It represents a fact of moral life. Permission which implied no sanction, nay, which carried with it inevitable danger! We sometimes ask why it should be so, and wonder if it might not have been otherwise. Is it necessary that we should have to run such risks and undergo such menace? If God's anger is to be kindled against Balaam if he went, why ever permit him to go? If to agree to the Israelites' request means to send leanness into their souls, why ever give them their request? This is the great mystery of sin, and the great mystery (of which it is a part) of man's free will, which means freedom to do wrong as well as to do right, freedom to sin, freedom to go against the law of our own being and against the law of God and the will of God. In this respect God cannot keep from us what we want. God does not-cannot-violate man's will, compelling him as by physical necessity to do right. It would cease to be a moral world, and we would cease to be men in the sense we are. Only moral means can be used to achieve a moral end. Thus the place of a man in the spiritual kingdom is settled not by his gifts, or attainments, or capacities, or actions even, but by his will. When Balaam desired, longed, willed to go, what could even God do but say to him, "Go"? For, notice further, that from the point of view of pure morality the evil was done. The birth of sin is not in the sinful act, but in the sinful desire. Lady Macbeth's argument to her husband, after he had planned the murder of Duncan, and then wavered-not because he repented, but partly for reasons of fear, and partly for reasons of policy-is a cogent argument from the purely moral point of view. Her argument is that he was guilty of the crime already, since it was still in his heart. Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valour, Letting I dare not wait upon I would, Not that a man who thinks evil may as well go on to commit the evil, though that is the devil's argument which comes to many a man, and which Lady Macbeth made use of in the passage quoted; but that the first guilt of sin does lie in the evil will; and an evil will only needs opportunity in order to blossom out into the full-blown crime, or vice, or cruelty, or shame. Balaam had disobeyed God in his heart before he set out for Balak's court. He was not really a worse man through the permission to go. Indeed, it was perhaps the only chance for him to become a better man by being compelled to realise that he was offending God. This permission to go was only the natural and even the inevitable result of the kindling passion in his heart. What we lust after, what we give our heart to, what we really request from God and from man, what we desire as our chief good and foster in our thoughts as the imperious need of our lives, that we cannot but get. Though it be tempting God as the Israelites did, God will give us our request, though it means sending leanness into our soul. When we make our deliberate, conscious, persistent choice, the mere practical form it takes is a detail. If our mind is ever turning towards some darling sin, as Balaam lusted after the reward, how can we, in a world like this, which is built on moral principles, be prevented from carrying our desire into action? We cannot will the evil, and be saved from all the consequences and the fruits of evil. The sin of the heart only lacks an opportunity to be turned into conduct; and God cannot keep the opportunity from us for ever. The evil is already done, when the heart is wholly given up to it. Sooner or later we have our way. We persist: we tempt God for it: we desire it: we seek it: we will have it and must have it-take it, the sin and its sting, "Go. . . . And God's anger was kindled because he went." Safety is to be found alone in the sphere wherein lies the danger, in the will. Even from the most sinful life and surroundings there is ever a point of departure for each of us in the will. The free will of man is at last justified, and only then, when it is freely given to God. If sin finds its hold and seat there, so also does salvation. We always come back to heart-religion; for nothing else is of any avail. No outside prevention, no careful cleansing of the outside of cup and platter is of use. Even if Balaam had not gone and yet had his heart full of covetousness, the mere abstention was nothing. Balaam is only safe when he does not even want to go since it is against God's will. He is only safe if he would not go though he could, since he knows it is contrary to the will of God. Only that will is safe, which is conformed to the will of God, which really seeks to do the will of God, which is guarded and inspired, at once protected and driven, by the will of God. Only that heart is safe which is fixed upon God. The ideal for man is a holy will which voluntarily chooses the good, which says, "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God." If we make God's will our will, His way shall be our way; and when He bids us go, we need fear no evil, for He is with us, even in the dark valley of the shadow of death. XXI RIGHTFUL CONFORMITY Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.-ST. MATTHEW iii. 15. ONE of the practical problems of life is to know how far we should comply with established custom and conventional ways of both thinking and acting. At first sight it appears an easy question to decide by saying broadly and generally that every man is in the last resort responsible for himself, and ought therefore to do what seems right in his own eyes, refusing to submit to the authority of numbers, and the assumed sacredness of custom which would drag all alike down to the same dead dull level. To conform to others in anything is to lose the most precious gift of independence, which alone makes progress possible for the race. No man should be asked to give up his own opinions, to acquiesce in traditional standards, to comply with accepted habits. We have our individual lives to live, and not any man, and not all men, can arrogate the place of judge. Freedom of thought, independence of action are indisputable |