ii. An Invitation to Reason.
Our text gives us the highest form of appeal — the appeal to reason. In the earlier pages of the Bible, the appeals of God to sinning men are more dramatic, tragic, in form. They are addressed to the imagination, the emotion, as if men were yet only spiritual children. In Genesis, it is the gates of Paradise closed, and the angel of the flaming sword. Later in the book, it is God directing that an ark be built, and opening the windows of heaven in a destroying flood. In Exodus, it is the smoking of Mount Sinai, God wrapt in cloud and thunder and lightning, and man standing afar off trembling, none daring to draw nigh to the Divine Presence. In David, it is the devastating plague. In Solomon, it is the sensuous richness of temple, of ritual, of sacrifice, and of cloudy incense. All as if men could be moved only by the ruder, the lower motives of their nature. But here, in Isaiah, a new order of appeal is set in action. " Hear, 0 heavens ; and give ear, O earth ; for the Lord hath spoken : I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me ; the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib ; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider." 0 that My people would think ; " Come now, and let us reason together."
IT Napoleon, making a forced march accompanied by his chiefs of staff, came to a river and asked the engineer how wide it was. The officer explained that his instruments had not yet come to the front. The emperor asked him again, rather sharply, for the width of the river. The oSicer then brought his military cap to the level of his eyes and marked where the line of vision fell on the opposite bank; fixing his attention on that
'■ David J. Vaughaa.
ISAIAH 29
distance he turned carefully and marked where that line fell on the bank where they were standing ; he stepped the distance off and gave the emperor the width of the river. Thus in the absence of instruments of precision, he fell back on common sense. In the absence of more stirring commanding voices, let us listen to the voice of our own common sense on this matter of religion.^
IF When the Forth Bridge was in the course of construction, I remember spending a most delightful and memorable after- noon with one of the leading engineers. He told me that in the vast undertaking there were encountered numerous and difficult engineering problems. Of course they had on the work the very highest mathematical skill which the country could supply, but here was the interesting fact — he told me that most of the difficulties were solved by one man who possesses no great mathematical skill, but has a kind of genius which, without formal rules, can always find its way through a difficulty. He said to me, " Just give him a difficulty, however great it is, and somehow he will come out on the other side of it." I suppose you all remember the story of John Brown, the commentator, in illustration of his belief that unless common sense is given us by Nature it cannot be acquired, and I suppose that is the general belief. Well, that may or may not be true, but reason in some of its forms is extremely capable of cultivation, and it is important to know how it can be cultivated.^
Eeason and Faith.
1. The invitation is, "Let us reason together." Bishop Butler, discussing the important distinction between objections against the evidence of Christianity and objections against Christianity itself, writes in his wise and guarded way : " I express myself with caution, lest I should be taken to vilify reason ; which is indeed the only faculty we have wherewith to judge concerning anything, even revelation itself." In these days we are often inclined to be afraid of exercising our reason on any matter which trenches in any degree upon the field of revelation. We contrast reason and faith with one another, and assign faith to the domain of revelation, yielding to reason the supremacy over everything outside that domain.
2. Notwithstanding the explicit teaching of the New Testa- ment, the impression has got abroad that faith and reason are
1 K. IVIackenzie. a J. Stalker.
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30 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
opposed to each other, that both canuot flourish in the same man at the same time ; that if a man wants to be a man of faith, he must not think deeply, and that if he gives free rein to his reason it is likely to go hard with his faith. In many a circle it is taken for granted that if a man becomes a Christian, he must allow his mind to be shackled, and that if he wishes to think freely and to follow the truth whithersoever it may lead him, he had better not attach himself to the Church.
Now a more mischievous impression could not possibly get abroad. Joseph Glanvill, near the middle of the seventeenth century, wrote this : " There is not anything that I know which hath done more mischief to religion than the disparaging of reason, for hereby the very foundations of Christian faith have been undermined. If reason must not be heard, the being of God and the authority of Scripture can neither be proved nor defended ; and so our faith drops to the ground like a house that hath no foundation." If that was true in the seventeenth century, it is doubly true nowadays, for the entire world is using its intellect as never before.