outer trial, but inward sources of disquietude which are causing
despondency and doubt. It may be thoughts regarding your _spiritual_
condition. Latent corruption in a partially renewed and sanctified
heart,--the power of remaining sin robbing you of your peace; at times
leading you to question whether you have any real interest in Gospel
blessings and Gospel hopes--whether you have not long ago quenched the
strivings of the Holy Spirit by your impenitence and unbelief--whether
your hopes of heaven may not after all be a shadowy delusive dream.
"_Why art thou cast down, O my soul?_" Who, I ask, is teaching you to
breathe out these penitential sighings after a happiness to which at
present you feel you are a stranger? Who is it that is teaching you
thus to interrogate yourself about the erring past? It is not
_Nature's_ work. If there be within you one true breathing after
repentance and return, that secret aspiration is the work of that
Spirit who, although He will not always strive, is hereby shewing you
that He _is_ striving still with _you_! Think of all that God hath
done for you in the past, and is still willing to do. After the gift
of His Son,--after such an expenditure of wrath and suffering on the
head of a guiltless Surety, and all this that a way of reconciliation
might be opened up,--think how dishonouring it would be to distrust
either His ability or His willingness to save you. Having bestowed
this greatest boon, He will "with Him also _freely_ give you _all
things_." Turn away from self,--sinful self, righteous self, condemned
self,--and direct your believing regards to Him who is "_the_ HOPE _of
Israel and the Saviour thereof_." Keep your eye steadily fixed on the
infinite grandeur of His finished work and righteousness. Look to
Jesus and believe! Look to Jesus and live! Nay, more; as you look to
Him, hoist your sails, and buffet manfully the sea of life. Do not
remain in the haven of distrust, or sleeping on your shadows in
inactive repose, or suffering your frames and feelings to pitch and
toss on one another like vessels idly moored in a harbour. The
religious life is not a brooding over emotions, grazing the keel of
faith in the shallows, or dragging the anchor of hope through the oozy
tide-mud, as if afraid of encountering the healthy breeze. Away! with
your canvas spread to the gale, trusting in Him who rules the raging
of the waters. The safety of the timid bird is to be on the wing, if
its haunt be near the ground,--if it fly low, it exposes itself to the
fowler's net or snare. If we remain grovelling on the low ground of
feeling and emotion, we shall find ourselves entangled in a thousand
meshes of doubt and despondency, temptation and unbelief. "_But surely
in vain the net is spread in the sight of_ THAT WHICH HATH A
WING"[34]--(marginal reading.) "_They that wait (or hope) in the Lord
shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as
eagles._"[35]
[34] Prov. i. 17.
[35] Isaiah xl. 31.
HOPE strengthens and invigorates her pinions the higher she soars.
She gathers courage from the past, and looks with eagle eye to the
future. "_I know_," says Paul, "_in whom I have believed_," (hoped, or
trusted,) "_and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have
committed unto Him_." "_I will hope continually_," says David, "_and
will yet praise Thee more and more_."[36] Again, using a kindred
emblem--the bird in the tempest rushing for shelter under the mother's
wing--"_Thou hast_ BEEN _my help,_ THEREFORE _in the shadow of Thy
wings will I rejoice_."[37]
[36] Psalm lxxi. 14.
[37] Psalm lxiii. 7.
Can such be said of the world's hopes? Does experience lead to repose
in _them_ with similar implicit confidence? _Hope_--the hope of
earthly good, and earthly joy, and earthly happiness--is often (too
often) the mirage of life; the bubble on the stream, tinted with
evanescent glory, a flash of prismatic beauty, and then _gone_!
Multitudes flock to this enchantress in her cave, and though mocked
and duped, and mocked and duped again, still they haunt her oracle,
and kiss her magic wand. She has built for them again and again air
castles--turret on turret, buttress on buttress, gilded dome and
glittering minaret, and these have melted like frost-work. But yet
these Babel builders, with the same avidity as ever, return to the
work, and again the fantastic battlements are piled high in mid air!
We do not condemn these noble aspirations and struggles of this noble
emotion;--far from it. What would the world be without Hope? It is the
oil which keeps its vast machinery in play; it is the secret of all
success--the incentive to all enterprise. Annihilate hope, and you
blot out a sun from the firmament. Annihilate hope, and the husbandman
would forsake his furrow, the physician his patient, the merchant his
traffic; the student would quench his midnight lamp; science would at
this hour have been lisping its alphabet, and art and philosophy would
have been in their infancy.
But this we say, that if so much is perilled on a peradventure;--if
_hope_--the _ignis fatuus_ of earth--be so greedily pursued,--why the
cold and careless indifference regarding "the hope which maketh not
ashamed"--the hope which is beyond the possibility of disappointment;
promises which never fail; words which rest on a firmer and surer
basis than the foundations of earth and the pillars of heaven? Shall
the disappointed hewer still go on patching the shivered and broken
_earthly_ cistern? Shall the man of science, undeterred by successive
failures, pursue his unwearied analysis? Shall the merchant remain
unbaffled by adverse markets that have drained his coffers, or
successive storms that have stranded his vessels and wrecked his
cargo? Shall the fragments of a brave army re-muster at the bugle
call, and, amid dying comrades around and a shower of iron hail in
front, return with undaunted hearts to the charge? Shall pining
captives in a beleaguered garrison, pressed by famine, decimated by
disease, outnumbered by force--shall these light their beacon-fires of
_hope_, and sit to the last by their smouldering ashes, struggling on,
either till calm endurance win its recompence, or until hope and life
expire together? And shall the spiritual builder, or merchant, or
soldier, be left alone coward and faint-hearted, and give way to
unworthy distrust, or pusillanimous despair; and that, too, when the
guarantees of _their_ hope are so amazing? Listen to them! What words
could be stronger? what pledges more inviolable? "IN HOPE _of eternal
life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world
began._"[38] "_Wherein God, 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: which hope we have as an
anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into
that within the veil._"[39]
[38] Titus i. 2.
[39] Heb. vi. 17-20.
Oh, beautiful figure! Hope casts its anchor into the Rock of Ages
within the veil. The ship may be tossing in the surging sea below, but
a chain of everlasting love and grace links it to the throne of God.
I love to walk through the Bible, and gaze on its many delineations of
_Hope_. It is a picture-gallery of this noble grace! As the great
painters of the middle ages clung to favourite subjects, so HOPE seems
ever to meet us in some form or other, as we tread this long corridor
of inspired portraits.
Here is the earliest. A picture hung in a framework of sorrow. Its
subject is two drooping exiles going with tears out of Eden. But, lo!
a tinge of light gleams in the dark sky, and the angel of _Hope_
drops in their ears healing words of comfort.
Here is another. An ark is tossed in a raging deluge. The heavens are
black above. Neither sun nor stars appear. All around is a waste
wilderness of waters. But, lo! by the window of the ark a weary bird
is seen fluttering, and bearing in its mouth an olive branch of
_Hope_!
Here, again, is a picture called "_The Father of the Faithful_." Its
subject is a solitary pilgrim, one of the world's gray patriarchs. He
is treading along amid some wild pastoral hills, all ignorant of his
destiny; but he has a staff in his hand--it is the staff of _Hope_!
Here is another. It is an Arabian Emir, once a Prince of the East,
sitting amid ashes, the victim of a loathsome disease; and worse than
all, of Satanic power. But _Hope_ tunes his lips to sing, "_I know
that my Redeemer liveth_."
Here is a vast exodus of six hundred thousand slaves from a land of
bondage, separated by an inhospitable desert from the land of their
fathers; but _Hope_ silvers the edges of their pillar of cloud, and
gleams by night in their pillar of fire.
Here is another picture, of exiled patriots seated by the waters of
Babylon. They have hung their harps on the willows. They refuse to
sing the Lord's song in that strange land. But HOPE is represented
restoring the broken strings; and with their eyes suffused with tears,
yet glistening with joyous visions, thus they pour out their plaintive
prayer--"_Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the
south._"[40]
[40] Psalm cxxvi. 4.
Time would fail to traverse these halls and walls of ancient memory.
HOPE, in every diversified form and attitude, is portrayed in the
history of the glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship
of prophets, the noble army of martyrs,--ay, sustaining too, in the
midst of His sufferings and sorrows, the very bosom of the Son of
God--for was it not _hope_ ("the joy that was set before Him") that
made Him "endure the cross, despising the shame?"[41]
[41] Heb. xii. 2.
And what _Hope_ has proved in the history of the Church collectively,
it is in the life of every individual believer. By nature he is a
"prisoner," but "a prisoner of hope."[42] The gospel is a "gospel of
hope." Its message is called "_the good hope through grace_."[43]
The God of the gospel is called "_the God of Hope_."[44] The "helmet
of salvation" is the helmet of "_hope_."[45] The "anchor of the soul"
is the anchor of "_hope_."[46] The believer "_rejoices in hope_,"[47]
and "_abounds in hope_."[48] _Christ is in him_ "_the hope of
glory_."[49] HOPE peoples to him the battlements of heaven with
sainted ones in the spirit-land. He "sorrows not as others, who have
no HOPE."[50] When death comes, _Hope_ smoothes his dying pillow,
wipes the damps from his brow, and seals his eyes. "_Now, Lord, what
wait I for? my HOPE is in Thee._"[51] _Hope_ stands with her torch
over his grave, and in the prospect of the dust returning to its dust,
he says, "_My flesh shall rest in hope._"[52] _Hope_ is one of three
guardian graces that conduct him to the heavenly gate. Now abideth
these three, "Faith, HOPE, and Love," and if it be added, "_the
greatest of these is Love_," it is because Hope and her companion
finish their mission at the celestial portal! They proceed no further,
they go back to the world, to the wrestlers in the earthly conflict.
Faith returns to her drooping hearts, to undo heavy burdens, and to
let the oppressed go free. _Hope_ goes to her dungeon vaults, her beds
of sickness, her chambers of bereavement and sorrow. To take Faith or
Hope to heaven, would be to take the Physician to the sound man, or to
offer crutches to the strong, or to help to light the meridian sun
with a tiny candle; _Faith_ is then changed to sight, and Hope to full
fruition. LOVE alone holds on her infinite mission. _Faith_ and _Hope_
are her two soaring pinions. She drops them as she enters the gates of
glory. The watcher puts out his beacon when the sun floods the
ocean--the miner puts out his lamp when he ascends to the earth.
_Hope's_ taper light is unneeded in that world where "the sun shall no
more go down, neither for brightness shall the moon withdraw itself,
but where the Lord our God shall be an everlasting light, and the days
of our mourning shall be ended."
[42] Zech. ix. 12.
[43] 2 Thess. ii. 16.
[44] Rom. xv. 13.
[45] 1 Thess. v. 8.
[46] Heb. vi. 19.
[47] Rom xii. 12.
[48] Rom. xv. 13.
[49] Col. i. 27.
[50] 1 Thess. iv. 13.
[51] Ps. xxxix. 7.
[52] Ps. xvi. 9.
VIII.
The Hill Mizar.
"All scenes alike engaging prove
To souls impress'd with sacred love!
Where'er they dwell, they dwell in Thee;
In heaven, in earth, or on the sea.
"To me remains nor place nor time;
My country is in every clime;
I can be calm and free from care
On any shore, since God is there.
"While place we seek, or place we shun,
The soul finds happiness in none;
But, with a God to guide our way,
'Tis equal joy to go or stay.
"Could I be cast where thou art not,
That were indeed a dreadful lot;
But regions none remote I call,
Secure of finding God in all."
--_Cowper._
"It is profitable for Christians to be often calling to mind the
dealings of God with their souls. It was Paul's accustomed manner, and
that when tried for his life, even to open before his judges the
manner of his conversion. He would think of that day and that hour in
the which he did first meet with grace, for he found it support onto
him. There was nothing to David like Goliath's sword. The very sight
and remembrance of that did preach forth God's deliverance to him. Oh,
the remembrance of my great sins, of my great temptations, and of my
great fears for perishing for ever. They bring afresh into my mind the
remembrance of mercy and help--my great support from heaven, and the
great grace that God extendeth to such a wretch as I."--_John Bunyan._
"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."--_Verse 6._
VIII.
THE HILL MIZAR.
In the preceding verse, we found the Psalmist chiding his soul for the
unreasonableness of its depression--calling upon it to exercise hope
and trust in God, under the assurance that he would "yet praise Him
for the help of His countenance."
But "_what will ye see in the Shulamite_?" Another experience
testifies afresh, "_As it were the company of two armies._"[53] HOPE
has no sooner risen to the surface than despondency returns. The
struggling believer threatens to sink. The wave is again beat back.
His soul is again "cast down!" But one word--an old monosyllable of
comfort--is borne on the refluent billow, "O MY GOD!" This "strong
swimmer in his agony" seizes hold of that never-failing support, the
faithfulness of a covenant-keeping Jehovah. With this he breasts the
opposing tide, and will assuredly at last reach the shore. The very
tribulations that are casting him down,--threatening to submerge
him,--are only nerving his spirit for bolder feats; leading him to
value more the everlasting arms that are lower and deeper than the
darkest wave.
[53] Sol. Song vi. 13.
We have heard of a bell, set in a lighthouse, rung by the sweep of the
winds and the dash of the billows. In the calm, stormless sea, it hung
mute and motionless; but when the tempest was let loose and the ocean
fretted, the benighted seaman was warned by its chimes; and beating
hearts ashore, in the fisherman's lonely hut, listened to its ominous
music. We read in the previous verse, of the lighthouse of FAITH,
built on the rock of HOPE. God has placed bells there. But it needs
the storms of adversity to blow ere they are heard. In the calm of
uninterrupted prosperity, they are silent and still. But the hurricane
arises. The sea of life is swept with tempest, and, amid the thick
darkness, they ring the peal of heavenly confidence, "MY GOD, MY GOD!"
_My God!_ What a heritage of comfort do these words contain--in all
time of our tribulation--in all time of our wealth--in the hour of
death, and at the day of judgment! They describe the great Being who
fills heaven with His glory, as the covenant portion and heritage of
believers. His attributes are embarked on their side; His holiness and
righteousness, and justice and truth, are the immutable guarantees and
guardians of their everlasting well-being. Hear His own gracious
promise--"_I will bring the third part through the fire, and will
refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried:
they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my
people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God._"[54] Moreover, He is
the only possession which is theirs _absolutely_. All else they have,
is in the shape of a loan, which they receive as stewards. Their time,
their talents, their possessions, their friends, are only _leased_ by
them from the Great Proprietor of life and being. But they _can_ say
unreservedly, "_The Lord is my portion._" "_God, even our_ OWN _God,
shall bless us._" Ay, and we are told, "_God is not ashamed to be
called_ THEIR GOD."[55] "The _name_ of the Lord" is thus "a strong
tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe."[56] That salvation
purchased by Jesus,--the amazing method by which every attribute of
the Divine nature has been magnified, and every requirement of the
Divine law has been met,--is "for walls and bulwarks." The believer
not only can lay hold on higher blessings--"the good hope through
grace," "glory, honour, immortality, eternal life,"--but even with
regard to the circumstantials of the present, the appointments and
allotments in the house of his pilgrimage, he can feel that they are
so regulated and overruled as best to promote his spiritual interests;
and that "all things" (yes, "ALL things") are "working together for
his good." Take then, desponding one! the opening words of David's
lamentation. They quiet all apprehensions. This all-gracious Being who
gave His own Son for thee, must have some wise reason in such
discipline. Oh, confide all thy perplexities, and _this_ perplexity,
into His hands, saying, "_I am oppressed, undertake_ THOU _for me!_"
Who can forget that it was this same monosyllable of comfort that
cheered a greater Sufferer at a more awful hour? The two most
memorable spots in His midnight of agony,--Gethsemane and Calvary, the
Garden and the Cross,--have this solitary gleam of sunshine breaking
through the darkness, "O MY FATHER!" "MY GOD, MY GOD!"
[54] Zech. xiii. 9.
[55] Heb. xi. 16.
[56] Prov. xviii. 10.
Let us now proceed to the main feature in this verse. We have already
noted how the exiled King had tried to reason his soul out of its
depression by the exercise of HOPE--by looking beyond the shadows of
the present to a brighter _future_. But the torch flickered and
languished in his hand. He adopts a new expedient. Instead of looking
to the _future_, he resolves to take a _retrospective_ survey; he
directs his eye to the _past_. As often at eventide, when the lower
valleys are in shadow, the mountain-tops are gilded with the radiance
of the setting sun; so from the Valley of Humiliation, where he now
was, he looks back on the lofty memorials of God's faithfulness. He
"_lifts his eyes unto the_ HILLS, _from whence cometh his help_." "_O
my God, I will remember_ THEE!" "This is _my_ infirmity," he seems to
say, when he thinks of the weakness of his faith, and the fitfulness
of his frames and feelings: "but I will remember the years of the
right hand of the Most High. I will remember the works of the Lord;
surely I will remember _Thy_ wonders of old."[57] With this key he
proceeds again to open the door of HOPE. And as he treads the valley
of Achor, he "sings there as in the days of his youth."[58]
[57] Psalm lxxvii. 10, 11.
[58] Hosea ii. 15.
In connexion with this remembrance of his God, David alludes to some
well-known places in his Kingdom--"_The land of Jordan, and the
Hermonites, and the hill Mizar._"
What means he by this reference? His language may admit of a twofold
interpretation.
1. He may possibly refer to his present sojourn in the region beyond
Jordan, with the Hermon range in sight; and which had this
peculiarity, that it was beyond the old boundary-line of the Land of
Promise, making him for the time, "an alien from the commonwealth of
Israel."
We know from a passage in Joshua (chap. xxii.) how sacredly the
division between the covenant people and the neighbouring tribes was
preserved. The latter were denominated a "_possession unclean_;" the
former, "_the land of the possession of the Lord, wherein the Lord's
tabernacle is_." How bitter must it have been to a patriotic heart
like that of the Psalmist, thus to be cut off (even though for a brief
season) from all participation in national and sanctuary
blessings,--to stand outside the land trodden by the footsteps of
angels, consecrated by the ashes of patriarchs, and over which hovered
the shadowing wings of Jehovah!
But he exults in the persuasion that Israel's God is not confined to
lands or to sanctuaries. "_I will remember Thee_," says the banished
monarch. "Though wandering here beyond the region Thou hast blest with
Thy favour, I will not cease still to call Thee and claim Thee as my
God, and to recount all the manifold tokens of Thy mercy, even though
it be from the 'land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill
Mizar.' My foes may drive me from my home,--they may strip me of my
regal glories,--they may make me the butt of scorn, the mark for their
arrows;--but they cannot banish me from the better portion and
heritage I have in Thy blessed self!"
If we should ever be in circumstances when, like David, we are denuded
of the means of grace--shut out from the public ministrations of the
sanctuary,--or, what is more common, placed in a disadvantageous
position for spiritual advancement;--when our situation as regards the
world, the family, business, pursuits, companions, society, is such
as to prove detrimental to the interests of our souls,--let us still
"_remember God_!" Let the loss of means, and privileges, and
opportunities, and congenial intercourse, draw us nearer the Source of
all knowledge, and peace, and true joy. If the starlight be wanting,
let us prize the sunlight more. If the streams fail, let us go direct
to the fountainhead.
Yes, and God can make His people independent of all outward
circumstances. In the court of an Ethiopian Queen there was a
believing Treasurer. In the household of Nero there were illustrious
saints. Down in the depths of the briny ocean, imprisoned in the
strangest of tombs, a disobedient prophet "remembered God," and his
prayer was heard. Joseph was torn away from the land of his birth, and
the home where his piety had been nurtured, but in Egypt "_the Lord
was with Joseph_." "At my first answer," says the apostle of the
Gentiles, "no _man_ stood with me, but all _men_ forsook me....
Notwithstanding, THE LORD stood by me, and strengthened me."
Comforting thought! that the true Sanctuary, of which all earthly ones
are the shadowy type, is ever near: God himself, the refuge and
dwelling-place of His people to all generations, and who, wherever we
are, can turn the place of forlorn exile--our "land of Jordan, the
Hermonites, the hill Mizar"--into scenes bright with manifestations of
His covenant love.
* * * * *
2. But the references to these several localities may admit of a
different interpretation. David may be reverting to some memorable
epochs in his past history--some green spots in the waste of memory,
where he enjoyed peculiar tokens of God's grace and presence.
We spoke in last chapter of _Hope's_ picture-gallery. _Memory_ has
one, stranger still--filled with landscapes of imperishable interest!
Who has not such a gallery in his own soul? Let Memory withdraw her
folding-doors--and what do we see? The old homes of cherished infancy
may be the first to crowd the walls and arrest the eye;--scenes of
life's bright morning, the sun tipping with his rising beam the dim
mountain-heights of the future! In the foreground, there is the
murmuring brook by which we wandered, and the umbrageous tree under
which we sat;--countenances glowing with smiles are haunting every
walk and greeting us at every turn--the ringing laugh of childhood at
some--venerable forms bending at others.
But more hallowed remembrances crowd the canvas. Ebenezers and
Bethel-stones appear conspicuous in the distance--mute and silent
memorials, amid the gray mists of the past, which read a lesson of
encouragement and comfort in a desponding and sorrowful present.
David thus trod the corridors of memory. When the future was dark and
louring, he surveys picture by picture, scene by scene, along the
chequered gallery of his eventful life! With Jordan at his feet, the
Hermon range in the distance, and some _Mizar_--some "_little hill_"
(as the word means)--rising conspicuous in view, he dwells on various
signal instances of God's goodness and mercy in connexion with these
localities--"I will remember Thee" (as it may be rendered) "_regarding
the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar_."[59]
[59] "It is said by those who have visited those parts, that one
remarkable effect produced is the changed aspect of the hills of
Judah and Ephraim. Their monotonous character is lost; and the
range, when seen as a whole, is in the highest degree diversified
and impressive. And the wide openings in the western hills, as
they ascend from the Jordan valley, give such extensive glimpses
into the heart of the country, that not merely the general range,
but particular localities can be discovered with ease.... From the
castle of Rubad, north of the Jabbok, are distinctly visible
Lebanon, the Sea of Galilee, Esdraelon in its full extent, Carmel,
the Mediterranean, and the whole range of Judah and Ephraim. 'It
is the finest view,' to use the words of another traveller, 'that
I ever saw in any part of the world.'"--_Stanley's Sinai and
Palestine_, p. 318.