the context says, in close connection with the threat to burn the briers
and thorns, 'Fury is not in Me.' Man's hostility does not rouse God's.
He wars against the sin because He still loves the sinner. His love
'must come with a rod,' but, at the same time, it comes 'with the spirit
of meekness.' It gives its enemy all that it can; but it cannot give all
that it would.

He stoops to sue for our amity. It is the creditor who exhausts
beseechings on His debtor, so much does He wish to 'agree with His
adversary quickly.' The tender pleading of the Apostle was but a faint
echo of the marvellous condescension of God, when he, 'in God's stead,
besought: 'Be ye reconciled to God.'

III. The grasp which ends alienation.

The word for 'strength' here means a stronghold or fortified place,
which serves as an asylum or refuge. There may be some mingling of an
allusion to the fugitive's taking hold of the horns of the altar, and so
being safe from the vengeance of his pursuers. If we may take this
double metaphor as implied in the text, it vividly illustrates the
essence of the faith which brings us into peace with God. That faith is
the flight of the soul to God, and, in another aspect, it is the
clinging of the soul to Him. How much more these two metaphors tell of
the real nature of faith than many a theological treatise! They speak of
the urgency of the peril from which it seeks deliverance. A fugitive
with the hot breath of the avenger of blood panting behind him, and
almost feeling the spear-point in his back, would not let the grass grow
under his feet. They speak of the energetic clutch of faith, as that of
the man gripping the horns of the altar. They suggest that faith is
something much more vital than intellectual assent or credence, namely,