spread of wings that can lift it till it is an invisible speck in the
blue vault, go along with the instinct of paternity: and the fledglings
in the nest look up at the fierce beak and bright eyes, and know no
terror. The impression of this blending of power and gentleness is
greatly deepened, as it seems to me, if we notice that it is the male
bird that is spoken about in the text, which should be rendered: 'As
the eagle stirreth up _his_ nest and fluttereth over _his_ young.'

So we just come to the thought that we must keep the true balance
between these two aspects of that great divine nature--the majesty, the
terror, the awfulness, the soaring elevation, the all-penetrating
vision, the power of the mighty pinion, one stroke of which could crush
a universe into nothing; and, on the other side, the yearning instinct
of Fatherhood, the love and gentleness, and all the tender ministries
for us, His children, to which these lead. Brethren, unless we keep
hold of both of these in due equipoise and inseparably intertwining, we
damage the one which we retain almost as much as the one which we
dismiss. For there is no love like the love that is strong, and can be
fierce, and there is no condescension like the condescension of Him who
is the Highest, in order that He may be, and because He is ready to be,
the lowest. Modern tendencies, legitimately recoiling from the one-
sidedness of a past generation, are now turning away far too much from
the Old Testament conceptions of Jehovah, which are concentrated in
that metaphor of the vulture in the sky. And thereby we destroy the
love, in the name of which we scout the wrath.

'Infinite mercy, but, I wis,
As infinite a justice too.'

'As the vulture stirreth up his nest,'--that is the Old Testament