Can the blind lead the blind?
Shall they not both fall into the ditch?
The suggestive supposition is made by Dr. Reid (“Inquiry into the human mind”) that it had been as uncommon to be born with the power of sight as it is now to be born incapable of it, in which case “the few who had this rare gift would appear as prophets or inspired teachers to the many.”
Blind-led blind
Many a paraphrase of the proverb, and of a perishing people where there is no vision, might be cited from the histories and miscellanies of Mr. Carlyle. It is a trite theme with him--the need of what he calls men with an eye, to lead those who need guidance. We might apply what Shakespere’s Gloster, in King Lear, says, after his eyes have been barbarously put out, and he seeks a guide in Mad Tom, and is warned, “Alack, sir, he’s mad!” “‘Tis the time’s plague, when madmen lead the blind.” Ill fare the people that take up with blind guides. Like Elymas, when there fell upon him a mist and a darkness, they go about seeking some one to lead them by the hand. Some one, any one. Who will show us any good--who will deliver us from this hour and power of darkness? And sometimes he that is struck blind takes for guide him that is born blind. And straightway they make for the ditch. St. Gregory the Great, in his treatise on the pastoral care, vigorously censures those who, without proper qualifications, undertake the care of souls, which he calls the art of all arts. Who does not know, he says, that the wounds of the mind are more difficult to be understood than those of the body! And yet men unacquainted with the spiritual precepts will profess themselves physicians of the heart, while those who are ignorant of the effects of drugs would blush to set up for physicians of the body. And anon he quotes the proverb of the blind-led blind. In no such connection, and in no such spirit, Shelley quotes it, when describing priests and princes pale with terror, whose faith “fell, like a shaft loosed by the bowman’s error, on their own hearts.”
“They sought and they could find O refuge--’twas the blind who led the blind.”
But, after all, there may be something worse than even a blind guide; for, as South observes in his sermon on the fatal imposture of words, “A blind guide is certainly a great mischief: but a guide that blinds those whom he should lead, is certainly a greater.” The proverb was full in South’s eye when, in another sermon, discussing the case of a man who exerts all the faculties of his soul, and plies all means and opportunities in the search of truth which God has vouchsafed him, the preacher concludes that such a man may rest upon the judgment of his conscience so informed, as a warrantable guide of those actions which he must account to God for: “and if by following such a guide he fall into the ditch, the ditch shall never drown him.” But the same vigorous divine elsewhere deprecates a blind watchman as “equally a nuisance and an impertinence”--and such a paradox, both in reason and in practice, he contends, is a deluded conscience, namely a counsellor who cannot advise, and a guide not able to direct. The will and the affections are made to follow and obey, not to lead and direct; and therefore, he goes on to say, if error has perverted the order, and disturbed the original economy of our faculties, and a blind will thereupon comes to be led by a blind understanding, “there is no remedy, but it must trip and stumble, and sometimes fall into the noisome ditch of the foulest enormities and immoralities. (F. Jacox.)
Blind leaders
I. THE CASE PROPOSED--“Can the blind lead the blind?” Upon this we found the following remarks:
1. All men by nature are in a state of spiritual blindness. The proofs of this moral and spiritual blindness press upon our attention on every hand.
(1) Consider, in the first place, the erroneous and mistaken apprehensions which men generally entertain of the character of God.
(2) The unconsciousness of men to the moral and spiritual dangers by which they are threatened is another proof that darkness hath covered the human mind.
(3) The intense love and ardent pursuit of the things of the present world form another striking manifestation of the blindness of the human heart with regard to spiritual things.
2. I remark that to the blind some sort of guidance is absolutely necessary. We all feel this with respect to the calamity of natural blindness.
3. It is obvious to remark that those who proffer themselves to be the guides of the blind should themselves possess the visual faculty. What supplemental aid can the blind derive from those who are themselves in the same unhappy condition?
II. THE CATASTROPHE PREDICTED. “If the blind lead the blind, shall they not both fall into the ditch?” Upon this I would remark:
1. That ignorant and unfaithful teachers are to be considered as the heaviest imaginable curse wherever they exist.
2. The text reminds us that the consequence of this state o! things is that both shall fall into the ditch. The blind who are led, and the blind leaders by whom they are led, it is much to be feared will share one common doom. They will fall into sentimental errors--they will fall into practical immoralities-they will fall into final perdition--unless the grace and mercy of the Most High prevent.
(1) The ruin into which they lead others, and which they prepare for themselves, is, first, inexcusable.
(2) As this ruin will be found to be inexcusable, so will it be found to be inevitable. There is nothing that can hinder; but from the erroneous system which I have described as certain, inevitable ruin must follow.
(3) And the ruin will be found to be irretrievable.
(4) This ruin which is inexcusable, inevitable, and irretrievable, will be found to be eternal.
III. Let me apply the principles which have been thus briefly developed in favour of the institution for which I am about to plead. You are aware I am to ask your benevolent aid on behalf of the Home Missionary Society.
1. Let me remind you of the necessity which there exists for the interposition of such efforts as those which this society exerts.
2. Consider the erroneous guidance under which a vast proportion of this population is actually placed. (G. Clayton, M. A.)
The choice o/ a leader
Two extremes exist in reference to the pilgrimage and scholarship of life. Some assert that man needs no guide whatever. “Is he not a noble creature, gifted with high intelligence? Can he not reason and judge, and understand and discern? He can surely find his own way, without direction from without. As a learner, why needs he a teacher? He can instruct himself. Such self-sufficient boasters will not, therefore, condescend to sit at the feet of a master, or follow the track of a guide, and consequently they frequently become erratic, singular, lawless, and unreasonable in their modes of thought, and even of act. Into the mazes of infidelity and atheism such pilgrims wander; into foolishness and strong delusion such teachers of themselves conduct their own minds. This scheme is dangerous, but its opposite pole is not less so. Deliver a man from rationalism, and he often swings into superstition, and says, “I see that I need a guide, I will take the one nearest to hand.” Between these two extremes there is a narrow path of right, and happy is he who finds it, viz., the honestly and sincerely judging who the leader and teacher should be, the discovery that a leader has been appointed in the person of the Lord Jesus, and a teacher in the Divine Spirit, and then a complete, willing, and believing submission of the whole man to this infallible guidance.
I. The text announces to us A GREAT, GENERAL PRINCIPLE AS A WARNING, viz., that a disciple does not get above his master, but becomes like him.
1. It is evident that the disciple is generally drawn to the master who is most like himself. There is about us all a natural tendency to admire our own image, and to be willing to submit to any who are superior to us, and yet are of our type. If the blind man only could see he would not choose a blind man to be his guide; but as he cannot see he meets with one who talks as blind men talk; who judges things as they are in the dark, and who does not know what sighted men know, and therefore never reminds the blind man of his infirmity; and at once he says, “This is my ideal of a man, he is exactly the leader I require, and I will commit myself to him.” So the blind man takes the blind man to be his guide, and this is the reason why error has been so popular. No error would live if it did not chime in with some evil propensity of human nature, if it did not gratify some error in man to which it is congruous. Mind, then, whom you choose for a guide.
2. Having chosen his tutor, the student gradually becomes more and more like his master; or, having taken his guide, the tendency is to tread more closely in his footsteps, and obey his rules more fully every day. We imitate those whom we admire.
3. The pupil does not go beyond the tutor, nor does the man who submits to be led go beyond his guide. Such a case is very rarely found--indeed, I may say, never; for when the one who is led goes beyond his leader, he is not in truth led any longer; rarely enough does it ever come to that. Men, if they outstrip their leaders, generally do so in a wrong direction. They seldom exaggerate their virtues, those they frequently omit, but they usually exaggerate peculiarities, follies, failings, and faults. It is said that in the court of Richard III., because the king was round-shouldered, the courtiers gradually became hump-backed; and we have seen a whole country idiotic enough, not in the last century, but in this century, to have almost all its women limping, because a popular princess was afflicted with a temporary lameness.
4. When a man chooses a bad leader for his soul, at the end of all bad leadership there is a ditch. A small turn of the switch on the railway is the means of taking the train to the far east or to the far west: the first turn is very little indeed, but the points arrived at are remote. Let us not take any man whatever as our leader, for if we trust to any mere man, though he may be right in ninety-nine of the hundred, be is wrong somewhere, and our tendency will be to be more influenced by his one wrong point, than by any one of his righteous. There is One whom you may follow implicitly, and one only--the Man Christ Jesus, the Son of God.
II. SPECIAL APPLICATION OF THIS GREAT GENERAL PRINCIPLE TO JESUS CHRIST FOR OUR ENCOURAGEMENT. If we have Him for our leader we certainly cannot go beyond our leader, but we shall be privileged to grow more and more like Him, and we shall be perfected according to our text, as our leader is.
1. This is what we might have expected. He is the Creator; can He not create in us His image! From such an one as He is, we confidently expect it.
(1) For, observe, the teaching itself is such that it must have power over hearts that yield to it. Almighty love. Divine teaching brought down to human capacity.
(2) But it is not in His teaching alone that His influence lies; the most potent charm is Himself. “Never man spake like this Man;” because never man lived like this Man. His character gives Him a right to speak.
(3) We feel quite sure that the disciples will grow like their Master in the case of Jesus, because He inspires them with an intense love to Himself, which flames forth in enthusiasm for Him. Get a teacher whom all the scholars love and admire, and they will soon learn. Make them enthusiastic for him, and no lesson will be too hard.
(4) Best of all, our Great Teacher has a spirit with Him, a mighty Spirit, God Himself, the Holy Ghost, and when He teaches, He teaches not with words alone, but with a power which goes beyond the ear into the heart itself,
2. This was virtually promised.
(1) It is promised in the great doctrine of predestination (Romans 8:29-30).
(2) It is promised in the very name of Jesus--“ He shall save His people from their sins,” i.e., bring them back into a condition of purity and holiness.
3. What we might have expected, and what God has virtually promised, has been actually seen; for the disciples have been like their Lord.
(1) In character. Some reflect this feature, others that.
(2) In life-story. Melchizedec. Isaac. Joseph. Stephen. Paul.
(3) In struggles and temptations.
(4) In their victories. Christ’s disciples overcome sin; by their Master’s help they rise above doubt, they vanquish the world, and they stand in purity and faith.
(5) By and by they shall be like Him in their reward (Revelation 3:21).
III. WE MAY PUT ALL THIS TO THE TEST IF WE WILL. If you are not already Christ’s disciple, you may be. He will receive you though you have been to other masters, and learned a great deal under them, all of which you will have to unlearn. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The blind and the ditch
An awful warning to all teachers, especially preachers, followed as it is by the warning of the “beam” that is before “one’s own eye,” when one sees a small thing before another’s. We know of whom it was first intended--men who were not doubted; men who did not doubt themselves; men who led confidently into the ditch; men who killed the Lord of Glory, to saw their place and nation, and then destroyed them both. They stand before us as a warning, how awful it is to undertake to lead, only to lead astray or into ruin. Blindness (say some) is no sin, “are we blind also? If ye had been blind, ye had not had sin, but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.” There is none so bad as that which is blind to itself. There are many blindnesses--as defect of thought, or learning--which drive the hearers into what the speakers never dreamt of; defect of practical knowledge of life and circumstances, making advice untenable or pernicious; such as on the clashing of submission to parents and zeal for God; want of spirituality--how can any teach what he has never learnt, and therefore never understood? A dwelling upon some parts of truth to the exclusion of all the rest, as the Pharisees did on the letter of purification, or as some on self-denial, till all religion is swallowed up in it, or some on spirituality and faith, till plain moral laws are broken. It is possible to dwell on sacraments till conversion is ignored; or to make conversion a sole object, till Christian life and edification are despised, and only strong excitement satisfies. It is far easier to preach a party, or a church, or a sect, than to preach Christ. All these are blindnesses, and, so far as they go, injure both guide and followers. But how hard it is to see: to trace out all our thoughts to their consequences, to know how to speak to or of all men, to be thoughtful and not cold, to know the life of the Spirit without pride. In fact, there are none who see all things, no one perfect guide, none to whom we can blindly trust. It is a case of those who see but little, and have more need to advise together than to lead and follow confidently. The work of preaching and advice is not to supersede thought, but to make men think; it is not what you hear, but what you make of what you hear. The best part of a sermon is the application, and that is made by the heart at home. But remember that blind leaders are made by blind followers. People crowd to a preacher as others to a theatre for a new excitement; and when they are moved, they long for a guide. Thinking is a labour, following is easy, a confident leader never lacks followers. This is the attraction in our days of the Church of Rome, and blind followers push her to greater extremes, while blind horror sends some into infidelity, for horror and foolhardiness go hand in hand. But it is not only in religion that these principles hold; in politics, in local business, in fashions and customs, there are the same blind leaders and blind followers. There is the same love of being first, the same desire to stick to one’s party, and be saved the trouble of thinking. Let it warn us in all these things to try to know where we are going, not to take other men’s fall on our own shoulders and help a whole crowd to destruction. Pause to think. Is it wise to follow? Am I sure I know my own way, when I long so to lead, and am so vexed when others do not follow? For in truth, though all are blind in something, in something all can see. Our first anxiety must be to see our own way, and then not to make others follow us, but to make them see. There are ditches enough. We see men every day falling into them, and there are enough before ourselves. If we think, and speak, and hear thus--as one family--for mutual help--we shall find that though the blind cannot lead the blind, they can help one another very much. (Bishop E. Steere.)