Let us consider the joy which God has provided for our _intellects_
during our immortal life in heaven.
There are many dear saints of God who have little sympathy with those
who associate happiness with the pursuit or possession of intellectual
truth. These persons, perhaps, have had themselves such weak
intellectual capacities, as made the acquisition of knowledge
impossible for them beyond its simplest elements; or their minds
have been stunted in early years from want of education; or in the
providence of God they have been made "hewers of wood and drawers of
water," rather than intellectual princes among the people. Yet let
none of us who are so ignorant, and who as yet think and speak like
children, be discouraged by a conscious sense of our weak intellectual
grasp and scanty information; but rather rejoice with Christ in
the dispensation by which God reveals Himself not to talent but to
goodness; not to the giant intellect but to the babe-like spirit: "I
thank thee, O Father, that thou hast hid these things from the wise
and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes!"
God has, nevertheless, made the acquisition of truth by the intellect
a source of supreme delight. You well know how every field in nature
has been searched, and every quarter of the globe ransacked, and many
days and nights of patient intellectual toil consumed by men who have
endured incredible labour, supported by no other motive than their
love of knowledge. The immediate joy which is experienced by a great
discoverer when a new fact or truth flashes on his mind is to others
almost inconceivable. We read that when Newton, after years of
difficulty, was just about to step on the summit of that mountain from
which he knew he was to hear such intellectual music as never before
had sounded in the mind of man, and to catch a glimpse of the
hitherto unseen glory of that new ocean of truth which he alone had
reached,--for
"He was the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea!"--
his joy was so great that he was overcome by his emotions, and wept!
This passion of acquiring knowledge is not the least remarkable fact
recorded of Solomon. We are told that "he spake of trees, and of
beasts, and of creeping things." He himself says of God, "He hath made
things beautiful in time: also He hath put it into man's heart to
survey the world, and to find out the work that God maketh from the
beginning to the end." "When I applied mine heart to know wisdom, and
to see the business that is done upon the earth: (for also there is
that neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes:) then I beheld
all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done
under the sun; because though a man labour to seek it out, yet he
shall not find it; yea, though a wise man think to know it, yet shall
he not be able to find it." There was in all this no doubt "vanity and
vexation of spirit," for the attempt was vain to find satisfaction
for the soul in the knowledge of things themselves apart from the
knowledge of a personal God, or in any truth rather than in Him who is
true. And therefore many, perceiving how intellect is often allied
to ungodliness, and fails of itself to insure either goodness or
happiness, are disposed to refuse to it the high place which God has
assigned to it in the soul, and to suspect the reality of the exalted
delight which He has designed His saints and angels to enjoy in its
exercise. But while the deifiers of mere intellect are ever reminded
that it alone cannot deify, but may be abused so as to demonise man,
yet let those who slight it remember also that it is the head without
whose inventive genius or directing skill the strong arms of labour
would be idle. Let the man of material wealth or material power
recollect that it is the wealth of science and the power of mind,
possessed perhaps by unknown and lonely students who have all their
lifetime been struggling to obtain their daily bread, and to snatch
"the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table," which have created
our manufactures, filled our warehouses, crossed our oceans, healed
our diseases, and reared the fabric of law and government.
And God, who has made the intellect the source of delight to the
individual, and of good to society here, will surely perfect it
hereafter. Whatever its capacity may be, it shall then be filled to
its utmost limit; and be characterised by a clearness, vigour, and
precision, unknown here to the greatest thinkers. All barriers to its
progress shall be removed, which were occasioned here by the mortal
body, the poor culture, the little time, the few opportunities, the
weak or sinful prejudices; so that the poorest saint will shine there
as the sun in its strength! And with this increased power of knowing,
how inconceivably increased must be our sources of knowledge; how
boundless is the field which supplies them; how inexhaustible the
treasures it contains; how unlimited the time for gathering them;
how helpful the society that will sympathise with and join in our
pursuits! No one surely imagines that on entering heaven we can at
once obtain perfect knowledge--perfect, I mean, not in the sense of
accuracy, but of fully possessing all that can be known. This is
possible for Deity only. For it may be asserted with confidence that
Gabriel knows more to-day than he knew yesterday. Nor is it difficult
for us to conceive how, throughout eternity, and revelling with
freedom throughout God's universe, we may be occupied by the
contemplation of new and endless displays of the inexhaustible wisdom
and power of God in His works; and see more and more into the life of
all things; and continually read new volumes of that great book of
nature and of truth, whose first letters we are now learning with
difficulty to spell. And could we ever succeed in gathering together
the present treasures of all worlds, why may not new and varied
creations for ever renew the universe, and grander displays be made of
the glory and majesty of the Creator? Besides all this, must not the
_ways_ of God, as well as His works, and the wonders of His moral
government, extending over all His creatures, and over all worlds,
and throughout all ages, afford inexhaustible subjects wherewith to
exercise the intellect of man? Is not every truth, too, with which we
are already acquainted linked to another and a higher truth? And if
so, when shall we reach the end of that awful chain which is in the
hand of God? But though for ever we shall thus dive deeper and deeper
into the divine mind, never, never can we sound its unfathomable
depths. Though we shall ascend for ever from one intellectual height
to another in the eternal range of thought, we shall approach, yet
never reach, that unseen throne on which is seated the _I Am_, the
Comprehender of all truth, the Solver of all mysteries, but who
Himself, though known, because revealed to us in His eternal Son and
loved as our Father, must ever, as the absolute One, be the mystery
incomprehensible!
From the few glimpses which we obtain in Scripture of angelic life, we
may infer that the understanding of the works and ways of God forms no
small part of its joy. We read of the sons of God crowding round the
earth, and we hear those morning stars singing for joy, as they behold
the commencement of this new theatre of wonders added to those with
which they were already acquainted. I doubt not that these high
intelligences watched with intensest interest the progress of the
world's formation, and beheld order and beauty growing out of chaotic
darkness and confusion, and during the incalculable ages of the past,
before man himself appeared upon the scene, gazed with wonder on the
successive creations of animal and vegetable life, whose remains we
now see buried in their rocky sepulchres. We know, too, the deeper
interest which the angelic host have taken in this world since it
became the abode of man. They are acquainted with all its inhabitants,
and have seen the mystery of God's providence here unfolding itself
from age to age. A great multitude of them hovered over the hills of
Bethlehem at that great era when "unto us a Child was born, and unto
us a Saviour was given, who was Christ the Lord;" and in sympathy with
God and man they ascribed "glory to God in the highest," because of
the "peace" which was proclaimed to earth, and of the "good-will"
which was expressed towards man. We know also how they have taken an
active share under Jesus the King, in advancing the affairs of His
kingdom, both by punishing the wicked, and ministering to the heirs of
salvation. And to put it beyond a doubt that scope is given even here
for the exercise of the intellect of the angels, we are distinctly
informed that all the marvellous history now proceeding in this world
had a direct reference in its original design to their progressive
education: "For God created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent
that now _unto principalities and powers_ might be known by the church
the manifold wisdom of God." There are indeed things even here "which
angels desire to look into!"
And though the redeemed from earth are not yet revealed to us as
being engaged in intellectual pursuits, nevertheless two of them have
revisited the earth and appeared in the old land of their sojourning
in visible form, and bearing the names of Moses and Elias, so familiar
to the Church of God, and have spoken in language intelligible to the
children of men, and upon a subject of all the most absorbing in its
interest to the Church above and below--the decease which Christ was
to accomplish at Jerusalem!
But I dare not enlarge on this part of my subject, however inviting it
may be. Let me only implore of you to consecrate your intellects to
God's service; and glorify Him in "soul and spirit" as well as in
"body." Reverence _Truth_ in every department, as it is the expression
of the mind and will of God, and seek it in humility, and with a deep
sense of your responsibility as to _how_ you search and _what_ you
believe. And surely it is an elevating and comforting thing to know,
with reference to those who on earth were adorned by God with high
intellects, cultivated with care, and sanctified for their Master's
service; who thirsted for truth, and relished its acquisition with
peculiar delight, and the more so when it led them directly to Him who
is Truth itself, and enabled them the better to behold His glory, that
their powers are now finding ample field for their exercise, and can
orb themselves around without a limit. Not therefore with sadness but
with joy we can turn from beholding the dead unmeaning eye of the
lifeless body, through which the noble mind once shone with mild
intellectual lustre, and contemplate the same mind rising over the
everlasting hills, amidst the fresh unsullied brightness of a new-born
day, and advancing for ever without a cloud amidst the endless glories
of the upper sky.
One other suggestion as to duty in connexion with this part of our
subject: take a peculiarly tender, sympathising, and thoughtful care
of those who are deprived of the noble gift of intellect, and who in
God's providence may be cast on your mercy. Walk by faith towards
them. See them not as they are, but as they shall be. Act as you would
wish to have done when you meet them in that world of light where we
shall no longer see through a glass darkly, and where even he who
seems exceeding fierce shall sit at the feet of Jesus, meek as a
child, and in his right mind. Thank God, "there shall be no night
_there!_"