XII.

OUR GOD A CONSUMING FIRE.

[Sunday Evening, April 30, 1893.]

"For our God is a consuming fire."-HEBREWS, 12:29.

Some one who visited the battle-field of Bull Run, several years after the war, saw pure, delicate flowers growing out of empty ammunition boxes. A cunning scarlet verbena was peeping out of a huge fragment of a shell, in which strange pot it had been planted. A graceful rose was thrusting its head through the top of a broken Union drum, which doubtless sounded its last charge in that battle. Vines and blossoms were trailing over bones that lay white and unburied where they fellOver all that scene of carnage these tokens of peace and beauty had sprung up and were blossoming,—bright-faced prophets of the nation's future.

Many of these old texts have been battlefields. Over what part of the Bible have not the armies of controversy raged? Men will never read that book aright till they cease asking as the primary question, “What does it prove?” and ask instead, "What principles of conduct does it inculcate? What inspiration to the highest living does it furnish? I do not come to this text for the pur

pose of fighting. I shall walk where others have hacked their foes and scarred the earth, as he who went to Bull Run, to see what flowers I can gather; for upon this scorched and awful ground, "Our God is a consuming fire," are growing blossoms of faith and hope and love.

It has been customary to quote this text in the interest of certain views of God and man that are terrible in the extreme. Whenever these words are mentioned, pictures of wrath and vengeance fill the mind. Men think of the fables of mythological hells. They think of the lost as suffering endless woe, circled by flames that God's hand has kindled. We shall see, I trust, that such a use of the text is unwarranted. In the story of Balaam, whom Balak hired to curse Israel, the prophet's words of malediction were turned to blessings on his lips. He tried to curse Israel, but could not. This text is not an anathema, but a benediction.

I am told that these words are inconsistent with the unlimited sweep given to that other text, "God is love," or rather that they present another side of the divine character, the side of that justice which is an essential part. It is said that we almost exclusively quote the one and neglect the other. If this implies any antagonism between love and justice, we can not admit it, for justice, in the last analysis, is one form that love assumes; one direction in which love operates.

How end

lessly varied are the forms of water! The same drop that I see sparkling in the stream that dashes at my feet, I see afterward dancing in spray-like beauty over the falls; I see it moving to the gulf in the majestic Mississippi. I see it again in the great ocean, riding up and down on mountain-like waves; I see it ascending sky-ward in the mist; I see it rolling in the clouds; I see it shining like an angel in the rainbow. How many transformations, -yet it remains the same. Love takes shapes as many. We see it in what is done for the poor and call it charity. We see it in respect for one's self and call it rectitude and honor. ing to God and call it worship. istering law for wise ends and that justice, after all, is love. There is no conflict.

We see it ascend

We see it admincall it justice. So

I. When our God is spoken of as a consuming fire, it must be remembered that fire in itself may be an agent for good as well as for evil. It depends entirely upon what is behind it; what kindles it and uses it. To speak of the consuming fire unqualified in any way, settles nothing.

In the hand of an incendiary, fire is an evil thing It burns without remorse; it consumes without stint. It lays waste that which is beautiful as well as that which is unsightly. The match dropped by a designing hand may cause a conflagration that devours the work of centuries. It may run through the streets of a city and lay the proudest

palaces and rudest hovels side by side in indistinguishable ashes. It may sweep through a forest and reduce sturdy trees-the growths of ages-to blackened ruins. It may rage over a prairie, driving human beings before it in agonized fright. It may be used by evil men for the most cruel purposes. Nero lighted his gardens with burning Christians, and many a martyr-fire since that day has been kindled around the faithful. It is in this way, I fear, that God is too often thought of when men speak of him as a consuming fire. They deem that there is such a feeling in his breast against evil doers that he remorselessly pursues them through this world and the next as a flaming fire pursues its objects over a broad prairie. It is supposed that, Nero-like, he lights the darkness of the next world with burning human beings. If it be so, God is just as much worse than a human tyrant as his power is greater.

But now, upon the other hand, that word fire forms the root of one of the noblest words in our language, "purify." It comes from the Greek PUR, meaning fire. Purify means to take through the fire. A thing purified is something that has been through the fire. From a very early date, rude and savage tribes have practiced what is called purification by fire. They practiced it particularly in cases of disease. It was supposed that all maladies were so many defilements of the pure

principle that had been broken by the demons of night. The traditions of the Finns assert that lightning, the fiery sword of Ukko, slays the demons of illness. (It was discovered, however, that there were grave draw-backs attending the use of lightning in disease. In the first place, it was difficult to obtain it at the right time; and, in the the second place, when it did come, the patient got too much, an over-dose that killed him instead of healing the disease.)

In course of time, among more enlightened tribes, ambassadors were refused admittance to the presence of a sovereign until they had traversed a flame which should singe the foreign deviltries which they carried with them. Fire was also early used in religious ceremonies. In the hill regions of southern India, penitents were made to pass through a row of burning huts, and were absolved after having passed the seventh. The same idea found place in Christianity, in what is called the baptism of fire. Valentinus rebaptized those who had received baptism out of his sect, and drew them through the fire. Heraclion, who is cited by Clement of Alexandria, said that some applied hot irons to the ears of the baptized. In all of these old customs we find evidence of the value attached to fire as a purifying agent.

When we turn to the Old Testament we find the same idea under the figure of a furnace-the fur