_THE RETURN_
iii. 40-42
When prophets, speaking in the name of God, promised the exiles a
restoration to their land and the homes of their fathers, it was
always understood and often expressly affirmed that this reversal of
their outward fortunes must be preceded by an inner change, a return
to God in penitent submission. Expulsion from Canaan was the
chastisement of apostasy from God; it was only right and reasonable
that the discipline should be continued as long as the sin that
necessitated it remained. It would be a mistake, however, to relegate
the treatment of this deadly sin to a secondary place, as only the
cause of a more serious trouble. There could be no more serious
trouble. The greatest evil from which Israel suffered was not the
Babylonian exile; it was her self-inflicted banishment from God. The
greatest blessing to be sought for her was not liberty to return to
the hills and cities of Palestine; it was permission and power to come
back to God. It takes us long to learn that sin is worse than
punishment, and that to be brought home to our Father in heaven is a
more desirable good than any earthly recovery of prosperity. But the
soul that can say with the elegist, "The Lord is my portion," has
reached the vantage ground from which the best things can be seen in
their true proportions; and to such a soul no advent of temporal
prosperity can compare with the gaining of its one prized possession.
In the triplet of verses that follows the pointed phrase which rebukes
complaint for suffering by attributing it to sin the poet conducts us
to those high regions where the more spiritual truth concerning these
matters can be appreciated.
The form of the language here passes into the plural. Already we have
been made to feel that the man who has seen affliction is a
representative sufferer, although he is describing his own personal
distresses. The immediately preceding clause seems to point to the
sinful Israelite generally, in its vague reference to a "living
man."[209] Now there is a transition in the movement of the elegy, and
the solitary voice gives place to a chorus, the Jews as a body
appearing before God to pour out their confessions in common.
According to his usual method the elegist makes the transition quite
abruptly, without any explanatory preparation. The style resembles
that of an oratorio, in which solo and chorus alternate with close
sequence. In the present instance the effect is not that of dramatic
variety, because we feel the vital sympathy that the poet cherishes
for his people, so that their experience is as his experience. It is a
faint shadow of the condition of the great Sin-bearer, of whom it
could be said, "In all their affliction He was afflicted."[210]
[209] iii. 39.
[210] Isa. lxiii. 9.
Before it is possible to return to God, before the desire to return is
even awakened, a much less inviting action must be undertaken. The
first and greatest hindrance to reconciliation with our Father is our
failure to recognise that any such reconciliation is necessary. The
most deadening effect of sin is seen in the fact that it prevents the
sinner from perceiving that he is at enmity with God at all, although
by everything he does he proclaims his rebellion. The Pharisee of the
parable cannot be justified, cannot really approach God at all,
because he will not admit that he needs any justification, or is
guilty of any conduct that separates him from God. Just as the most
hopeless state of ignorance is that in which there is a serene
unconsciousness of any deficiency of knowledge, so the most abandoned
condition of guilt is the inability to perceive the very existence of
guilt. The sick man who ignores his disease will not resort to a
physician for the cure of it. If the soul's quarrel with her Lord is
ever to be ended it must be discovered. Therefore the first step will
be in the direction of self-examination.
We are led to look in this direction by the startling thought with
which the previous triplet closes. If the calamities bewailed are the
chastisements of sin it is necessary for this sin to be sought out.
The language of the elegist suggests that we are not aware of the
nature of our own conduct, and that it is only by some serious effort
that we can make ourselves acquainted with it, for this is what he
implies when he represents the distressed people resolving to "search
and try" their ways. Easy as it may seem in words, experience proves
that nothing is more difficult in practice than to fulfil the precept
of the philosopher, "Know thyself." The externalism in which most of
our lives are spent makes the effort to look within a painful
contradiction of habit. When it is attempted pride and prejudice face
the inquirer, and too often quite hide the true self from view. If
the pursuit is pushed on in spite of these hindrances the result may
prove to be a sad surprise. Sometimes we see ourselves unexpectedly
revealed, and then the sight of so great a novelty amazes us. The
photographer's proof of a portrait dissatisfies the subject, not
because it is a bad likeness, but rather because it is too faithful to
be pleasing. A wonderful picture of Rossetti's represents a young
couple who are suddenly confronted in a lonely forest by the
apparition of their two selves as simply petrified with terror at the
appalling spectacle.
Even when the effort to acquire self-knowledge is strenuous and
persevering, and accompanied by an honest resolution to accept the
results, however unwelcome they may be, it often fails for lack of a
standard of judgment. We compare ourselves with ourselves--our present
with our past, or at best our actual life with our ideals. But this is
a most illusory process, and its limits are too narrow. Or we compare
ourselves with our neighbours--a possible advance, but still a most
unsatisfactory method; for we know so little of them, all of us
dwelling more or less like stars apart, and none of us able to sound
the abysmal depths of another's personality. Even if we could fix this
standard it too would be very illusory, because those people with whom
we are making the comparison, quite as much as we ourselves, may be
astray, just as a whole planetary system, though perfectly balanced in
the mutual relations of its own constituent worlds, may yet be out of
its orbit, and rushing on all together towards some awful common
destruction.
A more trustworthy standard may be found in the heart-searching words
of Scripture, which prove to be as much a revelation of man to
himself as one of God to man. This Divine test reaches its perfection
in the historical presentation of our Lord. We discover our actual
characters most effectually when we compare our conduct with the
conduct of Jesus Christ. As the Light of the world, He leads the world
to see itself. He is the great touchstone of character. During His
earthly life hypocrisy was detected by His searching glance; but that
was not admitted by the hypocrite. It is when He comes to us
spiritually that His promise is fulfilled, and the Comforter convinces
of sin as well as of righteousness and judgment. Perhaps it is not so
eminently desirable as Burns would have us believe, that we should see
ourselves as others see us; but it is supremely important to behold
ourselves in the pure, searching light of the Spirit of Christ.
We may be reminded, on the other hand, that too much introspection is
not wholesome, that it begets morbid ways of thought, paralyses the
energies, and degenerates into insipid sentimentality. No doubt it is
best that the general tendency of the mind should be towards the
active duties of life. But to admit this is not to deny that there may
be occasions when the most ruthless self-examination becomes a duty of
first importance. A season of severe chastisement, such as that to
which the Book of Lamentations refers, is one that calls most
distinctly for the exercise of this rare duty. We cannot make our
daily meal of drugs; but drugs may be most necessary in sickness.
Possibly if we were in a state of perfectly sound spiritual health it
might be well for us never to spare a thought for ourselves from our
complete absorption with the happy duties of a full and busy life. But
since we are far from being thus healthy, since we err and fail and
sin, time devoted to the discovery of our faults may be exceedingly
well spent.
Then while a certain kind of self-study is always mischievous--the
sickly habit of brooding over one's feelings, it is to be observed
that the elegist does not recommend this. His language points in quite
another direction. It is not emotion but action that he is concerned
with. The searching is to be into our "ways," the course of our
conduct. There is an objectivity in this inquiry, though it is turned
inward, that contrasts strongly with the investigation of shadowy
sentiments. Conduct, too, is the one ground of the judgment of God.
Therefore the point of supreme importance to ourselves is to determine
whether conduct is right or wrong. With this branch of self-examination
we are not in so much danger of falling into complete delusions as when
we are considering less tangible questions. Thus this is at once the most
wholesome, the most necessary, and the most practicable process of
introspection.
The particular form of conduct here referred to should be noted. The
word "ways" suggests habit and continuity. These are more
characteristic than isolated deeds--short spasms of virtue or sudden
falls before temptation. The final judgment will be according to the
life, not its exceptional episodes. A man lives his habits. He may be
capable of better things, he may be liable to worse; but he is what he
does habitually. The world will applaud him for some outburst of
heroism in which he rises for the moment above the sordid level of his
every-day his, or execrate him for his shameful moment of
self-forgetfulness; and the world will have this amount of justice in
its action, that the capacity for the occasional is itself a permanent
attribute, although the opportunity for the active working of the
latent good or evil is rare. The startling outburst may be a
revelation of old but hitherto hidden "ways." It must be so to some
extent; for no man wholly belies his own nature unless he is
mad--beside himself, as we say. Still it may not be so entirely, or
even chiefly; the surprised self may not be the normal self, often is
not. Meanwhile our main business in self-examination is to trace the
course of the unromantic beaten track, the long road on which we
travel from morning to evening through the whole day of life.
The result of this search into the character of their ways on the part
of the people is that it is found to be necessary to forsake them
forthwith; for the next idea is in the form of a resolution to turn
out of them, nay, to turn back, retracing the footsteps that have gone
astray, in order to come to God again. These ways are discovered,
then, to be bad--vicious in themselves, and wrong in their direction.
They run downhill, away from the home of the soul, and towards the
abodes of everlasting darkness. When this fact is perceived it becomes
apparent that some complete change must be made. This is a case of
ending our old ways, not mending them. Good paths may be susceptible
of improvement. The path of the just should "shine more and more unto
the perfect day." But here things are too hopelessly bad for any
attempt at amelioration. No engineering skill will ever transform the
path that points straight to perdition into one that conducts us up to
the heights of heaven. The only chance of coming to walk in the right
way is to forsake the wrong way altogether, and make an entirely new
start. Here, then, we have the Christian doctrine of conversion--a
doctrine which always appears extravagant to people who take
superficial views of sin, but one that will be appreciated just in
proportion to the depth and seriousness of our ideas of its guilt.
Nothing contributes more to unreality in religion than strong language
on the nature of repentance apart from a corresponding consciousness
of the tremendous need of a most radical change. This deplorable
mischief must be brought about when indiscriminate exhortations to the
extreme practice of penitence are addressed to mixed congregations. It
cannot be right to press the necessity of conversion upon young
children and the carefully sheltered and lovingly trained youth of
Christian homes in the language that applies to their unhappy brothers
and sisters who have already made shipwreck of life. This statement is
liable to misapprehension; doubtless to some readers it will savour of
the light views of sin deprecated above, and point to the excuses of
the Pharisee. Nevertheless it must be considered if we would avoid the
characteristic sin of the Pharisee, hypocrisy. It is unreasonable to
suppose that the necessity of a complete conversion can be felt by the
young and comparatively innocent as it should be felt by abandoned
profligates, and the attempt of the preacher to force it on their
relatively pure consciences is a direct incentive to cant. The
fifty-first Psalm is the confession of his crime by a murderer;
Augustine's _Confessions_ are the outpourings of a man who feels that
he has been dragging his earlier life through the mire; Bunyan's
_Grace Abounding_ reveals the memories of a rough soldier's shame and
folly. No good can come of the unthinking application of such
utterances to persons whose history and character are entirely
different from those of the authors.
On the other hand, there are one or two further considerations which
should be borne in mind. Thus it must not be forgotten that the
greatest sinner is not necessarily the man whose guilt is most
glaringly apparent; nor that sins of the heart count with God as
equivalent to obviously wicked deeds committed in the full light of
day; nor that guilt cannot be estimated absolutely, by the bare evil
done, without regard to the opportunities, privileges, and temptations
of the offender. Then, the more we meditate upon the true nature of
sin, the more deeply must we be impressed with its essential evil even
when it is developed only slightly in comparison with the hideous
crimes and vices that blacken the pages of history--as, for example,
in the careers of a Nero or a Cæsar Borgia. The sensitive conscience
does not only feel the exact guilt of its individual offences, but
also, and much more, "the exceeding sinfulness of sin." When we
consider their times and the state of the society in which they lived,
we must feel that neither Augustine nor Bunyan had been so wicked as
the intensity of the language of penitence they both employed might
lead us to suppose. It is quite foreign to the nature of heartfelt
repentance to measure degrees of guilt. In the depth of its shame and
humiliation no language of contrition seems to be too strong to give
it adequate expression. But this must be entirely spontaneous; it is
most unwise to impose it from without in the form of an indiscriminate
appeal to abject penitence.
Then it is also to be observed that while the fundamental change
described in the New Testament as a new birth cannot well be regarded
as a thing of repeated occurrence, we may have occasion for many
conversions. Every time we turn into the wrong path we put ourselves
under the necessity of turning back if ever we would walk in the
right path again. What is that but conversion? It is a pity that we
should be hampered by the technicality of a term. This may lead to
another kind of error--the error of supposing that if we are once
converted we are converted for life, that we have crossed our Rubicon,
and cannot recross it. Thus while the necessity of a primary
conversion may be exaggerated in addresses to the young, the greater
need of subsequent conversions may be neglected in the thoughts of
adults. The "converted" person who relies on the one act of his past
experience to serve as a talisman for all future time is deluding
himself in a most dangerous manner. Can it be asserted that Peter had
not been "converted," in the technical sense, when he fell through
undue self-confidence, and denied his Master with "oaths and curses?"
Again--a very significant fact--the return is described in positive
language. It is a coming back to God, not merely a departure from the
old way of sin. The initial impulse towards a better life springs more
readily from the attraction of a new hope than from the repulsion of a
loathed evil. The hopeful repentance is exhilarating, while that which
is only born of the disgust and horror of sin is dismally depressing.
Lurid pictures of evil rarely beget penitence. The _Newgate Calendar_
is not to be credited with the reformation of criminals. Even Dante's
_Inferno_ is no gospel. In prosecuting his mission as the prophet of
repentance John the Baptist was not content to declare that the axe
was laid at the root of the tree; the pith of his exhortation was
found in the glad tidings that "the kingdom of heaven is at hand." St.
Paul shows that it is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance.
Besides, the repentance that is induced by this means is of the best
character. It escapes the craven slavishness of fear; it is not a
merely selfish shrinking from the lash; it is inspired by the pure
love of a worthy end. Only remorse lingers in the dark region of
regrets for the past. Genuine repentance always turns a hopeful look
towards a better future. It is of little use to exorcise the spirit of
evil if the house is not to be tenanted by the spirit of good. Thus
the end and purpose of repentance is to be reunited to God.
Following up his general exhortation to return to God, the elegist
adds a particular one, in which the process of the new movement is
described. It takes the form of a prayer from the heart. The
resolution is to lift up the heart with the hands. The erect posture,
with the hands stretched out to heaven, which was the Hebrew attitude
in prayer, had often been assumed in meaningless acts of formal
worship before there was any real approach to God or any true
penitence. Now the repentance will be manifested by the reality of the
prayer. Let the heart also be lifted up. The true approach to God is
an act of the inner life, to which in its entirety--thought,
affection, and will--the Jewish metaphor of the heart points.
Lastly, the poet furnishes the returning penitents with the very
language of the heart's prayer, which is primarily confession. The
doleful fact that God has not pardoned His people is directly stated,
but not in the first place. This statement is preceded by a clear and
unreserved confession of sin. Repentance must be followed by
confession. It is not a private matter concerning the offender alone.
Since the offence was directed against another, the amendment must
begin with a humble admission of the wrong that has been done. Thus,
immediately the prodigal son is met by his father he sobs out his
confession;[211] and St. John assigns confession as an essential
preliminary to forgiveness, saying: "If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness."[212]
[211] Luke xv. 21.
[212] 1 John i. 9.