Verses 23-24
The Known and the Unknown
It is well that there should be an immeasurable and unknown quantity in life and in creation. Even the Unknown has its purposes to serve: rightly received, it will heighten veneration; it will reprove unholy ambition; it will teach man somewhat of what he is, of what he can do and can not do, and therefore may save him from the wasteful expenditure of a good deal of energy.
"Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out." All space leads up to the Infinite. There comes a time when men can measure no longer; they throw down their instrument, and say, This is useless: we are but adding cipher to cipher, and we can proceed no further: Space has run up into Infinity, and infinity cannot be measured. Nearly all the words, the greater words, that we use in our thinking and converse, run up into religious greatness. Take the word Time. We reckon time in minutes and hours, in days and weeks and months and years and centuries, and we have gone so far as to speak of millenniums; but we soon tire; arithmetic can only help us to a certain point. Here again we draw up the measuring line or calculating standard, and we say, It is useless, for Time has passed into Eternity. These are facts in philosophy and in science, in nature and in experience, Space rising into Infinity; Time ascending into Eternity: the foot of the ladder is upon earth, but the head of the ladder is lost in infinite distance. Take the word Love. To what uses we put it! We call it by tuneful names. it charms us, it dissipates our solitude, it creates for us companionship, interchange of thought, reciprocation of trust, so that one life helps another, completing it in a thousand ways, great or small. But there comes a point even in love where contemplation can go no further; there it rests yea, there it expires, for Love has passed into Sacrifice; it has gone up by way of the Cross. Always in some minor degree there has been a touch of sacrifice in every form of love, but all these minor ways have culminated in the last tragedy, the final crucifixion, and Love has died for its object. So Space has gone into Infinity, Time into Eternity, Love into Sacrifice. Now take the word Man. Does it terminate in itself is the term Man all we know of being? We have spoken of spirit, angel, archangel; rationally or poetically or by inspiration, we have thought of seraphim and cherubim, mighty winged ones, who burn and sing before the eternal throne, and still we have felt that there was something remaining beyond, and man is ennobled, glorified, until he passes into the completing term God. They, therefore, are superficial and foolish who speak of Space, Time, Love, Man, as if these were self-completing terms: they are but the beginnings of the real thought, little vanishing signs, disappearing when the real thing signified comes into view, falling before it into harmonious and acceptable preparation and homage. So then, Faith may be but the next thing after Reason. It may be difficult to distinguish sometimes as to where Reason stops and Faith begins: but Faith has risen before it, round about it; Faith is indebted to Reason; without reason there could have been no faith. Why not, therefore, put Reason down amongst the terms, and so complete for the present our category, and say, Space, Time, Love, Man, Reason for there comes a point in the ascent of Reason where Reason itself tires, and says, May I have wings now? I can walk no longer, I can run no more; and yet how much there is to be conquered, compassed, seized, and enjoyed! and when Reason so prays, what if Reason be transfigured into Faith, and if we almost see the holy image rising to become more like the Creator, and to dwell more closely and lovingly in his presence? All the great religious terms, then, have what may be called roots upon the earth, the sublime words from which men often fall back in almost ignorant homage amounting to superstition. Begin upon the earth; begin amongst ourselves; take up our words and show their real meaning, and give a hint of their final issue. He who lives so, will have no want of companionship; the mind that finds in all these human, social words, alphabetical signs of great religious quantities and thoughts, will have riches unsearchable, an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away. Why dwarf our words? Why deplete them of their richer and more vital meanings? Why not rather follow them in an ascending course, and rejoice in their expansion, and in their riches? The religious teacher is called upon to operate in this direction, so far as he can influence the minds of his hearers; it is not his to take out of words all their best significations, but rather to charge every human term with some greater thought, to find in every word a seed, in every seed a harvest, it may be of wheat, it may be of ether food, but always meant for the satisfaction and strengthening of our noblest nature.
Our relation, then, to God is strikingly set forth by this speech of Elihu. "We cannot find him out." It is something to know when the word "cannot" is to be introduced into human speech. That also is a most useful word. It chafes us; we feel that it encages our life: but why need it do so? There is a way of accepting even a "cannot" that shall ennoble our best thinking, that shall chasten all our feeling and passion, and shall excite in us hopes not now to be realised, because the space is too small, and the time too short, and the hour of liberation has not yet come. It is something to know where we have to stop for the moment; time is saved, moral disappointment is avoided, energy is turned upon real practical immediate duty, so that instead of spending life in vain aspiration we spend it in beneficent service, not the less beneficent and large because it is animated by a sure hope and confidence that by-and-by even the horizon shall recede, even heaven shall be heightened, and all we know now of time and space shall be completed in eternity and in infinity. What we do know of God in the first instance, we know as Elihu knew it, through nature, experience, history. We cannot consent that these terms shall be limited by themselves as narrowly interpreted: they shall stand for greater quantities; even such words shall be as little gates opening upon infinite spaces. We may know a good deal by looking at what are called phenomena. Even phenomena are not intended to be self-terminating; they are meant to be suggestive, indicative, significant; rightly accepted, they lure us to further distances, and promise us great results to our religious attention. Take a house, and let me describe it to you with a view of your telling me what the builder or tenant or owner must be. The house is commodious, built of polished stone, enriched here and there and in many places with marble of the finest quality, on which has been expended the most minute and skilful workmanship: the garden is large, filled with choicest plants and flowers, and things of beauty: now and again I hear from the open windows strains of music and gladness and sacred festivity; all the tones are solemn, majestic; now and then indeed I hear sounds of children's voices, but all blend so as to impress me with a sense of sacredness or solemnity: equipages are coming, going, and great men descend and return; and behold, oftentimes through the gilded gates I see poor people going away with bread, and with signs of beneficent attention. Who lives there? I do not know; I never saw the tenant. Tell me what he must be. Who can hesitate? Though you never saw the tenant of that mansion you know a good deal about him, from what you have seen of what are called phenomena, or appearances, or outside hints. Who, passing the house, would hesitate to say, A rich man lives there; a good man has his home in that house; there you have abundance of wealth, there you have a domestic economy that results in harmony and gladness; there you have a beneficent ruler, one who cares for the poor and the sick and the helpless? Did you ever see him? No. Do you know his name? No. Then how can you predicate such things about him? Because of what we see; all these things, of course, are external, and, therefore, we are not at liberty to attach to them greater significance than belongs to appearances, so-called facts, or events; yet we cannot look upon these facts, events, occurrences, be they what they may, without feeling that no small creature lives there, no man of limited ideas, but a man who would make others as happy as himself, a man of resources, who enriches himself by enriching others. The reasoning would not be unsound; it would rather seem to be supported by facts. The man who took that view of the house might be a rationalist, and yet have no occasion to be ashamed of the designation. Let us "stand still," as Elihu said in another passage, "and consider the wondrous works of God," and say from the contemplation of those works, even so far as they are known to us, what God must be, or the works could not be what they are. Verily, the house is large: who can touch the roof, so blue, sun-lighted, star-panelled? Truly the garden is ample, beauteous, fragrant; all the world seems to want to be a garden; the flowers would grow if we would allow them to do so; the music thunder, tempest, storm, strong wind, gentle breeze, purling brook, roaring, dashing cataract a wondrous combination of sounds! And happiness? Verily, there is a great deal of sunshine even amongst men and women and children; yea, merriment and dancing and laughter and gleeful singing. Who made this? I do not know. Who owns it? I cannot tell. What do you think of the architect? I think he must be great, wise, good. Then, say you, if you were to be told that his name is "Father," would you believe it? At once: you have made a revelation to me; that is the word: I will go round the whole place again, and confirm your accuracy by the facts which are patent to my observation. Then, looking again at the high heaven, at the radiant horizon, at the green earth, at the abundant summer, at the hospitable autumn, I return and say, You have given the right name: whoever he is, "Father" is a word that suits the circumstances! let us keep to that. Then you continue, Were you to be told that you should pray, "Our Father which art in heaven," would you? Instantly; reason would say so: I could defend myself by facts; I should feel that I was standing upon a pedestal of rock, lifted up so high that I could all but touch the great holy mystery. Thus the Christian thinks he has solid standing-ground; he has not given up reason and handed it over to those who call themselves rationalists; if any man would take away reason from the Church he would stop him and say, That is one of the golden goblets of the sanctuary; it must not be stolen; it is God's property and must be left in his sanctuary. Who, then, would hesitate, judging by the mere phenomena or circumstances, to describe God as great, wise good?
"He is excellent... in judgment." Is there any judgment displayed in the distribution of things? Is the globe ill-made? Are all things in chaos? Is there anywhere the sign of a plummet-line, a measuring-tape? Are things apportioned as if by a wise administrator? How do things fit one another? Who has hesitated to say that the economy of nature, so far as we know it, is a wondrous economy? Explain it as men may, we all come to a common conclusion, that there is a marvellous fitness of things, a subtle relation and inter-relation, a harmony quite musical, an adaptation which though it could never have been invented by our reason, instantly secures the sanction of our understanding as being good, fit, and wholly wise.
"And in plenty of justice." Now Elihu touches the moral chord. It is most noticeable that throughout the whole of the Bible the highest revelations are sustained by the strongest moral appeals. If the Bible dealt only in ecstatic contemplations, in religious musings, in poetical romances, we might rank it with other sacred books, and pay it such tribute as might be due to fine literary inventiveness and expression; but whatever there may be in the Bible supernatural, transcendental, mysterious, there is also judgment, right, justice: everywhere evil is burned with unquenchable fire, and right is commended and honoured as being of the quality of God. The moral discipline of Christianity sustains its highest imaginings. Let there be no divorce between what is spiritual in Christianity and what is ethical, between the revelation sublime and the justice concrete, social, as between man and man; let the student keep within his purview all the parts and elements of this intricate revelation, and then let him say how the one balances the other, and what co-operation and harmony result from the inter-relation of metaphysics, spiritual revelations, high imaginings, and simple duty, personal sacrifice, industry as of stewardship, of trusteeship. This is the view which Elihu takes. God to him was "excellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice."
"He will not afflict." A curious expression this, and differently rendered. Some render it, He will not answer: or, He will not be called upon to answer for his ways: he will give an account of himself to none; there is a point beyond which he will not permit approach. Yet the words as they stand in the Authorised Version are supported by many collateral passages, and therefore may be taken as literal in this instance. He will not willingly afflict: he is no tyrant; he is not a despot who drinks the wine of blood, and thrives on the miseries of his creation: when he chastens it is that he may purify and ennoble the character, and bring before the vision of man lights and promises which otherwise would escape his attention. Affliction as administered by God is good; sorrow has its refining and enriching uses. The children of God are indeed bowed down, sorely chastened, visited by disappointments; oftentimes they lay their weary heads upon pillows of thorns. Nowhere is that denied in the Bible; everywhere is it patent in our own open history; and yet Christianity has so wrought within us, as to its very spirit and purpose, that we can accept affliction as a veiled angel, and sorrow as one of God's night-angels, coming to us in cloud and gloom, and yet in the darkest sevenfold midnight of loneliness whispering to us gospel words, and singing to us in tender minor tones as no other voice ever sang to the orphaned heart. Christians can say this; Christians do say this. They say it not the less distinctly because there are men who mock them. They must take one of two courses: they must follow out their own impressions and realisations of spiritual ministry within the heart; or they must, forsooth, listen to men who do not know them, and allow their piety to be sneered away, and their deepest spiritual realisations to be mocked out of them or carried away by some wind of fool's laughter. They have made up their minds to be more rational; they have resolved to construe the events of their own experience and to accept the sacred conclusion, and that conclusion is that God does not willingly afflict the children of men, that the rod is in a Father's hand, that no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it worketh out the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Believe me, they are not to be laughed out of that position. They are reasonable men, men of great sagacity, men of affairs, men who can deal with questions of state and empire; and they, coming into the sanctuary the inmost, sacred sanctuary are not ashamed to pray. This is the strength of Christian faith. When the Christian is ashamed of his Lord, the argument for Christianity is practically, and temporarily at least, dead. Why do we not speak more distinctly as to the results of our own observation and experience? Great abstract truths admit of being accented by personal testimony. "Come and hear, all ye that fear God," said one, "and I will declare what he hath done for my soul." If a witness will confine himself to what he himself has known, felt and handled of the word of life, then in order to destroy the argument you must first destroy his character.
So, then, we are agnostics "touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out." But we are agnostics only because of our limitation. We are agnostics about all things beyond a given point. Even philosophers say that they are agnostics as regards the inner elements and qualities of matter itself. So let it be. But being agnostics in that sense and under that definition, we are not prevented from following the instinct of life, and inquiring into Scriptural revelation through the medium of its moral discipline; and so inquiring, we have come to the conclusion that God is, and is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him; that God is Creator, King, Ruler, Father, Redeemer, and that at the last good will triumph over evil, and the Redeemer shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. Ask us to prove these things in words, and you ask us to do what cannot be done by such feeble instruments; but beyond words, and deeper than words, are holy instinct, spiritual convictions, absolute confidence in the processes and ministries of things which will abide when the mocker is tired of sneering, and when the interrogator is wearied with the monotony of his own questioning. Let us lovingly, steadfastly, through the eternal Son of God, worship and trust him, who has been pleased to make himself known to us by the gracious and tender name of Father.
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