Now, in reference to all this intimate self-knowledge, man is not superior to God. He may be certain that in no respect does he know more of himself than the Searcher of hearts knows. He may be an uncommonly thoughtful person, and little of what is done within his soul may escape his notice ; let us make the extreme supposition that he arrests every thought as it rises, and looks at it; that he analyzes every sentiment as it swells his heart ; that he scrutinizes every purpose as it determines his will — even if he should have such a thorough and profound self- knowledge as this, God knows him equally profoundly and equally thoroughly. This process of self-inspection may even go on indefinitely, and the man grow more and more thoughtful, and obtain an everlastingly augmenting knowledge of what he is and what he does, so that it seems to him that he is going down so far on that path which •' the vulture's eye hath not seen," is penetrating so deeply into those dim and shadowy regions of consciousness where the external life takes its very first start, as to be beyond the reach of any eye and the ken of any intelligence but his own ; and then he may be sure that God understands the thought that in afar off, and deep down, and that at this lowest
PSALM cxxxix. 5 147
range and plane in his experience He besets him behind and before.
^ Let us adore God for the streams of bounty which flow unceasingly from the fountains of His life, to all His countless creatures. But, on the other hand, beware lest in thus enlarging your view of the Infinite One, you lose your hold of the corre- lative truth — that though all beings of all worlds are His care, though His mind thus embraces the universe, He is yet as mindful of you, as if that universe were blotted out, and you alone survived to receive the plenitude of His care.^
2. Although the Creator designed that man should thoroughly understand himself, and gave him the power of self-inspection that he might use it faithfully and apply it constantly, yet man is exceedingly ignorant of himself. Men, says an old writer, are nowhere less at home than at home. Very few persons practise serious self-examination at all, and none employ the power of self- inspection with that carefulness and diligence with which they ought. Hence men generally are unacquainted with much that goes on within their own minds and hearts.
But God knows perfectly all that man might but does not know of himself. Though the transgressor is ignorant of much of his sin, because, at the time of its commission he sins blindly as well as wUfully, and unreflectingly as well as freely ; and though the transgressor has forgotten much of that small amount of sin of which he was conscious, and by which he was pained, at the time of its perpetration ; though on the side of man the powers of self-inspection and memory have accomplished so little towards this preservation of man's sin, yet God knows it all, and re- members it all. " He compasseth man's path, and his lying down, and is acquainted with all his ways." " There is nothing covered, therefore, that shall not be revealed ; neither hid that shall not be known. Whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness, shall be heard in the light ; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets, shall be proclaimed upon the house-tops." The Creator of the human mind has control over its powers of self -inspection and of memory, and when the proper time comes. He will compel these endowments to perform their legitimate functions, and do their appointed work.
» W. E. Channing.
148 THE ENCOMPASSING GOD
^ You will never know what the Psalmist had in mind till you come upon a young mother all alone with her laughing babe. The hours are not long. The house is not lonesome for her, though she has been left for the day. She has her babe. See, it lies all uncovered in her lap ! The mother is fair, but the child is fairer. She counts its fingers, she pulls its toes, she kisses its dimples, she pats its pudgy arms, she studies its features, she sounds to their depths its eyes and matches their colour with the skies. She helps it to stand. She coaxes it to walk. She teaches it to talk. She infects it with laughter. She bathes it with love. She tells it her secrets. She cries over it for joy. She multiplies its happiness and bears its sorrow. Mother and babe — in all the world there is no other vision one-half so fair. There is no knowledge like love, no explorer like solicitude. She knows every strength, every weakness, every beauty, every mark or scar, every characteristic, every disposition, every tendency, every fault, every charm. The mother has searched her babe and knows it. A mother with her babe in her arms-r— that is the Psalmist's picture of the tender care of God for men.^
3. Let us not forget that there is a bright as well as a dark side to this picture. For if God's exhaustive knowledge of the human heart wakens dread in one of its aspects, it starts infinite hope in another. If that Being has gone down into these depths of human depravity, and seen it with a more abhorring glance than could ever shoot from a finite eye, and yet has returned with a cordial offer to forgive it all, and a hearty proffer to cleanse it all away, then we can lift up the eye in adoration and in hope. There has been an infinite forbearance and condescension. The worst has been seen, and that too by the holiest of beings, and yet eternal glory is offered to us ! God knows from personal examination the worthlessness of human character, with a thoroughness and intensity of knowledge of wliich man has no conception ; and yet, in the light of that knowledge, in the very flame of that intuition, He has devised a plan of mercy and redemption.