A Handful of Stars Part 5

Five and thirty further years have run their course. Mr. Erskine is now seventy-three. He has pa.s.sed through the fires of persecution, and, in days of tumult and unrest, has proved himself a leader whom the people have delighted, at any cost, to follow. But his physical frame is exhausted. An illness overtakes him which, continuing for over a year, at last proves fatal. His elders drop in from time to time to read and pray with him. To-day one of them, the senior member of the little band, is moved, in taking farewell of his dying minister, to ask a question of him. After grasping the sick man's hand and moving towards the door, a sudden impulse seizes him and he returns to the bedside.

'You have often given us good advice, Mr. Erskine,' he says, 'as to what we should do with our souls in life and in death; may I ask what you are now doing with your own?'

'I am just doing with it,' the old man replies, 'what I did forty years ago; I am resting it on that word, "_I am the Lord thy G.o.d!_"'

V

Now what was it, I wonder, that Ebenezer Erskine saw in this string of monosyllables as he sat on the fallen slab beside the ruined abbey in 1690, as he sat conversing with his convalescent wife in 1708, as he preached with such pa.s.sion in 1718, and as he lay dying in 1753? What, to him, was the significance of that great sentence that, as the catechism says, forms '_the preface to the Ten Commandments_'? Ebenezer Erskine saw, underlying the words, two tremendous principles. They convinced him that _the Center must always be greater than the Circ.u.mference_ and they convinced him that _the Positive must always be greater than the Negative_.

_The Center must always be greater than the Circ.u.mference_, for, without the center, there can be no circ.u.mference. And there, in the very first word of this 'preface to the Ten Commandments,' stands the august center around which all the mandates revolve. '_I_ am the Lord thy G.o.d.' 'I have many times essayed,' Luther tells us in his _Table-Talk_, 'thoroughly to investigate the Ten Commandments; but at the very outset--"_I am the Lord thy G.o.d_"--I stuck fast. That single word "_I_"

put me to a non-plus.' I am not surprised. The man who would enter this Palace of Ten Chambers will find G.o.d awaiting him on the threshold; and he must make up his mind as to his relations.h.i.+p with Him before he can pa.s.s on to investigate the interior of the edifice. In learning his Shorter Catechism that Sunday morning at Dryburgh, Ebenezer Erskine, then a boy of ten, had come face to face with G.o.d; and he felt that he dared not proceed to the _Circ.u.mference_ until his heart was in harmony with the _Center_.

VI

He felt, too, that the _Positive_ must precede the _Negative_. The _person_ of the most High must come before the _precepts_ of the Most High; the _Thou Shalts_ must come before the _Thou Shalt Nots_. The superstructure of a personal religion cannot be reared on a foundation of negatives. Life can only be constructed positively. The soul cannot flourish on a principle of subtraction; it can only prosper on a principle of addition. It is at this point that we perpetrate one of our commonest blunders. Between Christmas Day and New Year's Day, we invariably frame a variety of good resolutions; we register a number of excellent resolves. But, for the most part, they come to nothing; and they come to nothing because they are so largely negative. 'I will never again do such-and-such a thing'; 'I will never again behave in such-and-such a way'; and so on. We have failed to discover the truth that gripped the soul of Ebenezer Erskine that day at Dryburgh. He saw, as he repeated to himself his catechism, that the Ten Commandments consist of three parts.

(1) _The Preface_--'_I am the Lord thy G.o.d!_'

(2) _The Precepts_--'_Thou shalt ..._'

(3) _The Prohibitions_--'_Thou shall not ..._'

Our New Year's resolutions a.s.sume that we should put third things first.

We are wrong. As Ebenezer Erskine saw, we must put the _Person_ before the _Precepts_, and the _Precepts_ before the _Prohibitions_. The _Center_ must come before the _Circ.u.mference_; the _Positive_ before the _Negative_.

When, at the end of December, we pledge ourselves so desperately to do certain things no more, we entirely forget that our worst offenses do not consist in outraging the _Thou Shalt Nots_; our worst offenses consist in violating the _Thou Shalts_. The revolt of the soul against the divine _Prohibitions_ is as nothing compared with the revolt of the soul against the divine _Precepts_; just as the revolt of the soul against the divine _Precepts_ is as nothing compared with the revolt of the soul against the _Divine Person_. It is by a flash of real spiritual insight that, in the General Confession in the Church of England Prayer Book, the clause, '_We have left undone those things which we ought to have done_,' precedes the clause, '_And we have done those things which we ought not to have done._' In his _Ecce h.o.m.o_, Sir John Seeley has pointed out the radical difference between the villains of the parables and the villains that figure in all other literature. In the typical novel the villain is a man who does what he ought not to do; in the tales that Jesus told the villain is a man who leaves undone what he ought to have done. 'The sinner whom Christ denounces,' says Sir John, 'is he who has done nothing; the priest and the Levite who pa.s.sed by on the other side; the rich man who allowed the beggar to lie unhelped at his gate; the servant who hid in a napkin the talent intrusted to him; the unprofitable hireling who did only what it was his duty to do.'

Christ's villains are the men who sin against the _Person_ and the _Precepts_ of the Most High; he scarcely notices the men who violate the _Prohibitions_. Yet it is of the _Prohibitions_ that, when New Years come, we think so much.

At vesper-tide, One virtuous and pure in heart did pray, 'Since none I wronged in deed or word to-day, From whom should I crave pardon? Master, say.'

A voice replied: 'From the sad child whose joy thou hast not planned; The goaded beast whose friend thou didst not stand; The rose that died for water from thy hand.'

During a ministry of nearly thirty years, it has been my privilege and duty to deal with men and women of all kinds and conditions. I have attended hundreds of deathbeds. In reviewing those experiences to-day, I cannot remember a single case of a man who found it difficult to believe that G.o.d could forgive those things that he ought not to have done and had done; and I cannot recall a single case of a man who found it easy to believe that G.o.d could forgive those things that he ought to have done but had left undone. It is our sins against the divine _Precepts_ that sting most venomously at the last:

'The sad, sad child whose joy thou hast not planned; The goaded beast whose friend thou didst not stand; The rose that died for water from thy hand!'

Ebenezer Erskine saw that day at Dryburgh that he must recognize the inspired order. He must bow first of all to the authority of the Divine _Person_; he must recognize the obligations involved in the Divine _Precepts_; and, after this, he must eschew those things that are forbidden by the Divine _Prohibitions_. That order he never forgot.

VII

George Macdonald tells us how, when the Marquis of Lossie was dying, he sent post-haste for Mr. Graham, the devout schoolmaster. Mr. Graham knew his man and went cautiously to work.

'Are you satisfied with yourself my lord?'

'No, by G.o.d!'

'You would like to be better?'

'Yes; but how is a poor devil to get out of this infernal sc.r.a.pe?'

'Keep the commandments!'

'That's it, of course; but there's no time!'

'If there were but time to draw another breath, there would be time to begin!'

'How am I to begin? Which am I to begin with?'

'There is one commandment which includes all the rest!'

'Which is that?'

'_Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved!_'

What did the schoolmaster mean? He meant that the _Person_ must precede the _Precepts_, as the _Precepts_ must precede the _Prohibitions_; he was insisting on the divine order; that was all. And I feel confident that _that_ was the burden of that powerful sermon that Ebenezer Erskine preached to his people at Portmoak in 1718. His last illness, as I have said, continued for twelve months. It was in its earlier stages that the old elder asked his question and received his minister's testimony concerning the text. A year later Mr. Erskine referred to the words again. On the morning of the first of June, he awoke from a brief sleep, and, seeing his daughter, Mrs. Fisher, sitting reading by his bedside, he asked her the name of the book.

'I am reading one of your own sermons, father!'

'Which one?'

'The one on "_I am the Lord thy G.o.d!_"'

'Ah, la.s.s,' he exclaimed, his face lighting up, as a wave of sacred memories swept over him, 'that is the best sermon ever I preached!'

A few minutes later he closed his eyes, slipped his hand under his cheek, composed himself on his pillow, and ceased to breathe. The n.o.ble spirit of Ebenezer Erskine was with G.o.d.

Ebenezer Erskine reminds me of his great predecessor, Samuel Rutherford.

When Rutherford was staying for a while at the house of James Guthrie, the maid was surprised at hearing a voice in his room. She had supposed he was alone. Moved by curiosity, she crept to his door. She then discovered that Rutherford was in prayer. He walked up and down the room, exclaiming, '_O Lord, make me to believe in Thee!_' Then, after a pause, he moved to and fro again, crying, '_O Lord, make me to love Thee!_' And, after a second rest, he rose again, praying, '_O Lord, make me to keep all Thy commandments!_' Rutherford, like Erskine a generation later, had grasped the spiritual significance of the divine order.

'_Make me to believe in Thee!_'--the commandment that, as the schoolmaster told the Marquis, includes all the commandments!

'_Make me to love Thee!_'--for love, as Jesus told the rich young ruler, is the fulfilment of the whole law.

'_Make me to obey all Thy commandments!_'

The man who learns the Ten Commandments at the school of Samuel Rutherford or at the school of Ebenezer Erskine will see a s.h.i.+ning path that runs from Mount Sinai right up to the Cross and on through the gates of pearl into the City of G.o.d.

VI

DOCTOR DAVIDSON'S TEXT

I

There are only two things worth mentioning in connection with Dr.