“I have more understanding than my teachers, for Thy testimonies
are my study; I am wiser than the aged, because I keep Thy
commandments.”—Psalm cxix. 99, 100.
In these words the Psalmist declares, that in consequence of having
obeyed God's commandments he had obtained more wisdom and understanding
than those who had first enlightened his ignorance, and were once more
enlightened than he. As if he said, “When I was a child, I was
instructed in religious knowledge by kind and pious friends, who told
me who my Maker was, what great things He had done for me, how much I
owed to Him, and how I was to serve Him. All this I learned from them,
and I rejoice that they taught it me: yet they did more; they set me in
the way to gain a knowledge of religious truth in another and higher
manner. They not only taught me, but trained me; they were careful that
I should not only know my duty, but do it. They obliged me to obey;
they obliged me to begin a religious course of life, which (praised be
God!) I have ever pursued; and this obedience to His commandments has
brought me to a clearer knowledge of His truth, than any mere
instruction could convey. I have been taught, not from without merely,
but from within. I have been taught by means of a purified heart, by a
changed will, by chastened reins, by a mortified appetite, by a bridled
tongue, by eyes corrected and subdued. 'I have more understanding than
my teachers, for Thy testimonies,' O Lord, 'are my study; I am wiser
than the aged, because I keep Thy commandments.'”
We may sometimes hear men say, “How do you know that the Bible is
true? You are told so in Church; your parents believed it; but might
they not be mistaken? and if so, you are mistaken also.” Now to this
objection it maybe answered, and very satisfactorily, “Is it then
nothing toward convincing us of the truth of the Gospel, that those
whom we love best and reverence most believe it? Is it against reason
to think that they are right, who have considered the matter most
deeply? Do we not receive what they tell us in other matters, though we
cannot prove the truth of their information; for instance, in matters
of art and science; why then is it irrational to believe them in
religion also? Have not the wisest and holiest of men been Christians?
and have not unbelievers, on the contrary, been very generally signal
instances of pride, discontent, and profligacy? Again, are not the
principles of unbelief certain to dissolve human society? and is not
this plain fact, candidly considered, enough to show that unbelief
cannot be a right condition of our nature? for who can believe that we
were intended to live in anarchy? If we have no good reason for
believing, at least we have no good reason for disbelieving. If you ask
why we are Christians, we ask in turn, Why should we not be Christians?
it will be enough to remain where we are, till you do what you never
can do—prove to us for certain, that the Gospel is not Divine; it is
enough for us to be on the side of good men, to be under the feet of
the Saints, to 'go our way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and to
feed our kids beside the shepherds' tent[1].'”
This would be quite a sufficient answer, had we nothing else to say;
but I will give another, and that in connexion with the text; I will
show you that the most unlearned Christian may have a very real and
substantial argument, an intimate token, of the truth of the Gospel,
quite independent of the authority of his parents and teachers; nay,
that were all the world, even were his teachers, to tell him that
religion was a dream, still he would have a good reason for believing
it true.
This reason, I say, is contained in the text—“I have more
understanding than the aged, because I keep Thy commandments.”
By obeying the commands of Scripture, we learn that these commands
really come from God; by trying we make proof; by doing we come to
know. Now how comes this to pass? It happens in several ways.
1. Consider the Bible tells us to be meek, humble, single-hearted,
and teachable. Now, it is plain that humility and teachableness are
qualities of mind necessary for arriving at the truth in any subject,
and in religious matters as well as others. By obeying Scripture, then,
in practising humility and teachableness, it is evident we are at least
in the way to arrive at the knowledge of God. On the other hand,
impatient, proud, self-confident, obstinate men, are generally wrong in
the opinions they form of persons and things. Prejudice and
self-conceit blind the eyes and mislead the judgment, whatever be the
subject inquired into. For instance, how often do men mistake the
characters and misconstrue the actions of others! how often are they
deceived in them! how often do the young form acquaintances injurious
to their comfort and good! how often do men embark in foolish and
ruinous schemes! how often do they squander their money, and destroy
their worldly prospects! And what, I ask, is so frequent a cause of
these many errors as wilfulness and presumption? The same thing happens
also in religious inquiries. When I see a person hasty and violent,
harsh and high-minded, careless of what others feel, and disdainful of
what they think,—when I see such a one proceeding to inquire into
religious subjects, I am sure beforehand he cannot go right—he will
not be led into all the truth—it is contrary to the nature of things
and the experience of the world, that he should find what he is
seeking. I should say the same were he seeking to find out what to
believe or do in any other matter not religious,—but especially in any
such important and solemn inquiry; for the fear of the Lord
(humbleness, teachableness, reverence towards Him) is the very
beginning of wisdom, as Solomon tells us; it leads us to think over
things modestly and honestly, to examine patiently, to bear doubt and
uncertainty, to wait perseveringly for an increase of light, to be slow
to speak, and to be deliberate in deciding.
2. Consider, in the next place, that those who are trained carefully
according to the precepts of Scripture, gain an elevation, a delicacy,
refinement, and sanctity of mind, which is most necessary for judging
fairly of the truth of Scripture.
A man who loves sin does not wish the Gospel to be true, and
therefore is not a fair judge of it; a mere man of the world, a selfish
and covetous man, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, is, from a sense of
interest, against that Bible which condemns him, and would account that
man indeed a messenger of good tidings of peace who could prove to him
that Christ's doctrine was not from God. “Every one that doeth evil
hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be
reproved[2].” I do not mean to say that such men necessarily reject the
word of God, as if we could dare to conclude that all who do not reject
it are therefore sure to be not covetous, drunkards, extortioners, and
the like; for it is often a man's interest not openly to reject it,
though it be against him; and the bulk of men are inconsistent, and
have some good feelings left, even amid their sins and vices, which
keep them from going all lengths. But, while they still profess to
honour, at least they try to pervert and misinterpret Scripture, and
that comes to the same thing. They try to persuade themselves that
Christ will save them, though they continue in sin; or they wish to
believe that future punishment will not last for ever; or they conceive
that their good deeds or habits, few and miserable as they are at best,
will make up for the sins of which they are too conscious. Whereas such
men as have been taught betimes to work with God their Saviour—in
ruling their hearts, and curbing their sinful passions, and changing
their wills—though they are still sinners, have not within them that
treacherous enemy of the truth which misleads the judgments of
irreligious men.
Here, then, are two very good reasons at first sight, why men who
obey the Scripture precepts are more likely to arrive at religious
truth, than those who neglect them; first, because such men are
teachable men; secondly, because they are pure in heart; such shall see
God, whereas the proud provoke His anger, and the carnal are His
abhorrence.
But to proceed. Consider, moreover, that those who try to obey God
evidently gain a knowledge of themselves at least; and this may be
shown to be the first and principal step towards knowing God. For let
us suppose a child, under God's blessing, profiting by his teacher's
guidance, and trying to do his duty and please God. He will perceive
that there is much in him which ought not to be in him. His own natural
sense of right and wrong tells him that peevishness, sullenness,
deceit, and self-will, are tempers and principles of which he has cause
to be ashamed, and he feels that these bad tempers and principles are
in his heart. As he grows older, he will understand this more and more.
Wishing, then, and striving to act up to the law of conscience, he will
yet find that, with his utmost efforts, and after his most earnest
prayers, he still falls short of what he knows to be right, and what he
aims at. Conscience, however, being respected, will become a more
powerful and enlightened guide than before; it will become more refined
and hard to please; and he will understand and perceive more clearly
the distance that exists between his own conduct and thoughts, and
perfection. He will admire and take pleasure in the holy law of God, of
which he reads in Scripture; but he will be humbled withal, as
understanding himself to be a continual transgressor against it. Thus
he will learn from experience the doctrine of original sin, before he
knows the actual name of it. He will, in fact, say to himself, what St.
Paul describes all beginners in religion as saying, “What I would, that
do I not; but what I hate, that do I. I delight in the law of God after
the inward man, but I see another law in my members, warring against
the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity. I know that in my
flesh dwelleth no good thing[3].” The effect of this experience will be
to make him take it for granted, as an elementary truth, that he cannot
gain heaven for himself; to make him feel himself guilty before God;
and to feel, moreover, that even were he admitted into the Divine
presence, yet, till his heart be (so to say) made over again, he cannot
perfectly enjoy God. This, surely, is the state of self-knowledge;
these are the convictions to which every one is brought on, who
attempts honestly to obey the precepts of God. I do not mean that all
that I have been saying will necessarily pass through his mind, and in
the same order, or that he will be conscious of it, or be able to speak
of it, but that on the whole thus he will feel.
When, then, even an unlearned person thus trained—from his own
heart, from the action of his mind upon itself, from struggles with
self, from an attempt to follow those impulses of his own nature which
he feels to be highest and noblest, from a vivid natural perception
(natural, though cherished and strengthened by prayer, natural, though
unfolded and diversified by practice, natural, though of that new and
second nature which God the Holy Ghost gives), from an innate, though
supernatural perception of the great vision of Truth which is external
to him (a perception of it, not indeed in its fulness, but in glimpses,
and by fits and seasons, and in its persuasive influences, and through
a courageous following on after it, as a man in the dark might follow
after some dim and distant light)—I say, when a person thus trained
from his own heart, reads the declarations and promises of the Gospel,
are we to be told that he believes in them merely because he has been
bid believe in them? Do we not see he has besides this a something in
his own breast which bears a confirming testimony to their truth? He
reads that the heart is “deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked[4],” and that he inherits an evil nature from Adam, and that he
is still under its power, except so far as he has been renewed. Here is
a mystery; but his own actual and too bitter experience bears witness
to the truth of the declaration; he feels the mystery of iniquity
within him. He reads, that “without holiness no man shall see the
Lord[5];” and his own love of what is true and lovely and pure,
approves and embraces the doctrine as coming from God. He reads, that
God is angry at sin, and will punish the sinner, and that it is a hard
matter, nay, an impossibility, for us to appease His wrath. Here,
again, is a mystery: but here, too, his conscience anticipates the
mystery, and convicts him; his mouth is stopped. And when he goes on to
read that the Son of God has Himself come into the world in our flesh,
and died upon the Cross for us, does he not, amid the awful
mysteriousness of the doctrine, find those words fulfilled in him which
that gracious Saviour uttered, “And I, if I be lifted up from the
earth, will draw all men unto Me”? He cannot choose but believe in Him.
He says, “O Lord, Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed.”
Here then, I say, he surely possesses an evidence perfectly distinct
from the authority of superiors and teachers; like St. Paul, he is in
one way not taught of men, “but by the revelation of Jesus Christ[6].”
Others have but bid him look within, and pray for God's grace to be
enabled to know himself; and the more he understands his own heart, the
more are the Gospel doctrines recommended to his reason. He is assured
that Christ does not speak of Himself, but that His word is from God.
He is ready, with the Samaritan woman, to say to all around him, “Come,
see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the
Christ[7]?” Or, again, in the words which the Samaritans of the same
city used to the woman after conversing with Christ; “Now we believe,
not because of thy saying” (not merely on the authority of friends and
relatives), “for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is
indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.”
The Bible, then, seems to say,—God is not a hard master to require
belief, without affording grounds for believing; only follow your own
sense of right, and you will gain from that very obedience to your
Maker, which natural conscience enjoins, a conviction of the truth and
power of that Redeemer whom a supernatural message has revealed; do but
examine your thoughts and doings; do but attempt what you know to be
God's will, and you will most assuredly be led on into all the truth:
you will recognize the force, meaning, and awful graciousness of the
Gospel Creed; you will bear witness to the truth of one doctrine, by
your own past experience of yourselves; of another, by seeing that it
is suited to your necessity; of a third, by finding it fulfilled upon
your obeying it. As the prophet says, “Bring ye” your offering “into
Mine house,” saith the Lord, “and prove Me now herewith, if I will not
open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there
shall not be room enough to receive it[8].”
My brethren, it is always reasonable to insist upon these subjects;
but it is peculiarly so in times when a spirit of presumptuous doubting
is in many places abroad. As many of us as live in the world must
expect to hear our faith despised, and our conscientious obedience
ridiculed; we must expect to be taunted and scorned by those who find
it much easier to attack another's creed than to state their own. A
little learning is a dangerous thing. When men think they know more
than others, they often talk for the sake of talking, or to show their
ability (as they think), their shrewdness and depth; and they speak
lightly of the All-Holy God, to gratify their empty self-conceit and
vanity. And often it answers no purpose to dispute with such persons;
for not having been trained up to obey their conscience, to restrain
their passions, and examine their hearts, they will assent to nothing
you can say; they will be questioning and arguing about every thing;
they have no common ground with you, and when they talk of religion
they are like blind persons talking of colours. If you urge how great a
gift it is to be at peace with God, or of the arduousness and yet
desirableness of perfection, or the beauty of saintliness, or the
dangerousness of the world, or the blessedness of self-control, or the
glory of virginity, or the answers which God gives to prayer, or the
marvellousness and almost miraculousness of His providences, or the
comfort of religion in affliction, or the strength given you over your
passions in the Most Holy Sacrament, such persons understand you not at
all. They will laugh, they will scoff, at best they will wonder: any
how what you say is no evidence to them. You cannot convince
them, because you differ from them in first principles; it is not that
they start from the same point as you, and afterwards strike off in
some wayward direction; but their course is altogether distinct, they
have no point in common with you. For such persons then you can only
pray; God alone can bring down pride, self-conceit, an arrogant spirit,
a presumptuous temper; God alone can dissipate prejudice; God alone can
overcome flesh and blood. Useful as argument may be for converting a
man, in such cases God seldom condescends to employ it. Yet, let not
such vain or ignorant reasoners convert you to unbelief in great
matters or little; let them not persuade you, that your faith is built
on the mere teaching of fallible men; do not you be ridiculed out of
your confidence and hope in Christ. You may, if you will, have an
inward witness arising from obedience: and though you cannot make them
see it, you can see it yourselves, which is the great thing; and it
will be quite sufficient, with God's blessing, to keep you stedfast in
the way of life.
Lastly, let me remark how dangerous their state is who are content
to take the truths of the Gospel on trust, without caring whether or
not those truths are realized in their own heart and conduct. Such men,
when assailed by ridicule and sophistry, are likely to fall; they have
no root in themselves; and let them be quite sure, that should they
fall away from the faith, it will be a slight thing at the last day to
plead that subtle arguments were used against them, that they were
altogether unprepared and ignorant, and that their seducers prevailed
over them by the display of some little cleverness and human knowledge.
The inward witness to the truth lodged in our hearts is a match for the
most learned infidel or sceptic that ever lived: though, to tell the
truth, such men are generally very shallow and weak, as well as wicked;
generally know only a little, pervert what they know, assume false
principles, and distort or suppress facts: but were they as
accomplished as the very author of evil, the humblest Christian, armed
with sling and stone, and supported by God's unseen might, is, as far
as his own faith is concerned, a match for them. And, on the other
hand, the most acute of reasoners and most profound of thinkers, the
most instructed in earthly knowledge, is nothing, except he has also
within him the presence of the Spirit of truth. Human knowledge, though
of great power when joined to a pure and humble faith, is of no power
when opposed to it, and, after ail, for the comfort of the individual
Christian, it is of little value.
May we, then, all grow in heavenly knowledge, and, with that end,
labour to improve what is already given us, be it more or be it less,
knowing that “he that is faithful in little is faithful also in much,”
and that “to him that hath, more shall be given.”
[1] Cant. i. 8.
[2] John iii. 20.
[3] Rom. vii. 15, 18, 22, 23.
[4] Jer. xvii. 9.
[5] Heb. xii. 14.
[6] Gal. i. 12.
[7] John iv. 29.
[8] Mal. iii. 10.