106. Ruth--Blessed of God

Ruth--Blessed of God

Ruth 4:13-17. So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife: and when he went in unto her, the Lord gave her conception, and she bare a son. And the women said unto Naomi, Blessed be the Lord, which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel. And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life, and a nourisher of thine old age. For thy daughter-in-law, which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath borne him. And Naomi took the child, and laid it in her bosom, and became nurse unto it. And the women her neighbors gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi, and they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.

There is an obvious resemblance between the general plan of the divine providence, and the separate and detached parts of it. The life of almost every good man exhibits virtue for a season struggling with difficulty, overwhelmed with distress, but emerging, rising, triumphing at length. Through much tribulation the Christian must enter into the kingdom of God, and on his way be often in heaviness through manifold temptations. It is the wise ordinance of infinite goodness. Opposition rouses, calls forth the latent powers of the soul; success is heightened by the danger to which we were exposed, by the trouble which it cost us, by the pains we took; antecedent labor sweetens rest. Hence, the passages of our own lives which we most fondly recollect and relate, and those in the lives of others which most deeply engage and interest us, are the scenes of depression, mortification, and pain through which we have passed. The perils of a battle, the horrors of a shipwreck, so dreadful at the moment, become the source of lasting joy, when the tempest has ceased to roar, and the confused noise of the warrior is hushed into silence.

Fiction, in order to please, is, accordingly, forced to borrow the garb of truth. The hero’s sufferings, the lover’s solicitude and uncertainty, the parent’s anguish, the patriot’s conflict, are the subject of the drama. When the ship has reached her desired haven, when the cloud disperses, when the contest is decided, the curtain must drop. Periods of prosperity cannot be the theme of history. The vast, general system, in like manner, exhibits “the whole creation groaning and travailing in pain together:” interest clashing with interest, spirit rising up against spirit, one purpose defeating another, universal nature apparently on the verge of confusion; chaos and ancient night threatening to resume their empire: but without knowledge, design, or co-operation, nay, in defiance of concert and co-operation, the whole is making a regular, steady progress; the muddy stream is working itself pure; the discordant mass is bound as in chains of adamant, the wrath of man is praising God; every succeeding era and event is explaining and confirming that which preceded it; all is tending towards one grand consummation which shall collect, adjust, unite, and crown the scattered parts, and demonstrate, to the conviction of every intelligent being, that all was, is, and shall be very good.

Finite capacity can contemplate, and comprehend but a few fragments at most: and Scripture has furnished us with a most delicious one, in the little history of which I have now read the conclusion. The story of Ruth has been considered, by every reader of taste, as a perfect model in that species of composition. It will stand the test of the most rigid criticism, or rather, is calculated to give instruction and law to criticism. With your patience I will attempt a brief analysis of it.

First. The subject is great and important beyond all that heathen antiquity presents: the foundation and establishment of the regal dignity in the house of David, the type and ancestor of the Messiah. An event in which not one age, one nation, one interest is concerned, but the whole extent of time, the whole human race, the temporal, the spiritual, the everlasting interests of mankind. What is the demolition of Troy, or the settlement of Aeneas in Latium, compared to this? Paradise Lost, itself, must give place to this glorious opening of Paradise Regained.

Second. The story is perfect and complete in itself; or, as the critic would say, has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Elimelech is driven by famine into banishment, dies in the land of Moab, and leaves his family in distress. Here the action commences. Naomi and Ruth, united by propinquity, by affection and by distress, are induced to return to Bethlehem-Judah, in hope of effecting a redemption of the estate which had belonged to the family, but under the pressure of necessity had been alienated. Their reception, deportment, and progress, form the great body of the piece. The marriage of Boaz and Ruth, and the birth of Obed is the conclusion of it.

Third. The conduct of the plot is simple, natural, and easy. No extraneous matter, personage, or event is introduced, from first to last: the incidents follow, and arise out of one another, without force, without effort. No extraordinary, agency appears, because none is requisite; the ordinary powers of nature, and the ordinary course of things, are adequate to the effect intended to be produced. There is no violent or sudden transition, but a calm, rational, progressive change from deep sorrow to moderated affliction, to composed resignation, to budding hope, to dawning prosperity, to solicitous prosecution, to partial success, to final and full attainment. The discovery of Ruth, of her character, of her virtues, of her relation to Boaz, is in the same happy style of natural simplicity and ease. On her part we see no indecent eagerness to bring herself forward, no clamorous publication of her distresses or pretensions, no affected disguise or concealment to attract observation or provoke inquiry: on his, there is no vehemence of exclamation, no hastiness of resolution; but in both, the calmness of good minds, the satisfaction which conscious virtue enjoys, in the unexpected discovery of mutual attractions and kindred worth. The situations are interesting, affecting, governed by the laws of nature and probability, and consonant to every day’s experience.

Fourth. The sentiments are just, arising out of the situations, adapted to the characters, guarded equally from apathy and violence. The pathetic expostulation of Ruth with her mother-in-law, when she proposed a separation, is in particular, a masterpiece of native eloquence: at hearing it, the heart is melted into tenderness, the tear of sympathy rushes to the eye, nature feels and acknowledges the triumph of virtue. The sentiment of impassioned sorrow glows with equal vehemence on the lips of Naomi, and excite in the bosom of sensibility, pity mingled with respect. In Boaz we praise and admire unostentatious generosity, dignified condescension, honest, undisguised affection, a sense of impartial, inflexible, undeviating justice.

Fifth. The characters are nicely discriminated, boldly designed, and uniformly supported. The grief of Naomi is verbose, impetuous, and penetrating; that of Ruth calm, silent, melting, modest. The plans of the mother are sagacious, comprehensive; the result of reflection, of experience; they indicate skill, ability, resolution, perseverance. Those of the daughter are artless, innocent; the suggestion of the moment, the effusion of the heart; indicate candor, sincerity, conscious, unblushing, unsuspecting rectitude. In Boaz the struggle between inclination, propriety, prudence, and justice is happily designed, and forcibly executed: it is a painting from nature, and therefore cannot fail to please. His openness and fair dealing also, as was observed in a former Lecture, are finely contrasted with the selfishness, insincerity, and unsteadiness of the nearer kinsman. The character of the servant who was over the reapers, though we have but a slight sketch of it, discovers the hand of a master, the band of truth and nature. We see in it, the beautiful and interesting portrait of unabashed, unassuming inferiority, of authority, undisfigured by insolence or severity, the happy medium between power and dependence, the link in the scale of society which connects the wealthy lord with the honest laborer, the friend and companion of both. The rest of the characters are classed in groups, but discover a characteristic and decided distinction. We have the inquisitiveness, curiosity, hard-heartedness and indifference of an idle provincial town; the good nature, hospitality, candor, and cheerfulness of the country. The compliments of congratulation presented to Boaz, on his marriage, and those addressed to Naomi, on the birth of her grandson, clearly evince the different train of thought and feeling which dictated them, and mark beyond the possibility of mistake the sex and sentiment of the addressors. In a word, the ideas expressed by the several characters in this sacred drama, are so peculiarly their own, that no reader of ordinary discernment needs to be told, who it is that speaks: the sentiments cannot possibly be transferred from one to another.

Sixth. The manners are delineated with the same felicity of pencil. We have a faithful representation of those that are permanent and founded in nature: and of those which are local and temporary. When I observe these Bethlehemites flocking round the old woman and her outlandish daughter, plying them and one another with questions, circulating the leer and the whisper, I could suppose myself in one of the gossiping villages which surround this metropolis, whose inhabitants feed on rumour, exercise no principle but curiosity, employ no member but the tongue, or the feet, in hunting after the materials for that employment. In the innocent festivity, the uncomplaining toil, the contented simplicity, the unaffected benevolence, the unprofessing piety of that field of reapers, I have mingled a thousand and a thousand times. It was the delight of childhood, it is the unpainful, the undepressing retrospect of age.

We have a representation equally faithful and just of customs and manners which are local and temporary; some of which excite our astonishment, some shock our delicacy, and some provoke our mirth. Such are the modes of courtship here described, the transfer of property, the forms of judicial procedure, the terms of familiar address and friendly communication: and the like. These, having no intrinsic moral excellence or turpitude, are the object of neither praise nor censure. To trace their origin, or explain their nature and design, may be an innocent amusement, but it were unjust to explode them as absurd, or to run them down as ridiculous. The antiquarian will revere them for their age, the philosopher will investigate them as opening a new path to the knowledge of the human heart, the philanthropist will deal with them gently, because they are the harmless peculiarities of his fellow-creatures, and piety will respect them as presenting another view of the endless variety discoverable in all the ways and works of the great Creator. In the permanent manners of mankind we see the eternal sameness of the human mind, which no change of climate, times, government, education, can alter; a sameness as discernible and as fixed as the number of eyes, arms, and fingers peculiar to the species. In those which are local and transient, we behold the infinite and endless variety of the human powers, which no stability and uniformity of law, instruction, discipline, interest, example, can arrest and fix; a variety as discernible, as unsteady, as unaccountable, as the different shades of complexion, the conformation of feature, the measurements of stature, the fluctuations of thought. Everything satisfies, everything confounds.

Once more, the language of this charming little epic history is plain and perspicuous, elegant yet unadorned, nervous yet chaste, simple yet not mean or vulgar. It consists of narration and dialogue, the former possessing the most exquisite degree of grace and ease, the latter of vivacity and force. There is no obscurity of idea, no redundancy of expression, no appearance of labor, no artful polish, no tinsel of words, no disgusting tediousness, no affected conciseness. Like the general code of Scripture, it is capable of neither increase nor diminution, without sustaining an injury. But the least merit of the piece is its excellency as a composition. It forms a most material member of the great building of God, an important link in the chain of providence, an interesting and instructive chapter in the history of redemption. The union of Boaz and Ruth can never lose its influence, never spend its force. When nature expires, and all these things are dissolved, the offspring of that pair “shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever.” From that root behold a branch has arisen, to which “the nations of them that are saved” continually resort, under whose shadow they repose, whose fruit is the source and support of a divine life, whose “leaves are for the healing of the nations.” Let the Jew read this sacred page, and glory in his ancestry; let the scholar read it, and improve his taste, and extend his knowledge; let the rustic read it, and prize his humble pursuits and innocent delights; let the sons of poverty and the daughters of affliction read it, and cease from despair, let them learn to “trust in the Lord, and to do good; let the Christian read it, and “hold fast the beginning of his confidence,” and “rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” The last obvious remark on the history, sorry I am to say it, is not highly honorable to human nature. While Naomi was poor, and friendless, and forlorn, she met with little sympathy, with little countenance; she was permitted to depend for subsistence on the miserable, unproductive industry of a woman, weak and wretched as herself; but no sooner is she connected with “a mighty man of wealth,” become a mother to Boaz, than the whole city is seeking to her; her own sex, in particular, we see entering into all her feelings, flattering all her natural propensities, accommodating themselves to her little wishes and desires, and trying to compensate their former coldness and neglect by every art of attention, officiousness, and zeal. Base spirit! base world! Behold kindness pressed upon a man, just in proportion as he has no need of it; behold him oppressed with new friends, because he has already got too many, caressed by those who lately knew him not, praised and flattered to his face, by the very tongues which maligned and censured him in his absence. But that man is left to continue poor, because he is poor. He finds no support because he wants it, he stands unbefriended, because he has no friend. Shame on the fawning sycophants that only flutter about in fair weather, that only frequent the mansions of the rich and great, that turn with the tide, that can despise ragged poverty, and offer incense to ermined villany.

Let us turn with contempt from the sight, and take a last parting look of one of the worthiest, best, happiest of human beings--Naomi nursing and cherishing her little grandson in her bosom. If there be bliss on earth, she enjoyed it. Her honest scheme had succeeded, the name of her beloved husband was revived, and his house begun to be built up; her amiable and beloved daughter was nobly rewarded for her tenderness and attachment; the inheritance of Elimelech is redeemed and reverted to its proper channel; the wisdom and goodness of Providence are fully justified, and a prospect of felicity and honor is opened which knew no bounds. The miseries of a whole life are done away in one hour, converted into blessings, blessings heightened and improved by the memory of past woes; the name of Mara is for ever obliterated, and the original, the suitable, the prophetic name of Naomi restored and confirmed. The sensibilities of a Grandmother are peculiarly pure and delicate respecting infant offspring. All good women are fond of children, to whomsoever they belong, how much more of their own whom they bare with sorrow, and have brought up with solicitude: but “that I should live to see my child’s child, my being multiplied; dropping into the grave, yet reviving in that infant. I feel myself immortal; this babe will live to put his hand upon my eyes, and then I shall not feel the oppression of death; if he survive I cannot all die.” “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.” The Spirit of God has drawn a veil over the feelings of the mother herself, and the expression of them, and left it to the imagination to figure the felicity of Ruth the widow of Mahlon, the daughter of Naomi, the wife of Boaz, the mother of Obed, in surveying the changes of her life, in comparing what she was with what she is. And thus have we finished what was intended, in discoursing on the book of Ruth. We have considered it, as a beautiful, because natural representation of human life; as a curious and interesting detail of important facts; and as an essential, constituent part of the plan of redemption. It happily connects the history of the Israelitish judges with that of their kings, and is obviously blended with both: and while it demonstrates the care of Providence, in fulfilling the promises made to Abraham, the friend of God, in prolonging his race, in multiplying his seed, in making kings to arise out of him, it unfolds the more enlarged and comprehensive purpose of the eternal Mind; it points directly forward to that “seal in whom all the families of the earth shall be blessed;” it show the subservience of all that preceded, to the evangelical dispensation; it breathes good-will to men. The reception of Ruth, a Gentile, within the pale of the church of the living God; her advancement to honor, her participation of the privileges of a mother in Israel, are a happy prefiguration of the admission of the whole Gentile world within the bond of God’s covenant. We see the work of God still going forward and prospering; the work of mercy enlarging, extending its sphere; all bending forward to that grand consummation, when “Israel too shall be saved,” and the ancient people of God brought into a communication of the blessings of the gospel, together with “the fulness of the Gentile nations;” when there shall be “one shepherd and one sheepfold;” when Jew and Gentile shall arise together from the dead, because “Christ doth give them life.” The birth of Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David, brings the history of the world down to the year two thousand six hundred and ninety-seven, from the creation, and before Christ one thousand three hundred and seven, and conducts us to the eve of the establishment of kingly power in Israel.

How many generations of men have passed in review before us, in the course of these few years evening exercises from Adam dawn to Boaz! What changes has the audience undergone, since first it collected in this view! What deep and affecting changes will a few more seasons produce! The turning of the page will present a new preacher, new hearers, a different plan, a different arrangement, different interests, different feelings. The separation of this night may be final and permanent. We bend together, gracious God, with wonder and gratitude before thy throne. Spared together so many years longer, “cumberers of the ground” that we are; our bodies preserved in health, our minds in tranquillity; blessed with friendship, blest with sufficiency, blest with the means of improvement, blest with hope! Ah, we are unworthy of the least of thy favors, and we have been distinguished by the choicest and best! Make us to feel thy goodness and our own unworthiness; help us to live more to thy glory. As our interest in the world diminishes, as years increase, as gray hairs multiply, as friends depart, as comforts fail, as eternity advances, let our faith strengthen, let our spirits rise to thee, let our prospects brighten, let our ardor after immortality kindle. The nearer we approach to thee, let our resemblance to thee become more apparent; let the spirit of heaven, the spirit of the blessed Jesus, be imparted to us, that living and dying, we may edify the world, be a blessing to all connected with us, and still enjoy inward peace. And as we separate from time to time, may it be in the sweet expectation of meeting together in the regions of everlasting purity, love, and joy. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirits. Amen.”