48 THINGS PREPARED FOR LOVE
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.
The Things of God are not Eevealed to the Natural Man.
"Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not into the heart of man."
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. To 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
i CORINTHIANS n. 9 49
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 enter- ing 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 inspira- tions 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.
"Eye saw not."
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 out- line 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 sensa- tion comes through the eye. He whose eye is so refined by dis- cipline 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
1 cor. — 4
50 THINGS PREPARED FOR LOVE
from Corinth. And yet it was to these men, living in the very midst of the chastely beautiful, upon whom the Apostle emphati- cally urged — "Eye hath not seen the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."
(3) Science cannot give a revelation. Science proceeds upon observation. It submits everything to the experience of the senses. Its law, expounded by its great lawgiver, is that if we would ascertain its truth we must see, feel, taste. Experiment is the test of truth. Men have supposed they discovered the law of Duty written on the anatomical phenomena of disease. They have exhibited the brain inflamed by intoxication, and the structure obliterated by excess. They have shown in the dis- ordered frame the inevitable penalty of transgression. But if a man, startled by all this, gives up his sin, has he from this selfish prudence learned the law of Duty? The penalties of wrong-doing, doubtless; but not the sanction of Eight and Wrong written on the conscience, of which penalties are only the enforcements. He has indisputable evidence that it is expedient not to commit excesses : but you cannot manufacture a conscience out of expediency: the voice of conscience says not, " It is better not to do so," but " Thou shalt not."