Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/349



THE PRINCE OF PEACE 333

He loveth to communicate to all who can or will receive it, all good yea, Himself, who is the fulness and universality of good, Creator of all good, not in one way, not in one kind of goodness only, but absolutely, without beginning, without limit, without measure, save that whereby without measurement He possesseth and embraceth all excellence, all perfection, all blessedness, all good."

" This good His goodness bestoweth on all and each, according to the capacity of each to receive it ; nor is there any limit to His giving, save His creatures capacity of receiving, which also is a good gift from Him. From Him all things sweet derive their sweetness, all things fair their beauty, all things bright their splendour, all things that live their life, all things sentient their sense, all that move their vigour, all intelligences their knowledge, all things perfect their perfection, all things in any wise good their goodness." l

" And how great h His beauty ! " This we cannot fully know until we are fully transformed into His image and can gaze upon His unveiled glory. But even now we may pray with David : " One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple " (Ps. xxvii. 4). And the more we behold it even now by faith and with the veil of flesh between, and inquire about it, the more shall we be changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit.

But, to come back to the context, this goodness and beauty of Jehovah shall in that future day also be reflected by restored and converted Israel, when " they shall be as precious stones of a crown lifted up high over His land."

And of the abundance of spiritual blessing and " glory " which shall then dwell in the land, 2 material prosperity and temporal abundance will, as is not the case in the present dispensation, be the outward sign and accompaniment. " Corn" exclaims the prophet, " shall make the young men 1 Quoted by Pusey. a Ps. Ixxxv. 9.