At length the Tabernacle stands finished in the midst of the enormous multitude of worshippers. And as it stands, radiant and resplendent with ineffable glories, it expresses to the universe the thoughts of God concerning Christ and His people. Pray reflect on what a wonderful possibility it is for a creature on this small planet to be able to follow the thoughts of the Deity at all, and especially those thoughts and designs pertaining to the most exalted and spiritual themes, the inmost counsels of the Most High. How strange were it for a dog to be enabled, through some subtlety of human invention, to follow the thoughts of a man? Yet the gulf between divine and human intelligence is infinitely wider than that between human and canine. Once in a lifetime there will flash into one's mind the stupendous meaning of those words that He has “made known to us the mystery of His will.” When Kepler was discovering the mathematical laws that move the solar system, he rapturously exclaimed, “O Almighty God, I think Thy thoughts after Thee!” And yet the laws of the solar system in comparison with the eternal principles before us are as transient and trifling as the rules of a game of marbles.
When the building containing the sacred Ark has been anointed with the holy ointment—in the same manner in which the antitypical ark, “tabernacled with men,” was anointed with the Holy Ghost— “the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.” This pillar of Cloud, which represented the Divine Presence, protected them from the torrid heat by day and the innumerable dangers and terrors of the darkness by night, guiding the myriads of wayward and ignorant beings through the waste howling wilderness home to the promised land. But in order to accomplish this, the people had to be guided in all their journeying by the movements of the cloud. Here we have the two great essential principles of protection and subjection.
A condition of relationship between God and His people is thus expressed. He engages to protect them, and in order to do this requires that they should obey Him. Wherever there is relationship there is responsibility, and there is a certain complementary complexion always between the relationship and the responsibility which is like that which exists between the complementary colors or sounds—the one suggesting and implying the other. When the ray of light comes to the rose, directly she absorbs all the shades that combine to form the green into her heart, she wears its complementary red on her bosom. When any musical note is sounded, the trained ear can simultaneously hear the vibrations—though faint indeed, as in some spiritual realm—of its accordant harmonic tones. The one cannot exist without the other. I know of no gospel—from God, though plenty from men—which does not advance Christ in the two-fold character, indissolubly joined, of Savior and Lord. Protection always necessitates obedience, and obedience always necessitates protection. To omit the first is legalism: to omit the second is lawlessness.
There is no other way of managing that ever I heard of. Everywhere men agree to submit to human governments, more or less faulty, because of the protection they give; for experience proves that the worst of them is better than anarchy. The citizen says, “If I surrender to you my natural savage rights of offense and defense, I expect you to protect me.” The government says, “if I am to protect you, I must have your allegiance and obedience.” Of course in the human social contract this is limited to physical matters. The rulers do not protect our souls and therefore should not dictate to our consciences. When the rulers of Jerusalem or Bedford commanded Peter or Bunyan not to preach, these very properly refused to obey. They had commands to the contrary from a higher court. At the same time when a government commands that one shall not preach at such and such a particular place because of interference with the public convenience, it is entirely within its jurisdiction, and should be obeyed. Many zealous Christians get themselves into trouble and create scandal through not seeing this distinction.
But as the protection of the Cloud is eternal, so the claim on our loyalty and submission is infinite. It is well to see, too, that His people's submission gives them—so far as a creature can have it—a claim upon God's care which is thoroughly recognized and responded to. Human rulers do not always fulfill their part of the contract. When Philip of Macedon told an old woman that he had not time to consider her petition, she replied, “Then you ought not to be king;” and he, about the fiercest and proudest man on earth at the time, was so impressed with the justice of the taunt that he immediately undertook to examine her claim. The people used to contrast with this the conduct of Demetrius who ruled afterward. This latter received affably the petitions of suppliants and folded them in his robe till he had an armful of them: he then went to the bridge of the Axius and threw them all in the river, which made the populace very indignant.
But what chiefly concerns us is obedience; readiness to advance when commanded—like those six hundred, “Theirs not to reason why.” When Paulus Æmilius found his army talkative, says Plutarch, busy and ready to direct their general, he said that each should keep his hand fit for action and his sword sharp, and leave the rest to him. Chrysantes, too, is handed down to us by the same writer as a fine example of military obedience. He was seen with his hand raised in the act of striking a foe when the trumpet sounded to cease, and his arm fell quietly to his side.
How can we down in the ranks expect always to understand our Leader's designs? If our carcasses fall in the wilderness, our souls shall reach the promised land. If there are wounds there are balms. “How many a Christian pilgrim,” said Kruminacher, “would never have seen anything of the spiritual manna and the spiritual stream from the rock, had God listened to him when, with fear and trembling, he besought Him not to lead him into a desert.” The road is rough, but the goal is sure. Down here on the plain we cannot expect to see the way so well as Omniscience can see it from the summit of the pillar of cloud. It has been said, Abraham went forth not knowing whither he went, but he knew that God knew—or as Whittier wrote,
“I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.”