hart panteth after the water-brooks,--so panteth my soul
after thee, O God.
2 My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God:--when shall I come
and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my meat day and night,
While they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?
4 When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me:
For I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house
of God,
With the voice of joy and praise,--with a multitude that kept
holy day.
5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul?--and why art thou disquieted
in me?
Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him
For the help of his countenance [or, His presence is salvation].
6 O my God, my soul is cast down within me:
Therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of
the Hermonites,
From the hill Mizar.
7 Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts;
All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.
8 Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day-time,
And in the night his song shall be with me,
And my prayer unto the God of my life.
9 I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me?
Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
10 As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me;
While they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?
11 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.[1]
[1] The title of the Psalm (משכיל MASCHIL--_instruction_,) is
the same as that of other twelve. Some have referred the word
merely to the music--indicating the tune to which the Psalms were
set,--demanding of the sons of Korah, and "the chief musician,"
(the conductors of temple-song,) some melody specially adapted to
the sentiments they contain. Others, with greater probability,
take it as indicative of their _design_;--that while expressive of
personal feeling and experience, they were intended for the
"instruction" and comfort of the Church in all ages. Hence the
term given to them of _didactic_.
Though his name is not mentioned, there is little doubt that
David, and not the sons of Korah, as some have supposed, was the
author of this Psalm. The reader is referred to _Hengstenberg_ for
a statement of the internal grounds, in the Psalm itself, to
favour this conclusion. "To me," says Calvin, "it appears more
probable that the sons of Korah are here mentioned because this
Psalm was committed as a precious treasure to be preserved by
them;--as we know that out of the number of the singers some were
chosen and appointed to be keepers of the Psalms. That there is no
mention made of David's name, does not in itself involve any
difficulty, since we see the same omission in other Psalms, of
which there is, notwithstanding, the strongest grounds for
concluding that he was author."
According to an arbitrary division by the Jews of their Psalter
into five parts, supposed to have been made by Ezra after the
return from Babylon, the Forty-second Psalm forms the commencement
of the second book. Regarding its structure, we may remark, that
it is divided into two portions or _strophes_, each of these
closing with a refrain in verses 5 and 11.
The following is an excellent poetical paraphrase of the Psalm, by
Bishop Lowth:--
"As pants the wearied hart for cooling springs,
That sinks exhausted in the summer's chase;
So pants my longing soul, great King of kings!
So thirsts to reach Thy sacred dwelling-place.
"On briny tears my famish'd soul hath fed,
While taunting foes deride my deep despair;
'Say, where is now thy Great Deliverer fled,
Thy mighty God, deserted wanderer, where?'
"Oft dwell my thoughts on those thrice happy days,
When to Thy fane I led the willing throng;
Our mirth was worship, all our pleasure praise,
And festal joys still closed with sacred song.
"Why throb, my heart? why sink, my saddening soul,
Why droop to earth, with various foes oppress'd?
My years shall yet in blissful circles roll,
And peace be yet an inmate of this breast.
"By Jordan's banks with devious steps I stray,
O'er Hermon's rugged rocks and deserts dear:
E'en there Thy hand shall guide my lonely way,
There Thy remembrance shall my spirit cheer.
"In rapid floods the vernal torrents roll,
Harsh sounding cataracts responsive roar;
Thine angry billows overwhelm my soul,
And dash my shatter'd bark from shore to shore.
"Yet Thy sure mercies ever in my sight,
My heart shall gladden through the tedious day;
And 'midst the dark and gloomy shades of night,
To Thee I'll fondly tune the grateful lay.
"Rock of my hope! great Solace of my heart!
Why, why desert the offspring of Thy care,
While taunting foes thus point th' invidious dart,
'Where is thy God, abandon'd wanderer, where?'
"Why faint, my soul? why doubt Jehovah's aid?
Thy God the God of mercy still shall prove;
Within His courts thy thanks shall yet be paid,
Unquestion'd be His pity and His love."
INTRODUCTORY.
PAGE
I. THE SCENE OF THE PSALM, 2
II. THE GENERAL SCOPE OF THE PSALM, 10
III. A PECULIAR EXPERIENCE, 24
CONTENTS OF THE PSALM.
I. THE HART PANTING, 36
II. THE HART WOUNDED, 46
III. THE LIVING GOD, 60
IV. THE TAUNT, 78
V. THE TAUNT, 90
VI. SABBATH MEMORIES, 102
VII. HOPE, 122
VIII. THE HILL MIZAR, 141
IX. THE CLIMAX, 166
X. LESSONS, 180
XI. FAITH AND PRAYER, 192
XII. THE QUIET HAVEN, 212
I.
The Scene of the Psalm.
"Where is thy favour'd haunt, Eternal Voice,
The region of Thy choice,
Where, undisturb'd by sin and earth, the soul
Owns Thine entire control?
'Tis on the mountain's summit dark and high,
Where storms are hurrying by:
'Tis 'mid the strong foundations of the earth,
Where torrents have their birth.
No sounds of worldly toil ascending there
Mar the full burst of prayer;
Lone nature feels that she may freely breathe,
And round us and beneath
Are heard her sacred tones: the fitful sweep
Of winds across the steep,
The dashing waters where the air is still,
From many a torrent rill--.
Such sounds as make deep silence in the heart
For thought to do her part."
"The spot was so attractive to me, as well as the view of the
surrounding country so charming, that I had great difficulty in
tearing myself away from it. In the foreground, at my feet, was the
Jordan flowing through its woods of tamarisks. On the other side rose
gently the plain of Beisan surmounted by the high _tell_ of that name.
In the distance were the mountains of Gilboa--the whole stretch of
which is seen, even as far as ancient Jezreel."--_Van de Velde's
Travels in Syria and Palestine_, vol. ii. p. 355.
I.
THE SCENE OF THE PSALM.
All recent explorers of Palestine speak in glowing terms of that
"solemn eastern background," with its mellow tints of blue and purple,
rising conspicuous, as if a wall built by giants, from the deep gorge
or valley of the Jordan. This mountain range, and especially the hills
of Gilead, with their rugged ravines and forests of sycamore and
terebinth, are full of blended memories of joy and sadness. From one
of these slopes, the Father of the Faithful obtained his first view of
his children's heritage. On another, the Angels of God--the two bright
celestial bands--greeted Jacob on his return from his sojourn in
Syria.[2] From another, trains of wailing captives on their way to
Babylon, must oft and again have taken through their tears their last
look of "the mountains round about Jerusalem." Nigh the same spot, the
footsteps of our blessed Redeemer Himself lingered, when death was
hovering over the couch of the friend He loved at Bethany. Martha and
Mary, from their Village-home, must have lifted their eyes to these
same "hills," from whence they knew, in the extremity of their
anguish, their "help" alone could come. While, at a later period, the
same spot was rendered illustrious as the locality of _Pella_, the
mountain fortress and asylum whither their Lord had admonished His
followers to flee, when the Imperial Eagles of Rome were gathered by
Titus around the devoted city.[3]
[2] Gen. xxxii. 1.
[3] See Mr Stanley's chapter, in his "Sinai and Palestine," on
"Peræa and the Trans-Jordanic Tribes," in which these different
references are graphically grouped together. "The Peræan hills are
the 'Pisgah' of the earlier history: to the later history they
occupy the pathetic relation that has been immortalised in the
name of 'the long ridge,' from which the first and last view of
Granada is obtained. They are the 'Last Sigh' of the Israelite
exile."--(P. 328.)
This "land beyond the Jordan" still further derives an imperishable
interest from being the exile-retreat of the sweet Singer of Israel in
the most pathetic period of his chequered life and reign. There is no
more touching episode in all Hebrew history than the recorded flight
of David from his capital on the occasion of the rebellion of Absalom
and the defection of his people. Passing, barefoot and weeping,
across the brook Kedron, and thence by the fords of Jericho, he sped
northwards with his faithful adherents, and found a temporary shelter
amid these remote fastnessess.
Minds of a peculiar temperament have often found it a relief, in
seasons of sadness, to give expression to their pent-up feelings in
poetry or song. Ancient as well as modern verse and music abound with
striking examples of this,--"Songs in the Night," when the mouldering
harp was taken down from the willows by some captive spirit, and made
to pour forth its strains or numbers in touching elegy. David's own
lament for Jonathan is a gush of intensified feeling which will occur
to all, and which could have been penned only in an agony of tears.[4]
[4] As an example in modern poetry, need we refer to that noblest
tribute ever penned over departed worth, the "_In Memoriam_" of
Tennyson; or in modern song, to the exquisite and plaintive
loveliness of this very Psalm, set to music by Mendelssohn, and so
well known by the title, "_As the hart panteth_."
It was a spirit crushed and broken with other, but not less poignant
sorrows, which dictated this Psalm of his exile. May we not imagine
that, in addition to the tension of feeling produced by his altered
fortunes, there was in the very scene of his banishment, where the
plaintive descant was composed, much to inspire poetic sentiment? The
alternate calm and discord of outer nature found their response in his
own chequered experiences. Nature's Æolian harp--its invisible strings
composed of rustling leaves and foaming brooks, or the harsher tones
of tempest and thunder, flood and waterfall--awoke the latent
harmonies of his soul. They furnished him with a key-note to discourse
higher melodies, and embody struggling thoughts in inspired numbers.
In reading this Psalm we at once feel that we are with the Minstrel
King, not in the Tabernacle of Zion, but in some glorious "House not
made with hands,"--some Cathedral whose aisles are rocky cliffs and
tangled branches, and its roof the canopy of Heaven!
Let us picture him seated in one of those deep glens listening to the
murmur of the rivulet and the wail of the forest. Suddenly the sky is
overcast Dark clouds roll their masses along the purple peaks. The
lightning flashes; and the old oaks and terebinths of Bashan bend
under the tumult of the storm. The higher rivulets have swelled the
channel of Jordan,--"deep calls to deep"--the waves chafe and riot
along the narrow gorges. Suddenly a struggling ray of sunshine steals
amid the strife, and a stray note from some bird answers joyously to
its gleam. It is, however, _but_ a gleam. The sky again threatens,
fresh bolts wake the mountain echoes. The river rolls on in augmented
volume, and the wind wrestles fiercely as ever with the denizens of
the forest. At last the contest is at an end. The sky is calm--the air
refreshed--the woods are vocal with song--ten thousand dripping boughs
sparkle in the sunlight; the meadows wear a lovelier emerald; and
rock, and branch, and floweret, are reflected in the bosom of the
stream.
As the royal spectator with a poet and painter's eye is gazing on this
shifting diorama, and when Nature is laughing and joyous again amid
her own tear-drops, another simple incident arrests his attention. A
Hart or Deer, hit by the archers or pursued by some wild beast on
these "mountains of the leopards," with hot eyeballs and panting
sides, comes bounding down the forest glade to quench the rage of
thirst. The sight suggests nobler aspirations. With trembling hand and
tearful eye the exiled spectator awakes his harp-strings, and
bequeaths to us one of the most pathetic musings in the whole Psalter.
The 23d has happily been called "the nightingale of the Psalms;" this
may appropriately be termed "the turtle-dove." We hear the lonely bird
as if seated on a solitary branch warbling its "reproachful music," or
rather struggling on the ground with broken wing, uttering a doleful
lament. These strains form an epitome of the Christian life--a diary
of religious experience, which, after three thousand years, find an
echo in every heart. Who can wonder that they have smoothed the
death-pillow of dying saints, and taken a thorn from the crown of the
noble army of martyrs![5]
[5] I refer the reader to the words quoted on the title-page. They
form the dying testimony and experience of one of the holiest men
of any age. We have seen in the possession of a revered friend,
the Bible which belonged to the great Marquis of Argyle, and which
formed his constant companion during the period of his
imprisonment. Almost every verse of the 42d Psalm is specially
marked. Some of the verses, such as the third, are noted with a
double stroke. We may well imagine him, after closing such "an
afflicted man's companion," thus writing to his Marchioness--"They
may shut me in prison where they please, but they cannot shut out
God from me."
II.
The General Scope of the Psalm.
"Like unto ships far off at sea,
Outward or homeward bound are we:
Before, behind, and all around
Floats and swings the horizon's bound;
Seems at its outer rims to rise,
And climb the crystal wall of the skies;
And then again to turn and sink,
As if we could slide from its outer brink.
Ah! it is not the sea that sinks and shelves,
But ourselves
That rock and rise
With endless and uneasy motion--
Now touching the very skies,
Now sinking into the depths of ocean."
"The Scriptures have laid a flat opposition between faith and sense.
We live by faith and not by sense. They are two buckets--the life of
faith and the life of sense; when one goes up, the other goes
down."--_Bridge_, 1637.
"There are twins striving within me; a Jacob and an Esau. I can,
through Thy grace, imitate Thy choice, and say with Thee, _Jacob have
I loved, and Esau have I hated_. Blessed God! make Thou that word of
Thine good in me, that _the elder shall serve the younger_."--_Bishop
Hall_, 1656.
II.
THE GENERAL SCOPE OF THE PSALM.
"If the Book of Psalms be, as some have styled it, a mirror or
looking-glass of pious and devout affections, this Psalm, in
particular, deserves as much as any one Psalm to be so entitled, and
is as proper as any other to kindle and excite such in us. Gracious
desires are here strong and fervent; gracious hopes and fears, joys
and sorrows, are here struggling. Or we may take it for a conflict
between sense and faith; sense objecting, and faith answering."[6]
[6] Matthew Henry.
In these few words, the Father of commentators, with his wonted
discernment, has given us the key to the true interpretation of this
sacred song. It may be regarded, indeed, as the Old Testament parallel
to the 7th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, in which another
inspired writer truthfully and powerfully portrays the same great
struggle between corruption and grace, faith and sense, "the old and
the new man."
There are two antagonist principles in the heart of every believer,
corresponding to the great forces which act in the material world. The
tendency of his new nature is to gravitate towards God--the Divine Sun
of his being--the centre of his fondest affections--the object of his
deepest love. But "there is a law in his members warring against the
law of his mind;"[7]--the remains of his _old_ nature, leading him to
wander in wide and eccentric orbit from the grand Source of light, and
happiness, and joy! "_What will ye see in the Shulamite?_" asks the
Spouse in the Canticles, personating the believer (at a time, too,
when conscious of devoted attachment to the Lord she loved). The reply
is, "_As it were the company of two armies_." (Sol. Song vi. 13.)
Sight on the one hand, Faith on the other. The carnal mind, which is
enmity against God, battling with the renewed spiritual mind, which
brings life and peace. Affections heaven-born, counteracted and marred
by affections earth-born. The magnet would be true to its pole but
for disturbing moral influences. The eagle would soar, but it is
chained to the cage of corruption. The believer would tread boldly on
the waves, but unbelief threatens to sink him. He would fight the
battles of the faith, but there is "a body of death" chained to his
heavenly nature, which compels him to mingle denunciations of himself
as "a wretched man" with the shouts of victory.[8]
[7] Rom. vii. 23.
[8] Rom. vii. 24, 25.
We may imagine David, when he composed this Psalm, wrapped in silent
contemplation--the past, the present, and the future suggesting
mingled reflections. The shepherd, the king, the fugitive! Sad comment
on the alternations of human life! humbling lesson for God's Anointed!
It furnishes him with a true estimate of the world's greatness. It has
taught him the utter nothingness of all here as a portion for the
soul. Amid outward trial and inward despondency, FAITH looks to its
only true refuge and resting-place. His truant heart softened and
saddened by calamity, turns to its God,--"_As the hart panteth after
the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul
thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear
before God?_" (Ver. 1, 2.) But the wave is beaten back again! He
remembers his sins and his sorrows, and (more galling to his sensitive
spirit) the taunts of ungodly scoffers. "_My tears have been my meat
day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?_"
(Ver. 3.) Moreover, he is denied the solace of public ordinances. He
can no longer, as once he could, light the decaying ashes of his faith
at the fires of the altar. Memory dwelt with chastened sadness on the
hours of holy convocation. "_When I remember these things, I pour out
my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude; I went with them to
the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude
that kept holy-day._" (Ver. 4.) But, once more, the new-born principle
regains the mastery. He rebukes his own unbelief, urges renewed
dependence on God, and triumphs in the assurance of His countenance
and love. "_Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou
disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the
help of his countenance._" (Ver. 5.) But again the harp is muffled!
_Unbelief_ musters her ranks; fresh remembrances of sin and sorrow
crowd upon him. "_O my God, my soul is cast down within me._" (Ver.
6.) _Faith_, however, has its antidote at hand, and the momentary
cause of depression is removed. The memory of former succours and
mercies inspires with confidence for the future, and he immediately
adds, "_I will remember_ THEE (in this the place of my Exile) _from
the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar_."
But the storm-clouds are still wreathing his sky;--nay, it seems as if
the tempest were deepening. Fresh assaults of temptation are coming in
upon him;--there seems no light in the cloud, no ray in the darkness.
"_Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts; all thy
waves and thy billows are gone over me._" (Ver. 7.) But again, his own
extremity is God's opportunity; Faith is seen cresting the resurgent
waves. Lifting his voice above the storm, he thus expresses his
assurance in God's faithfulness, "_Yet the Lord will command his
loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be
with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life_." (Ver. 8.) Nay, he
resolves in all time to come to provide against the return of seasons
of guilty distrust and misgiving. He dictates and transcribes the very
words of a prayer to be employed as an antidote in any such recurring
moments of despondency. He resolves to rise above frames and feelings,
and to plant his feet on the Rock of Ages, which these fluctuating
billows can never shake;--"_I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou
forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the
enemy?_" (Ver. 9.) The Old nature makes one last and final effort, ere
abandoning the conflict. Unbelief rallies its strength. A former
assault is renewed. "_As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies
reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?_" (Ver.
10.) But he reverts to his prayer! He adopts his own liturgy for a
time of sorrow. "_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._"
(Ver. 11.) He seems to be "answered while yet speaking;" for he closes
with the joyful declaration, "_Who is the health of my countenance,
and my God_." (Ver. 11.) He had made a similar assertion in a former
verse (Ver. 5), "_I shall yet praise him for the help of his
countenance_;" but now he can add the language of triumphant
assurance, "My God!" The conflict is ended;--sense quits the field,
and faith conquers. He began the Psalm in trouble, he ends it with
joy. Its notes throughout are on the minor key, but these merge at
last into a strain of triumph. He began comparing himself to the
stricken deer--the helpless, breathless, panting fugitive;--he ends it
with angel's words,--with the motto and watchword in which a seraph
might well glory--heaven knows no happier--"MY GOD!"
"He looked," says Matthew Henry, "upon the living God as his chief
good, and had set his heart upon Him accordingly, and was resolved to
live and die by Him; and casting anchor thus at first, he rides out
the storm."
* * * * *
O child of God! touchingly expressive picture have we here of the
strange vicissitudes in thy history. The shuttle in the web of thy
spiritual life, darting hither and thither, weaving its chameleon
hues; or, to adopt a more appropriate emblem, thy heart a
battle-field, and "no discharge in that war" till the pilgrim-armour
be exchanged for the pilgrim-rest:--sense and sin doing their utmost
to quench the bivouac-fires of faith, and give the enemy the
advantage: ay, and they _would_ succeed in quenching these, did not
the Lord of pilgrims feed with the oil of His own grace the
languishing flame. "Sometimes," it has been well said, "in the Voyages
of the Soul, we feel that we can only go by anxious soundings,--the
compass itself seeming useless--not knowing our bearings,--nearing
here Christ--then perhaps the dim tolling bell amidst the thick
darkness warning us to keep off."[9] But fear not; He will "bring you
to the haven where ye would be." The voice of triumph will be heard
high above the water-floods. The contest may be long, but it will not
be doubtful. He who rules the raging of the sea will, in His own good
time, say, "Peace, be still, and immediately there will be a great
calm." Have you ever watched the career of the tiny branch or withered
leaf which has been tossed into a little virgin rill on one of our
high-table lands or mountain moors? For a while, in its serpentine
course, it is borne sluggishly along, impeded by protruding moss, or
stone, or lichen. Now it circles and saunters hither and thither on
the lazy streamlet--now floating back towards the point of departure,
as if uncertain which direction to choose. A passing breath of wind
carries it to the centre, and the buoyant rivulet sings its way
joyously onward, bearing its little burden through copse, and birch,
and heather. But again it is obstructed. Some deep inky pool detains
it in the narrow ravine. There it is sucked in, whirled and twisted
about, chafed and tortured with the conflict of waters; or else it
lies a helpless prisoner, immured by the rocks in their fretting
caldrons. But by and by, with a new impulse it breaks away along the
rapid torrent-stream, bounding over cascade and waterfall, home to its
ocean destiny.
[9] Cheever's "Windings."
So it is with the soul! It is often apparently the sport and captive
of opposing currents. It has its pools of darkness, its eddies of
unbelief, its jagged rocks of despair, but it will eventually clear
them all. "All motion," to use the words of one of the best and
saintliest of the old writers on this very Psalm (Sibbs), and which
carry out our illustration, "All motion tends to rest, and ends in it.
God is the centre and resting-place of the soul; and here David takes
up his rest, and so let us. We see that discussing of objections in
the consistory of the Soul, settles the Soul at last--Faith at length
silencing all risings to the contrary. Then whatsoever times come, we
are sure of a hiding-place and a sanctuary."
Yes! your life, notwithstanding all these fluctuations, will end
triumphantly. It may, as in this Psalm, be now a pæan, then a dirge;
now a _Miserere_, then a _Te Deum_. The _Miserere_ and _Te Deum_ may
be interweaved throughout; but the latter will close the
Life-story--the concluding strain will be the anthem of Victory. You
may arrest the arrow in its flight--you may chain the waterfall, or
stay the lightning, sooner than unsay the words of God, "_He that hath
begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus
Christ_." (Phil. i. 6.)
Remember, God does not say, that "good work" is never to be impeded.
He has never given promise in Scripture of an unclouded
day--uninterrupted sunshine--a waveless, stormless sea. No, "the
morning without clouds" is a heavenly emblem. The earthly one is "a
day, in which the light shall neither be clear nor dark." (Zech. xiv.
6.) The analogy of the outer world of nature, at least under these
our chequered and ever-varying skies, teaches us this. Spring comes
smiling, and pours her blossoms into the lap of Summer. But the skies
lower, and the rain and battering hail descend, and the virgin
blossoms droop their heads and almost die. Summer again smiles and the
meadows look gay; the flowers ring merry chimes with their leaves and
petals, and Autumn with glowing face is opening her bosom for the
expected treasure. But all at once drought comes with her fiery
footsteps. Every blade and floweret, gasping for breath, lift their
blanched eyelids to the brazen sky; or the night-winds rock the laden
branches and strew the ground. Thus we see it is not one unvarying,
unchecked progression, from the opening bud to the matured fruit. But
every succeeding month is scarred and mutilated by drought and
moisture, wind and rain, storm and sunshine. Yet, never once has
Autumn failed to gather up her golden sheaves; ay, and if you ask her
testimony, she will tell that the very storm, and wind, and rain you
dreaded as foes, were the best auxiliaries in filling her yellow
garners.
If the experience of any one here present be that of "the deep" and
"the water-flood"--"the stormy wind and tempest," think ever of the
closing words of the Psalm, and let them "turn your mourning into
dancing; take off your sackcloth, and gird you with gladness!" _You_
may change towards God, but He is unchanging towards _you_. The stars
may be swept from our view by intervening clouds, but they shine
bright as ever,--undimmed altar-fires in the great temple of the
universe. Our _vision_ may be at fault, but not their radiance and
undying glory. The Being "not confined to temples made with hands,"
who met this wrestler of old in the forest of Gilead, and poured
better than Gilead's balm into his bosom, is the same now as He was
then. And if thou art a wrestler too, He seems through the moaning of
the storm to say, "_Though thou fall, yet shalt thou not be cast down
utterly, for the Lord upholdeth thee with his right hand_."
"_My God!_" Oh, if that be the last entry in the Diary of religious
experience, be not desponding now because of present passing shadows,
but "thank God and take courage." It is written that "at evening-time
it shall be light." (Zech. xiv. 7.) The sun may wade all day through
murky clouds, but he will pillow his head at night on a setting couch
of vermilion and gold. "Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall
ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers
with _yellow gold_."[10] It was said by aged Jacob, in his prophetic
death-song, regarding that very tribe on the borders of which the
royal exile now sang, "GAD, _a troop shall overcome him: but he shall
overcome at the last_."[11] Was not this the key-note of his present
elegy? Faith could lift its head triumphant in the clang of battle,
amid these troops of spiritual plunderers, and sing, "_Though an host
should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should
rise against me, in_ THIS _will I be confident._"[12]
[10] Ps. lxviii. 13.
[11] Gen. xlix. 19.
[12] Ps. xxvii. 3.
III.
A Peculiar Experience.
"I ask'd the Lord that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek more earnestly His face.
"'Twas He who taught me thus to pray;
And He, I trust, has answer'd prayer,
But it has been in such a way
As almost drove me to despair.
"I hoped that in some favour'd hour
At once He'd answer my request;
And by His love's constraining power,
Subdue my sins and give me rest.
"Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry powers of hell
Assault my soul in every part."
--_Cowper._
"If we listen to David's harp, we shall hear as many hearse-like
harmonies as carols."--_Lord Bacon._
"If we be either in outward affliction or in inward distress, we may
accommodate to ourselves the melancholy expressions we find here. If
not, we must sympathise with those whose case they speak too plainly,
and thank God it is not our own case."--_Matthew Henry._
III.
A PECULIAR EXPERIENCE.
Although this Psalm, in bold and striking figure, presents a faithful
miniature picture of the Believer's life, we must regard it as
depicting an extraordinary experience at a peculiar passage of David's
history, and which has its counterpart still in that of many of God's
children.
The writer of the Psalm was evidently undergoing "spiritual
depression"--what is sometimes spoken of as "spiritual desertion,"--that
sorrow, awful in its reality--too deep for utterance--deeper than the
yawning chasm made by family bereavement--the sorrow of all sorrows,
the loss of God in the soul!
There is much caution needed in speaking of this. There are causes
which lead to spiritual depression which are purely physical, arising
from a diseased body, an overstrung mind--a succession of calamities
weakening and impairing the nervous system. We know how susceptible
are the body and mind together, of being affected by external
influences. "We are," says an able analyser of human emotions,
"fearfully and wonderfully made. Of that constitution which in our
ignorance we call union of soul and body, we know little respecting
what is cause, and what effect. We would fain believe that the mind
has power over the body; but it is just as true that the body rules
the mind. Causes apparently the most trivial--a heated room, want of
exercise--a sunless day, a northern aspect--will make all the
difference between happiness and unhappiness; between faith and doubt;
between courage and indecision. To our fancy there is something
humiliating in being thus at the mercy of our animal organism. We
would fain find nobler causes for our emotions."[13] Yes--many of
those sighs and tears, and morbid, depressed feelings, which
Christians speak of as the result of spiritual darkness and the
desertion of God, are merely the result of physical derangement, the
penalty often for the violation of the laws of health. The atmosphere
we breathe is enough to account for them. They come and go--rise and
fall with the mercury in the tube. These are cases, not for the
spiritual, but for the bodily physician. Their cure is in attendance
to the usual laws and prescriptions which regulate the healthy action
of the bodily functions.
[13] Rev. Fred. Robertson's "Sermons; Second Series," p. 85.
There is another class of causes which lead to spiritual depression
which are partly physical and partly religious. There must necessarily
be depression where there is undue elation; where the soul-structure
is built on fluctuating frames and feelings, and the religious life is
made more _subjective_ than _objective_.
Many imagine, unless they are at all times in a glow of fervour--an
ecstatic frame of feeling--all must be wrong with them.[14] Now, there
is nothing more dangerous or deceptive than a life of mere feeling;
and its _most_ dangerous phase is a life of religious emotional
excitement. It is in the last degree erroneous to consider all this
glowing ecstasy of frame a necessary condition of healthy spiritual
life. Artificial excitement, in any shape, is perilous. Apart
altogether from the moral and religious aspect of the question, the
tendency of the ball-room and theatre, and a preference in reading for
works of fiction, is to make a man nauseate the plain, commonplace
work, the occurrences and themes of this every-day world. Feed him on
dainties and forced meats, and he despises husks and plain fare.
Equally true is this with regard to the life of the soul. It is not
fed on luscious stimulants and ecstatic experiences. When it is so,
the result is every now and then a collapse; like a child building his
mimic castle too high, the perpendicular and equilibrium are lost. It
totters and falls, and he has just to begin again. The dew distils,
and hangs its spangled jewels on blade and flower, gently and in
silence. The rain comes down in tiny particles and soft showers, not
in drenching water-floods. So the healthy Christian holds on the even
tenor of his way, unaffected by the barometer of feeling. He knows
this is apt to be elevated and depressed by a thousand accidents over
which he has no control. His life is fed, not from the fitful and
uncertain streams issuing from the low ground of his own experience,
but from the snow-clad summits--the Alps of God. Were he thus
suffering himself to depend on the rills of his own feelings, his
brook would often be dry in summer--the season when he most needed it;
whereas the supply from the glacier-beds on which the sun shines, is
fullest in these very times of drought.
[14] "You will not be asked in the last Great Day whether you had
great enjoyment and much enlargement of soul here. Speak to that
vast multitude, which no man can number, now around the throne.
Ask them whether they came through much _consolation_ and joy in
the Lord. No! through much _tribulation_. Ask them whether they
were saved by their warmth of love to their Saviour. No! but they
had washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the
Lamb."--_Miss Plumptre's Letters._
Add to this, religion is shorn of its glory when it is dwarfed into a
mere thing of sentiment and feeling. Its true grandeur and greatness
is, when it incorporates itself with active duty, and fulfils its best
definition as not a "_being_" but a "_doing_." Of nothing, therefore,
do we require to be more jealous, than a guilty, unmanly, morbid
dwelling on feelings and experiences. You remember Elijah, when he
fled pusillanimous and panic-stricken from his work, and took to a
hermit-cell amid the solitudes of Sinai. We find him seated in his
lonely cave, his head drooping on his breast, sullen thought mantling
his brow, muttering his querulous soliloquy, "I am left alone." The
voice of God hunts out the fugitive from duty. "What doest thou here,
Elijah? Why in this cave, brooding in a coward spirit, unworthy of
thee? Art thou to cease to work for _Me_, because the high day of
excitements on the heights of Carmel are over? Here is food to
strengthen thy body, and here is 'the still, small voice' of my love
to strengthen thy soul. Go forth to active duty. Leave thy cave and
thy cloak behind thee. Take thy pilgrim-staff and scrip, and with the
consciousness of a great work in hand, and a brief time to do it in,
arise, and onward to Horeb, the mount of God!" (1 Kings xix.)
* * * * *
But having thrown out these preliminary cautions, the question occurs:
_Are_ there no cases of spiritual depression or desertion, arising
purely from _spiritual_ causes?
We answer, Yes. The Bible recognises such Spiritual darkness--absence
of all spiritual comfort and joy--is no figment of man's theological
creed. It is a sad and solemn verity--the experience, too, of God's
own children. "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth
the voice of his servant, _that walketh in darkness, and hath no
light_?" (Isa. l. 10.) "Oh," says the afflicted patriarch of Uz, "that
I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me; when
his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through
darkness." (Job xxix. 2, 3.) "In my prosperity," is the testimony of
David, at a later period of his life, "I said, I shall never be moved.
Lord, by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong: _thou
didst hide thy face, and I was troubled_." (Ps. xxx. 5-7.) "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: _I sought him, but I found him
not_.... My beloved had _withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul
failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called
him, but he gave me no answer_." (Sol. Song iii. 2, v. 6.) Can we
forget a more awful and impressive example? ONE soaring above the
reach of all grovelling human experiences, but yet who tells us, in
His bitter Eloi cry, that even HE knew what it was to be God-deserted
and forsaken!
Are there any whose eyes trace these pages who have ever undergone
such a season? or it may be are undergoing it now? I stop not to
inquire as to the cause;--indulged sin, omitted or carelessly
performed duty, neglect of prayer, worldly conformity.[15] Are you
feelingly alive, painfully conscious that your love, like that of
many, has waxed cold;--are you mourning that you have not the nearness
to the Mercy-seat that once you enjoyed,--not the love of your Bibles,
and ordinances, and sacraments that you once had,--that a heavy cloud
mantles your spiritual horizon,--God's countenance, not what once it
was, irradiated with a Father's smiles,--nor heaven what once it
seemed, a second home?
[15] "In the time of need He hides Himself often, and seems to
have forgotten me. Tears have thus been my meat, because of their
saying unto my soul, 'Where is now thy God?' But I am bound by all
the experienced freeness and riches of the Redeemer's grace to
say, that when He hides Himself from me, it is not because He has
forgotten _me_, but because I have been forgetting
Him."--_Hewitson._
"O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, not comforted!" do not
despond. In these very sighings and moanings of your downcast spirit,
there are elements for hope and comfort, not for despair. They are the
evidences and indications that the spark, though feeble, is not
quenched--that the pulse, though languid, still beats--that faith,
though like a grain of mustard-seed, is still germinating. "O thou of
little faith, wherefore dost thou doubt?" It is that very _shadow_
that has now come athwart your soul, and which you so bitterly mourn,
which tells of _sunshine_. As it is the shadow which enables us to
read the hours on the dial, so is it in the spiritual life. It is
because of these shadows on the soul's dial-face that we can infer the
shining of a better Sun. "The wicked have no bands in _their_
(spiritual) death." Their life has been nothing but shadow; they
cannot therefore mourn the loss of a sunshine they never felt or
enjoyed. Well has it been said, "When the refreshing dews of grace
seem to be withheld, and we are ready to say, 'Our hope is lost, God
hath forgotten to be gracious'--this is that furnace in which one that
is not a child of God never was placed. For Satan takes good care not
to disquiet his children. He has no fire for their souls on this side
everlasting burnings; his fatal teaching ever is, Peace, peace!"[16]
But what, desponding one, is, or ought to be, thy resort? Go! exile in
spirit--go, like that royal mourner amid the oak-thickets of Gilead!
Brood no more in unavailing sorrow and with burning tears. Thou
mayest, like him, have much to depress thy spirit. Black and crimson
sins may have left their indelible stain on the page of memory. In
aching heart-throbs, thou mayest be heaving forth the bitter
confession, "_Mine_ iniquities have separated between me and my God."
But go like him! take down thy silent harp. Its strings may be
corroded with rust. They may tell the touching story of a sad
estrangement. Go to the quiet solitude of thy chamber. Seek out the
unfrequented path of prayer;--choked it may be with the weeds of
forgetfulness and sloth. Cast thyself on thy bended knees; and, as the
wounded deer bounds past thee (emblem of thine own bleeding heart),
wake the echoes of thy spirit with the penitential cry, "_As the hart
panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O
God!_"
[16] Miss Plumtre's Letters.
CONTENTS OF THE PSALM.
I.
The Hart Panting.
"Oh, would I were as free to rise
As leaves on autumn's whirlwind borne,
The arrowy light of sunset skies,
Or sound--or rays--or star of morn,
Which meets in heaven at twilight's close,
Or aught which soars uncheck'd and free,
Through earth and heaven, that I might lose
Myself in finding Thee!"
"O mysterious Jesus, teach us Thy works and Thy plans. Let our hearts
pant after Thee as the hart after the water-brooks. Create a thirst
which nothing shall satisfy but the fountain of eternal love. See the
velocity with which the needle flees to the magnet _when it gets
within distance_; so shall we hasten to our Magnet--our Beloved--as we
approach Him."--_Lady Powerscourt's Letters._
"As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after
thee, O God."--_Verse 1._
I.
THE HART PANTING.
We have pictured, in a preceding chapter, the uncrowned Monarch
of Israel seated, pensive and sad, amid "the willows by the
water-courses;" or wandering forth, amid the deepening twilight-shadows,
with the roll of Jordan at his side, perhaps, like his great ancestor,
to "wrestle with God until the breaking of the day."
We have already adverted to the simple incident which arrested his
attention. A breathless tenant of the forest bounded past him to
quench its thirst in the neighbouring river. That unconscious child of
nature furnishes the key-note of his song. Let us sit by the banks, as
the Exile takes down his harp, and thus sings--"AS THE HART PANTETH
AFTER THE WATER-BROOKS, SO PANTETH MY SOUL AFTER THEE, O GOD."
God is the only satisfying portion of the soul. Every theory of human
happiness is defective and incomplete which falls short of the
aspirations of our immortal natures. Born with capacities for the
infinite, man naturally spurns the finite. No satellite, with its
borrowed light, will compensate for the loss of the sun. You may as
well expect the caged wild beast to be happier within the iron bars of
his den than roaming lord of the forest, as for the human spirit to be
content with the present and the finite as a substitute for the
immortal and the infinite! The water-brooks alone could slake the
thirst of that roe on the mountains of Gilead. You might have offered
it choicest pastures. You might have bid it roam the sunniest glades
of the forest, or repose under the majestic shadow of the monarch-oaks
of Bashan; it would have spurned them all; and, with fleet foot, have
bounded down the valley in search of the stream.
So with the soul. Nothing but the stream flowing from the Everlasting
Hills will satisfy it. You may tempt a man, as he is hurrying on his
immortal way, with the world's pastures,--you may hold out to him the
golden sheaves of riches,--you may detain him amid the sunny glades of
pleasure, or on the hill-tops of fame (and he is but too willing for
a while to linger)--but satisfy him they cannot! When his nobler
nature acquires its rightful ascendancy he will spurn them all.
Brushing each one in succession away, as the stag does the dewy drops
of the morning, he will say--"All are insufficient! I wish them not. I
have been mocked by their failure. I have found that each has a lie in
its right hand;--it is a poor counterfeit--a shadowy figure of the
true. I want the fountain of living waters--I want the Infinite of
Knowledge, Goodness, Truth, Love!" "In the LORD put I my trust: why
say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?"[17]
[17] Psalm xi. 1.
The fact is, it is the very grandeur of the soul which leads it thus
to pant after God. Small things satisfy a small capacity, but what is
made receptive of the vast and glorious can only be satisfied with
great things. The mind of the child is satisfied with the toy or the
bauble; the mind of the untutored savage with bits of painted glass or
tinsel; but the man, the sage, the philosopher, desiderate higher
possessions, purer knowledge, nobler themes of thought and objects of
ambition. Some insects are born for an hour, and are satisfied with
it. A summer's afternoon is the duration of existence allotted to
myriads of tiny _ephemera_. In _their_ case, youth and age are crowded
into a few passing minutes. The descending sun witnesses their birth
and death;--the lifetime of other animals would be to them an
immortality. The soul, being infinite and unlimited in its capacities,
has correspondingly high aspirations. Vain would be the attempt to
fill up a yawning gulf by throwing into it a few grains of sand. But
not more vain or ineffectual than try to answer the deep yearnings of
the human spirit by the seen and the temporal.
Yes! on all the world's fountains, drink at them as you may, "_thirst
again_" is written. Of the world's mountains, climb them as you may,
you will never say, "I have reached the coveted summit. It is enough."
Men go sighing on, drinking their rivers of pleasure and climbing
their mountains of vanity. They feel all the while some undefined,
inarticulate, nameless longing after a satisfying good; but it is a
miserable travestie to say that it has been found, or can be found, in
anything here. "_Who will shew us any good?_" will still be the cry of
the groping seeker till he has learned to say, "_Lord, lift_ THOU
_upon me the light of thy countenance._"
We know how hard and difficult it is to convince of these sublime
verities. The soul, even in its hours of trouble and deep conviction,
is like a castaway from shipwreck, who sees from his raft-planks
something cresting the waves. He imagines it an island! As he nears
it, he fancies he sees purple flowers drooping over the solid rock,
and the sea-birds nestling in the crevices. But it is only an
aggregate of withered leaves and rotten branches, which the receding
tide has tossed together, the wayward freak of old ocean.