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Deuteronomy Chapter
Twenty-nine
Deuteronomy 29
Chapter Contents
Moses calls Israel's mercies to remembrance. (1-9) The Divine
wrath on those who flatter themselves in their wickedness. (10-21) The ruin of
the Jewish nation. (22-28) Secret things belong unto God. (29)
Commentary on Deuteronomy 29:1-9
(Read Deuteronomy 29:1-9)
Both former mercies, and fresh mercies, should be thought
on by us as motives to obedience. The hearing ear, and seeing eye, and the
understanding heart, are the gift of God. All that have them, have them from
him. God gives not only food and raiment, but wealth and large possessions, to
many to whom he does not give grace. Many enjoy the gifts, who have not hearts
to perceive the Giver, nor the true design and use of the gifts. We are bound,
in gratitude and interest, as well as in duty and faithfulness, to keep the
words of the covenant.
Commentary on Deuteronomy 29:10-21
(Read Deuteronomy 29:10-21)
The national covenant made with Israel, not only typified
the covenant of grace made with true believers, but also represented the
outward dispensation of the gospel. Those who have been enabled to consent to
the Lord's new covenant of mercy and grace in Jesus Christ, and to give up
themselves to be his people, should embrace every opportunity of renewing their
open profession of relation to him, and their obligation to him, as the God of
salvation, walking according thereto. The sinner is described as one whose
heart turns away from his God; there the mischief begins, in the evil heart of
unbelief, which inclines men to depart from the living God to dead idols. Even
to this sin men are now tempted, when drawn aside by their own lusts and
fancies. Such men are roots that bear gall and wormwood. They are weeds which,
if let alone, overspread the whole field. Satan may for a time disguise this
bitter morsel, so that thou shalt not have the natural taste of it, but at the
last day, if not before, the true taste shall be discerned. Notice the sinner's
security in sin. Though he hears the words of the curse, yet even then he
thinks himself safe from the wrath of God. There is scarcely a threatening in
all the book of God more dreadful than this. Oh that presumptuous sinners would
read it, and tremble! for it is a real declaration of the wrath of God, against
ungodliness and unrighteousness of man.
Commentary on Deuteronomy 29:22-28
(Read Deuteronomy 29:22-28)
Idolatry would be the ruin of their nation. It is no new
thing for God to bring desolating judgments on a people near to him in
profession. He never does this without good reason. It concerns us to seek for
the reason, that we may give glory to God, and take warning to ourselves. Thus
the law of Moses leaves sinners under the curse, and rooted out of the Lord's
land; but the grace of Christ toward penitent, believing sinners, plants them
again in their land; and they shall no more be pulled up, being kept by the
power of God.
Commentary on Deuteronomy 29:29
(Read Deuteronomy 29:29)
Moses ends his prophecy of the Jews' rejection, just as
St. Paul ends his discourse on the same subject, when it began to be fulfilled,
Romans 11:33. We are forbidden curiously to
inquire into the secret counsels of God, and to determine concerning them. But
we are directed and encouraged, diligently to seek into that which God has made
known. He has kept back nothing that is profitable for us, but only that of
which it is good for us to be ignorant. The end of all Divine revelation is,
not to furnish curious subjects of speculation and discourse, but that we may
do all the words of this law, and be blessed in our deed. This, the Bible
plainly reveals; further than this, man cannot profitably go. By this light he
may live and die comfortably, and be happy for ever.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Deuteronomy》
Deuteronomy 29
Verse 1
[1] These are the words of the covenant, which the LORD
commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside
the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.
These are the terms or conditions upon which God hath
made, that is renewed his covenant with you. The covenant was but one in
substance, but various in the time and manner of its dispensation.
Verse 4
[4] Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive,
and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.
Yet the Lord — That is, you have perceived and
seen them with the eyes of your body, but not with your minds and hearts; you
have not yet learned rightly to understand the word and works of God, so as to
know them for your good, and to make a right use of them, and to comply with
them: which he expresseth thus, the Lord hath not given you, etc. not to excuse
their wickedness, but to direct them to whom they must have recourse for a good
understanding of God's works; and to intimate that although the hearing ear,
and the seeing eye, be the workmanship of God, yet their want of his grace was
their own fault, and the just punishment of their former sins; their present
case being like theirs in Isaiah's time, who first shut their own eyes and ears
that they might not see and hear, and would not understand, and then by the
righteous judgment of God, had their eyes and ears closed that they should not
see and hear, and understand. God's readiness to do us good in other things, is
a plain evidence, that if we have not grace, that best of gifts, 'tis our own
fault and not his: he would have gathered us, and we would not.
Verse 6
[6] Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or
strong drink: that ye might know that I am the LORD your God.
Ye have not eaten bread — Common bread
purchased by your own money, or made by your own hands, but heavenly and
angelical bread.
Neither drank wine — But only water out of
the rock.
The Lord — Omnipotent and all-sufficient for your provision
without the help of any creatures, and your God in covenant with you who hath a
true affection to you, and fatherly care of you.
Verse 11
[11] Your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is
in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water:
Thy stranger — Such strangers as had embraced
their religion: all sorts of persons, yea, even the meanest of them.
Verse 12
[12] That thou shouldest enter into covenant with the LORD
thy God, and into his oath, which the LORD thy God maketh with thee this day:
Into covenant and into his oath — Into covenant,
confirmed by a solemn oath.
Verse 13
[13] That he may establish thee to day for a people unto
himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as
he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
That he may establish thee — Here is the summary
of that covenant whereof Moses was the mediator, and in the covenant relation
between God and them, all the precepts and promises of the covenant are
included. That they should be established for a people to him, to fear, love,
obey, and be devoted to him, and that he should be to them a God, to make them
holy and happy; and a due sense of the relation we stand in to God as our God,
and the obligation we are under to him as his people, is enough to bring us to
all the duties, and all the comforts of the covenant. And does this covenant
include nothing spiritual? nothing that refers to eternity?
Verse 15
[15] But with him that standeth here with us this day before
the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day:
So also — With your posterity. For so the covenant was made at
first with Abraham and his seed, by which as God engaged himself to continue
the blessing of Abraham upon his posterity, so he also engaged them to the same
duties which were required of Abraham. So it is even among men, where a king
confers an estate upon a subject and his heirs for ever, upon some certain
conditions, all his heirs who enjoy that benefit, are obliged to the same
conditions. It may likewise include those who were then constrained to be
absent, by sickness, or any necessary occasion. Nay one of the Chaldee
pharaphrasts reads it, all the generations that have been from the first days
of the world, and all that shall arise to the end of the whole world, stand
with us here this day. And so taking this covenant as a typical dispensation of
the covenant of grace, 'tis a noble testimony to the Mediator of that covenant,
who is the same yesterday, to day, and for ever.
Verse 16
[16] (For ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and
how we came through the nations which ye passed by;
Egypt — Where you have seen their idolatries, and learned too
much of them, as the golden calf shewed, and therefore have need to renew your
covenant with God; where also we were in dreadful bondage whence God alone hath
delivered us, to whom therefore we are deeply obliged, and have all reason to
renew our covenant with him.
Through the nations — With what hazard, if
God had not appeared for us!
Verse 18
[18] Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family,
or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and
serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that
beareth gall and wormwood;
A root — An evil heart inclining you to such cursed idolatry,
and bringing forth bitter fruits.
Verse 19
[19] And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this
curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I
walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst:
Of this curse — Of that oath where-in he swore he
would keep covenant with God, and that with a curse pronounced against himself
if he did not perform it.
Bless himself — Flatter himself in his own eyes,
with vain hopes, as if God did not mind such things, and either could not, or
would not punish them.
Peace — Safety and prosperity.
My own heart — Though I do not follow God's
command, but my own devices.
To add drunkenness to thirst — The words may be
rendered, to add thirst to drunkenness, and so the sense may be, that when he
hath multiplied his sins, and made himself as it were drunk with them, yet he
is not satisfied therewith, but still whets his appetite, and provokes his
thirst after more, as drunkards often use means to make themselves thirst after
more drink.
Verse 20
[20] The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the
LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are
written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name
from under heaven.
Shall smoke — Shall burn and break forth with
flame and smoke as it were from a furnace.
Verse 21
[21] And the LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the
tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written
in this book of the law:
Unto evil — Unto some peculiar and exemplary
plague; he will make him a monument of his displeasure to the whole land.
Verse 23
[23] And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt,
and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein,
like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD
overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:
Salt and burning — Is burnt up and made
barren, as with brimstone and salt.
Verse 26
[26] For they went and served other gods, and worshipped
them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them:
Whom God had not given to them - For their worship, but
hath divided them unto all nations, for their use and service. So he speaks
here of the sun and moon and stars, which were the principal gods worshipped by
the neighbouring nations.
Verse 29
[29] The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but
those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever,
that we may do all the words of this law.
The secret things — Having mentioned the
amazing judgments of God upon the whole land and people of Israel, and
foreseeing the utter extirpation which would come upon them for their
wickedness, he breaks out into this pathetic exclamation, either to bridle
their curiosity, who would be apt to enquire into the time and manner of so
great an event; or to quiet his own mind, and satisfy the scruples of others,
who perceiving God to deal so severely with his own people, when in the
meantime he suffered those nations which were guilty of grosser atheism and
idolatry, might thence take occasion to deny his providence or question the
equity of his proceedings. To this he answers, that the ways and judgments of God,
tho' never unjust, are often times hidden from us, unsearchable by our shallow
capacities, and matter for our admiration, not our enquiry. But the things
which are revealed by God and his word, are the proper object of our enquiries,
that thereby we may know our duty, and be kept from such terrible calamities as
these now mentioned.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Deuteronomy》
29 Chapter 29
Verse 4
The Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive.
Men without heart, sight, or hearing
Feeling, sight, hearing! What wonderful things these are! If we
could exist without them, what a wretched condition ours would be! The outer
world would be unknown to us if the gates of the senses were shut, and the soul
would be famished, like Samaria when it was straitly shut up, and there was no
going in nor coming out. When any one of the senses is gone it involves great
deprivation, and subjects the person enduring it to the pity of his fellows,
but if all were absent what wretchedness must ensue! Transfer your thoughts now
from these external senses by which we become conscious of the external world
to those spiritual senses by which we perceive the spiritual world, the kingdom
of heaven, the Lord of that kingdom, and all the powers of the world to come.
There is a heart which should be tender, by which we perceive the presence of
God and feel His operations, and even behold the Lord Himself, as it is
written, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” There is a
spiritual eye by which the things invisible are discerned; blessed are they to
whom the Lord has given to see the things of His kingdom, which to the
unrenewed remain hidden in parables. There is a spiritual ear by which we hear
the gentle whispers of the Spirit, which frequently come to us internally,
without the medium of sounds that can affect the ear. Blessed are those who
have the ear which the Lord has purged, and cleansed, and opened, so that it
listens to the Divine call But there is no blessedness in the case of men
devoid of spiritual feeling, sight, and hearing. Theirs is a miserable plight.
I. We shall think
upon a mournful fact. Here was a whole nation, with but very few exceptions, of
whom their leader, who knew and loved them best, was obliged to say, “The Lord
hath not given you a heart to perceive, unto this day.”
1. The mournful part of it was, that this was the nation that had
been specially favoured of God above all others.
2. Note again, that not only were they a highly favoured people, but
they had seen very wonderful acts performed by the Lord Himself.
3. In addition to this, these people had passed through a very
remarkable experience.
4. In addition to all this sight and experience, the Israelites had
received remarkable instruction.
5. One thing else is worth notice, that these people had been
associated with remarkable characters. They were not all blinded, there were a
few among them who were gracious, and so were made to perceive. Caleb and
Joshua were there, and Aaron and Miriam; but chiefly there was Moses, grandest
of men, true father of the nation
II. Let us note the
mournful reasons for all this.
1. The reasons for their incapacity to see and perceive lay, first,
in the tact that these people never believed in their own blindness. They had
no heart to perceive, and they did not perceive their absence of perception;
they had no eyes wherewith to detect their own dimness of vision. They were
such fools as to dote on their own wisdom, so poor as to think themselves rich,
so hypocritical as to profess to be sincere. Pride is the great creator of
darkness; like Nahash, the Ammonite, it puts out the right eye. Men seek not
the light, because they boast that they are the children of the day and need no
light from above.
2. More than this, these men never asked for a heart to perceive, and
eyes to see, and ears to hear. No man hath ever asked for these things and been
refused; no soul has cried in its blindness and darkness, “Open Thou mine eyes,”
but what a gracious answer has always come. It is the prerogative of the Lord
Jesus to open the blind eyes; but this He is ever ready to do whenever men call
upon His name. Then, moreover, what little light they did have they resisted.
When they were forced to see, it was only for a moment that they would be
instructed, and then they shut their eyes again.
III. What was the
mournful result of these people being so highly favoured, and yet not seeing
their God?
1. The result was, first, that they missed a happy portion, I can
hardly imagine how happy the children of Israel might have been. They left
Egypt with a high hand and an outstretched arm, their ears were hung with
jewels, and their purses were filled with riches, while around them manna dropped
from heaven, and cool streams flowed at their side. They might have made a
quick march to the promised land, and at once entered their rest, for their God
who had sent the hornet before them would soon have driven out their
adversaries. They would have known no invading enemy, and felt neither blast,
nor blight, nor mildew; in fact, they would have been the happiest nation under
heaven: “He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with
honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.” They flung all this on one
side: they would not have God, and so they could not have prosperity. They
walked contrary to Him, and He walked contrary to them; they would not obey
Him, and therefore His anger smoked against them.
2. Think, moreover, what a glorious destiny they threw aside. Had
they been equal to the occasion, by God’s grace they might have been a nation
of kings and priests, they might have been the Lord’s missionaries to all
lands, the light-bearers to all peoples.
3. Another result was that while they missed so high a position, they
went on sinning. As they did not learn the lesson God was teaching them,
namely, that He was God, and that to serve Him was their joy and their
prosperity, they went from one evil to another, provoking the Lord to jealousy.
4. Hence they frequently suffered. A plague broke out at one time,
and a burning at another; at one time they were visited with fever, and anon
the earth opened beneath them; one day the Amalekites smote them, another day
fiery serpents leaped up from the sand, and they died by thousands, being
poisoned by their bites. They suffered much and often, and in all their trials
they did but reap what they had sown.
5. At last this evil ended terribly. The Lord lifted His hand to
heaven, and swore that the rebellious generation should not enter into His
rest, and they began to die by wholesale till Moses cried, “We are consumed by
Thine anger, and by Thy wrath are we troubled.” Not one of the men that came
out of Egypt, save only Joshua and Caleb, reached the promised land. (C. H.
Spurgeon.)
A perceiving heart the gift of God
To complete the sense of the words, we must have recourse to the
two precedent verses; which, being compared to the text, present us with a
description of such a brutish temper as is not to be found in any people
mentioned throughout the whole Book of God, or any history whatsoever.
I. What is meant
by God’s giving to the soul a perceiving heart? We have grace here set out by
such acts as are properly acts of knowledge; as understanding, seeing, hearing;
not because, as some imagine, grace is placed only in the understanding, which,
being informed with such a principle, is able to govern, and practically to
determine the will, without the help of any new principle infused into that.
For grace is a habit equally placed in both these faculties, but it is
expressed by the acts of the understanding:--
1. Because the understanding has the precedency and first stroke in
holy actions, as well as in others; it is the head and fountain from whence
they derive their goodness, the leading faculty: and therefore the works of all
the rest may, by way of eminence, be ascribed to this, as the conquest of an
army is ascribed to the leader only, or general.
2. Because the means of grace are chiefly and most frequently
expressed by the word “truth”; 1 Timothy 1:15, “This is a faithful
(or a true) saying, that Christ came into the world to save sinners.” And in John 3:33, “He that believeth hath set to
his seal that God is true.” And in John 17:17, “Thy Word is truth.” From
hence, therefore, I collect--
II. Whence it is
that, without this gift of a perceiving heart, the soul cannot make any
improvement of the means of grace. It arises from these two reasons--
1. From its exceeding impotence and inability to apprehend these
things.
2. From its contrariety to them. And there are two things in the soul
in which this contrariety chiefly consists.
III. Although upon
God’s denial of a perceiving heart the soul does inevitably remain unprofitable
under the means of grace, so as not to hear nor perceive; yet this hardness, or
unprofitableness, cannot at all be ascribed to God as the author of it. In
order to the clearing of this we know that God’s “not giving a heart to
perceive” may admit of a double acceptation.
1. As it implies only a bare denial of grace.
2. As it does also include a positive act of induration.
IV. How God can
justly reprehend men for not hearing nor perceiving, when, upon His denial of a
heart, there is a necessity lying upon them to do neither. Now, there can be no
just reprehension but for sin, and nothing can be sin but that which is
voluntary and free, and how can that be flee for a man to do or not to do which
from necessity he cannot do? Application--
1. This doctrine speaks refutation to that opinion that states a
sufficiency of grace in the bare proposal of things to be believed and
practised, without a new powerful work of the Spirit upon the heart, that may
determine and enable it to believe and accept of these things.
2. Is of exhortation; that in the enjoyment of the means of grace we
should not terminate in the means, but look up to God, who alone is able to
give a heart to improve them. (R. South, D. D.)
Men’s blindness in spiritual things
Consider this complaint--
I. As uttered by
Moses against the people of his charge. They had seen with their bodily eyes
all the wonders that had been wrought for them. They understood not.
1. The true character of that dispensation.
2. The obligations which it entailed upon them.
II. As applicable
to ourselves at this day.
1. By the great mass of nominal Christians the nature of the Gospel
is very indistinctly seen.
2. The effects of it are very partially experienced. Address--
Verses 10-13
Ye stand . . . before the Lord your God.
On covenanting with God
I. That
covenanting with God, and that publicly, is not an unprecedented thing in the
Church of God, but has been usual in former ages.
II. What is the
nature of that covenant into which the people of God have entered, and into
which we are called to enter with Him? And how do we enter into it? The
Christian covenant is founded “upon better promises” (Hebrews 8:6). Its ceremonies are only
two, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, both most significant. Its conditions or
duties are most reasonable, necessary in the nature of things, and easy. Its
worship is pure and spiritual, and confined to neither time nor place. Its
privileges and blessings are spiritual and eternal Now, this covenant can only
be entered into by a Mediator (Galatians 3:19; Hebrews 7:22-28).
III. The end for
which we should enter into or renew our covenant. “That He may establish thee
for a people to Himself.”
1. A believing people, receiving in faith all His truths and
promises.
2. A loving people (Deuteronomy 30:6; Deuteronomy 30:16; Deuteronomy 30:20), esteeming, desiring,
grateful to, and delighting in Him.
3. An obedient people (Deuteronomy 30:20). (J. Benson.)
On standing before God
1. Surely there is a warning--for the forgetful a startling, for the
guilty a terrible, even for the good man a very solemn warning--in the thought
that not only our life in its every incident, but even our heart in its utmost
secrets, lies naked and open before Him with whom we have to do.
2. The thought that we stand before God involves not only a sense of
warning, but a sense of elevation, of ennoblement. It is a sweet and a lofty
doctrine, the highest source of all the dignity and grandeur of life.
3. A third consequence of life spent consciously in God’s presence is
a firm, unflinching, unwavering sense of duty. A life regardful of duty is
crowned with an object, directed by a purpose, inspired by an enthusiasm, till
the very humblest routine carried out conscientiously for the sake of God is elevated
into moral grandeur, and the very obscurest office becomes an imperial stage on
which all the virtues play.
4. The fourth consequence is a sense of holiness. God requires not
only duty, but holiness. He searcheth the spirits; He discerneth the very reins
and heart.
5. This thought encourages us with a certainty of help and strength.
The God before whom we stand is not only our Judge and our Creator, but also
our Father and our Friend. (Dean Farrar.)
On the covenant of God with His people
This is a covenant day between God and us. This is the design of
our sacraments, and the particular design of the Holy Supper we have
celebrated. This being understood, we cannot observe without astonishment the
slight attention most men pay to an institution, of which they seem to
entertain such exalted notions. One grand cause of this defect proceeds, it is
presumed, from our having, for the most part, inadequate notions of what is
called contracting or renewing our covenant with God. The covenant God
contracted with the Israelites by the ministry of Moses, and the covenant He
has contracted with you, differ only in circumstances, being in substance the
same. Properly speaking, God has contracted but one covenant with man since the
Fall, the covenant of grace upon Mount Sinai. The Israelites, to whom Moses
addresses the words of my text, had the same Sacraments (1 Corinthians 10:2-3), the same
appellations (Exodus 19:5), the same promises (Hebrews 11:13). On the other hand, amid
the consolatory objects which God displays towards us at this period, in distinguished
lustre, and amid the abundant mercy we have seen displayed at the Lord’s table,
if we should violate the covenant He has established with us, you have the same
cause of fear as the Jews. We have the same Judge, equally awful now as at that
period (Hebrews 12:29). We have the same
judgments to apprehend (1 Corinthians 10:5-10). Further
still, whatever superiority our condition may have over the Jews; in whatever
more attracting manner He may have now revealed Himself to us, will serve only
to augment our misery if we prove unfaithful (Hebrews 2:2-3; Hebrews 12:18-25). Hence the principle
respecting the legal and evangelical covenant is indisputable. The covenant God
formerly contracted with the Israelites by the ministry of Moses and the
covenant He has made with us in the sacrament of the Holy Supper are in
substance the same. And what the legislator said of the first, in the words of
my text, we may say of the second, in the explication we shall give.
I. Moses requires
the Israelites to consider the sanctity of the place in which the covenant was
contracted with God. It was consecrated by the Divine presence. “Ye stand this
day all of you before the Lord.” The Christians having more enlightened notions
of the Divinity than the Jews, have the less need to be apprised that God is an
Omnipresent Being, and unconfined by local residence. But let us be cautious
lest, under a pretence of removing some superstitious notions, we refine too
far. God presides in a peculiar manner in our temples, and in a peculiar manner
even where two or three are met together in His name: more especially in a
house consecrated to His glory; more especially in places in which a whole
nation come to pay their devotion. The more solemn our worship, the more is God
intimately near. And what part of the worship we render to God can be more
august than that we have celebrated in the Lord’s Supper? In what situation can
the thought, “I am seen and heard of God,” be more affecting?
II. Moses required
the Israelites, in renewing their covenant with God, to consider the
universality of the contract. “Ye stand all of you before the Lord.” Would to
God that your preachers could say, on sacramental occasions, as Moses said to
the Jews, “Ye stand all of you this day before the Lord your God; the captains
of your tribes, your elders, your officers, your wives, your little ones, from
the hewer of wood to the drawer of water.” But alas! how defective are our
assemblies on these solemn occasions! There was a time, among the Jews, when a
man who should have had the assurance to neglect the rites which constituted
the essence of the law, would have been cut off from the people: This law has
varied in regard to circumstances, but in essence it still subsists, and in all
its force.
III. Moses required
the Israelites, in renewing their covenant with God, to consider what
constituted its essence: which, according to the views of the lawgiver, was the
reciprocal engagement. Be attentive to this term reciprocal; it is the soul of
my definition. What constitutes the essence of a covenant is the reciprocal
engagements of the contracting parties. This is obvious from the words of my
text, “that thou shouldest (stipulate or) enter.” Here we distinctly find
mutual conditions; here we distinctly find that God engaged with the Israelites
to be their God; and they engaged to be His people. We proved at the
commencement of this discourse that the covenant of God with the Israelites was
in substance the same as that contracted with Christians. This being
considered, what idea ought we to form of those Christians (if we may give that
name to men who can entertain such singular notions of Christianity) who
venture to affirm that the ideas of conditions and reciprocal engagements are
dangerous expressions, when applied to the evangelical covenant: that what
distinguishes the Jews from Christians is, that God then promised and required,
whereas now He promises and requires nothing?
IV. Moses required
the Israelites to consider, in renewing their covenant with God, the extent of
the engagement: “That thou shouldest enter into covenant with the Lord thy God,
and into His oath; that He may establish thee today for a people unto Himself;
and that He may be unto thee a God.” This engagement of God with the Jews
implies that He would be their God; or, to comprehend the whole in a single
word, that He would procure them a happiness correspondent to the eminence of
His perfections. Cases occur in which the attributes of God are at variance
with the happiness of men. It implies, for instance, an inconsistency with the
Divine perfections, not only that the wicked should be happy, but also that the
righteous should have perfect felicity, while their purity is incomplete. There
are miseries inseparable from our imperfection in holiness; and, imperfections
being coeval with life, our happiness will be incomplete till after death. On
the removal of this obstruction, by virtue of the covenant, God having engaged
to be our God, we shall attain supreme felicity. When God engaged with the
Israelites, the Israelites engaged with God. Their covenant implies that they
should be His people; that is, that they should obey His precepts so far as
human frailty would admit. By virtue of this clause, they engaged not only to
abstain from gross idolatry, but also to eradicate the principle. It is not
enough to be exempt from crimes, we must exterminate the principle. For
example, in theft there is both the root and the plant productive of wormwood
and gall. There is theft gross and refined; the act of theft, and the principle
of theft. To steal the goods of a neighbour is the gross act of theft; but to
indulge an exorbitant wish for the acquisition of wealth, to make enormous
charges, to be indelicate as to the means of gaining money, to reject the
mortifying claims of restitution, is refined fraud or, if you please, the
principle of fraud productive of wormwood and gall.
V. Moses lastly
required the Israelites to consider the oath and execration with which their acceptance
of the covenant was attended: that thou shouldest enter into covenant, and into
this oath. What is meant by their entering into the oath of execration? That
they pledged themselves by oath to fulfil every clause of the covenant, and, in
case of violation, to subject themselves to all the curses God had denounced
against those who should be guilty of so perfidious a crime. The words which we
render, “that thou shouldest enter into covenant,” have a peculiar energy in
the original, and signify that thou shouldest pass into covenant. The
interpreters of whom I speak, think they refer to a ceremony formerly practised
in contracting covenants. On immolating the victims, they divided the flesh
into two parts, placing the one opposite to the other. The contracting parties
passed in the open space between the two, thereby testifying their consent to
be slaughtered as those victims if they did not religiously confirm the
covenant contracted in so mysterious a manner. Perhaps one of my hearers may
say to himself that the terrific circumstances of this ceremony regarded the
Israelites alone, whom God addressed in lightnings and thunders from the top of
Sinai. What! was there no victim immolated when God contracted His covenant
with us? Does not St. Paul expressly say, that without the shedding of blood
there is no remission of sins? (Hebrews 9:22.) What were the lightnings,
what were the thunders of Sinai? What were all the execrations, and all the
curses of the law? They were the just punishments every sinner shall suffer who
neglects an entrance into favour with God. Now, these lightnings, these
thunders, these execrations, these curses, did they not all unite against the
slaughtered victim when God contracted His covenant with us--I would say,
against the head of Jesus Christ? Sinner, here is the victim immolated on
contracting thy covenant with God! Here are the sufferings thou didst subject
thyself to endure, if ever thou shouldest perfidiously violate it! Thou hast
entered, thou hast passed into covenant, and into the oath of execration which
God has required. Application: No man should presume to disguise the nature of
his engagements and the high characters of the Gospel. To enter into covenant
with God is to accept the Gospel precisely as it was delivered by Jesus Christ,
and to submit to all its stipulations. This Gospel expressly declares that
fornicators, that liars, that drunkards, and the covetous shall Lot inherit the
kingdom of God. Therefore, on accepting the Gospel, we submit to be excluded
the kingdom of God if we are either drunkards, or liars, or covetous, or
fornicators, and if after the commission of any of these crimes, we do not
recover by repentance. And what is submission to this clause if it is not to
enter into the oath of execration, which God requires of us on the ratification
of His covenant? Let us be sincere, and He will give us power to be faithful.
Let us ask His aid, and He will not withhold the grace destined to lead us to
this noble end. (J. Saurin.)
Verse 18
A root that beareth gall and wormwood.
The root that beareth wormwood
I. Sin is the root
which beareth gall and wormwood.
1. That this was true in the case of the Israelites is very manifest.
Their history tells us the whole generation which came up out of Egypt died in
the wilderness because of their sins. Their sin then was a root which bore to
them the poisonous hemlock, for they left a line of graves along their line of
march as a sad memorial to their iniquities, and only Joshua and Caleb ever
entered into the promised land.
2. Again, not only does the history of the Jews prove that sin is a
root of bitterness, but our judgment tells us that it is most fitting it should
be so. If sin were in the long run pleasurable, and really produced advantage
to man, it would be a very strange arrangement in the Divine economy. Sin is a
root which has not always budded and blossomed in this life, but which will bud
and blossom and bring forth its fruit in the life to come, and the fruit of sin
will be more bitter than hemlock and wormwood. I gather this from my reason.
Let an intelligent person only think a minute, and I am sure he will be
convinced that there must be a terrible punishment for sin. Reflect, there are
other laws in the world besides moral laws: there are what is called by the
philosopher physical laws, that is to say, laws which concern matter rather
than mind. Now, if men break these laws, does any ill result follow from the
violation? For instance, the law of attraction, or gravitation, that certain
bodies shall attract other bodies, can that be infringed without risk? If you
rebel against gravitation, it will just crush you up as a man would a beetle,
or a fly, and without a particle of pity will avenge its insulted authority.
Again, we are not left to this argument alone, for there is one out of the Ten
Commandments, to which I can only allude, which involves more especially the
bodies of men. Now, when a man offends against the one command, we shall see if
God does really punish sin; we shall see in the man’s body whether or not sin
does produce gall and wormwood. I allude, of course, to the command, “Thou shalt
not commit adultery,” which forbids all classes of lasciviousness and
uncleanness. The men or women who violate this precept soon find that they have
not only done wrong to God, but wrong to themselves. Our hospitals and asylums
could tell you into what a fearful state men have brought themselves by sins of
the flesh. Now, if the violation of this one command, which happens to touch
the body, does beyond all doubt make men smart for it, why not with the rest?
3. But we are not, happily, left to our reason about it; we can turn
to the Book of God, and call up the witnesses. Ask Noah, as he looks out of his
ark, “Does sin bring bitterness?” and he points to the floating carcasses of
innumerable thousands that died because of sin. Turn to Abraham: does sin bear
bitterness? he points to the smoke of Sodom and Gomorrah that God destroyed
because of their wickedness. Listen to James, or Jude, or Peter, and you hear
them speak of chains of darkness and flaming fire. Let the Saviour Himself
speak to you. He cries, “These shall go away into everlasting punishment.”
II. Is there such a
root as this growing in the heart of any one of us here? Some have this root
that will bear gall and wormwood in them who are not actually gross outward
sinners: they are described as those who forget God.
1. The non-loving of the Most High, even though you never curse or
swear, even though you do not break the Sabbath, is that root that will hear
gall and wormwood.
2. Next we read of “men seeking after another God.” Are you loving someone
better than God? Are you living for money--is that your great object? Is there
no one here who is living for self? If so, though you may be outwardly most
respectable people, if you are living for anything but God, that root will
bring forth gall and wormwood.
3. Again, this root is in every man who disbelieves the penalty. The
verse following the text speaks of one who said, “I shall have peace though I
walk after my own heart.” Are you saying that? If so, you have the evil root in
your heart. There is no more sure sign of reprobation than callousness and
carelessness.
III. The last point
was to be, how are we to get rid of it? Is there a possibility of being
delivered from the gall and wormwood? There is. As many as trust in Christ
shall be rid of the gall and wormwood. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Verse 19
To add drunkenness to thirst.
The sin of drunkenness
Among the vices which stamp upon human nature its fallen
condition, there is not one which causes such misery, or which leads on to such
reckless crime, as drunkenness.
1. It is a most selfish as well as degrading vice: it debases man,
created in the image of God, lower than the brute creation. God denounces this
sin most strongly in His Holy Word. Under the law of Moses, the son who would
not obey the voice of his father, but gave himself up to gluttony and
drunkenness, was put to death by stoning; and, in the Gospel, drunkenness is
classed with murder, as one of the works of the flesh, of which it is said they
which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Drunkenness is a
vice which destroys soul and body. It weakens the intellect, making a man a
madman in his rage, and an idiot in his sober moments. It ruins the health,
producing the most painful diseases, and causing premature decay and death. It
involves his family in poverty and misery. There is no peace in the drunkard’s
home. Who can describe all the misery which follows in the train of drunkenness,
all the crime to which it leads, all the sorrow which it causes to others? How
fitly the words of the text describe it, when Moses warns the Israelites to
beware “lest there should be among them a root that beareth gall and wormwood”;
or, as the marginal reading is, a poisonful herb. Never did Satan plant a more
fearful seed in the human heart than the love of strong drink. Drunkenness is,
indeed, a root which beareth gall and wormwood; nothing sweet, or pleasant, or
excellent, or beautiful can spring from it, or grow in the heart beside it.
Like the deadly upas tree, it poisons all which rests under its shade, or comes
near to it. The drunkard cannot be a high-principled, virtuous, or amiable man.
In his sober moments the testimony of every drunkard must be, that the root of
that fatal passion beareth gall and wormwood--that it is a poisonful herb.
2. The next particular--which the text points out--is the deceptive
nature of the vice. Of all self-deceivers, the drunkard is the most deluded,
the most blinded. “And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this
curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I
walk in the imagination” (or as the marginal rendering is), “the stubbornness
of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst.” There is no man so difficult to
convince of his folly and sinfulness as the drunkard, and no man so hard to
turn away from his evil course. Satan’s most powerful weapon against our holy
religion is drunkenness. A drunkard cannot be a true Christian, a child of God.
He is more often an infidel, a blasphemer, and he is on the high road to every
kind of sin and crime. Let us not stretch forth our hand to save the far-off
heathen idolater, and remain indifferent and effortless about the drunkard
dwelling close to us, and even one admitted into the fellowship of the same
holy faith as ourselves. (S. Charlesworth.)
Degradation of drunkenness
Drunkenness is the shame of nature, the extinguisher of
reason, the shipwreck of chastity, and the murder of conscience. Drunkenness is
hurtful to the body; the cup kills more than the cannon; it causes dropsies,
catarrhs, apoplexies; it fills the eye with fire, and the legs with water, and
turns the body into an hospital. (T. Watson.)
The secret things belong unto the Lord.
Things secret and things revealed
Man has always had a quarrel with God over secret things.
In the Garden of Eden there was one prohibition--“Thou shalt not eat of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil”--and in the Garden of Eden began the
quarrel with God. Now there are certain secrets to be left unto God, and they
may be classified under five headings.
1. Secrets in the nature of God Himself. One of the first things that
a man has to learn is that his mind has not the capacity of that of God. Just
as well might you expect a tiny cup to embrace the boundless ocean as to get
God within the compass of man’s mind. And this is the very proof of God’s superiority
to man. If we understood God we should be equal to God. If we could explore the
mysteries of this world we could have made it. If we found no difficulties in
the Bible we could have written it.
2. Those mysteries which lie in the will of God. A parent always
shows his or her wisdom by their reserve. There are many things which a child
ought not to know, and these are withheld by a wise parent. Eventually the
child has growth, and then the knowledge comes in. Now, God is the universal
Father, and there are some things that God sees which would be unwise for Him
to communicate.
3. Secrets that have to do with the nature of truth. Truth is a
sphere. In other words, you cannot see it all at once. It is a great globe
which has two aspects. Looked at from one side, only half is seen, the other
part is hidden. Now, man can only see one hemisphere at a time. If he could
only learn that truth is greater than his vision takes in at a glance, he would
at once surmount many difficulties. Now, many apparent contradictions are found
in the Bible, but there is no attempt on the part of the writers to reconcile
them. The reason is, that no matter how many explanations we received, we could
never take in the grandeur of God’s purpose.
4. Secrets that have to do with the nature of man.
5. Secrets that have to do with the nature of language. Words
represent things. If we do not understand a word, we can have no conception of
the thing which it represents. When we hear the words “tree,” “cloud,” and
“sun,” immediately these objects are presented to our imagination. But if I use
a word which you have never heard of, it would have no signification to you
whatever, Now when God describes a thing which we have never seen, He is
obliged to use words that are familiar to us, no matter how insufficient they
may be. When Robert Moffat was in Africa he came across a tribe that had never
seen an ox waggon. With great curiosity they examined the wheels, axles, and
other parts. But most of all they were taken with his kettle. Their curiosity
was, however, turned to wonder when Dr. Moffat told them that “in England they
placed on the ground iron rods, and on these tied in a row several ox wagons,
put a big steam kettle at their head, and away they went!” You see, he had to
take something which the natives had seen in order to describe what they had
not seen; they then readily caught some idea of the original. Did it ever occur
to you that when God tries to make known to us the mysteries of heaven and the
heavenly life, that He is obliged to use words which are familiar to us, but do
not even touch the reality? Heaven is described as having pearly gates, streets
of gold, and jasper walls. God is obliged to thus describe it because no
thoughts of man could possibly reach to the reality.
Now, what are the things revealed?
1. Facts. We know that there is such a thing as sin, and we know that
we can have salvation if we only seek it; but the mysteries of these are not
understood. Christ’s death and resurrection are well attested--they are facts,
but the mystery surrounding them cannot be explained. You cannot understand
these mysteries, but you can accept the facts. Admit these facts, and then
adapt your own conduct to the fact.
2. Laws. The law is the express will of the sovereign. There may be
ten thousand things which you do not understand, but there is not a single law
in the Bible which a little child cannot understand, and a willing child obey.
The laws of God, which once belonged to Him now belong unto us and to our
children forever.” What is the lesson? First, we must learn humility. We should
all find out and limit the extent of our knowledge. The province of reason is
not to explore the mysteries of God, but to answer--
1. Is this the law of God?
2. What does this law mean?
3. What does it require of me?
When these have been answered, all that reason demands is
satisfied. When we go beyond the reach of reason, Faith must take its place. In
addition, we are taught Obedience. This should be unquestioning and
unhesitating. Finally, we have the lesson of Blessedness. The blessedness of
the man who keeps the law of God is only just inferior to the blessedness of
the angels themselves. (J. Pierson, D. D.)
Mystery and revelation
The fact that there are some mysteries which are insoluble is attested--
1. By the long and painful experience of mankind.
2. By the teaching of the materialistic thinkers of the day.
The text recognises alike the spirit of unenquiring reverence and
of rational freedom.
I. Some men say,
“we cannot accept revelation. We accept the excellent moral teachings of the
Bible, because they commend themselves to our reason and to the reason of the
race; but what we cannot accept are these mysteries which are revealed in the
New Testament.” In answer to this we reply, A mystery is not a revelation. It
is the very opposite of a revelation. We freely admit that there are mysteries
confronting us in the Old and New Testaments. Truths are intimated, suggested,
pointed at, dimly outlined, like a mountain castle scarce seen through the mists
of evening which fill the valley; but, inasmuch as they are not clear, to that
extent they cannot be said to be revealed. These things are beyond us. They are
Divine mysteries, which it is reverent for us to place with the secret things
which belong unto the Lord God.
II. There are those
who say they cannot receive a revelation on the ground that it is supernatural,
that they only know that which comes through the mind of man and is capable of
justifying itself to the human reason. Now we affirm that the Bible revelations
have come through the mind of man. They were convictions, certainties, in some
man’s mind, which he declared to his fellows. A truth of inspiration is no
truer than a truth of induction or demonstration. Truth is simply truth,
wherever it may come from, or however it may be demonstrated. Revelation is
natural and at the same time supernatural. It comes from the mind of man; it
comes according to the mind and demonstration of God.
III. The one
ever-speaking revelation of the mind of God is the history of man. If we miss
the truth, says Jeremy Taylor, it is because we will not find it, for certain
it is that all the truth which God hath made necessary He hath also
made-legible and plain; and if we will open our eyes we shall see the sun, and
if we will walk in the light we shall rejoice in the light.” (W. Page
Roberts, M. A.)
Divine secrets
I. That there are
in the universe certain domains accessible to none but God. This holds true in
reference to--
1. Material creation. Secrets of nature.
2. The decrees of Providence. “Clouds and darkness are round about
Him.” Social inequalities.
3. The mysteries of redemption. “Great is the mystery,” etc.
II. That
impenetrable secrecy is compatible with paternal benevolence.
1. All nature proves this.
2. Family mercies prove tiffs.
3. Never make God’s secrets a plea for neglecting His bounties.
III. That Divine
secrecy is no argument for human disobedience. “Those things which are revealed
belong unto us.”
1. An acknowledgment of a Divine revelation.
2. The confession of our relationship to God.
3. An implication of our power to obey the Divine requirements.
IV. That
inquisitiveness into secret things is a fruitful cause of scepticism. Let us
leave God to deal with His own decrees, to manage the boundless realm of
causes, and to work out His inconceivable purposes. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Of mysteries
I. That it is a
vain and foolish curiosity to inquire into things that we cannot comprehend,
and with respect to which we have no light to direct us, either from reason or
revelation.
II. That there are,
properly speaking, no mysteries in religion. The secret things belong unto the
Lord our God, and only things revealed, things that are intelligible, belong to
us.
III. That the great
end of revelation is practice, the practice of substantial virtue; that we may
do all the works of this law. From whence it necessarily follows--
IV. That no
doctrines which in the least encourage immorality can be parts of a Divine
revelation.
V. That the
importance of the several doctrines of revelation is to be judged of by this
rule, namely, their tendency to promote and establish a becoming regard to
purity and true goodness. (James Foster.)
Mysteries no real objection to the truth of Christianity
I. The difficulty
or impossibility of conceiving the sacred mysteries of our faith is no
reasonable objection to the truth of them. Not a thing in the whole compass of
nature, were we to pursue our inquiries to the utmost, but would puzzle the
wisest. Can we wonder, then, at our inability to understand the world of
spirits?
II. In matters so
vastly beyond the reach of our capacities, it is not only needless but
dangerous presumption, to be too curious and inquisitive concerning them. That
it is needless, appears from the difficulty to understand them; and that it is
dangerous, the many heresies and errors which have sprung up in the Christian
Church may abundantly convince us.
III. There are other
matters of much greater consequence to employ our meditations, which it is our
duty to study and examine. Revelation discovers to us many secrets of nature,
many great designs of Providence, many engaging motives to the practice of our
duty, which would otherwise have been concealed from us.
III. This and all
other knowledge will be vain and insignificant unless it has an influence on
our lives and manners. (J. Littleton.)
Secret and revealed things
I. The secret
things are the Lord’s.
1. In nature. Science has its bounds.
2. In Providence.
3. In religion.
II. “Those things
which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever.”
1. God has revealed them that We might be profited by them. Where are
these revealed things? In the Bible.
2. God has made revelations to man elsewhere. In the different
departments of science and discovery.
3. These revealed things belong to us and to our children.
4. It is the Church’s duty to foster the education of the whole
people. (D. L. Anderson.)
Secret things and things revealed
I. Let us
endeavour to illustrate the first truth here stated--“secret things belong unto
the Lord our God.”
1. In reference to the nature, character, and perfections of the
Deity, there are many secret things which belong exclusively to the Lord our
God. It is true that God has told us something of His own nature; but it is
equally true that there is much more that He has not told us. Something He has
revealed;. but much still remains concealed.
2. Not only in the doctrines of revelation, but in science, in
natural operations, and in the ordinary occurrences of life, we find many
things which exceed the comprehension of reason, and which we must class among
the secret things belonging to the Lord our God.
3. In the dispensations of Divine Providence there are many things
secret and mysterious. To this subject we may apply those declarations: “Thy
judgments are a great deep”; “The Lord reigneth; “Clouds and darkness are round
about Him; righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne.”
4. All those events which lie in futurity are to us secret things. We
have the means of acquiring some knowledge of things past and off things
present; but we have no faculty by which we can penetrate into the future. We
know not what a day will bring forth; we know not what shall be on the morrow.
5. We may very properly inquire, “Why is our knowledge confined
within such narrow limits? Why are so many things kept secret from us, and
reserved for the exclusive cognisance of the Lord our God?”
II. Let us turn our
attention, therefore, to the second truth stated in our text, namely, “the
things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we
may do all the words of this law.’’
1. Among the “things revealed” we are to include the whole of the
sacred Scriptures. This Divinely-inspired volume comprehends all that God has
been pleased to reveal to man. And, oh! what a cause of gratitude is it that we
possess this heavenly treasure! Possessing the Word of God, we are laid under
the most solemn obligations to read it, so that we may, by Divine assistance,
understand its meaning, apply its principles, and obey its precepts.
2. “Those things which are revealed,” says the man of God in our
text, “belong unto us and to our children forever.” It was Jehovah’s design
that the deposit of Divine truth with which the Jews were favoured should be
carefully guarded and transmitted from parents to children, from one generation
to another, as long as that dispensation continued. And professed Christians
are under equal obligations to perpetuate the knowledge and influence of Divine
truth from age to age, by instructing their children in these revealed things.
(W. P. Burgess.)
Man’s relation to the unrevealed
I. There are
secret things. The world is full of mysteries. Man is not the measure of the
universe; and certainly the mere understanding is not the measure of the man.
There are things to which faith is the anchor and hope the hand; there are
scenes which eye cannot see nor heart imagine; there are truths which science
cannot discover nor reason utterly explore.
II. These secrets
belong to God.
1. Consider that great secret of the coincidence of the human and the
Divine will. Who shall say that there is no profound mystery there? How have
the eyes of men’s spirits ached as they peered into this thick darkness! You
know the old legend of the ancients: that one of the mortals stole fire from
heaven, and the terrible punishment of the eagle gnawing his vitals was
inflicted by the angry Jove. What is it but a symbol of that heedlessness which
has made man seek to prove himself one of the counsellors of heaven, and in
dreadful retribution has his error recoiled upon himself.
2. Another mystery which is often brought up as an argument against
the Divine revelation is the presence of evil and sin in the world. The wise
and devout will abstain from pronouncing any judgment on the question. And let
not the man of science, or the philosopher, despise the preacher who would
speak of things not seen, not felt, but trusted in. Are there no mysteries in
science? Can the most skilful observer explain the great series of events that
we term life? And what of our philosopher? Can he answer all the profound
questionings of the moral nature of man?
Lessons:
1. The fact that there are these great mysteries, that there is
something more than we can know, that there is a Being, a Personality, to whom
these truths are clear, to Whom all things are known; these facts ought to make
us careful to live in the light of these unseen realities, and, whilst engaged
in earthly service, not to forget our heavenly destiny. Have you never known a
man in whose life there seemed the unseen Divinity? He had filled himself with
God. His life was passed in the continual thought of God. That man awes his
fellows. His life is a power everywhere.
2. Another result of this faith in the unseen will be not only to
give fulness to this life, and satisfaction to the higher wants of nature, but,
believing that secret things belong to God, we shall never allow merely
intellectual difficulties to overwhelm our spiritual powers. Doubt is
difficult, I know; but there is no sword like life to cut the knot. Live down
your doubts.
3. There is another frame of mind that the perfect knowledge and
obedience of the truth will produce, and that is complete submission to the
will of God. (L. D. Bevan, LL. B.)
The secret things of God
I. Let us begin
with God Himself. The doctrine of the Divine existence, if put to popular vote
the world over, would be pronounced impregnable. Plato was right in calling
atheism a disease. And yet when we come to ask for an a priori demonstration,
when we would make it certain to ourselves that there is a personal God, in the
same sense and to the same degree that we are certain of some mathematical
propositions, our logic is not triumphant. We have only to require some
sensible assurance, or some incontestable demonstration of the Divine
existence, and our faith inevitably dies. God will take His leave of us. We
shall soon see no footprint and hear no rustling of Him. That God might have
made atheism absolutely impossible by an instant impression of Himself upon our
minds, rendering Himself every whit as palpable to the spiritual vision as
material objects are to the bodily vision, cannot be questioned. The human soul
might have been so fashioned as to see God, just as our eyeballs see the sun in
the firmament. Our intuitions, about which philosophy is still in doubt whether
they give us not the absolute only, but also and equally the personality of the
absolute, might surely have been so vivid and so peremptory as to leave no room
for doubt. But such is not the established economy of things. Not as the eagle
gazes at the sun gaze we on God. We are required rather to turn our backs upon
this intolerable light, see it by reflection, and judge of all other objects,
in their Divine relations, by the shadows which they cast. The three sources of
proof on which mainly we rely to establish, for popular effect, the Divine
existence and perfections are, accordingly, the material world around us, the
moral world within us, and the general consent of men. Insufficient, doubtless,
if counsel be taken of mental arrogance, and absolute scientific assurance be
asked for; but altogether sufficient if knowledge be pursued with reverent
docility as the condition and gateway to holiness.
II. Let us now
turn, in the second place, to take note of man. We pass hero at one bound from
the infinite to the finite. Philosophy asks for some bridge between them; but
thus far always in vain. That there should be Divine Sovereignty is plain
enough; and equally plain is it that there should be human freedom. But the two
united are an enigma. The things revealed are the facts themselves
unreconciled; on the one side, a Divine efficiency, which seems to clasp the
universe as with iron arms; on the other side, a human freedom, which seems to
threaten riot and anarchy. These two elements we must accept, and hold them
together as we can, denying neither, and abating the force of neither. And as
to the harmony between them, let us despair of finding it in this world. Let us
rather leave it, and leave it cheerfully, till we stand on higher summits, in a
clearer light. For the present, let us take care only that God be honoured, and
our own destiny happily accomplished. If God only is great, man surely is
responsible.
III. It remains for
us to consider now, in the third place, the new relation of grace which has
been established between God and man. From sin we pass on to redemption as the
great radiant centre, not less of all knowledge than of all hope. If the
Scriptures reveal no speculative solution of the mystery of evil, they do yet
propound a practical solution of it in the proffered deliverance of men from
its power and curse. And yet this deliverance opens up yet other mysteries, and
at every point we come across these secret things of God, which belong unto Him
and not to us or our children. Human philosophy, in its pride and
self-reliance, comes along discoursing of culture. It understands a change of
purpose accomplished by moral suasion. It comprehends what is meant by a moral
improvement and progress. It believes in growing better. But it has no
conception of that radical transformation of character by the Spirit of God,
which is described as the new birth, the passing from death unto life, Christ
in us the hope of glory. Speech of such things sounds fanatical. The now birth
is a stupendous mystery of life, which can be known only by being experienced.
Consider the revelations of Scripture in regard to the future life. Definite
and comforting beyond all the guesses of unaided reason; and yet, as compared
with what we sometimes pine to know, how meagre. So also of the life that now
is in its duties and its discipline. The great human duties are Prayer and
Work: Prayer for every needed blessing, and Work to realise it; Prayer, as
though God must do the whole, and Work, as though we must do it all ourselves.
These are the two poles of the great galvanic battery. But who that waits to
know the philosophy of answered prayer will ever pray? And who that waits to be
sure there shall be no mistake will ever work? The hand that beckons us to
glory waves at us out of impenetrable clouds. Partial revelation, then, is the
method, and obedience the end. In the practicable improvement of our subject,
it may be remarked--
1. First of all, we are taught a lesson of humility, and that, too,
at the very point where we most need it. There is no pride on earth like the
pride of intellect and science. A modest confession of ignorance is the ripest
and last attainment of philosophy. But childlike docility is of the very
essence of religion, required of us all at the very threshold of our Christian
experience. And in order to this, no better discipline could be imagined than
the discipline to which we are actually subjected under the existing economy of
revelation. The secret things do so vastly outnumber the things which are
revealed! The greater portion of all our inquiries and all our reasonings must
always have for their issue, “Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in Thy
sight.”
2. We may learn to distinguish the more vital articles of our faith.
Controversy is apt to rage the hottest about the subordinate points. But the
stress of revelation is on the grand essentials. The very design of the Book
necessitates this feature. What the Bible is fullest of is therefore, of
course, most vital.
3. And finally, our shortest way to the end of doubt and controversy
is by the path of an humble obedience. (R. D. Hitchcock.)
Of the desire of knowledge
I. There is
naturally in man a very strong desire after knowledge.
II. This our desire
of knowledge ought to be regulated and limited by the condition of our nature
and by the Word of God.
1. We ought not to be ambitious of that knowledge which the condition
and circumstances of our nature make it impossible for us to obtain.
2. As we ought not to be ambitious of what it is impossible for us to
attain, so neither ought we to be solicitous after that which it is unlawful
for us to desire. And here that which the Scripture determines in respect of
our desire after knowledge is this--
III. To show how
great a sin it is not to regulate our desires of knowledge by the
fore-mentioned rules. And--
1. To determine dogmatically in things not clearly revealed, and to
take delight in imposing upon each other such determinations, is in effect
directly striving against that order and constitution of things which God has
appointed, and endeavouring to make ourselves what God has not made us.
2. The not regulating this desire by the forementioned rules was the
occasion of our first parents’ fall. This appears from the description of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3:6). It is also evident from the
description of the manner of the temptation (verse 5). A desire of knowledge
not regulated by the rules before set down is very apt to put men upon unlawful
practices to attain what they so desire. For that which is not to be attained
but by unwarrantable practices, the desire of it cannot but be also sinful. From
what has been said it follows--
Things secret and things revealed
I. What, then, are
those secret things which belong unto the Lord God? A moment’s thought will
bring many such deep matters to our minds. Look at God Himself, and we are lost
at once! Who can understand His nature? Who can comprehend His ways? And look
at what we call “His dwelling place!” Oh, who can say what heaven is--what kind
of world--what sorts of beings are those angels who inhabit it? And think of
that world of wretchedness beneath! But let us turn to our own selves, and we
shall find mysteries enough even here. How long are you and I to live? What is
to be the hour, the day, the month, the year of our departure from this world?
Are we to die suddenly or slowly? by accident or by disease? And it is just the
same with respect to those events that may occur in the mean season. Such,
then, are some amongst “the secret things” which belong unto the Lord our God.
And what, then, should be our conduct with respect to them? Are we to try to
lift the curtain up? Alas! fain would our proud hearts teach us so! We are
naturally more inclined to know our fortune, as we call it, than to know our
duty, and would rather satisfy a forbidden curiosity than search those
treasures which God hath laid before our eyes. But it becomes us to be
willingly ignorant of what our God hath been unwilling to communicate.
III. So many are the
things which God hath revealed that all i shall attempt to do is just to touch
upon a few of them. I observed that our great God Himself is the greatest of
all mysteries to minds like ours. He hath uncovered so much of His perfections
to us, He hath so far “laid bare” to us “His holy arm,” and made known the
thoughts He thinketh with regard to us, that His people may say, in some
measure, “we know Him and we have seen Him.” Only look at Christ, and say
whether the love and mercy of our God are not among “the things revealed” to
us! I have said that we know little or nothing about heaven. But observe, our
gracious God has revealed to us as much about heaven as “belongs to us and to
our children.” We observed that the duration of our lives is kept a secret from
us. Yes, but our blessed Lord has told us that which does concern us, namely,
how to be prepared for death whenever and howsoever it approaches us. We know
not what is to happen to us in this life. No; that is a “secret thing belonging
to the Lord.” But this is a “revealed thing,” that “all things work together
for good to those that love God.”
III. And now, for
the use we are to make of these “things which are revealed to us.” What says
our text of the reasons why they are revealed? “The things that are revealed
belong unto us and to our children, that we may do all the words of this law.”
It is not, then, to fill our heads with notions that God hath revealed to us
the things we read of in our Bibles. If He hath told us of the path of life, it
is that we might rise up and walk in it. Let us not err, then; let us not
mistake knowledge for religion; let us not suppose ourselves enlightened men
merely because we can talk well about the Gospel. Better not to know the way of
righteousness at all than to know it and be idle. (A. Roberts, M. A.)
The presumption of prying into religious mysteries
I. That we should
never pry into matters which infinite wisdom hath concealed. For we shall
seldom, if at all, be wiser for such inquiries; we shall never be happier or
better; and we shall usually be more wretched, and less innocent. In what
reason or experience discovers to us, further speculations may produce new
discoveries. But of articles depending on mere revelation, as we could have
discerned nothing without it, we shall be able to discern very little of
anything beyond it. In the shortest, and seemingly most obvious, consequences
drawn concerning subjects that lie naturally out of our reach, we must be
exceedingly liable to mistakes; and venturing far into the dark is the sure way
to stumble. Another state may probably withdraw the veil, and acquaint us
clearly with what now perplexes our reasonings and wearies our conjectures. Let
us wait, then, contentedly for the time, which of necessity we must wait for.
II. The next rule
which Moses gives is, that we should receive with attentive humility whatever
infinite wisdom communicates to us. For those things which are revealed belong
to us and to our children forever.
III. The last rule
implied in the text is, that we should allow every Divine truth its due
influence on our behaviour. For we are to learn them, that we may do all the
words of this law. Indeed, merely receiving the truth in the love of it is a
moral act, and in some cases may be one of great virtue. When our Saviour saith
of St. Thomas, “Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.”
Blessed in proportion to the integrity of their judgment, not the positiveness
of their persuasion. But scarce will it be found that any article of faith is
proposed for the probation of this only. Each hath its practical consequences,
either flowing of necessity from it or built with propriety upon it. (Archbishop
Secker.)
Secret and revealed things
I. Secret things
are the Lord’s.
II. Revealed things
belong to us and to our children. Now notice--
1. That the Holy Scriptures contain these revealed things (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:19-21).
2. The things revealed we could not have known without the
Scriptures.
3. The things revealed meet all the demands of the mind of man.
4. The things revealed are adapted to every state and variety of
condition.
5. The things revealed are to be regarded as a sacred deposit from
God to man.
We are responsible for--
1. Let the subject teach us to avoid presumptuous curiosity.
2. Let the subject teach us the true test of all doctrines,
ordinances, and duties.
3. We shall have to give an account of revealed things at the last
day. (J. Burns, D. D.)
Secret things
These words remind us that in scanning God’s works and ways there
is a limit beyond which we cannot go. Consequently, true wisdom is to be
contented with that degree of knowledge which God gives of Himself and His
works. In this world, and with infinite capacities, we must remain in the dark
as to many mysteries, both in nature and in heavenly things, which we should
exceedingly like to know more about. We cannot be surprised at this. Our minds
are too small to grasp the mind and thoughts of the Infinite. Besides, God
conceals some things which perhaps we could understand on purpose to test and
try our faith. We must take Him on trust, and feel sure where He is silent it
is best for us to be satisfied, and remain ignorant. But this is not easy to
men of great minds and powers of thought. Man in his natural condition resists
these limitations. He would fain be wiser than God would have him. This desire
becomes disastrous in its results to many. Man becomes “vain in his
imaginations, and professing to be wise, becomes a fool.” Man, not being
permitted to know all, refuses to accept the little he is permitted to know if
he seeks to learn in God’s own way. Yet, after all, how little do we know of
all the things around us and about us and within us! We are limited on every
side. We are mysteries to ourselves, being fearfully and wonderfully made. The
union between body and mind, between reasoning powers and the matter or
substance on which they act, “such knowledge is too wonderful for me, I cannot
attain unto it.” The action of electricity; the movement of the needle towards
the pole; the maintenance of the vital spark within us; the atmosphere in which
God makes us “live, move, and have our being”; the gravitation of everything to
the centre of the earth, and the way the same principle acts on all the
heavenly bodies; those heavenly orbs themselves--all these are mysteries of
which we know next to nothing beyond the fact of their existence and something
about their action. Can we wonder that those spiritual things which are not
visible to the human eye, and those eternal verities concerning the great and
almighty Creator of all, should be shrouded in mysteries beyond our power to
unravel? Can we be surprised to be continually met with the prohibition from on
high, “Thus far, and no farther”? Secret things belong to God; the things that
are revealed are for us, and even for our very babes, to understand. God has in
a measure and in a way revealed Himself to us. Created things reveal His
“eternal power and Godhead.” The eye of faith sees Him in Christ. Having this
knowledge to begin with, the other revealed truths become plain, and bring
contentment as to all God keeps close in His own bosom. We are content to wait.
We know enough of God as in Christ to make us love Him with all our hearts, to
make us sure He is acting wisely and lovingly in all that befalls us. We know
for certain that we need lack no good thing here, and certainly shall not want
anything hereafter that makes for eternal happiness. (C. Holland, M. A.)
Secret things
1. Amongst the things which are secret may be placed a complete
knowledge of nature, of the visible world, and of the effects of matter and
motion.
2. Amongst the things pertaining to religion which have occupied the
minds of men to no purpose, we may reckon what has been called absolute
predestination, or the everlasting decrees of God concerning the salvation and
destruction of particular persons.
3. Another secret is an accurate knowledge of God, of His nature and
perfections. He is infinite and eternal, and we are limited both in time and
place, and there is something in infinity, eternity, and absolute perfection
which perplexes us and involves us in difficulties.
4. Amongst the things which we must not expect thoroughly to
understand is God’s providence, the manner in which He presides over rational
beings, the reasons of His conduct, the ends which He proposes, and the methods
by which He accomplishes them, and how far He is assisting, hindering, or
permitting in all events.
5. Under this head, which concerns the mysteries of providence, may be
placed the reasons for which God bestows prosperity upon one and adversity upon
another.
6. The future condition of the righteous and of the wicked is one of
those things of which we cannot have a distinct and particular knowledge.
7. Amongst those things which are hidden from us we may place many
difficult parts of the Scriptures.
8. There are some parts of Scripture which seem to be designedly
concealed from us, and they are those prophecies which are as yet unfulfilled,
for which many reasons might be assigned. As the prophecies concerning Christ
were never perfectly understood till He came and fulfilled them, so those
predictions which relate to future ages and have not received their completion
are dark to us, and will continue so till the day itself unfolds them; and all
attempts to interpret them have been unsuccessful. Indeed, it concerns us very
little to know what shall be done upon earth after we are gone from it, and we
might as well be solicitous to learn what passed a thousand years before man
was created.
9. Lastly, the knowledge of things to come, of the good and evil
which will befall us in this life, and of the time when our life will end, are
secrets which God hath concealed from us. (J. Jortin, D. D.)
The revealed will of God the only rule of duty
I. Consider what
the secret will of God respects. Before the foundation of the world He formed
in His own mind a complete scheme of His own conduct through all future ages.
This scheme comprehended all things that ever have been and ever will be
brought into existence. It was His secret will that not only holiness and
happiness, but that sin and misery also should take place among His intelligent
creatures. Though He loved only holiness and happiness, and perfectly hated sin
and misery, yet He determined that both should take place.
II. Consider what
the revealed will of God respects. It respects what is right and wrong, what is
good and evil, or what is duty and sin, without any regard to the taking place
of these things.
III. Shows that
God’s revealed will, and not His secret will, is the rule of duty.
1. That God has revealed His will in His Word for the very purpose of
giving us a rule of duty. No secret purpose, intention, or design of the Deity
can annul or diminish our obligation to obey this His revealed will.
2. The will of God revealed in His Word is a complete rule of duty.
The obligation of a child to do what his parent requires does not depend upon
his knowing the secret will of his parent, or the reason why he commands him to
do this or that lawful thing. The obligation of a subject to do what a civil
ruler requires him to do does not depend upon his knowing the reasons of state,
or why the civil ruler requires certain acts of obedience. So the obligation of
creatures to obey the revealed will of their Creator does not depend upon their
knowing His secret will or the reasons of His commands. It is the revealed will
of God, therefore, and not His secret will, which is our infallible rule of
duty.
2. God’s secret or decretal will cannot be known, and for that reason
cannot be a rule of duty to any of His creatures.
4. Supposing God should reveal to us all His purposes respecting all
His intelligent creatures in every part of the universe, this knowledge of His
decretal will would be no rule of duty to us. His decretal will is only a rule
of conduct for Himself: our knowing what it becomes Him to do cannot inform us
what it is becoming us to do.
5. That the secret will of God cannot, if it were known, be a rule of
duty, because it is entirely destitute of both precept ,and penalty, and
consequently of all Divine authority. Improvement--
1. If God’s secret will respects one object, and His revealed will
respects another object, then there is no inconsistency between His secret and
revealed will.
2. It appears from the representations which have been given of the
secret and revealed will of God that our text has often been perverted and
misapplied.
3. If God’s secret will respects the taking place of future events,
then all uninspired men who pretend to reveal God’s secret will, or to foretell
future events, are guilty of both folly and falsehood. For secret things belong
to God only, and He only can reveal them.
4. If God’s secret will cannot be known, then it can have no
influence upon the actions of men.
5. But if God has a secret will respecting all future events, and
will always act according to His secret will, then it is easy to see the real
cause why mankind are generally so much opposed to the doctrine of Divine
decrees. It is entirely owing to their fears that He will execute His decrees,
or bring to pass whatever He has decreed.
6. If God will certainly execute His wise and holy secret will, then
all His friends have a constant source of joy under all circumstances of life.
For He has assured them that in executing His secret will He will cause all
things to work together for their good.
7. If God’s secret will be His governing will, and respects the
existence of everything that comes to pass, then it is very criminal in any to
deny or to complain of His secret will. It is the same thing as to deny that
God governs the world, or to complain that He does not govern it in the wisest
and best manner. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
The benevolence of the Divine secrecy
We have come to associate secrecy with selfishness, yet all nature
proves that in Divine administration secrecy and benevolence may co-exist. As
rapidly as we are pointed to the mystery we’ should direct our eyes to the
fatherhood. Do men say that God keeps to Himself the mystery of the sun? Our
answer should be that He turns upon us the full revelation of the light. Does
God keep to Himself the secret of germination? On the other hand, He gives us
the revelation of golden harvests; the spring kept the secret of her heart, but
the autumn has filled our barns with plenty. Thus enough is kept hack to prove
the power, and enough is given to establish the mercy. It is not only right, it
is necessary that the father should know more than the child. Is a father less
a father because of his superior knowledge? Is not his very superior knowledge
one of his highest qualifications for discharging his duty as a father? Mystery
is the seal of the infinite, yet benevolence is perpetually present in the
providence which guides human life. You have seen a blind man led along the
highway by a little child, to whose young bright eyes he commits himself in
faith and hope. Man is that poor blind wanderer through the way of God’s
mysteries, and that little guide represents the benevolence, the mercy the
tenderness with which God leads us from day to day, and will lead until the
time of the larger revelation. The commonest mercy of the daytime flames up
into a fire column that lights men through the gloom and trouble of the night.
We must not look at the mystery and forget the benevolence. The very wealth of
God makes us covetous. Does poverty provoke envy? We look not so much at what
God has given as what He might have given. We read the love through the
mystery, rather than the mystery through the love. Men like to penetrate into
the hidden. They flatter it, they exalt it, they say it is good for food, and
pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise; and having
wrought themselves up into this delusive appreciation of its value, they put
forth the thievish hand, and the fancied blessing turns to a scorpion’s sting.
We are not to anticipate our course of study; the volumes will be handed to us
one by one. Let us understand what we now can, and in doing so let us increase
in knowledge; understand that in all the wastes of folly there could be no
greater fool than he who would not believe his father’s telegram because he
cannot understand the mystery of the telegraph. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The limitation of human powers
One of the most sad and saddening aspects of modern life is the
lack of a humble acknowledgment of the limitations of human powers. There has
been engendered a pride and even arrogance of thought which knows not how to
veil its face in the presence of the infinite God, and of Truth which is as
infinite as He. There is an audacity of speculation which will acknowledge no
mystery, and which rejects all that transcends the limits of reason. And
especially is this the case in those departments of truth which relate to the
moral and spiritual government of God. Concerning the material world, there is
no such presumptuous daring. Men feel that as yet of this they know but in
part--and in small part. No man of science will step forth and profess a
universal acquaintance with the universe. He would be regarded as a laughing
stock. He might as soon pretend that he can hold the waters in the hollow of
his hand, or that he can mete out heaven with a span, or comprehend the dust of
the earth in a measure, or weigh the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance.
Slowly and patiently do men of science work, winning now the knowledge of one
fact, and then another, but feeling as Newton felt when he had achieved even
his noblest discoveries, that they have but picked up a shell or a pebble on
the great shore of truth, while the vast ocean lies yet undiscovered before
them. The map of science is filled in here and there, but over the greatest
portion of it are written the words “unknown land.” Year by year a little more
is filled in, and yet a little more, but when shall the whole be defined, and
when shall the map itself be large enough to include the whole material
creation which stretches illimitably around us on every hand? There is no
discovery that has yet been made which has not immediately suggested new
mysteries, and the wisest men are those who feel that the disproportion seems
ever growing between the limits of human mind and the boundlessness of the
creation which it seeks to explore. (Enoch Mellor, D. D.)
Mystery and its mission
I. The universe is
crowded with mysteries.
1. Physical nature is full of the mysterious.
2. The Divine Providence is full of the mysterious.
3. The sacred Scriptures are full of the mysterious.
II. The objections
of the modern spirit to the Christian mysteries weighed in the balance.
III. The mission of
mystery.
1. It strongly suggests the superhuman origin of Christianity.
2. It is the mission of mystery to fill us with the spirit of genuine
humility.
3. It is the mission of mystery to inspire human activity.
4. It is the mission of mystery to keep our faith-faculty in constant
exercise.
5. It is the mission of mystery to keep alive our spirit of
adoration.
6. It is the mission of mystery to intensify the enjoyments of
heaven. (J. Ossian Davies.)
A wise agnosticism
We are all conscious of the immense inquisitiveness of the human
mind and the limitations of human knowledge. The desires to be, to know and to
become are the strongest desires of human nature. In the first ardour of life
we are sensible of no law of limitation in our powers. Life is boundless, and
our power of knowing seems boundless too. But sooner or later we are all apt to
be overcome by the humiliating sense of the limitation of our faculties. We ask
questions for which there are no replies. In the true sense of the word, we are
all agnostics, and the term really expresses humility of mind rather than
stubborn pride of reason. We have all of us to say upon a thousand matters: “I
do not know; I have no means of knowing!” Agnosticism is merely another term
for the limitations of human knowledge. But because we are ignorant of many
things it does not follow that we are absolutely sure of none. We may be
ignorant of the laws of light, but we know there is light; we cannot explain
the origin of life, but we know there is such a thing as birth. Thus we may
have a sufficient working knowledge of a subject without knowing much about it,
just as a man may avail himself of the railway or the electric light without
being in the least able to explain the mechanics of the one or the chemistry of
the other. The fact is, that for the working business of life, if one may use
the term, very little knowledge is needed. And it is so in religion. We may be
bad theologians, and yet good Christians; agnostics in intellect, yet believers
in spirit. Granting the fact of judgment, we are troubled by our incompetence
to understand its method, and we say with the Israelite, “Wherefore hath the
Lord done this unto this land? What meaneth the heat of this great anger?” And
as we ponder the problem we can start a hundred questions for which we have no
reply. Why, if this were a judgment, did it not come before? Why has it never
been repeated? The one thing for us to learn is the thing that is revealed, and
that is that sin is punished, and terribly punished. Learn that, and for you
the judgment is justified. So again, with the secret of character and destiny.
When we begin to examine character in the light of destiny, how perplexed are
we! Who has not met a type of church-going goodness which has repelled and
disgusted him, and a type of natural piety which has allured and satisfied him?
And then we ask, “Which are the sheep and which the goats?” And here,
throughout the world, are thousands of men and women whom you cannot classify
on any rigid method. They pass out of the world with what seem to us
indeterminate characters; they have never refused the truth, but rather have
simply stood outside the sphere of the spiritual; and as our thoughts pierce
into the dim profound of that unseen world, out of the darkness the words ring
back upon us: “And what of these?” Every step deepens the mystery, increases
the bewilderment. Why try to reduce to definiteness that which the Bible has
left mercifully indefinite? Is not this part of God’s secret, and is there
nothing revealed to us clearly that we cannot fail to understand it? Yes, this
much at least is clear: Whether there be probation or not hereafter, there is
probation now. Passing on to the Discipline of Sorrow in Life, the same truth
applied. God did not ask us to say that “All was for the best.” For the best
that little children shall be left motherless! All God asks that we shall say,
“Thy will be done,” leaving the secret with Him, and taking to ourselves the
lesson of obedience and trust. But still more forcibly does the lesson apply to
the great mysteries of Christian truth. For whosoever approaches Jesus Christ
is met by four great secrets of Christianity, four great mysteries of the
faith: the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Atonement, and the promise of
Immortality and Redemption through the death of Christ. We are unable to grasp
these mysteries. Is there any theologian who has actually explained either, or
made them possible to the human intellect? The keener the intellect which
applies itself to the task, the more certain is it of failure, because the more
numerous will be the difficulties which it will discern. And that is precisely
where men make so fatal a mistake; they try to force themselves into faith by a
process of reason, to apprehend intellectually that which can only be
spiritually discerned. I may be alive without knowing anything of physiology;
my heart may beat though I cannot tell bow it beats, and have never heard of
the circulation of the blood. I may be conscious without understanding the
philosophy of consciousness; I may think without knowing how thought is
generated; I may be a good citizen with but small knowledge of my country’s
law; and a good soldier with small understanding of imperial politics. And so I
may be a good Christian though I can prove neither to my own nor any other
person’s satisfaction the credibility of the Incarnation, the Resurrection, or
the Atonement. It is not, stubbornness of intellect, but humility, that says in
such a case, “I do not know.” The working knowledge that we need for the
Christian life is relatively small. Christianity is not a thing of high
philosophies and subtle inferences; it moves along the plane of common life; it
proves itself by the silent revelation of its power to save within the heart.
It asks of us nothing more than to do our duty in the sight of God. (W. J.
Dawson.)
Secret and revealed things
I. The secret
things that belong to God. Probably there are many material existences of which
we know nothing, and, indeed, can know nothing. There are perhaps many
properties of mind of which we can form no notions in our present state.
Probably there are many kinds of moral government displayed in the universe
under the control of God of which we have no conception. Yet it is certain that
from objects of this kind no temptation to pry into them too curiously can
arise. All that we can affirm is, probably other objects besides those with
which we are acquainted do exist; but we know too little of them to excite any
curiosity. There is no unholy prying. With respect to them all is distant and
all is dark. Another class of objects from which we are more in danger of
indulging the curiosity reproved in the text are those which are partly hidden
and partly revealed; partly found exposed in the revelations of this book,
shining with different degrees of light; but in all their reasons and detail
considerably obscure. Part is prominent on the sacred page; and part is hidden
under a veil which Divine wisdom has not seen proper to remove. With respect to
objects of this kind, we are in more danger of penetration into God’s secrets.
We ask, “Where is the harm in indulging in these speculations? Is it not a part
of our duty, a part of the glory of our nature, to cultivate religious
knowledge?” I answer, This is true to a certain extent; but how many persons
forget what it is important to remember, that one great part of our moral
discipline on earth is to submit in matters of faith to God! Religion must have
its secrets. It cannot be supposed that a religion which is so intimately
connected with the character of the infinite God, whose perfections even angel
minds cannot comprehend, on the abyss of which they must ever stand and cry,
“Oh, the depth, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are
His judgments, and His ways past finding out!” should be without mysteries.
They belong to God--
1. Because He knows them. They are His secrets. Of these secrets He
is completely the master. It matters not whether we discern the whole truth
clearly or not; it is enough that we discover what concerns our salvation, and
that the rest, however cloudy to us, burns with brightness in the bosom of God.
2. They are His, because they are the reserves He has made in
communicating knowledge to man. God has a right to determine in what manner,
and where, and to what extent He will communicate knowledge. All we have to do
is to say (thankful for what we have and are), “Even so, Father; for so it hath
seemed good in Thy sight.”
3. They belong to Him in another sense; they are His property. As
they are His secrets, it is an act of great boldness for any man to pry into
them.
II. The things
revealed.
1. A revelation of God.
2. A revelation of man.
3. It is a revelation of Christ. Here the peculiar character of the Gospel
scheme comes forth in all its glory. In fact, both the Old and New Testaments
are a revelation of Christ in different modes.
4. It is a revelation of a future state, and of the means to secure
final happiness. Of what importance is the Gospel in this respect! It has
brought life and immortality to light. It has dissipated the gloom; it has
burst the involving cloud; and all is day. (R. Watson.)
Things secret and revealed
There are two spheres of spiritual things--a secret or hidden
sphere and a revealed sphere. Time was, however, when there was only the one
sphere, and that the secret one. Away back in the primal ages, when as yet man
had not been called into existence, there was no sphere, and could not be, of
things revealed. It was not till man had opened his eyes upon this fair earth,
and by his side beheld the kindly face of God, that the sphere of things
revealed had its beginning. Then did God lift up the tiniest corner of the
great curtain which covered the spiritual world, and so gave rise to a new
sphere of spiritual things--the revealed. Thence did the sphere of revealed
things begin to grow apace. The number of revealed things is growing every day
larger, and the number of secret things every day smaller. Not that we can
expect the secret things to disappear altogether.
I. These are many
things which God only partly keeps secret, and evidently with no ultimate
intention of keeping secret at all. These are such things as the Inspiration of
the Scriptures, the Trinity, the Atonement, Prayer, Providence, and the like.
In these cases God may be said, generally speaking, to have revealed the fact,
but to have kept the explanation secret. Why should we not understand God as
saying to us: “Here is the fact of Inspiration; find out the theory of it”; “Here
is the fact of the Trinity and the Atonement; search out the explanations of
them”; “Here is the fact that prayer is efficacious, and that providence is
always beneficent; see if you cannot sweep away the difficulties of the one
position, and unravel the mysteries of the other”? The only condition that God
seems to lay down is this: that we are to make these inquiries reverently, and
that we are to take on trust whatever we cannot explain, remembering that it is
the fact of things, and not the theory, which is, after all, the important
matter.
II. There are some
things that God seems intentionally to keep secret. These are things which to
pry into is apt to bring us some kind of natural punishment rather than reward.
1. His time of bringing any event to pass.
2. The way by which He means to lead His people. It is in mercy that
He always keeps this secret. Put it to yourselves, if you could have come all
the way you have come in the event of your knowing beforehand what it was to be
like. Would you not have shrunk back from entering upon the journey of life?
But when you cannot see beyond the first bend of the way--when all beyond this
is God’s secret--you are emboldened to step out right manfully or right
womanfully.
III. There are many
things which God has fully revealed. God has fully revealed all that is
necessary both for our weal here and for our wealth hereafter. (D. Hobbs, M.
A.)
Limit to theological knowledge
Everything now unknown is not to be considered as belonging to the
secret things of God, and unfathomable by man. Every day is revealing to us
some things and facts of which we were ignorant. We have the largest, the
freest, the most highly trained intellects everywhere exploring nature on the
soundest philosophical principles, and with the aid of mechanical and
scientific appliances unknown to the men of ancient times. The discoveries of
the last half century have propelled civilisation with a speed which, if it had
been predicted to our ancestors, would have been deemed fabulous. And yet we are
only learning the letters of the alphabet of unknown knowledge. God has
created, and will yet create, men whose genius, constitutional temperament, and
gigantic intellect shall explore and explain the unknown parts and races of our
own planet, investigate still further the laws of the universe, bring
everything that has had life (not excluding man), and everything that has not
had life, either under anatomical, telescopic, microscopic, or chemical
investigation, and every revelation that the explorer can give to us, based
upon facts, will illustrate the wisdom, power, and goodness of the Creator, and
contribute to the well-being and advancement of mankind. But there are yet
secret things, known only to God, which men have employed themselves for ages
to discover, and have failed. One is, the essence and nature of God. We speak
of God as the First Cause, the absolute Being, the infinite One, but the
discussion even of these terms soon places before us contradictions necessarily
involved in their use. The soul of man, its origin, varied power, and duration,
is another secret thine, known only to God. The moral evil, the physical
suffering, the mental degradation and moral debasement of the races of mankind
for thousands of years, under the dominion and rule of a benevolent and
merciful God--these are secrets the reason of whose existence we have no power
to reveal. Our text tells us there are things which are revealed, and that they
belong to us and to our children forever. The first great doctrine of revelation
is the oneness of God. The incomprehensible God, the Creator and Ruler of all
worlds, we adore and love. It is the surrender of the mind, the culture of the
affections, and a life obedient to the will of heaven that are required of us,
and though we often fail, even our failures may be expressive of progress, and
of our earnest desire to lead a spiritual and holy life such as Christ lived.
It is also revealed to us that “God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son,” etc. In the Gospels we have the history, the doctrines, the
commandments of Jesus, and His relationship to mankind. There must be no
selfishness in our reception of Christianity. If we embrace it cordially, if we
believe the Christian faith to be the truest, purest, and most powerful; if it
will give light to the understanding, love and piety to the heart, integrity to
the life; if it will make man benevolent, generous, unselfish,
self-sacrificing, and will lead him to God for the forgiveness of his sins,
then it is a faith, a Divine religion, which we ought not only to embrace, but
to propagate by every means we possess. We have also other revelations; one is
of law, summed up by Jesus in the love of God and of our neighbour. The
physical and moral penalties of violating the laws of our nature and the laws
of God are also revealed to us. The fact of a Divine Providence over mankind
and all creatures, and over all human affairs, was plainly revealed by Jesus
Christ. And the fact of its existence is almost all we know of it. Other facts
and doctrines are disclosed to us, and the great purpose is, to bring our
hearts and lives under the authority of God, that we may be the children of our
Father who is in heaven. This was the aim and end of Christ’s teaching,
example, prayers, and of His life and death. Nothing less than conformity to
the spirit, the love, the virtue and holiness, and the benevolent deeds of
Jesus, can make us worthy to bear His honoured name. The inference drawn by the
writer of the text from the subject under consideration was this: “that we may
do all the words of this law.” We have habitually to recognise the fact that
secret things belong unto the Lord our God. Whatever belongs to the infinite,
which is not revealed, is far, far beyond us; and it is not profitable to spend
our time habitually on that which is and ever must be beyond our grasp. Thank
God, the path of life and the path of duty are both equally plain and
intelligible. In doing all the words of this law, we must remember that
satisfaction and happiness may be attained from the Christianity we in common
profess. The Bible contains solace for the troubled heart and comfort for the
wounded spirit. (R. Ainslie.)
The presumption of prying into religious mysteries
It is one material consideration, amongst many, in favour of the
Jewish and Christian Scriptures, that they preserve throughout so due a medium
in the discoveries which they make of Divine truths, as to direct the faith and
practice of men without indulging their curiosity.
I. That we should
never pry into matters which infinite wisdom hath concealed. For we shall
seldom, if at all, he wiser for such inquiries: we shall never be happier or
better; and we shall usually be more wretched, and less innocent.
II. That we should
receive with attentive humility whatever infinite wisdom communicates to us.
For that God is able to communicate many important truths to us, which we have
no means of knowing otherwise, concerning His own nature, His designs and
dispensations concerning the inhabitants of the invisible world, and our future
state in it, can no more be doubted than whether we ourselves, according to our
various knowledge of men and things, are able to give unexpected and
serviceable notices one to another. And that we should understand nothing
further of His secrets than is unfolded to us, nor be capable of answering many
questions that may be asked about them, otherwise than by confessing our
ignorance, is so far from being a plea against their being really His, that it
is a necessary consequence of it: so far from being strange in supernatural
things, that it is common in natural ones.
III. That we should
allow every Divine truth its due influence on our behaviour. In proportion as
we know God, we are to glorify Him as God: according to every particular which
the Scripture hath manifested concerning Him. And the several obligations
incumbent on us towards Him, ought not to be estimated, however commonly they
are, by their influence on the affairs of our present life, but by the stress
which He, who alone knows the proper one, hath laid upon them. Our performance
of these obligations, as it was the true motive to the delivery of each
article, is the just measure of our belief in it. If we know enough of the
mysterious doctrines in religion to fulfil those duties, of which they are each
respectively the foundation, our knowledge, however imperfect, is sufficient.
And if those duties remain unfulfilled, the completest knowledge will not avail
us. (Archbishop Seeker.)
Follow the road that is visible
The other day I was walking across the Northumberland Fells to
call at a shepherd’s house that lay distinctly enough before me on the
Fellside. The directions I received from a Fellsider, whom I had just left,
after the manner of those who live every day in the midst of ample space, were
vague indeed. The rutty, half-formed road on which I was walking was plain
enough immediately before me, but when I strove to trace the course of the road
a greater distance ahead, it became blended with the frowsy bracken and bronzed
heather and was utterly lost to view. To have struck boldly out across country
to reach my destination by what seemed the shortest route, would have entangled
me among the spongy bogs and numerous streams with which the hillside was
intersected. However, by carefully following the road that was visible before
me, I managed to pick my way, and arrived at my calling place in safety. So is
it in our daily search after the knowledge of the Divine will. When, in our
impatient eagerness, we wish to look too far into the future, all is indistinct
and hazy; but if we carefully note what is near and sufficiently revealed, we
shall be led up infallibly to safety and rest.
The difficulty of explanation
The Rev. E.A. Stuart remarks, A little child was playing in the garden,
and the crabbed old gardener came up to her and said, “Cissie, your father is
going to kill a man tomorrow.” “Oh no, William, I am sure he is not!” “Yes, he
is, tomorrow morning, at eight o’clock, up there on the hill close to the grey
old prison.” “Oh no, William, I’m sure he is not! My father is too good and
kind and gentle to do that.”. . . “Father, it is not true, is it? You are not
going to kill a man tomorrow? William says you are.” The father was sheriff for
the county, and had to superintend next morning the execution of a murderer,
and it had been haunting him like a nightmare for the last three weeks. He was
angry with the man who had so cruelly slandered him to his child, and yet he
saw it was quite impossible for him to explain his duty to the little one, so
he simply said, “Cissie, can’t you trust father?” and the little one smothered
all her doubts in her father’s breast. And so when men come and perplex me with
life’s mysteries, I simply answer, “I can trust my Father, and throw myself upon
His character.”
Those things which are
revealed.--
Revealed things
I. The things that
are revealed.
1. The state of man. Perverted and depraved. Incapable of purifying
himself. Turning away from the things of God, and seeking the things of man.
2. The means by which man may be delivered from the threatened evil.
Gospel of Christ.
3. In what way man is to be interested in the Saviour.
II. For what end
these things are revealed. “That we may do,” etc. Right thinking, right
feeling, right action. (J. Burnet.)
Man’s relation to the revealed
I. There are
things revealed. There are two ways in which we are able to get hold of the
unknown--either by the exercise of human faculties and capacities, or through
some supernatural revelation. The Framer of nature has arranged means for the
conveyance of knowledge to the human mind. Sensation and reflection are the two
powers whereby man comes to know the facts and laws of the internal world--the
facts and laws of his own mind. Now, beyond the utmost sweep of the human intellect
there lies a vast universe into whose awful depths we are ever striving to
penetrate. But there are limits beyond which the human mind acknowledges it is
not competent for it to pass. Now, it is here that the Bible comes to man’s
assistance. God interposes, and reveals to man. The Divine nature and
affections, the future condition of man, and the work of Christ for, and His
relation to the human family, are the three great topics on which the Bible
treats.
II. These revealed
things belong to man forever.
1. They are objects of interest.
2. They are objects of knowledge. Our faith should have an
intelligent basis.
3. This revelation is a solemn trust. It is our duty to band it on.
III. These things
are revealed that we may do all the words of this law. This is the key to
revelation. The Bible read in the light of this truth: that it reveals in order
that men may be changed and turned to God; and that it reveals that men may do
the words of God’s law--the Bible thus considered will everywhere exhibit consistency,
and never seriously harass and disquiet by difficulties of comprehension and
harmony. (L. D. Bevan, L. L. B.)
The things revealed
There is a valuable property which Christians possess on
earth, and which, in the enjoyment of it, may be counted as an earnest of that
better and enduring substance which is reserved in heaven for the believer.
This property of the people of God is spoken of in the words before us. It is
here called “those things which are revealed”; these, it is said, “belong unto us
and to our children.”
I. The significant
expression by which this property of Christians is here designated. “Those
things which are revealed”--revelation and mystery are correlative terms, hence
we are reminded--
1. Of the original mystery connected with these things. They are
still “revealed mysteries,” but without revelation they had indeed been a
mystery in the most unrestricted sense of the word. Man’s dim eye never
penetrated them, his feeble mind never comprehended them, his puny intellect
never grasped them.
2. Of their source. If these things were originally superior to man’s
research, if they lay beyond an angel’s ken, then surely we are at no loss to
ascertain their origin. We perceive at once that they are an emanation of the
Infinite mind--a brightsome ray from the throne of glory. If we consider the
love they display, it bears the impress of heaven; the wisdom they proclaim, it
bears the impress of heaven; the mystery they bespeak, it bears the impress of
heaven.
3. Of the importance of “those things which are revealed.” If it be
true that these things were a mystery, but have been revealed--that God is
their author, and that He hath made them known unto us, then without
controversy they are clothed with a transcendent importance. Yes, it is important
that those who are far removed from God should be brought back and restored to
His image. It is important that those over whom the leprosy of sin hath
diffused its loathsome disease, should be washed, clothed, and be brought to
sit in their right mind at the feet of Jesus. It is important that the soul
should be snatched from the fearful doom that threatens the sinner, and
prepared for that blissful reward which awaits those “who by patient
continuance in well-doing, seek for glory, and honour, and immortality.”
II. The remarkable
adaptation of those things which are revealed to the circumstances of those to
whom they belong, even “unto us and to our children.”
1. Man is a sinner, and because he is a sinner, conscience upbraids
him. Now, behold how beautifully the “things which are revealed” harmonise with
man’s circumstances in this respect. Here we are told “God was in Christ
reconciling the world unto Himself”; here we are assured that the blessing of
reconciliation is to be secured on the simple terms--“only believe.” Thus moved
by a sense of our own weakness, and encouraged by the revelation thus made, we
raise the silent cry, “Lord, give us of this faith,” teach us how to believe,
“Lord, save or we perish!”
2. Man being a sinner is in circumstances of present suffering. But
when we turn to the “things which are revealed,” we learn at once the Author,
the cause, and the end of all that comes upon us.
3. Man being a sinner is exposed to death. Death natural. This is in
consequence of sin, and this cometh to all, “to the good, and to the clean, and
to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not.” This
constitutes part of the curse so solemnly pronounced on the apostasy (Genesis 2:17; Genesis 3:17-19). But in the case of the
believer the curse is converted into a blessing. Revelation has made known the
cheering truth that the death of Christ has drawn the sting of death, and now
“blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.” (J. Gaskin, M. A.)
Man’s rights
I. Let us attend
to the character of our rights. “The things that are revealed.”
1. It conducts us to the mysterious nature of our rights. They are
revealed things; they are not the result of human reasonings, however deeply
pursued--however long continued. They are revealed things; things, therefore,
of a Divine and mysterious nature. Now, they are called “the purposes of God”;
then, “the mystery of His will”: at one time, “the deep things of God”; at
another, “the will of God”; and again, “the wisdom of God in a mystery.” If we
look at the being and attributes of God--a trinity in unity--the Godman
Mediator--His sacrifice and atonement--the effects of faith in that
atonement--the doctrine of a future resurrection--and all, in fact, that is
called revelation--we shall see how much they are above the level of mere human
intellect. “The things that are revealed!” I love this designation; because--
2. It marks our religious immunities in the glory of their
manifestation. If they be revealed, let us remember that God only could reveal
them; and that He has. They are truly revealed, or manifested things. The whole
has been the scene of Divine manifestations from the beginning. The Bible is a
history of manifestations.
3. It points out the transcendent importance of them. They are
“revealed things.”
II. The validity of
our claims to these immunities. They “belong unto us”; so it is said in the
text. But what is the ground of our claim to the things that are revealed? It
cannot be natural to us, considering us abstractedly, as men. It is true,
indeed, that there began to be a system of revelation and communication from
the first, to sinless and innocent man. But the things which are revealed to us
contain much, certainly, which was not adapted to man in his first state. This
revelation could not belong to man, then, as he was created. And though we are
sinners, and this revelation is made to us as sinners, still, the fact of our
sinfulness could give us no claim to such a revelation; no claim to a revealed
God--to a revealed Saviour--to a revealed heaven--to a revealed immortality.
No; we can support no claim, either natural or meritorious. How, then, are
these things ours? Simply because of the sovereign will of God. But, beside
this, we have other collateral grounds of claim. In proof that the things that
are revealed belong unto us, I would appeal--
1. To their astonishing adaptation to our circumstances.
2. To the legitimated means of their transmission. God has not left
the truths of revelation to themselves, to make their own way, and subdue the
world to obedience.
3. To the wonderful preservation of these things. How wonderfully God
has taken care to preserve His truth pure and unadulterated, notwithstanding
the prevalence of error, the tyranny of passion, and the cruelty of
persecution.
4. To the influence of these things upon the nature of Man. Think on
what would have been the state of the world if these things had not been
revealed. (J. Anderson.)
The things that are revealed
The words invite us to contemplate our heritage--“the things that
are revealed”; our title to that heritage--they “belong unto us and to our
children forever.”
1. Many are the designations given of Holy Scripture. Those
designations are all of them expressive and beautiful. When studied, they each
present to us some new aspect of God’s Word. But the designation in this
passage is exceedingly striking and plain. It is, “Those things which are
revealed.” By being “revealed,” then, or by revelation, is meant opening up,
uncurtaining, disclosing; bringing to view what was not seen or known, or only
partially or imperfectly seen and known. This is done by the Spirit of God. Man’s
intellect did not discover these things; man’s diligence and science did not
find them out; man’s wit and skill did not arrive at them. They are not the
results of logic, or of philosophy, or of genius; but they are the disclosures
of God’s own Spirit. So that “all Scripture,” all revelation, “is given by
inspiration of God.”
2. These “things that are revealed,” how manifold, how marvellous,
how gracious, how glorious they are! “Eye” had “not seen them,” “ear” had “not
heard them”; it had “not entered into the heart of man to conceive them.”
Without this revelation, how dark, how desolate, how desperate were the lot of
fallen man! Take the sun from the sky, what would become of the world? Take the
Bible from the Church, what would become of the Church?
3. Amongst the “things that are revealed” are the things of God, and
amongst the “things that are revealed” are the things of man; amongst the
“things that are revealed” is the past in this world, and amongst the “things
that are revealed “ are the things to come, not only of this world but in the
world of eternity.
4. And, therefore, we are bound to sum up and say, the “things that
are revealed,” how glorious they are! how inconceivable, and yet how clear! how
incomprehensible, and yet how simple! how inscrutable, and yet how level to us
all! How wonderful in their adaptation to our wants! how gracious in their
condescension to our infirmities! “Those things which are revealed belong unto
us and to our children forever.” Our little ones have a claim. “From a child
thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto
salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” (H. Stowell, M. A.)
The education of the young
Let me open my subject with the thoughts of a great man of
science. “Supposing,” he says, “that the life and fortune of every one of us
would one day depend on his winning or losing a game of chess, don’t you think
that we should all consider it a primary duty to learn, at least, the names and
moves of the pieces, to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the
means of giving or taking a check. Do you not think that we should look with a
disapprobation almost amounting to scorn upon the father who allowed his son,
or on the State which allowed its members to grow up without knowing a pawn
from a knight? Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth that the life, the
fortune, and the happiness of every one of us depend on our knowing something
of the rules of a game infinitely more complicated than chess. It is a game which
has been played by the human race for untold ages, every man and woman of us
being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The player on the
other side is hidden from us. We know that His play is always fair and patient;
but we know to our cost that He never overlooks a mistake, or makes the
smallest allowance for culpable ignorance. Well, what I mean by education is
learning the laws of that mighty game--in other words, education is the
instruction of the intellect in the laws of nature, under which name I include,
not merely things and their forces, but men and their ways, and the fashioning
of the affections and the will into an earnest and living desire to move in
harmony with those laws.” Now, I will not criticise this passage, nor expand its
suggestive metaphor, nor point out the elements in which it is wanting.
Education is surely something very much more and deeper than merely training
the intellect in the laws of nature. Its alpha and its omega should be rather
to train the spirit in the knowledge of God. But leaving the passage and its
general suggestiveness, I will try to point out something of what we are
neglecting and of what we are doing, some of the ends at which we now aim in
our schools, and some at which we should aim more and more. To begin with, we
ought undoubtedly to connect all our higher education with the development of
health, the happiness of the children, and the welfare of the nation.
1. Firstly, we too much neglect physical vigour. It depends on
health; and if we injure the health of the children of the nation, we blight
their whole lives. Our system is certainly too rigid and too mechanical. It
tends to keep back the gifted and the eager, and to oppress the weak and the
dull. It expects the same polish from the slate as from the agate. It makes but
scant allowance for differences of ability and circumstance.
2. Then, secondly, how woefully do we fail to train the sense of
beauty which God has given us, and which He, for His part, has endeavoured
amply to satisfy! Our schoolrooms, instead of being, as they almost everywhere
are, dingy, dirty, stuffy, and generally repellent, ought to be the airiest,
happiest places in each parish; fresh and clean, and with flowers in them, and
with beautiful pictures and simple works of art, and most of all in cities like
this, where our children live, for the most part, in a wilderness of squalor
and ugliness.
3. Then, thirdly, as to the cultivation of special gifts. A gift is a
very rare and sacred thing, and it would be well if we could have the gifts of
our children watched for and trained. Far too much have we, as a nation,
confused the notion of education with the infructuous cramming of so much
reproducible knowledge. “What is the education of the majority of the world?”
asked Edmund Burke. “Reading a parcel of books? No! Restraint and discipline,
examples of virtue and of justice--these are what form the education of the
world.”
4. And, fourthly, we have, as a nation, I am convinced, great need to
pay attention to the subject of technical training. This is a most serious
national question, for, amid the universal competition of nations, the empire
of British commerce is being seriously threatened. They who watch over the
future interests of England, and not merely its present comforts, point to
facts like these. The web of lace curtains is made in England, but before they
can be sold they have to be sent to France and Belgium to have a pattern put on
them, because we have not the requisite machinery. The steamers built on the
Clyde for the Germans, as soon as they can float, are manned by German crews
and sent over to that country to have their interiors completed, because that
can be done better and more cheaply in Germany than in England. We have too
much book work, depend upon it, and too little exercise for the powers and
faculties of the body; and I feel sure that even the book work would be the
better if our system were more human and more humane, if there were less
grinding routine and more activity of soul. Our present wooden system tends at
once to quench the glow and enthusiasm of many teachers, and the brightness and
animation of many a child. Here, then, you have the fact which constitutes the
central use and inestimable blessing of such schools as these you are asked to
support, and to support with generous liberality, today--they are religious
schools, or they are nothing. In these schools at least we have a moral
education that endeavours to form the judgment and the character, which are too
often neglected by official pedagogy. Here, at least, we do try to get the
saving facts and saving doctrines of Christianity apprehended and appropriated
by our school children. “The aim of teaching,” says a great schoolmaster, “is
to train generally all who are born men to all that is human.” Let us do our
best, and leave the rest to God. On the tombstone of one Frobel, the great
loving German teacher, are carved the words: “Come let us live for the
children.” I would say the same to you. If we neglect them, depend upon it, the
devil will not. Let us teach our children, on the other hand, that the end of
all education is to learn that all happiness depends, not on external good, but
on inward blessings, because the kingdom of God is within them, let them be
educated in such a way as to know that education is not to have and to rest,
but to grow and to become, forgetting all the evil behind and reaching forward
to all the good that is before; that the true end of life is not selfishness
but beneficence, looking not every man on his own things, but every man on the
things of others; that life, true life, is to be found in Christ and Christ
alone, and consisteth not in the multitude of things we possess. (Dean
Farrar.)
Revealed knowledge, our heritage
Revealed knowledge may be said to “belong to us”--
I. Because it is
level to our understandings. All that is needful for us to know of “the common
salvation” is so plain in itself, and so plainly declared, that he who runs may
read. On this point we may safely appeal to general experience. If the Bible
be, generally speaking, a hard book, how is it that it has made its way into
every house where a reader is to be found? How does it happen that the most
fond and delighted readers of it are those whose understandings have had the
least assistance from education? Such persons prefer the Bible even to other
devotional books in which the same things are professed to be set forth;
partly, perhaps, from habit, but in a great measure because, with respect to
the most interesting religious truths, they cannot be more plainly set forth
than is there done already; they are rather obscured than otherwise by a
multitude of words and subtle reasonings and human illustrations. And what is
the nature of those truths? For, if they were not in themselves easy to be understood,
no plainness of speech could make them so. But now, what are they? “God is, and
is a rewarder,” etc. “All flesh have corrupted their way.” “Jesus Christ came,”
etc. “Repent, and believe the Gospel.”
II. Because it
concerns us. The Bible is about us, and our affairs. Open it where you will,
you are the person spoken to; and you, or some other of like passions with you,
are the person spoken of. Of God Himself, only so much is revealed as relates
to His dealings with man; and how small a part is that of what might be known
of the Author of the universe! Of the angels, their natures, orders, powers,
and past history, we know next to nothing; only a few individuals of them are
introduced to us, as ascending and descending between God and man; and we are
told of them in general, that they are “all ministering spirits,” etc. Nay,
even of Jesus Christ Himself, whatever is revealed strictly concerns us and the
scheme of our redemption. Of man, his origin, nature, history, condition,
duties, destiny, every page of the Bible tells us something; and the whole
together gives us such a full and luminous account as leaves nothing to be
desired. With reference to its author, we call the Bible God’s Book, but in
respect to use and advantage it is our book, and none but ours. Suppose it to
be put into the hands of a quite different order of creatures, inhabiting some
other world: of what service would it be to them? Would they, who perhaps had
never sinned, feel any interest beyond that of mere curiosity in the fall of
man, or in the succession of the Divine dispensations for his recovery? To them
it would be as a letter missent. But when we open this letter we see at once
that it “belongs to us”; and we put it by, only to refer to it again and again,
and prepare ourselves, “that we may do,” etc.
III. Because we do,
in fact, possess it. Was it not “written for our learning”? delivered to us at
the first, and handed down by a providential arrangement, for our benefit? Let
this suffice. Where there is no other claimant, possession alone is a valid
title. This is an acknowledged maxim in regard to other kinds of property; and
so it would be in regard to this, were it not for one consideration, namely,
that we do not see men using and enjoying this part of their possessions as
they do the rest. What should we think if we saw the supposed owner of a large
landed property carefully abstaining from the usufruct of it? either letting it
remain unproductive, or storing up the produce of it from year to year, or by
any other means taking good care that he himself shall derive no benefit from
its. Should we not say at once, “The estate is not legally vested in that
person. There is some flaw in his title, and he fears to apply the proceeds to
his own use, lest the real owner should presently appear and call him to
account”? Now, apply this to the case before us. “Those things which are
revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the
words of this law.” That is the use of this property--to “do all the words,”
etc. It is the absence of that, and nothing else, that casts a suspicion upon
our real title to the property. If men were always seen doing those things
which are contained in the Bible--obeying its precepts, copying its examples,
believing its truths, appropriating its promises; in short, living and feeding
upon the oracles of God, instead of remaining all their lives “hearers only,
deceiving their own selves,”--there would, there could be, no question as to their
right of possession. (Frederick Field, LL. D.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》