But then, is it thus that man came from his Maker's hands? Has He, who stamped His own perfection on all His works, permitted an awful hideous exception in the moral nature of man? Does human reason admit such a possible incongruity? No, indeed. Folly may claim license for its lusts in the plea of a nature received from a Creator. Haughty pride, on the other hand, may deny that nature altogether. The clearer, nobler, truer, philosophy of our writer justifies God, even in view of all the evil that makes him groan, and he says, "Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions."
Interesting as well as beautiful it is to hear this conclusion of man's reason, not at all in view of the exceeding riches of God's grace, but simply looking at facts, in the light that Nature gives. Man neither is, nor can be, an exception to the rule. God has made him upright. If not so now, it is because he has departed from this state, and his many inventions, or arts (as Luther translates the word significantly), his devices, his search after new things (but the word "inventions" expresses the thought of the original correctly), are so many proofs of dissatisfaction and unrest.
He may, in that pride, which turns everything to its own glory, point to these very inventions as evidences of his progress; and in a certain way they do unquestionably speak his intelligence and immense superiority over the lower creation. Yet the very invention bespeaks need; for most truthful is the proverb, "Necessity is the mother of invention"; and surely in the way of Nature necessity is not a glory, but a shame. Let him glory in his inventions, then; and his glory is in his shame. Adam in his Eden of delights, upright, content, thought never of invention. He took from God's hand what God gave, with no need to make calls upon his own ingenuity to supply his longings. The fall introduces the inventive faculty, and human ingenuity begins to work to overcome the need, of which now, for the first time, man becomes aware; but we hear no singing in connection with that first invention of the apron of fig-leaves. That faculty has marked his path throughout the centuries. Not always at one level, or ever moving in one direction,—it has risen and fallen, with flow and ebb, as the tides; now surging upward with skillful "artifice in brass and iron," and to the music of "harp and organ," until it aims at heaven itself, and the Lord again and again interposes and abases by flood and scattering,—now ebbing, till apparently extinct in the low-sunken tribes of earth. Its activity is the accompaniment usually of the light that God gives, and which man takes, and turns to his own boasting, with no recognition of the Giver, calling it "civilization." The Lord's saints are not, for the most part, to be found amongst the line of inventors. The seed of Cain, and not the seed of Seth, produces them. The former make the earth their home, and naturally seek to beautify it, and make it comfortable. The latter, with deepest soul-thirst, quenched by rills of living water springing not here; with heart-longings satisfied by an infinite, tender, divine Love, pass through the earth strangers and pilgrims, to the Rest of God.
Let us glance forward a little. The Church is not found on earth; but the earth still is the scene of man's invention; and with that surpassing boast "opposing and exalting himself above all that is called God, or is worshiped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God showing himself that he is God," he heads up his wickedness and ingenuity together, in calling down fire from heaven and in making "the image of the beast to breathe." (Rev. xiii. 14, 15.) 'Tis his last crowning effort,—his day is over,—and the flood and the scattering of old shall have their awful antitype in an eternal judgment and everlasting abasing.
But the heavenly saints have been caught up to their home. Is there invention there? Does human ingenuity still work? How can it, if every heart is fully satisfied, and nothing can be improved? But then is all at one dead level? No, surely; for "discovery" shall abide when "invention" has vanished away,—constant, never-ceasing "discovery." The unfoldings, hour by hour, and age by age, of a Beauty that is infinite and inexhaustible,—the tasting a new and entrancing perfection in a Love in which every moment shows some fresh attraction, some new sweet compulsion to praise!
Discovery is already "ours," my reader—not invention; and each day, each hour, each moment, may be fruitful in discovery. Every difficulty met in the day's walk may prove but its handmaid; every trial in the day's path serve but to bring out new and happy discoveries. Nay, even grief and sorrow shall have their sweet discoveries, and open up to sight fountains of water hitherto altogether unknown, as with the outcast Egyptian mother in the wilderness of Paran, till we learn to glory in what hitherto was our sorrow, and to welcome infirmities and ignorance, for they show us a spring of infinite Strength and a fountain of unfathomable Wisdom, that eternal Love puts at our service! Oh, to grow in Faith's Discoveries!
Philip had a grand opportunity for "discovery," in the sixth of John; but, poor man, he lost it; for he fell back on creature resources, or, in other words, "Invention." Brought face to face with difficulty, how good it would have been for him to have said, "Lord Jesus, I am empty of wisdom, nor have I any resources to meet this need; but my heart rests in Thee: I joy in this fresh opportunity for Thee to display Thy glory, for thou knowest what Thou wilt do." Oh, foolish Philip, to talk of every one having a little, in that Presence of infinite Love, infinite Power. Do I thus blame him? Then let this day see me looking upward at every difficulty, and saying "Lord, Thou knowest what Thou wilt do."
The morning breaks, my heart awakes,
And many thoughts come crowding o'er me,—
What hopes or fears, what smiles or tears
Are waiting in that path before me?
Am I to roam afar from home,
By Babel's streams, in gloom despondent?
On sorrow's tree must my harp be
To grief's sad gusts alone respondent?
The mists hang dank, on front and flank,
My straining eye can naught discover;
But well I know that many a foe
Around that narrow path doth hover.