I do not know that the Psalmist thought of that when he gave utterance to my text, but whether he did it or not, it is true that the moment' spent in anger' is a part of the life' that is spent in the favour.' Just as within the circle of a life lies each of its moments, the same principle of inclusion may be applied to the other contrast presented here. For as the moment' is a part of the life,' the anger' is a part of the love. The' favour' holds the anger' within itself, for the true Scriptural idea of that terrible expression and terrible fact, the wrath of God,' is that it is the necessary aversion of a perfectly pure and holy love from that which does not correspond to itself. So, though sometimes the two may be set against each other, yet at bottom, and in reality, they are one, and the anger' is but a mode in which the favour' manifests itself. God's love is plastic, and if thrown back upon itself, grieved and wounded and rejected, becomes the anger' which ignorant men sometimes seem to think it contradicts. There is no more antagonism between these two ideas when they are applied to God than when they are applied to you parents in your relations to a disobedient child. You know, and it knows, that if there were no love there would be little anger.' Neither of you suppose that an irate parent is an unloving parent. If ye, being evil, know how,' in dealing with your children,to blend wrath and love, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven' be one and the same Father when His love manifests itself in chastisement and when it expands itself in blessings!
Thus we come to the truth which breathes uniformity and simplicity through all the various methods of the divine hand, that howsoever He changes and reverses His dealings with us, they are one and the same. You may get two diametrically opposite motions out of the same machine. The same power will send one wheel revolving from right to left, and another from left to right, but they are co-operant to grind out at the far end the one product. It is the same revolution of the earth that brings blessed lengthening days and growing summer, and that cuts short the sun's course and brings declining days and increasing cold. It is the same motion which hurls a comet close to the burning sun, and sends it wandering away out into fields of astronomical space, beyond the ken of telescope, and almost beyond the reach of thought. And so one uniform divine purpose, the favour' which uses the' anger,' fills the life, and there are no interruptions, howsoever brief, to the steady continuous flow of His outpoured blessings. All is love and favour. Anger is masked love, and sorrow has the same source and mission as joy. It takes all sorts of weathers to make a year, and all tend to the same issue, of ripened harvests and full barns. O brethren! if we understand that God means something better for us than happiness, even likeness to Himself, we should understand better how our deepest sorrows and bitterest tears, and the wounds that penetrate deepest into our bleeding hearts, all come from the same motive, and are directed to the same end as their most joyful contraries. One thing the Lord desires, that we may be partakers of His holiness, and so we may venture to give an even deeper meaning to the Psalmist's words than he intended, and recognise that the moment' is an integral part of the life,' and the anger' a mode of the manifestation of the favour.'
