upon Israel, and in their distress the elders of Israel went to fetch Jephthah. Mark, my friends, God’s election. The children of the lawful wife are passed by, and the child of the harlot is chosen. Jephthah forgets his grievances and becomes captain of the host. Ammon is over against them. Jephthah’s rash vow—this is sometimes called. I say it is not a rash vow. It may be rash to those who have never been brought to extremity by the children of Ammon—to those who have not cared whether Ammon or Christ wins. Men and women sitting here in comfortable pews”—this was said with a kind of snarl—“may talk of Jephthah’s rash vow. God be with them, what do they know of the struggles of such a soul? It does not say so directly in the Bible, but we are led to infer it, that Jephthah was successful because of his vow. ‘The Lord delivered them into his hands.’ He would not have done it if He had been displeased with the ‘rash vow’ ” (another snarl). “He smote them from Aroer even till thou come to Minnith. Ah, but what follows? The Omnipotent and Omniscient might have ordered it, surely, that a slave might have met Jephthah. Why, in His mercy, did He not do it? Who are we that we should question what He did? But if we may not inquire too closely into His designs, it is permitted us, my friends, when His reason accords with ours, to try and show it. Jephthah had played for a great stake. Ought the Almighty—let us speak it with reverence—to have let him off with an ox, or even with a serf? I say that if we are to conquer Ammon we must pay for it, and we ought to pay for it. Yes, and perhaps God wanted the girl—who can tell? Jephthah comes back in triumph. Let me read the passage to you:—‘Behold his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child: beside her he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back.’ Now, you read poetry, I dare say—what you call poetry. I say in all of it—all, at least, I have seen—nothing comes up to that. ‘She was his only child: beside her he had neither son nor daughter.’ ”—(Mr. Bradshaw’s voice broke a little as he went over the words again with great deliberation and infinite pathos.)—“The inspired writer leaves the fact just as it stands, and is content. Inspiration itself can do nothing to make it more touching than it is in its own bare nakedness. There is no thought in Jephthah of recantation, nor in the maiden of revolt, but nevertheless he has his own sorrow. He is brought very low. God does not rebuke him for his grief. He knows well enough, my dear friends, the nature which He took upon Himself—nay, are we not the breath of His nostrils, created in His image? He does not anywhere, therefore, I say, forbid that we should even break our hearts over those we love and lose. She asks for two months by herself upon the mountains before her death. What a time for him! At the end of the two months God held him still to his vow; he did not shrink; she submitted, and was slain. But you will want me to tell you in conclusion where the gospel is in all this. Gospel! I say that the blessed gospel is in the Old Testament as well as in the New. I say that the Word of God is one, and that His message is here this night for you and me, as distinctly as it is at the end of the sacred volume. Observe, as I have told you before, that Jephthah is the son of the harlot. He hath mercy on whom He will have mercy. He calls them His people who are not His people; and He calls her beloved which was not beloved. God at any rate is no stickler for hereditary rights. Moreover, it does not follow because you, my hearers, have God-fearing parents, that God has elected you. He may have chosen, instead of you, instead of me, the wretchedest creature outside, whose rags we will not touch. But to what did God elect Jephthah? To a respectable, easy, decent existence, with money at interest, regular meals, sleep after them, and unbroken rest at night? He elected him to that tremendous oath and that tremendous penalty. He elected him to the agony he endured while she was away upon the hills! That is God’s election; an election to the cross and to the cry, ‘Eli, Eli, lama Sabachthani.’ ‘Yes,’ you will say, ‘but He elected him to the victory over Ammon.’ Doubtless He did; but what cared Jephthah for his victory over Ammon when she came to meet him, or, indeed, for the rest of his life? What is a victory, what are triumphal arches and the praise of all creation to a lonely man? Be sure, if God elects you, He elects you to suffering. Whom He loveth He chasteneth, and His stripes are not play-work. Ammon will not be conquered unless your heart be well nigh broken. I tell you, too, as Christ’s minister, that you are not to direct your course according to your own desires. You are not to say—‘I will give up this and that so that I may be saved.’ Did not St. Paul wish himself accursed from Christ for his brethren? If God should command you to go down to the bottomless pit in fulfilment of His blessed designs, it is your place to go. Out with self—I was
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