But the true way to regard God is to look upon Him as a righteous Father, to see His righteousness first, and then to see His fatherly love. To see His righteousness, the awe, the beauty, the majesty, the holiness, the glory of His righteousness! Have we caught only a faint, transient glimpse of it? What then? What becomes of our righteousness, our merit, our self-satisfaction, our self-complacency? What miserable, besmirched, filthy tatters do the very best of them seem if only for a moment the skirts of His glistening raiment have crossed the field of our vision, the glory of Him who is clothed in righteousness. Do we thank God, can we thank God now, that we are not as bad as other men are? Nay, thank Him for His opportunity, thank Him for His mercy, thank Him for His forbearing patience, but thank Him not where thanksgiving is a mere cloak of self-complacency. No; you cannot compare yourself with another now; you see only your own sin, you can measure only your own unworthiness now, or, rather, it appears far beyond measuring to you. Your righteousness and this man's unrighteousness, your good and this man's evil—what difference is there between them in the presence of God's infinite holiness, that great leveller of all human gradations?
"For merit lives from man to man, And not, O God, from man to Thee!"
Ah, yes, Lord! I can see two things, and two only: Thy righteousness, my sinfulness, these and nothing else.
But we must look not only to God's righteousness: we must look to His fatherly goodness also. We have beheld the heinousness of our sin in the mirror of His holiness; we must now behold the grace of our forgiveness in the light of His love, His fatherly love. And have we not full and perfect assurance that His love will never fail us? What else is the meaning of His great, His inestimable gift to man of His only-begotten Son, to take His flesh upon Him and to die for us? By the infinity of His gift He would show us that His love is infinite also—nothing less; and we do Him a wrong, a cruel wrong, if we approach Him as a taskmaster, as a tyrant, as "a hard and austere man;" we blaspheme His fatherly goodness. Have we sinned, and shall we go to Him as to a taskmaster? What consolation, what forgiveness, what hope of either here? Nay, rather we will seek Him as the prodigal son sought Him; we will go to Him as to a father; we will address Him as a Father; we will betake ourselves to Him with a child's penitent heart, with a child's trusting soul, with a child's yearning embrace, and He will have compassion on us, will hasten to meet us, though we may be yet a great way off, and we shall be locked once more in His everlasting arms.
Do you think, can you think, that the sense of His infinite love will make you reckless, will make you indolent, will make you presuming? Did love, true love, truly felt, ever have this effect? Nay, just in proportion as you appropriate it, as you realise it, it will quicken, it will stimulate, it will purify, it will inspire you; it will transform your whole being into its own perfections from glory to glory. God's love is the beacon star in the sky, arresting, attracting, guiding, luring us forward on the heavenly path; the love of Christ—not our love for Him; but His love for us—the love of Christ, constrains us, binds us hand and foot, and drags us onward with the cords of a man. The publican did see this, at least in part. He saw God's righteousness in all its tremendous majesty, and he abased himself before it; he saw God's fatherly love only dimly as yet, but yearned for it. Therefore, though he was yet a great way off, God ran to meet him; and so, notwithstanding his sin, he went down from the temple that day "justified rather than the other."
One more thought is suggested by the parable. Prayer is the test of character. So it was with this Pharisee and this publican; so it must ever be, from the nature of the case. Prayer is the confronting of self with God; prayer is the communing with God; prayer is the laying bare of the soul before God. Thus prayer proves the realities of a man's being. As a man prays, so he is. He who has learned to pray aright has learned to live aright. The first and the last lesson of our lives, the first and the last desire of our hearts, the first and the last petition on our lips must be with us, as it was with the disciples of old, "Lord, teach us to pray"; and to the old question the old answer will be vouchsafed now, as then, "Our Father, which art in heaven." "Our Father." The sense of God's Fatherhood, as manifested in Christ, flooding our hearts, and dominating our lives—this is the beginning and the end of all theology; there is nothing before and nothing after this. Therefore, holy Father, we beseech Thee for Thy dear Son's sake, teach us all, this night and ever, to pray; teach us to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent; teach us so to pray that we may be found among the company of those faithful people who worship not a god of their own making, not a taskmaster, not a tyrant, not "a hard and austere man," but worship Thee, "worship the Father in spirit and in truth."
[OUR CITIZENSHIP.][14]
"Our conversation is in heaven."—Phil. iii. 20.
A better translation is "Our citizenship is in heaven."
We are all proud of our country. We delight to think of ourselves as belonging to a land on which whoever sets his foot is free. We reflect with satisfaction that we are citizens of a great empire on which the sun never sets. We feel that we have derived a very real advantage from our position; the glory of our past history is somehow reflected upon us. We think with pride of how freedom has "broadened slowly down, from precedent to precedent." We cherish the recollection too, of the most glorious scenes in our history, as if, somehow, they were part and parcel of ourselves. We feel as of one family, with its long roll of illustrious statesmen, generals, men of science,—our Shakespeare, Bacon, Newton, Wellington, Nelson, Hampden, Pitt, Canning,—that these are our fellow-citizens. Their renown is our renown. It is a great thing to extend our range of view beyond ourselves, beyond our own households, our parish, and our own neighbourhood, and yet to feel that there is a bond of union still; that we are members of a great family, citizens of a great kingdom, unique in her great world-empire. The inspiration of this thought, which the recent Jubilee celebration has emphasised, makes us higher, nobler, larger than ourselves. It drives out all the pettiness of character and all the narrowness of view. True patriotism is a very noble and ennobling sentiment. To be ready to do and to suffer, if need be to die, for our country, what broad elevation of soul is there not in a temper like this?