The idea conveyed by a "single eye" appears to be, from its etymology, threefold. First, it means clear, with no film; secondly, it means in opposition to double, seeing one object at a time; and thirdly, it means concentration, centred upon a focus. These three thoughts mainly go to make up the word "single," distinctness, oneness, fixedness.
I. Many things may give a dulness to the moral sight. (1) If it be impaired by disuse if you do not exercise the spiritual perception which God has given you, by meditation, by prayer, and religious thought then the perception must grow weak. (2) Things coming in between veil and darken that higher vision. A worldly life is sure to do it. Much care will do it. Luxury will do it. But, still more, any wilful unbelief or any strong prejudice.
II. A clear eye must be often cleared. It is the great secret of a happy, holy life to have made up your mind, once and for all, to live for one thing to do what is right, and to live to the glory of God. And then upon that one object you must concentrate yourself. Your whole mind, affections, hopes, interests, must meet there. You converge your eternity upon God.
III. There are two worlds around us a seen world and an unseen world; and we move equally in the midst of both. And the unseen system is far more beautiful, and far grander, and more important than the system that we see. The seen is mainly the type and the shadow of the unseen. It is the unseen which is the real, for that unseen is for ever and ever. But it is not all of us who see the unseen. Few of us are seeing the unseen very distinctly, and none of us are seeing it as we might; and the reason is the state of the eye of the soul, which is as really an eye to see the unseen as that natural eye by which you gaze upon a star or by which you admire a flower.
J. Vaughan, Sermons,11th series, p. 197.
Our responsibility for the light given us includes two things, distinct in themselves, though closely connected viz., our responsibility for living and acting according to that light; and our responsibility for having and seeing the light itself that is, our responsibility for acting consistently with our belief and opinions, and our responsibility for our belief and opinions, for their formation and hold upon our minds. The two run into each other. But I wish at present to keep in view mainly the latter.
I. On the whole, the government of our minds is in our own hands. That great instrument of reason given to us, we can play on it much as we will, well or ill, wisely or foolishly; and the result is the complex fabric of habitual thought, opinion, conviction, faith, on which we have to live. Who can reasonably say that for this we are not responsible? It is, then, a matter of supreme importance how we hear, how we reach our conclusions and build up our beliefs. We cannot remind ourselves too often or too seriously that the questions which are so freely discussed among us now are questions of life or death to human hope; not in one particular form and under one set of conditions only, but in any form intelligible to our minds. Our time is a time to be watchful over both life and intellect, watchful over the way we handle the grave questions we may be called upon to handle, and over the way in which we prepare ourselves to handle them.
II. A great conflict is going on between Christianity and ideas and beliefs which would destroy or supplant it. We remark on the improved character of the discussion; the times of Voltaire, we observe with satisfaction, are past. But with all the literary power, and all the real and often pathetic earnestness shown in it, there is wanting often an adequate sense of the full issues raised by it, a sense of what in fact depends on it. If we must lose Christianity, let us be alive to what we are doing, and face with open eyes the consequences. Let us have the seriousness which befits the surrender of such a hope, with which a vanquished state surrenders territory or independence to the necessities of defeat, with which, in the old strife of parties, a beaten statesman surrendered his life and fate to the law. Let us recognize the thinker's duties, his temptations, and his safeguards. Remember what an element time is in all growth. By simply waiting our horizon widens widens almost without our knowing it. Those who undertake to woo truth by their own courage must not stumble at her conditions. They must not think it strange if for that Divine Bride they have to serve the seven years, and then the seven years again.
Dean Church, Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduates' Journal,Nov. 15th, 1877.
I. Conscience is the organ that stands between the intelligence of man and the spiritual world, just as the eye stands between the intelligence of man and the world of physical nature, and brings the two together. It is the opened and unopened window through which flows the glorious knowledge of God and heaven; or outside of which that knowledge waits, as the sun with its glory or the flower with its beauty waits outside the closed eye of a blind or sleeping man.
II. When one declares this, that through the conscience man arrives at the knowledge of unseen things, and conceptions of God and spiritual force and immortality reveal themselves to his intelligence, at once the suggestion comes from some one who is listening, Can we be sure of the reality of what thus seems to be made known? How can we be sure that what the conscience sends in to the understanding are not mere creations of its own? These are the same questions which have always haunted man's whole thought about his vision of the world of nature. The questions which haunt the conscience are the same as those which haunt the eye. And as the eye deals with its questions, so will the conscience always deal with its.
III. There is an openness of conscience, a desire and struggle to do right, which is distinctly turned away from God and the world of spiritual things, so that, even if they were there, it would not see them. On the other hand, there is an openness of conscience, a desire and struggle to do right, which is turned towards God and the supernatural, which is expectant of spiritual revelation; and to that conscience the spiritual revelation comes.
IV. We are led thus to that which Jesus teaches in the text the critical importance of a pure, true conscience, of a steady, self-sacrificing struggle to do right Godward. So only can the channel be kept open through which the knowledge of God, and of the spiritual things which belong to Him, can enter into our souls. As long as man is able to do right Godward, to keep his conscience pure and true and reverent, set upon doing the best things on the highest grounds, he carries with him an eye through which the everlasting light may, and assuredly will, shine into his soul.
Phillips Brooks, The Candle of the Lord,p. 74.
Observe:
I. What is here meant by singleness of eye. It is being wholly decided for Christ; that is, having an eye to Christ alone.
II. The consequences of having the eye single: (1) there will be light, first of all, in regard to God and His dealings; (2) there is light in regard to our own position and character; (3) there is light in regard to revelation; (4) there is light in regard to our own experience.
W. Park, Penny Pulpit,New Series, No. 596.
References: Matthew 6:22. Preacher's Monthly,vol. viii., p. 79. Matthew 6:22; Matthew 6:23. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. vi., No. 335; W. Hubbard, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xiv., p. 392; Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 186; C. C. Bartholomew, Sermons chiefly Practical,p. 15; S. Cox, Expositor,2nd series, vol. i., p. 259; J. Martineau, Endeavours after the Christian Life,p. 463.