LECTURE XXXVII. BE STILL. "Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth." PSALM xlvi. 10. THE forty-sixth psalm is evidently from first to last a military or a war song. It assumes tribulation, warfare, in the midst of the world; and it points the Christian to his refuge, his safe and blessed retreat, amidst the war storms gathering from the distant horizon. God is not only our refuge, but He is also with us. "He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; He burneth the chariot in the fire." If God is thus the source of victory, if the battle is not to the strong nor the race to the swift, then "be still;" do not be alarmed, agitated, and vexed; but be satisfied of this; that God will be exalted in the earth. Fear not for his kingdom, be not alarmed for his cause; not a hair of the head of his saints shall perish. Be still, and know that He is not man to repent, nor a creature to fail; but the mighty God, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. This prescription is suitable to the age in which we live, in the scenes that are opening on a world that ap (267) pears to be about to go through its last baptism. What are some of the grounds of disquiet in the minds of true Christians? Why is it that we need the prescription, "Be still"? We answer, first, from the imperfection of our knowledge. We see but a fragment of God's procedure; we cannot see that out of evil He still educes good. When we behold overshadowing error, we think it will deepen and darken till the whole sky is overcast ; whereas, by-and-by it is dissolved, and truth shines forth with all the splendor of the sun, and the momentary cloud seems to have only increased the intensity of the glory that succeeds, and follows it. We hear of divisions and disputes among Christians; we think the Church is going to pieces; but that is because we see but a part, we do not see the whole. If we saw the whole we should discover that the momentary discord is only preparatory to lasting harmony; and that the dispute of a day precedes the peace that will prevail through ages to come. We see through a glass darkly; we do not always recollect this, and because we forget it, and fancy that we can see more clearly than is the case, we are troubled and disquieted. Because we are blind, we think the world is going to pieces, and that God has left it to itself. Another reason why we are disquieted is, that we judge very much after the senses. We call that bright which we see to be so; we call that dark which we feel to be so; and we judge of God's procedure by the same senses with which we judge of things that are properly within their province, and ought to be submitted to their verdict. Noise seems greatness, but it may be very emptiness. Glare seems sublimity, it may be puerility in the extreme. We " results when all lamity, and ruin. judge after the senses, and we are often mistaken. Christ's cross looked the meanest thing; it was really the most magnificent. Christ's grave in the garden looked a dark and a lonely spot; it was really the birthplace of a greater power, the dawn of a brighter glory than ever shone from heaven upon the hills of earth and the habitations of mankind. We must not think that is power which looks so, nor that misfortune that seems so. Under the most unlikely garb there may be an angel from heaven unawares. The hand of God operates beneficent seems to us inevitable catastrophe, caAnother reason why we are disquieted, when we look abroad upon the world, and on the present state of the world, is the hastiness of our judgment. We see what is sad now; we think all will be sad to the end. We judge of a long season from the change at its commencement. Yet you would blame very much the man who would judge of the excellence of a poem from the title-page. You would form a very poor estimate of his good sense who would pronounce upon the splendor of an imperial palace by a specimen of a brick taken from the wall, or by seeing a few stones of the foundation laid. Of the true Christian it is said that "he shall not make haste;" and again, "it is good quietctly to wait." Another reason why we are disturbed is, that we form an atheistic judgment. We look at the world, and we leave out Him who is its harmony, its order, and its cohesion. A world without God would be the saddest spectacle, and its history would be the bloodiest tragedy. And if we look at the wars that are gleaming like lightning upon the east, the west-in India, in China, in Italy-everywhere and no further, we should form a very sad and sorrowful conclusion. But if we can look at all that statesmen arrange, at all that warriors achieve, in the light of the sanctuary, we shall find that Italian and Indian, and Englishman and Frenchman, are but the chessmen upon the board, and that God is the great mover of them all. They think they are independent agents, they are really the instruments in his hand, accomplishing his grand and magnificent designs. Do not judge after the senses; do not think of the world without God; but look upon the world in the light of Him of whom it is said, "The Lord reigneth; let the nations tremble. The Lord reigneth; let his people rejoice." Having seen some of the obvious causes why we are disposed to take very gloomy views, and to be disturbed and troubled in our minds, let me explain what that stillness is that is here enjoined. God says through the Psalmist, "Be still; and know that I am God." This stillness, or quiet, is not insensibility. Man must weep over the losses that are constantly taking place around him. He must grieve at fields that are red with slaughter; he must deplore the necessity of the sword being taken from its scabbard, and the banner unfurled upon the field of battle. We cannot but grieve when we know that the wave of war, whether it be the wave of conquest or defeat, rolls laden with sorrow into ten thousand times ten thousand homes. to be insensible. Jesus wept. granite, but of flesh and blood. tianity; insensibility is not the peace that passeth understanding. The stillness that is enjoined is not insensi We are not called upon bility, but something far richer. This stillness is not fatalism. A fatalist is quite a different person from a predestinarian. You may believe in predestination, and yet not be a fatalist. The Mahometan is a thorough fatalist. The Moslem sits down when he hears of the pestilence sweeping through the streets of Constantinople, or when he hears the roll of the Russian drum and the boom of its artillery thundering in his rear; he sits down, smokes his chibouque, and exclaims in perfect ease, "It is the will of Allah-God's will be done." That is fatalism, not Christianity. There may be the intensest energy in action with a back-ground of unbroken repose on God. There may be the stillness of confiding trust, there may yet be the energy of active and of vigorous exertion. The stillness of the Moslem is the stillness of stagnation, or the calmness of an iron nerve, or the stupor superinduced by opium; it is not the "Be still, and know that I am God." This, which is here enjoined, is not the stillness of atheistic defiance. There is a stillness arising from a belief that God has forsaken the earth, that He has left the most splendid victory to the greatest strength. There is a stillness arising from the belief that the battle is to the strong, that the race is to the swift; and such confidenee is full of scorn towards God and indifference to the sufferings of mankind. The exclusion of God, and thinking that by our own arm, and might, and inexhaustible resources, we can achieve the victory, that is the stillness of Nebuchadnezzar when he congratulated himself on his Babylonian splendor; the stillness of the Assyrian when he "came down like a wolf on the fold," and thought that by his own prowess he |