Two Witnesses: The Hearing Ear and the Seeing Eye
‘The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them.” — xx. 12.
TWO witnesses, the hearing ear and the seeing eye, are summoned forth to prove before the world that the Maker of all things is wise and good. These two palm branches, ever green, plaited into a simple wreath, are chosen from the whole earth as a diadem of glory for the Sovereign’s brow. These words so gently spoken, these works so wonderfully made, challenge for their Author the homage and service of all intelligent created beings.
It is a well-known fact in human experience, that the nearer wonders are to the observer, and the oftener they occur, the less wonderful they seem to be. Perhaps the most powerful practical fallacy in life is to confound things that are common with things that are of little value. The counterpart and complement of this error is, to esteem a thing in proportion to its distance and rarity. Bread and water, light and air, are lightly esteemed and ungratefully wasted by those who would pass a sleepless night if a little sparkling stone were stolen or lost. God’s word invites us to consider his works: He takes it ill when we blindly overlook the wisdom and goodness with which they are charged.
“This famous town of MANSOUL had five gates, in at which to come, out at which to go; and these were made likewise answerable to the walls, — to wit, impregnable, and such as could never be opened nor forced but by the will and leave of those within. The names of the gates were these: — Ear-gate, Eye-gate, Mouthgate, Nose-gate, and Feel-gate.” The reader would recognise in the picture John Bunyan’s hand, although his name were not inscribed on the corner of the canvas. The ear and the eye are the two <7> 27 chief gateways through which the human soul, in its imperial palace, receives its knowledge from heaven or earth. They are suitable specimens of divine workmanship, for being submitted to the inspection and employed in the instruction of men.
The ear and eye are curious instruments fixed in the outer walls of the bodily frame, for receiving impressions from sound and light, and conveying corresponding sensations to the mind.*
The ear, as a complex mechanical apparatus, lies almost wholly within the body and beyond our sight: only a wide outer porch through which the sound enters is exposed to view. The mechanism within, like that of all the corporeal organs, exhibits abundant evidence of contrivance exerted intelligently with a view to a specific end. The sound passing successively through a suite of chambers each appropriately furnished, touches in the innermost the extremities of the nerves which bear the message to the brain. The eye, though more easily observed, is scarcely more wonderful in its structure, adaptations, and uses. It is a window in the wall of this house of clay, without which it would be comparatively a dark and dreary dwelling for the soul. It is supplied with a machinery in the form of eye-lids for washing and wiping the glass all day long, so that the window may never be dusty. It has an opening for receiving rays of light, which enlarges itself spontaneously when the light is scarce, in order to take in much, and contracts itself spontaneously when the light is plentiful, in order that less may be admitted. It has transparent lenses like a telescope, through which the rays pass; and a white curtain on its inmost wall, like a camera, on which the pictures of external objects are painted. Into that canvas from behind nerves are introduced like electric wires, through which the soul receives in her presence-chamber instant intimation of all that is going on without. Sun pictures of the outer world were taken instantaneously upon a prepared plate, by an instrument of small bulk which a man can carry about with him, long before the invention of photography. Inventors are only discoverers of what already is, and has from the beginning been. They are hounds of keener scent, who track the secret footsteps of nature more stanchly than their neighbours and nature is nothing else than the method by which it pleases
* See a most interesting and instructive little treatise on the Five Gateways of Knowledge by the late Professor George Wilson of the University of Edinburgh.
God to carry on his work. The rule applied to religion is, even in its terms, strictly applicable also to art, “Be ye imitators of God, as dear children.”
The adaptation of each organ to its object, presents an additional evidence of wise design, perhaps even stronger than that which the mechanism of the instrument supplies. The ear would be nothing without sound: the eye, with all its curious and exact machinery, would be an elaborate abortion if light were not, or were subject to different laws. Whatever evidence of beneficent design may lie separately in the seeing eye and the shining light, it is multiplied a thousand-fold by the perfect reciprocal adaptation which subsists between them.
Philosophy has long puzzled its disciples with questions regarding the reality of the external world. Seeing that the human mind does not come directly in contact with earth and air and sea, but only receives pictures or notions of them through the organs of sensation, a doubt lias been raised whether substances corresponding to these pictures have any real existence. As the picture of an object is not sufficient evidence that the object exists, it has been said, Sensations of the external world, which are only pictures conveyed to the brain through the senses, do not certainly prove that the external world really is. This question, though in itself an interesting one, is scarcely entitled to rank higher than a plaything. It is useful in calling our attention to the means by which we obtain a knowledge of things beyond ourselves, but it has not power to throw the slightest shade of uncertainty over the existence of these things. The eye and the ear are the chief instruments by which we ascertain the existence and qualities of external objects, and God is the maker of them both. For that very use he framed them and gave them to his creatures; and he has done all things well. There are no deceptions in his plan, and no blunders in its execution.
Besides, our belief in the existence of things is confirmed by the mouth of many independent witnesses. To each object several of the senses, and to many all, bear concurrent testimony. The eye and the ear do not act in concert; they are as independent of each other as any two witnesses that ever gave evidence in a trial. If the eye should give a false testimony the ear would correct it. To suppose that all the senses were made for telling lies, and corroborating each other in their falsehood, is at once to magnify the wonders of the contrivance, and ascribe it to Satan instead of God. These gateways of knowledge were pierced in the body by its Maker’s own hand, that the soul might not sit darkling within its house of clay. The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them. He, into whose hands believers commit the keeping of their souls, is “a faithful Creator” (1 Peter iv. 19).
On this subject, and in this point of view, the Popish doctrine of transubstantiation possesses a peculiar interest. We look at it in its philosophical rather than its religious aspect. It comes across our path here, not as a perversion of the word, but as a dishonour done to the works of God. Our cause of quarrel with it in this place is, that it pours contempt on the seeing eye, which the Lord has made and given to his creatures.
The belief, inculcated and professed throughout the mysterious spiritual commonwealth of Rome, that the bread and wine in the sacrament of the Supper are changed at the utterance of the consecrating word, and are no longer bread and wine, but the body and blood of Christ, is a great feature in the working of the human mind, and a great fact in the history of the human race. It sprung up in a dark age, and was irrevocably incorporated in a system which professes itself infallible and dares not change. The dogma of transubstantiation could not be cast out when an age of light returned, because to lose the prestige of immutability would be more destructive to Rome than to retain a belief which places her in contradiction to the laws of nature and the senses of men. Accordingly they retain it, and, with impudence on the one side, and ignorance on the other, manage to keep their heads above water in some way, notwithstanding the weight and awkwardness of their burden.
This doctrine brings the huge bulk of Popery right across the path on which we are now advancing. They teach that what I taste and see to be bread and wine, is not bread and wine at all, but the flesh and blood and bones of a human body, — the very body that was nailed to the cross on Calvary! They thereby repudiate the testimony of the senses, competently given, and disparage the work and gift of God. They concede that the senses; ia as far as they give, or can give, a testimony on the subject, report the elements to be bread and wine; but affirm that the senses are not in all cases trust-worthy, and specify cases in which erroneous inferences are sometimes drawn from the impressions of a single sense. Suppose we should commence the controversy on the other side, by showing that their position proves too much, and cuts away the ground on which they stand: — If the senses deceive, how can I be sure that my ear conveys to me the words of the priest? Under this pressure they select the sense of hearing, and affirm that it may be trusted, and it alone. The senses of seeing, tasting, smelling, and feeling, all take cognizance of the object, and all concur in representing it to be bread; the sense of hearing does not take cognizance of the object at all, and has no testimony to give: this one they select as the only one that should be trusted! Five witnesses are called to give evidence regarding a certain fact. The question, “Were you present1?” is put successively to all the five. The first four answer, Yes; the last one, No. The next question is, “Did the prisoner commit the deed ]” The first four answer, Yes; the last one answers, No. The jury return a verdict of acquittal. But they are perjured men. They have a purpose to serve. They have believed one witness who was not present, against four witnesses who were. Such is the state of the case when contemplated in the abstract, but it becomes much clearer and stronger when we refer to examples in Scripture.
After his resurrection, and before he ascended to heaven, Jesus showed himself alive, “by many infallible proofs,” to the apostles whom he had chosen (Acts i. 3). And what were the proofs which he gave? The evidence of the senses, and that alone; — “being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God;” it was the evidence of sight and hearing. When it is proposed to prove the resurrection of Christ — the fact on which the world’s redemption hangs — the hearing ear and the seeing eye are the two witnesses called to support it. They are competent and true, for “the Lord hath made even both of them.” The evidence of the senses is either sufficient proof of a fact, or it is not. If it is sufficient, transubstantiation is not true, for the senses testify against it: if it is not sufficient, the resurrection of Christ is not proved, for it has no other evidence to rest on. Thus the foundation of a believer’s hope and the foundation of the Popish system cannot both stand: thus is Popery proved to be Antichript.
In this place, however, we enter the lists against that mysterious power, expressly in defence of the hearing ear and the seeing eye as the good gifts of a true God. He counts their evidence sure, for he has made it a link of the chain on which his great salvation leans, when it is let down to men. Through these inlets comes to us the knowledge, not only of earth, but also of heaven; not only of time, but also of eternity. It is by seeing and hearing that the word enters a believing heart; and the entrance of the word giveth life. The word, coming in and abiding is life — life for evermore; he that hath the Son hath life.
Man and his faculties are spoken of in Scripture as vessels or instruments, wherewith God works out his plans. Paul was a “chosen vessel” for containing and bearing to the nations Christ’s name (Acts ix. 15). The Romans were enjoined to yield not only themselves in general, but specifically their “members as instruments of righteousness unto God” (Bom. vi. 13). He honours his own work in our bodies, although we blindly despise and abuse it. These eyes and ears which he has made, are, as instruments, worthy of his wisdom; they are capable of useful employment in his service; it is breach of trust to use them in another and adverse interest.
The Omniscient is not bound to us and the organs of our body for the accomplishment of his plans; with or without us, he will do all his pleasure. It is our surest safety to be on his side — our greatest honour to be employed as his instruments. The world which he works in is full of the tools which he works with. In trees and plants, every thorn, and leaf, and tendril, is a cunninglycontrived instrument fitted to conduct some delicate operation in the vegetable economy. In animals, every member of the body is a tool: the work-shop is full of materials and implements. Again, every part of creation is an instrument necessary and suitable for some department of” the universal work. The internal fires of the globe are machinery for heaving up the mountain ridges, and causing the intervening valleys to subside. The clouds are capacious vessels made for carrying water from its great reservoir to the thirsty land. The rivers are a vast water-power in perpetual motion, slowly wearing down the mountains, and spreading the debris in layers on the bottom of the sea. The sun is an instrument for lighting and warming the world, and the earth’s huge bulk a curtain for screening off the sunlight at stated intervals, and so giving to weary workers a grateful night of rest. Chief of all the instruments for the Master’s use is man, made last, made best, — broken, disfigured, and denied by sin, but capable yet, when redeemed and renewed, of becoming a vessel for conveying God’s goodness down to creation, and creation’s praises articulate up to God.
In our religious exercises we must not limit our view to the soul and its sins, so as to neglect the body and its organs; for, in acts of sin or of holiness, the body is related to the soul as the moving machinery to the water-stream which drives it. In spiritual matters we are accustomed to think with something like contempt of the senses and their organs. There is some risk of error and loss at this point. It is true that we deserve contempt when we waste them on vanity or cripple them by vice; but these members are worthy of their Maker. They are given to us for the noblest purposes. They are given in trust; we should highly esteem the talent, and diligently occupy it till the Giver come. He is not ashamed to own that hearing ear and that seeing eye as his. He who spread out the heavens, and sprinkled them with sparkling worlds, points to these members of our bodies as specimens that will sustain his glory. How warily should they walk upon the world who bear about with them these precious and tender jewels, the cherished property of the great King! How carefully should we preserve from pollution these delicate instruments, to which he is even now pointing as evidence of his skill and kindness!
Christian! these ears and eyes are the openings whereby light and life have reached your soul; occupy them henceforth with sounds and sights that will please Him. If I am Christ’s, these ears and eyes have been bought for himself by the price of his own blood; I must not employ them to crucify him afresh, and bring him to an open shame* Let me listen to those sounds and look at those sights which I would listen to and look at if he stood beside me listening and looking too: to other sounds let me be deaf, — to other beauties blind.
The subject is not a little one. Issues inconceivably great dei24 TWO WITNESSES.
pend on the purposes to which we now apply these good gifts of God. Our time and our eternity both depend on their use or abuse. The conflict rages now: the victory will be decided soon. Through their ears and eyes disciples, like their Lord, are plied with strong temptations. To them as to him. the kingdoms of the world and their glory are offered, on the same dark condition.
Sin waves its painted beauties and shakes its music-bells to win and enslave. Through unwary ears and eyes the adversary enters to drag the soul into captivity and death.
Hark! another voice! Behold another sight! “Hear, and your souls shall live.” “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Hear these words of life: behold that Lamb of God who taketh sin away. By these openings, which his own hand has made into our being, God our Saviour will send in light and life.
Soon these ears and eyes will be closed for ever against earthly sounds and sights; but they will open again for other entrants. The trumpet shall sound, and every ear shall hear it. “All that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth.” Nor shall the world’s destiny be pronounced by an invisible Judge. He shall come as the lightning comes, and every eye shall see him they also who pierced him. The voice of judgment will penetrate the ear that was deaf to the message of mercy. The outcast will have an ear to hear, but no word of hope will ever reach it: an eye to see, but no light will ever dawn to meet its straining.
Let my ears now hear the word, and my eyes behold the beauty of the Lord: then, at his appointed time, let them close in peace. When next they open, they shall see and hear, what eye hath not seen nor ear heard as yet, — “the things that God hath prepared for them that love him.”