The blind spot and other sermons

II

" In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land: Whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance." — IJasisfr xix. 23-25.

Ill

" Nevertheless they shall be his servants; that they may know My service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries." — 2 Cferon. xii. 8.

IV Sanctification : Entire and Universal ... 57

" This is the law of the house; Upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house." — &aik. xliii. 12.

vi CONTENTS

V

PAGE

"He left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses."— Uoafeua xi. 15.

VI White Already 83

"Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest ? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields ; for they are white already to harvest." — ifofcn iv. 35.

VII Palms and Willows 101

" Ye shall take you on the first day . . . branches of palm trees, . . . and willows of the brook ; and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days."—%tb, xxiii. 40.

VIII The Secret of Strength 115

" In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David ; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the Lord before them."—%tt\. xii. 8.

IX Spirituality and Civilization 135

"God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy" — i SKm. vi. 17.

X

11 1 pray not that Thou should est take them out of the world but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil." — go^n xvii. 15. '

CONTENTS vii

XI

PAGE

"For every {each, R.V.) man shall beat his own burden." — ©al. vi. 5.

XII

The Primitive and the Perfected Man. . .183

"And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden ; and there He put the man whom He had formed."— (Sen. ii. 8.

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away ; and there was no more sea." — •jiUij. xxi. i. .

XIII

The Relation of the Spiritual to the Worldly

Life 201

Not slothful in business ; fervent in spirit ; serving the Lord. " — . xii. 11.

XIV The Liberty of Sin ... ... 213

" Therefore thus saith the Lord; Ye have not hearkened unto Me, in proclaiming liberty, every one to his b> other, and every man to his neighbour : behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine ; and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth." — JJtr. xxxiv. 17.

XV The Parthian Arrow 227

" For ye shall not go out with haste \ nor go by flight : . . . for the God of Israel will be your rereward." — JJssrialji Hi. 12.

viii CONTENTS

XVI

PAGE

"And it came tar Pass, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he rent his clothes {now he was passing by upon the wall) ; and the people looked, and, behold, he had sackcloth within upon his flesh. — 2 ^ittjjs vi. 30.

XVII The Aim of Life 255

" She remembereth not her last end ; there/ore she came down wonderfully : she had no comforter." — jCmn. i. 9.

XVIII The Fictions of Sin 267

"On their heads were as it were crowns like gold." — $tb. ix. 7.

B.S B

" Having no part dark. " — Luke ad. 36.

HAVING the whole being illuminated, walking in the fulness of the light — this is the special point of the text. How many of us realise the splendid privilege ? Many are wholly blind concerning spiritual realities, and many believers see only imperfectly, intermittently, partially. Of these latter we now propose to speak. We notice :

I

The fact of this partial appreciation of Divine truth. We all know how common it is for men to have a large appreciation of the truth of Christ, and yet to have dark parts in their understanding and heart. Christian people, who in the main are very good and wise, sometimes startle us by their partial and inadequate realisation of the knowledge of Christ.

I. We see this limitation of view in the system of doctrine held by various believers. Take the Calvinist view of the Divine government. Surely the stern, arbitrary view of the government of God as set forth by the thorough-going Calvinist is not a just and full statement of the glorious fact. The world owes much to the Calvinists ; they saw very clearly certain great truths and held those truths most loyally ; yet we feel sure that they did not see the whole truth — there was a dark place in their understanding, a black spot in their creed. Take the Catholic view of the Divine grace. That the redeeming God has imprisoned Himself within the Roman Catholic Church, that He can bless only through its sacraments, and that He can save only through its ministers and instrumentalities. Whatever may be good and true in such a Church, we must conclude that its members fail to compass the orb of truth in its full round of rays complete. Take the Puritan view of the Divine service. The Puritans were great and noble men, they saw with open vision great truths of liberty and righteousness, we are largely their debtors ; but when we observe how severe and sombre the service of God appears in much of their theology, we are sure that they did not fully apprehend the gospel of the glory of the happy God. And so, dear brethren, as we see other believers imperfectly apprehending the truth, there may exist a similar limitation in ourselves touching our interpretation of the Divine character, government or purpose. At this very moment some weakness or fault of our nature may be making us blind to glorious aspects of the Christian creed.

THE BLIND SPOT s

2. We see this limitation of view in the conception of duty formed by various believers. We all know Christians who, whilst unexceptionable in many respects, suffer from an unaccountable inadequacy of view in regard to specific morals and given branches of duty. Very defective is their conception of justice, of charity, of temperance, of honesty, of humanity, of patience, humility, gratitude, or forgiveness. They see sharply enough certain features and bearings of the truth, but other aspects and applications of the law equally essential and obligatory are quite overlooked. It is sometimes found that an artist has an excellent eye for form and outline, whilst he is, if not wholly colour-blind, seriously wanting in the sense of colour. And just so in moral life. Men will immediately recognise the obligation and delight of one phase of duty, whilst they are comparatively blind to another phase equally imperative and delightful. The unequally gifted artist makes a good sculptor, but a bad painter ; and Christian men and women who are shining examples in one direction are often painful admonitions in another.

Ah ! painfully wanting indeed. Goethe said : " If a great man has a dark place in his mind, it is very dark." We may change a word here, and say : if a good man has a dark place in his mind, it is apt to be very dark. " Who is so blind as the perfect ? " Did not Whitefield maintain that the rum trade was essential to the prosperity of America? Did not

John Newton testify that he enjoyed sweet seasons with God whilst he was engaged in the slave trade ? Does not Wendell Phillips tell how at the death of a Southern slave-holding saint his estate was sold by auction and advertised thus : " A plantation ; a library, chiefly theological ; twenty-seven negroes, some of them very prime ; two mules, one horse, and an old wagon " ? A dark corner here, verily, despite the library, chiefly theological. And so in daily life we continually meet with instances of glaring and grotesque inconsistency. We are again and again perplexed to find men who in the main are illuminated, sensitive, accurate, yet distressingly blind in some particular touching character and duty. We suffer strange confusions, miss cardinal colours out of the chromatic scale ; our bodily eye does, our conscience does. Consider :

II

The causes of this partial illumination. What is the reason that Christian men fail to see the whole truth, that they lapse into deplorable errors, that they overlook directions and duties as clear to others as the noon-day ? Is the reason found in some necessary limitation of the moral sense? Men's intellectual powers are always partial and imperfect ; there is no such thing as absolute genius, the beholding with open vision the universality of things, and it may be thought that there is a corresponding necessary qualification of the faculty of the individual conscience. We have seen that the sculptor who appreciates form is sometimes constitutionally incapable of appreciating colour, and it may be inferred that we are liable to suffer from a similar qualification of the moral genius. Now it is indeed impossible for any finite creature to comprehend, or see all round the infinite truths of righteousness, but it is possible for all to apprehend the whole truth, to sympathise with it in its catholicity, fulness, proportion, in its manifold beauty and splendour. No man as a philosopher may comprehend the whole truth of things, but every man may discern the moral law in all its versatility and wide-reaching, delicate applications. Christ tells us in the text that the eye is the lamp of the body, and so long as the eye is undiseased and uninjured we walk in light, but if the eye be impaired we walk in darkness and insecurity according to the degree of its imperfection ; so we have an inner organ of perception and illumination, the reason — the lamp of our highest life — and everything depends upon the integrity of this organ ; if it is sound and pure we walk in the light, but if it be injured, dark places appear in our mind, in our character, in our life.

The question arises, then, how may we injure the eyes of our moral understanding ?

1. It may be done by pride. It is difficult — nay, it is impossible — to see the fulness of the truth if we allow the warpings and discolorations of vanity, self-sufficiency and prejudice. Pride easily blinds us to the truths which most deeply and immediately concern us. We need, therefore, to beware of ecclesiastical bigotry, of theological prejudice, of intellectual prepossession and conceit. Humility, teachableness, susceptibility of soul, we must earnestly covet and pursue. The nobler souls are ever crying for the light. " That which I see not, teach Thou me." " Teach me Thy way, O Lord." " Teach me Thy statutes." " Teach me to do Thy will." Who are these suppliants for the clearer light ? Are they babes, simpletons, novices, ignoramuses, illiterate, inexperienced souls, with the least vision and enlightenment ? Surely not. They are the seers, the poets, the princes of the intellectual world, the masters of those who know, and it is precisely such royal souls as Moses, Job, Isaiah, David, Solomon, John, and Paul who are most conscious of imperfect knowledge, and who seek most passionately for the fuller all-illustrating light. If we live thus in simplicity of desire, in meekness of spirit, in all lowliness and openness of mind, praying that we may be filled with the riches of understanding, our whole body shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give us light.

2. It may be done by insincerity. " If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." If we have no other desire than to know and to do God's will, the whole field of life and duty will be illuminated, but any sympathy or aim which contradicts the glory of God injures our faculty of vision, and leads us into false ways. The love of money is a cause of blindness, creating strange refractions, distortions and eclipses. The young man said unto Jesus : " All these things have I kept from my youth up ; what lack I yet ? " Jesus said unto him : " If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow Me." The young man saw much, but he could not see this. Of all the dust thrown in men's eyes none is more blinding than gold dust. " So they took the money, and did as they were taught." The cotton fields of the Southern States were the gold fields of America, and therefore the Republic long failed to see the wrongfulness of slavery ; the revenue of the opium traffic makes it impossible for England to realise the monstrousness of the destroying trade. And in private life coveteousness works the same result, drawing a veil over the heart. The love of pleasure is a cause of blindness. Herod, it would seem, saw some great truths and felt the power of them, but when the Baptist said to him concerning Herodias : " It is not lawful for thee to have her," the king could not see that. Dazzled by forbidden things, we fail to see the beauty of that righteousness which comes io THE BLIND SPOT

between us and the objects of our irregular desire. The love of popularity is a cause of blindness. The Pharisees saw many truths distinctly, but when He came who was the Truth, they saw no beauty that they should desire Him. And Christ gives the reason for their tragical oversight : " How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only ? " We do not see the truths which cross our inclination. If the eye can see whate'er it will, it cannot see whate'er it does not will. The grand condition of seeing clearly throughout the whole circle of thought and responsibility is to have a supreme regard to the will of God, having no disturbing personal delights, ambitions or aims. Sincerity, love of the sunlight, is the first condition of clear vision. The single eye sees clearly, and sees all. 3. It may be done by disobedience. To be faithless to the truth we apprehend is to put out, in some degree at least, the eyes of our understanding. The habitual denial by the will for the sake of interested and vicious motives destroys the insight of the soul, and leaves the disobedient to stumble in the darkness. Our passions coarsen our spiritual sensibilities ; delicate nerves are atrophied, and transparent lenses rendered opaque by disuse ; our utilitarian interests make us short-sighted ; our worldly life through the years spoils the eye which beholds God and the things of His kingdom. The bright becomes in-

THE BLIND SPOT n

distinct, the great dwindles, the beautiful loses its magic. As Coventry Patmore says : " If we knew the secrets of the lives of those — alas ! innumerable — who seem to have no real apprehension of anything, none of the light which it is said lighteth every man that cometh into the world, it would probably be found that they have not been born without, but have forfeited their noblest human heritage by repeated practical denials of the things which they have seen." Yes, even so : they were not born without the faculty of seeing the invisible things, but the eagle's eye has been quenched, being persistently turned toward things selfish, coarse and unclean. And what we wish to recall here is, that even partial disobedience means more or less of blindness. What we must do if our intuitions are to be preserved clear, our sensibilities delicate, our wisdom large, is to pay ati equal regard to all the requirements of the law. "Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all Thy commandments." Here the Psalmist touches the essential point. We are partial within ourselves, picking and choosing as to what we shall do and leave undone, and defective apprehension and sympathy follow. Ready obedience to the law in all its exactions, ready obedience to grace in all its impulses, these are the conditions of universal insight and wisdom.

Then keep thy conscience sensitive, No inward token miss,

And go where grace entices thee ; Perfection lies in this.

To see clearly we must wish to see clearly. Amiel says : "The number of beings who wish to see truly is extraordinarily small." A startling affirmation, but one probably true. Men fail to see truly because they do not wish to see truly — it would cost too much, it would reveal a path they are not prepared to follow. Pride, insincerity, self-will, spoil our perspicuity, make us incapable of appreciating the truth in its manifoldness. There is forthwith a dark place in our heart, and our charity is chilled ; a dark place in our understanding, and our judgment is at fault ; a dark place in our conscience, and our conduct is wanting in consistency and blamelessness. Living in the spirit of humility, sincerity and obedience, we are sensitive to all the streaming light of Christ, our soul is filled with its translucence, and every step of our pathway is irradiated by the bright shining of the candle of the Lord.

Note finally,

III The evil significance of this defective enlightenment

I. It destroys peace. — The perfect peace which is the privilege of God's children is made impossible by these dark places. We sometimes say, " What the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve," but that is not true here — ignorance, error, and the faults which spring therefrom mean restlessness, discontent and sorrow. It is not only our positive obvious defects which breed misery, far more than we often think the hidden things of the heart determine the brightness or sadness of our experience. There is no greater joy than to walk in the truth, and every whit that we fall short of the truth implies that we fall equally short of full felicity. It is said that the spots upon the sun mean terrestrial confusion and disaster, and the dark places of the soul mean smitten and withered spaces in our thought and experience. We ask in perplexity : " Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me ? " but if we could trace many of our real yet vague experiences of wretchedness to their obscure origin, we should find that they take their rise in those places in our heart where the light does not shine.

2. It maims character. — Some little while ago we noticed a tree planted at the sunny end of a house, and there the blossoms were large and beautiful, it was a feast to the eyes ; but some of the branches were trained round the corner of the house, where they got so much less of the sun, and the difference was wonderful. The blossoms here were starved and sad, and there was tKe least promise of fruit ; there was the same root and the same stem, but whilst one part of the tree was in the full glorious light, the other branches were in the shade. Ah ! brethren, it is thus in character. The dark places mean unfruitful branches — strange weaknesses, distortions, immaturities, indirections, failures in practical life and conduct. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance " ; and if we are to bear all manner of precious fruit, and to bear each in its season, we must trustfully and joyfully lay open our whole soul to the full noon of God's light shining in the face of Jesus Christ. 3. It implies peril, — Here, where our mind is confused, our conscience hesitating, our feeling morbid, our will inoperative, the great danger of life lies. There is in the human eye a spot where the optic nerve enters, and which is known as the blind spot ; cricketers talk a good deal about this visual imperfection, for sooner or later the bowler finds out the blind spot, the batsman misjudges the ball, and his sport comes to an end. The devil plays for the blind spot, and if there is such a defect in our spirit, sooner or later he brings us into trouble. The blind spot in the natural eye is a necessary unavoidable physiological defect of which the brightest and most skilful athlete cannot rid himself; but morally and religiously no part of our nature need be dark, and we may successfully defend ourselves in every assault. If for any subtle self-serving we allow some bias of the mind, some prejudice which warps the judgment, some narrowness of charity, some inertia which obstructs conviction, some obliquity of aim, some deflection in action, we lay ourselves open to grievous losses and sorrows ; but if we walk in the light, as God is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.

It is our privilege to walk in the full light, to have our whole soul instructed and luminous. There is in nature a mollusc with eleven thousand eyes, and as the shell grows the eyes still multiply. Surely, men ought to be full of eyes, of inspirations, perceptions, sensibilities, so that they may realise truly and happily the vast bright universe of which they are the heirs. Let us be sure that whilst Christ promised to us the Spirit who should guide us into " the whole truth," we do not come short of the gracious promise. " Take heed, therefore."

" Take heed " to God's word. To see clearly we must test and strengthen our vision by revelation. " To the law and to the testimony : if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." How impossible it is to express the value of this standard and source of vision ! " What advantage then hath the Jew ? . . . Much every way : chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God." With diseased organs of sight, perplexed by dark and dancing shadows, it is a peculiarly precious thing to have this master light of all our seeing. By the aid of that most perfect scientific instrument, the ophthalmoscope, with its condensing mirror and myriad of little lenses, the oculist, in looking into a person's eye, sees spread before him a record of the action of many of the more important organs of the human economy. Not only is he by this means able to determine approximately the necessary strength of glass required to give perfect vision, but the existence of tumours pressing on the brain tissue, the condition of the general nervous system, the presence of disease in various organs, and the richness of the blood current are clearly traced on the sensitive plate of nature's camera. What the ophthalmoscope is to the oculist, enabling him to perceive the defects of the eye, and obscure defects of the system that the eye may indicate, revelation is to our higher nature, a test and criticism of supreme value. " For the word ot God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." If we wish to see clearly we must test and purge our vision thus. Here is the radical cure for cataract and colour-blindness. To see truly we must see light in God's light. After the dust and fog and mirage of a day in the city, it is a wonderful restorative to cleanse the eyes with the euphrasy of the Bible.

" Take heed " to your spirit and life. To see truly we must keep our soul in health. Our general health often determines our vision. If with our bodily eyes we are to see at our best, we must decline narcotics, abstain from intemperance, live in purity, maintain our strength and vigour. Seeing clearly is not a matter that stands apart from our general health, but it is the sign and consequence of bodily perfection. It is thus, too, with our superior nature. We must keep the soul in health if we are to see things as God sees them. The lustre of the eye is dependent upon the purity of the heart ; true seeing is the reward of true living.

Very precious indeed is the delicate sense of the scientist by which he apprehends the manifold action of sovereign law in the forms and movements of the physical sphere ; most delightful and wonderful is the fine insight of the sculptor, painter, and musician into the significance of form, colour, and sound ; more divine still is the vision of the poet beholding the light that never was on sea or shore : but most precious and blessed of all is that spiritual faculty by which we see the realities of the eternal world, that moral sense by which we discern the beauty and obligation of the law of righteousness, that moral sympathy which puts us into fellowship with the living God. " And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment, that ye may approve things that are excellent ; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ ; being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God."

B.S. C

" In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land : whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance." — Isaiah xix. 23-25.

II

WHATEVER may have been the immediate and exact application of this passage we need not stay to inquire, its grand teaching being sufficiently clear. The Egyptians were to the South, the Assyrians to the East, and Israel came between the two mighty peoples. For generations Egypt and Assyria were at deadly enmity, and it was a great disadvantage to Israel to find itself placed between these clashing empires. A buffer state may be useful, but it occupies a by no means pleasant situation. The text indicates, however, that a deep change is to come to pass. " The Egyptian shall serve with the Assyrian." That is, both of them shall serve Jehovah. The two mighty powers which have hitherto met only as foes are to meet in the worship of Jehovah. And in consequence of this, there is to be fellowship between them. Friendly intercourse is established, because both nations are converted to Jehovah. And the fact must not be overlooked that this international friendship is brought about by the little central state. The road of communication runs through Canaan. Israel has reached the grand end of its calling ; it becomes a blessing to the whole circuit of the earth. Of course, we see at a glance that this passage looks far beyond any immediate local realisation ; it is a noble prophecy, destined to find its full accomplishment in the latter days. In " that day," in the Messianic age, shall the ultimate fulfilment of this prediction be.

Let us seek to bring home to ourselves some of the teaching of this remarkable passage.

I

I observe, first, then, that it is God's purpose to

perfect the race through international intercourse and

friendship. The text represents the ideal condition

of things. It is not the purpose of God that the

nations should exist as so many hostile groups ;

hitherto this has been largely the case, but chronic

national antagonism is not heaven's design. Neither

js it the design of God respecting the various peoples

that they should dwell in a state of isolation. It

is manifestly the Divine purpose that the several

nations shall complete each other through sympathy

and reciprocity. Just as God binds the orbs of the

sky into magnificent musical systems, in which each

star still preserves its own orbit and movement and

colour, so does He, by many subtle chords, link together the scattered nations into harmonious constellations, into one vast and blessed brotherhood, each people still retaining the distinctive characteristics which are so precious to itself and to the race. Geography indicates this. The good things of nature are not all found in any one land ; they are distributed over the planet ; reciprocity is designed and necessitated by the very dispositions of soil and climate. We must voyage to China for tea, to Australia for wool, to America for cotton and wheat, to Africa for gold and diamonds, to the North for oil, to the South for silks and spices, and so on endlessly. Just as in nature the various flowers have their several nectars and perfumes to attract the bees and secure that cross-fertilisation which is essential to strength and fruitfulness, so God has given each land some special treasure that it may attract to itself different peoples, and secure that national intercourse which is essential to the fullest and highest civilisation. Ethnology also gives a reason for national sympathy and intercourse. No one national type includes all perfections. The