But the text does not touch upon these difficulties of Esau’s history. It treats him broadly as the typical instance of the reprobate, the man who by his own base acts has cast himself out of the position for which he was born and trained; who by one decisive manifestation of his character and propensities has shut himself out from a high career which opened fairly before him, and who finds no means of reversing the decree which excludes him, though he seeks it carefully with tears. It opens a very terrible vision of the inexorable rigour with which deeds done, facts when they are once fairly established, react upon our lives. But the words are often perverted to yet darker meanings—suggesting visions of unpardonable sins, of fruitless agonies of personal repentance,—with which souls under strong conviction not seldom torment themselves, and with which the text has absolutely nothing whatever to do. A man seeking change of heart with an agony of tears, pleading with God to renew him, to restore him, and to cherish him to new life and hope, yet spurned from the gate of mercy, flung forth accursed from the arms of love, is a picture which, blessed be God, has no original in the Divine word. No! thus runs the gospel: “_Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light._” “_Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you._” “_For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened._” “_If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?_” “_Whoso cometh unto me I will in no wise cast him out._” “_This man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood; wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them._” If any who reads these words has ever made this text a stumbling-block, has ever suffered the devil to thrust the thought into his heart that he has sinned too deeply for repentance, and wandered too far for return—that he can but lie moaning and weeping like Esau, and pleading with anguished heart for repentance, to find his moans rained back in anathemas, and his tears with the fire of the wrath of the Lamb,—let him sweep back the thought as an unholy thing to the devil who inspired it, and cling to the outstretched hand of Him who “_will not break the bruised reed, who will not quench the smoking flax, but will bring forth judgment unto truth_.”