of its remarkable details if it had not been for the discovery or
invention of the _telescope_. Truth is great, but it does not savingly
affect us till we become personally acquainted with it. The knowledge of
the gospel, as it is revealed to us in the Word of God, makes it true to
us; and oftentimes the Bible is to us what the telescope is to the
astronomer. The Scriptures do not make the truth; but they reveal it in
a way in which our poor, feeble intellect, when enlightened by the Holy
Spirit, is able to behold and comprehend it.
From a book[2] to which I am indebted for many quotations in this
lecture, I learn that the telescope was discovered in this singular
manner: "A maker of spectacles at Middleburg stumbled upon the discovery
owing to his children directing his attention to the enlarged appearance
of the weathercock of a church, as accidentally seen through two
spectacle-glasses, held between the fingers some distance apart. This
was one of childhood's inadvertent acts; and seldom has there been a
parallel example of mighty results springing out of such a trivial
circumstance. It is strange to reflect upon the playful pranks of
boyhood being connected in their issue, and at no distant date, with
enlarging the known bounds of the planetary system, resolving the nebula
of Orion, and revealing the richness of the firmament." In a similar
way, a simple incident has often been the means of revealing to men the
wonders of divine grace. What a certain individual only meant to be
trifling with divine things, God has overruled for his soul's salvation.
He stepped in to hear a sermon as he might have gone to the theater to
see a play; but God's Spirit carried the truth to his heart, and
revealed to him the deep things of the kingdom, and his own personal
interest in them.
[2] "The Heavens and the Earth," by Thomas Milner, M. A., F. R. G. S.
I think that incident of the discovery of the telescope might be
usefully employed as an illustration of the connection between little
causes and great results, showing how the providence of God is
continually making small things to be the means of bringing about
wonderful and important revolutions. It may often happen that what seems
to us to be a matter of pure accident, with nothing at all notable about
it, may really have the effect of changing the entire current of our
life, and it may be influential also in turning the lives of many others
in quite a new direction.
When once the telescope had been discovered, then the numbers and
position and movements of the stars became increasingly visible, until
at the present time we are able to study the wonders of the stellar sky,
and continually to learn more and more of the marvels that are there
displayed by the hand of God. The telescope has revealed to us much more
of the sun, and the moon, and the stars than we could ever have
discovered without its aid. Dr. Livingstone, on account of his
frequently using the sextant when he was traveling in Africa, was spoken
of by the natives as the white man who could bring down the sun, and
carry it under his arm. That is what the telescope has done for us, and
that is what faith in the gospel has done for us in the spiritual
heavens; it has brought down to us the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit, and given us the high eternal things to be our present
possession and our perpetual joy.
Thus, you see, the telescope itself may be made to furnish us with many
valuable illustrations. We may also turn to good account the lessons to
be learned by the study of the stars for the purpose of navigation. The
mariner, crossing the trackless sea, by taking astronomical
observations, can steer himself with accuracy to his desired haven.
Captain Basil Hall tells us, in the book I have previously mentioned,
that "he once sailed from San Blas, on the West Coast of Mexico; and,
after a voyage of eight thousand miles, occupying eighty-nine days, he
arrived off Rio de Janeiro, having in this interval passed through the
Pacific Ocean, rounded Cape Horn, and crossed the South Atlantic,
without making land, or seeing a single sail except an American whaler.
When within a week's sail of Rio, he set seriously about determining, by
lunar observations, the position of his ship, and then steered his
course by those common principles of navigation which may be safely
employed for short distances between one known station and another.
Having arrived within what he considered, from his computations, fifteen
or twenty miles of the coast, he hove to, at four o'clock in the
morning, to await the break of day, and then bore up, proceeding
cautiously on account of a thick fog. As this cleared away, the crew had
the satisfaction of seeing the great Sugar-Loaf Rock, which stands on
one side of the harbor's mouth, so nearly right ahead that they had not
to alter their course above a point in order to hit the entrance of the
port. This was the first land they had seen for nearly three months,
after crossing so many seas, and being set backward and forward by
innumerable currents and foul winds. The effect upon all on board was
electric; and, giving way to their admiration, the sailors greeted the
commander with a hearty cheer."
In a similar manner, we also sail by guidance from the heavenly bodies,
and we have for a long season no sight of land, and sometimes do not
even see a passing sail; and yet, if we take our observations correctly,
and follow the track which they point out, we shall have the great
blessing, when we are about to finish our voyage, of seeing, not the
great Sugar-Loaf Rock, but the Fair Haven of Glory right straight before
us. We shall not have to alter our course even a single point; and, as
we sail into the heavenly harbor, what songs of joy will we raise, not
in glorification of our own skill, but in praise of the wondrous Captain
and Pilot who has guided us over life's stormy sea, and enabled us to
sail in safety even where we could not see our way!
Kepler makes a wise remark, when speaking about the mathematical system
by which the course of a star could be predicted. After describing the
result of his observations, and declaring his firm belief that the will
of the Lord is the supreme power in the laws of nature, he says: "But if
there be any man who is too dull to receive this science, I advise that,
leaving the school of astronomy, he follow his own path, and desist from
this wandering through the universe; and, lifting up his natural eyes,
with which he alone can see, pour himself out in his own heart, in
praise of God the Creator; being certain that he gives no less worship
to God than the astronomer, to whom God has given to see more clearly
with his inward eye, and who, for what he has himself discovered, both
can and will glorify God."
That is, I think, a very beautiful illustration of what you may say to
any poor illiterate man in your congregation: "Well, my friend, if you
cannot comprehend this system of theology which I have explained to you,
if these doctrines seem to you to be utterly incomprehensible, if you
cannot follow me in my criticism upon the Greek text, if you cannot
quite catch the poetical idea that I tried to give you just now, which
is so charming to my own mind, nevertheless, if you know no more than
that your Bible is true, that you yourself are a sinner, and that Jesus
Christ is your Saviour, go on your way, and worship and adore, and think
of God as you are able to do. Never mind about the astronomers, and the
telescopes, and the stars, and the sun, and the moon; worship the Lord
in your own fashion. Altogether apart from my theological knowledge, and
my explanation of the doctrines revealed in the Scriptures, the Bible
itself, and the precious truth you have received into your own soul,
through the teaching of the Holy Spirit, will be quite enough to make
you an acceptable worshiper of the Most High God."
I suppose you are all aware that among the old systems of astronomy was
one which placed the earth in the center, and made the sun, and the
moon, and the stars revolve around it. "Its three fundamental principles
were the immobility of the earth, its central position, and the daily
revolution of all the heavenly bodies around it in circular orbits."
Now, in a similar fashion, there is a way of making a system of theology
of which man is the center, by which it is implied that Christ and his
atoning sacrifice are only made for man's sake, and that the Holy Spirit
is merely a great Worker on man's behalf, and that even the great and
glorious Father is to be viewed simply as existing for the sake of
making man happy. Well, that may be the system of theology adopted by
some; but, brethren, we must not fall into that error, for, just as the
earth is not the center of the universe, so man is not the grandest of
all beings. God has been pleased highly to exalt man; but we must
remember how the psalmist speaks of him: "When I consider thy heavens,
the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou has
ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him; and the son of man,
that thou visitest him?" In another place, David says, "Lord, what is
man, that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou
makest account of him! Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow
that passeth away." Man cannot be the center of the theological
universe; he is altogether too insignificant a being to occupy such a
position, and the scheme of redemption must exist for some other end
than that of merely making man happy, or even of making him holy. The
salvation of man must surely be first of all for the glory of God; and
you have discovered the right form of Christian doctrine when you have
found the system that has God in the center, ruling and controlling
according to the good pleasure of his will. Do not dwarf man so as to
make it appear that God has no care for him; for if you do that, you
slander God. Give to man the position that God has assigned to him; by
doing so, you will have a system of theology in which all the truths of
revelation and experience will move in glorious order and harmony around
the great central orb, the Divine Sovereign Ruler of the universe, God
over all, blessed forever.
You may, however, any one of you, make another mistake by imagining
yourself to be the center of a system. That foolish notion is a good
illustration, I think. There are some men whose fundamental principles
are, first of all, their own immobility: what they are, they always are
to be, and they are right, and no one can stir them; secondly, their
position is central, for them suns rise and set, and moons do wax and
wane. For them their wives exist; for them their children are born; for
them everything is placed where it appears in God's universe; and they
judge all things according to this one rule, "How will it benefit _me_?"
That is the beginning and the end of their grand system, and they expect
the daily revolution, if not of all the heavenly bodies, certainly of
all the earthly bodies around them. The sun, the moon, and the eleven
stars are to make obeisance to them. Well, brethren, that is an exploded
theory so far as the earth is concerned, and there is no truth in such a
notion with reference to ourselves. We may cherish the erroneous idea;
but the general public will not, and the sooner the grace of God expels
it from us, the better, so that we may take our proper position in a far
higher system than any of which we can ever be the center.
* * * * *
The Sun, then, not the earth, is the center of the solar system; which
system, mark you, is probably only one little insignificant corner of
the universe, although it includes such a vast space that if I could
give you the actual figures you would not be able to form the slightest
idea of what they really represented. Yet that tremendous system,
compared with the whole of God's universe, may be only like a single
grain of dust on the sea-shore, and there may be myriads upon myriads of
systems, some of which are made up of innumerable systems as large as
ours, and the great sun himself may only be a planet revolving round a
greater sun, and this world only a little satellite to the sun, never
yet observed by the astronomers who, it may be, live in that remoter sun
still farther off. It is a marvelous universe that God has made; and
however much of it we may have seen, we must never imagine that we have
discovered more than a very small portion of the worlds upon worlds that
God has created.
The earth, and all the planets, and all the solid matter of the
universe, are controlled, as you know, by the force of attraction. We
are kept in our place in the world, in going round the sun, by two
forces, the one called centripetal, which draws us toward the sun, and
the other called centrifugal, which is generally illustrated by the
tendency of drops of water on a trundled mop to fly off at a tangent
from the circle they are describing.
Now, I believe that, in like manner, there are two forces which are ever
at work upon all of us, the one which draws us toward God, and the
other which drives us away from him, and we are thus kept in the circle
of life; but, for my part, I shall be very glad when I can pass out of
that circle, and get away from the influence of the centrifugal force. I
believe that, the moment I do so--as soon as ever the attraction which
draws me away from God is gone--I shall be with him in heaven; that I do
not doubt. Directly one or other of the two forces which influence human
life shall be exhausted, we shall have either to drift away into the
far-off space, through the centrifugal force--which God forbid!--or else
we shall fly at once into the central orb, by the centripetal force, and
the sooner that glorious end of life comes, the better will it be for
us. With Augustine, I would say, "All things are drawn to their own
center. Be thou the Center of my heart, O God, my Light, my only Love!"
The sun himself is an enormous body; he has been measured, but I think I
will not burden you with the figures, since they will convey to you no
adequate idea of his actual size. Suffice it to say that, if the earth
and the moon were put inside the sun, there would be abundance of room
for them to go on revolving in their orbits just as they are now doing;
and there would be no fear of their knocking against that external
crust of the sun which would represent to them the heavens.
It takes about eight minutes for light to reach us from the sun. We may
judge of the pace at which that light comes when we reflect that a
cannon-ball, rushing with the swiftest possible velocity, would take
seven years to get there, and that a train, traveling at the rate of
thirty miles an hour, and never stopping for refreshments, would require
more than three hundred and fifty years before it would reach the
terminus. You may thus form some slight idea of the distance that we are
from the sun; and this, I think, furnishes us with a good illustration
of faith. There is no man who can know, except by faith, that the sun
exists. That he did exist eight minutes ago, I know, for here is a ray
of light that has just come from him, and told me that; but I cannot be
sure that he is existing at this moment. There are some of the fixed
stars, that are at such a vast distance from the earth, that a ray of
light from them takes hundreds of years to reach us; and, for aught we
know, they may have been extinct long ago. Yet we still put them down in
our chart of the heavens, and we can only keep them there by faith, for
as, "through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word
of God," so it is only by faith that we can know that any of them now
exist. When we come to examine the matter closely, we find that our
eyesight, and all our faculties and senses, are not sufficient to give
us positive conviction with regard to these heavenly bodies; and
therefore we still have to exercise faith; so is it to a high degree in
spiritual affairs, we walk by faith, not by sight.
That the sun has spots upon his face, is a fact which everybody notices.
Just so; and if you are suns, and are never so bright, yet if you have
any spots upon you, you will find that people will be very quick to
notice them, and to call attention to them. There is often much more
talk about the sun's spots than there is about his luminous surface;
and, after the same fashion, more will be said about any spots and
imperfections that men may discover in our character than about any
excellences that they may see in us. It was for some time asserted that
there were no spots or specks whatever on the sun. Many astronomers,
with the aid of the telescope, as well as without it, discovered these
blemishes and patches on the face of the sun; but they were assured by
men who ought to have known--namely, by the reverend fathers of the
church, that it was impossible that there could be anything of the
kind. The book I have previously quoted says: "Upon Scheiner, a German
Jesuit, reporting the evidence of his senses to his provincial superior,
the latter positively refused to believe him. 'I have read,' said he,
'Aristotle's writings from end to end many times, and I can assure you
that I have nowhere found in them anything similar to what you mention.
Go, my son, and tranquilize yourself: be assured that what you take for
spots in the sun are the faults of your glasses, or of your eyes.'" So,
brethren, we know the force of bigotry, and how men will not see what is
perfectly plain to us, and how, even when facts are brought before them,
they cannot be made to believe in them, but will attribute them to
anything but that which is the real truth. I am afraid that the Word of
God itself has often been treated just in that way. Truths that are
positively and plainly revealed there are stoutly denied, because they
do not happen to fit in with the preconceived theories of unbelievers.
There have been a great many attempts to explain what the spots upon the
sun really are. One theory is, that the solar orb is surrounded by a
luminous atmosphere, and that the spots are open spaces in that
atmosphere through which we see the solid surface of the sun. I cannot
see any reason why that theory should not be the truth; and, if it be
so, it seems to me to explain the first chapter of Genesis, where we are
told that God created the light on the first day, though he did not make
the sun until the fourth day. Did he not make the light first, and then
take the sun, which otherwise might have been a dark world, and put the
light on it as a luminous atmosphere? The two things certainly might
very well fit in with each other; and if these spots are really openings
in the luminous atmosphere through which we see the dark surface of the
sun, they are admirable illustrations of the spots that men see in us.
We are clothed with holiness as with a garment of light; but every now
and then there is a rift through which observers can see down into the
dark body of natural depravity that still is in the very best of us.
It is a dangerous thing to look at the sun with unprotected eyes. Some
have ventured to look at it with glasses that have no coloring in them,
and they have been struck blind. There have been several instances of
persons who have inadvertently neglected to use a proper kind of glass
before turning the telescope to the sun, and so have been blinded. This
is an illustration of our need of a Mediator, and of how necessary it is
to see God through the medium of Christ Jesus our Lord; else might the
excessive glory of the Deity utterly destroy the faculty of seeing God
at all.
The effect of the sun upon the earth, I shall not dwell upon now, as
that may rather concern another branch of science than astronomy. It
will suffice to say that living plants will sometimes grow without the
sun, as you may have seen them in a dark cellar; but how blanched they
are when existing under such circumstances! What must have been the
pleasure with which Humboldt entered into the great subterranean cave
called the Cueva del Guacharo, in the district of Caraccas! It is a
cavern inhabited by nocturnal, fruit-eating birds, and this was what the
great naturalist saw: "Seeds, carried in by the birds to their young,
and dropped, had sprung up, producing tall, blanched, spectral stalks,
covered with half-formed leaves; but it was impossible to recognize the
species from the change in form, color, and aspect, which the absence of
light had occasioned. The native Indians gazed upon these traces of
imperfect organization with mingled curiosity and fear, as if they were
pale and disfigured phantoms banished from the face of the earth."
So, brethren, think what you and I would be without the light of God's
countenance. Picture a church growing, as some churches do grow, without
any light from heaven, a cavern full of strange birds and blanched
vegetation. What a terrible place for any one to visit! There is a cave
of that sort at Rome, and there are others in various parts of the
earth; but woe unto those who go to live in such dismal dens!
What a wonderful effect the light of God's countenance has upon men who
have the divine life in them, but who have been living in the dark!
Travelers tell us that, in the vast forests of the Amazon and the
Orinoco, you may sometimes see, on a grand scale, the influence of light
in the coloring of the plants when the leaf-buds are developing. One
says: "Clouds and rain sometimes obscure the atmosphere for several days
together, and during this time the buds expand themselves into leaves.
But these leaves have a pallid hue till the sun appears, when, in a few
hours of clear sky and splendid sunshine, their color is changed to a
vivid green. It has been related that, during twenty days of dark dull
weather, the sun not once making his appearance, the leaves were
expanded to their full size, but were almost white. One forenoon the sun
began to shine in full brightness, when the color of the forest changed
so rapidly that its progress might be marked. By the middle of the
afternoon, the whole, for many miles, presented the usual summer dress."
That is a beautiful illustration, it seems to me, that does not want any
opening up; you can all make the application of it to the Lord Jesus for
yourselves. As Dr. Watts sings--
In the darkest shades if he appear,
My dawning is begun;
He is my soul's sweet morning star,
And he my rising sun.
Then we begin to put on all sorts of beauty, as the leaves are painted
by the rays of the sun. We owe every atom of color that there is in any
of our virtues, and every trace of flavor that there is in any of our
fruits, to those bright sunbeams that come streaming down to us from the
Sun of Righteousness, who carries many other blessings besides healing
beneath his wings.
The effect of the sun upon vegetation can be observed among the flowers
in your own garden. Notice how they turn to him whenever they can; the
sunflower, for instance, follows the sun's course as if he were himself
the sun's son, and lovingly looked up to his father's face. He is very
much like a sun in appearance, and I think that is because he is so
fond of turning to the sun. The innumerable leaves of a clover field
bend toward the sun; and all plants, more or less, pay deference to the
sunlight to which they are so deeply indebted. Even the plants in the
hothouse, you can observe, do not grow in that direction you would
expect them to do if they wanted warmth, that is, toward the stovepipe,
whence the heat comes, nor even to the spot where most air is admitted;
but they will always, if they possibly can, send out their branches and
their flowers toward the sun. That is how we ought to grow toward the
Sun of Righteousness; it is for our soul's health that we should turn
our faces toward the Sun, as Daniel prayed with his windows open toward
Jerusalem. Where Jesus is, there is our Sun; toward him let us
constantly incline our whole being.