LITERATURE. Blake (R. E.), Good News from Heaven, 18. Dewhurst (E. M.), The King and His Servants, 173. Gibson (J. M.), A Strong City, 181. Greenhough (J. G.), The Mind of Christ in St. Paul, 77. Hodge (C.), Princeton Sermons, 358. Hopkins (E. H.), Hidden yet Possessed, 1. Horton (R. F.), The Trinity, 21. Houchin (J. W.), The Vision of God, 132. Inge (W. R.), All Saints' Sermons, 92. Lockyer (T. F.), Inspirations of the Christian Life, 44. Voices of the Spirit, 158. Moore (E. W.), Life Transfigured, 87. Morris (W.), in The Welsh Pulpit of To-Day, 396. Murray (A.), The Spirit of Christ, 214. Paget (E. C.), Silence, 130. Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, iv. 249. Robertson (F. W.), Sermons, i. 1 ; iii. 26. Shedd (W. G. T.), Sermons to the Spiritual Man, 315. Shelford (L. E.), By Way of Remembrance, 184. Spurgeon (C. H.), New Park Street Pulpit, ii. (1856), No. 56. Temple (F.), Rugby Sermons, iii. 236. Westcott (B. F.), The Historic Faith, 142. Cambridge Review, iii., Supplement No. 56 (Moule). Christian World Pulpit, xii. 273 (Chown); xxix. 360 (Wickham); xxxii. 193 (Westcott); xxxviii. 424 (Ferrier); lxii. 12 (Hall); lxxx. 150 Churchman's Pulpit, Sixth Sunday after Trinity; x. 430 (Shelford). THINGS PREPARED FOR Love. But as it is written, Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, 1 Cor. ii. 9. NOWHERE in the Old Testament are these words literally found. But the source of the quotation is undoubtedly the passage, Isa. lxiv. 4 combined with lxv. 17: "Men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen a God beside thee, which worketh for him that waiteth for him ..."; and, "The former things shall not be remembered, nor come into mind." Similar combinations of several prophetic quotations are not rare in St. Paul's writings. The context of the verse is the assertion of the Apostle that there is about the Gospel a hidden wisdom, an inner truth; and that this truth was invisible to the minds of those who rejected and crucified the Saviour; for, had they seen it, they would not have crucified Him. And then comes in the text, to prove that such blindness of the soul was recognized long before in the Old Testament Scriptures as a mystery and a fact. The blindness of those who slew the Lord did but answer to what "was written" -that solemn formula of final appeal with the Apostles and their Master. Isaiah had spoken of the acts of God in redeeming mercy as things beyond the reach of à priori discovery by human senses, and reason, and imagination. Man could receive them when revealed; there was that in man which could respond to them when revealed; but for that revelation there was needed the action of the Divine Spirit on the spirit of man. No record of facts, no witness of phenomena, without the special action of the Holy Spirit, could bring them home to the heart. But to Christian believers, to St. Paul and his disciples, they were brought home. And it was so, not because their eyes or ears were keener than those of the Lord's executioners, or because their hearts were more imaginative or more sympathetic, but because the Holy Ghost had unveiled to them this wisdom, this esoteric wisdom and glory of the ways of God. The Apostle's quotation of the Prophet plainly refers to the whole gift of salvation, not only to the bright eternal future of the saved. The words cannot indeed exclude the thought of the glories of heaven, which assuredly senses have not seen, nor imagination conceived, but which God has prepared for them that love Him. But neither can they exclude the wonders of grace on earth; which equally are things of eternal plan and preparation. I. THE THINGS OF GOD ARE NOT REVEALED TO THE NATURAL MAN. "Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not into the heart of man." To 1. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." The preaching of the Apostle Paul was rejected by numbers in the cultivated town of Corinth. It was not wise enough or eloquent enough, nor was it sustained by miracles. The man of taste found it barbarous; the Jew missed the signs and wonders which he looked for in a new dispensation; and the rhetorician missed the convincing arguments of the Schools. all this the Apostle was content to reply that his judges were incompetent to try the question. The princes of this world might judge in a matter of politics; the leaders in the world of literature were qualified to pronounce on a point of taste; the counsellors of this world to weigh an amount of evidence. But in matters spiritual they were as unfit to judge as a man without ear is to decide respecting harmony; or a man, judging alone by sensation, is fit to supersede the higher truth of science by an appeal to his own estimate of appearances. The world, to sense, seems stationary. To the eye of reason it moves with lightning speed, and the cultivation of reason alone can qualify for an opinion on the matter. The judgment of the senses is worth nothing in such matters. For every kind of truth a special capacity or preparation is indispensable. 2. By the natural man is meant the ordinary faculties of man; and it is said of these that they cannot discover spiritual truth. By combining the three terms seeing, hearing, and entering into the heart, the Apostle wishes to designate the three names of natural knowledge: sight, or immediate experience; hearing, or knowledge by way of tradition; finally, the inspirations of the heart, the discoveries of the understanding proper. By none of these means can man reach the conception of the blessings which God has destined for him. i. The Eye. 1. Eternal truth is not perceived through the eye; it is not demonstrable to the senses. (1) God's works in nature give us wonderful pleasure. Let us not depreciate what God has given. There is a rapture in gazing on this wonderful world. There is a joy in contemplating the manifold forms in which the All Beautiful has concealed His essence the Living Garment in which the Invisible has robed His mysterious loveliness. In every aspect of Nature there is joy; whether it be the purity of virgin morning, or the sombre grey of a day of clouds, or the solemn pomp and majesty of night; whether it be the chaste lines of the crystal, or the waving outline of distant hills, tremulously visible through dim vapours; the minute petals of the fringed daisy, or the overhanging form of mysterious forests. It is a pure delight to see. But all this is bounded. The eye can reach only the finite Beautiful. And the fairest beauty is perishable. (2) Art has many devotees. The highest pleasure of sensation comes through the eye. He whose eye is so refined by discipline that he can repose with pleasure upon the serene outline of beautiful form has reached the purest of the sensational raptures. The Corinthians could appreciate this. Theirs was the land of beauty. They read the Apostle's letter, surrounded by the purest conceptions of Art. In the orders of architecture, the most richly graceful of all columnar forms receives its name I COR.-4 |