Bible Emblems Part 1

Bible Emblems.

by Edward E. Seelye.

I.

The higher Rock.

LEAD ME TO THE ROCK THAT IS HIGHER THAN I. PSALM 61:2.

This is a humble cry: the cry of a soul needing help--a soul looking outside of and beyond self for aid and succor.

Strange and unusual as it is to hear it, it is the most rational cry that the human soul ever uttered.

It cannot be disguised, that man is unsatisfied with his present condition. He looks for something higher. He longs to become what he is not now.

Every soul has within it the secret consciousness of imperfection, and a secret aspiration for improvement. Evils and infirmities now encompa.s.s it, but it has an idea of a higher state of being, and a more perfect development of spiritual life.

The great question is, how man shall gain this spiritual life. Where is the power which shall effect his elevation and improvement? Where is he to look for that influence which will insure his progress, which will exalt and sanctify him, and fit him to fulfil the great end of his creation? Is it from earth, or heaven? Is it within him, or above him? Is it human, or divine? Is it nature, or is it grace?

This is the vital question to be settled; the turning-point of all our views of religion and humanity.

We are satisfied that the only basis of man's improvement lies in his dependence upon almighty power. The only rock on which he can ever be satisfied to rest, is the Rock that is higher than he. If ever his condition is bettered, it must be by some agency outside of himself. If ever he is to reach a heaven of perfection and of blessedness, he must be drawn thither by a heavenly power.

We confess we expect very little from all the flattering theories of self-dependence and self-development. We are tired of the endless talk of man's n.o.ble and sublime endowments, and his vast capacities for reaching his ultimate perfection. We turn away from much that is uttered under the guise of religion, which is little else than a ringing of perpetual changes on the progressive energy of human nature, and which utterly ignores the need of divine grace, while it teaches man to make himself a seraph. Very empty is it all to us--this G.o.dless humanitarianism, discoursing perpetually upon human progress, while it says not a word about man's dependence upon any thing above himself.

It may please the mult.i.tude to tell them that they must look solely to themselves for all the resources of a higher life. It tickles the vanity of men to preach to them of the virtues of self-reliance, and to exhort them with high-sounding oratory to cultivate their manhood, and follow the higher instincts of their nature; to bid them behave worthy of themselves, to find the true law of their being in their own self-hood, and to rely upon the strength of their own spiritual muscle to climb to the higher regions of spiritual perfection. Men love to hear it. They listen readily to the voice of such charmers. It flatters their pride. It deifies their manhood. It gets rid of all those humbling notions of dependence upon G.o.d's power. It does away with all such useless exercises as prayer and supplication. It tells men to be true to themselves, to kindle the sparks of their own manhood, and walk in the light of them, while it says nothing of a "Rock which is higher than they."

Grand as such teachings may seem to many, they sound very sad to the Christian: sad, because they are not true; sad, because they are as delusive as they are flattering.

According to all these theories, man is directed to himself for his own salvation and improvement. Nature, and not grace, must save him. He is his own rock on which he must build. He has no object above himself to look to. His G.o.d is his own developed humanity. What then is there for him to hold fellows.h.i.+p and communion with higher than himself? What is there to draw him upward; what to excite him to action? How can he rise above his own level? On what ladder will he plant his feet, and what object will attract his gaze and nerve him to exertion?

With nothing outside of himself and above himself to look to, you shut him up to grovel in the dust. Without the law of a higher attraction influencing him, man, with all his ambitious pretensions, will stay where he is. It is only when the sun is in the heavens, scattering its warm beams over the world, that the ocean sends up from its bosom its tribute to the sky. Destroy this solar attraction, and no particle of moisture would rise above the surface.

So the human soul aspires to something above itself, in obedience to the law of spiritual attraction which is beyond itself. Isolate it from G.o.d, who is far above it, turn away its thoughts from any rock higher than it, bid it look perpetually inward and never outward and upward, and you have doomed it to despair.

"Is it not strange," remarks the earnest and profound John Foster, "to observe how carefully some philosophers, who deplore the condition of the world and profess to expect its melioration, keep their speculations clear of any idea of Divine interposition? No builders of houses or cities were ever more attentive to guard against the access of flood or fire. If He should but touch their prospective theories of improvement, they would renounce them as defiled, and fit only for vulgar fanaticism. No time is too long to wait, no cost too deep to incur, for the triumph of proving that we have no need of a Divinity regarded as possessing that one attribute which makes it delightful to acknowledge such a Being--the benevolence which would make us happy.

"But even if this n.o.ble self-sufficiency cannot be realized, the independence of spirit which has labored for it must not sink at last into piety. This afflicted world, 'this poor terrestrial citadel of man,' is to lock its gates, and keep its miseries, rather than admit the degradation of receiving help from G.o.d."

That religion which is taught us in the Bible, is the opposite of all the cruel mockeries of a G.o.dless philosophy. It tells of human progress. It bids us hope for a higher life. It cheers us with promises of deliverance and salvation. But it bids us "cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils," and points us to a Cause above ourselves. It sounds no panegyrics upon our manhood. It talks not of nature's doings, but of grace. It tells us not to trust ourselves, to rely upon our self-hood, but to consent to be helped by a divine power. It leads us not to ourselves, but to "the Rock that is higher" than we.

And in so doing we maintain that the religion of Jesus Christ alone meets the deep-felt want of our souls.

After all the cherished pride of independence, after all the praises sung to "our G.o.dlike manhood," after all the strugglings for self-development, the soul feels a consciousness of its weakness, and is burdened with a sense of its own impotency. There are occasions, not a few, when it gives the lie to all the shallow pratings of philosophy, and looks around it for help. It feels its own infirmities. It wants to escape from its loneliness and isolation. It reaches after a power which it does not possess. It cries for a "Rock which is higher" than it.

The religion of Christ meets this condition of our nature. It tells me I must look beyond myself. It shows me where to look. It reveals to me a Rock, firm, enduring, safe, where I may rest--not in me, but above me, "higher than I"--to which, if I would reach it, I must consent to be led, and to receive aid.

In this school of religion are we taught the lessons of the deepest humility, and the most absolute dependence--lessons such as were never taught in the porch or the grove of refined philosophy. They are opposed to the strongest instincts of our carnal hearts. They extort from the soul the confession of its own helplessness: "Save, Lord, or I perish."

Yet conflicting as true religion is with the pride and self-confidence of carnal man, its provisions and conditions meet precisely the wants of a humble believer. This abnegation of self, and looking away from and above self, is the highest comfort of a Christian's life. This Rock, higher than he, is what he wants to get hold of and lean upon. Lead me to it, is his prayer, uttered from every department of his soul.

1. The _understanding_ utters it, when it seeks for knowledge. It asks for a wisdom above its own, to instruct us in the great truths of our being, our relations to G.o.d, our duties, and our destiny. It feels that divine wisdom alone is competent to declare what the divine will is.

Men may bid me hear it through the voice of reason; but that cannot satisfy the soul. Like the spider which spins its web from its own bowels and hangs it in the air, have men been long busy in deducing from their own reason their profoundest systems of truth and virtue, and in laying down the rule of duty which would guide them to life eternal. But the result of all such labors has been poor indeed. All the systems which reason has ever framed could never rise above the finite; and mult.i.tudes of them have proved but metaphysical cobwebs, entangling the soul which seeks to walk upon them in their perplexing meshes, till, in its strugglings, it breaks through them all, and drops down into the abyss of hopeless scepticism.

I cannot trust my eternal welfare to such deceptive oracles. I want to hear a voice outside of myself to teach me life and duty. I want to hear what G.o.d speaks to me, and to believe it because He speaks it. And though in his divine revelation he says many things which are not articulate to my reason, still reason forbids me not to trust in them. Faith lays hold of them, and climbs upward to rest upon "the Rock." Here the Christian soul takes refuge. To the infallible word of G.o.d it flies, from all the Babel utterances of rationalistic errors, as its only security, its fortress, and high tower.

2. The human _will_ also needs to look above and beyond itself for the Rock of its support.

"There is," says a profound writer, "a sentiment to be found in divers forms among all men, the sentiment of the need of some external succor, of a support to the human will, of a force which can lend its aid and strength to our necessity."

How true this is every Christian knows by sad experience. "To will is present with me," says Paul, "but how to perform that which is good, I find not."

How changeable our volitions. How many purposes unexecuted lie like wrecks along the sh.o.r.es of our past history. The best of resolutions glow for a time in the soul, but the genial spark thus kindled is soon blown out in the wild tempest of the pa.s.sions. Our states of mind are variable as the sky. They carry the will along with them. There are tides of human feeling, just as there are tides in the ocean, which ebb and flow in ceaseless agitation. That old Saxon monarch who with his courtiers went down to the sh.o.r.e and issued his command to the ocean surges to go back, till the waves, in mockery of his authority, dashed over his feet, was as successful as he will be, who thinks to subdue with the voice of his own authority the active elements within him, and to subject to the mandates of the human will the troubled sea of thought and feeling in the soul.

Oh, when thus my will is powerless for good, when resolutions strongly framed and guarded go down one by one under the shock of temptation, when thus I climb and fall backwards, repent and sin, and repent again only to resolve anew, then it is I feel the need of something more potent to fix my resolutions and give stability to my purposes. Then it is I wait to hear the voice of G.o.d's authority, and ask to be led to some "Rock higher than I."

3. Again, to such a Rock as this the believer's _affections_ naturally aspire. Unless some object more excellent and worthy than self be discovered, then is selfishness the highest virtue. Such an object cannot be found in the creature things which surround us. Magnify them as we may, the soul feels that they are inferior to itself; in all its attempts to love them and go out after them, the soul has a secret consciousness of degradation. It feels that it is stepping downwards and not upwards, when it turns its love upon the material vanities around it. There is, all the while, a suppressed sense of dissatisfaction, a wish and a longing for something better to love, something higher for the heart to reach after.

This feeling in the Christian makes him look upward. G.o.d as revealed in Christ is alone sufficient to fill his heart. He discovers the holiness and excellency of his nature. He sees him with all the attributes of divinity and humanity harmoniously blended together, the chief among ten thousands; the one altogether lovely. He feels that he is worthy of his love. He is drawn to him with the cords of love. He is looking higher than self. There is none upon earth he desires besides Him. Now he has found the only object he can safely love. Other things have mocked him: earthly vanities have trifled with his affections; they have betrayed his trust; but Christ fills his heart. He is a higher rock than himself, and he turns thither as his only rest. Lead me to this Rock; let my soul climb here above the lower level of earth and sense; for here my hope shall not be put to shame.

4. This higher Rock is the only refuge I can find when I feel the need of _pardon and sanctification_. The human conscience testifies of guilt.

G.o.d's law has been set at naught, and its penalty has been incurred.

Justice demands a satisfaction for transgression, else the gate of reconciliation is closed for ever. How can this fearful difficulty be overcome? How can G.o.d forgive the guilty? Shut me up to myself, and I am in despair. I could commit the sin myself, but I cannot give the satisfaction. All my present attempts to obedience can have no effect upon what I have done before. My guilt is where I cannot reach it. My prayers and tears and vows cannot wash out the d.a.m.ning record which stands against me. Even could I reform my life and tread in the path of holiness from this time forth, there is guilt already which I cannot cancel.

Oh, the utter helplessness of the soul is one of the most agonizing feelings which attend conviction of sin. Guilt stares me in the face, after all my strugglings. The dark waters go over my head, and I sink for ever, were it not for a rock I can seize hold of, which is Christ a Saviour. The gospel points me to an atonement made for me in the death of Jesus Christ, and bids me look by faith to the sacrifice of the cross.

This is precisely what I want.

Oh let me reach this Rock, and I can count over my transgressions without despair; for here the justice of G.o.d is satisfied. Here is a full atonement for them all. Here G.o.d smiles upon me with a look of forgiveness, for the law is magnified, and grace abounds. Here is my refuge against all the accusations of conscience and the terrors of guilt.

Here on this Rock I rest in peace, a high Rock, above the clouds where the lightning flashes of wrath play and justice hurls the bolts.

Lastly, this divine Rock is the Christian's only support in _the trying calamities of life_. Whatever be their nature, whether temptations, or afflictions, or spiritual distresses, he meets them by looking above and beyond himself for aid.

There is a kind of heroism which the world applauds, exhibited sometimes by men in the trying straits of life, a gloomy heroism which inspires them to breast misfortune with an iron nerve, and "take up arms against a sea of troubles," in firm reliance upon their own indomitable will. It never quails before the face of danger, but will perish in the fierce encounter rather than submit to fear. Often it a.s.sumes the form of a grim and sullen stoicism, which sheds no tear over the desolation of cherished hopes, and utters no plaintive cry over the wreck of lost affections. With dogged silence it buries the last of kindred, and at last lies down to die with features cold and mute as marble, and with sealed pa.s.sports departs to the eternal world.

This, which the world calls manly firmness, is a foul libel on humanity, but a few degrees removed from the sublime stolidity of the brute.

The Christian lays claim to no such heroism, but looks for aid in trouble.

He is willing to be helped. From the end of the earth will I cry unto Thee when my heart is overwhelmed, "Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I."

The idea suggested is that of a sufferer struggling in the angry billows; and while he feels his strength rapidly wearing out, he turns his eye in every direction across the boundless waters to find some succor. No friendly sail is seen. Not a spar or plank is left of his shattered vessel. Every thing has gone down beneath the remorseless tide. But yonder looms a solitary rock high in the air. Storms rage about it in vain. The surges dash and roar around its base. The maddened waters are lashed into foam and spray. But there it stands, firm, unmovable, invincible. Heedless of tide and wave and storm, it looks tranquilly out upon the chafed and angry elements, as unconcerned as though naught but sunbeams played and zephyrs whispered.

What that rock is to the wrecked and exhausted mariner who has at length reached its base, and lain down in its friendly clefts, such is Christ to the tossed and troubled believer. In the upheavings of life, when all other trusts have failed, and the waters of affliction are breaking over him, he betakes himself to G.o.d, and climbs upon the Rock of ages.

He has no idea of standing on his manhood when distress and death confront him. He is willing to own his dependence, and humbly fly to G.o.d for aid.

Faith in G.o.d is to him a mightier resource than the boasted iron nerve and proud unconquerable will of nature.