I never saw a moor,
I never saw the sea; Yet know I how the heather looks,
And what a wave must be. * J. Clifford, TJia Dawn of Manhood, 95. ' Marcus Dods.
ST. JOHN VII. 17 315
I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.^
(2) Let us remember, however, that the knowledge promised by Christ may become ours only gradually. Our experience may be like that of a man waiting for the dawn, rather than that of a man who is suddenly plunged out of darkness into the full blaze of the midday sun. The light grows upon us; and whilst, at first, we may see distinctly only one or another thing that lies nearest to us, after awhile other things rise into view, till at last whatever is within range becomes clearly visible. In relation to Divine truth we often find an impatience which would be counted very foolish in relation to natural truth. Men who are content to grope on very slowly in science, getting a gUmpse now of one truth and then of another, expect in the region with which we are here concerned to pass almost at once into full light and certainty. This cannot be. Moral loyalty, earnest and well- directed labour and humble patience, are necessary conditions of entering into full possession of the secret of the Lord.
^ I think I cannot be mistaken here. Could you know how I have lived in His mind, and tried to understand Him, till com- prehension became adoration, you would think so. I am not pretending to a superior appreciation beyond yours — except only on this ground, that, professionally forced to the contemplation, and forced more terribly by doubts and difficulties that nearly shattered morals and life, till I was left alone with myself and Him, I am, perhaps, qualified to speak with a decision that would be otherwise dogmatism.^
2. " He shall know of the teaching." — We ought to fix in our minds what exactly Jesus intended by His words when He spoke of knowing the teaching and doing the will. He did not mean that we must be acquainted with the various dogmas which scientific religion has from time to time created and into whose mould the fluid idea concerning spiritual truth has been run. Dogmas are the achievement of the intellect, and the Pharisees were exceedingly strong in their dogmatic knowledge. When Jesus spoke of teaching He referred to the burden of His own
* Emily Dickinson. ' Life and Letters of F. W. Bobertson, 407.
3i6 THE WILL TO KNOW
teaching, and the sum of all His teaching was God. His aim was to impress the mind with a certain idea of God, and it was a moral rather than an intellectual conception. We do not find Jesus enlarging upon the existence and attributes of God after the manner, say, of the Athanasian Creed. He said nothing about the being of God, but He endeavoured to convince men that God was the merciful and faithful Father of the human race ; that He loved men, both good and bad, with a patient fatherly love; that He desired His children to abandon their sins and come home to His fellowship; that He was ready to receive them if they would only trust and obey Him. This was not theology, it was religion. It was not God's being but God's doing that Jesus preached, not His nature but His character. He desired not that men should solve problems about God, but that they should have fellowship with Him.
^ I cannot but think that the brethren sometimes err in measuring the Divine love by the sinner's knowledge.^
3. " Whether it be of God." — The earnest purpose to do the will of God operates upon the heart of man, and leads him to the knowledge of the teaching, whether it be of God. Who can set himself to the liigher life without there coming upon his soul a sense of contrast between such life and that which he has hitherto led? There is something enlightening in the very entertainment of a true purpose. It gives notice to all the unworthy passions of the heart that a conflict is at hand. The birth of this heavenly resolution is not unmingled pleasure. It cannot be. For there is a past which comes up with its records of sin and guilt, and the man feels that that past is Ats, and cannot be treated as if it had never been. He cannot wipe it from his memory, nor can he silence the accusations of conscience. Does not the soul feel that the teaching is of God, whatever may be the mysteries which envelop it — that it is of God, because it addresses itself to the awakened conscience — that it is of God, because it does not sweep justice away that it may find room for mercy, but blends the claims of both in the sovereign and the fatherly dispensation which saves the sinner, while it condemns his sins ?
Dinah Morris, in Adam Bede,
ST. JOHN VII. 17 317
T[ I asked myself what my life was, and received as an answer : " An evil and an absurdity." And indeed, my life — that life of pampered appetites and whims — was meaningless and evil, and so the answer, " Life is evil and meaningless," had reference only to my life, and not to human life in general. I compre- hended the truth, which I later found in the gospel, that men had come to love the darkness more than the light because their deeds were bad, for those who did bad deeds hated the light and did not go to it, lest their deeds be disclosed. I saw that in order to comprehend the meaning of life it was necessary, first of all, that life should not be meaningless and evil, and then only was reason needed for the understanding of it. I compre- hended why I had so long walked round such a manifest truth, and that if I were to think and speak of the life of humanity, I ought to think and speak of the life of humanity, and not of the life of a few parasites of life. This truth had always been a truth, just as two times two was four, but I had not recognized it because, if I recognized that two times two was four, I should have had to recognize that I was not good, whereas it was more important and obligatory for me to feel myself good than to feel that two times two was four. I came to love good people and to hate myself, and I recognized the truth. Now everything became clear to me.^