But now let us search out the fault of the Jews, who were deluded by revelation, and blinded by partial light. They were told that these great things would be: they were bidden to prepare to receive them. Forthwith they decided in their own minds how and in what way God would bring them about; they gave form and shape to those indistinct half-seen masses after the pattern and desire of their own vain hearts; they decided that God would give them the exact reality of their own carnal dreams; they prepared their heart therefore to receive its own interpretation, and shut it close against any other. And so when the course of time brought them close to that which their fancy in the twilight had thus disguised, they could not recognise it, they refused to believe it: they passed on beyond it, still searching after the unreal fabric of their own imagination; and even now, while the twilight seems deepening to darkness about them, they go on and on across the blank desert, seeking those gigantic hopes which have already, could they but believe it, been much more than fulfilled.
“Oh, say, in all the bleak expanse,
Is there a spot to win your glance,
So bright, so dark as this?
A hopeless faith, a homeless race,
Yet seeking the most holy place,
And owning the true bliss!”
That this was not God’s doing, but the result of their own impatience, and of the earthliness of their own hearts, we have abundant proof. In that light, neither clear nor dark, there were those who were content to wait until God Himself should reveal the manner of those great things that He had foreshadowed; many died thus implicitly waiting; some, with Elizabeth, and Simeon, and holy Anna, departed in peace, their eyes having just seen His salvation. They had by diligent use of the light they had, attained to a more spiritual understanding of prophecy; and so to them was fulfilled that saying, “Unto you that have shall more be given.”
But have we not passed out of the twilight even now that Christ’s fuller revelation has come? No: for, I take it, still, while we live here, do we walk in the dusk; it is with us waiting still for the grand indistinct objects of prophecy to assume a definite outline as we draw near to them; it is the passing on in a twilight march, contemplating the attained reality of one dim foreshadowing, and straightway looking up to see before us the gigantic distant form of another, awful in its dimness and uncertainty.
Is not this what the Great Teacher would have us learn when He declares that the spirit of a little child is the right and necessary spirit for those who would receive the kingdom of God? In these mighty mysteries we are to be content to be children now, not yet men: it is to be twilight here; noon hereafter. How it saddens me, then, sitting in the twilight and waiting for the wonderful panorama of morning; how it saddens me to hear the loud talk nowadays of our attained manhood—of our possessed noon. Nowadays, forsooth, we are so full grown, have such clear light, that we are to handle doubts familiarly, and to decide at once concerning that which God has but half revealed; and to reject what we cannot understand, and to deny that which we cannot define. Man’s reason—methought that, at present, it had to work in the sphere of the twilight; but this idea is by some rejected with scorn, and they would fain persuade us that it is already placed in the full blaze of day. The “province of reason,” we hear great talk of this; and yet now let me ask what really is the true province of reason? Is it, can it be, to determine and decide, to fathom and understand concerning the deep and mysterious ways of God, and His counsel secret to us and past finding out? One would think so, to see men casting overboard this and that revealed truth because they cannot understand it in the twilight, or because it will not piece in with that creation of their own fancy, which they would substitute for our revealed God. Yet to me it seems that we have not the material, the data, for such an exercise of reason; we have not revelation enough for this; the light is too dim.
No, as we sit here in the twilight it seems to me that the province of reason is not to be straining its eyes to map out the huge mysteries which still lie in the dim distance; and to declare that those masses are shapeless, whose shape it cannot trace. Is it not rather to consider and to decide concerning those things which are placed within its scope? To satisfy itself as to our Guide, as to the reliability of the proofs of His being really what He claims to be; to search whether these things be so, and then implicitly to follow that Guide through uncertainty into certainty, out of the twilight into the clear day? This is not to fetter reason, to cramp thought. It is merely to confine it to its legitimate sphere. It is to acknowledge ourselves now in the dusk, but expecting the full morning; to own ourselves children now, but children who will one day be men.
Are we not little children here; our very reason doubtless in its twilight; probably as unable—even were they explained to us—to take in God’s counsels, as a child just capable of an addition-sum would be unable to master and understand the science of astronomy? Would anyone who considered wisely of these things, even wish that this present state should be our manhood? Oh, low view to take of man’s magnificent destiny! What? This all? To-day’s blunders food for to-morrow’s corrections; schemes of science changing every year; nothing certain, nothing known? Are we to grow no bigger in knowledge, are we to grow no bigger in capacity, than this? Is such dim twilight really our full day? Ah, dreary prospect then, mournful lot! But away with so mean a view of man’s future; with such a cramping of man’s reason!
Little children are we, must we be, with regard to the stupendous plans and counsels of God, so long as we have no more than our present amount of Revelation. We may advance in the world’s knowledge, but we must be content to sit down in the twilight before God’s ways and counsels, still as listeners, still as learners, reverent, teachable, humble; little children still. How can it be otherwise? We hear of the boasted advance of education and knowledge; we hear of reason more cultivated, and thought more free to soar. All very well; but does this, can this touch the subject of which I speak? In acquiring any further knowledge of God’s hidden things, have we advanced at all? Is there in our possession any more material on which to set reason to work, than since the last Apostle wrote the last epistle? Have we advanced? can we advance? Must we not still be children, must we not still make the most of twilight, until, having grown to manhood, the full light bursts upon us in another world, and we see no more in an ænigma darkly, but face to face; know no more in part only, but even as we are known?
Oh, brother, doubting brother—if any such should hear this my talking out loud with myself—who waverest where thou shouldest stand firm, and art ready to let that slip, which thou shouldest keep in thy heart’s heart—wilt thou not take these words of the Wisest and Best of all, of a Teacher most mighty in intellect, most vast in knowledge; yea, who spake as never did man: wilt thou not say them to thy tossing soul, until there fall on it a great calm? A little child, a little child; that is the model for us here. Noon, one day; but now, twilight: men, hereafter; but here, children: called upon here not to explain and to fathom, but to listen and to believe. First, of course, let reason determine whether our Teacher be trustworthy; but, this decided, cannot we be content to be taught by Him? Toil on in the half-light, and the full light shall break on thee! Do the works, and thou shalt know of the doctrine, whether it be of God. Yea, but you say, this is none other than a leap in the dark. Before I feel the divinity of the doctrine, why should I do the works? What is my warrant, that I should do, before I know? This, O man, satisfy thyself as to thy Guide. Examine whether He be what He pretends to be. And then commit thyself to His guidance. Implicitly, entirely, like a child that likes to put his hand into his Father’s, because of the uncertain light.
Do, then, the works, on this warrant. Believe me, the doing them will make thy faith rock-firm. Is there not, I would ask the sceptic—is there not something in a simple child-like faith, leading to a holy angelic life, that brings the protest of a great reality against all your doubts and waverings? Watching such a quiet unearthly life, you feel, through all your shadows and questionings, that here, at least, is something real. While you have been making religion a series of puzzles, he has been making it a series of deeds. You studied Revelation in order to find out its difficulties; he studied it in order to learn its precepts, to learn how to live. And, depend upon it, he has thus gained a far deeper insight even into those unfathomable mysteries by his study than you can ever do by yours. Do: then thou shalt know much more even of the doctrine.