Bible Emblems

by Edward Eli Seelye

We are satisfied that the only basis of man’s improvement lies in his dependence upon almighty power. The only rock on which he can ever be satisfied to rest, is the Rock that is higher than he. If ever his condition is bettered, it must be by some agency outside of himself. If ever he is to reach a heaven of perfection and of blessedness, he must be drawn thither by a heavenly power.

We confess we expect very little from all the flattering theories of self-dependence and self-development. We are tired of the endless talk of man’s noble and sublime endowments, and his vast capacities for reaching his ultimate perfection. We turn away from much that is uttered under the guise of religion, which is little else than a ringing of perpetual changes on the progressive energy of human nature, and which utterly ignores the need of divine grace, while it teaches man to make himself a seraph. Very empty is it all to us—this godless humanitarianism, discoursing perpetually upon human progress, while it says not a word about man’s dependence upon any thing above himself.

It may please the multitude to tell them that they must look solely to themselves for all the resources of a higher life. It tickles the vanity of men to preach to them of the virtues of self-reliance, and to exhort them with high-sounding oratory to cultivate their manhood, and follow the higher instincts of their nature; to bid them behave worthy of themselves, to find the true law of their being in their own self-hood, and to rely upon the strength of their own spiritual muscle to climb to the higher regions of spiritual perfection. Men love to hear it. They listen readily to the voice of such charmers. It flatters their pride. It deifies their manhood. It gets rid of all those humbling notions of dependence upon God’s power. It does away with all such useless exercises as prayer and supplication. It tells men to be true to themselves, to kindle the sparks of their own manhood, and walk in the light of them, while it says nothing of a “Rock which is higher than they.”

Grand as such teachings may seem to many, they sound very sad to the Christian: sad, because they are not true; sad, because they are as delusive as they are flattering.

According to all these theories, man is directed to himself for his own salvation and improvement. Nature, and not grace, must save him. He is his own rock on which he must build. He has no object above himself to look to. His god is his own developed humanity. What then is there for him to hold fellowship and communion with higher than himself? What is there to draw him upward; what to excite him to action? How can he rise above his own level? On what ladder will he plant his feet, and what object will attract his gaze and nerve him to exertion?

With nothing outside of himself and above himself to look to, you shut him up to grovel in the dust. Without the law of a higher attraction influencing him, man, with all his ambitious pretensions, will stay where he is. It is only when the sun is in the heavens, scattering its warm beams over the world, that the ocean sends up from its bosom its tribute to the sky. Destroy this solar attraction, and no particle of moisture would rise above the surface.

So the human soul aspires to something above itself, in obedience to the law of spiritual attraction which is beyond itself. Isolate it from God, who is far above it, turn away its thoughts from any rock higher than it, bid it look perpetually inward and never outward and upward, and you have doomed it to despair.

“Is it not strange,” remarks the earnest and profound John Foster, “to observe how carefully some philosophers, who deplore the condition of the world and profess to expect its melioration, keep their speculations clear of any idea of Divine interposition? No builders of houses or cities were ever more attentive to guard against the access of flood or fire. If He should but touch their prospective theories of improvement, they would renounce them as defiled, and fit only for vulgar fanaticism. No time is too long to wait, no cost too deep to incur, for the triumph of proving that we have no need of a Divinity regarded as possessing that one attribute which makes it delightful to acknowledge such a Being—the benevolence which would make us happy.

“But even if this noble self-sufficiency cannot be realized, the independence of spirit which has labored for it must not sink at last into piety. This afflicted world, ‘this poor terrestrial citadel of man,’ is to lock its gates, and keep its miseries, rather than admit the degradation of receiving help from God.”

That religion which is taught us in the Bible, is the opposite of all the cruel mockeries of a godless philosophy. It tells of human progress. It bids us hope for a higher life. It cheers us with promises of deliverance and salvation. But it bids us “cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils,” and points us to a Cause above ourselves. It sounds no panegyrics upon our manhood. It talks not of nature’s doings, but of grace. It tells us not to trust ourselves, to rely upon our self-hood, but to consent to be helped by a divine power. It leads us not to ourselves, but to “the Rock that is higher” than we.