Expositions of Holy Scripture | Page 3

origination, and the support, and the direction of all things, are the works and the
heralds of the same love. It is printed in starry letters on the sky. It is graven on the rocks,
and breathed by the flowers. It is spoken as a dark saying even by sorrow and pain. The
mysteries of destructive and crushing providences have come from the same source. And
he who can see with the Psalmist the ever-during mercy of the Lord, as the reason of
creation and of judgments, has in his hands the golden key which opens all the locks in
the palace chambers of the great King. He only hath penetrated to the secret of things
material, and stands in the light at the centre, who understands that all comes from the
one source--God's endless desire for the blessedness of His creatures.
But while all God's works do thus praise Him by testifying that He seeks to bless His
creatures, the loftiest example of that desire is, of course, found in His revelation of
Himself to men's hearts and consciences, to men's spirits and wills. That mightiest act of
love, beginning in the long-past generations, has culminated in Him in whom 'dwelleth
the whole fulness of the Godhead bodily,' and in whose work is all the love--the perfect,
inconceivable, patient, omnipotent love of our redeeming God.
And then, remember that this is not inconsistent with or contradicted by the sterner
aspects of that revelation, which cannot be denied, and ought not to be minimised or
softened. _Here_, on the right hand, are the flowery slopes of the Mount of Blessing;
_there_, on the left, the barren, stern, thunder-riven, lightning-splintered pinnacles of the
Mount of Cursing. Every clear note of benediction hath its low minor of imprecation
from the other side. Between the two, overhung by the hopes of the one, and frowned
upon and dominated by the threatenings of the other, is pitched the little camp of our

human life, and the path of our pilgrimage runs in the trough of the valley between. And
yet--might we not go a step farther, and say that above the parted summits stretches the
one overarching blue, uniting them both, and their roots deep down below the surface
interlace and twine together? That is to say, the threatenings and rebukes, the acts of
retributive judgment, which are contained in the revelation of God, are no limitation nor
disturbance of the clear and happy faith that all which we behold is full of blessing, and
that all comes from the Father's hand. They are the garb in which His Love needs to array
itself when it comes in contact with man's sin and man's evil. The love of God appears no
less when it teaches us in grave sad tones that 'the wages of sin is death,' than when it
proclaims that 'the gift of God is eternal life.'
Love threatens that it may never have to execute its threats. Love warns that we may be
wise in time. Love prophesies that its sad forebodings may not be fulfilled. And love
smites with lighter strokes of premonitory chastisements, that we may never need to feel
the whips of scorpions.
Remember, too, that these sterner aspects both of Law and of Gospel point this
lesson--that we shall very much misunderstand God's purpose if we suppose it to be
blessedness for us men _anyhow_, irrespective altogether of character. Some people
seem to think that God loves us so much, as they would say--so little, so ignobly, as I
would say--as that He only desires us to be happy. They seem to think that the divine love
is tarnished unless it provides for men's felicity, whether they are God-loving and
God-like or no. Thus the solemn and majestic love of the Father in heaven is to be
brought down to a weak good nature, which only desires that the child shall cease crying
and be happy, and does not mind by what means that end is reached. God's purpose is
blessedness; but, as this very text tells us, not blessedness anyhow, but one which will not
and cannot be given by God to those who walk in the way of sinners. His love desires
that we should be holy, and 'followers of God as dear children'--and the blessedness
which it bestows comes from pardon and growing fellowship with Him. It can no more
fall on rebellious hearts than the pure crystals of the snow can lie and sparkle on the hot,
black cone of a volcano.
The other text that I have read sets forth another view of God's purpose. God seeks our
praise. The glory of God is the end of all the divine actions. Now, that is a statement
which no doubt is irrefragable, and a