“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.