Psalms 6:3

Psalms 6:3

I. Consider that the principle on which we are less ready than of old to rush to confession under natural national calamities of an ordinary type is a just and noble one, and is a sign of vital progress in our theological conceptions, and our view of our relation to the world and to God. The varied experiences through which we live and work, and in which we are always far more ready to moan when we are cast down than to praise when we are exalted, are parts of a great harmony of blessing which we should only mar and destroy if we could break the sequence and readjust it as we please. The proneness to recognise in natural calamities the chastisements of an angry God, who is scourging us to repentance, springs really out of a narrow and selfish view of God's dealings with us and with mankind.

II. Note that this progress in the Christian thought of our times runs parallel to the progress in our conceptions of the true nature and the subject-matter of prayer, which is the fruit of growing knowledge and experience in the individual believing soul. As experience widens and deepens, prayer becomes, or ought to become, less a cry of pain and more an act of communion, intercourse with the Father in heaven, whereby His strength, His serenity, His hope, flow into and abide in our hearts.

III. I by no means say that, even in an advanced state of Christian intelligence, there may not be natural national calamities under which it would be wise and right for a nation to humble itself in confession and supplication before God. There may occur calamities so sudden, so terrible, so overwhelming, that a whole nation is plunged into profound and poignant distress. The best safeguard against panic in such a case is national confession and supplication, the best way to assure the blessing and to purge the calamity of all its dread. We need more, not less, national prayer, but of a nobler type, the type in which the trust has mastered the terror. "What time I am afraid," I will not wail, or moan, or wrestle for an instant deliverance, but calmly trust in, and patiently wait for, Thee.

J. Baldwin Brown, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xvi., p. 257.