Chapter VI: Part 6

"It was when stretched on that bed that I first looked on my Lord, and met His glance of ineffable love and compassion! It was when stretched on that bed that I heard those accents which will thrill delight through my soul to my dying day, yea, and through all eternity,—'Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee!' Oh, God be praised that I ever was sick! I thank, I bless, I adore Him for the weakness, the helplessness, the disease which brought me so close to my Lord, and made me a monument thus of His everlasting mercy and grace!"

And thus will many a dear Christian brother or sister, long afflicted by sickness, look back on the couch of suffering when the Lord has restored health to the feeble frame, or when—through what man calls death—He has bidden the pardoned believer "arise," never more to lie down in pain. Many will doubtless have cause to say, "It was in love and mercy that sickness and suffering were permitted to chain me down to my bed; it was from thence that I first looked through faith on my Saviour—there first I knew that my sins were indeed forgiven. My weakness made me rest in Christ's strength—my sufferings brought me to His feet. I would not exchange the lessons learned, the privileges enjoyed on that sick-bed, for all the wealth of the world!"

The story of the paralytic man is fraught with comfort also to those in sorrow for loved ones afflicted either in body or in mind. It is terrible to watch sufferings which we cannot relieve, to seek aid from physicians but to find that their utmost skill is exerted in vain. Which of us has not known the wearing anxiety, the sickening suspense, when a precious life is at stake? Oh! Let us not then rest on earth, and put down our loved burden in despair. We must "go up higher," we must carry our friend upwards on the strong arms of prayer, we must lay him at the feet of the Saviour. The Son of Man hath still power to say, "Arise, take up thy bed and walk."

Still more earnest should be our efforts when the sickness of him for whom we pray is that of the soul—the sickness of sin. Bodily health and strength and beauty may be united with deadly spiritual paralysis. Some seem as if they would not—could not—come to the Saviour; they have no power to rise, they are chained down by the cares or pleasures and follies of the world; when others are pressing in to hear God's Word, they remain in peril without.

Let us, as it were, carry those who will not or cannot walk, let us bear the burden on our hearts. God is trying our faith and our patience. Have we clambered the outward stair, have we toiled to uncover the roof—to remove as far as we can the obstacles which divide the paralyzed soul from the Lord? And then, using the bands of love, the "cords of a man," have we gently placed our burden even at the feet of our Heavenly Master? He has still power to say to the diseased and paralyzed soul, "Thy sins be forgiven thee," and to bid it arise to walk in newness of life, to tread in the paths of holiness, to run with vigour that blessed race of which Heaven itself is the goal!

XL.

The Cross.

IN the olden times when legends and traditions, like parasites mantling a tree and hindering its healthy growth, had appeared well-nigh to choke gospel-truth while meant to adorn it, the day of the supposed discovery of the true cross was made a festival; * its name was given to province and city; and fragments, however small, of what was deemed so inexpressibly sacred, were esteemed amongst the greatest treasures of princes. Satan would be well pleased to see adoration paid to pieces of wood, if he could so draw away the minds of the pious from contemplation of the true cross, as it is preserved for believers in the Bible alone, to be touched only by Faith as she repeats the words of St. Paul, "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."

* "'Invention of the Cross,' an annual feast solemnized on the 3rd of May, in memory of Helena's (the mother of Constantine) finding the (supposed) true Cross of Christ deep in the ground on Mount Calvary, where she erected a church for the preservation of part of it." _English Encyclopædia._

With the deepest, most solemn reverence, let us now draw nigh in spirit to this altar, on which was offered the one "full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world." Let all worldly thoughts be put off; it is on holy ground that we tread, as the cross—stained with that most precious blood which alone cleanseth from all sin—draws our contemplation to Him who upon it agonized and died for mankind.

That Christ "could" suffer proves that He was human; that He could "so" suffer, proves that He was divine, for Deity alone could so hold the tortured frame in subjection as to keep it suspended for six hours in agony upon the cross. A mere man, by the force of strong will, may give himself up to death—may so overcome the shrinking of nature as to spring down the chasm, or throw himself into the waves. Many martyrs have yielded up their lives willingly and cheerfully, "but who could die as Jesus died?" His was no single effort of will, but a prolonged exercise of it, hour after hour, amidst sufferings more excruciating than the mind can conceive. We cannot doubt that He who is "the mighty God" could at any moment have ended those sufferings; no nails could have fixed Him to the cross; not the united powers of a thousand peopled worlds could have kept Him there for an instant! The unutterable pangs which the Saviour endured were His own deliberate choice, and it was His own infinite love which made Him sustain them even to the end. We know this from the Lord's declaration:

"I lay down My life . . . No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again."

Christ had but to will it, and the cross of shame would instantly have been exchanged for the throne of glory, and the mocking crowds have been stretched blackened, blasted corpses before Him! We speak of our Lord's temptation in the wilderness—what must have been His temptation "on the cross"? Such as none but Deity could have resisted—none but God have overcome. A Paul might have consented to be crucified for the sake of his brethren—but could even a Paul have remained long on the cross had it needed but an act of volition to release him? Human nature must have failed under the trial. The fondest of mothers clinging by her hands to the edge of a precipice, with her infant fastened to her shoulders, must let go ere long, though conscious that her child as well as herself will be dashed in pieces by her fall.

The weight of a world's salvation hung on the Redeemer, and He "would not let go."

"Come down from the cross!" shouted the rabble.

"Come down from the cross!" urged the tempter.

"Come down from the cross!" cried out agonized human nature,—Christ could, but He would not come down. This was constancy beyond that of humanity; this was the endurance not of a man but of a God!

There appears to be a mysterious analogy between the great act of the Creation and that of the Redemption of the world. After the six days in which the Lord made earth and the things within it, He "did rest the seventh day from all His works;" and so, after the six hours of anguish, the Saviour rested in death from the more awful work of redemption. Another analogy arises in the mind, though it is mentioned with some hesitation, as Scripture warrant cannot be brought forward to support it. It is an ancient well-known tradition that the world will endure six thousand years under our present dispensation, and that then will come the long Sabbath of rest. If it be so, is it impossible that each hour on the cross may have had a mysterious relation to each thousand years—that the two first hours of agony may have expiated the guilt of the antediluvian race; the succeeding, that of its successors; the increasing numbers of sinners corresponding with the tortures which, towards the close of the awful time of sacrifice, would naturally most fearfully increase?

If such a suggestion be admitted, what a peculiar interest have we, who live in these latter times, in the dying thirst—the agonized cry, which appears to have marked the climax in the sufferings of our blessed Redeemer! The idea links itself on to another. Is it impossible that before Him who knoweth all things may have passed in prophetic vision every human being who should enter Heaven through the merit of those pangs which He at that moment was enduring? That the Lord "waited," with arms outstretched, strained muscles and bleeding hands, until the last, the very last, should be safe; and till—knowing that none, not the least of His flock should perish—Christ could at length exclaim, "It is finished", and so bow the head and yield up the ghost?

There is something inexpressibly touching in this thought, especially if we regard the possibility that some one now breathing on this globe may have been the last one for whom the Lord waited on the cross! Perhaps some prodigal for whose soul a mother is now wrestling in prayer; perhaps some poor heathen slave in a distant land; perhaps some despised one brought up in haunts of vice, the answer to whose first cry of faith and repentance, "God be merciful to me a sinner," will be the sound of the trumpet announcing that the world's great suffering-time is ended, and that the last saved soul being gathered in, the glorious Sabbath shall commence!

Let us pause for a few moments, and with closed eyes and bended knees attempt to realize the thought,—"the Saviour waited on the cross for me!" For "me" was that awful thirst, for "me" that intolerable pain. Christ would not save Himself from a death of torture, because—with all my coldness, selfishness, sinfulness—He could not, would not, suffer me to perish!

A few words inscribed under a picture of the Crucifixion were once made the means of converting a soul; they were as a question from Him who hung on the cross, these touching words are addressed to us all—what reply dare we return? "I suffered this for thee; what dost thou for Me?"

XLI.

The Stone at the Sepulchre.

WHO has not known the pang of bereavement,—

"When sorrowing o'er the stone we bend,
Which covers what was once a friend,
And from his hand—his voice—his smile,
Divides us for a little while?"

Let the mourner draw nigh to this stone which closed the sepulchre of the Lord, and beneath its quiet shadow meditate on the solemn and most blessed doctrine of the resurrection.

With aching hearts, with drooping heads, the disciples of the crucified Saviour turned from the sepulchre in which they had seen His sacred body laid. For Him, indeed, the awful trial was over; He was beyond reach of the cruelty of soldier, or the malice of priest. Those holy eyes were clothed in death, no cry of anguish would ever more burst from those pallid lips, the blood had ceased to flow from the pierced hands and side. For the Master indeed there was rest, but for the disciples desolation, for none in that hour of anguish appears to have believed or understood the re-iterated promise,—

"After three days I will rise again."

What was the world, then, to the followers of Christ, without Him who had been their Friend and their Guide, the Life and Light of their souls! That tombstone seemed to shut them out from all that remained to them of One so deeply reverenced, so tenderly beloved.

And when early in the twilight which preceded the Easter morn, women drew near to the grave to pay the last honour to the body of the Lord, this same stone, heavy, sealed and guarded, appeared to their anxious minds as a barrier between them and Him.

"Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?" was the perplexed enquiry of those whose love was stronger than their faith. But the stone had been rolled away by an angel's hand, and had become the seat of a messenger from Heaven, whose countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow; at the sight of whose glory the guards had trembled, and become even as the dead!

The Lord of Life had risen indeed, the first-fruits of them that sleep; the sepulchre had yielded up its heavenly guest; Christ had led captivity captive, and by dying abolished death! Thenceforth all believers could exclaim, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!"

This stone stands as a representative of all that shuts out from the eye of love, from the sunshine of Heaven, the mortal forms that once held souls that Christ hath redeemed. The little grassy mound in the churchyard over some babe whose brief span of life—

"Left no trace behind,—save in a parent's breast;"

the heavy monument in the cemetery, the solid walls of the vault, the earth-covering in the deep pit on the battlefield, the unfathomable sea which rolls over the dead,—all, all shall yield up their trust!

Again shall an angel of God descend from heaven; again shall the solid earth tremble and shake; again shall rocks be rent and graves be opened; and as Christ, the Head, arose, so shall the body—the Church—arise! Hear the glorious words of Isaiah's prophecy, omitting the italics which are not in the original text, and which seem to obscure its meaning:

"Thy dead shall live, My dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead."

Oh, joyful Easter morn, for which Faith is watching and waiting! When the first dawn of its coming light is around us, and the shadows of night are beginning to flee, well may our Lord address to mourners for departed saints the question, "Why weepest thou?"

Christ when He rose from the dead was again restored to His loving followers, but, as regarded visible presence, for only a little space; but when the graves of His saints shall be opened, when from countless sepulchres the heavy stones shall be rolled back, it is to no transient glimpses of the Lord, to no brief moments of blissful intercourse that they will then be admitted.

"I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not a stranger—" (marginal reading).

No, NOT A STRANGER! When Mary first beheld her risen Lord, her eyes were holden that she should not know Him, and as a stranger she addressed Him! But the saints as they burst from the sod in the morn of the resurrection shall at once recognize Him, whom not having seen they have loved! They will know the voice of the Good Shepherd who has led them through the wilderness of life, and the valley of the shadow of death!

"And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation."

The Queen and the Twelve Names.

WE find in the seventh chapter of the book of Revelation a description of the sealed ones, the spiritual Israel, under the names of the tribes to whom was granted the promised inheritance of Canaan. If it be, as many believe, that we here behold Christ's Church under a different symbol, yet identical with her of whom we read in the forty-fifth Psalm, the twelve names in Revelation beautifully fill up the description of "the King's daughter, the Queen," who is "all glorious within," for all these names have meanings. The virgins, her companions, that shall be brought into the King's palace with gladness and rejoicings, may be regarded as representing "the multitude which no man could number, of all nations and kindreds, and peoples and tongues," who appear to be distinct from, and yet in some degree sharers in the blessedness of the sealed ones, "the hundred and forty-four thousand." Let us examine the meaning of the names mentioned in Revelation vii., and see if they are not as twelve stars in the crown of the "Church of the firstborn," * placed on her head by Him whom she worships, because He is the Lord her God.

* Heb. xii. 23.

And, first, we mark what name is "omitted." DAN had a place amongst the twelve tribes of Israel under the Law, but none amongst the spiritual Israel. The signification of the word may throw light upon what is otherwise dark and mysterious. Dan signifies judgment. There was judgment stern and terrible under the Law, but in the Gospel "mercy rejoiceth against judgment." The curse has been removed, the penalty endured by another; Dan is, as it were, absorbed and disappears. It is remarkable that when Jacob on his death-bed blessed his sons, after speaking of Dan, "judgment," then, and then alone, he burst forth into the exclamation, "I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord!"

Following the order in which the names of the tribes are given by St. John, the first of which we read is:

JUDA, "the praise of the Lord." And so praise unto Him who hath chosen and redeemed her is, as it were, the first gem, the central star in the crown of the Church, the spiritual Bride.

REUBEN, "see the Son, or who sees the Son," a name of deep meaning if we may take it as descriptive of the precious privilege of her whose "eyes shall see the King in His beauty, the pure in heart" who shall look upon God.

GAD, "a band," or "happy," or "armed and prepared." * The interpretation seems to speak for itself. The Church is a chosen "band" of those who are "happy" in the love of their Lord; who have been "armed" to fight the good fight, and "prepared" for the coming of Him whom, not having seen, they have loved. Of such is the spiritual Israel.

* See Cruden's Concordance.

ASER, "blessedness," or "happiness." The Church, when she enters the palace of her Lord, will shine in blessedness for ever. Immortal happiness will beam from her countenance, the reflection of the light of Him in whose presence is the fulness of joy, and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

NEPTHALIM, "my wrestling, or one that struggles." Here we are reminded that they who bear the palms of victory are they that have endured the conflict. A reference may also be made to earnest wrestling in prayer. Esther, ere the hour of triumph, might be said to have earned the name of Naphtali. The Church who will wear the garment of praise, now appears in the spirit of heaviness, wrestling, struggling, till He with whom she pleads grant her more than she dares to ask for, or to desire.

MANASSEH, "forgetfulness." This name was given by Joseph to his firstborn in Egypt; "for God," said he, "hath made me to forget all my toil, and all my father's house." The patriarch's words sound like a response to the exhortation addressed to the bride in the psalm,—"Hearken, O daughter, and consider . . . forget also thine own people, and thy father's house." The vanities of earth, with its sorrows and sins, put away and forgotten for ever!

SIMEON, "that hears or obeys." In this word is described a special attribute of the Church of Christ, the obedience of faith. "He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, He it is that loveth Me," saith the Heavenly King. It is the Church that listens to His voice, that seeks to follow wherever He leads. Of Reuben, the patriarch, it was said, "unstable as water thou shalt not excel;" but Reuben's name taken in its hidden meaning may remind us that "even water, hearing and obeying" the Lord, became as a well at His bidding, or firm as a pavement under His feet.

LEVI, "joined," or "held and associated." Here is a description of that union of which, alas! amongst those who are called Christians, we now see so little. There is too much of the party spirit which cries, "I am of Paul—I of Apollos," with believers who should be one in Christ. Should mere form and ceremonies, the colour of a garment, a posture, or a name, have power to separate those whom God Himself hath joined together? We need larger Christian charity. The higher we rise towards Heaven, the wider spreads the horizon around. Not but that purity of doctrine must ever be jealously guarded, we must earnestly contend for the faith once given to the saints; but as regards those non-essentials by means of which the enemy would divide us, and bring discord into the Church, well may we say,—

Judge not thy differing brother, nor in aught
Condemn; his prayer and thine may rise above,
Though blending not in "unison of thought,"
Yet mingling in the "harmony of love."

ISSACHAR, "price, reward." A touching allusion may here be contained to the truth that we are not our own, but "bought with a price;" that the salvation of the Church is the "reward" of a Saviour's merits, the purchase of a Saviour's blood. To the spiritual Israel comes the message, "Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou art Mine."

ZABULON, "dwelling." Under another figure we find the Church represented as the temple of an indwelling God. "If a man love Me," said the Lord, speaking of each individual believer, "he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." St. Paul reminded the early Christians of this high privilege granted to them. "Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?"

JOSEPH, "increase." Here we have in the name of Israel's best beloved son the description of one of the essential attributes both of the Church and of each of her members; "growth" in grace, "increase" in knowledge and brotherly love. The Church is not only a temple but a living body, that must be nourished and exercised, till "it come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." It is the Spirit of God whose effectual working "maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love."

BENJAMIN, "the son of the right hand." The impression conveyed by such a name as this is that of power, honour, and strength. It is the name which Jacob substituted for that bestowed on his youngest son by a dying mother, BENONI, "the son of my sorrow." By birth every child of Eve "is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward;" as Benonis we enter into the world, and as Benonis we must have left it, had not the Father of mercies and God of all comfort changed the nature of His child, as Jacob with his changed the name; so that the worm * should "thresh the mountains," and to the feeble be given "power over the nations." †

* Isaiah xli. 14. † Rev. ii. 26.

This very slight sketch of the features of the Church as drawn in the names of the tribes of Israel must be considered as little more than suggestive; an abler hand than mine may fill up the outlines, and so give us a glimpse of the spiritual beauty of the Queen when she shall be presented to her Lord "without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing," robed in His righteousness, bright with His glory, and blessed in His love!