It is the property of all true knowledge, especially spiritual, to enlarge the soul by filling it; to enlarge it without swelling it; to make it more capable, and more earnest to know, the more it knows.—Bishop Sprat.

Ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing with which we fly to heaven.—Shakespeare.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: The name “Hottentot” originally referred to particular African, tribal people. It may be considered offensive. Dr. Miller does not use it as a compliment in his remarks.

This is a great text. We may expect great texts where there is a look of commonplace. The thought raises itself two stories at least in the respect of doctrine. He that, instead of fretting at that mysterious Providence of God that we call evil, enters into the deep experiences, and learns to value it as precious to his soul—that man loves light, or Gospel “knowledge.” That is the first story. But, now, he who takes a much wider view, and looks at all the gains from evil to the universe—how impossible would be high forms of knowledge, how utterly unconceived by anyone not Infinite, without the foil of either observed or experienced misery—that man acquiesces in all the evils that are seen in the creation, loving discipline because he loves knowledge, and acquiescing even in hell itself, because he suspects its absolute necessity in the providential system. Mourning over our griefs, which seems to be the work often of a refined and delicate nature, is here asserted to be “brutish.” He is but a Hottentot in the ways of the Almighty who does not see that the crushing of his hopes has been one of the tenderest methods of his redemption.—Miller.

He, and he only, that loves the means, loves the end. The means of knowledge are “instruction” in what is right, and “reproof” for what is wrong. He who is an enemy to either of these is an enemy to the end.—A. Fuller.

Is there any man so like a beast as not to love knowledge? Solomon tells us, that those who hate reproof are brutish. Let us, therefore, examine ourselves by this mark. . . . He is surely not a rational creature who has swallowed poison, and will rather suffer it to take its course than admit the necessary relief of medicine, lest he should be obliged to confess his folly in exposing himself to the need of it.—Lawson.

It was when Asaph recovered from that strange temptation, under the power of which he seemed to forget the eternity of man’s being, and to confine his estimate to the present life, that he exclaimed, “So foolish was I, and ignorant; I was as a beast before Thee” (Psa. lxxiii. 22). And the same comparison is repeatedly used respecting the ungodly. They sink themselves even below the level of the brutes, for they fulfil the ends of their being, under the impulse of their respective instincts and appetites; but the man who forgets his immortality and his God, does not fulfil the end of his. There may also be comprehended in the expression, the absence of what every rational creature ought to have—spiritual discernment and taste; the destitution of all right sentiment and feeling in reference to God and Divine things. This is the character of him whom Paul denominates the “natural” or animal “man,” who receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him.—Wardlaw.

The subject of Verse 2 has been treated in previous chapters. See Homiletics on chap. [iii. 1–4]; [xi. 21], etc.

outlines and suggestive comments.

Verse 2. Or “hath what he will of God.” Thus it is written of Luther, that by his prayers he could prevail with God at his pleasure. When gifts were offered him, he refused them with this brave speech, “I solemnly protested to God that I would not be put off with these low things.” And on a time praying for the recovery of a godly useful man, among other passages, he let fall this transcendent rapture of a daring faith, “Let my will be done,” and then falls off sweetly; “My will, Lord, because Thy will.” Blessed is he that hath what he will and wills nothing but what he should. If an evil thought haunt his heart, it is the devise of the man, he is not the man of such devices.—Trapp.