That is to acknowledge that the world has departed from Him. It is at
once to separate ourselves from those who see in it no signs of
departure and rebellion. It is to confess that, Lord as He is whether
men believe it or no, whether men will it or no, yet that the relation
of common subordination as to a supreme Lord which we hold with all
creatures is not all that we are fit for, not all that we should be.
That dominion which the psalmist saw making the sea and the fulness
thereof rejoice, which is at once the control and the upholding, the
sustaining and the commanding, of all orders of being, is not the whole
of the dominion which can be exercised over man. The rule, which we
share with the trees of the field and the tribes of life, is not all;
and the unwilling control which the thought of an overruling Providence
demands that we shall believe that God exercises over all the workings
of men--that is not enough. And the terrible bending of men into
unconscious instruments, by which He that sitteth in the heavens laughs
at princes' and rulers' counsel, speaking to the tyrant as the rod of
His anger, using men as the axe with which He hews, and the staff in His
hand, and then casting away the tool into the fire--that is not the
kingdom that men are made to be. Something more, even the loving,
willing submission of heart and life to Him is possible, is needed,
unless, indeed, it is true that a man hath no pre-eminence over a beast.
Enough for them that He feedeth them when they cry; enough for them that
led they know not how, and fed by they know not whom, they live they
know not why, do they know not what, and die they know not when. But 'be
ye not as the horse or the mule which have no understanding'; it is our
prerogative to be led by His eye speaking to the heart, not by His
bridle appealing to the sense; to do Him loyal service, to understand
His purposes, to sympathise with them, and sympathising to execute. This
our prayer gives us the clear distinction, then, between mere blind
obedience and the true goal of man. The kingdom is other and better than
the creature-wide dominion.
And then, this prayer reposes on the confession that that higher, better
form of obedience is not yet attained. In a word, it can only be prayed
aright by a man who feels that the world has gone away from God and His
commandments. We separate ourselves by it from all who think that this
present state is the natural condition of men, the order into which they
were born, the kind of world which God intended; and we assert, in sight
of all the evils and sore sorrows that fill the world, that this is not
God's intention. People tell us that the doctrine of a fall, an earth
which has departed from God, a race which has rebelled, is a gloomy and
dark one, covering the face of life with sackcloth. But it seems to me
that instead of being so, it is the only conviction that can make a man
bear to see the world as it is. Brethren, which of these two is the
gloomy--the creed that says, Look at all these men dying--in dumb
ignorance, living in brutal sin; look at blood, rapine, lies,
battlefields, broken hearts, hopes that never set to fruit but died in
the bud, the stream of sad groans, and sadder curses, and wild mirth,
saddest of all. Look at it all, coming to pass on this fair earth amid
the pomp of sunsets and the calm beauty of autumn, and beneath the cold
stars, in a world where the noblest creature is the saddest, and accept
for explanation that it is the necessary road for the perfecting of the
creature; that it is all for the best, that it is exactly what God meant
the world to be;--or the creed which sees the same things and says:
'This is not what God intended: an enemy hath done this'? Sin hath
entered into the world, and death by sin.
The Christian doctrine does not make the facts, but only the Christian
doctrine can explain them. It seems to me that if I believed that life
as I see it in the world, and as I feel it in myself, is life as God
meant it to be, I should either go mad or be a wise man, not a fool, if
I were to look up at the unpitying stars that could sing for joy over
such a creation, and say, _There is no God_. It is a refuge from such
possible horrors, not an aggravation of them, which this prayer teaches
us when it teaches us to pray for a kingdom yet to come, from which men
have departed, and in departing have worked for themselves all this woe
and ruin.