“Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick.”—John xi. 4.
Much contact with sickness of late has set me thinking about it; about the place it occupies in the Divine dispensations of our life, and the lessons it may teach. The subject will find an easy entrance into our meditations. Most of us have known what sickness is, and all of us have in prospect that which will prove to be our last.
In all the sorrow that affects the people of God there is more or less of mystery, which deepens in proportion as those who suffer become mature in their Christian life, and advanced in holiness. Yet there are some obvious truths in relation to it which are not hard to discern, and to some of these it will be profitable to turn our thoughts now.
I. Sickness, in common with all our ills, is a solemn witness to the existence of sin. If we trace it back to its first cause, we shall find it to have originated in “the transgression of the law.” It would be contrary both to the letter and to the spirit of the gospel to see in each sickness the direct result of a particular sin. Yet cases of this kind are not so rare as we suppose. Many men, even professing Christians, suffer in consequence of sins known only to God and to themselves; secret luxuries and excesses, or a trifling, perhaps half unconscious, with some of the simplest laws of Nature. Let not this be altogether overlooked. Moreover, whilst we are not at liberty to suppose an immediate connection between some particular sickness and some particular sin, there is a general connection between sin and suffering. There would have been no sickness in the world if there had been no sin. There was none in Eden: there will be none in heaven. Sickness is a witness to the disorder which sin has created. The Christian is a forgiven man, but the secondary consequences of sin remain. In a sinful world, the sins of others react upon him in various ways. He himself, though forgiven, is not yet perfect. There will always be enough of the sense of sin even in the most devout heart, to bend the sufferer in humiliation beneath the thought that in a thousand ways he has deserved the discipline of sorrow.
II. Sickness, however, affords equal testimony to the love of God. The Christian has ample reason for knowing that it is a Father’s hand that smites, and that the blow is tempered with gentle mercy. We suffer less than many have suffered before: less than many are suffering now. The Old Testament gives us some notable examples of suffering—Job, David, etc.; so also does the New Testament—Paul, for instance. And what were the sufferings of these compared with those of Christ, who wept and bled and died, not for Himself, but for us? In all ages better men than we have suffered more. Consider what we have deserved, and what, but for the mercy of God, we must have had to bear. If the sufferings of life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to follow, neither are they worthy to be compared with the doom which must have followed, if God had not loved us with an infinite and everlasting love. Nor is it beneath the subject to mention the alleviations which are granted to us, and which we must all trace to the Divine Hand—sleep, the suspension of pain, sympathy, and, most of all, the hopes of the gospel. These are common-place considerations, but we must entertain them, if our gratitude and trust are to be strong and simple.
But we must enter into particulars a little further for the sake of evolving truth still more immediate and personal.
III. Sickness is often a special grace from God, and is a providential answer to the secret desires of our own souls. Not, indeed, the answer we ask, or the answer we expect; rather, indeed, the answer we would gladly avoid: but still an answer. The cardinal want of man is salvation. Who does not know that sickness has often been sanctified to that end? The cardinal want of the Christian is sanctification—preparedness for heaven; and every Christian knows how seriously this is impeded by a crowd of difficulties, real enough, but which we have a propensity to exaggerate; generally, the daily occupations and cares of life—a family to be provided for, a competency to gain, favourable opportunities to be looked for and seized, daily mischances, and the like. Meanwhile we are conscious of our spiritual wants, and there is a painful conflict between the claims which are temporal, and those which are spiritual. How many Christians are living a life of absorption in the world, yet harassed with occasional regrets, fears, desires, connected with better things? To these sickness is a Divine reply. It is as though God said: “Dear child, I know thy difficulty. Thou canst not of thine own determination leave the world; come away now. Leave thy labour, thy anxiety, thy dreams. Shut out from the world’s noise, listen to Me, to thy soul, to heaven, to eternity. Not that thou mayest do thy duty less faithfully do I thus check thee, but that thou mayest learn the true subordination of things to one another; not the spiritual to the temporal, but the temporal to the spiritual. That is why I put this affliction upon thee.” Oh, verily, blessed is sickness when viewed from the station where we rest and refresh in the fevered journey of life—a truce after battle, a parenthesis in life’s tale, into which God puts His own deep-meaning and gentle word. Let us remember this for our brethren’s sakes and for our own.
IV. Sickness, as a special proof of God’s love, is charged with a mission to bring to us some special gifts and graces. It is above all things a means of blessing when we associate with it the idea of discipline, however stern. There is not a single Christian virtue that may not acquire strength on a bed of sickness, and there are not a few Christian virtues which probably must be learnt there, if they are ever to be learnt perfectly at all. Among these note the following:
1. Patience. This is specially the fruit of sorrow. No soul can know what patience is until it has learnt what suffering is. To this effect Paul and James both teach, putting suffering before the Christian as a veritable cause of joy because it produces patience. How many elements in sickness would be aggravated by the absence of this beautiful grace! How quickly we come to feel that all worry is useless, and that we must simply wait the good pleasure of the Lord! How commonly too, the existence of this virtue strikes the beholder. It is not apathy, it is not stoicism; it is submission. When the sickness is past there will still remain much in life to try us; but if we have learnt the lesson, we shall know how to apply it.
2. Entire dependence upon God. This is sometimes hard to realize in days of health and vigour, but in days of sickness we feel that the sentiment is impressed upon us with especial weight. We know that it is He who casteth down and lifteth up. We use means for recovery, and this is right; but we learn that without His blessing the best and the most skilfully applied of these are of no avail. This sense of dependence on God should be the habit of the mind; and having acquired it in sorrow we shall not repudiate or forget it in joy.
3. Unworldliness. In a sickness which is protracted, and the issue of which is uncertain, we learn to put the proper estimate on things. We find and we feel that we have here no true home and no true satisfaction, and that we must look above. At such a time we perceive that the real is the spiritual and the eternal. As we groan in this tabernacle, we obtain our true relief in the contemplation of things unseen.
4. The confidence of faith. The possible issues of our sickness are momentous, and the question comes: “Of what quality are my hopes? Is the religion that has given me joy and strength in health able to support me now?” And how often the blessed answer is “Yes!” God gives us strength equal to our day. The Father’s smile, the presence of the Saviour, simple trust in the Cross—these are realized as they never have been before. And if health should return, it will be with the calmly, soberly delightful feeling of a religion in the heart that has stood the test. This is the experience of not a few whom I have known.
All this has a mighty influence on others besides the sufferers themselves. They preach, and preach effectively, through their sorrow and the grace by which they bear it, and get blessing out of it. Thus their sickness becomes an occasion on which, an instrumentality by which, God conveys the blessings of His grace to their brethren.
To all of us, whether in sickness or in health, the subject suggests some important lessons. It suggests thankfulness for such health as we have. Others are suffering: why not we? Multitudes are languishing in pain to-day; most of us are well. Let us bless God, and seek His grace that we may use this gift of health, with all His other gifts, to His glory. It suggests sympathy for those who suffer. How dependent they are on our kindness, our gentleness, our love. Let us give it to them in full measure. Specially, let us give expression to our sympathy for them by prayer on their behalf. It suggests faithfulness to the vows made in the time of our trouble. How much holier would all of us be to-day if none of those vows had been forgotten!
“And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only.”—Matthew xvii. 8.
The visible glory has vanished; Moses and Elias have disappeared; the cloud is gone; the Voice has been heard; and Jesus has assumed again the form of His lowliness. A few moments ago Peter, in a half-unconscious ecstasy, was saying: “Lord, it is good for us to be here: if Thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for Thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias.” And now they are coming down from the mountain to the turmoil at its foot, and they who wished to tabernacle so gloriously above must descend again to their fishing-nets below. The change seems sudden and sad. We feel inclined to exclaim, “What a loss!” But though they come down, Jesus is with them. Herein lies the substance of what I want now to develop. Our life has its resting-places, exposed to startling, rude alternations; but it has also, in the midst of all, its grand solace.
I. The first of these truths is one of such common experience, that we have no need to do more in support of it than to point to well-known facts. I shall try to generalize them by referring merely to three points.
1. To our external personal circumstances. Sometimes we are prosperous, cheerful, happy. We say, “The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.” Incidents occur which seem to transform our ordinary life. We succeed in our pursuits. We are in health. Our domestic happiness is undisturbed. We have been delivered from impending ill, and, instead of suffering what we have feared, we realize more than we have hoped for. We are thankful; we are content; and we want to build our tabernacle on the green mount of our prosperity.
May we not indulge this feeling without any suspicion that our prosperity may too much absorb and unspiritualise us? But the time for disenchantment comes, and if we have grace enough in our hearts, we find that a drawback is put in the way of our fancied happiness, the tendency of which is proving a strong temptation to worldliness. And then, though we do not court reverses—for they, too, have their temptations—we begin to feel that this position of fancied happiness is not so perfect as we thought. Besides, the novelty passes away, and the satisfaction becomes less. We had forgotten our higher needs whilst we were absorbed in our external well-being. And so we come to acknowledge once more that this is not our rest. Sometimes, too, a veritable reverse takes place; like the disciples, we have to come down from the mount. The alternations of grief, disappointment, and care follow our joy, and we get a further confirmation of the truth that there is no resting-place to be found in any of the circumstantials of life.
2. To our intercourse with men. We have reason to be thankful for all the blessing which reaches us through this channel, and especially so for all sanctified human relationships. To men of confiding, generous natures, it is natural to repose in their contact with certain of their fellow creatures. Some of our brethren wield a marvellous charm over us. We trust their character; we are not conscious of their defects; we are entirely at home with them.
But here, again, we find that we must come down from the mount. It would be a sad story if we could all tell our surprises and disappointments in this matter. How many apparently beautiful friendships have passed away! How many defects have we discovered in those whom we have implicitly trusted, when we have been brought into a closer acquaintance with them? How many have others discovered in us? Do we not see here one reason why men become cynical and misanthropic? The greater the confidence, the greater the subsequent distrust. The greater the joy, the deeper the grief which has followed it. Let us thank God for the friendships that abide; but let us remember that human love can never be a perfect resting-place for our hearts.
3. To our Christian feeling. In the early days of our Christian life especially, and often afterwards, all seems to be “transfigured” before our eyes. We see a new earth and a new heaven. We breathe a life-giving atmosphere as we ascend the hills from whence cometh our help. Moses and Elias—the law and the prophets—have undergone the same transformation. Desires which are earthly have given place to desires which are spiritual. We seem to be in closest contact with the Saviour, and we pity the small pre-occupations of the world. We say, “Let us build here our tabernacle, and rest.”
But changes await us! First the heights, then the depths! To-day, the unutterable words from heaven; to-morrow, the thorn in the flesh and the messenger of Satan to buffet! The one is not without the other. Hence the lesson comes home to us: “Do not depend too much on your heart-states.” These high joys seldom last long. Jesus, so to speak, loses His splendour, and comes down again from the mount, as a man, to His humiliation.
II. The facts I have adverted to are such as only experience teaches. The prosperous and the immature may suppose that I take too gloomy a view of life. By no means. Life has brought its trials to me; and, like many others, I have been again and again on the mount to come down afterwards into the valley. And, were it not for one crowning consideration, there has been enough of change to some of us to make us sad and gloomy enough. What has prevented it? This, that Jesus has come down from the mount along with us. We have learnt to prize Him in proportion as we have learnt the deceptiveness of all beside!
As Jesus humbled Himself, so He humbles His own. He wants us to walk by faith, not by sight, nor by sentiment. What should we become on our Tabor, if we were allowed to build our tabernacles there? Certainly proud; perhaps foolish; perhaps self-sufficient. Paul was in danger of being exalted above measure by the glory of the revelations which came to him; have we any reason to be more certain of ourselves? The greater the height the more destructive the fall. We might also mistake religious ecstasies for religious firmness or religious growth. Yes, the true discipline is that which makes us come down.
All this looks like the disenchantment of our cherished illusions. What have we to put in their place? Man does not live alone by what is taken away from him, but by what is given to him. Have we taken away all? Have we given nothing? We read that a Voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.... And when the disciples had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only.” What does that teach us?
It teaches that out of these ecstasies, which often hide the reality, there comes a gift of God more precious than all—Jesus Himself. Whatever form He may assume, He is still the same; still the same whether He goes up the mountain with us, or comes down with us from the mountain. Our illusions vanish, but Jesus does not disappear. It is to Him that God directs us when the dreams of life are gone. Events deceive us, men change, the joy of our own hearts subsides; but these things happen that we may lift up our eyes and see Jesus only.
And so the illusions which depart give place to a permanent good. Do not be afraid to descend from the mountain-tops into the low valleys which lie beneath. Neither height nor depth need separate from the love of Christ. A mighty and gracious Hand guides you, whether you see it or not. Lay hold of it with confidence. Though your ecstacies vanish, the great gain of your faith will be a sober, deep repose.
Do not confound this repose with a want of life or of interest. A staid, strong, sober Christian is a man who has learnt in whatsoever state he is therewith to be content. A staid, strong, sober Christian is one who can do all things through Christ, who is ever near and ever strengtheneth.
Is not such a condition a blessed one? It is that which gives to faith its permanence and its calm. Instead of ascending to heaven and descending to the abyss to find Christ, we find Him here, and remain with Him in peace and assurance. Having found Him, and being united to Him, we may, if need be, do without the rest. On the mount and in the plain we have the same Saviour. In any case, our hearts are on a sure foundation.
The tabernacles Peter wanted to erect on Tabor let us erect in the valley. Let us keep near to Jesus; near to His law, near to His promises, but emphatically near to Him. This, too, will be a transfiguration, the transfiguration of our common life. The light of the Divine glory will shine about us; and in the light, and out of the cloud, the Voice will speak. We shall tabernacle with Moses and Elias only above; but we may tabernacle with Jesus below. Let us tabernacle with Him most at the cross; for it is there that we shall find most of our holiness and our hope.
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.”—Matthew vii. 7, 8.
Prayer is one of the vital elements of the Christian life. It mingles with its first impulses; it is the secret of every step in its development, the hidden germ of the grain of mustard-seed, the sap that nourishes the growing and the perfected tree from the furthermost fibres of its roots to the topmost shoot of its branches. A sapless tree is not a living one, but dead; a prayerless Christian cannot be.
As might have been expected, the New Testament is remarkably plain in its teaching on this subject of prayer. The difficulties connected with it which exist in our minds are not difficulties which it creates or even sanctions. A simple reverence for its utterances is almost all that we need for their removal. Let us inwardly pray for this while we study the question now.
The form in which our Lord presents His exhortation in the text is interesting and suggestive. He uses three words—“ask,” “seek,” “knock,” which seem to intimate a gradation, and to lead up to a climax. The word “ask” indicates the felt want of a good which may be obtained; not purchased, but obtained as a free gift. The word “seek” indicates the continuance of the asking, with the added idea, perhaps, that our need is our fault, and that what we seek has been previously lost. The word “knock” supposes a difficulty in obtaining, the delay of the answer, a blessing shut up, and not immediately forthcoming. Here, then, is a hint of possible difficulties. Nevertheless, a promise is annexed, which is all-sufficient. “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” Christ’s word is assurance enough for us; but He condescends to append an argument drawn from a comparison between man and God, between imperfect earthly parents and the infinitely perfect Father in heaven; an argument which ought to be conclusive. “What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?”
The facts as they lie open on the surface of the text are among the most solemn and momentous facts of our life and thought. There is a God, holding in the universe a position which is exclusively His own, the great and only Giver of all good. Man’s position is one of dependence; in no sense is he self-sufficient. As it is God’s prerogative to give, so it is man’s duty and interest to ask. There is a possibility of communion between Him who gives and him who needs; the hand of want brought into contact with the hand that supplies. Then we have the fact that God is both able and willing to satisfy man’s want out of His own fulness. Further, we have the tender solicitation to trust on our part—the absolute promise that such trust can never be misplaced—and the encouraging assurance that the God who gives is moved towards His creatures who ask by all the sympathies of a Divine Fatherhood. Every ground of the confidence that children have in their parents is consolidated into a rock of immovable repose when the Heavenly Father comes in question.
These facts enter into the common substance of our Christian belief and thought. As Christians, we never deny and never dispute them. We hold them in a measure unconsciously till the crises of life bring them into prominence. But they are inconceivably marvellous. As mere conceptions they are grand; as realized grounds of hope they are inexpressibly helpful. They are full of greatness and tenderness. Each of us may say to himself: “My soul, with all thy manifold infirmities and littlenesses, thou canst pray to the great God! Ay, thou canst come to Him as to an infinite Father!” Surely that is distinction and consolation enough.
Comparatively few Christians, however, understand prayer as they should—either as a duty or as a privilege. With tens of thousands amongst them it is to a great extent an unappreciated boon. Even many devout Christians—anxious to use it to more effect—have their difficulties. I want to offer some help to such as these. The scope of prayer, unanswered prayer, delayed answers, etc., all are subjects of anxious questioning.
I. Prayer, according to the teaching of Scripture and of experience, is a simple transaction of asking and receiving. It indirectly serves other ends, as we shall see shortly; but it is first of all, and all through, just what I have stated. We pray because we want; we pray in order to get what we want; and we pray with the feeling that we shall not get it unless we pray. There is no mystery in such a view as this. The transaction between the Christian and God, involved in prayer as thus described, is as natural, as simple, as well defined, and as easily understood, as the action of a child when it asks its parents for what it needs, and when its parents give what it needs in answer to the asking. The holy men of Scripture understood prayer in this way. Their prayers are full of simplicity, both as to their structure and their spirit. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, Elijah, all simply asked for such blessing as they felt they needed; asked for the sake of receiving, and feeling that the reception of what they wanted was dependent upon their asking. They unquestionably believed in an invisible Hand, and felt that the Heart that guided that Hand delighted to be trusted and appealed to in every, and for every, kind of human need.
II. The simplicity of their view of the nature of prayer is no greater than that of the view they took of the scope of prayer. A feeling has grown up in the minds of many that we cannot ask with confidence for temporal blessings, and that the only blessings for which we may be sure that it is right to ask are those which are spiritual. But that was not the idea of the praying men of the past. There was not a blessing, material or spiritual, for which they hesitated to pray—life, health, food, rain, fruitful seasons, success in battle, peace of soul, forgiveness of sins, strength for holy work—all these, and indiscriminately as to any special privilege attached to the prayer for one or another. Just so taught Christ. “The Lord’s Prayer” asks not only for the glory of God and the forgiveness of trespasses, but also for “daily bread.”
These considerations must neither be misunderstood nor overlooked. Prayer is a direct, specific, simple act. Men say that well-wishing, right-living, work, and such like, are prayer. Not so. A prayerful spirit may be, and ought to be, blended with the whole of our life; but we must not so shade off the act into something else as to take away its point and its reality. Prayer is the concentration of the soul upon its present need, whatever that may be, and then bringing it to God, naked and undisguised, for Him to meet it. The faith that prompts and backs up such prayer hangs every circumstance of life, the most minute and the most momentous alike, on the direct and immediate control of God, in whose great foresight all our little plans are lost, and in whose hands we become the instruments of our own well-being.
III. It is demanded by such a view of prayer as that which has now been given, that we should confidently expect the answers to our petitions. This seems a simple, trite thing to say; but it is here especially that we fail. The attitude of looking for answers to prayer is not a common one. How is this? Partly because our prayers are often so vague that we do not know precisely what to expect; partly because the habit of prayer is largely formal—a mere piece of religious routine; sometimes because we misapprehend the form in which the answer may come; and sometimes because, in impatience, we lose heart and hope. We should ever remember, however, that the promise to hear and to answer is positive and unrestricted. This fact leaves ample room for the truth, which we should also ever remember, that the mode and time of the answer remain with God, and must be left to His loving wisdom. If He should see that what we ask will strengthen our faith in Him, bring our hearts nearer to Him, and help us to fulfil His will, He will grant the answer directly, and in the form in which we look for it. He has done so in numberless cases. Sometimes He does so in special and unmistakeable instances, of which, perhaps, George Müller and his orphanage is the most prominent in our time. On the other hand, if He should see that an answer of this kind would encourage worldliness, or in any way lead to evil, as it might sometimes do, then He will delay the answer, or will change its form into one of greater safety for us, at the same time speaking with His “still small voice” words of peace to our hearts. One thing is certain; namely, that if the worldly advantage be first in our view, it will be well for our prayer to be denied, and God will deny it.
IV. One condition, then, of answered prayer is that we must be loyal to God, and this loyalty includes submission to His will—a willingness to receive, and a willingness to be denied. We may ask what we will in such a spirit as this; for in such a spirit we shall be sure that any refusal from Him will be a blessing to ourselves.
V. One difficulty in relation to prayer of which anti-christian people make much, and which often occurs even to the most devout, is as to how these specific answers to prayer can be made to agree with the regularity of God’s laws and the order of His Providence. This question introduces us to a mystery which we cannot hope fully to solve. We have no idea that prayer alters either the perceptions or the will of God; neither do we imagine that it interferes with natural laws, so as to prevent their due and natural operation. The operations of nature are often affected by the human will, both directly and indirectly; yet no one supposes that to that extent the order of nature is disturbed. Why may not the influence of the human will upon nature act through the medium of prayer to the great Author of nature, as well as in any other way? No objection of this kind lies against prayer which does not equally lie against all human enterprise; yea, even against the daily work by which we live! It is a sufficient reply to every objection of this kind that it is founded in a philosophy of fatalism. Surely if man, within the limits of his power, can use nature for himself, God, whose power is infinitely greater, can use nature for him, if He be pleased on any terms to do so; and there is no more interference with the order of nature in the Divine use of it than there is in the human. Prayer may have its part to play in the great system of causation as well as work. It may be a part of the foreseen chain of causes and effects by which God unfolds His eternal purposes. The good order of a family is not disturbed by the margin given to the children’s wishes and requests; and when we are wise enough to know, we shall see how it has been even so in the greater family of God. God is love before we pray as well as when He answers; and yet it may be according to His will, because it is according to His beneficent wisdom, that there shall be many blessings unreceived by us until we ask for them.
VI. How do these thoughts bear upon the subject of importunity in prayer? Such importunity is not discountenanced, but rather encouraged, by the very form of our Lord’s exhortation. “Ask; seek; knock.” I have said that this series of words intimates a gradation, and constitutes a climax. Seeking is more than asking; knocking is more than asking or seeking. “Ask and ye shall receive.” Yes, but the “asking” which is to be followed by receiving may be such as to include both “seeking” and “knocking.” God is not reluctant to hear and to answer; but that is no reason why He should not require sometimes to be importuned. Christ gives His special sanction to this importunity through the medium of two parables, both of which were spoken for the express purpose of urging it. The first of these is the parable of the man who disturbs the repose of his friend at midnight for the purpose of obtaining from him the means of showing hospitality to an unexpected wayfarer; the second is the parable of the injured widow and the unjust judge. In both these parables, the suppliants are represented as prevailing; but the point to be noted is that the power by which they prevail is their earnest and persistent importunity. Why does Christ illustrate prayer to God by the pertinacity which is needful to arouse the affections of sinful man? We may be sure that He does not ascribe any thing of human imperfection to God. Our Father in heaven slumbers not, and is never weary. He is love. Christ simply puts Himself in the feeling of the man who knows by experience that God often delays the fulfilment of prayer, and shows, by parabolic teaching, that to pray well we must be fervent and not “faint.” The lesson is impressive. If between man and man importunate prayer prevails, how much more will it prevail with God who is perfect, and who will not make us wait except for the sake of our highest well-being. The man goes to his friend with confidence because he has faith in the friendship; how inconceivably strong may this confidence be when we repose it in God! The plea was the stress of his need; the same stress belongs to many of the needs which only God can supply. Our praying-time, like that of the friend at midnight, is often that of the deepest darkness; but we pray to God and not to man, and need not fear that He, in His deep, heavenly repose, will fail faithfully to hearken to our supplications—supplications which, because they proceed from the holiest solicitudes of love and duty, are inspired by Himself. Christ bids us reason from both bad men and good men to God, and it is well for us that He does so. On the bad side, man’s love is weak, his judgment faulty, and his selfishness deep-rooted; God is infinite both in His wisdom and His love. On the good side, earthly fathers give bread, not stones, to their children; how much kinder is He to whom we look up and say, “Our Father which art in heaven”! “Yes,” you say, “He is good and kind; but He makes us wait.” It is so; and why? We are feeble in our desires, and changeful in our purposes. We soon give up. We want faith, patience, perseverance. The uniformly immediate fulfilment of our petitions would leave no room for the cultivation of these quiet, unobtrusive virtues of the Divine life within us. God makes us wait, that we may become importunate, and that importunity may nourish the virtues which are as yet too feeble. Besides, delay gives purity to our motives, and intensity to our desires. A blessing which is easily won is likely to be unappreciated. God would not have us treat His gold as though it were stones. Delay is not refusal; it is discipline. Moreover why speak we of delay at all? What we so designate is not delay from the Divine point of view. He never postpones any asked-for good for one moment beyond the fit time for bestowing it.
VII. What, then, is the character of the prayer which avails? That some prayers are “hindered”—so hindered as to be unsuccessful—we know full well. This may be accounted for partly by mistaken notions about the Scripture theory of prayer. For example, Jesus says, “What things ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” The teaching of these words is that the inspiration to true prayer is God’s pledge of the blessings sought, and that we must be prepared to take it as such. The prayer of a man who has not full faith in prayer falls short of its mark. Hindrance may also arise from mistaken notions as to the primary use of prayer. Prayer is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. It is true that the holier we become the more shall we find ourselves accustomed to an atmosphere of prayerfulness as the normal condition of the soul. But we shall not pray aright, if we pray under the impression that we are holy because we pray. We must rather pray in order to be holy. The hindrance may also arise from the absence of a supreme anxiety and of a constant effort to honour God in all our relations. Peter speaks of obedience to the duties which spring from the conjugal relation as being necessary to prevent the “hindrance”—the ineffectualness—of family prayer. This is but a special application of a great general principle—namely, the connection between holy conduct in society and the efficiency of our social devotional exercises. These two act and re-act upon each other. To secure the true, full benefit of prayer, we must strive to live holily in all the society with which we mingle. This point touches upon the value of intercessory prayer. Suppose that there is a want of correspondence between the interest in the welfare of those around us which we express in our prayers on their behalf, and that which we show in our intercourse with them; can we rightly expect such prayers to prevail? The deficiency is too frequently manifest in our relations both to the Church and the world. How often is Church brotherhood nominal rather than real! How many pray for the salvation of souls, without caring to do anything else! There is one thing which will always, in so far as it exists, be a barrier to the acceptableness of prayer, and that is the wilful and persistent violation of any of the Divine commands—the refusal to perform Christian duties incumbent upon us, or the cherishing of some habit or propensity known to be wrong. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” The success of our prayers does not depend upon our learning, or upon the skill with which we can express our petitions, or with which we can string them together. It depends rather upon the state of our hearts—the vivid consciousness of need, the deep feeling of dependence on God, the supreme desire of the heart to be right with Him, faith in His promises, trust in His power and His love, gratitude for His goodness, an unfainting perseverance in appealing to His throne, and a willingness to wait His time for the blessings thus humbly, trustfully, and earnestly sought. These are the elements of the true spirit of prayer. “Ask” thus “and it shall be given you;” “seek” thus, “and ye shall find;” “knock” thus, “and it shall be opened unto you.”
I alluded in the beginning to the indirect effects of prayer, and these are too valuable to be overlooked. Prayer, pervaded by humility and trust, is always strengthened by its own exercise. All Christian graces are beautified by it; all Christian virtues are stimulated by it. It is a Divine provision for rousing the slumbering affections of the renewed heart, and keeping them awake. Prayer, too, is its own reward, and a blessed one. How holy and how happy must they be who are on intimate terms with God! Their faces catch His glory, and their every tone and step the impress of the sanctity of the Divine companionship. The Christian can tell his Father all! And because he is so near to God and to heaven, he can put and keep the world beneath his feet.
Even delays and seeming refusals are not without their salutary influence. Some persons pray for specific blessings year after year—“pray without ceasing”—and are often staggered at the fact that their prayers remain unanswered; and yet we see them growing in spirituality, purity, fortitude, faith, and we hear them say, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” And so their faith—the most precious thing they have—is tried and refined as in a furnace. Surely such an answer to prayer is sublime!
I have been speaking to many a doubt, to many a perplexity, with which I am familiar in my own experience and in that of others. God grant that my words may be helpful! What we all want in regard to this great subject is clearer views and a more unquestioning trust. God courts our utmost confidence, and He will not fail to reward it.
“I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.”—2 Timothy i. 12.
These are among the last words the apostle wrote. He is now at Rome, in prison, and within a few days of the tragic end. He is worn down by age; still more so by a constant, toilsome, suffering ministry of some thirty years, a ministry which has obtained for him, at the hands of men, stones and stripes, and now a dungeon, with the immediate prospect of a violent death. He is bound with chains, and compelled to be silent just where and when he has so long been anxious to speak, in the metropolis of the world! He is, moreover, forsaken by his friends, who, though they love him, have not courage to go and visit him now! Outwardly, no sadder condition could well be imagined. Yet Paul is filled with a deep and holy peace. How is this? The answer is that he feels within himself the approval of his God. He is in prison, but that is because of his obedience to His Saviour. He has worn himself down in a Divine service. Behind him he sees a long train of woes and sufferings, but he also sees many churches which he has founded, and many unknown regions open to the gospel. Before him he sees an unrighteous judge and a painful martyrdom, but he also sees heaven, Christ, and the unfading crown. If he says, “All have forsaken me,” he can also say, as his Master did, that he is not left alone. All this is enough to account for the calmness and hopefulness of this his last epistle, and especially of the words before us to-day.
I will not trouble you with the critical difficulties of the text. On only one preliminary question I would say a word. What does Paul mean by the expression, “that which I have committed unto Him”? Some urge that it was the Church which he was about to leave; others, that it was the result of his labours; and others, that it was his final salvation. I prefer to combine all these into one general whole, and to say: “All his Christian interests, the hopes on which his spirit rested for his personal salvation, and every other interest that was dear to his heart.” He had “committed” to Christ himself, the church he had loved and served, the results of his labour, and the final reward to which he was looking forward. If, within the vast scope of his desires, there had been one thing which he could not commit to Christ, his rest would have been incomplete, and his joy would have been marred. But for everything he was able to say: “Saviour, I have committed this to Thee.”
Observe how Paul puts this great matter. He was the greatest doctrinal writer of the New Testament; but he does not say that he believes in doctrines, but that he believes in a Person. “I know whom I have believed.” All doctrinal belief follows, and is comprised in, that. Faith everywhere in Scripture is confidence in Christ. He who believes in Christ must come sooner or later to believe in the doctrines which cluster around Him. But our experience grows beyond these into the realisation of Him as being so actual, so near, and so sufficient, as to be our true rest. Who among us can tell all the reasons why he believes in Christ? Many of them cannot be put into words. They belong to our most secret thoughts, to the emotions of our happiest hours, to a hidden, silent history, which, if the world heard, it could not understand. Yet these proofs multiply in proportion as the Christian advances in life. How many times have we found the words of Christ adapted to our wants! How many unexpected deliverances has He wrought on our behalf! How many answers to prayer have we received at His hands! How much peace has He breathed into our hearts! “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.”
What a grand confirmation have we here of the faith Paul preached! Had his trust been misplaced, surely he had suffered enough to disabuse him of it, and that most completely. But his faith grows the more he suffers. No mere party zeal could stand a test like this; no, nor any delusion either. And so we say that such a man as Paul was, under the circumstances in which he maintained his trust, could not be deceived. Thus Paul’s faith becomes a confirmation of our own, and, with him on our side, we may face a world of doubt.
But I wish to use the text chiefly for the elucidation of a single subject. Paul’s words express the assurance of his faith. How does this subject strike us? Does not the very mention of it give rise to sad reflections in many hearts? “The assurance of faith.” “Ah, I knew it once,” we say; “it was the experience of earlier days, and has been the experience of some special days since then, still more so of some specially holy moments. But it is not my normal state. Would it were!”
We are living in a period in which there seems to be a general disinclination towards whatever is firm and precise in religious creed, feeling, and life. This may not be an altogether unhopeful state of things. Respect for truth may keep some minds silent concerning their beliefs, or at least may prevent them from avowing those beliefs too dogmatically. Anxiety and doubt may even in some cases be a sign of spiritual earnestness. Yet the tendency we speak of is on the whole to be deeply deplored. The truth is that the world has invaded us. Men shrink from great precision of conviction because they shrink from great consecration of life. How few the lives that are pre-eminently Christian, as Paul’s was! On the other hand, our day is remarkable for its craving for mere religious excitement. In many cases, it is not so much the desire for truth, as the desire to be excited and pleased, that prevails. Neither of these tendencies can build up the faith which finds its grand avowal in the words: “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.”
The remedy for the state of things upon which I have touched cannot now be pointed out, because it would lead me away from my purpose. But I want to show the effect of it upon ourselves, and upon those who are without. There are certain aims common to the Christian life of all of us, and these cannot be reached so long as our faith lacks steadiness and stability.
1. Our great mission is to convert souls. We are avowedly the instruments of the Spirit of God in this momentous work. But what is the conversion of a soul? It is a radical change in its affections and its life. But this change never takes place apart from the influence of deep convictions. Men will not exchange the known for the unknown: actual life with its passions and its pleasures for the weak and cold abstractions of a faith with no precision in its principles, or for the worship of a God who is vague and problematical. How are we to succeed in winning souls to the truth we profess unless we can produce something which ought to convince them that we have the right of it? An unstable faith will be of little use to us here. There must be no hesitation in our avowal that our transition from the world to God is a blessed one. In other matters, a man of strong beliefs has half won us to his side. In religion, it is notoriously so. Paul’s grand words have been a source of strength to us. Let us make them our own—the expression of our own faith—and they will become, through us, a source of strength to others. Let us have this same Christianity in its fulness and its power; and having it, let us avow it without timidity and without reserve.
2. Our personal obligation, as Christians, is to be holy; and we want the assurance of faith for that. We may be deceived about our conversion. At the outset of our Christian life we may be the subjects of many illusions. But men are not mistaken when, day by day, they are fighting their passions, bringing the will into subjection, conquering the flesh, and submitting the whole life to the long, slow, toilsome discipline of obedience. This kind of work is never accomplished by a vague and undecided religion. Men do not deny themselves without an equivalent. You cannot persuade them to give up their illusions, their pleasures, their passions, nor even their vices, unless you show them something else which may, must, and ought to take their place. If you empty the heart of one set of elements, you must fill it with another. So it is that we want a living God, a living Christ, close to us; loving us, forgiving us, helping us, comforting us, and opening before us the prospect of glory and of happiness for eternity. Let us know and feel ourselves able to say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day,” and the struggle with inward evil will be simplified, and will become comparatively easy.
3. We stand in daily need of strength and consolation, and for that nothing but a firm and settled faith will suffice. There are great sorrows and great anxieties to which we are all exposed, in the face of which nothing will do for us but sovereign words of life and of hope in which we can implicitly trust. There are great wrongs under which we cannot be comforted except by the constant conviction of a righteousness which will one day vindicate the right, and redress the wrong. There are great losses in which we want the promise and the certainty of an immense and restoring love. Souls will seek this strength, this consolation, here, there, everywhere; but they will never find it until they can say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.”
4. The assurance of faith is necessary to all earnestness of effort in the spread of the gospel. A church or a Christian, subsiding into uncertainty of religious belief, has no motive for zeal in the propagation of religion. We preach because we believe. Let the idea, that the Christianity of Christ or of Paul or of the New Testament needs modification, become prevalent in the professing church, and the secret of every true impulse in missionary work, whether abroad or at home, will be gone. It is the men who share Paul’s stable, grand faith who can take their stand as the preachers of Christ. It is only they who can rise to the sacrifices necessary for the promotion of His truth in the world.
Have we such a faith as this? If not how can we obtain it? This latter question will be best answered by a close adherence to the text. We must say a few words respecting the faith itself, and also respecting Christ, who is the object of it.
What is faith? A common answer is that faith is an act of intellectual submission to the teachings of another—that it is in matters of the mind what blind and unquestioning obedience is in matters of practice. This account of faith was early imposed by the Papal Church, and it is not repudiated even now by some evangelical churches. The root of all doctrines of sacramental efficacy is the renunciation of private judgment in matters of faith. No wonder that with such a definition of faith Christianity should be held in derision, and regarded as the special privilege of the young, the immature, the aged, and all whose weaknesses and disappointments leave them no other consolation and no other resource! This is not the teaching of Scripture. Of course in faith there is submission, for there are many things to be believed which we cannot understand. Nevertheless, faith is much more than submission, and there is not a case of faith in the whole Word of God which presents to us the believing life as a thing of mere blind credulity. Was it so with Abraham, with Job, with David, with Paul, or with any of the others? Even in relation to the dark things, faith rests upon convictions which make submission the only rational, the only possible attitude of the mind. According to Scripture, faith is the soul laying hold of the invisible God—laying hold of Christ as His Son and our Saviour. There is no abdication of any one of the powers of the soul. In believing, the soul is entire with its reason, its thought, its love, and all its spiritual energies. Nor is there any weakness. When a man is hesitating between surrender to the voice of conscience, and surrender to the voice of passion, he performs an act of faith if he yields to the voice of conscience, for he is ruled by the invisible; yet the last thing we dare say of such a man would be that he is weak. Rightly considered, every such act is a triumph of the soul. The conscientious man is the representative of the greatest moral strength we know. Imagine a soul with all its life under the constant thought of God and of Christ. Surely such an order of life as his affords scope enough for intellectual strength and for moral heroism.
Much must be taken for granted, we said. Reason has its sphere, and to it a truly noble task is assigned. The visible world belongs to it, and it is subjecting that world to itself more and more every day. But how powerless it is when man asks of it a response to the aspirations of his conscience and his heart. What can it say to a soul weighed down by a sense of guilt? What to the heart that is torn by calamity? What to any man when death draws nigh? Oh, no! Unless we are to abandon ourselves to despair, there must be faith—some truth in which, or some Being in whom, the whole soul can repose. And mark, this was just the light in which the apostle looked at the matter. He was near the end. Eternity was close before him. He knew that endless issues were at stake. He was nerved to confront it all by faith. What faith? What was he trusting in?
Paul believed in Christ. On what grounds? Can we believe in Christ? If so, again I ask on what grounds?
1. Christ stands before us in our darkness in a position which is exclusively His own. Of all men, He alone knew whence He came and whither He went. Without hesitation, and with tones of sovereign authority, He points out to us the way to God. He speaks of heaven as one who has come from thence. Everywhere He calls Himself the Sent of the Father, His only-begotten Son, the Lord of souls. His word was with power; sweet with intensest human tenderness, influential with Divine authority. What was it that gave Him this power? Not human reasoning, not eloquence. It was the light of Truth reaching the conscience, and penetrating the heart. We see in Him God as He is, and we also see in Him man as he ought to be. We do not reason about this influence. Apprehending Him, we instinctively accept it. It is thus that millions have said: “To whom can we go but unto Thee? Thou hast the words of eternal life.”
2. This influence of Christ has been exerted on every variety of human soul. His followers, in ever-increasing numbers, come from all conditions on earth—rich and poor, learned and ignorant, young and old, hardened sinners and men blushing with their first sins: all find from Him peace and light and hope. Especially is this so with those who suffer and weep; those who have felt the poverty of mere words, and who are now beyond the reach of any illusion. For the first time they have been comforted, and the comfort has satisfied them.
3. Still we want further to know by what authority He wields this influence. We ask, “Does He come from God?” The reply is that He does before our eyes the works of God. Not miracles merely, for though these constitute a powerful testimony, there is yet something more. He has revealed God in His own person, and the proof of His Divine mission has been given in His life. In Him, holiness has been at once realised and exhibited. Eighteen hundred years ago His enemies could find no fault in Him. Since then humanity has progressed, but Christ still leaves the noblest sons of men amazingly far behind Him. A hostile criticism has been indefatigable in its attempt to discover flaws in His character, and yet that character still stands before us as the ideal of the good and the true. His is a holiness before which the conscience of the world is accused and judged. Irresistibly the answer of the heart comes: “He who is so holy must be worthy of all our faith.”
4. Moreover, there is the sense of sin and of the need of pardon and salvation. Here after all, and more than anywhere else, is the secret of confidence in Christ. We seek salvation in works—anywhere out of Him—but we cannot find it. He who is holy and true tells us that He came into the world to save us, that He is our sacrifice and our peace, and that the love and the righteousness of God are manifest in Him and in the redeeming work He has undertaken on our behalf. This exactly meets our case. We say: “This is what we want, but what we have elsewhere sought in vain. At His hands we accept it with implicit trust and with fervent thankfulness.”
Are not these reasons enough? Is not the response of every heart, “Yes, they are.” Can it be less than the utmost folly and guilt for men to resist the voice of a conscience which tells them that it is only in Christ that the soul can find its rest? Is all this concurrent testimony to be set aside?
This assurance of faith, however, can only be the result of intense earnestness. We do not forget the necessity of the agency of the Spirit of God; let us never forget it; but let us also remember how constantly and how fatally that agency can be contravened. Paul held the great truths he preached with so tenacious and so unquestioning a faith, because he had begun by consecrating his heart to them under the intuitive perception that they were the truths which his nature as a man and his condition as a sinner so imperatively needed, and because all his experience of them did but confirm their sufficiency. “If any man will do the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God,” or whether it be of men. “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.”
For the unbeliever there are grounds enough for faith, both within and without. And if, even with the desire, faith be still found to be beset with difficulties, there is one unfailing prayer which will make it easy—the prayer, “Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.”
“What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?”—Psalm viii. 4.
One or two remarks on the meaning of certain expressions in this Psalm are necessary before we proceed. The second verse is pictorial, and has a martial character. Two hosts are seen facing each other. A beautiful world and a wonderful universe are in view of both. Children, in their conscious or unconscious admiration of what they see, and in the early and universal instinct by which they attribute it to the hand of a great God, effectually rebuke the unbelief of scoffers and all haters of God, who persistently refuse to recognise Him in His works. So, even to-day, the simple and pious intuitions of the race face, fight, and conquer all materialism. The beautiful and significant application of these words found in the account of our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem points for all time to the duty of giving Christian teaching to the young. In our Christian homes and our Sunday-schools lies the great bulwark against the spread of infidelity. Such teaching acts on the future. “Instead of the fathers shall be the children,” a generation to serve God. These will become fathers in their turn. “Take care of the children, and the adults will take care of themselves.”
“What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?” At first sight, it would seem as though the Psalmist were contrasting the littleness of man with the greatness of the universe. And, indeed, he does use a word to denote man which points to his weakness. But this is only David’s starting-point in his aim to correct the impression. The Psalm reveals, not the littleness, but the greatness of man. “When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars which Thou hast ordained; what is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?” How little he looks! Yet how great he must be! “For Thou makest him to want little of a Divine standing; Thou crownest him with honour and glory; Thou makest him to have dominion over the work of Thy hands; Thou puttest all under his feet—all sheep and oxen, and also beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea—whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea.”
One of the subtlest, and, to a certain degree, one of the most plausible of the objections of unbelief has been the attempt to instil into men’s minds the idea that it is presumptuous on their part to put confidence in the apparently sublime, but really fallacious, prospects which Christianity offers to them with regard to their destiny beyond this world. God is too great, it is said, and man is too little for us to admit the thought that God takes such an interest in man, both for this world and for the next, as the Bible affirms. The tendency of modern thought is largely in the direction of this view.
It would be easy to overtax our attention by going into too wide a field. I will speak only of the Christian idea of an immortal and heavenly life hereafter. It is this which is imperilled; it is this which is called in question. I have nothing to do now with the debated question of future punishment. Let me re-state the form of scepticism with which I have to deal. It is said to be presumptuous to suppose that we, the creatures of a day, are to be hereafter lifted up to a state of perfect blessedness, which is to last for ever, in the presence of God; and we are recommended to leave this dream aside, and to be content with the position we occupy here and now. “You have much to be thankful for, even as things are. Let it not be thought a hardship, if death should prove to be the end of man.”
The lines of thought as they start from this point are numerous, and one is tempted to follow them out. But we must forbear, for the sake of attending simply to our one purpose. I may, however, point out to you how partial and unreal is the view which is thus taken of man’s position and of his aspirations. Given the utmost of outward and present satisfaction, man universally is not content with this. But how many millions of human beings there are in the world at this moment to whom the present life can scarcely be said to have been any boon at all! How many more millions of such beings have lived in the past. The very ground we tread everywhere cowers beneath human sorrow. Is it not a cruel mockery to say to the suffering, the enslaved, the down-trodden: “Be grateful for what you have; it is vain, foolish, wrong for you to expect or to wish for more”? Some such advice as this may be given if our Christian hopes are tenable; but if they are not, we do but insult the suffering if we speak to them in this fashion.
The kind of unbelief we are anxious to check is spreading. Among the masses, in many directions, the desire to apprehend spiritual realities, and to be ruled by them, is increasingly small; the battles of life and thought are on behalf of the interests of a day; and even among well-disposed persons the hold of fundamental truth is seriously relaxed. Hence the necessity for our seeking to strengthen our cherished convictions, and to discern clearly and grasp firmly “the faith once delivered to the saints.”
If the views we animadvert upon were entertained merely by the ignorant and the uncultured, we should not so much wonder; but we are perplexed when we find them so prevalent amongst the wise of this world, and even by not a few who are reputed to be masters of human science. It is true that their advancing knowledge gives them vaster conceptions of the universe which they so unweariedly explore; but is it not strange that that vaster knowledge does not enhance their estimate of man, since he can explore so widely and can comprehend so much? Why should religious faith decrease in proportion as human knowledge is accumulated?
I take the psalm before us as furnishing a triumphant and lasting reply to the kind of unbelief in question. In Nature, first, God shows us His estimate of man. The ascent is easy from Nature to Grace, in which the Divine estimate is raised to its highest point.
We are invited to look around. Can there be any doubt that this beautiful world, with its immense treasures known and unknown, its bountiful harvests of every order on land and sea, and its marvellous variety of life, animate and inanimate, was formed for our sakes? Was not everything the earth contains made for our use and enjoyment, in measure increasing with every new discovery? The fruits of the ground, with each returning season, are prepared for our wants, and in that preparation, every season, with its sunshine and its shade, its dryness and its rain, its dews and its storms, is incessantly engaged. All nature is occupied in the successful attempt to answer the initial question, “What shall we eat? what shall we drink? and wherewithal shall we be clothed?” The dress we wear brings innumerable animals under tribute. “We have dominion over all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beast of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea.” Everything tells us that, in this world, we are kings—“a little,” only a little, “lower than the angels”—the gods. Between man and the inferior animals there is as great a distance as between the master and his slave;—nay more, as between the artizan and his instruments. The irrational animal is much nearer to the inanimate creation than to man since the end and purpose of both is to minister to man. This world, therefore, was manifestly made for us. Who ventures to doubt it? Least of all can it be doubted by the discoverers of earth’s profounder secrets.
We are invited to look still further afield. This world, which is made for us, is not independent or alone. It is in no sense self-sustained. It is part of a wonderful and incomprehensible whole. Other great creations concur in its maintenance. The sun enlightens, warms, and fertilizes it. The moon and the stars exert manifold influences upon it. The whole host of heaven has been brought into co-ordinate and helpful relation to it—yes, it: the world which exists for us! “When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars which Thou hast ordained;” when I consider the manifold bearings of Thy universe upon man—what is man! What must he be! In certain aspects, indeed, apparently small; but, by all these tokens, how great! We do not say that we are the only moral and spiritual beings in the midst of so many worlds. We do not know, but we may accept the probability that God has created beings capable of adoring and loving Him everywhere. But we do say—and science combines with Scripture to compel us to say—that these worlds have been in part created for us, just as our world has been in part created for them. This is clear. The most sceptical of men cannot venture to doubt it; nor do they. It is only needful that we should carefully observe in order to become convinced of this marvellous fact.
So much, then, for what nature teaches. The psalmist sought to learn the lesson, and it is right that we should seek to learn it too.