the calm judicial voice put the unanswerable question and pronounced the irreversible sentence'Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having a wedding-garment? Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few chosen.' 313 SERMON XXV. THE TREE PLANTED BY THE WATER SIDE. PSALM i. 3, 4. ' He shall be like a tree planted by the water side, that will bring forth his fruit in due season. His leaf also shall not wither; and look, whatsoever he doeth, it shall prosper.' THE image which this passage presents to us is one peculiarly forcible in the country in which this Psalm was written. In the arid soil of Palestine, unless a tree were planted by the water side, that is, by some perennial stream, or at least 'beside some torrent which would flow during the rainy seasons of winter and spring, it would have but little chance of bringing forth fruit in due season. It might be like the fig tree cursed by our Lord, having leaves without fruit; or it might yield a stunted miserable crop, but it would bring no fruit to perfection.' The image, therefore, is a sufficiently plain and forcible one. And it is obvious that it refers not to moral goodness, but to temporal prosperity. The character of the good man has been already : described negatively, in the 1st verse-Blessed is the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, and hath not sat in the seat of the scornful;' and positively, in the 2nd-His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law will he exercise himself day and night.' We now come to his reward-to the blessings which are to be bestowed upon him. And these are-health and happiness, wealth sufficient for his needs, a hearty old age, and success in his various undertakings. Such a passage as this at once sets before us this question-How far are we to take these Old Testament expressions as applicable to us who live under the Gospel dispensation? It is plain that Old Testament writers looked, we do not say entirely, but mainly, to temporal happiness as being the reward of the righteous, and temporal suffering as the punishment of the wicked. The Psalms especially are full of passages which exult in the prosperity of the servants of God and the misfortunes of His enemies, as being what is justly due to each. One Psalm, the thirty-seventh, is entirely devoted to enforcing the lesson, that though the ungodly man may seem to enjoy a momentary prosperity, yet speedy punishment awaits him. 'Fret not thyself because of the ungodly, neither be thou envious against the evil-doers; for they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and be withered even as the green herb.' And the Book of Job is the history of one who, because he was afflicted, must, it was thought by his friends, be necessarily wicked. On the other hand, the New Testament never annexes the promises of temporal prosperity to the entrance into the Kingdom of God. On the contrary, it is linked with predictions of suffering. In the world ye shall have tribulation,' are the words of Christ; that we must through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God,' was the lesson of His Apostles. A bare promise of the necessaries of life to be provided by the care of our Heavenly Father for Christ's disciples, seems to be the utmost that our Divine Master holds out: 'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.' Are we then to say that passages such as this in the first Psalm are altogether inapplicable and unprofitable to Christians, because written under a different stage of God's moral government of the world? Doubtless there is a great difference between the view taken by the Psalmist of human life, and that taken by the Christian-a distance to be measured by the vastness of the space which separates the dim knowledge of a future life possessed by David, from the glorious revelation of life and immortality brought to light by Christ. Their view was more contracted, by reason of the lesser knowledge which God had then vouchsafed to them: ours is wider, not by any merit of ours, but by reason of the greater knowledge He has Vouchsafed to us. Their horizon was almost bounded by the span of mortal life: beyond that, all was dark and dim and uncertain. Our view is boundless as the eternal world itself; because Jesus Christ has thrown open the portals of that world, and revealed it to our sight. Naturally, therefore, we should look in the writers of the Old Testament for a much greater prominence of temporal prosperity as a mark of Divine favour than in the New. The Gospel is set in a different key it bears the stamp and impress of the Prince of Sufferers-of Him who wears the Crown of Thorns and bears the bruised heel. : Nevertheless, we believe that in such passages as that which I have read as the text, there are lessons of instruction even for the Christian. We would not think so meanly of the Psalmist, as to look upon him as a mere vulgar worshipper of success-one who thinks that because a man is outwardly prosperous he must therefore be worthy of admiration and imitation. David knew by his own experience that God afflicts even those whom He loves: and, as Lord Bacon says, 'The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in depicting the sufferings of David than the felicities of Solomon ;' |