God and man working together.
"Truth springeth out of the earth; and righteousness hath looked down from heaven." This is poetic phraseology, which more prosaically may be stated thus: "When man is faithful to God, then God will be found faithful to man; and so God and man will work together for good." The psalmist sees quite plainly that the incomplete redemption can only be completed if the people put away their evils, and show themselves fully loyal to God. But he is quite confident that, if they do, then God will surely be faithful to them, and finish in them his work of grace. That God is to men as men are to him, and that he and they must work together if the full blessing is to be realized, was stated by an earlier psalmist. "With the merciful man thou wilt show thyself merciful; with an upright man thou wilt show thyself upright; with the pure thou wilt show thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt show thyself froward." Open this subject by illustrating the following topics:—
I. GOD AND MAN IN OPPOSITION. What God wants, man refusing. Show the confusion thus caused. And the hopelessness of man's state, if he persists in "running on the bosses of Jehovah's buckler."
II. GOD AND MAN IS INDIFFERENCE. This represents the more usual state of things. Men are often not strong enough to actively resist; but they say, "Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him?" And they say to him, "Depart from us; we desire not the knowledge of thy ways!" But that indifference, which puts outside the Divine love and lead, is every whit as perilous for us as active opposition.
III. GOD AND MAN IN HARMONY. This is the ideal state—the relation designed in man's creation. Here naturally come in evangelical teachings respecting the way in which the designed harmony was lost, and the way in which that harmony can be recovered. The beauty of the scene suggested by these figures should be dwelt on. "This is a delicious scene. Earth yielding flowers of truth, and heaven shining with stars of holiness; the spheres echoing to each other, or being mirrors of each other's beauties. 'Earth carpeted with truth, and canopied with righteousness,' shall be a nether heaven. When God looks down in grace, man sends his heart upward in obedience"—R.T.