THE RESERVED RIGHTS OF GOD. 



77 



diligently followed the instructions of Isaiah, not because he 

 pursued a policy recommended by his royal predecessors. The 

 greatness of the soul of Israel was cherished, not by kings, but 

 by prophets, who leaned on the suffrage of the hearts of the 

 believing portion of the community. Isaiah and his beautiful 

 pupil Hosea, Jeremiah and Zechariah did far more to mould the 

 theology and the faith of the nation than did any of the occupants 

 of the throne. 



In such conditions did the idea of the Sovereignty of God reach 

 its fruition. In the fulness of time it passed into the teaching 

 of the Lord Jesus Christ, and became a solid part of Christianity 

 itself. 



The Sovereignty of God, as delineated in the Bible, contains 

 four constituent elements. The first is Originality, or the 

 element of origination. This is the teaching of the first chapter 

 of Genesis. The second is that of J udiciality, the element of 

 rectitude, that cannot be corrupted, diverted, intimidated, 

 baffled. This is the teaching involved under the grand dictum 

 of Abraham : " Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ? n 

 The third is Affinity with the Meek. This is taught by our Lord 

 when he thanked the Lord of heaven and earth that He had 

 revealed the truths of the Gospel to babes. The fourth is the 

 element of Fatherhood, for the same passage reminds us how 

 that the Lord of heaven and earth is also the Father. 



According, therefore, to Scripture the ideal sovereign may be 

 defined as transcendent personality, possessing to infinite degrees 

 originality, justice, humility and love. To a self-complacent 

 sceptic like Goethe, this idea of God as a sovereign was only one 

 way of conceiving of the Divine being, a way suited to servile 

 natures, seeking for a sort of prop for their own felt weakness. 

 He would have pointed to it as a thought eminently agreeable 

 to the court chaplains of Louis XIV, prone to ascribe to the 

 Almighty the qualities which they lauded in their master, who 

 hired their eloquence to flatter and conceal his crimes. Such a 

 vnew of sovereignty has in our unhappy day been used to support 

 the wickedness of the supreme war-lord of Prussia, and to 

 excuse his own infamous doctrines of war in spite of every moral 

 law. 



These, however, are only travesties of the Biblical truth. 

 They are not Biblical in origin or scope. They are condemned 

 by the very history of that doctrine as I have just traced it in 

 the Old and New Testaments. They excite nowhere so strong 



