Part 14 (1/2)

The questions involved in the conversations recorded in this chapter, are of great practical importance. Not perhaps of immediate practical importance to all in this present congregation; but yet sure to be of importance to all hereafter, and of importance to many at this actual moment. Nay, they are of importance to those who, from their youth, might be thought to have little to do with them, either where the mind is already anxious and inquiring beyond its years, or where it happens to be exposed to strong party influences, or that its pa.s.sions are likely to be engaged on a particular side, however little the understanding may be interested in the matter. In fact, in religious knowledge, as in other things, the omissions of youth are hard to make up in manhood; they who grow up with a very small knowledge of the Scriptures, and with no understanding of any of the questions connected with them, can with difficulty make up for this defect in after years; they become, according to the influences to which, they may happen to be subjected, either unbelieving or fanatical.

If we were to question the youngest boy about the language held in this chapter by the Pharisees, and by the man who had been born blind, we should, no doubt, be answered, that what the Pharisees said, was wrong; and what the man born blind said, was right. This would be the answer which it would be thought proper to give; because it would be perceived that the Pharisees' language expressed unbelief in Christ; and that the man born blind was expressing grat.i.tude and faith towards him. Nor, indeed, should we expect a young boy to go much farther than this; for such general impressions are, at his age, as much many times as can be looked for. But it is strange to observe how much this want of understanding outlasts the age of boyhood; how apt men are to judge according to names, and to see no farther: to say, that the language of the Pharisees was wrong, because they find it employed against Christ; but yet to use the very same language themselves, whilst they think that they are all the while speaking for Christ.

But in this conversation between the Pharisees and the blind man, there are, indeed, as I said, points involved of very great importance; it contains the question as to the degree of weight to be attached to miracles; and the question, no less grave, with what degree of tenacity we should reject what claims to be a new truth, because it seems to be at a variance with supposed old truths to which we have been long accustomed to cling with undoubting affection.

The question as to the weight of miracles is contained in the sixteenth verse. Some of the Pharisees said, This man is not of G.o.d, because he keepeth not the Sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? That is to say, the first party rejected the miracles because they seemed to be wrought in favour of a supposed false doctrine; the other accepted the doctrine, because it seemed warranted to their belief by the miracles.

The second question is contained in the words of the text, ”We know that G.o.d spake to Moses; as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is.” We have been taught from our childhood, and have the belief a.s.sociated with every good and pious thought in us, that G.o.d spake to Moses, and gave him the law as our rule of life; but as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is. His works may be wonderful, his words may be specious; but we never heard of him before, and we cannot tear up all the holiest feelings of our nature to receive a new doctrine. We will hold to the old way in which, we were taught by our fathers to walk, and in which they walked before us.

This last question is one which, as we well know, is continually presented to our minds. No one says, that the Pharisees were right, any more than those very Pharisees thought that their fathers were right who had killed the prophets. But as our Lord told them, that they were in truth the children in spirit of those who had killed the prophets; because, although they had been taught to condemn the outward form of their fathers' action, they were repeating it themselves in its principles and spirit; so many of those who condemn the Pharisees are really their exact image, repeating now against the truths of their own days the very same arguments which the Pharisees used against the truths of theirs.

For the arguments of these Pharisees, both as regards miracles, and as regards the suspicion with which we should look on a doctrine opposed to the settled opinions of our lives, have in fact, in both cases, a great mixture of justice in them; and it is this very mixture which we may hope beguiled them; and also beguiles those, who in our own days repeat their language.

For most certain it is that the Scripture itself supposes the possibility of false miracles. The case is especially provided against in Deuteronomy. It there says, ”If there arise among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pa.s.s whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other G.o.ds which thou hast not known, and let us serve them: thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your G.o.d proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your G.o.d with all your heart and with all your soul.” Observe how nearly this comes to the language of the Pharisees, ”This man is not of G.o.d, because he keepeth not the Sabbath day.” ”Here,” they might have said, ”is the very case foreseen in the Scriptures: a prophet has wrought a sign and a wonder, which is at the same time a breach of G.o.d's commandments. G.o.d has told us that such signs are not to be heeded, that he does but prove us with them to see whether we love him truly: knowing that where there is a love of him, the heart will heed no sign or wonder, how great soever, which would tempt it to think lightly of his commandments.” Shall we say that this is not a just interpretation of the pa.s.sage in Deuteronomy? shall we say that this is the language of unbelief or of sin? or, rather, shall we not confess that it is in accordance with G.o.d's word, and holy, and faithful, and true? And yet this most just language led those who used it to reject one of Christ's greatest miracles, and to refuse the salvation of the Holy One of G.o.d.

Can G.o.d's truth be contrary to itself? or can truth and goodness lead so directly to error and to evil?

Now, then, where is the solution to be found? for some solution there must be, unless we will either condemn a most true principle, or defend a most false conclusion. The error lies in confounding G.o.d's moral law with his law of ordinances; precisely the same error which led the Jews to stone Stephen. The law had undoubtedly commanded that he who blasphemed G.o.d should be stoned; the Jews called Stephen's speaking against the holy place and against the law blasphemy against G.o.d, and they murdered G.o.d's faithful servant and Christ's blessed martyr. Even so the law had said, Let no miracle be so great as to tempt you to forsake G.o.d: the Jews considered the forsaking the law of the Sabbath to be a forsaking of G.o.d, and they said that Christ's miracle was a work of Satan. There is no blasphemy into which we may not fall, no crime from which we shall be safe, if we do not separate in our minds most clearly such laws as relate to moral and eternal duties, and such as relate to outward or positive ordinances, even when commanded or inst.i.tuted by G.o.d himself. It is most false to say that the fact of their being commanded sets them on a level with each other. So long as they are commanded to us, it is no doubt our duty to obey them equally: but the difference between them is this, that whereas the first are commanded to us and to our children for ever, and no possible evidence can be so great as to persuade us that G.o.d has repealed them; (for the utmost conceivable amount of external testimony, such as that of miracles, could only lead to madness;--the human mind might, conceivably, be overwhelmed by the conflict, but should never and could never be tempted to renounce its very being, and lie against its Maker;) the others, that is, the commands to observe certain forms and ordinances, are in their nature essentially temporary and changeable: we have no right to a.s.sume that they will be continued, and therefore a miracle at any time might justly require us to forsake them; and not only an outward miracle, but the changed circ.u.mstances of the times may speak G.o.d's will no less clearly than a miracle, and may absolutely make it our duty to lay aside those ordinances, which to us. .h.i.therto, and to our fathers before us, were indeed the commands of G.o.d.

Now let us take the other question,--which may indeed be called a question as to the allowableness of resting confidently in truth already gained, without consenting to examine the claims of something a.s.serting itself to be a new truth, yet which seems to interfere with the old. Is nothing within us to be safe from possible doubt, or is everything? Or is it here, as in the former case, that there are truths so tried and so sacred that it were blasphemy to question them; while there are others, often closely intermixed with these, which are not so sacred, because they are not eternal; which may and ought to be examined when occasion requires; and which may be laid aside, or exchanged rather, for some higher truth, if it shall reasonably appear that their work is done, and that if we retain them longer they will change their character, and become no longer true but false. ”David having served his own generation by the will of G.o.d, fell asleep, and was gathered unto his fathers, and saw corruption; but He whom G.o.d raised again saw no corruption.” This is the difference between positive ordinances and moral: the first serve their appointed number of generations by the will of G.o.d, and then are gathered to their fathers, and perish; the latter are by the right hand of G.o.d exalted, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.

”We know,” said the Jews, ”that G.o.d spake to Moses; but for this fellow, we know not from whence he is.” There was a time when their fathers had held almost the very same language to Moses: ”they refused him, saying Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?” But now they knew that G.o.d had spoken to Moses, but were refusing Him who was sent unto them after Moses. G.o.d had spoken unto Moses, it was most true: he had spoken to him and given him commandments which were to last for ever; and which Christ, so far from undoing, was sent to confirm and to perfect; he had spoken to him other things, which were not to last for ever, but yet which were not to be cast away with dishonour; but having, in the fulness of time, done their work, were then, like David, to fall asleep.

All that was required of the Jews, was not to reject as blasphemy a doctrine which should distinguish between these two sorts of truths: which in no way requires to believe that G.o.d had not spoken to Moses,--which, on the contrary, maintained that he had so spoken,--but only contended that he has also, in these last days, spoken unto us by his Son; and that his Son, bearing the full image of Divine authority, might well be believed if he spoke of some parts of Moses's law as having now fulfilled their work, seeing that they were such parts only as, by their very nature, were not eternal: they had not been from the beginning, and therefore they would not live on to the end.

The practical conclusion is, that, whilst we hold fast, with an undoubting and unwavering faith, all truths which, by their very nature, are eternal, and to deny which is no other than to speak against the Holy Ghost, we should listen patiently to, and pa.s.s no harsh judgment on, those who question other truths not necessarily eternal, while they declare that they are, to the best of their consciences, seeking to obey G.o.d and Christ. When I say, that we should listen patiently, and not pa.s.s harsh judgments upon those who question such points, I say it without at all meaning that we should agree with them. It would be monstrous indeed, to suppose that old opinions are never combated wrongly; that old inst.i.tutions are never p.r.o.nounced to have lived out their appointed time, when, in fact, they are still in their full vigour. But the language of those who defend the doctrines and the ordinances of the Church may, and often does, partake of the sin of that of the Pharisees, even when those against whom they are contending, are not, like Christ, bringing in a new and higher truth, but an actual error. To point out that it is an error, to defend ourselves and the Church from it, is most right, and most highly our duty; but it is neither right, nor our duty, but the very sin of the Pharisees, to put it down merely by saying, ”As for this fellow, we know not from whence he is;” to treat the whole question as an impiety, and to deny the virtues and the holiness of those who maintain it, because they are, as we call it, ”speaking blasphemous things against the holy place and against the law.” The mischief of this to ourselves is infinite; nay, in its extreme, it leads to language which is fearfully resembling the very blasphemy against the Holy Ghost; for, when we say, as has been said, that where men's lives are apparently good and holy, and their doctrines are against those of the Church, the holiness is an unreal holiness, and that we cannot see into their hearts, this is, in fact, denying the Holy Spirit's most infallible sign--the fruits of righteousness; and being positive rather of the truth of the Church, than of the truth of G.o.d.

There is nothing so certain as that goodness is from G.o.d; nothing so certain as that sin is not from G.o.d; nothing so certain as that sin is not from him. To deny, or doubt this, is to dispute the greatest a.s.surance of truth that G.o.d has ever been pleased to give to us. It does not, by any means, follow, that all good men are free from error, nor that error is less error because good men hold it; but to make the error which is less certain, a reason for disputing the goodness which is more certain, is the spirit, not of G.o.d, nor of the Church of G.o.d, but of those false zealots who put an idol in G.o.d's place; of such as rejected Christ and murdered Stephen.

LECTURE x.x.xIV.

1 CORINTHIANS xiv, 20.

_Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit, in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men_.

It would be going a great deal too far to say, that they who fulfilled the latter part of this command, were sure also to fulfil the former; that they who were men in understanding, were, therefore, likely to be children in malice. But the converse holds good, with remarkable certainty, that they who are children in understanding, are proportionally apt to be men in malice: that is, in proportion as men neglect that which should be the guide of their lives, so are they left to the mastery of their pa.s.sions; and as nature and outward circ.u.mstances do not allow these pa.s.sions to remain as quiet and as little grown as they are in childhood,--for they are sure to ripen without any trouble of ours,--so men are left with nothing but the evils of both ages, the vices of the man, and the unripeness and ignorance of the child.

It is indeed a strange and almost incredible thing, that any should ever have united in their minds the notions of innocence and ignorance as applied to any but literal children: nor is it less strange, that any should ever have been afraid of their understanding, and should have sought goodness through prejudice, and blindness, and folly. Compared with this, their conduct was infinitely reasonable who weakened and tormented their bodies in order to strengthen, as they thought, their spiritual nature. Such conduct was, by comparison, reasonable because there is a great deal of bodily weakness and discomfort, which really does not interfere with the strength and purity of our character in itself, although, by abridging our activity, it may lessen our means of usefulness. But what should we say of a man who directed his ill usage of his body to that part of our system which is most closely connected with the brain; who were purposely to impair his nervous system, and subject himself to those delusions and diseased views of things which are the well-known result of any disorder there? Yet this is precisely what they do who seek to mortify and lower their understanding. It is as impossible that they should become better men by such a process, as if they were literally to take medicines to affect their nerves or their brain, in the hope of becoming idiotic or delirious. It is, in fact, the worst kind of self-murder; for it is a presumptuous destroying of that which is our best life, because we dread to undergo those trials which G.o.d has appointed for the perfecting both of it and of us.

But from the wilful blindness of these men, let us turn to the Christian wisdom of the Apostle: ”In malice be ye children, but in understanding be men.” Let us turn to what is recorded of our Lord in his early life, at that age when, as man, the cultivation of his understanding was his particular duty--that he was found in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions: not asking questions only, as one too impatient or too vain to wait for an answer, or to consider it when he had received it; not hearing only, as one careless and pa.s.sive, who thinks that the words of wisdom can improve his mind by being indolently admitted through the ears, with no more effort than his body uses when it is refreshed by a cooling air, or when it is laid down in running water; but both hearing and asking questions; docile and patient, yet active and intelligent; knowing that the wisdom was to be communicated from without, but that it belongs to the vigorous exercise of the power within, to apprehend it, and to convert it to nourishment.

Now, what is recorded of our Lord for our example, as to the manner in which he received instruction when delivered by word of mouth, this same thing should we do with that instruction, which, as is the ease with most of ours, we derive from reading. Put the Scriptures in the place of those living teachers whom Christ was so eager to hear; the words of Christ, and of his Spirit, instead of those far inferior guides from whom, notwithstanding, he, for our sakes, once submitted to learn; and what can be more exact than the application of the example? Let us be found in G.o.d's true temple, in the communion of his faithful people,--his universal Church, sitting down as it were, surrounded by the voices of the oracles of G.o.d--prophets, apostles, and Jesus Christ himself: let us be found with the record of these oracles in our hands, both reading them and asking them questions.

It is quite clear that what hinders a true understanding of anything is vagueness; and it is by this process of asking questions that vagueness is to be dispelled: for, in the first place, it removes one great vagueness, or indistinctness, which is very apt to beset the minds of many; namely, the not clearly seeing whether they understand a thing or no; and much more, the not seeing what it is that they do understand, and what it is which they do not. Take any one of our Lord's parables, and read it even to a young child: there will be something of an impression conveyed, and some feelings awakened; but all will be indistinct; the child will not know whether he understands or no, but will soon gain the habit of supposing that he does, as that is at once the least troublesome, and the least unpleasant to our vanity. And this same vague impression is often received by uneducated persons from reading or bearing either the Scriptures or sermons; it is by no means the same as if they had read or heard something in an unknown language; but yet they can give no distinct account of what they have heard or read; they do not know how far they understand it, and how far they do not. Here, then, is the use of ”asking questions,”--asking questions of ourselves or of our book, I mean, for I am supposing the case of our reading, when it can rarely happen that we have any living person at hand to give us an answer. Now, taking the earliest and simplest state of knowledge, it is plain that the first question to put to ourselves will be, ”Do I understand the meaning of all the words and expressions in what I have been reading?” I know that this is taking things at their very beginning, but it is my wish to do so. Now, so plain and forcible is the English of our Bible, generally speaking, that the words difficult to be understood will probably not be many: yet some such do occur, owing, in some instances, to a change of the language; as in the words ”let,” and ”prevent,” which now signify, the one, ”to allow, or suffer to be done,” and the other ”to stop, or hinder,” but which signified, when our translation was made, the first, ”to stop or hinder,” and the second, ”to be beforehand with us;” as in the prayer, ”Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings, with thy most gracious favour;”

the meaning is, ”Let thy favour be with us beforehand, O Lord, in whatever we are going to do.” In other instances the words are difficult because they are used in a particular sense, such as we do not learn from our common language; of which kind are the words ”elect,” ”saints,”