Isaiah 11:2-5 And the spirit of the LORD shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might… We may, there. fore, claim abundant precedent in using the text to correct two perilous tendencies in the national and religious thought of our own day — one brought about by a mistake made by men of the world in the affairs of State, and the other the result of a misapprehension by men of God in the affairs of the Spirit. 1. The first tendency, which is to depreciate the operation of the Spirit of God in civic life and duty, may be illustrated by a simple fact. In the Speech from the throne, at the opening of Queen Victoria's last Parliament, the customary reference at the close to the blessing of Almighty God upon the labours of her faithful Commons was omitted. It was afterwards explained by a responsible Minister of the Crown that the omission was accidental, but the omission marks nevertheless a tendency. The recognition of the Divine in political life has become formal. Its symbols linger, but it is assumed that thoughtful men smile at them and lay the burthen of their survival upon the substantial emoluments of office, or upon the popular love of the spectacular symbols of dignity. In depreciating the "Divine right" of kings, have we diminished the assurance, "By Me kings reign and princes decree justice"? Do the splendours of a coronation impress us more than its solemnities! Does the sense of widening empire attract us more than a growing sensitiveness to the supremacy of spiritual obligation! Are we more responsive in national movements to the solicitations of sensual excitement than to the inward suggestions of the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord! It was in the midst of social and political conditions strangely analogous to our own that Isaiah set forth his inspired conception of the spiritual qualifications of true kingship amongst men. 2. Between the tendency to depreciate the place of the Divine in national life, and the further tendency in religious thought to limit the sphere of the activities of the Spirit of God unduly to what are termed spiritual as opposed to temporal affairs, there is an inner correspondence that is very significant. There is a mode, popular amongst the religious, of speaking of the work of the Spirit of God as "supernatural," and as thus excluding processes known as natural or rational, that is distinctly perilous. This distinction implies that we may feel and know the presence of the Spirit of God at the Keswick Convention, but fails to expect His influence in the Convention at Bloemfontein. It asserts His inspiration in Holy Scripture, but has no sure place for His control or suggestion in the leading articles of the "secular" press. His gifts may be possessed by the "spiritually minded," but the man immersed in political affairs thinks and toils in quite another sphere. His presence is invoked at the councils of the Church, but at the councils of industry it is regarded as a negligible quality. In the problems of the soul His guidance as the Spirit of truth may be consciously expected, but in the problems of science men must follow the light of nature. It was against a similar conception in his time that Isaiah's declaration of the Spirit's seven-fold gifts was announced. Israel had made the fatal distinction between secular and sacred that is at the root of so much of our own disregard of God. We do not wonder that with national emergencies and necessities such as these pressing upon him, Isaiah reveals the source and strength of political sagacity and regal authority as dwelling with these august prerogatives of the Spirit of the Lord that are prevailingly intellectual, "the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord." They display a marvellous coordination of the intellectual and practical life with the sense of the direct relation of the life to God. They cannot be too closely studied and applied as the Divine provision for the governing and political mind, and the scientific temper of our own day. "'Wisdom' is the power of discerning the nature of things through the appearance; 'understanding' the power of discerning the difference of things in their appearance; 'counsel' is the gift of forming right conclusions, and might' the ability to carry them through with energy. 'The knowledge of the Lord' is knowledge founded on the fellowship of love; and 'the fear of the Lord' is fear absorbed in reverence." These are the hidden springs of the genius for statesmanship. The Spirit is the true historic glory of royalty, and the secret of citizenship in all abiding developments of popular liberties and imperial expansion; and to accept any statute of limitations in the opulence of His energies in national life is as fatal to permanence as to progress. (F. Platt, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD; |
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