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II. So, secondly, note here the world's gift, which is an illusion. 'Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Our Lord contrasts, as it seems to me, primarily the manner of the world's bestowment, and then passes insensibly into a contrast between the character of the world's gifts and His own. That phrase 'the world' may have a double sense.
For indeed, in every act of His quickening grace, in every God-given increase of our knowledge of God, in every bestowment of His fulness, there is always more bestowed than we receive, more than we know even while we possess it. Like some gift given in the dark, its true preciousness is not discerned when it is first received. The gleam of the gold does not strike our eye all at once.
He claims to send us the Comforter. We know but little of such high themes, but we can clearly see that, while there may be many other reasons for the full bestowment of the Spirit of God having to be preceded by the gift of Christ, one reason must be that the measure of individual and subjective inspiration varies according to the amount of objective revelation.
And it is, indeed, doubtless true that the principles of management advocated in this work are such as require that the parents should devote some time and attention, and, still more essentially, some heart to the work; and they who do not consider the welfare and happiness of their children in future life, and their own happiness in connection with them as they advance towards their declining years, as of sufficient importance to call for the bestowment of this time and attention, will doubtless often resort to more summary methods in their discipline than those here recommended.
In the inferior animals, the sense of taste still answers the original design of its bestowment; but in man, it has been abused and perverted by the use of artificial stimulants, which have created an acquired taste that, in most persons, is very detrimental to health.
The abundance of that bestowment is expressed by that word, 'poured. We need only remember, 'All wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth, or how even the rough instruments of authority were touched and diverted from their appointed purpose, and came back and said, 'Never man spake like this Man. To the music of Christ's words all other eloquence is harsh, poor, shallow like the piping of a shepherd boy upon some wretched oaten straw as compared with the full thunder of the organ.
Between these two prophecies of the earthly life and of the still future judicial energy, this chapter of our text lies, referring, as I take it, to the period between these two that is, to all the ages of the Church's development on earth. For these Christ here promises His continual activity, and His continual bestowment of grace to His servants who watch the walls of His Jerusalem.
Or, to use the bold language of the prophet, to resolve to "give God no rest," till he hears and helps. In such cases the saints may plead God's honor and the glory of his great name, as well as their own necessities. When we come to ask mercy of God, and to pray for grace to love and serve him, we may plead and expostulate for the bestowment.
If you will trust yourselves to Him you will have that eternal life, which is not wages, but a gift; which is not reward, but a free bestowment of God's love.
Its gentle flow, its soothing, suppling effect, and in another aspect, its value as a means of invigoration and sustenance, and in yet another, as a source of light, peculiarly adapted it to be an emblem of the bestowment on a patient and trustful and submissive heart that was saying, 'Lord, take me, and use me as Thou wilt, of that divine Spirit by whose silent, sweet, soft-flowing, strong influences men were prepared for God's service.
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