Disclplinary experience.
It is singular that in Psalms 105:25 God should be spoken of as the agent in turning the hearts of the Egyptians to hate his people. Some would soften the expression, and make it mean only that God suffered the hostility arising from the increase of the people. But there is no difficulty when once we see that God's dealings with us are disciplinary; that he uses the ordinary events of life for his disciplinary purposes, and that in a poem he may be said to arrange and control the events which he uses for his moral ends.
I. ALL HUMAN LIFE IS DISCIPLINARY. It is precisely this that ennobles human life, and distinguishes it from the life of the brute. The events and relations of life do nothing for the animal save complete its animal nature. The events and relations of life mould and train man. He is the better or the worse, morally, forevery incident of his career, and forevery person with whom he comes in contact. To say that a thing is testing, or trying, is to say that it has a culturing force in it; it has a moral aim. Self-mastery can only be won through discipline.
II. DISCIPLINE COMES THROUGH THINGS THAT ARE GOOD. Here, in the case of Israel, our attention is directed to that swift increase of population which is the best idea of national good (Psalms 105:24). It is representative of the successes which God often gives men. But the disciplinary feature of world success is not sufficiently recognized. No severer strain is put on men's characters than that which comes by letting them succeed. Gaining wealth or fame has overstrained many a man. Moral character failed under the strain.
III. DISCIPLINE COMES THROUGH THINGS THAT ARE MYSTERIOUS. The sphere of the mysterious enlarges as we grow in knowledge and experience. The young student can explain everything. The grey-haired professor can explain nothing. Discipline comes by finding that we cannot know. It tests whether we can believe, and let faith give its tone to life. Science boasts that it knows, but science can do nothing without the scientific imagination; and that brings in the element of uncertainty.
IV. DISCIPLINE COMES THROUGH THINGS THAT ARE EVIL. This is true in both senses of the word "evil," which may mean "wicked" or "calamitous." Israel was disciplined through the hatred of Pharaoh, and also through the sufferings of their lot. The sanctifying power of affliction for Christians is often dwelt on; the disciplinary power of hard and trying circumstances, forevery one, needs fuller and wiser treatment.—R.T.