i. 3. _The ox knoweth his owner, &c._
"We are wise." So spake the Greek of old in the pride of his
intellectual powers, and so speak many in our own day who have
imbibed the spirit of the Greek. Reason is a wonderful faculty, and
there have not been wanting, in any age of the world, those who have
felt elated by their successful exercise of it. It can look before
and after, deriving experience from the past and suggestions
provision against the future. It can explore the hidden secrets of
Nature and render the world of matter subservient to man; it can turn
in upon itself and speculate upon its own processes; nay, it can
teach us something of the existence and attributes of the Most High.
Such being the triumphs of reason, it can hardly be matter of wonder
that the wise men of this world plume themselves on the attainment of
those triumphs.
The vainglorying of men, however, whatever form it may assume, is
abomination in the sight of God. In the scheme of salvation which God
has devised there is no room for boasting either of our moral or
intellectual endowments: "It is excluded." That scheme is essentially
humbling in its character; it is so constructed as to shut out pride
at every cranny where it could possibly insinuate itself; it is such
as to stop every mouth and bring in all the world guilty before God.
And not only guilty, but blind also. He will have all the world
convicted in the court of Conscience of folly, no less than of sin.
In order to bring His people to this conviction, he expostulates with
them in many passages of His Word on the vainglorious boasts they
were in the habit of uttering, shows them their utter emptiness, and
exhibits the inconsistency of man's moral conduct with his
pretensions to wisdom and enlightenment (cf. Jer. viii. 7, 8).
Our text implies two things--1. That the religion subsisting between
the brute creation and man is in some measure similar to that which
subsists between man and God; and, 2. That the acknowledgement made
by dumb animals of their relation to mankind strangely contrasts with
the natural man's refusal of acknowledgement to God.
+I. We are to compare the relations subsisting between an inferior
and a superior creature with those subsisting between a superior and
the Creator.+ Note, though these relations may be susceptible of
comparison, and may be used to lift up our minds to apprehension of
the truth, there is an insufficiency in the lower relation to type
out the higher. The distance between man and the inferior creatures,
if great, is measurable; whereas the distance between finite man and
the Infinite God is incalculable.
The dumb creature recognises the master whose property it is: "The ox
knoweth his owner." What constitutes man's right of ownership in the
ox? Simply the fact that he bought it. He did not create it. If he
supports its life, it is only by providing it with a due supply of
food, not by ministering to it momentarily the breath which it draws,
nor by regulating the springs of its animal economy. That is the sum
of his ownership. _But what constitutes God's right of ownership in
us, His intelligent and rational creatures?_
1. We are the work of His hands. Creation constitutes a property in
all our faculties and a claim to our services which no creature hath
or can have in another.
2. Our property is most entire, our claim of right most indisputable,
in those things which, having been once deprived of them by fraud or
violence, we have subsequently paid a price to recover. The flocks
and herds in the possession of civilised European settlers in
uncivilised countries are often swept away by a barbarous horde of
native freebooters. Imagine, then, a case in which, it being
impossible to bring the offenders by justice (by reason of their
numbers and strength), the owners of the cattle should effect a
ransom of their property by laying down a sum equivalent to its
value. Is it not thenceforth theirs by a double claim--the claim of
original ownership and the claim of subsequent ransom? Such is the
claim which God has over us. That claim, grounded originally upon the
fact of creation, has been confirmed, enlarged, extended a
thousand-fold by the fact of redemption (1 Cor. vi. 20; 1 Pet. i. 18,
19).
3. Our text suggests another detail of the claims which our Heavenly
Owner has upon our allegiance: "The ass knoweth his master's crib."
He knows the manger at which he is fed and the hand that feeds him.
Here is a palpable claim upon regard, although by no means so high as
those previously advanced. It is a claim appreciable by the senses,
capable of being understood and responded to by the mere animal
nature. In palliation of man's neglect of those claims of God which
are established by creation and redemption, it might haply be pleaded
that he is a creature of the senses, and that the facts of creation
and redemption are not cognisable by them. These stupendous facts are
transacted and past. But even this paltry justification is entirely
cut off by the fact here implied, that man is indebted to God for his
daily maintenance, for the comfort and the convenience even of his
animal life.[1]
Observe, also, that it is not the brute creation _in a savage state_
whose relations towards men are here drawn into comparison with the
relations of man towards God. To illustrate his argument the inspired
writer has chosen instances from the domestic animals, who share
man's daily toils, live as his dependants, and are familiarised by
long habit with their master's abode and ways of life. In drawing out
the contrast, he does not mention mankind generally, but "_Israel_
doth not know, _my people_ doth not consider." It were in some
measure excusable that the heathens should refuse acknowledgement to
the living God, whom they know not. But what shall we urge in
extenuation of the indifference of "Israel," who from his very
infancy has been of the household of God, domesticated by the hearth
of the Universal Parent, and furnished with every means of access to
His presence?
+II. A contrast is drawn between the acknowledgement made by dumb
animals of their relation to their owners and Israel's refusal of
acknowledgment to his God.+
The cattle "know" or recognise the voice of their owner; his call
they heed, in his steps they follow; irrational creatures though they
be, they are not insensible to their benefactor's fond cares. What a
cutting reproof of the insensibility of God's people!
1. They recognise not God in His warnings, whether they be addressed
to them as individuals or to the nation of which they are members.
Afflictions arrest them not in their career of vanity and sin.
Judgments stir them not out of their lethargy of indifference. They
hear not, see not, God in them.
2. They do not acknowledge God in His mercies. God's blessings of
Nature and Providence are accepted by them as a matter of course. If
regarded at all, they are traced no higher than to secondary causes.
The continual experience of them renders them not one whit more
submissive to the yoke of God's service. As to the higher blessings
of forgiveness and grace, they feel no need of them, and evince no
gratitude for them.
Want of consideration is the root and reason of this strange
insensibility. It is not that "Israel" lacks the faculty of
apprehending God, but he will not be at pains to exercise that
faculty. It is not that he lacks a speculative knowledge of the
truths now set forth, but that he does not lay to heart this
knowledge, nor allow it its due weight.--_E. M. Goulburn, D.C.L.:
Sermons,_ pp. 153-181.