Psalms 6:10

Psalms 6:10

I. Consider those passages in the Bible which are constantly objected to as most inconsistent with toleration I mean the so-called imprecatory portions of the Psalms. (1) I see little reason for considering these Psalms as the utterance of David's longing for personal revenge. It is not likely that he should keep malice and anger hoarded up in his soul, and relieve himself of it in the moments when he held communion with his God, cursing just as he saw by faith the battlements of the city of eternal peace. (2) When, under the old covenant, earthly prosperity was the portion of the wicked, and earthly adversity of the pious, the whole moral government of God seemed to be veiled in clouds and darkness. The very fact that immortality was not clearly discovered to him made the pious Israelite long more passionately for the speedy shining forth of God's power and justice. (3) We must interpret every book by the mind of the author. If so, we must apply this to the Bible, and to the Psalms. Their real Author is the Holy Spirit. It is remarkable that in the first chapter of the Acts the very strongest of these imprecations is applied as a prophecy to the betrayer of our Lord.

II. Notice two passages in the New Testament which give us the very type of the tolerance and the intolerance of the Gospel. For its tolerance, read Luke 9:40, etc. The two incidents inculcate toleration, ecclesiastical and civil, on the spiritual and on the material side. For its intolerance, see 2 John 1:10 : "If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him Godspeed." This can have no other meaning than that "the elect lady and her children" should show no kindly hospitality to impugners of the Incarnation. (1) St. John, living when and where he did, realised as we can scarcely do that "the world lieth wholly in wickedness." (2) He saw as we do not, that its best hope lay in the Incarnation, and so the man who went about bringing men to deny this was the enemy of the human race. (3) The honour of Jesus was dear to His Apostles. In the estimate of him who wrote, "The Word was God," to deny that Jesus was the God-Man was to question His legitimacy and impugn His truth.

III. Let me commend to you the spirit of tolerance (1) to all whom our Church tolerates; (2) towards those that are without.

Bishop Alexander, The Great Question,p. 106.