He felt, too, that the _Positive_ must precede the _Negative_. The
_person_ of the most High must come before the _precepts_ of the Most
High; the _Thou Shalts_ must come before the _Thou Shalt Nots_. The
superstructure of a personal religion cannot be reared on a foundation
of negatives. Life can only be constructed positively. The soul cannot
flourish on a principle of subtraction; it can only prosper on a
principle of addition. It is at this point that we perpetrate one of our
commonest blunders. Between Christmas Day and New Year's Day, we
invariably frame a variety of good resolutions; we register a number of
excellent resolves. But, for the most part, they come to nothing; and
they come to nothing because they are so largely negative. 'I will never
again do such-and-such a thing'; 'I will never again behave in
such-and-such a way'; and so on. We have failed to discover the truth
that gripped the soul of Ebenezer Erskine that day at Dryburgh. He saw,
as he repeated to himself his catechism, that the Ten Commandments
consist of three parts.
(1) _The Preface_--'_I am the Lord thy God!_'
(2) _The Precepts_--'_Thou shalt ..._'
(3) _The Prohibitions_--'_Thou shall not ..._'
Our New Year's resolutions assume that we should put third things first.
We are wrong. As Ebenezer Erskine saw, we must put the _Person_ before
the _Precepts_, and the _Precepts_ before the _Prohibitions_. The
_Center_ must come before the _Circumference_; the _Positive_ before the
_Negative_.
When, at the end of December, we pledge ourselves so desperately to do
certain things no more, we entirely forget that our worst offenses do
not consist in outraging the _Thou Shalt Nots_; our worst offenses
consist in violating the _Thou Shalts_. The revolt of the soul against
the divine _Prohibitions_ is as nothing compared with the revolt of the
soul against the divine _Precepts_; just as the revolt of the soul
against the divine _Precepts_ is as nothing compared with the revolt of
the soul against the _Divine Person_. It is by a flash of real spiritual
insight that, in the General Confession in the Church of England Prayer
Book, the clause, '_We have left undone those things which we ought to
have done_,' precedes the clause, '_And we have done those things which
we ought not to have done._' In his _Ecce Homo_, Sir John Seeley has
pointed out the radical difference between the villains of the parables
and the villains that figure in all other literature. In the typical
novel the villain is a man who does what he ought not to do; in the
tales that Jesus told the villain is a man who leaves undone what he
ought to have done. 'The sinner whom Christ denounces,' says Sir John,
'is he who has done nothing; the priest and the Levite who passed by on
the other side; the rich man who allowed the beggar to lie unhelped at
his gate; the servant who hid in a napkin the talent intrusted to him;
the unprofitable hireling who did only what it was his duty to do.'
Christ's villains are the men who sin against the _Person_ and the
_Precepts_ of the Most High; he scarcely notices the men who violate the
_Prohibitions_. Yet it is of the _Prohibitions_ that, when New Years
come, we think so much.
At vesper-tide,
One virtuous and pure in heart did pray,
'Since none I wronged in deed or word to-day,
From whom should I crave pardon? Master, say.'
A voice replied:
'From the sad child whose joy thou hast not planned;
The goaded beast whose friend thou didst not stand;
The rose that died for water from thy hand.'
During a ministry of nearly thirty years, it has been my privilege and
duty to deal with men and women of all kinds and conditions. I have
attended hundreds of deathbeds. In reviewing those experiences to-day, I
cannot remember a single case of a man who found it difficult to believe
that God could forgive those things that he ought not to have done and
had done; and I cannot recall a single case of a man who found it easy
to believe that God could forgive those things that he ought to have
done but had left undone. It is our sins against the divine _Precepts_
that sting most venomously at the last:
'The sad, sad child whose joy thou hast not planned;
The goaded beast whose friend thou didst not stand;
The rose that died for water from thy hand!'
Ebenezer Erskine saw that day at Dryburgh that he must recognize the
inspired order. He must bow first of all to the authority of the Divine
_Person_; he must recognize the obligations involved in the Divine
_Precepts_; and, after this, he must eschew those things that are
forbidden by the Divine _Prohibitions_. That order he never forgot.