We know things which do tremble that they may rest. "I tremble that I may rest" say the magnet, the planet, the bird. So says the heart in its language, the soul in its sorrowings. I tremble that I may rest. "The text is not a melancholy and prophetic foreboding. It is a wise repression of a too vehement self-consciousness, the assurance that our labour is not guaranteed by our present exuberance, but by a wise and thoughtful fear.
I. The principle of fear is excited by the sense of God. Job said: "When I consider I am afraid of Him." When we think wisely and thoughtfully of God we may well tremble. It is the dictate of natural religion. When we look within, so as to know ourselves and what we are, when we meditate and revolve our own imperfectness and impurity, and the holy character of God well may we say with Job: "When I consider I am afraid of Him."
II. Thus, then, there is a use in this trembling, which the Holy Spirit recognizes. We are often shaken by undefined terrors. There seems nothing to make us afraid; but the spirit is overwhelmed all within us sinks. We are away from home; we are returning from a journey; we feel a weight upon the soul; surely it is the shadow of the invisible God passing by the spirit.
III. Rest is the issue of trembling. And is it not a great thing to rest in the day of trouble? He who can look death in the face will start at no shadows. Although flesh and heart may faint, the soul rests; and thus, again, we have to say that holy fear is the guardian of the soul, the sentinel of the soul; and that, like an Erl-king, it bears us into real life, into a soothed life, a living and a living faith, unhurt and unlost through the forest of life and its falling trees, and its perils and storms. A kingdom of peace is set up in the soul. Rest has followed on trembling. (1) Rest from the threatenings of the law; (2) rest from fear of punishment; (3) rest from the assaults of malignant spirits; (4) rest in the day of affliction and death. And perfect will the rest be when it is said: "The trembling is for ever over; thou hast trembled: now rest." While the dead planets may drift upon their way, and the melancholy and hectic ages roll, we shall be as God is, at rest only, sheltered for ever in the life of the resting Lamb.
E. Paxton Hood, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxviii., p. 45.
The maxim contained in the words of the text may be thus briefly and simply expressed: "Fear, excited by the threatenings of God, issues in 'rest' followed by the mercies of God."
I. If we regard this maxim simply as a moral proverb, it will be susceptible of much powerful and practical illustration. We need only notice the tremendous distance which, in the estimate even of natural religion, separates us from God; we need only consider the greatness of the Creator's power, the fearful might of His uplifted arm, the sweeping torrent of His indignation, and all these the more overwhelming when set in contrast with the weakness and imperfection of man; and then we might ask whether, on the simplest principles of reason, we could venture to think there could be safety in scorning God's threatenings. It is the part even of the commonest prudence to bow meekly before the Lord, and to receive with trembling the messages of His will: and thus the maxim of our text demands to be classed with those sage and sententious proverbs into which is gathered the accumulated wisdom of centuries.
II. The maxim of our text presents itself in accordance with the whole Gospel of Christ. Notice (1) the use which the Holy Spirit makes of the threatenings of the word the sinner is brought to tremble in himself. In writing to the Corinthian Church, St. Paul makes use of the following expression: "Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." Though there be much in the Bible at which the heart may well shrink and be stricken with dread, it was never designed that the threatenings should seize on a man with a paralyzing grasp. They were rather intended to serve the purpose of solemn, salutary warning, and to lead men to Christ, while the Saviour still waits to receive. He who trembles beneath the Spirit's teaching, trembles in himself.You may discern nothing on the surface; there may be the same aspect, the same evenness, the same composure; and yet all the while there is passing within the man a vigorous process of renovation, the whole fabric of intellect being shaken. He is trembling in himself; he is actually transformed into a new creature. "Old things have passed away, and all things have become new." (2) Consider to what this internal trembling leads. Resting follows on trembling. He within whose soul a new creation has arisen on the ruins which have been left by the tremblings of the old: is not he at rest from the threatenings of the law? for is not Christ the end of the law, for righteousness to every one that believeth? He is at rest from the fear of punishment, at rest from the assaults of malignant spirits, at rest from the terrors of death and the grave.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 2,038.