Some aspects of the blessed life

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. How the Blessed Life Begins 5

II. Meditation Illustrated 20

Chapter I. How The Blessed Life Begins

n Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful : but his delight is in the law of the Lord ; and in his law doth he meditate day and night." — Psalm i. i, 2.

Blessed — this is the first word of the book of Psalms, and this is the key-note of all its songs. Here, as frontispiece, is set the picture of the blessed man, and here is the beginning of the blessed life. The after history follows it through many changes, through troubled days and gracious deliverance, until at last it reaches the land where sorrow and sighing are fled away, and, day and night, praise fills the holy temple.

Very full of meaning is the background of

6 So fiie Aspects of the Blessed Life.

the picture. There are three groups, having little to do with each other yet bound together by dreadful bonds; so that the first group is ever moving on to become the second, and the second goes on in turn to become the third. The first group is of men who are walking and talking ; as if of unsettled thoughts and of unsettled ways. The second group stands busied, as if thought and way were now decided and being carried out. Then the company is broken up, and the ungodly who walked in counsel, and the sinners who stood in their ways, sit, each by himself, in the seat of the scorner.

Walking, standing, sitting— these are the three stages ; counsel, way, seat— -these are the three degrees. Ungodly — without God — this is the first character; sinners — actual transgressors and rebels — this is the second character; the third is the scorner; he ever sitteth alone.

But are there any such hard and rigid lines as these marking off men from each other ? There are lights and shades of character ; good points that mingle with the evil ; is it not the mistake of theology to classify and la-

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bel our poor humanity as botanists do their dead and dried specimens ? Is not the fact rather that there are infinite varieties and play of circumstances ; a thousand influences that help and hinder men in a thousand different ways ? Our nature is as various and as changeful as the sea. We look out on it sometimes asleep in the sunshine, and so still that the winds hold their breath as if for fear of waking it, and sometimes black with storm and roaring furiously — a thing so cruel in its rage ! Here it creeps up the yellow sands, with curve and glassy edge, and there it thunders on the rocks, with burst of white foam flung against the sky. Yet down beneath the infinite variety — the currents and cross-currents, the waves that sweep onward and the roar and rattle of the backward rush — there is ever, unchanging, resistless, the power of the tide that draws the whole sea hither and thither. So is it that, away beneath the surface varieties of our humanity and force of circumstance, there is the power of the tide that draws us. We have the power to choose, but within that choice are laws which we cannot resist : that thoughts must grow to deeds, and deeds must strengthen into habits. We may choose our starting-point, but, having chosen it, of this be sure : that the walk makes the way, and the way decides the end. This division of men is an awful fact. The indifferent drift, drawn by the current that sets earthward and downward, going farther and farther away from the shore. The blessed find another power, that draws them upward and Godward.

There are three steps into the outer darkness : neglecting, rejecting, despising.

Few things in the language are more powerful than the poem entitled " The Vision of Sin," in which Tennyson tracks some man of splendid gifts along this course and on to the seat of the scorner. Read it ; the first part slowly and aloud, so as to feel its music. Then let the soul be caught and swept along with the fierce current of its passionate utterances in the second part. Then comes the third part, a dreary monotone, full only of a cold, black, dreadful scorn —

" A gray and gap-toothed man, as lean as death, Who slowly rode across a withered heath, And lighted at a ruined inn, and said :

Hoiv the Blessed Life Begins. 9

11 ' Fill the cup and fill the can ! Mingle madness, mingle scorn ! Dregs of life and lees of man.' "

Then comes the hollow sneer at all things. And then the vision ends —

" Below were men and horses pierced with worms, And slowly quickening into lower forms, By shards and scurf of salt and scum of dross, Old plash of rains, and refuse patched with moss.

* * * * *

And on the glimmering limits far withdrawn, God made himself an awful rose of dawn."

This is the poetic rendering of the background of the picture. Then thinks the blessed man, as he looks out on these things, " There surely is another way than that, if I can but find it. God cannot have sent me into the world for that — cannot have put things together so as to make that the inevitable. O for some other counsel, some other companionship, which shall guide my steps into a way of peace ! What strong hand, what wise guide is there ? " Here he has found the answer — in the word of God. He sits, and upon his face there is thrown a reflected light, that comes from the open book that lies before him ; his delight is io Some Aspects of the Blessed Life.

in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. Between himself and these others there comes the law of the Lord\ an authority mighty, majestic, supreme, yet not a burden or a hardship ; his delight is in the law of the Lord.

The blessed life grows right up out of the word of God rightly used. The blessed man does not read it only, does not only search it, he meditates in it day and night. The law of the Most High God is accepted by him in all the completeness of its claim. And meditating in the word, he finds in turn all that constitutes the foundation of the blessed life. Contact with the solemn presence of Jehovah ; a holy fear and reverence before him ; a lowly obedience that waits listening to his voice, and heeding it earnestly ; a lofty ideal of life in its origin and purpose ; a blessed consciousness of an ever-ready help, almighty and most merciful ; a vision of holiness, kindling desire and inspiring hope ; a brave trust in God as ordering all things ; a patient and tender love for all men — these are the gifts and graces that wait for him, gifts which he can find in such rich fullness nowhere else, and which he can get at in no other way than by meditating in the word.

Of this let us be well assured, that in the blesssd life this meditation is the starting-point. Whatever we need to see, to know, to be, begins in meditation on the word. In the world a man sees only the point of time we call the present. Away on every hand there lies the infinite, the eternal, but the eye sees only that which it is bent over. The man is in contact only with earth and his neighbors. All the consciousness of mind and heart, all the powers of body and soul, are wrapped about the little business of the day. Hope and desire, which should soar into the heavens, are caged within these bars. To go up the mount of meditation is to pass out of narrow ways and busy tumult up into an ampler, purer air; out of dusty roads to dewy freshness. We begin then to see the true proportions of things. The present is lost, and the eternal unfolds itself. The city sleeps in mists below us, and the great heaven arches us. New faculties begin to unfold themselves in the stillness. There opens within us an eye that sees the unseen, an ear that hears other voices.

And there, as of old, in the cool of the day, comes the very presence of God himself to walk and talk with his child.

He cannot know the blessed life who does not secure for himself this leisure — to be still in God's presence ; to listen and long for his coming; to give up the soul to communion with him. Religion does not require that we should neglect any business which duty bids us do, rather it commends diligence. But religion does require that we so manage our business as to secure this quiet, earnest, devout meditating in the law of the Lord. Let there be what there may besides this, there can be no substitute for it. Endless religious activities, sermons, services, meetings, missions — these things make this quiet meditation only the more needful. About us on every side are specimens of the religious life that are stumbling-blocks to the world and a perplexity to the Church. A religious life always on the verge of extinction ; a living death ; without any regular meals or " visible means of support," it exists on scraps and crusts picked up anywhere ; it clothes itself in such scanty clothing as it can find ; it stands shivering,

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looking wistfully in at the world's fire, glad to warm itself when no one is looking, or when those about it are not too particular ; trying to snatch a little comfort as it lingers on the verge of the world's pleasure. It is the religious life without any strong, habitual, wholesome meditation in the word. Again, there is a very common religious life that is for the most part peevish, querulous, grumbling ; wholly selfish, it is utterly incapable of any brave endurance, of any patient self-denial, without strength or beauty. It is the religious life that craves for stimulants. It lives on religious excitement — tears, thrills, raptures. This, too, is the religious life without either the milk or the strong meat of the word ; it never meditates in the law of the Lord. We cannot lay too much stress upon it — we cannot too earnestly impress it upon ourselves. If this quiet, earnest, habitual meditation be lacking, we can know nothing of the blessed life. If this be ours, then is the blessed life begun.

And do not let us think of this exercise as only a foundation on which we build. Much more than that — it is as the sap of the soul.

Meditation carries the purifying and repairing forces of the word throughout the whole nature. " Now ye are clean," said the Lord to his disciples ; " now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." The word of God cleanses the thoughts and the motives and the imagination. No life is lower or more hopeless than his in whom every sight is made to minister to a foul imagination. And, on the other hand, few shall walk the earth more safely than they whose minds are hung about with pure visions ; within whose crystal walls there entereth nothing that defileth or maketh unclean. Let meditation be the limner whose hands shall set in glowing colors the scenes of God's word about the " chambers of the imagery."

Note further, that this meditation is not reverie — dreaming. It is so thinking about God, and so searching for him in the word, that it soon passes into the glow and blessedness of communion with him. We may venture, I think, to alter the word, and say : " His delight is in the love of the Lord, and in his love doth he meditate day and night." Sweet and hallowed companionship is ours with that best

Friend and dearest Brother, who walks and talks with us whenever we meditate upon his word. Not alone we sit. "I will come unto you," is his promise. And this is the appointed place ; here he bids us wait and look for himself. Beside this stream, whose waters make glad the city of God, and underneath this tree of life, is his trysting-place. And in that presence to lose the loneliness of life ; to forget the fear and weakness ; to have him as our own ; to find the mind illumined as he opens the understanding ; to find the promises so rich, and full, and personal, and present, as he opens the word ; and to have the faith emboldened till, like John, it leans on his bosom, and, with Thomas, calls him " My Lord and my God ; " to have in him the past hushed — a holy calm which no voice of condemnation breaks ; to have in him the future all lit up with the glow of heaven's sunny distance ; to find the love of all the heart drawn out and satisfied in him : this is blessedness indeed. So comes the blessed life.

" He shall be like a tree." The word tree has the same source as the word truth — that which stands and abides. The blessed man is he who has got something to hold on with — and he has got something to hold on to. a A . tree planted." The roots are wrapped about the stones/ The principles have taken hold of God's everlasting truth. The ungodly are like the chaff — there is neither rest nor resting-place — whirled hither and thither, now up into the heavens, now trampled into the mud. O, the calm of the blessed man ! It may blow a hurricane, tossing the branches, sweeping the leaves, but the roots hold to the rocks. Where else can a man find the Abiding, and the Almighty, and the Authority that can give him so settled and sure a hold as this ? The word of the Lord abideth, and abideth for ever. Blessed indeed is it, amid the shifting things of life, its trembling uncertainties, its fleeting shadows, to get on to the granite of God's own truth for a foundation. "He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water" — not only firmness and strength shall he find here ; not a commandment only, but a promise ; not only a law, but that which ministers to life. The word is a refreshment, a secret source of nourishment. Fierce heats may beat, and summer droughts may linger long", but the river of God is ever full of water.

11 He bringeth forth his fruit in his season." A man suited for the times, who hath hope for the spring-time, and joy for the summer, and peace for the autumn, and patience for the winter. Like trees whereon the many grafts present a variety of fruits, some late, some early, he bringeth forth gentleness and brave faith, and all the year round the golden fruit of love and praise. This meditation on the word is the secret of blessedness. Strength, stability, and gentleness are the sure outcome of it.

And beginning with the presence of God in the word, he goes forth to find that presence in the world, to find that " law of the Lord " every-where and in every thing. God's voice meets him in the business and hallows it. His presence is felt in the pleasure, and his great law of love encompasses him with favor as with a shield.

" His leaf also shall not wither." The tree has two ends, root and leaf. The root that abides unmoved in every season — firm as the ground in which it sets its hold ; and the leafend, sporting with the sunshine, dripping with the showers, whispering to the breeze, swayed by the lightest breath. The principles are the roots — they never yield ; but the blessed man has a thousand interests and sympathies with a thousand passing things — politics, pleasures, friendships, children ; and because the root is by the river, the furthest leaf is green ; because the principle is fixed, the outermost thing of life shall feel its wholesome power, and be kept in health and beauty.

" Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." The blessed man is ever a prosperous man, a rich man — the richest. He possesses who enjoys. He possesses who turns to truest account the opportunities of life. Sit down and think of an ideal prosperity. Is it not a calm, settled, contented life, without the madness of remorse, without consuming fear? Prosperity is his who has had the breath of God breathed over him with his " peace, be still." The spirit of God has brooded over him, and hushed the storm, and ended the confusion, and brought light and rest and gladness.

In hope, in enjoyment, in memory, in sure confidence, a rich and prosperous man is he ;

one whom kings might envy. Putting a conscience into his work, too, and doing least things as unto God, what he does shall be well done, and his work shall prosper.

So he goes along his way as one having dominion ; walking the earth with a firm step, knowing whose world it is, and whose hand leads him, and whither he is going. He knows God's law, and God knows his way, and in that knowledge is the very center of rest, and the secret of Heaven's own blessedness.

Chapter II. Meditation Illustrated

The blessed man whose portrait is given to us in the first Psalm meditateth in the law of the Lord. He does not read it only, does not content himself even with searching the Scriptures. That is the process of getting in at the life of the word, and getting the word into the life. Food has in itself a power of imparting vigour to our whole bodily nature : to the brain, and it thinks ; to the eye, and it sees ; to the heart, and it renews its far-reaching force. So the word is the " sincere milk," the " strong meat/' w T hich is able to minister to the whole of our spiritual life — to faith and love and peace and joy and service. But before the food can feed us we must get in at its essence, and must get its essence into us ; this is the purpose of digestion and assimilation. We have to pass the word through a similar process, and this process is meditation.

Let us turn to the first chapter of Genesis and the first verse — " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

Now we have read our verse, what shall we do with it? He who reads the Bible, and nothing more, has done what he thinks to be his duty. Let him go on his way ; he will come to-morrow wondering where he read ; was it the first verse, or was it the second ? And he will often wonder how it is that he gets so little good from reading the Bible. It would save time and trouble — certainly it would save his doubts as to the place — if he were to look at the blank page at the end of the book, or even at the covers only. But people cannot feed themselves by looking into the baker's window.

Better far than reading is searching, even if it is nothing more than taking the marginal references and turning to them. We may read without thinking, and often do. But in searching the Scriptures we get the word at least further in than our eyes. When we begin to search we transfer that for which we are looking into the thought.

But searching industriously and dutifully may be a very dull, hard, dead exercise. A man may walk in Paradise itself, doing nothing else but busily botanizing, geologizing, collecting beetles, arranging and classifying, pressing or pinning his specimens. Our coming into Paradise is for something much better and more blessed than all that. We come in the cool of the day, watching and listening eagerly for Him who walketh there, and who calleth for his child. Then in his presence we breathe its pure air, we rest in its delicious shade, we eat its fruit, and in that waiting upon the Lord we renew our strength.

We do not use the word aright until it becomes to us the very gate of our Father's house, through which we enter in the celestial city, into the very presence of the king. " These are they which testify of me," saith the Lord. God's word cannot be a dead word — a mummied history, a fossil. The breath of God must make it immortal. But we need the anointed eye, the opened ear, the understanding heart. So need we ever pray for this same moving of the Spirit of God upon us ; then light ministers to life and develops it.

Do not be discouraged if at first the exercise seems hard, and not so rich in profit as you hoped. The art of meditating, like every other art, has to be learned. The process of reading, now so easy that you are unconscious of any effort in it, was once a tough matter of mastering mysterious signs ; of stumbling over troublesome letters, with tears, and fears that you would never be able to read as others could. The work is surely worth the effort. Here, indeed, the diligent soul shall be made fat.

And do not suppose that meditation requires a long time alone. It must begin away in the inner chamber, alone with God. But thus begun, our thoughts will go on dwelling on the word, finding new truth and sipping fresh sweetness from it. Yet meditation is not study, nor is it dreaming. It is that passive condition in which we open the doors and windows of the soul to the blessed influences that gather about us when we sit with the book before us and wait for the coming of the Lord. Meditation is not an act of the mind only, but of the whole man — so that the word stirs thought, and thought stirs prayer, and prayer passes into communion, and communion reveals new matter for meditation.

As a specimen of meditating in the word, let us tunr to the passage we have chosen : "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." So all begins with God, at once and immediately. Not from nature up to God am I to move, but from God down to nature. And so at the outset the word demands my faith. There is but one attitude for studying this first verse of Genesis, as for studying any part of the Scriptures; sitting with meekness, receiving the word with faith. Turn to the record of the triumphs of faith in the eleventh chapter of the Hebrews. They begin here. " Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God." It is the same faith that works the wonders that follow in the chapter — the faith that finds its source in Jesus Christ himself, " The Author and Finisher of our faith."

It may seem at first sight as if it needed no faith to believe that God created the heaven and the earth. " Of course," you say, "we all believe that some one must have made it all, and that some one is God." No, you cannot find God thus — our gracious and loving Father. All you have got in that way is a far-off logical necessity, a great first cause, invented to complete the circle of our reasoning. That is not God. I cannot kneel down to that first cause of things and speak to him. And not even logically does the supposition of that first cause satisfy me. I find it as easy to think of eternal matter as of eternal spirit. No, we cannot by any such searching find out God. We make a mistake which has cost us very much when we come down from the high ground of our faith and say, " Yes, for spiritual things faith is needful, but in nature we can find God by reason. " Here, as every-where else, we can only find him by faith.

Look at it as an historical fact. Have men ever received the story of the creation of the world by God except where faith has led them ? They who lived so much nearer the beginning of things, who saw the freshness of the Creator's touch on his handiwork, went away after a host of gods that they themselves had invented — logical first causes. The fathers of science and the founders of the arts stumbled at this fact because they understood it not by faith.

But to us, to whom the Father has been revealed, how good it is to sit at his feet and to listen as he tells us of the beginning of things ! So, except we become as little children, we cannot enter into the kingdom of God here or elsewhere.

Yet do not think for a moment that reason has no place in this art of meditation. They sin against God and against themselves who cast reason forth as one that mocketh. Reason can trace God, though only faith can find him. It is needful ever that reason go forth with faith, dwelling upon the tokens of his presence, showing the forces and beauties of creation; the wisdom and contrivance, the vastness and wonder. Reason can correct the interpretation that faith puts on her Lord's words ; but faith is ever the chosen bride to whom the King revealeth himself. Reason, like an old, wise tutor, goeth with faith, and teacheth her to see new meanings in the King's words ; new wonders in his gifts ; new graces in his dealings ; new glories in his character. But faith alone carries the sweet secret of the King's favor. Faith saith of him, he is mine.

And as the story of the creation claims our faith, so it has a special help and blessing for our faith.

" God created the heaven and the earth." See then, my soul, the completeness of his authority over thee and all things. We count that to be our own which is dependent upon our bounty or on our care, and we claim its service. We call that ours which we have bought with our money, or which we have fitted for our use. But how infinitely above all that is the proprietorship of the Creator ! Look up to him ! How completely am I thine,

God, who created me and all things on which I depend ! Thine is my being, my every power thine. Thine is the air I breathe ; the light by which I see ; the food

1 eat ; the clothes I wear. I walk upon thy earth, and thy hands uphold me and minister to me in ten thousand ways. Assert thy claim to me, for I would be wholly thine, and thine in every thing.

" God created the heaven and the earth." So, then, I am a God-made man in a God-made world. My soul, give thanks that the devil had no finger in the making of any thing. Do not be afraid of the world now ; thy Father made it, and he can give thee grace to use it rightly and have dominion over it. Do not be afraid of thyself, for thou too art his handiwork. The devil did but put out of joint and service what God had made. What a contrast is the great utterance of this verse with the meanness and poverty of the tempter's first appearance in the next chaper but one ! Lift thyself up, then, God's own, with nothing within thee, nothing about thee, but that which he can hallow and sanctify and use. He who made us at the first understands us, and can set us right with ourselves and with all things, and can keep us right ; therefore let all that is within us bless his holy name.

" God created the heaven and the earth." O, my soul, what greatness, what safety, what blessedness are thine ! He who made all things is thy Father, and thou art his child. Think of his great power who setteth the sun in the heavens ; and he careth for thee ! Think of his wisdom and of his love, who arrangeth, controlleth, satisfieth all things. Go forth bravely into the world, knowing that the center of all things is thy Father ; God — their source and strength. Therefore, my soul, thou hast no room to fret or fear ; thou canst but trust and love and praise.

" In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." So all begins — with God. What despair had settled upon the earth if she turned elsewhere than unto God ! Here is the great, black, shapeless earth, without form and void. A waste of waters, wrapped in darkness, tossed in ceaseless storm, without a ray of light, without a breath of life, a blot upon creation.