IX.

THE FORTHPUTTING OF REDEMPTIVE EFFORT A NECESSITY OF THE DIVINE NATURE.

IT is a cold view of life that represents it as a probation, with God standing over man commanding him to walk on the sharp edge of moral obligation, looking on to see if he keeps his balance, rewarding him if he succeeds, and punishing him if he falls or falters. Probation is merely an incident of life, and not its distinguishing feature. Life is a preliminary term of moral education and discipline. The primary object for which man is put into the school of life is not that he might be tested, but that he might be trained. God himself directs the moral education of all his children, and watches its result with the deepest parental solicitude. When he sees any one endeavoring to walk in the steep and slippery path of righteousness in spite of numerous stumblings, his gentle voice whispers encouragement, and his tender hand is outstretched to uphold and guide the wavering, tottering feet. "As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over

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her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings, so the Lord doth lead us."* With the repeated experiments and failures of his children the Heavenly Father is very patient. When faint and ready to perish they are upborne on the broad wings of his love and power. Their necessity is their plea for help, and the direr their necessity, the stronger their plea. "Pardon mine iniquity, for it is great," is with God an all prevailing argument. The very helplessness of man is to God sufficient reason why he should stand by him, and render him all possible assistance.

As a sinner, man is "without strength." He cannot stand upright, and walk in the way of the divine commandments. And when out of his distress he looks up into the divine face, and says, half in doubt and half in faith, "If thou canst do anything for me, have compassion on me and help me," can we think that God would be doing the right thing by him to leave him unaided? The claim that misery has upon sympathy, the claim that weakness has upon strength, demands that a helping hand be reached down from heaven to every feeble mortal, in his oft-renewed struggles to be freed from sin, and to live a pure and righteous life.

* Deut. xxxii. 11, 12.

From his very nature, God must pity man in his disabled condition, and make every possible effort for his redemption. Necessity is laid upon him to stir up his strength on man's behalf,—not the necessity of fate, but the necessity which a heart of infinite love is under to seek relief in the impartation of benefits; the necessity of a holy nature to find delight in doing good,—the same necessity which a true mother feels, when, impelled by love she rushes into a burning house, and risks her life in order to save the lives of her children. We pay God a poor compliment, when pushing to an unwarrantable extreme the doctrine of his absolute sovereignty, we claim for him the right to do wrong, by claiming for him the right to pass by some of his hapless children, and to select others as objects of special favor, and of effectual help. Does partiality cease to be sinful only by being attributed to the Heavenly Father?

Against the doctrine of partial love the heart lifts up its protest, and as sentiment ultimately gets the better of logic, a doctrine against which the heart protests has upon it the seal of doom. No theory of bare sovereignty can command for ever the homage of men. The spirit of man will bow before the scepter of sovereign power only when it is seen that the Almighty and the AllGood are one. God is loved because he is seen

to be lovesome; he is obeyed because his commands are known to be just and right.

For everything that God does we may be sure that he has a good and sufficient reason to give, although that reason may be often hid from us. "Our God is in the heavens and he hath done. whatsoever he hath pleased;" but it is not possible that he should ever be pleased to do wrong. In all his actions infinite love is directed by infinite reason. In his infinite reason he finds the eternal law of righteousness, which were he to violate, he would cease to be God.

The meanest creature that breathes has rights which God as the great Head of the universe is bound to respect. Man in virtue of special relationship to God has special claims upon him. If Creatorship has its responsibilities, much more has Fatherhood. As the universal Father of men God is bound to seek as the ultimate end of the order of things which he has established in the world, the highest welfare of his entire human family. As the Father of disobedient and rebellious children, he must from his very nature do all that is reasonable and right to reconcile them to himself, and thus to restore harmony among themselves. One would think that this ought to be accepted as self-obvious. And yet, in the present year of grace a modern theologian, "as one born out of due time," is found contending

that God owes nothing to his children; and declaring that "the assertion that God is bound either in this life or in the next, to tender pardon of sin to every man has not only no support in Scripture, but is contrary to reason.' What! is the obligation of any moral being to be merciful contrary to Scripture and to reason? Is it only the earthly father who finds in the imperative demands of his parental nature a law which binds him to keep open door for the penitent prodigal? Does not the charge of partiality implied in these words put a stain upon the divine perfections, by making the thoughts and ways of God seem lower instead of higher than the thoughts and ways of man? In view of the fact that "the love of God is broader than the measure of man's mind," it is perhaps only natural that man should generally err by narrowing that which seems to him too great. Man is himself so small that his largest thought may be a belittling of the Infinite. Of one thing, however, we may feel confident: whenever God is made to appear arbitrary and partial his character is travestied; whenever his ways are represented as unequal, they are misrepresented. Infinitely great and good, the Heavenly Father has but to be known to be revered and loved. His purpose

*Dogmatic Theology, Dr. Shedd, Vol. I. p. 426,