CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Hebrews 3:7-19 form part of an exhortation, based on the superiority of Christ over Moses, and the conduct of the Jewish people in their relation to Moses. They were the chosen people of God, and yet they provoked Him by their unbelief, and were consequently precluded from entering the rest of Canaan. A promise of rest is also given to us. What is it? It cannot be the Sabbatic rest of God from the work of creation: it cannot be the rest of settling in Canaan. It is the rest of belief in Christ, ceasing from our own works and trusting in Christ. Let us take care lest we also fail to gain our rest.
Hebrews 3:7. Holy Ghost.—Better throughout the epistle “Holy Spirit.” Here conceived as Inspirer of the Bible-writers; and inspiration carries persuasion and authority (Hebrews 3:7-11 are a parenthesis). In what sense was the Holy Spirit in the older dispensation? The prophetic gifts, and the special endowments of such kings as Saul and David, gave the Jews their idea of inspiration.
Hebrews 3:8. Harden not.—Do not resist good influence. See case of Pharaoh. The peril of free-will is that we can “harden ourselves against.” Provocation.—Or time of provocation: from πικραίνω, to embitter. One typical occasion is referred to (Exodus 17:7. Compare 1 Corinthians 10:1-12). Day of temptation.—If single day be meant, the reference may be to the aggravations of the time of worshipping the golden calf. But the expression may be intended to sum up the thirty-eight years of testing Israel amid the wilderness experiences. Those years of wandering in the desert made up their “day of testing.”
Hebrews 3:9.—Then comes a play on the words “tempted,” “proved,” Me. They tested Me in an evil and unworthy spirit. God may be tested by us when we want to believe, but feel as if we could not. God must never be put to the test by us in a spirit of doubting and suspicion, and with a view to the support of our self-schemes, and of our unbelief.
Hebrews 3:10. Grieved.—The figure in the word is “running a ship ashore.”
Hebrews 3:11. My rest.—For the Jews that was Canaan. It was called “rest” because it came after their long wanderings. The figure of God swearing is consistent with the idea of Him as an Eastern king. But the swearing is strictly official.
Hebrews 3:12.—Carries on the “wherefore” or “whence” of Hebrews 3:7. Evil heart of unbelief.—Doubting may be good or bad, right or wrong, according to the state of will that is behind it. An evil heart wants to doubt, and is keen to find reasons and excuses. Faith, when intellectual only, is belief; when inspired by heart-feeling, it is trust. Departing.—In the sense of apostatising.
Hebrews 3:13. Exhort.—Admonish; use Christian fellowship for the establishing of faith. Deceitfulness of sin.—Sinful delusions; either influence of Judaising teachers, or of persecution and worldliness.
Hebrews 3:14. Partakers of Christ.—Of His living and saving grace.
Hebrews 3:19. Could not.—The failure was altogether on their side. The word “unbelief” reminds us that the reason of failure was a heart-reason.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Hebrews 3:7-19
The Warning of Ancient Failures.—This passage is hortatory. It is an earnest appeal and warning breaking in upon the course of argument, after the manner of this writer. What is its special point of view? The times of Moses have been prominent in the writer’s thought. They were times which there was a strong disposition to unduly magnify. It was easy to slip over the painful things in the older history. But they were there, and were there for the permanent warning of God’s people. The evils, and especially the great evil of unbelief, which broke relations with Jehovah, prevented many from realising the fulfilment of God’s promise, and delayed the fulfilment for many years, were evils still working; and they would prove as effective as ever in delaying or removing the spiritual blessings of the new covenant. Apostasy is always the bad fruitage of cherished unbelief.
I. The responsibility of self rests upon self.—“Harden not your hearts.” A man has control of, power of influence upon, his own heart for good or for evil. He can deal with, restrain, check, qualify, resist, the influences which rest upon his own heart. Therefore it is said, “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” Every man is responsible for himself to himself, as well as to God. And this is true in relation to unbelief. Negligence of spiritual culture, injudicious reading, unsuitable associations, and other things, tend to nourish unbelief; but these are all within a man’s own control. “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.”
II. The responsibility for each rests on the other.—“But exhort one another day by day … lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” It is true that each man must “bear his own burden”; but it is also true that each must bear the other’s burden; the strong bear the infirmities of the weak. We can come into each other’s lives as gracious remedial forces; and this is especially true when mischievous teachers are exerting injurious influence, and the young, or those of receptive or sceptical dispositions, are placed in special temptation. We can “exhort one another.”
III. Our anxiety should concern the subtlety of sin and temptation.—Unbelief begins in secret questionings and doubtings: it easily grows into a fatal habit. The tempter keeps up the subtlety of Eden by suggesting suspicions,—“Yea, hath God said.” But the kind of subtlety indicated here is the exaggeration of a lower truth so as to push a higher one out of thought. The magnifying of Moses was intended to push out of thought the spiritual claims of Christ.
IV. The direction in which evil works is generally towards unbelief.—Trust is the element in which spiritual life thrives. Therefore the main effort of evil is to disturb that trust. Suspicion, doubt, unbelief, are the elements in which evil thrives. This is illustrated in the experience of the Israelites during their forty years of desert experience. It is the experience of religious life to-day. An age of criticism is an age of enfeebled spiritual life.
V. Unbelief always means hindrance from blessing.—It did, when those who came out of Egypt with Moses died in the wilderness (save the two men of faith, Caleb and Joshua). It did, when it kept the nation back from Canaan for eight-and-thirty years. It does, for God can make no response where there is doubt or unbelief. He cannot, because His response could be no blessing to men who were in such a mood of mind. God’s ever-working law of blessing is succinctly given by the Lord Jesus thus, “According to your faith be it unto you.” The good man always responds to trust. He can do anything for those who commit their interests wholly to him. And the good God is checked from blessing by nothing else as He is by distrust. The saddest thing is said concerning the towns beside the Lake of Galilee, in relation to the Lord Jesus, “He could not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.” Do we ask anything of God? His first word in response always is, “Believest thou that I am able to do this?”
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Hebrews 3:7. The Holy Ghost in the Old Testament.—“Even as the Holy Ghost saith,” in the book of psalms. God the Spirit bears relation to man the spirit. For man is a spirit. The great Spirit can overshadow, hallow, help, purify, teach, us dependent spirits. Luther illustrates the relation of the Divine Spirit to the human spirit by the effect of fire in heating, and in some respects changing the character of, water, so that under the power of the fire the water can do what of itself it could not do. The great fire-spirit can penetrate and influence the water-spirit. God, as a Spirit, must always have borne relations to the human spirit, and this superadding and inworking of God’s Spirit must always have been the secret source of all moral goodness. The inspirings of God are not the exclusive privilege of any one age. Illustrate this from—
I. The patriarchal period.—We cannot expect to find much respecting a subject which is the burden of God’s last and highest revelation in this primitive age. We may, however, look for some hints that would indicate, even then, the apprehension of God as working for man, not only externally in nature and providence, but in the very heart of things, and upon the mind or spirit of men. We ought not, however, to be surprised if we also meet with some confusion between man’s spiritual nature and the Spirit of God, or the spiritual working of God. As specimens of the references that may be found, turn to three passages:
1. Genesis 1:2: “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” The Spirit is evidently apprehended as the great quickening principle, bearing intimate relation to life, and so dealing with the inward, secret heart of things.
2. Genesis 6:3: “My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh.” The reference may be either to the Holy Spirit, or to the spiritual as opposed to the animal principle in man. Whichever meaning we prefer, the passage indicates discernment of the relation God bears to the inner, spiritual nature of man.
3. Genesis 41:38: “Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is?” Without pressing unduly the meaning of Pharaoh in his use of the term “Spirit of God,” we have here also the indication of the same idea on the part even of the idolatrous peoples. Besides such passages as these we have many suggestions of God’s inwardly helping men in those days. At first we have only external relations with Adam and Noah, excepting perhaps the hint of internal relations afforded by the terms in which Enoch is spoken of: “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” Passing thus into the spiritual world seems to suggest Divine culture of the spiritual nature. But by-and-by we come to visions, dreams, inward voices, seen and heard by Abraham and Jacob. These reveal personal and individual relations of God with men, and His immediate communication with man’s mind and spirit. These visions, dreams, and inward voices are the proper beginnings and foreshadowings of the spiritual impulses, the inner workings of the Holy Spirit, which we know. And observe how exactly Abraham’s faith was like ours. He believed an inward voice which could not be absolutely verified, even as by our faith we now lay hold of the unprovable. “Blessed,” said Christ, “are they who have not seen, and yet have believed.” It is said in relation to the offering of his son God did tempt Abraham. This tempting, testing, trying of Abraham was manifestly God spiritually dealing with Abraham’s spiritual nature. And the same remark may be applied to the scene at Jabbok: it was the wrestling together of the Divine Spirit and the human spirit of Jacob.
II. The Mosaic period.—This was coincident with a more extensive and exact outward revelation of God. The prominent thing is minute and elaborate ceremonial: the entire outward life of the people in its social, political, and religious phases coming under Divine regulation. We may, however, reasonably expect clearer signs of the recognition of the inward workings of God on the part of those who, within the ceremonial, cultured their inner, spiritual nature. We find a number of passages in which the skill, talents, power to prophesy, and to deliver the country, are traced to the inworking of the Spirit of God. As specimens, refer to Exodus 31:2-3: “I have called Bezaleel … and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding,” etc. Bezaleel’s talents, genius, are directly traced to the inspiration of God. The same applies to Balaam’s power of prophesying. See Numbers 24:2: “And Balaam lifted up his eyes, and he saw Israel abiding in his tents according to their tribes; and the Spirit of God came upon him.” See also in reference to the judges:— Judges 3:10: Othniel—“The Spirit of the Lord came upon him and he judged Israel and went out to war.” Judges 6:34: “The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon.” So of Saul and Saul’s messengers. 1 Samuel 10:10: “A company of prophets met him; and the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them.” 1 Samuel 19:20: “The Spirit of God was upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied.” There is an exceedingly interesting passage in Numbers 11:17, etc. Moses felt oppressively the burden of his charge in the ruling and judging of so great a people. God graciously arranged for the appointment of seventy elders to relieve him of part of the burden. In connection with this arrangement God said, “I will take of the spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them.” See Numbers 11:25: “When the spirit rested on them they prophesied, and did not cease.” Compare Numbers 11:29. Here we have very distinctly presented Moses’ own spirit, and the Spirit of God overshadowing and inspiring it. God is called the God of the spirits of all flesh in Numbers 16:22; Numbers 27:16-17. And we have the hardening of the hearts of men traced to the operation of God’s Spirit, as in Deuteronomy 2:30: “But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him: for the Lord thy God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate.”
III. The Davidic period.—Here one or two passages will suffice to remind of more familiar ones. Turn to Psalms 51:10-12: “Cast me not away from Thy presence; and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.” Here you observe that repentance was bringing up to light some of the deepest feelings and convictions of David’s soul; it was making him intensely spiritual: so he came to realise his inner dependence on the teachings and movings of God’s Spirit, and was led to express his fear lest at any time he should be left without the succour of the Spirit. See also Psalms 143:10: “Teach me to do Thy will; for Thou art my God: Thy Spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.” But even in this period it is evident that the externality of God, the things God does for us, still occupy chief attention. God is rock, refuge, fortress, deliverer. The inward inspirations of God are clearly recognised, and lovingly dwelt upon, only in the intenser, more spiritual moments of life.
IV. The prophetic period.—And what may we expect in this prophetic age? Its characteristic feature is a struggle to bring to its proper light and influence the inward claims and workings of God. The prophets do not, however, fully deal with the nature of this inward working of God. That would have been to anticipate Pentecostal times. They assume, assert, and vindicate the fact, and then proceed to urge the duty of man’s offering spiritual response to the fact. They were, as prophets, inwardly, Divinely moved men. Not really different from others, only the prominent examples of inspiration which every heart open to God might surely know. So their very presence asserted God’s spiritual relations with spirit. In the histories of the prophetic period we have the continuation of the idea on which we have dwelt: that talent, especially prophetic, is due to the working of God’s Spirit. Elisha desires a first-born’s portion of Elijah’s spirit (2 Kings 2:9; 2 Kings 2:15). Pul and Tiglath-pileser are said to be stirred up to war by the Spirit, as we have seen Sihon was hardened. And the captives of Babylon were roused up by the Spirit to return to their own land (Ezra 1:5). In the actual prophecies we have again and again the formula, “The word of the Lord came unto me,” implying operation of God on the spirit. Nehemiah says in his prayer, “Yet many years didst Thou forbear them, and testified against them by Thy Spirit in Thy prophets.” Isaiah speaks of the wanderings of Israel in the desert in this way:— Isaiah 63:10-11: “But they rebelled, and vexed His Holy Spirit: therefore He was turned to be their enemy, and He fought against them. Then He remembered the days of old, Moses, and His people, saying, Where is He that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of His flock? where is He that put His Holy Spirit within him?” Ezekiel often speaks of the inner impulses of the Spirit. Zechariah, speaking of the former time, says (Hebrews 7:12), “Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in His Spirit by the former prophets.” Enough has been said to show that throughout all ages of the world men have, with more or less distinctness, recognised the relation between God the Spirit and man’s spirit; with more or less clearness men have seen, as one text expresses it, that “there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding.” But it will be suggested to your minds to inquire: Have we any reason for identifying this work of the Spirit in Old Testament times with the work of the Holy Ghost in this our Christian dispensation? Is the Spirit of God spoken of in the old age to be identified with the Holy Ghost of the new? If it is not, then we shall have to face the difficulty of two senses in which the Spirit of God is spoken of in Scripture, and to deal with the confusion of imagining there has been no unity in the Divine dealings with our race. All thought of God’s education of the world must be put away, and we must think of His ways with us as a number of abrupt and unconnected dealings, fashioned for adaptation to peculiar and unexpected circumstances. “The God of the whole earth” He can hardly “be called.” Turn to two passages in the epistles of Peter (1 Peter 1:10-11): “Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the suffering of Christ and the glory that should follow.” Now the spirit of the prophets is declared to have been the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ is none other than the Holy Ghost: for in 2 Peter 1:21 it is said, “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” We may therefore say that, apprehended in its most simple form, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the Trinity, may be conceived of as God acting upon man’s spirit, inspiring, moving, leading him to the apprehension of all moral truth, and the expression in conduct of all moral goodness. “There is a spirit in man, and the Spirit of God influences it, giving to it understanding and impulse.”
Hebrews 3:10. Can God suffer?—Is there any sensibility in God that can suffer? Is He ever wrenched by suffering? Nothing is more certain. He could not be good, having evil in His dominions, without suffering even according to His goodness. For what is goodness but a perfect feeling? And what is a perfect feeling but that which feels towards every wrong and misery according to its nature? And thus it is that we freely impute to Him, whether we observe it or not, every sort of painful sensibility that is related to bad and suffering subjects. We conceive of Him as feeling displeasure, which is the opposite of pleasure. We ascribe it as one of His perfections that He compassionates, which means that He suffers with the fallen. We conceive that He loathes what is disgusting, hates what is cruel, suffers long what is perverse, grieves, burns, bears, forbears, and is even afflicted for His people, as the Scripture expressly declares. All which are varieties of suffering. We also ascribe it to God, as one of His perfections, that He is impassible; but here, if we understand ourselves, we mean that He is physically impassible, not that He is morally so. Moral impassibility is really to have no sensibilities of character, which is as far as possible from being any perfection. Indeed there is a whole class of what are called passive virtues that cannot, in this view, belong to God at all, and His perfection culminates without including more than half the excellencies demanded even of us, in the range of our humble, finite capacity. There is then some true sense in which even God’s perfection required Him to be a suffering God—not a God unhappy, or less than perfectly, infinitely blessed; for though there be many subtractions from His blessedness, there is never any diminution; because the consciousness of suffering will bring with it, in every case and everlastingly, a compensation which, by a great law of equilibrium in His and all spiritual natures, fully repays the loss; just as Christ, assailed by so many throes of suffering sensibility—in the temptation, in His ministry, in the garden—still speaks of His joy, and bequeaths it as a gift most real and sublime to His followers. It is this suffering sensibility of God that most needed to be revealed, and brought nigh to human feeling, in the incarnate mission of Jesus.—Horace Bushnell, D.D.
Hebrews 3:12. Good Unbelief and Bad.—“An evil heart of unbelief.” A head of unbelief may be good; a heart of unbelief must be bad. Doubt may be a condition of mental growth; suspicion and mistrust spoil all moral relations. It is said of the Berœans, “Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, examining the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so.” But their superior nobility consisted in their taking an attitude of interested doubt. They listened well, but would not believe until they had removed their reasonable hesitation by full inquiry. It may even be said that a man cannot be capable of faith if he is incapable of unbelief. A mere uninquiring recipiency indicates a very undeveloped moral nature. A man is not manly unless he is able to say, “I can doubt, but I do believe.” Doubt is the impulse to inquiry and search; and therefore absolute certainty is not attainable by man in relation to anything in which he is interested. He is always under inspiration to “prove all things.” Unbelief of the head then may be good. Intelligence involves doubting. He who receives everything thinks about nothing, and receives only as a sponge does. All mental attainments are battles with unbelief. “I am not sure about it”; then, “I must satisfy myself about it.” Intelligent men go through doubt to faith. Unbelief of the heart is bad. That is the unbelief which is so sternly rebuked in the Scriptures. A man may doubt, but want to believe if he can. A man may doubt, and want to find excuse for not believing if he can. The one is good, and the other is evil. The Israelites of the wilderness did not, fail by reason of intellectual unbelief, but by reason of failure in heart-trust: their sin was an “evil heart of unbelief.” Capernaum and the cities of Galilee were not condemned for intellectual unbelief, but for heart-resistance of the claims of the great Teacher. The unbelief that imperils is not opinion, but feeling, mood, bias. It is a resistance of the will, a moral condition which makes evidence ineffective, and persuasion helpless. When the heart influences the head, unbelief becomes ruinous.
Hebrews 3:13. The Deceitfulness of Sin.—The most marked characteristic of sin is indicated in its first personification, when it was set in relation to man’s moral fall. “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.” Subtlety, secret movement, insincerities, and deceptions, are essentials in the working of sin. That they must be so is seen at once when we apprehend that sin is no creative agency, but a disturbing and upsetting agency. If a man is going to do something, he can be open and above-board; but if he is going to upset something, he will have to work in secret and practise deceptions. The enemy who sowed tares in the wheat-field had to do it secretly and deceptively while men slept. The special deceitfulness of sin referred to here is its way of affecting a man’s will and purpose and heart in relation to the religious life. Its agency is self-interest. In the saved man the self-interest is dethroned, and the Christ-interest enthroned. The work of evil is the subtle endeavour to revive the self-interest. The man finds himself growingly interesting to himself, and before he is aware he finds his heart self-hardened against Christ through the deceitful workings of sin.
Our Only Possession—To-day.—In what sense can a man be said to possess anything? Strictly speaking a man has nothing but the use of things. As the old satirist expresses it, the man who sits down to a loaded table of luxuries really has no more than the little that he can eat. The farmer thought he possessed goods and time. “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years.” He had power to hold no handful of the goods and no day of time. We speak of what we will do on the morrow, and no man has any to-morrow until God gives it to him, and then he has to call it “to-day.”
“To-morrow, Lord, is Thine,
Lodged in Thy sovereign hand.”
A man has one thing only—the present hour. To-day—that is our only actual possession. Everything else save the thing of the hour, and every coming hour, is God’s possession, not ours; He will give it to us if it pleases Him so to do.
Hebrews 3:14. Safety in continuing.—“If we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end.” St. Paul expresses the same truth in commending “patient continuance in well-doing.” And the risen and living Lord bade His Church be “faithful unto death.” Older Scriptures present the same truth, “Then shall ye know, if ye follow on to know the Lord.”
I. There is no safety in beginning a Christian profession.—There might be, if we were translated as soon as we had planted our first footstep on the Christian highway. There is not, because that first step does but start a pilgrimage, which is a serious testing of that beginning. The teaching which exaggerates the safety of an act of beginning is mischievous.
II. There is no safety in spasmodic experiences.—Such as are provided for Christians in times of religious excitement. Many think they are safe because they have felt intense feelings occasionally.
III. There is only safety in continuance and persistency.—Because the Christian life is a moral cult, an advancing sanctification, a man only keeps right by keeping on.
Hebrews 3:16. Relief of a Dark Picture.—The story of the murmuring, distrustfulness, and self-interested rebelliousness of ancient Israel in the wilderness is a sad, dark story. It never ceases to surprise and pain us; and we never feel that the excuses offered for them are sufficient to relieve the darkness. They were the chosen people of Jehovah, brought out of a stern bondage by magnificent displays of Divine power which ought to have inspired absolute confidence—provided for in every way, every recurring need graciously met, every foe held off, and a plain way made for the possession of the Promised Land. And yet persistent rebellion at last reached a climax, and the judgment went forth that doomed every man who had come out of Egypt to find a grave in the wilderness. It was the doom of those who could not take God at His word, and trust Him fully. There is a relief to the almost too dark picture. Two men stand out to view. They will be spared. They will enter the Promised Land. And what is there peculiar in their case? They kept their trust in God. They “followed the Lord fully.” God always honours full trust.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 3
Hebrews 3:13. The Power of Habits.—“Hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” The longer you sit under the gospel and continue in sin, the more easily you can hear it without alarm. If a person were obliged to sleep near a waterfall, he would not be able for the first few weeks to sleep soundly for the noise, but in a very short time he would hardly be able to sleep without it. I have seen in Scotland a dog, during the blacksmith’s labour at the anvil, sleeping soundly with the shower of live sparks falling around him.—Dr. Cumming.
So used to it.—You may observe, in travelling on a railroad, how the young cattle run away in terror from the engine, while those that have often seen it pass go on quietly grazing and do not regard it; so one who has been accustomed to be a “hearer of the word, and not a doer,” will acquire more and more of the same kind of familiarity. Suppose that there is in your neighbourhood a loud bell, that is ringing very early every morning to call the labourer to some great manufactory. At first and for some time your rest will be broken by it; but if you accustom yourself to be still, and try to compose yourself, you will become in a few days so used to it that it will not even wake you. But any one who makes a point of rising immediately at the call will become so used to it, in the opposite way, that the sound will never fail to rouse him from the deepest sleep. Both will have been accustomed to the same bell, but will have formed opposite habits from their contrary modes of action. Of sporting dogs there are some, such as the greyhound, that are trained to pursue hares; and others which are trained to stand motionless when they come upon a hare, even though they see it running before them. Now both are accustomed to hares, and both have originally the same instincts—all dogs having an instinctive tendency to pursue game. But the one kind has always been accustomed to run after a hare, and the other has always been chastised if it attempted to do so, and has been trained to stand still.—Whately.
Perilous Beginnings.—You remember the old story of the prisoner in his tower, delivered by his friend, who sent a beetle to crawl up the wall, fastening a silken thread to it, which had a thread a little heavier attached to the end of that, and so on, and so on, each thickening in diameter until they got to a cable. That is the way in which the devil has got hold of a great many of us. He weaves round us silken threads to begin with, slight, as if we could break them with a touch of our fingers, and they draw after them, as certainly as destiny, at each remove, a thickening chain, until at last we are tied and bound, and our captor laughs at our mad plunges for freedom, which are as vain as a wild bull’s in the hunter’s nets.—A. Maclaren, D.D.