Reason as a Witness

“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord.” — Is. 1: 18.

Reason is a witness easily influenced. Prejudice is often its master. No argument can prevail against prejudice. It is blind, and will not see, though you pour a flood of light in its eyes. The Pharisees had prejudged Christ, and made up their minds that he was only a man; and when they heard him say, ‘« Thy sins be forgiven thee,’’ they ‘* began to reason, saying, who is this that speaketh blasphemies?’’ ‘Their prejudice kept them from drawing the right conclusion. Their reason, uninfluenced by prejudice, would have said that He who could work such miracles was God, and therefore had the right to forgive sins. Under the control of prejudice these Pharisees were careful to strain out little gnats of difficulty, while they swallowed whole camels of absurdity, hair, hump, hoofs and all. Galileo proved to the Inquisitors that the earth was round, and revolved upon its axis, while the sun remained stationary, but they laughed at his reasons. Prejudice had put out their eyes. The weather-vane on the top of a steeple in New York became fixed, so that those who observed it were misled as to the direction of the wind. Reason is a weather-vane easily fixed by prejudice, so that no wind of argument can move it.

Self-interest is another influence very powerful with our witness. It is hard for a man to see a good reason for what he knows to be against his interest. A mere excuse in the scale with self is heavier than the strongestreason. Read the parable of the Husbandmen in Luke 20, and you will see how forcibly

Jesus shows this weakness of reason when under the control of self-interest. ‘* When the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned one with another, saying, This is the heir: let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.’’ If they had been unselfish and loyal to their master, their reason would have said: ‘* This is the heir; let us pay our rent or give up the vineyard to him, if he wishes it. He is here now to look after his own, and it is reasonable that we should let him do it.’? Their reason did the bidding of seitishness, and led them to murder. And reason is still the slave of self-interest.

Desire, appetite and passion, fickle as they are, often rule reason with an iron rod. What we desire is apt to appear reasonable. The child wants therazor or poisonous flower, and no amount of reasoning will convince it that it is not best for it to handle such dangerous things. Men are children grown up, and just as unreasonable when strong desire takes hold of them. The appetites make reason their abject slave. I talked with a man the other day who had been wrecked by strong drink. He admitted that he ought not to drink. He abused himself for dragging into such depths his wife and children. He declared that he knew whiskey did him only harm in body and mind. And yet he was doubtless drunk again before night. Reason was in chains. Appetite had bound it, and was compelling it, either to stand aside and not interfere, or else serve like one of a chain-gang. It reminded me of a boy seen in front of a window, where was kept a large snake. The shop-keeper wondered that the boy should remain still so long, until he noticed that his eyes were fixed with a wild stare upon the snake. He answered no call, and noticed nothing about him, till he was dragged away from the fatal charmer. The boy seemed to have no reason while under the strange power of the snake’s piercing stare. And there are in this city to-day not less than a thousand men, who are no more influenced by reason than was that poor boy. Their passions have transfixed them to some sin and they are held to it by a power over which reason has no control.

France once decided to displace the Bible and worshipreason, and selected as the goddess of reason a dissolute woman. They acted more wisely than they knew, for a more appropriate object could not have been selected. Men who boast that they are ruled by reason are nearly always the slaves of passion; certainty these frenzied Frenchmen were. The free-thinkers who boast that reason is their God are nearly all of dissolute lives. Their passions scourge their reason into subjection. <A dissolute woman would still be an appropriate goddess for them.

Reason is controlled largely by theaffections. The Pharisees ‘treasoned in their hearts.’’ Love is proverbially blind, and to nothing is it blinder than to argument. It leaps to conclusions. No argument prevails with us against those we love. A good deacon in a church of which I was pastor, was called in by a suffering wife to protect her against a brutal husband. Reason was altogether on the wilfe’s side, and the deacon took advantage of it to shame the brute into better manners, but he had not proceeded far before the wife took sides with the husband and insinuated to the deacon that his room was more desirable than his company.

Even imagination can influence our witness. Indeed, imagination 1s one of the greatest foes to reason. When it gets full control of a man, he must be sent to an asylum for the insane. And in sane people it may get such control that reason rarely has a chance to speak. Poets are not apt to be good logicians. There is a poetry of science which influences some scientists more than reason. The theory of evolution appeals strongly to the imagination, and with some there is no difficulty about filling all the gaps which the facts in the case leave open. And in the case of spontaneous generation imagination has led some to affirm what facts and reason both deny. Some prominent scientists talk about the primal germ of life coming into existence without a creator as glibly as if it had been settled by experiment that spontaneous generation is possible. On the other hand, it has been settled that, in the present state of knowledge, it is impossible. Imagination has usurped the place of experiment and reason. This imaginary science is the kind that so often contradicts the Bible.

Ignorance is another enemy to be watched. People used to be frightened by comets, and reason was as much to blame for itasanything else. They were taught that such extraordinary appearances were harbingers of evil; and, when a comet appeared, if was reasonable for them to suppose that some calamity was at hand. When it was learned that comets were subject to law and their appearance could be accounted for, their

reason drew a different conclusion and appeased their fears. Reason controlled by ignorance and imagination has been the enemy of progress in all ages. When Stevenson announced that he could draw with his engine a train of cars at the rate of twenty miles an hour, it appeared unreasonable to not a few members of parliament, and their reason, shocked by the assertion, hastened to oppose the fanatical scheme. The speeches made in opposition to it appealed to reason to show the absurdity of the measure. They were ignorant, and poor reason could do no better than serve their ignorance. We have heard of the six blind men of Hindoostan, whom the king led into a room, where there was a large elephant, and commanded each one to touch the beast in but one place, and then tell him what it was like. The first touched its side and decided that it was like the side of a house covered with hair. The second touched his tusk and decided that it was made of ivory. The third took it by the tail, and declared that it was like a snake. Each one reasoned well with the light before him, and yet all were wrong. This reminds us of the reasoning of some people against Christianity and the Bible. Thomas Paine admits that he kept no Bible. Gibbon declared that he never read the New Testament with attention. David Hume confessed that he had read only the Gospel of John and one chapter in Luke. Is it any wonder that men should write wildly about a thing of which they know so little? Here is an illustration for the children. I have heard of a farmer’s wife whose hen, eating a certain amount of barley, laid one egg a day. She concluded to double the amount of barley, hoping that with twice the amount of food her hen would lay two eggs’a day. The result was the hen grew fat, and did not lay at all. Her reasoning was very correct. It only lacked the element of knowledge. She did not know the nature of hens. /®sop’s man who killed the goose that laid the

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golden egg made the same mistake. No man should claim infallibillity for his reason, unless he knows everything. If he can establish the fact that he knows all things, then we may follow without questioning the deductions of his reason. But ignorance as to one point may cause him to lead us into error. When Job said ‘*I will reason with God,’’ he spoke very foolishly, as he afterward acknowledged. Paul advises us to ‘‘ cast down reasonings and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God.’’ — 2 Cor. 10:5. We who know so little should not put our reason up against Him who knows everything. We have spent so much time proving the character of our witness that we have little time left to hear his testimony. But such character-proving is very important with a witness so much quoted in this age. That reason is influenced by so many things is not altogether to its discredit. If you could finda man who is influenced only by reason, whose affections, imagination, desire and passion, did not move him to anything, but who decided everything in the cold light of reason, you would have the devil incarnate. Such a man no one would wish for a friend. The Lord pity the woman who might marry him. There is something in us besides reason, unless we are the children of the Devil without any mixture of other blood. There is something in God higher than reason, else we had never been redeemed. ‘*‘God so LOVED the world that he gave his only begotten son.’? Rationalism would turn men into devils of cold calculation. God would use their reason under the control of truth and love. ‘*Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord.’? He can furnish the knowledge necessary to right conclusions. Such is the object of revelation, and all who are following reason without a revelation are misled. Agnosticism is the world’s latest admission that man cannot by searching find out God. God must reveal himself. In the Bible he has done so, and for you to think that without the help of such a revelation you can be guided by fickle and fallible reason is a mistake which every reasonable man ought to have sense enough not to make. Indeed we can explain such mistakes only on the ground

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of some hallucination that hushes the voice of reason altogether. Christianity deals in facts. The birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ are facts. There is no fact in history better established than his resurrection: and when that is once accepted, there is no difficulty in accepting his other miracles as facts. The Sophists of Athens claimed that they could prove anything by a course of reasoning. Socrates rebuked their folly and called attention to the facts. Scientists at one time tried to establish their pet theories by an appeal to reason. Bacon did the world a service by magnifying facts, and puting reason in its proper place. First ascertain the facts, and then draw your inferences from them. Benjamin Franklin once came upon a company of philosophers, who were discussing the reason why a bucket of water will weigh no more after a fish is put in it than it did before; Some of them gave very plausible explanations of it. ‘* Well, gentlemen,’’ asked Franklin, ever noted for his common sense, ‘‘Is it true? Let us get a bucket of water and a fish, and test it.”’ The test was made,and it was found to be utterly false. When the fish was added, down went the scales. Let us first get at facts. Is sin a fact? Is it a fact that sin pollutes, degrades, and causes suffering and death? Is ita fact that we may get rid of sin? Then let our reason prompt us to do so. Such is the reasoning of the text, ‘* Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’? God has provided a way by which we may get rid of sin, and it is the only way. ‘*The blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from allsin.’’ Reason uninfluenced by prejudice and evil passion, must impel you to accept God’s way, and be rid of what you know brings ruin. Reason emphasizes the necessity of the new birth. As to how the new birth takes place reason has nothing to do. There is no such thing as the reason how. The how has to do only with the realm of observation. No one can tell how food keeps up the mysterious union between matter and spirit. But any one can think of reasons why it does this. The wisest cannot explain just how I move my hand, but the most simple may be able to tell why I doit. The ‘‘ why’ and the ‘‘ how”? belong to two widely different realms; and yet there has been a modern attempt to confound them. The man, who rejects the new birth because he cannot understand how it takes place, calls himself a rationalist. His senses are so coarse that he cannot perceive how it is done; and though he gets on no better trying to explain the mysteries of the natural birth, he declares it irrational in men to accept what they cannot understand. It is rational in men to accept what facts demonstrate, though they cannot understand it. For a man to refuse to accept what he cannot understand would put him in his grave in less than a month, for he would neither eat, drink, nor sleep. The fact that eating, drinking, and sleeping are just what he needs is plain enough; but, if he were called upon to explain all about the process of each and their relation to life, he could not do it. I knew a learned scientist who was sent toa lunatic asylum because he refused to do anything he could not understand, and would not, therefore, eat until some one would explain to him just how food supported the mysterious thing called life. He was irrational. And rationalism is irrationalism pure and simple. It is an attempt to push reason out of her realm and make her do service for which she has no capacity. There are many reasons why a man must be born again. God says that he must, and he knows. Without the new birth he could not enjoy heaven, etc. But there are no reasons HOW we may be born again. JReason, we repeat, has nothing to do with the how.

Reason deals with the fitness of things. ‘‘It is not reason,’’ said the Apostles, ‘‘that we should leave the word of the Lord and serve tables.‘¢ The rich man of the parable was a fool, in that he did not see the suitableness of thing. He laid up in barns food for his soul, and said: ‘* Soul thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease eat, drink, and be merry.”’ He was like a man who would lay up for his family a winter’s supply of earth, stones and stubble, things that they could not eat. God demands of us nothing unreasonable. It is fitting that we should: love with our whole hearts one who loves us so deeply. It is fitting that we should give all we have and are to Him who gave his only begotten Son for us. When we think of Calvary with its love and suffering, all for us, no sacrifice we can make ought to be considered great. Annie Askew, when she let her tormentors rack her on the wheel till her bones were broken, rather than deny her Lord, did no unreasonable thing. The heroism of the martyrs which led them through fire and flood was no fanaticism, but the most reasonable return to God for what he had done for them.

Reason deals with the value of things. I know two men, one of whom values his head of hair more than all the gold of earth. The other valués some buttons and beads he carries with him more than the silver of all the mines. These men live together in an asylum for the insane. The lack of reason shows itself in their inability to set true values upon things. It was an ancient custom to try the sanity of men by putting before them an apple and a ball of gold of the same size and shape. If they, moved by appetite, chose the apple rather than the gold, they were declared to be in need of a guardian. Now when God puts before us eternal life with self-denial, it is an appeal to our reason.. When Jesus asked ‘* What shall it profit a man,if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’ He appealed to men as rational beings to choose the truly valuable rather than the worthless. Be rational, I beg of you, and choose Christ with holiness and heaven, rather than the world with sin and hell.