Psalms 33:15

He fashioneth their hearts alike.

The moral identity of human hearts

“He fashioneth their hearts alike.” All have certain instincts, passions, emotions with which conventional differences have nothing to do. “One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin.”

I. God hath fashioned our hearts alike in respect of this, that we are all self-conscious, I can think of myself as myself and no other--as one individual unit. I am myself a world, into which the great world cannot penetrate; and, in the light of my own consciousness, i am as effectually hidden as though I did not exist at all. And this does not break up the race. It unifies it. For it is the same with all.

II. In close connection with this we must take the moral sense, that is, the conviction that some things are right and some wrong. Take the rudest savage, one whose ideas as to what is right and what is wrong are all jumbled together; still he feels that there is a difference. In this also “God fashioneth our hearts alike.” Its universality makes it the foundation of law, the approver of right, and the avenger of wrong, even when human law fails to detect the criminal.

III. God has made us all for friendship, affection, mutual dependence and mutual help. God “setteth us in families.” None of us, king or subject, prince or peasant, is sufficient for himself. The whole civilization and beneficence of the world have sprung from this objective character of man. Give a man nothing to do, and he is miserable. Give a man nothing to love, and he is miserable.

IV. this outward seeking can never be fully satisfied with anything created. In order to full satisfaction it must go forward and upward to God. It calls for the infinite. In this sense, too, God “hath fashioned our hearts alike.” He has so made us that He Himself is necessary to us. “The eye is not satisfied with seeing,” and not all the resources of this manifold world can fill the void in the human heart, and lead it to say--“It is enough.” There is something unanswered still, and there ever will be till we rest in God. (A. L. Simpson, D. D)