Exodus 23:28; Exodus 33:2

God brake the ships of Tarshish with an east wind, a puff of breath. He told the east wind to seize their masts and torment them to their destruction. Dagon was thrown down upon his face, though he was locked up with the ark, and no hand was near him; yea, he was utterly broken to pieces so that he was not a god at all. How was this? The chariots of God are twenty thousand. Can you remember twenty thousand names? Can you venture to say, "This is, and this is not, one of the twenty thousand"? It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. A great wind battered the Armada of Spain in a critical moment in English history. Thus God has more resources than those which are merely human. We gather ourselves together as if we were all his belongings, as if he depended upon us alone, and we talk, and resolve, and organise, and go forth, as if the Lord had nothing else to depend upon. Mayhap that is partly right. A man may do more if he thinks that everything depends upon himself; but he should cheer himself, and bring great encouragement into his soul, by remembering the number of God's chariots; they are twenty thousand. The stars in their courses fought against Sisera, and the stones of the field were covenanted to help those that feared the Lord. Nature helps, nature hinders, nature is God's other self, and his chariots are twenty thousand strong. The Lord God is a sun and shield, he is a spear and buckler, he is a pavilion and a sanctuary. The lightnings gather themselves round him, and say, "Here we are"; his ministers are the frog and the fly, the hornet and the locust; the fiery flying serpent and the hidden viper, the child, the angel, poverty and plenty, are his servants; yea, all things praise the Lord by their sympathy and help, so much so that if we were to hold our tongues, the universe would not be silent. "I tell you that if these were to hold their peace, the very stones would cry out, for God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." He shall never want a minister to stand before his face. If so be thou art a minister, boast not thyself of thy ministry, for a hornet may take thy place, a frog may dispossess thee, and there may be none to find out thy footsteps. Be thankful, hopeful, energetic, glad; but boast not, for boasting hastens death.

The one thought that is to inspire us is that God has many ways of helping his people, likely and unlikely, but they are ways of his own choosing, and therefore they will end in success. Hornets and angels,—Are not the ministers of God both visible and invisible? The flying hornet you can see, but who can trace the angel in the air? Can you see the angel? He is there, notwithstanding your inability to descry him. You see the hornet. Ah! we are all quicker in seeing the hornet than in seeing the angel. Fie on us, shame on shame, till we be burnt with blushes. Can you see the angel? You cannot always tell what forces and ministries are fighting either for you or against you. We do not know the meaning of nature. She is a parable we have not fully read or understood; an eternal lesson, God's perpetual illustration of himself. Oh that we had eyes to see and hearts to understand; for the library is always open, and the writing is always done by an angel's hand.

A man says, "A curse on this hornet, this winged, stinging insect, only a large bee, only an exaggerated wasp—a curse on the thing. I dare not open my window, for it may fly in; I dare not go out, for it hovers near my door and may smite me with its cruel sting. It never sleeps, it seems ever to fill the sultry air." He does not know what he is talking about: he thinks it is an insect; he says: "Why did God make such a creature?"—ah, why? He calls it insect; when he has been longer at school he may call it minister of God, and servant of the Most High. He is fretted by its unceasing and energetic buzz; by-and-by he will hear music in it, a sad and terrible music. That hornet is sent of God to drive you out: it will not die; you have been doing wrong and it has come to punish you. That hornet is death, or loss, or pain, or bitterness of soul. That hornet is not a mere insect; it means judgment, penalty, retribution, death. I wish people would see the great meaning of things and not the little trifling suggestions.

I will tell you what to do with the hornet. Hear me—bad man, hear me: I have a gospel for thee. Outrun it: thou hast two legs, two leaden feet—outrun the hornet. "I cannot." Then that will not do. Close your hand upon it. "I dare not." No, you dare not. Then that will not do. Bribe it: coat your window-sill with sugar, inches thick, and it will glut itself to death. "Aye, I will try that." Ah, it grows by what it feeds on. It is a stronger hornet for the sugar. It took your bribes and strengthened itself against you. I will tell you what to do: compromise with it, propose terms, negotiate, send a third party. "Oh bitter irony, oh mocking man," say you?—Yes, I mean to mock, for who can outrun the chariots of God? No, sir, no: stop, turn round, fall down, confess, pray; cry mightily to God to take the hornet back. That is the true gospel: hear it, and thou shalt live.

Then on the other hand there is a kind angel that can be nearly seen, and that can be almost heard, and that can be all but felt. Thank God for the things that are nearly, that are all but, that are just about to begin to be. Thank Heaven this verb of life is not all shut up in the indicative mood. Wondrous conjugation—indicative, potential, subjunctive, infinitive—how the verb grows; how the little "I am," a child's first mouthful, grows into the immeasurable eternity. Think of this kind angel, who is all but seen, who is so near as to be almost felt. You catch an aroma which he must have shaken from his wings. Bless God for these occasional hints, and touches, and blessings as we go on. The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him. Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?

Then remember the hornet will fight for you as well as against you. If you are in the right way, the hornet is your friend. It will pursue your enemies, it will bring them to reflection, it will drive them to repentance, it will force them to prayer. That hornet never dies. My God, my Father, follow not my enemies with the hornet, if gentler means will bring them to their senses; but bring them to their senses, even if it take the hornet to do it.

Hornets and angels—are not the agencies of God both humble and illustrious? See the contrast, the flying insect and the flying angel, yet they are both the messengers of Heaven. Suppose them to meet one another in the summer air—what a talk they might have! Saith the hornet, "Why does he send me when he has servants like you who can do his work so much better than I, poor winged insect, charged indeed with a sting, can do?" Saith the angel, "Why am I not employed in studying the deeper problems of the universe, when little mean insects like this could go about the work of visitation, and penalty, and judgment?" Then they catch the Divinity of the purpose, they realise their election in God, and they say, "He doeth as it pleaseth him in the armies of heaven and among the children of men. There is no meanness in doing his work. His household is infinite and his servants are many—away, sting the enemy, bless the friend, let the decree of punishment be confirmed, and let the gospel of benediction be proclaimed." So away they go, hornet and angel, to carry out the will of just but clement Heaven. Beware: the angels of God and the hornets are both his servants.

Hornets and angels—are not God's agencies material and immaterial? Of matter and of spirit doth he not make his ministers? The hornet is of the earth, the angel is of the skies; the hornet is from below, the angel is from above. There are no barren spaces in God's universe. All that great sky, on which you have never driven your small vehicles—beginning in your little baby's cart, and ending in your last hearse-ride to the gaping tomb—all that blue ground, what is it but an armoury in which he stores his resources? All things are his; all things are mine it I be in him: if I am in Christ all things are mine: death, life, angels, principalities, powers, past, present, future—all, for I am Christ's and Christ is God's. Oh, hide thee in the broken heart of Christ, shelter thee in his wounded side: do not be living in thy little mean propositions, and small theories, and miserable dogmas, and noisy controversies—hide thee in the bleeding side of the wounded Lamb of God. Then all things that fought for him will fight for me, and if I do not fight, but stand still and suffer, draw no sword for me: thinkest thou not that I could pray to my Father, and he would give me more than twelve legions of angels to defend me wherein I am right, and am hidden in his Son Jesus Christ?

Has there been a hornet in your estate lately? I wonder what it meant. Why cannot you kill that hornet? It comes by every post. You dare not open that letter—there is a hornet in it It comes by many a telegram. You dare not open the third telegram you get to-morrow—there is a hornet in it. When life is sharpened into a pain, when loss swiftly succeeds loss, when the rich showers fall everywhere except on our own garden, when every flower withers, when the firstborn sickens and the eyes are filled with mist, when the strong hands tremble—men should bethink themselves: the hornet of the Lord is then piercing the very air with its sting, puncturing our life and giving it great agony. Do not call it insect; call it God—do not call it misfortune—let the atheist use up that same inheritance; it is not misfortune, it is—Providence. Oh, the hornet stings me, frets me, plagues me; will not let me have a holiday, knows when I am going out, flies faster than the lightning express, waits for me at the seashore, goes with me over the sea.—Beast?—no: God, law, righteousness, mercy, didst thou but know it. It is sent to pain thee into prayer, for thou hast sinned away thy visitation day, and now it is God's turn. Lord, teach us the meaning of these hornets; they are hard to bear. We dare hardly turn over any leaf for fear a hornet should spring up and sting us: our life is now one daily fear—teach us the meaning of this, and by prayer may we find the remedy.

Has there been an angel in your estate lately? I say it with shame that we are much quicker in seeing the hornet than in seeing the angel; our cry is readier than our hymn, our fear is more emphatic than our love. Is the angel in your estate? Do you say you do not know? Then I will find him for you. Be still awhile. Are the children all well? "Yes." Flowers budding, singing-birds returning, the rain over and gone? "Yes; but the garden is much less than it used to be." A few flowers in the window? "Just a little box full, about eighteen inches long." Still, you have them? "Yes." Bread enough? "Plenty." A few friends? "Few, but good." The angel is in your lot. Give these things their highest meanings. There are plenty of people outside who would drag down life and make it smaller and smaller in its meanings. I would be sent of God to widen speech till it takes in all that it can of God's purpose and God's life. Poetry will have faith; faith itself is the poetry of reason; carry it up to its highest uses, and make your life as large and luminous as you can.

There are some people who are afraid of giving too great meanings to the events of life. There they get miserably wrong. When the ruddy morning comes, do not be afraid to call it the awakening angel. There are people near you who will call it fantasy; those people are lean, bony, shrivelled, dessicated, mean; and when they tell you that this is fantasy, and that is poetry, they speak out of themselves: they have no gospel to deliver. If thou dost meet a man on the high-road who takes up a flower and says, "Sir, this flower is a child of the sun," make friend of him rather than of the man who takes it up and says, "Ah, poor thing," and throws it over the fence. When spring spreads her green carpet and makes the warm air live with wordless songs, do not be afraid to call it God's angel. There be little, narrow, pence-table men who say, "It is spring, and there is rent day in spring, and there is hope of good trade in spring, and spring is one of four seasons of the year, and spring begins on the sixth and ends on the twentieth, and spring.... is nothing more."

So God rules his world. "I will send hornets before thee, and they will drive out the Hivite and all the nations that set themselves against thee. I will not send angels to fight the Hivites: let the hornets do it. And I will send an angel before thee, and he will find thee a resting-place, space for the sanctuary, and he will give thee peace." Great God! rule us still; spare the hornets, we cannot bear them, but send the hornets, if nothing else will bring us home.

"I will send," saith the first text, "I will send," saith the second. Then do not you be sending anything; sit still; I am afraid of your sending things. "I will send hornets,"—then do not you be sending your nasty, bitter, cantankerous letters, keep your hands off post-cards, do not write anonymous slanders on sheets of paper you borrow from other people. "I will send," then do not interfere with God's movements. He knows when to send, how to send, how many to send, where to send—let him do it. "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper. I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay-tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found. I have seen the great gourd of the wicked arching over his blasphemous head—lo, in the morning it was not. Why? For God prepared a worm—a worm, and the worm cankered the root of the gourd, and it withered away. Send angels if you can—live as if you would send ten thousand angels, sweet blessings, tender gospels, messages of the heart. You live in that direction, and some day God will pick you up in one of his chariots and drive you to the very camp of your enemies and show you unto them as their true friend. I will stand in God; I will rest in God.

Let the hornet do its work; let the angel fulfil his ministry. God's people cannot be permanently injured; and as for God's Church, it shall be set up on foundations broad and immovable, and all its glowing pinnacles shall pierce the clouds, and God's will shall be done on earth as it is done in heaven.

The Expulsion of the Heathen

Exodus 33:2

The awful statements made respecting the heathen, or non-Jewish peoples, have occasioned much surprise and not a little resentment. In the twenty-third chapter are words of an exciting kind upon this subject. In the twenty-eighth verse we read: "And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee." If we take such words in a narrow and literal sense, we cannot fail to be shocked. It is right that we should resent them. They represent the very spirit of oppression and murder. We cannot worship a God who thus separates himself from our conscience. But if we take the words in the right sense, we shall find that they represent what is daily and necessarily taking place in human history. They set forth the very philosophy of progressive civilisation, and would continue to be operative even if the Bible were closed for ever. This is not a Biblical matter. It neither comes nor goes with the Bible merely as a book. It is a law. Account for it as we may, make of it what we can, there it is, inevitable, irresistible, incessant. Many of the men who have turned aside from the Bible because of such expressions, are spending their time in showing that such occurrences are part of the very necessity of history. This is the glory of the Bible. When narrowly read it drives men away from it as if a fire had scorched them. When they pursue their studies upon other ground and make their way into history, progress, human development, and all the mystery of civilisation, they come back to say that all had been foretold in sharp outline in the very book which they had once despised because they once misunderstood it. Some benevolent persons might suggest that the expulsion of the heathen peoples was a hypothetical one, that the verses so cruel in their first aspect might be read as it were subjunctively, after this fashion: "If the heathen peoples,—the Canaanites, the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite,—should oppose me, and set up their will against mine, I will undertake for thee, and thou shalt have a clear course." That is not exposition which goes to the root and philosophy of things. It may cover up the mystery for a time or it may double the mystery by an aggravation which was meant to be pious; but we must find other lines and stand upon other ground, and enable ourselves by sufficient study to grasp the whole situation,—not as it is indicated in one chapter or one verse, but as it is outlined and developed on the whole field of Biblical revelation. To understand such terms we must make ourselves acquainted with the Biblical theory and method of human development. We must of all things be careful not to snatch at isolated verses and isolated expressions. The Bible must be studied and applied in its entirety.

What, then, is the Biblical theory? We find that a point of departure was established in the selection of Abram as the typical head of a new humanity. Whilst Adam represents the outer humanity, the initial and visible man, the historical unit of the race, Abram represents the inner and spiritual humanity, the fuller thought of God in the creation of man,—the humanity that is to be, the eternal likeness of God. Understand, we art now endeavouring to discover the Biblical conception without saying whether it is true or untrue. First of all, let us grasp the philosophy as it is stated in the Bible. To place the matter somewhat figuratively, then, it may be put thus: As Adam was made out of the dust of the ground, so Abram was made out of the dust of Adam, and as Adam had control over all the lower animals, so Abram had control over all the lower civilisations. Account for this dominion as you please; there it is. The scientific difficulty is quite as great as the theological one. That one race does put down another is the broadest fact in history. It would be imagined from some loose and incoherent talk that the Bible created the difficulties out of which we have made moral mysteries. Were the Bible closed, the difficulties would remain just where they are. The Bible comes with a conception which points toward a large and noble construction and issue. Therein the Bible is to be heard. The Bible does not create human life; it recognises, interprets, inspires, and directs it.

Light now begins to dawn upon the mystery. It now begins to be clear that this act was no mere act of butchery or destruction, but the gradual and solemn development of a purpose, whatever the origin of that purpose may have been. It is a fact in ethnology that some races do succumb to others. We cannot escape the fact that some races are dominant and some are servile, and that the great law of the survival of the fittest is written upon the very face of all life from the meanest to the highest. The Biblical reader is only careful that the expression, "the survival of the fittest," shall not be impoverished of its highest and richest meaning; he will seize the expression and make the highest use of it. Meanwhile, account for it as you may, with an open Bible or a shut Bible, the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, are going down, or have gone down, and another type of humanity is bearing aloft the banner of advancement and conquest. Suppose we close the Bible, we do not then revive the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite; suppose we say the Bible is not from heaven, we do not reinstate the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Whatever our theory may be, it is certain that those races are going or have gone; that they played their part and have given way to another and higher humanity. Some illustration of a collateral kind we may find in strictly personal development. Let a new life come into a man—a life associated with a new conception of duty, sacrifice, honour, or a life associated with some other new and broad and noble idea; and what is the consequence? Out goes his heathenism. The Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, which filled up the most of his life, are driven out by the light, and the beauty, and the purity of this new Abram,—this new conception of light. What an outgoing there is from the soul! What superstitions and prejudices are scourged out under the mighty and redeeming influence of a new idea of life! What new habits are established! What broader and keener discipline is applied! How the whole nature, which was once a wilderness, blossoms as the rose! and the whole life, which was once a barren desert, glows with passionate blossoming! Some idea of a collateral kind arises from that conception. It throws light upon what is meant by the erection of a new humanity that shall put down, control, absorb, destroy, or glorify all things less than itself. In all these interpretations we want time. A thousand years with the Lord are as one day. We read the verses in sweltering haste, and imagine that blow followed blow with cruel rapidity, and that weak and helpless peoples were oppressed and crushed out of existence without notice, or without chance of escape. That is our injustice towards the facts of history. Between the chapters a thousand years may lie, between the lines a millennium may elapse. The one thought governing all other thoughts is, that there is an unswerving purpose running through all the process of the ages; and that under the development and march of that purpose all that is not of its own nature must go down. Whatever is of its own nature will be taken up, absorbed, and glorified; but there is a stone, and one of two things happens in relation to that stone,—either fall upon it and be broken, or it will fall upon you and grind you to powder. That is the Bible of history, the Bible of prosaic, daily facts,—not a book of superstition, but pages written in the red blood of the current time.

Still pursuing the inquiry as to the Biblical theory of the unity of life and the progress of a purpose, we find that there is One spoken of in the Old Testament whose history is part of this marvel. We will not give that One a name: he shall be to us for the present a coming One, a shadow, a hint, a mysterious personality. Yet in the Bible that One is recognised above all others. Of him we read, "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." That is the text in another form of words, without one tone of the solemn music omitted. A greater than Abram must now be coming. "In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever" (Daniel 2:44).

Mark the harmony! It is possible for harmony or consistency to mass itself into the bulk and force of a noble argument. Throughout the Old Testament there is One coming whose way is marked by conquest. "I will overturn, overturn, overturn, until he come whose right it is." That is the text paraphrased in sublimer eloquence. So then the Bible is one upon this point. Adam has gone down, the new Abraham, the new humanity, is before us. There is no man so little spoken of in the Bible as Adam. He seems to have gone all but utterly out of the purview of the Biblical writers. But Abraham is a name written all over the holy book. God uses it. When does God speak of Adam? There is a new humanity on the earth. Here is a direct continuance of the promise made to Abraham and the Israelites. It is thus something to find that we are not dealing with a local incident or a narrow purpose, but that we are on the high road of history, or in the direct sequence of a sublime development.

Is the harmony continued in the New Testament? Is there still One coming in that later book? We have left much behind,—tabernacle, and temple, and altar, and priesthood, and ephod, and flowing blood of ram, and lamb, and fowl of the air,—have we left behind the purpose of a new humanity? "Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet."

This is the same principle. The Bible has never swerved; there is a common line. We are not now saying whether the line is right or wrong, we are making no special pleading on behalf of the Bible, but are endeavouring to be just to it, and from the first until the last the new humanity is to advance and all that is of its own quality is to be taken up: all that is not of its own quality is to be destroyed. The Bible argument is a massive and beneficent development We must read the part in the light of the whole; we must interpret the Pentateuch by the Apocalypse. He who makes the end gracious will, could we follow him, also make the process gracious. We leave all that we cannot explain regarding the servile or antagonistic races to him who for a purpose created them. But there is the ethnological fact: that one type of humanity rises and cannot be put down, and another flutters in its weakness and expires in its helplessness. All this is part of a massive and large education. It is the history of every time. There is an aspect of it which affects us with sadness, but we are not to interpret things narrowly or momentarily, but broadly and in eternal lights. There are men amongst us who must go down; there are men who cannot be put down. Were all Bibles, Churches, from this moment disregarded, the sublime and terrible fact remains of dominance and servility, the right kind and the wrong kind, and it is one of two things,—either the wrong must repent and be saved, or it must be ground to powder. For right cannot stand still. The light will slay the darkness with its million spears of glory, and a kingdom shall be established that shall explain the mystery of the conflict and the mystery of delay. We must await the incoming of that kingdom, saying, "Thy kingdom come." We need not be destroyed. I am not now speaking of the destruction of the soul in hell-fire,—all that is another mystery which must be discussed and determined upon other ground. We have to face the one fact in this connection: that the new humanity is to advance, and that every soul that sets itself against it must go down. Why set ourselves against it? "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little." The whole conception amounts to this: that One called the Son of man, the Son of God, shall have the heathen for an inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession. His garment is dyed with blood, but it is with the blood of a victor. Truly the process is, in many respects, distressing and inexplicable, but we have nothing to do with processes. The meaning of the sharp ploughing will be seen in the harvest of grain. The deep and dark foundations so long dug for and so long in being laid will be explained by the lofty edifice and the pinnacles that pierce the sun. "We know in part, and we prophesy in part But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." God's great purpose in all this advancement and overturning is to make man in his image and likeness. From that purpose he has never swerved. We await the issue. All the parables and analogies of nature which come within our cognisance establish the purpose, and already, here and there, by help of analogue, we begin to see how possible it is that though weeping may endure for a night, yet joy comes in the morning. As for the mystery, I leave it with him whose grace I magnify. We cannot resist the supreme purpose except to our own destruction. Everything points to a grand future. Were this all, we might laugh with rational merriment at him who calls himself Creator. But we must not arrest the process or interfere with the punctuation of history, or the method of the universe: we must calmly recognise the fact that from the beginning to the end there is one purpose never halting, never swerving, mighty to destroy, mighty to save,—meant to save, intended for good, and that will never be satisfied itself until the wilderness is blotted out by the garden and the desert is forgotten in the golden harvest. In this doctrine we stand, feeling it to be strong in philosophy, actual in history, and beneficent in design.

Death By Hornets

In a letter by an Indian gentleman living near Jubbulpore, written to the Times some years since, we read:—"A most melancholy accident occurred here on the 10th inst. Two European gentlemen belonging to the Indian Railway Company, viz., Messrs. Armstrong and Boddington, were surveying a place called Bunder Coode, for the purpose of throwing a bridge across the Nerbudda, the channel of which, being in this place from ten to fifty yards wide, is fathomless, having white marble rocks rising perpendicularly on either side from 100 to 150 feet high, and beetling fearfully in some parts. Suspended in the recesses of these marble rocks are numerous large hornets' nests, the inmates of which are ready to descend upon any unlucky wight who may venture to disturb their repose. Now as the boats of these European surveyors were passing up the river, a cloud of these insects overwhelmed them; the boatmen, as well as the two gentlemen, jumped overboard; but alas! Mr. Boddington, who swam and had succeeded in clinging to a marble block, was again attacked, and being unable any longer to resist the assaults of the countless hordes of his infuriated winged foes, threw himself into the depths of the water never to rise again. On the fourth day his corpse was discovered floating on the water, and was interred with every mark of respect. The other gentleman, Mr. Armstrong, and his boatmen, although very severely stung, are out of danger."