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EVIDENCES
NATURAL AND REVEALED
THEOLOGY.
BY
CHARLES E. LORD.
PHILADELPHIA :
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO
18 6 9.
Entere-l according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern
District of Pennsylvania.
MY WIFE,
MY BEST COUNSELOR AND FRIEND,
'^ffetlionatelj) ijetlicatc
THE FOLLOWING PAGES.
PREFACE.
It seems most suitable that the first truths which lie at
the foundation of all Revealed Theology should be consid-
ered in the light of Natural Theology; both have a most in-
timate relation to each other. The present treatise on those
subjects, which would properly come under the range of
Natural Theology, is written with the great end in view of
making mare forcible and clear the evidences of the Chris-
tian religion, and giving to the mind a deeper conviction of
the supreme authority of Revelation. It will be seen, also,
that a book that should in one volume treat of the great
variety of subjects that would come under the head of Natu-
ral and Revealed Theology, must of necessity be but a com-
pend, and aim chiefly at brevity, rather than at elaborate
argument upon any one department of truth, especially as
this might not be so favorable for general reading, or make
it so desirable for use in our schools or higher institutions
of learning.
I send forth this work with the hope that it may not only
be acceptable to the general reader, but prove a welcome
help to those who are engaged in the cause of education.
The Index to Authors will be found of service to all who
may wish to enter upon an extended investigation of any of
the subjects treated upon in this book.
CHARLES E. LORD.
Beverly, N. J., September 1, 1869.
(V)
CONTENTS OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER I.
EFFICIENT CAUSATION AND FINAL CAUSATION.
PAGE
What is to be understood by Efficient Causation and Final Causation ? — Mind and
Matter. — Consciousness the Instrument of the Knowledge of Immaterial Sub-
stances.— Distinction between Matter and Mind. — Author of the Human
Mind. — Argument of the Materialist. — Material Laws. — Sir John Hersehel. —
Theory of Gradual Development. — Physical Causation. — Common Idea of
Cause. — Cause and Existence. — Brown. — Mental Causation. — Distinction be-
tween Person and Thing. — Necessarian and Libertarian Theories. — No Infi-
nite Series of Causes. — Paley on Final Causes. — Miracles. — Atheism in Rela-
tion to General Laws. — Bo wen 19
CHAPTER IL
WHAT ARE MATTERS OP FACT?
What are Matters of Fact? — Consciousness. — The Senses. — Classification of the
Facts of Consciousness. — The Sphere of the Senses. — Why the Facts of Con-
sciousness are investigated. — Law of Facts. — Distinction between the Facts of
the Senses and Consciousness. — Fundamental Law of the Consciousness. —
Jouflfroy .S3
CHAPTER IIL
GENERAL LAWS OF THE EARTH AND SUN.
Definition of a General Law. — Whewell. — Laws of Gravity. — Distribution of the
Day and the Year. — Exactness in the Length of the Day. — The Sun. — New-
ton.— Properties of Light. — Laws of Heat. — The Atmosphere. — Water. — Laws
of Friction. — Stability of the Solar System. — Laplace 39
CHAPTER IV.
THE DEVELOPMENT THEORY.
Vestiges of Creation — M. Miiller. — Law substituted for God in the Development
Theory. — Derogatory to Human Nature. — Creation by Miracle. — Researches
of Geology fatal to the Development Theory. — Agassiz. — Sedgwick. — Hitch-
cock.— Hugh Miller 55
CHAPTER V.
MUTUAL ADAPTATION OF THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOM.
Vegetable Growth. — Generation of Animals. — Principles of Compensation and
Equalization. — Buckland. — No Abortive Creation of Species. — Fitness of
Constitution 62
Cvii)
viii CONTENTS OF NATUBAL THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER VI.
PROCESS OF GENERATION IN ANIMALS AND GERMINATION IN PLANTS.
PAGE
Generation a Process. — Incorrect Use of the Language Principle of Generation. —
Elementary Cause of Animal and Vegetable Existence. — Fichte. — The Art-
ist's Studio. — Bowen. — No Evidence of Mechanism in the First Germs of
Vegetable and Animal Life. — Threefold Union of Mechanism, Life, and Mind 65
CHAPTER VII.
PROSPECTIVE CONTRIVANCES OF ANIMALS.
Recuperative Power of the Animal Economy. — Prospective Contrivances of Ani-
mals.— The Heron and Cormorant. — Solan Goose. — Tongue of the Wood-
pecker.— Air-bladder of the Fish. — Fang of a Viper. — Bag of the Opossum.
— Stomach of the Camel. — Young of Animals. — Proboscis of the Elephant. —
The Crane. — The Spider's Web. — The Lobster. — Gizzard of Birds. — Locomo-
tion of Reptiles and Birds 72
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SENSES.
Relationship of the Senses to the Nerves. — Adaptation of the World without us
to the World within us. — The Connection of the Senses with the Mind. — Sir
Charles Bell.— The Eye.— Dr. Dick.— The Hearing.— Seat of the Senses . 76
CHAPTER IX.
LIFE AND INSTINCT.
Definition of Life by Stahl, Humboldt, Kant, Bichat, and Schmidt. — Life and Or-
ganization.— Chemical Affinity and Change. — Origin of Life. — Instinct. — Its
Distinction from Reason ........... SI
CHAPTER X.
THE HUMAN BODY AND MIND, AND THE TESTIMONY OF HISTORY AND SCIENCE UPON THE
ORIGIN OF MAN.
Man a Complex Machine. — Regularity of the Animal Structure. — Package. —
Beauty of the Body. — Pelling. — Testimony of History and Science upon the
Origin of Man 86
CHAPTER XL
COMPARATIVE PHYSIOLOGY, AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.
Relation of the Inorganic Kingdom to the Organic. — Globules of Blood in Herba-
ceous and Carnivorous Animals. — M. Jussieu. — George Taylor. — Agassiz. —
Harmony existing in the Laws of Heat and Light in the Vegetable King-
dom.— Hunt. — Chemical Composition of the Animal and Vegetable King-
dom.— Physical Geography of the Earth 90
CHAPTER XIL
MEANING OF THE TERMS NATURE AND CHANCE.
Meaning of the Word Nature. — Original Power and Imparted Power. — No Self-
creation. — First and Second Causes. — Fortuitous Concourse of Atoms and
Chance unmeaning 95
CONTENTS OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. ix
CHAPTER XIII.
UNITY OP DESIGN IN NATURE.
PAGE
Dependencies of One Part of Nature upon Another. — Collocations and Adjustments
of Nature showing Unity of Design. — Plurality of Gods impossible. — Cuvier.
— Unity of God shown in the Intellectual and Moral World. — No Infinite
Series of Causes and Efifects. — Pascal 99
CHAPTER XIV.
GENERAL HAPPINESS OP ANIMAL EXISTENCE, AND INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL ACTION
REVEALING THE GOODNESS AND MERCY OF GOD.
Happiness the Rule of Animal Existence. — Suffering the Exception. — Absolute
Dependence upon God. — Gratuitous Nature of Divine Blessings. — Sportive
Movements of the Young of Animals. — Physical, Mental, and Moral Happi-
ness.— Benevolence of God. — Uniform Rule of Mental and Moral Action. —
Variety of Pleasures springing from each. — Divine Goodness bearing the
Impress of Mercy. — Jeremy Taylor 105
CHAPTER XV.
THE ESTHETIC NATURE OP MAN.
.Esthetic Nature of Man. — Elements of the Beautiful and the Sublime. — Their
Relation to the Moral Nature. — Milton. — Developments of the Principle of
Taste 115
CHAPTER XVI.
THE IMAGINATION.
The Imagination. — External World adapted to it. — Its Existence revealing Divine
Wisdom and Goodness. — Gray. — Early Development of the Imagination.
— Chatterton. — Hebrew Poetry. — The Imagination degraded .... 120
CHAPTER XVII.
CONSIDERATION OP ANGER AND SHAME, THE LOVE OP AMITY, OP SOCIETY, AND THE
POSSESSION OF PROPERTY.
Anger instinctive and deliberate. — Under certain Relations right and useful. —
Brown. — The Emotion of Shame. — How serviceable. — Love of Family. — The
Support it gives to Society. — Industry, Foresight, and Kindness called by
it into Exercise. — The Love of Possession. — Care of Society to protect the
Rights of Property. — The Constitution of Man under all its Aspects showing
the Workmanship of God 125
CHAPTER XVIIL
OMNISCIENCE, OMNIPRESENCE, AND SPIRITUALITY OP GOD.
Omniscience and Omnipresence of God. — Our Knowledge of the Attributes of God
derived from their Manifestation. — Dewar. — Presence of God in His Works. —
Spirituality of God. — Matter finite. — God not circumscribed to the Sphere
of Matter. — Not restricted by Time or Space 130
CONTENTS OF NATUBAL THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE EQUITY AND BENEVOLENCE OF GOD SHOWN FROM THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OP MAN.
PAGE
The Nature of Conscience.— The Question of Happiness and Duty.— The Moral
Constitution of Man. — The End aimed at by God in Man's Moral Constitu-
tion.— The Peculiar Prerogative of Conscience. — Conscience unperverted an
Indication of the Moral Character of God. — Conscience as it is, and as it should
jg. — Sir James Mackintosh. — Consciousness. — The Decision of Conscience. —
Dugald Stewart. — The Relation of the Intellect to the Moral Sense. — Upham. —
Butler. — Conscience as a Law, a Feeling, and a Judge. — The Law of Associa-
tion.— Bowen. — Virtue. — McCosh. — Personality. — Freedom. — Pantheism. —
Wilson. — Self-evident Truths. — Fenelon. — Alexander. — Pascal. — The Heart
and the Mind. — The Professed End of Human Government. — Evidence of the
Attributes of God arising from the Moral Constitution of Man ■ . . . 134
CHAPTER XX.
"the PROBLEM OF PHYSICAL AND MORAL EVIL."
Leibnitz. — The Present Universe in its Totality may have in it more Happiness
than any other. — The Possibility of Sin necessary to Moral Freedom. —
Lactantius. — The Infinite cannot be restricted to Actual Development. — Presi-
dent Appleton. — The Greatest Good Virtue, not Happiness. — Pain and Death
in the Brute Creation. — Sin, and Man's Freedom. — Suffering essential for the
Trial of Virtue. — Horace Bushnell 170
CHAPTER XXL
THE NATURAL AND THE SUPERNATURAL.
Law not causative, but expressive. — Prof. Nichol. — The Natural the Sphere of
Second Causes. — Regularity in Natural Law. — The End for which Nature is
made. — Limitations of Nature. — The Supernatural. — Prof. George Fisher. —
Tendency at the Present Day to Pantheism. — Cause of Natural and Revealed
Religion bound up together. — Nature and its Laws do not conflict with the
Development of the Supernatural. — The Six Great Epochs of Creation. — Prof.
Tayler Lewis. — Miracle necessary. — The Cyclical Law of all Natures. — Ar-
nold.— The Human and the Divine. — Constitution of Nature as to Mind and
Matter. — The First Links in the Chain of Causation concealed. — Different
Aspects of the Supernatural. — Polytheism. — Romanism. — Ideal, and Material-
istic Pantheism. — Deism. — Rationalism. — Philosophy of the Intuitions and
the Feelings. — Infidelity contrasted with Superstition. — Horace Bushnell . 184
CHAPTER XXII.
THE HUMAN, THE SUPERHUMAN, AND THE DIVINE.
What is comprehended in the Human. — No Part of Man's Nature supernatural.
— Universality of the Law of Cause and Efi"ect in all Creatures and Things. —
Human Volitions self-caused. — Necessity the Condition of Force in Things.
— Freedom of Human Volitions. — Evidence of Consciousness. — Sophistry
concealed under the Language " Strongest Motive." — The True Idea of
Human Liberty. — The Complex Nature of Motives. — Identity of the Super-
natural with the Divine. — The Sphere of its Activity. — The Mental Constitu-
tion of Man. — Twofold Character of Human Freedom. — Distinction between
the Strongest Motive and the Successful Motive. — Force in the World of Matter
and Mind. — -The Superhuman. — The Miraculous restricted to the Supernatu-
ral.— Law as applied to the Deity. — Second Causes. — The Divine Action upon
Things and Persons. — The Law of Causality in Things and Persons. — Dis-
tinction between Wonders and Miracles. — Proper Classification of the Human,
Superhuman, and the Divine. — What is Sin ? — Sin toward God. — Sin toward
Man. — Necessity of the Interposition of the Divine in Human Affairs . . 213
CONTENTS OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. xi
CHAPTER XXIII.
LIMITATIONS OF HUMAN THOITGHT.
■PAQB
The Senses and Consciousness the Instruments of Human Thought. — Variety of
Development in Different Minds. — Original Differences in the Human Facul-
ties.— Limitations of the Mind respecting Things Material and Immaterial. —
Primary Ideas. — Essence of Soul and Body. — Objects of the External World.
— The Accommodation of God to the Limitations of Human Thought. — Influ-
ence of Sin in shutting out God from the Mind. — The Real Knowledge of Man
mostly confined to Simple Facts. — Belief as related to Human Conduct. —
Mode of the Manifestation of God to Man. — Law of Cause and Effect. — Di-
vine Purposes and Free Agency. — The Finite and the Infinite. — The Incarna-
tion of Christ considered simply as a Fact. — God in the Incarnation of His
Son coming under Human Limitations. — First Cause and Second Causes. —
Mind and Matter. — Time and Eternity. — The Absolute and the Created.— ''elf-
Existence, and Existence begun. — Human Personality and Divine Person-
ality.— Divine Government and Probation. — Punishment and Reward . . 227
CHAPTER XXIV,
Atheism upon the Supposition that there is no God. — It removes the Highest In-
centive to Virtue, and the Greatest Restraint upon Vice. — It does not help to
Usefulness in the Family Relation. — The Atheist is deprived of one great
Source of Pleasure springing from the Recognition of an Intelligent Cause. —
His Highest Rule of Conduct must be Human Authority. — Atheism, true or
false, is revolting to the Conscience. — It gives to the Future nothing but
Gloom, Uncertainty, and Doubt. — Atheism upon the Supposition that there is
a God. — God's Existence reveals the Fact of His Government. — The Impress
of the Divine Authority manifested in the Constitution of Man. — Divine
Government always on the side of Virtue. — Law and Grace. — Atheism espe-
cially seated in the Heart. — Nature and Revelation both opposed to Atheism.
— Atheism considered under the Ills of Life. — Atheism destitute of all Reason
and an Enemy to the Progress of Society in Intelligence, Virtue, or Happiness.
— It shuts the Mind up to the Present Hour. — The Atheist Code of Morals
contrasted with Christianity. — Atheism as developed in the French Revolu-
tion.— Its Criminality and Ruin 247
CONTENTS OF REVEALED THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER I.
NECESSITY OF A REVELATION PROM GOD.
PAGE
Insufficiency of the Light of Nature. — Objections of Infidelity to the Christian
Scheme. — The Law of Belief. — Real Question at Issue. — Probability of a Rev-
elation from the Character of God. — Revelation necessary from the Existing
Condition of the Conscience, and from Human Experience. — Plato, Socrates,
Seneca, Ovid, Pliny, Clement. — What has Natural Religion accomplished ? —
Ancient and Modern Paganism. — Natural Religion unable to discover an
Effectual Remedy for Sin. — The Voice of Conscience. — Doctrine of Revela-
tion as to the Remedy for Sin. — Contrast existing between the Bible and all
other Systems of Belief and Practice 261
CHAPTER II.
CHRIST.
The Interval of Thirty-five Years between the Death of Christ and the Perse-
cution of the Christians under Nero. — Testimony of Tacitus. — ^Jewish Ac-
counts of Christ. — Character of Christ. — Christ as portrayed by the Four
Evangelists. — Christ's Humanity. — Christ in what He said of Himself. — Tes-
timony of Thomas. — Unity of Purpose in Christ's Life. — Unworldly Nature of
Christ's Life 281
CHAPTER IIL
CHRIST AS A MORALIST, LEGISLATOR, REDEEMER, AND KING.
State of Morality at Christ's Coming. — " Ecce Homo." — The Legalists and Com-
mon People. — Morality as taught by Christ. — Teaching of Christ as to the
Fatherhood of God, the Soul, and a Future State. — Legislation of Moses and
Christ contrasted. — Address of Christ to the Samaritan AVoman. — Motives to
Obedience presented by Christ. — Adaptation of Christ's Legislation to the
Success of His Cause. — The Radical Change Christ introduced into Society. —
Christ as the Redeemer. — Necessity existing for a Vicarious Sacrifice. — The
Incarnation. — Young. — Christ as a King. — Jewish View of the Kingship of
Christ. — Spirituality of this Kingship. — The Tribute Money. — Christ's Mis-
sion to the World. — Kingdom of Christ built upon Love .... 295
CHAPTER IV.
EVIDENCE OF MIRA*CLES.
Probability of Miracles. — Necessity of Miracles at the Commencement of the
Christian Era. — Christ's Testimony to the Value of His Miracles. — False View
of Nature. — Redemption an End worthy of Miracles. — No Presumptive Evi-
dence against them with this End in view. — Miraculous Interposition at Great
Epochs of Time. — Moral Element connected with Scripture Miracles. — Mir-
acles of the Bible contrasted with other Miracles professed to be worked. —
Definition of a True Miracle .......... 315
(Xii)
CONTENTS OF REVEALED THEOLOGY. xiii
CHAPTER V.
MIRACLES OF CHRIST.
PAGE
Miracles of Moses contrasted with those of Christ. — Superiority of Christ's
Miracles to all other Miracles. — The Age when Christ worked Miracles. — Con-
fession of their Reality by the Pharisees, but Ascription to Beelzebub. — Mira-
cles of Christ, unless true, must have been exposed. — How Christ's Miracles
excelled all others : 1. Number. 2. Freedom and Ease. 3. Larger and more
glorious. 4. Worked in His own Name and Power. — Trench. . . . 330
CHAPTER VI.
BIRTH, RESURRECTION, AND ASCENSION OF CHRIST, AND MIRACLES OF HIS APOSTLES.
Circumstances connected with Christ's Advent into the World. — Resurrection of
Christ. — Impossibility of Deception. — Substantial Agreement of the Four
Evangelists. — Ascension of Christ. — Peter on the Day of Pentecost. — Mir-
acles of the Apostles 341
CHAPTER VII.
MIRACLES OF MOSES.
The Ten Plagues of Egypt. — Idol-Worship of Egypt. — Necessity of the Mosaic
Miracles. — Condition of the Israelites previous to the Destruction of the
Egyptians in the Red Sea. — Forty Years' Wandering in the Desert. — Design
of the Mosaic Miracles 348
CHAPTER VIII.
EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY.
Oracles of Delphos and Dodona. — Prophecies of the Bible contrasted with other
Prophecies. — Fulfilled Prophecies. — The Position Prophecy holds in the
Bible. — End secured by Prophecy. — Special Minuteness of Detail and Accu-
racy of Fulfillment. — Prophecies respecting Babylon, Tyre, Egypt. — Three
Sons of Noah. — Ishmael. — Abraham. — Jacob and his Twelve Sons. — Daniel.
— Calmet. — Bishop Mcllvaine 357
CHAPTER IX.
PREDICTIONS CONCERNING CHRIST AND BY CHRIST.
Minuteness of Specification in the Prophecies concerning Christ. — Daniel's Proph-
ecy of Christ. — Zechariah's Prediction of the Thirty Pieces of Silver. — Birth-
place of Christ designated by Micah. — Predictions of Christ by Isaiah. —
Predictions of our Saviour in the Psalms. — Christ's Predictions of His
Death, His Resurrection, Rapid Spread of the Gospel and Persecutions of His
Disciples, the Precise Manner of Peter's Death, and the Destruction of Jeru-
salem 376
CHAPTER X.
THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE FIRST CENTURY.
Obstacles the Disciples had to encounter. — Method of Christ's Coming opposed to
the Desires of the whole Jewish Nation. — Conduct of the Jews toward Christ
and His Disciples. — Mission of the Twelve Apostles. — Condition of the World
in the First Century of the Christian Era. — Success of the Apostles. — Testi-
mony of Pliny, the Roman Governor. — Justin Martyr. — Gibbon. — Sincerity
of Belief and Practice in the Early Christians 382
xiv CONTENTS OF BEV BALED THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER XI.
ADAPTATION OP THE BIBLE TO HUMAN NATURE AND THE CONSCIENCE.
PAGE
Manner in which the Bible should be approached. — Secret Cause of Infidelity. —
Bible adapted to Human Nature as a Key to a Lock. — Bible meets the Demands
of the Conscience. — Sanctions imposed by the Bible on the Conscience. — How
the Conscience is treated in the Bi"ble, as contrasted with other Religions. —
Bible a Guide to the Conscience. — Revealer of New Truths. — Bible meets the
Natural Sense of Justice. — It furnishes a Perfect System of Ethics. — Cannot be
imposed upon. — It takes no Undue Advantage of the Conscience. — Relation
the Bible sustains to Science, History, and Physical Geography. — Bible alone
meets the Consciousness of Guilt 391
CHAPTER XII.
ADAPTATION OP THE BIBLE TO THE AFFECTIONS AND THE WILL.
Popular Language of the Bible respecting the Affections. — Philosophy of the Temp-
tation of our Firsi Parents. — Predominance of the Sensuous Part of Man's
Nature. — The Bible a Regulating Power over the Affections. — Bible adapted
to the Social and Family Relation, to the Religious Sensibilities, to Seasons
of Affliction and Adversity. — Adaptation of the Bible to the Will. — Intimate
Connection of the Affections with the Will. — Motives presented to the Will
on the side of Fear and of Hope. — The Bible a Restraining and Energizing
Power 409
CHAPTER XIII.
ADAPTATION OP THE BIBLE TO THE INTELLECT AND TO THE IMAGINATION.
Relation of the Intellect to the Truth. — New Truths communicated by the Bible. —
Number and Variety of the Books in the Bible. — Different Styles of Biblical
Composition. — Bible reveals the best kind of Knowledge. — Adaptation of the
Bible to the Imagination. — Stewart. — Bible a Regulating Power to the
Imagination. — It gives Perfect Models for Imitation 419
CHAPTER XIV.
MORAL POWER Of CHRISTIANITY.
Exclusive Suprernacy the Bible gives to God. — Christianity a Divine Power. —
Harmony created by it between Reason and Faith. — The Right Relation insti-
tuted between the Sensibilities and Faith. — Alliance of the Bible with the
Spirit of God 430
CHAPTER XV.
THE HARMONY OF SCIENCE AND REVELATION,
The Value of a True Interpretation of the Bible. — What constitutes the Great End
of Revelation. — Universal and Undeviating Uniformity of Belief upon all the
Minutiae of the Bible impossible. — Distinction between the Essential and the
Unessential. — The Use of Popular Language in the Bible. — No Opposition
between Right Science and Revelation. — The Four Fundamental Truths of
Geology. — The Mosaic Narrative of the Six Days' Creation. — E. B. Pusey. —
Dr. Buckland. — Chalmers. — Nichol. — Gaussen. — President Green . . 438
CONTENTS OF REVEALED THEOLOGY. xv
CHAPTER XVT.
THE UNITY OP THE HUMAN RACE.
PAOB
Earliest Accounts point to the First Period of Human Existence as innocent and
happy. — Paul's Mission to the Athenians. — Central Region of Asia the Cradle
of the Human Race. — No Greater Varieties in the Human Species than in the
Species of Animals. — The Two Great Laws of Species. — Origin of the Human
Family from Adam. — Superfluity of Miracles connected with many Distinct
Creations of Animals and Men. — Difference between Diversity and Mon-
strosity.— Testimony of History. — Miraculous Interposition in Combination
with Natural Law. — Layard. — Confusion of Tongues at Babel . . . 454
CHAPTER XVII.
INTEGRITY OF THE SACRED CANON.
Age of the Apostles. — Testimony of Clement, Hermas, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin
Martyr, Ireneeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Jerome, and Augustine. —
Indirect Testimony of the Enemies of Christianity, Celsus, Porphyry, Julian.
— Canon of the Old Testament indorsed by Christ.— Testimony of the New
Testament and Jewish Writers. — Josephus. — Early Christian Fathers. — Prof.
Sampson 477
CHAPTER XVIIL
THE PLENARY INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE.
Distinction between General and Plenary Inspiration. — Divine and Human Element
in the Bible. — Plenary Inspiration regards the Condition of the Writing rather
than the Mind of the Writer. — What is not meant by plenary inspiration. —
Three Forms of Error into which the Mind falls in respect to the Plenary
Inspiration of the Bible. — What constitutes a Proof of Plenary Inspiration. —
Consideration of Objections to Plenary Inspiration. — Testimony of Sacred
Writers of the Old and New Testaments. — Separate Chains of Evidence upon
which the Inspiration of the Bible rests 487
CHAPTER XIX.
HISTORIC OUTLINE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
Old Testament in its Revelation of God. — Mosaic Dispensation. — Contrast
between the Theism of the Bible and the Pagan Polytheism. — Cudworth. —
Deification of the Creature in Ancient Polytheism. — Alliance of Church and
State. — Paul's Picture of Heathenism. — Design of the Jewish Theocracy and
Jewish Ritual. — Principles of the Hebrew Polity 511
CHAPTER XX.
HISTORIC OUTLINE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
The Dream of Nebuchadnezzar. — Christianity. — Its Relation to the World. — Its
Ultimate Condition. — Croly. — Christianity and Paganism. — Antagonism of
Christianity to the World. — Relation sustained to the Individual and to
Society.— GilfilUn 526
xvi CONTENTS OF REVEALED THEOLOGY
CHAPTER XXI.
THE DIFFICCLTIES OF SKEPTICISM.
PAGE
The Bible a Religion of Facts. — Relation of the Bible to Human Reason. — In-
fallibility of Revelation. — The two great Errors of Skepticism. — Diflficulties
of Skepticism: 1. Degradation of Reason in its Sphere. 2. Makes no Pro-
vision for the Highest Want of the Nature. 3. Stumbles upon the Incompre-
hensible alike of Nature and of Revelation. 4. Removes the best Standard
of Virtue. 5. Has no Unity of Belief 537
CHAPTER XXII.
THE UNREASONABLEJfESS OF SKEPTICISM.
Skepticism cannot improve upon the Morality of the Bible. — Objections of the
Skeptic frivolous and inconsistent. — The Skeptic cannot prove any of the
Facts of the Bible untrue. — Twofold Class of Facts in the Bible, both mutually
sustaining each other. — Skepticism a System of Doubt, and not of Evidence . 546
INDEX TO AUTHORS ... 555
NATURAL THEOLOGY.
NATURAL THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER I.
EFFICIENT CAUSATION, AND FINAL CAUSATION.
The reasoning from eflect to cause has two leading divi-
sions : — first, that kind of argument which is based upon
efiicient causation; secondly, that which is based upon final
causation. Eflacient causation is where the effect or result
is of such a nature that we can attribute it in no sense to any
other being than the First Cause, or God. Final causation
is reasoning from the character of the effect, or result, to God.
The former rests upon the proof that such is the effect, or
result, that we know of no other cause but the First Cause,
or God. We cannot suppose any intermediate, or what is
called secondary, cause. The latter relies for the proof of
God upon the design, adaptation, or intelligence displayed
in the effect or result. The one reasons from nature directly
up to nature's God, or from effects otherwise inexplicable to
the First Cause that solves all difficulties ; the other relies
upon the character of those effects to show an infinitely
intellio^ent and desio-nins: cause.
We classify all things under two great divisions, mind and
matter. One has thought, perception, sensibility to emotions
of joy or grief, pleasure or pain, love or hatred, and, above
all, the great attribute of will, or instinct, Avhich decides all
action or controls all conduct. The other substance we call
matter, which has length and breadth, form and divisibility.
All matter that comes under the inspection of the senses
has also color and weight. The great instrument by which
we attain to the knowledge of immaterial substances is pecu-
(19)
20 EFFICIENT CAUSATION,
liarly the consciousness; while the senses bring us directly
into contact with matter, and afford us a certain knowledge
of it. Observe, then, that man, compounded of two directly
opposite substances, perfectly distinct from each other, yet
linked together by the mysterious cord of animal life, comes
for the first time into existence. What brought man thus
compounded into being? What introduced the first man
into the world ? What combined .together two substances
so foreign from each other ? Let us suppose, with the atheist,
that some peculiar modification of matter brought him into
being, some fortunate position of particles, some wonderful
combination of atoms under the mysterious agency of chemi-
cal or mechanical law. Incredible as this is, let us, for argu-
ment's sake, admit it. But what are we to do with the mind
of man? How came that into being? Is it not an axiom
that no substance can impart that which it has not? Matter
is not mind, — how can it give it ? JVIaterial atoms have not
thought, will, perception, and feeling. We do not attach
the ideas of weight, color, length and breadth, form and
divisibility, to mind ; and yet that which has not intelligence,
which has none of the properties of mind, did produce
thought, and, more than all, impart a moral nature, a sense
of accountability and of free agency ! Are we not intuitively
struck with the absurdity of such a supposition? Even if
matter had in itself an efficient power of producing, without a
First Cause, every modification of matter and every diversity
of mechanism, yet it cannot produce mind; it cannot be the
architect of thought, will, perception, a moral sense, or free
agency. Who can conceive of matter engendering, by its own
inherent power, the conscience, the perception, and feeling of
right and wrong? If one infinite mind was not the author
of the human mind, then the conclusion must be that mind
owed its parentage to matter, to a substance w^hose exclusive
properties are extension, weight, form, divisibility, and color.
Before the atheist can give the least plausibility to his
theories, he must deny the existence of spirit, and of all
things immaterial.
Let us, then, see if, upon the theory of the atheistic mate-
A.\W FINAL CAUSATION. 21
rialist, there is any virtue in the argument that matter was
the sole cause of the human body. Imagine, now, that
thought, feeling, will, perception, and reason are only refined
modifications of matter ; simply the subtile phenomena of
materialism. What is the question to be solved ? Simply
this : can any or all of the known or supposed laws of matter
account for the origin of the human body and mind? Most
certainly not. Material laws are simply the mode under which
material phenomena develop themselves. Thus, we have
the general law of gravity, or attraction; mechanical law,
which relates to position and direction ; chemical law, which
relates to affinity and combination. Here are material atoms,
or inorganic particles. Can we imagine any juxtaposition,
or combination, or attraction of atoms to come together and
form the mysterious framework of the human system ? Re-
member, we cannot ascribe intelligence to atoms of inorganic
matter: we give to them their appropriate laws ; but do they
or can they produce the human organism? Who can con-
ceive of blind, unconscious particles of matter jostling to-
gether a human frame, bone, muscle, heart, blood, veins,
arteries, hands, eyes, ears, feet, and all in one harmonious
system, all in due proportion, with no superabundance and
no defect? We must disown our own consciousness and
the first principles of reason, before we can harbor such
a thought. Remember, we have inorganic particles to
produce a perfect, living organism. Denying an infinite
intelligence to fashion the body, our only resort is unintelli-
gent atoms. By tlie law of gravity we suppose worlds are
kept in motion, and matter is attracted to matter; by me-
chanical law we give position and direction to different sub-
stances ; by chemical law^ we secure affinit}', and the intimate
combination of elements together. But can one or all of
these law^s of inorganic substances account for the living bod^^
of man ? Xo. We trace their operation out, and we find
they have their own peculiar sphere. Neither moving worlds
nor moving atoms can engender living bodies. No chemical
law can give birth to the lowest organism. The sphere of
chemical law is as distinct from the vital principle of living
22 EFFICIENT CAUSATION,
organisms as the act of volition from a stone. The first man
is an effect, a result of something; but that something cannot
be floating atoms of matter, or any conceivable mechanical,
chemical, or gravitating law. We cannot with sane minds
believe in what we never have seen done nor can show can
be done. Thus, whether we conceive of man as only mate-
rial, or both material and immaterial, we know that no law
of gravity, no mechanical force, and no chemical affinity can
be a sufficient reason, or any reason whatever, for the living
organism. We know that no jumbling together of atoms, no
chance combination of particles, no blind floating of lifeless
substances could engender the human system. But more
than this, — we know that the principle that gives vitality to
the living body of man is constantly at war w^ith the laws of
inorganic substances. Man only lives by holding in inces-
sant check those inorganic laws that rapidly, when they have
the mastery, reduce the system to the dust of the ground.
Who has not noticed how soon, wdien the vital laws suspend
their action, the body decomposes? The wear of the
elements, the friction of the human machinery, the agency
of chemical affinities, all combine to destroy the human body.
But the vital law of all living organisms holds all other laws
in abeyance; bat when death comes, and the principle of
vitality no longer exists, then these inorganic laws reduce to
dust the human frame. How" great, then, the absurdity of
attributing to any inorganic law, or all combined, the living
body of man! We then come to the conclusion that, if man
has had a beginning, we can find no cause for it in nature:
we must find that cause in God.
"Without going into any subtilities," says Sir John Her-
schel, "I may at least be allowed to suggest that it is at least
high time that philosophers, both physical and others, should
come to some nearer agreement than seems to prevail as to
the meaning they intend to convey in speaking of causes and
causation. On the one hand, we are told that the grand ob-
ject of physical inquiry is to explain the nature of phenomena
by referring them to the causes ; on the other, that the in-
quiry into causes is altogether vain and futile, and that
AND FINAL CAUSATION. 23
science has no concern but with tlie discovery of huvs.
Which of them is the truth? Or are both views of the
matter true on a ditferent interpretation of the terms?
Whichever view we may take, or whichever interpretation
we may adopt, there is one thing certain — the extreme in-
convenience of such a state of hmguage. This can only be
reformed bj'- a careful analysis of the widest of all human
generalizations, disentangling from one another the innu-
merable shades of meaning which have got confounded
together in its progress, and establishing among them a
rational classification and nomenclature. Until this be done,
we cannot be sure that by the relation of cause and ciiect
one and the same kind of relation is understood."
The half-atheistic theory of gradual development to ac-
count for the commencement of the human race, is as much
opposed to true science as it is to the express declarations of
Scripture. Consequently we are shut up to the only possi-
ble alternative to account for the origin of man, even the
direct and miraculous power of God. But the form of argu-
ment to prove the existence of God the most impressive, is
that founded upon design and adaptation. This comes more
properly under the name of final causation. But if the
argument of final causation is more impressive, and of far
wider application, it may be doubted if it is as direct and
positive as the argument of efficient causation. The atheis-
tical mind will often confound the reasoning of design and
adaptation to prove the existence of God with the operation
ot natural law. Under the vao-ue lano-uao-e of laws of nature
there will be lost all true ideas of a personal God, and thus
these very evidences of contrivance and adaptation, that
should lead directlj' to the great First Cause, are perverted
by the wrong use of laws of nature. When the theist, filled
with admiration in the contemplation of a wonder-working
God, would point to the diversified evidences of design, the
skeptic shuts out the conviction of God from his mind by
worshiping law in his place. Consequently to give the
highest logical accuracy as directness to the argument for a
God, it is necessarv to 2:0 back to the commencement of the
24 EFFICIENT CAUSATION,
human race, and of the varied species of animate creation,
when the great law of production, or the generation of ani-
mals, had no existence. Here we say to the skeptic, Much
as you may defy law, you cannot bring in law to account for
the origin of man, and quadrupeds, reptiles, birds, and the
fishy tribes. Before these living creatures had an existence,
where was the law of reproduction ? Where was the law of
propagating species before species had any being? To speak
of the animate world before its existence is the greatest of
absurdities. It is the same as to say, there is a uniform mode
or principle of reproduction, of growth, and life, before even
generation, growth, and life had an existence. Thus, imme-
diately when we come to the first links of each chain that
represents the difierent species of animals, we are compelled
to have recourse to an infinitely intelligent and powerful
being as their sole and only adequate cause. The laws of
nature in respect to animals can have no actual existence
until the difl:erent species of animals are created. By con-
founding cause and effect with the general phenomena of the
law of production, the author of the "Vestiges of Creation"
fell into the blunder of gradual development. He did not
consider that the human mind, dissatisfied with the vague
abstraction of general law, demanded something better to
account for the origin of man and the different species of
animals. So also Spinoza, by making no distinction between
physical causation and mental causation, between material
and immaterial substances, the laws of body and the laws of
thought and will, constructed a theory whose iron fatalism
destroyed alike all virtue and all freedom, — a theory where
God becomes nature, and both are bound together with the
chain of an irresistible necessity. So Hume, by overlooking
the distinction of substances and their properties or modes
of action, — mental causation and mental effects, — overturned
the certainty of all human knowledge, and introduced a
state of unlimited doubt. The pantheism of Spinoza was
fatalism; the skepticism of Hume, endless uncertainty. So
also the atheist, by making cause and existence identical,
and giving too wide a meaning to the axiom of cause and
AXD FINAL CAUSATION. 25
effect, reduces the theist to the alternative of admitting
either that God had a cause, or that the earth was uncaused.
Consequently we see how necessary is correct reasoning
upon cause and effect. The argument from design, as well
as that from efficient causation, is deeply affected h\ a cor-
rect understanding of cause and effect, of laws mental and
material, and what are matters of fact in distinction from
the abstract relation of ideas.
What is the common idea of cause with all persons univer-
sall}'? Is it not that which produces effects? Is not effi-
ciency, or power of some sort, always included in the idea of
a cause? ^ A cause, then, is a substance, material or mental,
that produces effects. Can we have the idea of cause and
not also of effect with it? Is not effect the necessary and
invariable consequent of cause? Take away the idea of effect
from cause, and can we have any idea of cause? Certainly
not. A cause is that which causes, produces, or influences.
Cause, therefore, must with it comprehend power. Can
there be an effect and no power to produce it? Impossible!
For what is an effect unless it implies the result of action,
or change of some sort ? If the idea of power could be sepa-
rated from cause, then we could separate cause and effect ;
for if cause has no power, then effect has no cause, for all
action, motion, or change must imply a power to produce
such action, motion, or change. AVe can no more divorce
power from cause than we can cause from effect. But in
what sense does cause implj^ power? Exclusively in the
sense of power in action, for cause and power passive, or not
put forth, is a contradiction in terms. This is our first idea
of cause. What is our second idea of cause? It is, that
cause not only includes power in action, but substance for
existence. We know of only two perfectly distinct kinds
of substances: one we call mind, the other body; one is
spiritual, the other material. When we speak of causes in
the world of matter, we mean physical causes; in the world
of mind, mental or spiritual causes ; and both include the
two fundamental ideas of power and substance. We come,
then, to consider if cause and existence are identical propo-
26 EFFICIENT CAUSATION,
sltioiis, or synonymous terms. Existence and substance are
identical, for there can be no substance without existence,
and no existence without substance. We cannot speak of
notliing existing, except as a figure of speech. We can have
no idea of existence divorced from substance, and its proper-
ties divorced from existence. But is existence in the same
manner identical with cause ? Can existence never be spoken
of without the idea of cause ? Upon a correct solution of this
question depends essentially the strength of the argument for
the existence of God. It has been seen that cause is ahvays
that wliich produces ; that it always includes power in action
of some sort: not power passive, but power leading to
effects, movements, or changes. Now, do we not often have
the idea of substance passive in a quiescent state, not acting?
Certainly no idea is more uniformly familiar to the mind ;
but substance is synonymous with existence : then of conrsc
there can be the idea of existence without action, or causa-
tion. While a cause uniformly implies existence, existence
does not uniformly imply a cause. One is general, the other
specific. One alwa^-s comprehends substance, the other sub-
stance in action. Thus we come to the conclusion that, while
cause always implies substance, energizing or producing
effects, existence may or may not include substance, ener-
o-izino; or causino- effects; and therefore that it is stretchinor
the axiom too far to say that because every effect must have
a cause, therefore all substance or existence must have a
cause. The atheist, misusing this axiom, tells ns that since
every effect must have a cause, and every cause a substance,
therefore there is an endless series of causes and effects, and
consequently that God himself has a cause, and therefore
there is no First Cause. If the mind, revolting from such a
c(^nclnsion, denies the axiom that every effect must have a
cause, then the atheist turns to this earth, and asks if the
world itself is not uncaused and existing from eternity, since
there are some effects without a cause. How is the theist to
extricate himself from this dilemma ? Simply b}- showing that
the axiom, that every effect must have a cause, is restricted
exclusively to substances energizing, or producing effects;
AiVD FINAL causation: 27
that it has rehitioii to power in action, not passive flower; to an
existence that produces changes, not an existence not caused.
Thus, viewing substance without movement, change, or ac-
tion, with no previous knowledge of that substance or how
it came into existence, we cannot say that it had a cause ; but
no sooner do we see power operating in change or movement
than we say at once there is an effect, and therefore a cause.
Is it not, then, admitted that existence does not necessarily
or inevitably imply a cause? Then God, who is an ex-
istence, is not an effect from a pre-existing cause, God is
uncaused, self-existing, the great First Cause and effect.
From within himself there is a sufficient cause for all his
worlds. In his o^x\^ nature, not out of it, there dwells the
misrhtv fountain of cause and effect. In himself reside in-
finite knowledge and power. Thus, by limiting a general
axiom to its peculiar sphere, do we disentangle our minds of
that web of sophistry that leads to fatalism and the denial of
a personal, uncaused God. " Matter, as an unformed mass,"
says Brown, "could not, of itself, have suggested the notion
of a Creator, since in every hypothesis something material or
mental must have existed uncaused, and mere existence,
therefore, is not necessarily a mark of previous causation,
unless we take for granted an infinite series of causes."
Let us examine the distinction between physical causes
and mental causes, and get the essential idea of the two.
When we speak of causes in the w^orld of matter, what do we
mean ? Do we mean that simple uncompounded substances, or
substances apart from other substances, can produce effects ?
Then matter is not essentially passive ; like volition, it is self-
active : certainly this is not meant by physical causation. We
mean by physical causation the relation of cause and effect
under certain prescribed conditions. Thus, there must be
two or more substances to produce effects, and then a certain
relation of those substances to each other. In other words,
cause and effect can only exist in physical substances when
there is more than one substance, and then under a certain
prescribed order or law, or relation of these substances to
each other. We must combiiT^ the two, or there is no effect.
28 EFFICIENT CAUSATION,
We can dissolve salt in water, but not glass. We can mingle
together milk and water, but not oil and water. Thus, we
see in all material substances mechanical laws and chemical
laws, and to produce effects there must be two or more sub-
stances, and then a right adjustment of those substances.
Consequently all action in matter comes from wnthout ; all
effects are ab extra. Matter itself is passive, and must be
moved upon. Alone it never changes, never moves, never
acts. We do not discuss the nature of second causes, but
simply their mode of manifestation. We do not define tlie
phenomena of physical causes, but exhibit them as they ap-
pear to all minds. Matter itself is essentially passive. All
effect, all action, is from without, not within; therefore
matter has no intelligence, no freedom, no accountability.
What, now, is mental causation? Mental causes differ as
widely from physical causes as the mind itself from matter.
The mind is a unit, a person, a substance indivisible, endowed
with will, which is self-active. Self is the invariable attendant
upon mind, a simple, pure idea of consciousness, self-evident
and intuitive. Thus, the idea of person, and that of self, go
together. Every volition of mind, every perception of the
senses, every feeling of the heart, every emotion of sensibility,
carries with it the consciousness of self, of a person, of me., a
free agent. Thus, we see a wide distinction between person
and thing : a person is individual ; a thing, general ; a person
is unity; a thing, complexity. One is indivisible, the other
divisible ; one self-active, the other acted upon ; one embodies
essential freedom, the other uniform necessity. A thing pro-
duces effects from without; a person, from within. One is
caused, the other self caused. One is irresponsible, the other
accountable. Thus, a person has a kingl}- will, free to act right
and wrong, moving within itself, making tributary to it as
instruments the diversified objects of sense; but a thing is
irresistibly bound to the law of necessity; it cannot act ex-
cept in connection with another substance, and then only in
accordance with some invariable law of order or proportion :
doubly enchained in itself, it is essentially passive. Thus
we see how different are the causes of the physical and of the
AND FINAL CAUSATION. 29
material world, — how unlike are each in their action. Here
it is, by compounding mental causes and physical causes
together, we see the error of the extreme necessarians, and
by overlooking physical causes, or the great law of cause and
etfect, in mind as in matter, we see the difficulties of the ex-
treme libertarians. The former, by a mode of reasoning-
adapted only to physical causes, make even the will forced,
and a compulsory state of the volitions, thus virtually leading
to the ruin of all true liberty ; while the latter, denying
cause and effect in the mental world in relation to the will,
not only war against the clearest axiom of consciousness, but
remove away all certaintj' of human action, all foundation
for character, and the only principle by which we can possiblj*
judge of human or divine conduct. If there is no great law
of causality in the mental world, then consciousness and the
senses falsify their trust ; liberty even ceases to be true
liberty, and becomes a variable, lawless liberty, where un-
limited fickleness marks all character, and eternal uncertainty
all action. The laws of the mental world cease to have any
meaning, and endless doubt rests.upon every anticipation of
human or divine volition. But it is equally hazardous not to
draw the line of separation heaven-wide between physical
and mental causes. If we borrow our reasoning upon mental
causes from any physical analogy, we are inevitably forced
over the precipice of a relentless necessity. We may cover
up our language with ever so many smooth names, but we
shall be compelled either to contradict over and over again
ourselves, or, if consistent, there can be no alternative but the
fatalism of Fichte or Spinoza. AVe are not safe for a moment
if we lose the idea that the mind acts from within, while the
body from without ; that in the will cause and effect are ab
intra, while in matter ab extra; the one self-active, the other
acted upon. The only idea of power with mind is internal,
while with the body it is external. Consequently physical
and mental causation are distinct altogether. Not more wide
apart is the substance of matter from mind, than is the law of
causality that reigns in both. Let the necessarian purge his
mind of physical causes when he enters the mysterious
30 EFFICIENT CAUSATION,
temple of human thought and volition. Let him disentangle
himself of the ambiguous reasoning about the strongest mo-
tive. It is the man that determines the motive, vastly more
than the motive the man. And let the extreme libertarian
remember that the law of causality exists in the world of
matter and of mind; that in tlie mind it exists in perfect
consistency with human freedom; that consciousness and the
senses confirm this law, and that without it all things would
be afloat, even as they would be did it not exist in the mate-
rial world. Having now considered the distinction between
physical and mental causes, let the person who would lose
sight of God in second causes, or deny them, consider the
language of Lord Bacon :
" For certain it is that God worketh nothing in nature but
by second causes; and if they would have it otherwise be-
lieved, it is by mere imposture, as it were in favor toward
God and nothing else, but to ofier to the author of truth the
unclean sacrifice of a lie. But further, it is an absurd truth,
and a conclusion of experience, that a little or superficial
knowledge of philosophy may incline the man to atheism;
but a further proceeding therein doth bring the mind back
again to religion ; for in the entrance of philosophy, when
the second causes, which are next unto the senses, do offer
themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and sta^-, then it
may include some oblivion of the highest cause; but when a
man passeth on farther and seeth the dependence of causes
and the works of Providence, then, according to the allegory
of the poets, he will easily believe that the highest link
of nature's chain must needs be tied to the foot of Jupiter's
chair."
It has therefore been seen that God could not have a prior
cause, because existence does not necessarily imply a cause;
because, when we trace back ever so far cause and effect, we
reach at last the first cause, and the only sufficient cause;
and that there we must stop, because in God cause and effect
are self-existing, and that consequently there can be no infi-
nite series of causes. Here we feel that the existence of God
is placed upon an immovable foundation. When then we come
A.\W FIXAL CAUSATION. 31
to reason upon final causes, the adjustment of general laws, the
adaptation of means to an end, and all the evidences of design
shown in the works of nature, we can see far more clearly
than before the varied and wonderful proofs of the being of
God; we extricate ourselves from all the sophistry disguised
under the unmeaning language of laws of nature, and that
pantheism that confounds God and nature together; but
especially do we relieve ourselves of the metaphysical sub-
tilities comprehended in an infinite series of causes directly
leading to the deification of the powers of nature, and the
denial of all true freedom of will.
Unsurpassed as is the reasoning of Paley upon the evi-
dences of contrivance in nature, and the clearness of all his
proofs of intelligence in the construction of the world, yet
his admirable work upon final causes and design evinced in
this world cannot clearly combat the profound subtilitv of
German infidelity, and all the atheistical sophistry disguised
under the lano-uasre of laws of natui-e and an infinite series
of causes. To give the highest efiect to all reasoning upon
final causes, it is very important to show efficient causation
in the works of nature from God, when in no sense general
law in respect to that causation could have an existence.
Thus removed from the sphere of law, eflicicnt causation
leads directly, without any intermediate agency, to the First
Cause. God, then, being clearly demonstrated by the most
convincing induction, all other proofs from final causes, from
the laws of nature, or the adaptation of means to an end,
come clothed with far greater power to the mind. This is
easily seen when there is the direct suspension of some law
of nature, as in the case of miracles. How irresistibly is
the mind led to the acknowledgment of God! IIow strik-
ing, how direct is the proof of divine agency ! Should some
man, as in the time of Christ, be raised from the dead, or
walk, as our Saviour did, upon the waves of the sea, how
convincing would be the immediate power of God! Thus
the mind that so unreasonably confounds God with nature,
and the Deity with his laws, is forced, however reluctant, to
confess the beinsf of God. Because efficient causation in
32 EFFICIENT CAUSATION, AND FINAL CAUSATION.
the origin of man and the brutes partakes so clearly of the
character of miracle, where no known law and no second
causes have any existence, we see how irresistibly the
atheism embodied in the wrong idea of general laws of an
infinite series of causes is swept away. We see how plainly
an infinite God is seated upon the throne of the universe,
revealing himself directly in creation and all miracles, and
indirectly, but no less certainly, in the phenomena of general
laws, their adjustment together, and the adaptation of means
to an end.
"It is no doubtful inference," says Francis Bowen, "no
long and tedious process of reasoning, which connects all
events in the history of the universe with the being and
attributes of God. The conclusion is so obvious, the con-
nection so close and striking, that it is difficult to believe
that any mind not willfully obtuse, and not perverted by
logical subtilities and metaphysical abstractions, ever failed
to conceive it with perfect trust at first sight."
CHAPTER II.
WHAT ARE MATTERS OF FACT ?
Matters of fact may be dietinguished into things which
exist and events which take place. Thus the earth is a
matter of fact, and its movement is equally so.
What are matters of fact ?
All material things, and all events in connection with
them, must he classed among matters of fact. But the ques-
tion is. Are matters of fact exclusively confined to objects
of sense and their changes, or can matters of fact have a
wider range? Are those things which we see, handle, touch,
hear, or taste, with their changes, alone matters of fact; or
may there not exist other matters of fact, entirely distinct
from the world of visible things, that cannot come under the
cognizance of any of our senses ? If so, then the instrument
by which we attain unto a knowledge of these matters of fact
must be altogether ditFerent from the senses. Is there such
an instrument? Certainly ; in consciousness is found the
instrument, as real in its operation and clear in the knowl-
edge it imparts, as is seen in the agency of the senses.
"What is the consciousness?
The consciousness is that which directly gives the knowl-
edge of the volitions of the mind and all the desires of the
heart. Is not an act of will a matter of fact? Is not to us
the certainty of our volitions as great as the certainty of the
earth we tread upon? Does any person doubt whether he
wills to do this or that thing ? Does he doubt whether he
feels pleasure or pain ? Is the mind less certain of the fe-el-
ing of sorrow or joy, of hatred or love, of confidence or dis-
trust, than of the stars that sparkle in the sky, or the flower
that adorns the field ? But the acts of the volition, or feeling,
cannot come under the cognizance of the senses. The anato-
3 (33)
34 WHAT ARE MATTERS OF FACT?
mist, with his knife and miseroscope, may dissect the body,
and view the minute wonders of the liuman frame ; but can
his microscope and knife avail him in dissecting the vastly
more mysterious mechanism of thought and feeling? No.
This belongs to the domain of psychology, not physiology.
The instrument by which we analyze the former is conscious-
ness, the latter the senses. It is in making the senses com-
prise all matters of fad, and confounding all the facts of con-
sciousness with simply the relation of ideas, as that the three
angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, or the
whole is greater than a part, that the mind is led to depre-
ciate the commonest and clearest facts of our beins:. But are
the facts of the consciousness equally clear? Certainly not.
No more than are all the facts of the senses. The naturalist,
in observing the phenomena of nature, varies in degree of
certainty. In his scale of facts there is a belief based upon
the highest certainty, and a belief less sure, ranging down
even to the lowest probability. To arrive at certainty the
senses must have ample opportunity for observation ; they
must not be hmited in respect to their exercise, but must
have ample field for operation. Much is said of the decep-
tion of the senses; but the senses, properly understood, never
deceive. The senses only promise a true decision when
suitably used. If but partially used, if but limited in their
legitimate sphere, their decision must correspond to the
character of their exercise; precisely the same is it with the
consciousness. The consciousness, properly understood, never
can deceive; but then it must have a fair field for its exer-
cise. There are innumerable facts of consciousness, ransinsr
from those which all believe in to the more obscure and less
defined. But what is the remedy for a true classification of
the facts of consciousness? Just the same which the natu-
ralist resorts to in the true classification of the facts of the
senses — careful observation. The instrument of the conscious-
ness must be used with as much discrimination as that of the
senses. But here consists the difierence. The senses have
to do with that loithout us; while the consciousness is limited
exclusively to that ivithin us. We cannot run after the facts
WHAT ARE MATTERS OF FACT? 35
of the consciousness; they must be observed at the same
time they appear in the consciousness. The mind must be
abstracted from the external world, must retire within itself,
and ponder upon those facts that constantly present them-
selves in the soul. Self-demonstration to us will be the
highest demonstration. It will be proof as great as any de-
rived from the observation of the senses. But more than
this: the facts of consciousness exist with all; for the facts
of the senses we go abroad; but the facts of the conscious-
ness are found at home. It will not do to form a system, and
bend the facts of consciousness to that system. It will not
do to theorize: we must observe. Like the naturalist, we
must content ourselves with ascertaining facts, not building
systems. Our minds must be limited to strict observation
of facts, and then induction from facts. By this way all the
leading facts of consciousness will be distinctly recognized,
and perfect agreement will exist; because there will be the
same self-demonstration with all of the same facts. But if,
instead of careful observation of facts, and deductions from
facts, the mind abandons itself to system-building, it will fall
into errors equally as pernicious as those errors that existed
in physics before the Baconian principle of induction took
the place of the old philosophy of ages of ignorance and
presumption. From units we must go to universals, and
not from universals to units. Having seen that the phe-
nomena of the intelligence, the sensibility, and the will are
facts as real as the phenomena of the external world, we are
prepared to answer the question^ For what purpose do we
investigate the facts of consciousness? Let us confine our-
selves to the facts of consciousness universally admitted.
Who doubts that he wills, or thinks, or feels? Who is
there that is not persuaded of his acts of volition? Who
does not believe as certainly in his thoughts and feelings as
in any of the phenomena of the external world? But by
what instrument is it that he knows that he feels, wills, or
thinks? Simply the consciousness. Certainty in these facts
is as absolute as certainty in any of the facts of the senses,
and man must be annihilated before he loses his belief in
36 WHAT ARE MATTERS OF FACT?
thouglit, feeling, and will. It is as impossible to doubt these
facts as that of the existence of an external world. Why,
then, do we examine matters of fact, be they of the senses or
of the consciousness ? The reply is, To find out the laiv, the
principle of order that reigns supreme in all matters of fact.
To what purpose to us would it be to have a collection of
facts, be they of the senses or of the consciousness, if we
could not find out the law of facts, if or^der was unknown,
and if by induction we should be unable to ascertain the
laws that link together every separate class of facts.
What, then, is meant by the law of facts? Simply the
uniform relation of antecedent and consequent. For in-
stance, " fire burns the hand." The induction is that always
it will burn the hand. "A weight falls to the ground."
The induction is that invariably, tinder like circumstances,
heavy bodies will fall to the ground. "Oil mixed with water
rises to the top." The induction is that water and oil will
not mingle together. Thus, in the observation of the facts
of the external world, we study the laws of those facts ; we
examine into the invariable relation of antecedent and con-
sequent. Is it not the same with the facts of consciousness?
Are there no laws except what relate to the sphere of the
senses? Do not the facts of consciousness have their own
peculiar laws adapted to their own mental and normal state?
Is it not the law of the will to lead to action ? — of the sensi-
bility to awaken emotion and to influence the will? — of the
intelligence to secure knowledge ? We come, then, to the
conclusion that internal phenomena, that the facts of the
senses and consciousness are entirely distinct; that we can-
not bring the senses to analyze the consciousness, or the
consciousness the senses. Each have their separate sphere.
The one has to do alone with the world without us, while
the other is exclusively confined to the world within us. We
come, then, to the conclusion that the universal law of every
phenomenon, whether of the senses or of the consciousness,
is founded upon an inherent principle of the mind: the
relation of antecedent and consequent, cause and eftect.
The sufficient reason is not so much seen to be as known to
be. It is a pure conception of reason. A first truth, an ab-
WHAT ARE MATTERS OF FACT? 37
solute necessity of the very construction of tlie mind. The
simple uncompounded ideas cannot be defined. Thus the
knowledge of our identity, of our self-existence, the fact
that I exist, is a truth of consciousness ; it does not admit of
argument or of definition. I know that it is so, because I
feel it, I realize it. I cannot doubt it. I act every hour
upon the belief of it. I labor for it. I eat, drink, and sleep
for it. I cannot persuade myself out of it. This is all that
can be said, and it is enough. It is a truth of intuition, of
pure reason, of the highest consciousness, and therefore can-
not be compounded or defined, or made any clearer by any
amount of argument or process of reasoning. Equally evi-
dent is it that in the consciousness the universal law of every
phenomenon must be intuitively seen and felt and acknowl-
edged by all. Thus the relation, or law of cause and eftect,
or sufficient reason; and the result is not so much seen as
known. It is instantly, and upon all occasions, felt as a first
truth, a fact of pure reason, and an invariable attendant upon
every act of consciousness. We all believe in it, because we
feel it; we always act upon it, because we know it. Every
person in his own experience is fully persuaded of it. As
soon as a change is perceived, we know it must have a cause.
As soon as an eftect is produced, we know something must
have produced it. We feel intuitively that every consequent
must have an antecedent; every operation a sufficient reason.
Such is the fundamental law of our consciousness ; other-
wise all the facts of the world within us would avail us
nothing. We would be lost in all induction; rather we
could have no induction. For what is induction? It is
simply a right classification of facts to arrive at the law of
those facts. But if there is no invariable relation of ante-
cedent and consequent, cause and effect, how can the mind
ever attain unto the law of facts ? If fire burns one person
and freezes another, if gravity brings one heavy body to the
ground and raises another up from the ground, where is the
induction of the law of heat, or of gravity? Of what use is
reasoning from facts to their law when there is no law, or an
endless contradiction of law? If there is no invariability of
antecedent and consequent, but an endless discord between
38 WHAT ARE 3IATTERS OF FACT?
them, then all facts would be a confused jumbling together
of materials that would either lead to no knowledge, or only
lead to misguide. Is it not, then, the first axiom of pure
reason, the most immediate and invariable truth of con-
sciousness, that every eftect must have a cause, every conse-
quent an antecedent, every result a sufficient reason? Can
there be any mistake here? No. We must admit this
law or rush into absolute skepticism. One only alternative
is to doubt everything, or admit this law. We must doubt
an external world and an internal world, our own existence,
and the existence of things without us, all matters of fact,
and all the relation of ideas. We must rush into self-annihi-
lation, disown our own being, and live, feel, and act as if
there was neither a world within us nor without us. We must
deny all rules of obligation and ever}- principle of duty; all
faith, all reason, all induction, and all consciousness.
But can we do this? Impossible ! There is a point reached
when the most obstinate skepticism is compelled to cure itself,
when the most unlimited doubts are forced to work their
own ruin. Whether we will or not, the facts of the external
world enter, by the avenue of the senses, into the mind. To
doubt the facts of the world without us, we must destroy the
senses; and to doubt the facts of the world within us, we
must d:estroy the consciousness; and we can deny neither, —
we are compelled to admit the facts of both.
" The law of every phenomenon," says Jouffroy, " is a
pure conception of reason ; like all legitimate axioms, as
soon as we perceive any change whatever, we know at once
that it is an effect, that it has a cause, that this cause has
acted to produce it, — that it has been determined to produce
it by some deciding influence, and, finally, that this eff*ect
becomes itself a cause, and produces in its own turn some
new result. All this is the product of reflection alone, before
observation has ascertained the cause, the operation, the
sufficient reason, and the result. All this appears to be true,
not because we see that it is, but because we know that it
must be ; and precisely on account of this necessity our
reason confidently applies it to all possible cases, and regards
it as the universal law of every phenomenon."
CHAPTEE III.
GENERAL LAWS OF THE EARTH AND SUN.
" "What we call a general law," says Whewell, " is in truth
a form of expression including a number of facts of the like
kind. The facts are separate, the unity of view by which we
associate them, the character of generality and of law resides
in those relations which are the object of the intellect. The
law once apprehended by us, takes, in our minds, the place of
the facts themselves, and is said to govern or determine them,
because it determines our anticipations of what they will be.
But we cannot, it would seem, conceive a law founded on
such intelligible relations to govern and determine the facts
themselves, any otherwise than by supposing also an intelli-
gence by which these relations are contemplated and these
consequences realized. We cannot, then, represent to our-
selves the universe governed by general laws, otherwise than
by conceiving an intelligent and conscious Deity, by whom the
laws were originally contemplated, established, and applied.
This, perhaps, will appear more clear, when it is considered
that the laws of which we speak are often of an abstract and
complex kind, depending upon relations of space, time, and
other properties, which we perceive by great attention and
thought. These relations are often combined so variously
and curiously that the most subtle reasonings and calcula-
tions which we can form are requisite, in order to trace their
results. Can such laws be conceived to be instituted without
any exercise of knowledge and intelligence ? Can material
objects apply geometry and calculation to themselves ?"
When we have ascertained the law of facts in the physical
world, we are compelled by the very existence of that law to
attribute it to some intelligent cause. By this principle alone
can we account for the operation of laws acting all in due
(39)
40 GENERAL LAWS OF
proportion and harmony, never conflicting with each other,
and so adjusted as to secure the wisest purposes.
Consider the law of gravity by which the earth is kept in
its peculiar sphere, and all other worlds are controlled in
their position and velocity. By this law all bodies are
attracted inversely as the square of their distance. How
happened it that a mathematical law so exact is so universal ?
Why do all our researches in astronomy reveal the same
uniform law? Our essential idea of chance is irregularity?
and blind, meaningless action. We may imagine a fortuitous
concourse of atoms, but we never can ascribe to fortuitous con-
course an undeviating principle of regularity, binding in har-
mony all worlds, and preserving the harmless equilibrium of
all motion. Suppose the law of attraction different from
what it now is, one thing can, with certainty, be predicted.
The existing state of things upon this earth would be alto-
gether changed. Imagine this law, instead of inversely as
the square of the distance, to be directly as the square of the
distance, what would be the result? Under this law the
gravity of bodies at the surface of our world would be de-
stroyed. There would be nothing that would weigh or fall
downward. A ball thrown up in the air would revolve like
the moon around the earth. All stability would cease, and
no sooner would things be raised from the ground than
the}' would describe a circle around the earth. And yet it
has been shown by JSTewton that, so far as the solar system
was concerned, planets would revolve round their suns in
circular orbits. Why, if there is no designing mind, should
precisely that law take place that w^ould secure orbits nearly
circular, and yet not interfere with the gravit}' of each planet ?
If, on the other hand, the law had been inversely as the cube
of the distance, it would follow that a planet would describe
a spiral line about the sun, and either come perpetually
nearer to him, or go farther from him. If, again, the attrac-
tion had been inversely as the simple ratio of the distance, it
would have altogether interfered with the stability and har-
mony of the system. Why, then, was precisely that law in-
stituted that is in every respect most adapted to the preser-
THE EARTH AND SUN. 41
vation of the earth and the comfort of all who live in it ?
Why, then, if there was no designing mind, would it not
have been different? Gravity, as l^ewton himself declares,
is an appendage to the essential qualities of matter, not an
inherent property of all matter. If, then, we imagine it
universal to all matter, we have yet in right to consider it
necessary to matter. When we thus consider the simplicity
of this law with its universality, when we reflect that the
same law holds good with the atoms of matter, as all spheri-
cal bodies, what reason have we to ascribe a principle of
attraction so indispensable, and yet so uniform, to anything
but an intelligent cause? That all particles of matter and
all worlds should obey thus harmoniously this law, and yet
no contriving mind to originate it, seems in the highest de-
gree incredible. Observe the mass of our earth. The earth
moves in a slightly oval orbit around the sun, and is nearer
the sun in the winter by one-thirtieth of the diameter of its
orbit. 'So far as we can judge, the force of gravity depends
upon the mass of the earth. If, now, the force of gravity was
much greater or much less than it is, the whole order of
things would be deranged upon this earth ; we would see all
things too light or too heavy ; all voluntary or involuntary
motion would be either painful through the increase of
w^eight, or unstable through its decrease. With difficulty
would we walk or run, and the muscular exercise of all ani-
mals would be attained with extreme fatigue, or our move-
ments would be too quick and unstable. Thus the earth
would be like an ill-adjusted machine. It is w^ell known
that vegetables have the power of pumping up into the
branches and leaves the sap that nourishes the plant. This
internal force is great, as has been proved by experience.
Hales found, for instance, that a vine in the bleeding season
could push up its sap in a glass tube to the height of twenty-
one feet above the stump of an amputated branch. Now,
the whole support of the vegetable creation depends upon
the exact adjustment of the force of gravity. It has been
found that not only are different vegetables adapted alone to
a different climate, and a particular season of the year, but
42 GENERAL LAWS OF
the power of gravity must be what it now is, neither less nor
more, or, as the consequence, the vegetable creation withers
and dies. Was our earth twice as heavy or as light as it
now is, vegetation, as now constituted, would not exist. The
sap would run in that way as effectually to preclude all
growth. Thus, we see that the law of gravity is exactly
adjusted to existing laws of the vegetable world.
Consider also the distribution of the day and the year:
the one marks the revolution of the earth upon its axis;
the other, the revolution of the earth around the sun. iN'ow,
the year is adjusted to the cycle of the vegetable world, even
as it is to the wants of the animal creation. Thus also it is
with the length of the day. Was the day six hours long in-
stead of twenty-four, the existing relations of the vegetable
and animal world would be altogether changed. So also
if our year was six months instead of twelve months long.
Why, then, should we have our days and our years exactly to
correspond to the necessities of animals and vegetables?
Why the solar year so invariable in its length? Can it with
reason be imagined that no design is shown in the wonder-
ful harmony that prevails in the length of the year and day,
and the existing wants of the animal and vegetable world?
If our day was but six or twelve hours in length, what de-
rangement would ensue to the earth! Neither the proper
period of sleep or action would exist. Our days would be
too short for labor or for rest. If also the year was but six
months long, the system of vegetation would be wholly in-
terrupted. Thus, in every respect, w^e see deep foresight in
the adjustment of the day and year for living in the world.
But how could such an adjustment be developed from the
constitution alone of man, animals, and plants? Upon the
supposition of an infinitely wise Creator it can easily be ac-
counted for, but it cannot be attributed to any other cause.
Consider the wonderful exactness in the length of the day.
According to the calculations of Laplace, it is impossible that
the difference of one-hundredth of a second of time should
have obtained between the length of the day in the earliest
ages of the world. Why is it, then, we see no retarding of
THE EARTH AND SUN. 43
motion in this machine, when under no circumstances is it
possible for us to construct one with invariable motion? Is
there any inherent principle in the matter of the earth that
for thousands of years sends it spinning round its axis with-
out losing even a second of time ? Had the earth slackened
in its motion but the hundredth part of a second of time in
a revolution, the day would be lengthened, during six thou-
sand years since the creation of man, six hours, and thus the
whole animal and vegetable economy of our earth would be
deranged. But the same law is also necessary for the pre-
servation of the annual motion of the earth. If the motion
was retarded by any other law instead of the one we now
have, the earth would approach nearer and still nearer to
the sun, until it reached the center. Thus also with the other
planets. They would all at last fall into the sun, and the whole
solar system w^ould become one chaotic mass. Of all laws,
then, the one selected for the earth's motion on its axis is the
best. Of all possible ones, it is the only one that secures
stability and harmony to the planetary system. But what
would the earth be without the sun ? And yet the sun is a
self-luminous body, while the earth and all the planets are
opaque bodies. That the sun should be the center of our
planetary system, itself luminous, while all the bodies re-
volving round it are wholly different, and still no designing
mind to construct the one to give light and heat, and the rest
to be only the recipients of light and heat, is impossible. For
with Avhat appearance of plausibility can we suppose the
planets to be by some unknown principle struck oft' from the
sun, and yet not partake of the light-imparting and heating
power of the sun ? Our solar system without the sun would
be locked up in the chains of eternal cold and darkness: no
life or vegetation would be possible; and yet the planets,
if they were not created distinct from the sun, having no
self-luminous and heating property, then they must have had
their origin from the sun. But if the planets originated from
the sun, which is a light-bearing and heat-imparting agent,
how then could they be directly the reverse ? If, as has been
supposed, the light and heat of the sun proceed from its
44 GENERAL LAWS OF
coating or peculiar atmosphere, why have not the planets
the same ? How happens it, if they have a common origin,
that we should see no semblance between the planets and
the sun ? Xow, although the sun is the machine that lights
up and warms the planets, yet without this it could be the
center of attraction; but then the planets would reyolye
round the sun only as a rayless and dead assemblage of clods,
utterly cold and repulsiye. The light and heat are super-
added to the more mechanical arrangements of the uniyerse.
Suppose, now, no interposition was necessary to regulate the
raoyemeuts of the system, how can we account for the pecu-
liar condition of the sun, by which, in all the planetary reyo-
lutions, we haye days and seasons? Can gravity be any
solution to this difficulty? If the solar machine can move
of itself, what first set it a going, and then gave days and
seasons ? Light and heat are immeasurably diiferent from
gravity. How came, then, the sun to have light and heat, and
not the planets that revolve round it ? Thus clearly did the
greatest of astronomers perceive the necessity of sonie design-
ing mind.
"And thus might the sun and fixed stars," says Xewton,
"be formed, supposing the matter were of a lucid nature.
But how the matter should divide itself into two sorts, and
that part which is fit to compose a shining body should fall
down into one mass and make a sun, and the rest, which is
fit to compose an opaque body, should coalesce not into one
great body like the planets, or the planets' lucid bodies, like
the sun, how he alone should be changed into a shining body
while all they continue opaque, or all they be changed into
opaque ones, while he continued unchanged, I do not think
explicable by mere natural causes, but am forced to ascribe
it to the counsel and contrivance of a voluntary agent."
There is nothins^ more wonderful than lio-ht: when we con-
sider the vast variety of purposes that it subserves, the inti-
mate relation that it sustains to all vegetation, and its absolute
necessity for all sight, we are not more impressed with the
universality of its agency than with the greatness of its be-
neficence. How would all vegetation and animal life cease,
THE EARTH AND SUN. 45
did one long night of Egyptian darkness rest upon the earth I
Consequently among all the material emblems to represent
the peculiarities of the mental state, the figure of light is
most impressive and most common. So wonderful is light in
its action, so needful is it for our wants, that we embody as
our highest idea of wretchedness a state of interminable dark-
ness. But light possesses laws of the most remarkable nature.
"Whether light be the emission of luminous particles from the
sun, or vibrations through a most subtile and elastic ether per-
vading all space, has not yet been fully determined, although
the latter view is most common at the present day. But light
possesses an amazing velocity. When, then, we consider the
rapidity of its movements, vastly greater than that of any
other substance, with its properties of reflection, refraction,
polarization, and periodical colors produced by crystals and
by their plates ; when we reflect upon its perfect adaptation
to vision, painting with inimitable beauty upon the retina
of the eye not only every diversity of color, but the most
exact proportion of objects, taking into the field of its vision
alike the lofty mountain, the ocean, with its ceaseless motion,
the bird, the flower, and the minutest insect, how impressive
is the evidence of design ! "Was there any appreciable
weight to the sun-ray, the eye would be instantly destroyed.
Could the subtile process of chemistry discover the most at-
tenuated size to the particles of light, their amazing velocity
from the sun would be as fatal to all vegetable and to all animal
life as a deluge from the heavens of cannon-balls. W^iy, then,
should weight be imparted to matter precisely where it is
needed, and all appreciable weight taken away where it is not
needed ? Here is a substance most intimately related to heat,
lighting up the world with glory, painting the sky with a
thousand tints of beauty, imparting heat to all vegetable ex-
istence, and joy to all animal motion; unveiling the love-
liness of every landscape, and the grandeur of revolving
worlds, and yet in itself so harmless, so beneficial, so univer-
sal, that, penetrating through the vast regions of space, it
shows forth the mute praise of all inorganic substances, and
inspires with electric pleasure all sensitive existence. How
46 GENERAL LAWS OF
can atheism, when there is contemplated the properties of
light, its essential dissimilarity from all material things, its
power of reflection, by which it is reflected and scattered by
all objects, and then comes to the eye from all ; its power of
refraction, by which its course is bent when it passes obliquely
out of one transparent medium into another, and by which,
consequently, convex, transparent substances, such as the
cornea and the humors of the eye, possess the fliculty of
making the light converge to a focus or point ; with its power
of polarizatio7i, by which, when the vibrations of light are
transverse, they may be resolved into two diff'erent planes, or
double refraction; by which, when they fall on a medium which
has difi'erent elasticity in diflferent directions, they will be
divided into two sets of vibrations, — how, when light
possesses peculiarities so wonderful, can it ever imagine that
no designing mind made the light, and adjusted it to the
varied wants of the universe ?
Contemplate the laws of heat in respect to the earth, the
atmosphere, and the water. The earth, like all solid bodies,
is capable of conducting heat and of radiating heat. There
is this peculiarity in respect to the earth, — that if this mass of
matter varied much from its present magnitude and density,
or from the laws of heat now pertaining to it, all vegetation
and animal life, as now existing, must cease. There are laws
of mathematical precision that limit the degree of heat in its
conduction and radiation to its prescribed measure. Now,
there is no reason why the earth should conduct and radiate
heat as it now does necessarily. The earth might possess
different elements, and then the measure of heat would be
altogether changed. If the earth were a globe of pure iron,
it would probably conduct heat twenty times as well as it now
does; if its surface were polished iron, it would only radiate
one-sixth as much as it does. Changes far less than these
would subvert the whole thermal condition of the world, and
make it unfit for habitation. Consider the laws of heat in
respect to the atmosphere. We live in an aerial ocean most
beneficently adjusted in its composition to vegetable and
animal life. The atmosphere possesses, in diff'erent propor-
THE EARTH AND SUN. 47
tions, dry air, or air free from water and aqueous vapor, both
transparent and highly elastic. The machinery of the weather
is not only extremely complex, but most happily adjusted to
the wants of vegetables and animals. The heat of diflerent
climates is ditiused and tempered by the atmosphere. Its
range of influence is from the poles to the equator: thus it
circulates over the whole earth. It executes many smaller
circuits between the sea and the land. It enters, as an essen-
tial element, into the growth of plants and animals. It is the
atmosphere that converts sunbeams into daylight. It is the
great medium of sound, and thus performs the distinct office
of communication between intelligent creatures ; and yet
such is the weight and due quantity of the atmosphere, that
the most violent winds soon subside, and perform the friendly
office of purifying the climate, and affording facility to all
navigation. "While the atmosphere is ever present, it is never
in our way; adapting itself to the endless changes of heat, it
combines every element essential to our happiness ; possessing
a mobility the most remarkable, it contains properties so
distinct, that it subserves purposes the most varied. Was the
amount of the atmosphere much greater, or was its weight
different from what it now is, either too heavy or too light,
all existence, animal or vegetable, would be in the highest
degree endangered; were the proportion of the elements that
enter into the atmosphere in any considerable degree changed,
life would not exist. Possessing a small portion of carbonic
acid, it imparts the carbon, when light is present, to vegeta-
bles, while at the same time it receives from plants the disen-
gaged oxygen. Thus an element essential to animal life is
absorbed in the atmosphere; while carbon, which, beyond a
certain proportion, is highly pernicious, is by plants extracted
from the atmosphere. Did this atmosphere possess a propor-
tion of oxygen one-fourth or one-third greater than its present
amount, there would be too much fuel for animal life ; was
the proportion of nitrogen much greater than it now is, there
would be too little to support life. Thus the exact amount
of nearly one-tifth oxygen to four-fifths nitrogen is proved to
be the degree most conducive to life. Was it chance that
48 GENERAL LAWS OF
mingled these subtile gases thus appropriately together?
The aqueous portion of the atmosphere varies from the one-
hundredth to the one-twentieth part of the whole aerial ocean
that encircles the earth. Observe that the aqueous air is as
essential as the dry air; both combined are necessary for
vegetable and animal life. The atmosphere is the vehicle to
convey the aqueous vapor. "Was now this vapor administered
pure, it would not have subserved the wants of the orgafiiized
creation ; it must be diluted by the agency of the divy air to be
serviceable. Suppose there were no other atmosphere but
the vapor which arises from its watery parts, we can easily
anticipate the result. The heat being greater at the equator,
there would ensue greater rarity and elasticity to the vapor
than what existed toward the poles. There would then be
a perpetual current of steam toward the poles, which, coming
in contact with the colder vapor of the poles, would be pre-
cipitated into rain or snow; and thus, while there would be
a cloudless sky at the equator, in all other latitudes there
would be perpetual clouds, fogs, and rains, and near the
poles an incessant fall of snow. "While had we only dry air, we
should find most seriously injured all plants and animals,
l^ow we have both so adjusted together that we have just
that variety in the climate essential for the welfare of the or-
ganized creation. But more than this, amid incessant change
there is a constant tendency to a proper equilibrium. We
never find such an excess of only one element of the atmos-
phere, or such a violence of it, as permanently to interfere
with the welfare of vegetation and animal existence. Steam
and air, both elastic and transparent fluids, while so nearly
alike, yet vary in respect to their expansion by heat so much
as to be useful antagonistic forces. Thus, the same degree
of heat applied produces currents in different directions,
and there is such a mixture and balancing of these fluids
that our fields and fruits have alternate sunshine and water,
and thus in the happiest degree is the growth of vegetation
developed. The influence of these two fluids upon the tem-
perature is most import^^nt : one moderates the other. Now,
among so many conflicting laws of heat operating upon the
THE EARTH AND SUN. 49
elements that compose the atmosphere, it is remarkable that
the adjustment is so uniform that every derangement of the
atmosphere has a certain limit where it must stop. Here
are different laws of heat : each acting unrestrained would
bring ruin upon the earth; but they are so counterbakmced
by opposite laws, are so restrained by antagonist forces, that
altogether they move in harmony, or wdien that harmony is
temporarily interrupted, they carr}^ within themselves a prin-
ciple of self-preservation that soon restores the deranged
equilibrium. Thus, a tempest, however violent, is soon over ;
and the ocean waves, however lashed by the wind, never pass
beyond a prescribed limit. But why should it be so, if there
is no controlling mind to regulate the laws of the weather ?
"Why, when the ship oscillates to and fro, and the tempest
wave beats upon it, should that oscillation not keep on in-
creasing in intensity until it results in the ruin of the vessel ?
Why, when it has reached a certain point, should it suddenly
stop and begin a retrogressive movement ? TVhat inherent
necessity is there in the atmosphere that perpetually should
teach it the same unvarying moderation, and bind the unsta-
ble winds within a sphere of action as exact as that which
controls the raging of the sea? The exact adjustment of
conflicting laws, so that all should act in harmony, is the
highest evidence of infinite skill.
In observing the transmission of heat through water, we
perceive a marked difference from the transmission of heat
through solids. Heat is communicated through water, not
by being conducted from one part of the fluid to another, as
in solid bodies, but by being carried with the parts of the
fluid by means of an intestine motion. The general law of
heat is to expand, and make lighter water by means of the
colder portion of the water descending to the warmer part,
and that taking the place of the warm water. Opposite cur-
rents are engendered, by which there is a speedy equalization
eflfected of temperature unlike the slow process of conduction
of heat through solids. Hence we see the temperature
of water much more uniform than the surrounding atmos-
phere, and inequalities much less than in solids. Conse-
4
50 GENERAL LAWS OF
quently a reciprocal influence is exerted by land and water.
The heat of the former is greatly modified by the presence of
water, so that both extremes of heat and cold are diminished.
Water, by heat, expands, while by cold it contracts. Observe
how deviations from a law so nniform take place under those
circumstances adapted for the preservation of all organic
life. Was this law not departed from in any state of the
water, the result would be that all the lakes and rivers would
be locked up in ice. Animal and vegetable existence would
eventually cease whenever there was the prevalence of cold.
The reason is obvious. As the heat declined the cold water
would be congealed into ice and form upon the bottom of
bodies of water, since the heavier particles of water would
naturally descend to the bottom, and thus there soon would
be formed a solid body of ice, which would gradually increase
until the whole was frozen. Now, water contracts by cool-
ing down to forty degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer ; in
cooling further it expands, and when cooled to thirty-two de-
grees it freezes. Thus we see, however much it cools, it
cannot form upon the bottom of rivers and lakes in ice, for
as soon as it contracts by cold down to forty degrees it begins
to expand, and thus by its superior levity rises to the top.
Another peculiarity of water is, that in the very act of freez-
ing at the temperature of thirty-two degrees it experiences a
new and sudden expansion, by which the ice at all tempera-
tures ever floats upon the top as specifically lighter than the
surrounding water. Thus, by this remarkable deviation from
the law of expansion by heat and contraction by cold, we see
obviated the most terrific evils. The ice, being a very bad
conductor of heat, while it equalizes the temperature of the
water, can never become too thick for subsequent melting,
. unless in the extreme polar regions; while water, by cold,
assumes the form of ice, by heat it takes the form of steam.
The moisture that floats in the air is essential for all vegeta-
tion. The aqueous vapor by condensation produces clouds ;
when there is an increase of cold the aqueous vapor becomes
snow through a process of crystallization. There is a pecu-
liar circumstance attending the change of ice to water, and
THE EARTH AND SUN. 51
water to steam. This takes place according to an invariable
degree of heat, but not suddenly ; when we increase the heat
to this degree where thaw commences, and where boiling
takes place, there is a stand taken in the temperature. Thus,
the temperature of a thawing mass of ice cannot be raised
until the whole is thawed ; nor can the temperature of steam
rising from water be raised until the whole is converted into
steam. By this arrangement all changes occupy a considera-
ble time ; if it was different, thaw and evaporation would be
instantaneous : consequently all water, when reaching the boil-
ing point, would flash into steam, and at the first touch of
heat, snow and ice would be dissolved into water. Observe,
that in condensation and evaporation there is an obvious
violation of a law at a certain point ; thus, while by this reverse
movement ice is made lighter than water, so as to float upon
it, the change at a certain degree of heat is so gradual that
the most beneficial results ensue. How happened it, if there
was no designing mind, that this law of contraction by cold
and expansion by heat should at a certain point be reversed,
and thus adapt itself to the wants of the world ? With other
fluids other laws do in fact exist, — why, if there is no con-
triving mind, should we see with water so singular an adapta-
tion to the necessities of the world ?
No laws are so indispensable for existence upon this earth
as the laws of friction. In ordinary' cases with solids, their
movement through the agency of friction often exceeds
one-third, one-half, and sometimes even the whole of their
weight. Observe now, that friction is intermediate between
two great forces: the property of cohesion that exists in
the growth of vegetation with the ever-movable power of
growth, and the pumping up of the sap into the branches
and leaves, and the fixed property of crystallization that exists
in solids. If friction partook of the mobility of the former,
the highest instability would exist upon the earth; or if of the
immobility of the latter, all things would be enchained in
bonds that would preclude all life. Without friction we could
not walk : we should be prevented from making anything,
and the most ordinary purposes of life would be wholly frus-
52 GENERAL LAWS OF
trated. Observe the singular adaptation of friction to tlie
world we live in. Did friction exist in the heavens where
the planets move, all motion would be stopped, and there
would be ruin to every planet and sun in the universe. Did
friction not exist upon the earth, a ruin equally as great
would ensue. Thus we see that it exists where it is wanted,
and does not exist where it is not wanted. Was friction not
intermediate between the crystalline forces that bind rocks
together, and the perpetual mutability of vegetables, equally
impossible would be existence. "What is needed in friction
is the capacit}^ of readily receiving alternately the states of
rest and motion. And thus we find it, because objects can
easily be put in motion, and yet soon by friction return to a
condition of rest, there is an unlimited sphere opened up for
the contrivance and the energy of man. Thus, friction is
neither abolished upon the earth, nor active in the heavens.
But we have no reason to believe that friction is a necessary
result of other properties of matter, as of their solidity and
coherency. So far as we know, friction is a separate prop-
erty of matter, and bestowed upon it for the wisest ends.
Observe the stability of the solar system. It has been seen
that there is no appreciable friction in the heavens, conse-
quently all the deviations observed during the different ages
of the world reveal, even if there be a resisting medium, a
proportion of irregularity infinitely small. The movement
of the earth on its axis has not changed the hundredth part
of a second. The perpetual perturbations of the planets in
each other's motions are found to be not indefinitely pro-
gressive, but periodical. They reach a maximum value and
then diminish. Thus, in the solar system we find a constant
provision for its stability ; and whatever may be the irregu-
larities existing, they are only periodical, and even tend to
adjust themselves. Reflect upon the infinite value of such a
state of things. Did the perturbations of the planets continue
progressive, those perturbations would increase to a degree
as to destroy all stability in the universe. The planetary
orbits, from being nearly circular, would tend incessantly to
a more oval form, until such would be the eccentricities of
THE EARTH AND SUN. 53
motion as that planet would jostle against" planet, and all
eventually would tumble into the sun. How, without divine
foresight, could the adjustments of the thirty different bodies
connected with our solar system be so made as that, while
mutually attracting each other, each describing different
orbits, and all diverse motions, they yet would never interfere
with each other's movements, and continue upon the whole
in one undeviating course of regularity? When, in the
greatness of this problem, we must include the fact that even
the perturbations are periodical, and estimate also the differ-
ent velocities of each planet around its axis, as well as around
tlie sun, and then reflect that the different degrees of weight
of every planet enters as an essential element into the calcu-
lation, is it conceivable that any cause than an infinitely
powerful and intelligent Being could preserve such harmony,
and bring about such perfect stability ?
" I have succeeded in demonstrating," says Laplace, " that,
whatever be the masses of the planets, in consequence of the
fact that they all move in the same direction in orbits of
small eccentricities, and slightly inclined to each other, their
secular inequalities are periodical, and inclined within nar-
row limits; so that the planetary system will only oscillate
about a mean state, and will never dev^iate from it, except
by a very small quantity. The ellipsis of the planets always
will be nearly circular. The ecliptic will never coincide with
the equator, and the entire extent of the variation in its
inclination cannot exceed three degrees."
Now, when we consider that of the simple substances that
enter into the composition of our world there may be about
fifty, and that each of these substances possesses different
mechanical and chemical laws, operating in a way perfectly
distinct from each other, how can it be supposed that these
simple substances would, by their own accord, adapt them-
selves to each other ? Be it remembered they no more make
up our earth, of themselves, than do the iron and timber and
all the varied materials of a man-of-war floating upon the
water make up the vessel, when they are originally taken in
their native state. These materials have got to be adjusted
54 GENERAL LAWS OF THE EARTH AND SUN.
together; they must be put into their proper place; each
separate part of the ship must develop the contrivauce of
some mind; there must be order and proportion and exact
weight observed. There must be a skillful collection of the
whole ; foresight shown in the proportion of every plank, the
driving of every nail, the length of every rope, and the fasten-
ing of every sail. All these distinct materials do not jostle
themselves together into the stately vessel that marches in
majesty over the waters. There must be a contriving mind.
Even so is it with the arrangements of the substances that
make up our world. A wisdom, whose profound depths no
finite intelligence can fathom, is revealed in the machinery
of the world and the universe, giving harmony to every
diversity of law, disarming the power of every antagonistic
element, adjusting every separate force, giving due propor-
tion to every substance, and uniting all in one sublime and
glorious whole.
CHAPTER IV.
THE DEVELOPMENT THEORY.
The author of the "Vestiges of Creation" holds, in his
development theory, the same ideas, essentially, as Oken and
Lamarck. Thus, he says : " The fundamental form of or-
ganic being is a globule forming within itself, and that
globules can be produced in albumen by electricity, conse-
quently that electricity is the cause of life." "All animals
pass in embryo through phases resembling the general as
well as the particular character of those of lower grade."
"Man himself is not exempt from this law, — his first form is
that which is permanent in the animalcula. This organiza-
tion gradually passes through conditions generally resembling
a fish, a reptile, a bird, and the lower mammalia ; at one of
the last stages of his fcetal career he exhibits an intermax-
illary bone, which is characteristic of the perfect ape; this is
suppressed, and he may then be said to take leave of the
simial type, and become a true human creature.'' Sex, too,
in the " Vestiges of Creation," is spoken of as a matter of
development. " All beings are at one stage of the embryotic
process female, and a certain number of these are afterwards
to be of the more powerful sex." " The first step in the crea-
tion of life upon this planet was a chemico-electric operation,
by which simple gernAnal vesicles were produced. The next
step was an advance, under favor of peculiar conditions, from
the simplest forms of being to the next more complicated,
and this through the medium of the ordinary process of
generation ; and finally, that the simplest and most primi-
tive type, under a law to w^hich that of like production is
subordinate, gave birth to the type next above it, and this
again produced the next higher, and so on to the very
highest."
(55)
56 THE DEVELOPMENT THEORY.
The researches of science show, in direct opposition to the
development theory, that man and all the species of animals
owe their origin direct to miracle. Sajs the celebrated Ger-
man physiologist, M. Muller : "All the phenomena hitherto
observed in the animal kingdom seem to prove that the
species were originally created distinct, and independent of
one another. There is not a remote possibility that one
species has been produced from another."
Unless we would have the force of the argument from
effect to cause immeasurably weakened in respect to the
origin of man, and the Deity lost sight of in natural law, we
must beware of the insidious sophistry disguised under the
shibboleth of law. Miracle, instead of development, is
claimed for the origin of man and every species of animals.
It is in the light of this most essential feature of our argu-
ment from effect to cause that the researches of geology are
deserving of such careful consideration. Those researches
most conclusively prove the miraculous origin of man, as de-
clared in the Holy Scriptures. The developliient theory is
in all respects shown to be false, and thus natural law is con-
fined within its legitimate sphere. Consequently nature is
not deified at the expense of the great First Cause, and indi-
rect as well as direct atheism is disrobed of its pretensions.
While Lamarck, Oken, and the author of the "Vestiges of
Creation" admit the existence of God, they yet remove him
back to the creation of atoms, infusoria, and monads, and
supersede a superintending God for a fatalistic principle,
■whose rigid certainty of continuance is as revolting to the
most cherished sentiments of an unperverted nature as it is
to the clearest assertions of Revelation. But the development
theory not only substitutes law for God, but it is infinitely de-
rogatory^ to human nature. There is something noble in the
idea of man created by God, with a perfect physical, moral,
and intellectual organization adapted to the loveliness of
Paradise. The Eden without was but a faint emblem of the
fairer Eden within. But how mean, in contrast, is the theory
of gradual development, through ages of time, from the infu-
soria or animalcula created or brouo-ht into existence bv the
THE LEVELOFAIEXT THEORY. 57
contact of electricity aud albumen, and then from that the
development of the worm, the fish, the reptile, the bird, the
quadruped, and finally man ! But the development theory is
equally as revolting in its teachings respecting the progress
made from a low type to a high type of sensitive existence.
Creation by miracle draws a wide line of demarkation between
genus and species. It not only denies that the fish ever can
be developed into the reptile, or the bird into a quadruped,
or that into man, hut it also precludes the development of
one species of animals into another of the same genus. The
mackerel never produces the shark, — the snake never origin-
ates the crocodile, — the eagle never a sparrow, — the dog
the cat, nor the elephant a lion. And, although in man genus
and species are synonymous terms, since all mankind come
from one stock, yet we see that when there is a fundamental
difi:erence, as in the male and female sex, there is no develop-
ment chano-iuCT man into woman, or woman into man. The
difi^erence existing between the two sexes is as great now as
at the first creation of Adam and Eve. The great error of
the development theory is that it confounds all the original
distinctions instituted hy God between diiFerent races or
species. It acts the part of an ignorant child in comparative
anatomy, who takes all the bones of fishes, reptiles, hirds, and
mammals carefully laid on separate shelves, and jumbles them
all up together in one confused medley. This the develop-
ment theorizer would call the discovery of unity ; but the
man of true science can find no unity with individuality de-
stroyed. The development theory, in its absurd generaliza-
tion, overlooks those unalterable distinctions between one
species and another, or one genus and another, that God has
made the invariable attendant of creation. A theory that
develops a monkey from a fish, and man from a monkey, has
a hundredfold more of the marvelous than creation by
miracle, while it finds no support either in science or Reve-
ation. In considering the development theory we have con-
fined our remarks to animals ; but the objection is equally
strong when applied to the vegetable and inanimate creation.
How absurd is the theory that makes, by the slow progress
58 THE DEVELOPMENT THEORY.
of natural law, the suns, planets, and comets of the universe
to be developed from fire mists, w^ith all their motions and
harmonious revolutions ! Two great facts fatal to the devel-
opment theory are made known in the researches of geology.
First, miraculous interpositions have introduced the races
of fishes, reptiles, quadrupeds, and man at distinct epochs of
time, and in a way that reveals each dynasty of fishes, rep-
tiles, quadrupeds, and man not developing a higher dynasty
from a lower by the actual destruction of its ruling magnates.
In other words, the supremacy of the dynasty of reptiles
over that of fishes, and of quadrupeds over that of reptiles,
is attained unto, not by gradual development, but by great
epochs of ruin to a lower dynasty making room for a higher
one. There was a time when fishes were the highest type of
animals, and the magnates of that genus held an undisputed
sway. Afterward there followed a period of great ruin to
the highest species of fish, by which countless numbers were
destroyed, leaving room for animals of a higher organiza-
tion. Then followed the dynasty of reptiles, and the world
saw the most magnificent specimens of saurians, and .other
reptiles of terrific strength. After their great epoch of
supremacy had run out, we are introduced to the dynasty of
birds and quadrupeds, taking the place of the wide-spread
destruction of those reptilian monarchs who held in a pre-
vious age an undisputed sway. Here we see great periods of
ruin introducing animals of higher organization ; but, instead
of a gradual development of a superior type of being from a
lower, we find actually that the superior type of being follows
the ruin of that which precedes it. Thus, we see that the
ruin of an inferior organization of animals, instead of pre-
venting the existence of a superior type of creatures, is
actually necessary for the existence of animals of a nobler
organization. Each epoch of time witnesses at its com-
mencement the creative power of God, and at its close great
catastrophes of ruin. But the development theory overlooks
these miraculous interpositions ; and while it oflfers no reason
why the extinct species of animals are not now living, it
vainly attempts to bridge over the mighty gaps in the series
THE DEVELOPMENT THEORY. 59
of distinct creations by a chain of gradualism tliat connects
the highest with the lowest. But there is no such chain.
Gradual development only extends to one species or distinct
class of animals; it is only designed for the perpetuation of
them, but when it has reached this point it stops. Thus,
the whale may have a great variety of forms and singulari-
ties of construction ; but how can the whale develop the
lobster, or the lobster the whale ? The second great geologi-
cal fact fatal to the development theory is, that there has
been in each dynasty of fishes, reptiles, birds, and quadrupeds
a process of degradation going on, or a passing from a high
organization in diflerent species to a lower tjpe of being.
Thus, at the commencement of each dynasty of fishes, reptiles,
birds and mammals, we see the beginning of each dynasty
giving us the best, and not the poorest type of organization.
The process of degradation is of a twofold nature. There is
first a gradual extinction of difterent species in each dynasty,
and then an inferior type of organization of the same species
of animals now existing. Thus, we find not only no fishes,
or reptiles, or birds, or quadrupeds of so high an organization
as once existed, but even a process of degradation in existing
species. What can be more fatal to the development theory
than this ! The whole error of the development theory con-
sists in the confounding the progress of epochs of time with
progress in epochs. Because a later epoch of time introduces
animals of a higher organization, it does not show either
no miraculous interposition of God, or that the animals of
a preceding epoch were not the best of their kind. It
would be poor reasoning to assume that because man is su-
perior to the monkey, that therefore the monkey developed
the man.
" It is now a truth, which I consider as proved," says Pro-
fessor Agassiz, "that the ensemble of organized beings was
renewed, not only in the intervals of each of the great geo-
logical formations, but also at the time of the deposition of
each particular member of all the formations." " I also be-
lieve very little in the genetic descent of living species from
those of the various tertiary layers, which have been regarded
60 THE DEVELOPMENT THEORY.
as identical, but which, in my opinion, are specifically dis-
tinct. I cannot admit the transformation of species from one
formation to another." Says Professor SedgAvick: "All our
most ancient fossil fishes belong to a high organic type ; and
the very oldest species that are well determined fall naturally
into an order of fishes which Owen and Miiller place, not at
the bottom, but at the top of the whole class." Says Presi-
dent Hitchcock : " Numerous races of animals and plants
must have occupied the globe previous to those which now
inhabit it, and have successively passed away as catastrophes
occurred, or the climate became unfit for their residence.
Xot less than thirty thousand species have already been dug
out of the rocks, and, excepting a few hundred species,
mostly of sea-shells, occurring in the uppermost rocks;
none of them correspond to those now living on the globe.
In Europe they are found to the depth of abovit six and a half
miles, and in this country deeper ; and no living species is
found more than one-twelfth of this depth ; all the rest are
specifically, and often generically, unlike living species ; and
the conclusion seems irresistible that they must have lived
and died before the creation of the present species."
" The fact that fishes and reptiles were created at an earlier
day than the beasts of the field and the human family," says
Hugh Miller, " gives no ground whatever for the belief
that the peopling of the earth was one of a natural kind, re-
quiring time, or that the reptiles have been not only the pre-
decessors, but also the progenitors of the beasts and of man.
The geological phenomena, even had the author of the 'Ves-
tiges ' been consulted in their arrangement and permitted
to determine their sequence, would yet have failed to fur-
nish not merely an adequate foundation for the develop-
ment hypothesis, but even the slightest presumption in its
favor."
Is it not, then, evident that every distinct species of fish,
birds, and mammals came immediately from the creative
energy of the great First Cause ? Do we not see that the
first link of the human chain, and of every distinct genus and
species of animals, must especially have a beginning from
THE DEVELOPMENT THEORY. 61
God ? These diversified species of creatures were effects so
great, results so wonderful, that no adequate, no conceivable
cause can be found but God. We' look to the laws of the
inorganic or organic world, to the atoms that compose all
matter, but we find in them no reason "for the origin of
animals. We have investigated the half-atheistic theory of
development, but all its deductions are found chimerical and
opposed to the facts of true science. The development
theory has nothing to commend it in the history of the past.
The beginning of the human race, and of every species and
genus of animals, assure us of effects so peculiar and so
mighty, that we must look alone to miracle for their cause.
CHAPTER V.
MUTUAL ADAPTATION OF THE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOM.
All vegetables have their distinct localities, and their pe-
culiar spheres of growth. Observe that one great chain of
dependence runs throughout nature. Without the elements
of heat, air, water, and earth, all vegetables would die.
Without vegetables the great support of the animal creation
would be taken away ; without animals the world would be a
solitary waste. But not only is there an intimate dependence
of one department of nature upon another, but a great prin-
ciple of compensation runs through the whole. The genera-
tion of animals keeps pace with the vegetable growth. Where
in one department of nature there is a deficiency, there is
in another department a superabundance to make it up.
There is constantly seen the operation of the principle of
equalization, by which an excess of one department of nature
is counteracted by a deficiency in another. Passing over the
peculiarities of the vegetable creation, consider the animal
kingdom. This world is a living world: myriads of animals
people it. From the short hour of joy that marks the bound-
ary of the most ephemeral of creatures to the long years of
man, there is seen the constant play of life. If we wonder
at the thought of man, yet those animalcula that live in one
drop of water present to us their miracles of art.
" If there be one thing," says Buckland, " more surpris-
ing than another in the investigation of natural phenomena,
it is perhaps the infinite extent and vast importance of things
apparently little and insignificant. When we descry an insect,
smaller than a mite, moving with agility across the paper on
which we write, we feel as incapable of forming any distinct
conception of the minutiae of the muscular fibers which afi*ect
their movements, and of the still smaller vessels by which
(62)
MUTUAL ADAPTATION, ETC. 63
they are nourished, as we are of fully apprehending the mag-
nitude of the universe. We are more perplexed in attempting
to comprehend the organization of the minutest infusoria
than that of a whale. And one of the last conclusions at
which we arrive, is a conviction that the greatest and most
important operations of nature are conducted by the agency
of atoms too minute to be either perceptible by the human
eye or comprehensible by the human understanding."
The researches of geology assure us that in the past ages
of the world there are the remains of innumerable species of
animals, — that successive layers of the surface of the earth
make known an amazing extent of animal organization, —
that in mountains, composed to a large degree of minute
shells, forming vast masses of limestone deposits, there is
every indication of myriads of animals once living upon the
earth. These countless creatures, so far as the investigations
of science can ascertain, had as perfect an adaptation to a
former condition of our earth as those animals that now in-
habit it. The great fact is made known that no abortive
creation of species come upon the stage of life ; that, trace
back the long years of the past to its remotest boundary, and
the same adjustment of animals to the sphere of their exist-
ence is revealed as now takes place in every living species;
that the types of animal life were as perfect in their kind,
and had as great an adaptation to their local habitation, as
now exists upon the earth. Now, adaptation means almost a
countless number of conditions of existence. The air, the
earth, the water, the degree of heat, the kind of subsistence,
must all have in the animal a corresponding fitness of con-
stitution. Reflect how much that one word constitution
includes! It means the proper number and proportion of
limbs, the exact adjustment of all the senses, the internal
structure that shall precisely correspond to the outward
sphere of its existence. Not one suitable condition can be
wanting, or the whole animal mechanism is spoiled. Not
one of the apparently minute circumstances of its being can
be missing without detriment to animal life. Two things are
indispensable to secure the highest excellence to any work.
64 MUTUAL ADAPTATION, ETC.
First, skill in the construction, and tlien a wise purpose in
the use. How many a work of man has been spoiled from
the uselessness of its design ! The pyramids of Egypt evince
skill and power; but who is there that can show a wise use in
their construction ? But not so with the works of God ; they
display both skill and a wise end, not only exact adjustment
to time, place, subsistence, and climate, but wisdom is seen
in the eyid of those adjustments. From the noblest specimens
of animal life to the humblest forms of being, each not only
have their appropriate sphere, but each have some wise end
to subserve in that sphere.
CHAPTER VI.
PROCESS OF GENERATION IN ANIMALS, AND GERMINATION IN
PLANTS.
Paley has well said generation is not a principle, but a pro-
cess. Generation is no solution to the question, What is the
great cause that brings man into being ? The power in or-
ganized bodies of producing bodies of like organization must
itself be accounted for. How came this power in organized
bodies is the question ? How came the reproductive energy
that gives birth to man ? How came this wonderful process,
mysteriously wrapped up in the living body, by which a like
body is generated ? The language, " principle of genera-
tion," explains nothing. It is itself to be accounted for.
The deepest researches assure us of a most wonderful labora-
tory, where the first process of life goes on. We are in-
structed in the knowledge that a mechanism connected with
a vital energy works out its miracles of art infinitely surpass-
ing all the contrivance of man. Who, then, should speak of
the principle of generation accounting for animals, when that
very principle itself is to be accounted for? But the use of
the language princiiole of generation, as often held, is an ab-
surdity. Principle is confounded with process. If principle
means anything, as often used, it must be the elementary cause.
But this cause is a power distinct from the process itself of
generation. We have another step to take before we can
stop with the principle of generation ; that step must be the
elementary cause itself that gives to generation its vital
energy. As well might a factory- girl show a stranger the
wheels and cogs, the straps and iron, that enter into the ma-
chinery of some great workshop, and pretend to account for
the operation of the whole by expatiating upon the advan-
tages of some particular parts. The stranger knows full well
5 (65)
6Q PROCESS OF GENERATION JN ANIMALS,
that the result eflected can be accounted for only by a vast
variety of exact adjustments ; by the skillful position of every
wheel, cog, and strap; by the suitable composition of each
separate material that enters into the whole ; by some force
constantly applied ; and, above all, by some designing mind
capable of constructing the machine, competent to effect its
suitable adjustment, and able to secure the agency of a power
which, though blind in itself, could yet by proper arrange-
ment bring about the desired result. But all analogies drawn
from human mechanism fail to give a just idea of the va-
riety, the exquisite adjustments of material, position, time
and place, the elaborate architecture of the bodies of men
and animals, and the sublime mystery of the complicated
process that takes place before birth. When a house is
built, two things are necessary: first, the house itself, and
then the scaftblding needful for its erection. Before birth
w^e find made the mysterious elements of the body ; we find
formed the complicated tissue of nerves and arteries, millions
of blood channels in the system, sinews and cords, and pores
for the circulation of the different fluids. We find a labora-
tory for the digestion of food surpassing all the imitation of
man ; an apparatus for breathing of the most wonderful na-
ture. And yet a very large part of the foetal process is exclu-
sively prospective. Everything is preparing for the mighty
change that shall soon introduce the child into a new world.
ISTot more conspicuous is the house itself than the scaffold-
ing that is used only for a temporary purpose, and is removed
as soon as circumstances demand. Can any person affirm
that the complicated instruments of the body, with their ex-
act adjustments, are to be accounted for exclusively on the
principle of generation? But generation is only a process;
this process itself is to be accounted for. Can a pin, a needle,
the simplest work of a man, lead us to the conclusion of some
designing mind ? And yet we blunder when we come to a
workmanship that infinitely surpasses all human ingenuity !
If the intelligence of the parent is incompetent for self con-
struction, equally incompetent is it to fashion the body and
the mind of the child. Neither the parent nor the child can
AND GERMINATION IN PLANTS. 67
achieve a wonder so mj'sterious. " I have not come into
existence," says Fichte, " by my own power ; it woukl be
the highest absurdity to suppose that before I was at all I
could bring myself into existence ; I have then been called
into being by a power out of myself." What makes the
process of generation all the more conclusive of an infinitely
designing mind, is the fact that we can trace back the
earliest commencement to a point where no evidence can be
shown of either the bones or members of the body, where
not even the faintest outline is perceptible of the human sys-
tem. "When we enter the studio of an artist we find at first
only the simple canvas upon which is to be sketched the well-
known features of a friend ; but if at successive times we
enter the room where the painter busies himself in his task,
we find that the first rude outlines are gradually filled up,
until, when the work is done, we find the perfect image of our
friend. Just so it is in filling up the outlines of the human
system, a divine artist at successive stages fills up the out-
lines. From the first origin, where are undistinguished the
faintest lineaments of the human form, there appears at dis-
tinct periods a bolder filling up of the sketch until the whole
is perfected. The proof of design is peculiarly shown when
adaptation is seen developed at each separate period ; when
from the earliest origin of the human form to its perfect con-
summation there are revealed higher and yet higher evidences
of a Divine foresight. There are those who think that when
they have got a principle, as they call it, they have discovered
a cause. In the principle of germination in plants and gen-
eration in animals, they flatter themselves they have found out
all that is needful to know in respect to the true cause.
Here, say they, exist in miniature all the diflerent materials,
all the curious mechanism of the animal or the plant. But
how do they know this? How have the}- found out a me-
chanism that the highest powers of the microscope fail to dis-
cover? How do they know that the perfect plant, or the
animal, exists in a compass so infinitelj^ small, when the
highest researches of the magnifying-glass fail to discover
even the rudest outlines ? Confessino- the almost infinitesi-
68 PROCESS OF GENERATION IN ANIMALS,
mal nature of the first germs of vegetable or animal life, why
do they presume to draw upon their imaginations for a me-
chanism in miniature that no researches in science have ever
been able to find out? True, that mechanism is found at a
later period in an embryo state, but does that show that it
existed in the earliest germs of vegetable or of animal life ?
Does it throw any light upon the mystery of the first com-
mencement of all animal or of all vegetable org-anization ?
Will an}' pretend to prove that it is the mechanism in the
germ or the plant that by its own power produces vegeta-
bles and animals? How can this be shown? "Suppose,"
says Francis Bowen, " that two grains of sand, looking just
alike, were placed on the floor before us, and while we were
watching them they began to expand, shoot up, alter their
forms, take on all the aspects and qualities of life, and finally
become distinct and recognizable, the one a giant oak-tree,
and the other a living and moving creature. On witnessing
so strange a phenomenon, we could not help concluding that
some personal agency had produced it, some power trans-
cending that of man. After satisfying ourselves that there was
no deception .or mystification in the matter, we should at
once refer it to a supernatural or miraculous cause ; nor would
this conclusion be at all less logical if the phenomenon were
a frequent one, — if there were a mountain of such sand, from
which particular grains being taken at the proper season, and
carried to the proper place, both time and place being de-
termined by experience, these results invariably followed.
Now this is a statement but very little disguised, and vary-
ing in no essential particular from the description of what is
actually and constantly taking place all around us in living
nature. The beginning of all life, and of all tissues, whether
animal or vegetable, is in certain primitive cells or germinal
vesicles, perfectly resembling each other in external appear-
ance, and so minute that they can be discovered only under
high powers of the microscope. The germs are alike to the
eye, but according to the place which each is taken from,
whether from one side or another of the sand-heap, it is de-
veloped by a regular process into a plant or an animal. If
AND GERMINATION IN PLANTS. 69
you say that there are specific differences between these mi-
croscopic grains, each one veiling some curious and elaborate
machinery, peculiar to itself, by which this astonishing result
is brought about, I answer that your assertion is both gratui-
tous and incredible. It is gratuitous, for certainly we see no
such machinery, and have no indication whatever of its exist-
ence; we see nothing but a little rectangular cell with a dot
in it. It is incredible, for we can no more conceive of the
possibility of a machine under such circumstances producing
such results, thi^n we can believe the automaton really plays
an admirable game of chess solely by means of wheels,
springs, and cylinders. In both cases we declare with posi-
tive conviction, that intelligence, will, and conscious activity
are somewhere at work in this matter, that some unseen j^er-
son is actually causing the phenomena."
A dead mechanism of bones, sinews, veins, arteries, limbs,
and organs of sight, taste, touch, hearing and smelling, would
avail nothing if the mysterious principle of life was wanting.
What makes the human meclianism so wonderful is the
great fact that it is a living mechanism, — a mechanism that
will endure when years shall have passed away; a mechan-
ism so delicate and yet so tenacious, so refined and yet so
strong that it may survive the helplessness of infancy, the
vicissitudes of youth, the dangers of manhood, and the de-
crepitude of old age ; a mechanism that in some instances
shall pass the remote boundary line of a century. In con-
sidering the generation of the human body and its subse-
quent growth, the mind often rests too exclusively upon the
material part of man. Absurd as the conclusions may be,
that the microscopic germs of animal or vegetable life em-
body all the mechanism of the vegetable or animal organiza-
tion, or that inherent powers exist in the germs capable of
developing the bodies of animals or vegetables, yet in the
union of mind with body the evidence is greatly increased
of the agency of God.
It has been seen that in the first germs of vegetable or
animal life there is no evidence of the complicated mechan-
ism of the future state. These germs appear, alike to the eye ;
70 PROCESS OF GENERATION IN ANIMALS,
they present to the microscope simply little rectangular or
circular cells with a dot in them. Can we then suppose that
in such cells is wrapped up the miniature mechanism of the
future body, with its elaborate contrivances, its subdivisions
of material, and curious diversity of bones, muscles, veins,
arteries, and nerves? Do we ever dream, when we look
upon some curious specimen of human mechanism, that this
cylinder of its own accord jumped into its proper place, that
this band cut itself out of the raw^ material, and, after passing
through a dozen processes to lit itself for the machine, did
in reality go to work to adjust itself to the great water-wheel,
and then that this wdieel put itself into that position by which,
through the motive power of water, it intelligently turned
the wdiole machiner}- ? But those persons who talk about
the human mechanism as if it was a self-perpetuating, self-
acting, and self-adjusting machine, — as if its own inherent
powers gave miniature types of human bodies, and bestowed
just where was needed the bone and muscle, the veins and
arteries, the cords and sinews, the hair and nails, the five
senses and the diiferent limbs, are precisely as blind to the
designing hand of God as in the other illustration they are
to the contrivance of man. They overlook essential distinc-
tions in the one as in the other. Three things most distinct
enter into the living organization of man : the body, the
animal life, the soul, or mind. Now, because we see a com-
plicated result, such as baffles all imitation, is this result to
be attributed to the human organization independent of a
divine agency? If from the unshapen marble a beautiful
statue should be chiseled out, no person is so blind as to say
the statue chiseled itself out; but should that statue reveal
the great miracle of w^alking, sitting, and breathing, and
manifest life, then the more should we say a foreign power
was at work to enable the statue thus to do ; but if, more
wonderful still, that statue should reason and think, should
feel pleasure and pain, should discriminate right from wrong,
who, for a moment, would doubt the personal agency of God ?
But consider that we have millions of statues produced —
living, thinking, feeling, reasoning, and knowing right from
AND GERMINATION IN PLANTS. 71
wrong. We have every diversity of material, every perfec-
tion of art, every ingenuity of design, all wrapped up in the
human body : we see a threefold union of mechanism, life,
and mind; we see earth, air, and water adapted to the body.
Is there not, then, the most conclusive evidence here of the
work of an infinite mind ? When we consider the wonders
wrapped up in the mind, life, and bod}^ of man, his growth
from the smallest germs, his adaptation to time, place, and
sphere of existence ; when we contemplate this living organ-
ism picturing forth every feature of the mind and sympathy
of the soul, and manifesting in every movement the grace be-
coming an intelligent being, is there not meaning in the
words of inspiration ?
" Canst thou by searching find out God ? Canst thou find
out the Almighty unto perfection ? It is as high as heaven ;
what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?
The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader
than the sea."
CHAPTER VII.
PROSPECTIVE CONTRIVANCES OF ANIMALS.
One remarkable principle connected with the animal
economy, most singular in its operation, is the vital energy
that is constantly repairing the waste of the body, and in-
stantly applying a remedy to the injury that may happen to
the flesh or bones. If a bone is broken, a new bone begins
to form over the fracture, and actually makes the broken
part stronger than ever before. If a flesh wound is inflicted,
nature summons all her resources to repair the waste, and
secures, if possible, a healthy condition to the wound.
Thus the body seems always to keep in it sentinels secretly
upon duty, unobserved, while all goes well, but as soon as
accident or crime inflicts a bodily injury, then all nature's
resources are called to the rescue. Mark how soon, when
the peace of a city is disturbed, the warning rattle is heard,
and its guardians fly to the rescue ! Thus, in the animal
economy there walks also, unnoticed, through every avenue
of the system, sentinels who keep the peace. When all is
well we have no warning rattle, but let some ruthless invader
attack the body, and then observe how nature calls upon her
sentinels to preserve her rights ! Nature reveals a recupera-
tive power and a warning power. The instinctive principle
of fear, and the surface of the skin, where the seat of pain
peculiarly lies, especially subserve the end of a good police to
give warning of danger ; while the recuperative energy of the
animal economy is the best of physicians, to counteract the
injuries that happen to the body. Whether we go to the top
of the scale of animal life, or descend to the lowest type of
sensitive being, we see a peculiar fitness for the sphere in
which each animal moves. Everything is perfect in its kind.
When man works, he slights the humble workmanship, and
exhausts his time upon the nobler specimens of his invention.
(t2)
PROSPECTIVE CONTRIVANCES OF ANIMALS. 73
Not 80 with God : the body of a bee is as perfect in its make
as that of a mau.
" Birds in cleaning their feathers are supplied with a kind
of oil for this purpose. There is on each side of the rump of
birds a small nipple, which, by pressure, yields for their pur-
pose a butter-like substanoe, by which the bird anoints and
adjusts the feathers. Why, unless designed by God, should
not unfeathered animals have the same?"
"The heron and cormorant are great fishers; the middle
claw is toothed and notched like a saw. This greatly assists
them in holding their slippery prey. The gannet, or solan
goose, has the edges of its bill irregularly jagged, that
it may hold the faster its prey. Can we attribute these
peculiar structures to the manner of using these parts?
Another simple contrivance is the tongue of the icoodpecker.
This bird lives upon insects chiefly lodged in the bodies of
decayed trees. First, it is furnished with a straight, angular,
hard and sharp bill ; with this it bores into the wood, until
it reaches the cells of the insects, then comes the tongue, of
such length that the bird can dart it out three or four inches
from the bill. Not only in this respect does it difier from the
tongue of other birds, but it is tipped with a sharp, stiff,
bony thorn ; then this tip is dentated on both sides like the
beard of an arrow or barb of a hook. When the bird has
discovered the retreats of the insects, with a motion exceed-
ingly quick, it darts out this long tongue, and then transfixes
them upon the barbed needle at the end of it, and thus draws
its prey within the mouth." As Paley has well said (in these
and the following illustrations), " If this be not mechanism,
what is?"
" The air-bladder of a fish is a plain evidence of contrivance.
It is a philosophical apparatus in the body of a fish. By the
relaxation or compression of the muscles of the fish, the air-
bladder renders the fish specifically lighter or heavier than the
water, and thus at pleasure the fish rises or sinks in the water.
" ThQfang of a viper is a perforated tooth loose at the root ;
close to its root, and communicating with the perforation, is a
small bag containing the poison. When irritated, by the
74 PROSPECTIVE CONTRIVANCES OF ANIMALS.
pressure of its root against the bag underneath it the poison
is forced throuo:h the tube in the middle of the tooth. What
an effectual weapon for inflicting injury !"
" The bag of the opossum is a singular contrivance for the pro-
tection and support of its young. There is a false skin that
forms a pouch, into which the yoang are received. Nor is it
a mere doubling of the skin, but a new organ furnished with
bones and muscles of its own ; this forms the cradle and con-
veyance of the young. Was not intention shown in this
contrivance?"
" The stomach of the camel retains large quantities of water,
and keeps it unchanged for a considerable time ; this is ab-
solutely needful to enable the camel to journey in the desert,
where so seldom are they enabled to get water. What, then,
is the internal organization that secures a purpose so benefi-
cent to the camel ? There are a number of distinct sacs or
bags (thirty have been discovered in the dromedary) that lie
between the membranes of the second stomach, and open
near the top into the stomach by small, square apertures
through these orifices. After the stomach is full the annexed
bags are filled from it, and the water so deposited is not liable
to pass into the intestines, and is kept from the solid aliment,
and preserved from mixture with the gastric juice."
The prospective contrivances of the young of animals
afford clear illustration of some great designing mind. Ob-
serve that the period before birth is a sphere of being essen-
tially different from an after-state of existence. The teeth,
the eyes, the lungs, are all useless at that time, but infinite
foresight has prepared them to exercise, precisely when
wanted, their appropriate office. They lie wrapped up se-
curely in their first habitation for the eventful period when
they shall be called upon to perform their new functions.
Here we see the same provident care displayed by God as
afterward is shown in leading animals to provide for their
young. Thus, whatever may be the sphere of action, each
sphere has its own appropriate duties, and the whole life, with
all its changing seasons, from its earliest dawn to the last
closino; scene, makes known the watchful care of an infinite
mind. Consider the principle of compensation in nature. If
PROSPECTIVE CONTRIVANCES OF ANIMALS. 75
we take the elephant, we iind that his short, unwieldy neck
is compensated for by a long and highly flexible proboscis,
by which the food is secured. The crane kind, who live in
the water, and secure from this element their food, having no
web feet, have instead long legs for wading and long bills for
grasping. The spider, without wings to flj', and yet who lives
upon insects, has a web as a compensating contrivance. The
lobster, so singular in construction, unable, like other animalr-,
to grow by the gradual expansion of the skin with the rest of
the body, casts otf at proper periods its old coat of shell,
and slipping his feet out of their bony incasement as a man
takes off his boots, in this way secures the same purpose of
growth that other animals do by a method entirely different.
Birds have no teeth, but how can graminivorous and her-
bivorous birds live ? They may be said to carry about with
them a coffee-mill in their gizzards. So constructed is the
gizzard that it breaks and grinds the food as effectually as a
mill. Now the gastric juice, by experiment, is found not to
operate upon the whole grain, even when softened by water,
but only when broken into fragments. Without this peculiar
apparatus the chicken would starve upon a heap of corn.
How happens it that gizzard and bill go together, and that
the gizzard is never found where there are teeth ?
It is a curious problem for the artist to contVive a way of
locomotion for those animals who have no feet, but a design-
ing mind, in reality, has secured that which would puzzle
the most ingenious to conceive of. Reptiles reciprocally
shorten and lengthen the body by means of the joint action
of strings and rings, or longitudinal and annular fibers.
" Contraction and expansion," says Paxtou, " is the mode
of progression in worms, but not in reptiles. In the class of
serpents, locomotion consists simply of repeated horizon-
tal undulations, viz., flexion and extension. Thus, the head
being the fixed point, the body and tail assume several
curves; the curvatures are straightened, and thus the animal
advances with serpentine motion. By alternating it moves
forward at each step nearly the length of the whole body,
the ribs having nothing to do with locomotion unless as
affbrdins: a fulcrum for the muscles."
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SENSES.
The senses are to be looked upon as the instruments of
the mind. They are the tools with which the mind in a
material organism works. The senses are also most inti-
mately connected wdth the nervous system. Through the
medium of the nerves the senses peculiarly act. Observe,
then, the intricate relationship which the senses sustain to
the nerves, and the nerves to the mind. Whenever we
hear a sound, or perceive an object, three things are neces-
sary: the senses, the nerves, and the mind. Thus, while we
are able to trace some of the steps by which the nervous
system acts, through the agency of the senses, we are wholly
incompetent to understand anything of the deep mystery of
the connection of the nerves with animal life and mind.
From the effects produced, we know that nerves are not
mind, any more than mind is the live senses. Thus, with
three distinct agencies, material and immaterial, we have to
do with the external world. How could any principle of
generation, or law of nature, ever produce three agencies so
intimately connected together and yet so distinct from each
other? Mechanism so profoundly adapted to the external
world, and so wonderfully associated with mind ! Observe
that the world within and the world without are so adapted
to each other that, in a healthy state of the material organ-
ism, our mental ideas exactly correspond with the actual
realities. of things. Ingenious philosophy has disputed this;
but all the laws of common sense and human belief never
for a moment have questioned this great truth. When we
see a great mountain, and climb its lofty summit, our mental
idea of an actual mountain, and not an imaginary one, gives
us the precise truth of a positive outward existence of this
(76)
THE SENSES. 77
mountain, of which the ideal conception is the faithful pic-
ture. Thus, by the most clear law of our nature, the senses,
as exercised in their appropriate sphere, with opportunity for
action and healthy condition of the nervous system, never
can deceive us. Millions may be ignorant of the adjustment
of these instruments to the external world; they may be able
to describe nothing of the actual mechanism and the mu-
tual dependence of one sense upon another, and yet there
is not one mind capable of intelligent thought that knows
not and feels that the senses are precisely adjusted to the
world without, that their mechanism is the most elaborate,
and such as cannot be imitated by the highest stretch of hu-
man ingenuity. All can tell the use of the microscope, or
the telescope, even if few can give a good description of
them. All know that these instruments are the work of
intelligence ; but when we contemplate the senses, we con-
sider not dead mechanism, not merely living mechanism,
but mechanism in connection with the mind, that may well
be called thinking mechanism. Here is a step to show a de-
signing God, far in advance of the common argument of a
watch, with the wheels in motion, so celebrated in the
masterly treatise of Paley. It is because these instruments
of the senses feel and taste and hear and smell and see. It
is because these senses, in their connection with mind, in-
troduce us into the glorious harmonies of the universe, and
open up the majestic movements of countless worlds, and
give the consciousness of the deep beauty of nature, that we
see so clearly the proof of a God.
" What is termed the structure of the organs of sense,"
says Sir Charles Bell, " is that apparatus by which the ex-
ternal impression is conveyed in words, and by which its
force is concentrated on the extremity of the nerve. The
mechanism by which their external organs are suited to
their offices is highly interesting; it serves to show (in a
way that is level to our comprehension as most resembling
things of human contrivance) the design with which the
fabric is constructed. Thus the eye is so seated and so
formed as to embrace the greatest possible field of vision.
78 THE SENSES.
We can understand the happy effects of the convexity of the
transparent cornea, the influence of the humors of various
densities acting like an achromatic telescope; we can admire
the precision with which the rays of light are concentrated
on the retina, and the beautiful provision for enlarging or
diminishing the pencil of light in proportion to its intensity ;
but all this explains nothing in respect to the perception that
is excited in the mind by the impulse on the extremity of
the nerve. In like manner in the complex apparatus of the
eye, we see how this organ is formed, with reference to a
double course of impressions, as they come through the
solids, or through the body, and as they come through the
atmosphere; we comprehend how the undulations and vi-
brations of the air are collected and concentrated ; how they
are directed through the intricate passages of the bone, to a
fluid in which the nerve of hearing is suspended ; and we
see how at last that nerve is moved, but we can comprehend
uothino^ more from the studv of the external organ of
hearing."
It is not necessary to enter into a description in detail of
the separate senses of the body. So many and accurate
have been the illustrations by the anatomist of the senses,
that it would be doing the greatest injustice to the senses to
give a hasty sketch of them. For the purpose of our ar-
gument, it is quite enough to state facts which all admit. Of
all the senses, that of the eye presents itself as the most elab-
orate work of art. Protected by a bony socket, with its three
humors, its transparent cornea, its concave retina, and moved
by six muscles in every direction needed, with a power of
adjusting itself to near or distant objects, it shows itself pre-
cisely adapted to the rays of light, and all the diversity of
spheres in which it is called to act. Xo matter what may be
the peculiarity shown in the elements of air, earth, or water,
the eyes of all animals are exactly adapted to the wants of
every creature. Thus the eagle, that soars in the air, has
an eye unlike that of man, and yet neither could exchange
places without the greatest detriment. The eye of the fish
is useless out of the element of water; but in that element
THE SENSES. 79
subserving all the demands of the tishy race. In those ex-
treme circumstances where the eye is not needed, we do
not find the eye. Thus eyeless fish are taken from the dark
waters of the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. Here was a
sphere where no eye was wanted, for in the perpetual ab-
sence of light the Q\Q is useless. Could it be chance that
made some fish eyeless and other fish with ej-es ? Is there
not as much intelligence seen in adapting circumstances to
the eye as in the making of the eye itself? The precision
with which objects and colors are delineated upon the retina
is very wonderful. Thus the retina of the eye is a constant
and ever-changing panorama of the outward world, with all
its varied scenery.
" Could a painter," says Dr. Dick, " after a long series of
ingenious efl:brts, delineate the extensive landscape now
before me on a piece of paper not exceeding the size of
a silver sixpence, so that every object might be as distinctly
seen iu its proper shape and color as it now appears when I
survey the scene around me, he would be incomparably
superior to all the masters of his art that ever went before
him. This effect, which far transcends the utmost efforts of
human genius, is accomplished in a moment in millions of
instances by the hand of nature, or, in other words, by 'the
finger of God.' All the objects I am now surveying, com-
prehending an extent of a thousand square miles, are accu-
rately delineated in the bottom of my eye on a space less
than half an inch in diameter."
Volumes could be written upon the five senses — of vsight,
hearing, touch, taste, and smelling — in their relation to the
external world, and the theme not be exhausted. If through
the eye, as an instrument of the body, such necessities are
relieved and such pleasure secured ; if in relation to man
such ideas are awakened by this miracle of art, equally true
is it that the other senses perform offices as pleasant and
essential to the welfare of the body. Take away hearing,
and w^hat a void is made in human existence ! Take away
touch or taste, and what a blank is made in the happiness
of creatures! By the senses the world without us is brought
80 THE SENSES.
into intimate . sympathy with the world within us. The
senses unite us to both. Upon the mode of their union im-
penetrable mystery rests. But one truth is clear : the senses
are only instruments of the body. They do not constitute
in themselves any of the phenomena comprehended in the
language, sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smelling. Back
of the nerves lies that mysterious principle called animal
life, in connection with the instinct and the mind; here re-
sides the true seat of the senses. The greatest wonder of
•all is that instinct and mind, as bound up in animal life, can
bring, with these instruments, the world without us into such
intimate sympathy with the internal part of our nature.
Thus the bird that warbles his little song, the ocean with its
myriads of fish, the deer bounding over the plain, the savage
lion, the entombed remains of the denizens of far-distant
eDOchs of time, and, above all, man speak of God.
" The smallest dust which floats upon the wind
Bears the strong impress of the eternal mind;
In mystery round it, subtle forces roll ;
And gravitation binds and guides the whole.
In every sand before the tempest hurled
Lie locked the powers which regulate a world,
And from each atom human thought may rise
With might to pierce the mysteries of the skies;
To try each force which rules the mighty plan
Of moving planets, or of breathing man ;
And from the sacred wonders of each sod
Evoke the truths, and learn the power of God."
CHAPTER IX.
LIFE AND INSTINCT.
Life has been defined by Stahl to be "the condition by
which a bod}^ resists a natural tendency to chemical changes,
such as putrefaction." Humboldt says living bodies are
" those which, notwithstanding the constant operation of
causes tending to change their form, are limited by a certain
inward pov:>er from undergoing such changes." Kant defines
life "as an internal faculty, producing change, motion, and
action." Bichat's definition is, "life is the sum of the func-
tions by which death is resisted." Schmidt says, "life is the
activity of matter according to laws of organization."
Life by materialists is the same as organization, or is con-
founded with it. But is there no difference between a dead
man and a live one ? And yet the organization after death
is the same in the one case as in the other. But how different
the one from the other ! Life is something superadded to
organization ; a perfectly distinct power. The one is only
mechanism ; the other is the mysterious force that makes the
mechanism go through with its revolutions. The machine
is good for nothing without some power applied to set it in
motion. Now, life is the power that moves all the wheels of
the animal economy. It is the mj'sterious agency which, with
unintermittent force, daily propels the workmanship of the
artist. Consequently, a living body reveals far more dis-
tinctly the power of some great architect than a dead body.
Observe this peculiarity in all living organisms. It is con-
stant change and constant motion : unlike inorganic sub-
stances, tte condition of existence is ceaseless activity. Sleep
may suspend some of the action of the body; but not for a
moment does the blood cease to flow, or the heart to beat,
or the inhaling or the exhaling of air. The laboratory
within is ever in constant activity. What is it that thus
6 (81)
82 LIFE AND INSTINCT.
keeps up the circulation of the blood, or the breathing of
air ? It is the animal life. Here, then, do we see the con-
stant play of a force that, with untiring energy, sets in daily
movement all the mechanism of man. Here we see the gen-
eration of new bodies ; the wonderful principle of compensa-
tion, by which, when a bone is broken, when a wound in the
flesh is inflicted, nature has ever in store a new material to
supply the loss or waste of the old. A new bone forms over
the fracture, new flesh speedily restores the old, and thus is
the body seen not only capable of introducing types of simi-
lar organization, but of repairing the waste or injury inflicted
upon the old. Now, life is the direct opposite of chemical
aflinitj^ : it holds while the body lives ; wars with those chemi-
cal laws that are seen in inorganic substances. Here are two
forces showing themselves in the human body : that of life
and that of chemical aflinity and change. Yet the latter is
restricted to its proper sphere as long as life continues ; when
that ends, chemical laws begin their work of change and dis-
solution. If, now, there is no power independent of the
animal organization, why is it that the first germs of animal
life, with no appearance of an elaborate mechanism, with not
the slightest indication of its subsequent state, should by
their own inherent agency give birth not only to the com-
plicated machinery of the body, but the mysterious energy of
life ? There is not the slightest plausibility in the reasoning
that confounds life with organization, and organization with
the first germs of animals. If the earliest germs of animals
reveal not one trace of mechanism ; if the elaborate tissue
of bones, nerves, muscles, veins, and arteries is the work
of a subsequent period, then this cannot be true. Equally
certain is it that life and organization are two distinct things.
How came the principle of life to incorporate itself with the
human mechanism without a divine agency ? Animal life is
a secret force, a mysterious power, but it is not an intelligent
force or a reasoning power. It is not mind, it is not instinct,
it has nothing in it that corresponds with thought. It is an
undefined agency that works after its own peculiar laws. It
has its distinct sphere of movement; and yet how valueless
LIFE AND INSTINCT. 83
the body without life ! How soon does its beautiful mechanism
return to ruin without this force applied to preserve it ! What
is the body without life to animate it! We esteem the me-
chanism of inorganic substances, even if the distribution of
force makes them useless. But the dead mechanism of the
body, how fearful it is ! Life, then, is a principle as indispen-
sable for the existence of all animals as the body itself. All
the amazing variety of instruments that the body presents
only make more deplorable the ruin when the grand agency
of life has departed. But if life is such, did it come by
chance into the body ? If the seat of life, its mode of exer-
cise, its commencement, is an unscrutable mystery, is there
any doubt of the fact that life itself owes its origin to the
mind of an infinitelj^ wise God ? We judge of the proof of
design and adaptation by the intricacy and multiplicity of
the instruments that bring it about. We consider the more
artistic the machine, the more refined the different parts, the
more evidence there is of a contriving mind. If, then, me-
chanism evinces contrivance, does not mechanism, instinct
with life, show far more a contriving mind ? When we con-
sider the vast array of instruments, all useless without life,
should we not be more impressed with the agency of God,
when the great wheel that turns all the lesser ones begins to
move, and there goes on in full power the complicated econ-
omy of physical existence? But life in animals without instinct
is not of itself sufficient for continued existence. Instinct
comes in as a mysterious force imparted by some foreign
agent. While life is the condition of all animal existence,
instinct is the condition necessary to make life of any ser-
vice. We see in animals not merely living mechanism, but
this mechanism directed by instinct, enabling every creature
to fill the sphere of its being. Instinct is to the external
world what animal life is to the body ; that which adapts the
body to that which is essential for continued being. ISo ani-
mal could live but a short time destitute of instinct, because
instinct is indispensable as the preserver and guide of animal
life. It stands as the ever-watchful sentinel over the princi-
ple of life in the body. While the sphere of life is the body,
the sphere of instinct is the external world, ever adapting the
84 LIFE AND INSTINCT.
animal life to the conditions of the world without. Thus,
while life keeps the mechanism of the body in due order and
preservation, instinct comes in to adapt this mechanism to
the outward relations of the body. Life, in its agency, is
universal ; instinct is particular. The reign of life is inter-
nal ; instinct is external. The one is uniform in its action,
the other is diversified in its agency. But instinct is distin-
guished from mind, in that it has no trace of reason or con-
science. Instinct never thinks : it acts. It is a mysterious
faculty implanted to subserve certain indispensable ends in
creation. Animals must live ; they must be able to provide
for the wants of their offspring, or all animal existence would
cease. Now, instinct is given to attain with unerring cer-
tainty the indispensable ends of animal life. In many re-
spects we see in it a marked diiference from the human mind.
In the first place, instinct is incapable of improvement. It
exists as perfect in animals in one age as in another. Cen-
turies neither alter it nor improve it. The bee is as wise now
as a thousand years ago. The ant builds no better houses
now than when first created. The nest that the bird pro-
vides for her young is precisely alike, so far as material and
dexterity is concerned, at one period as at another. There
is no such thing as improvement in instinct: however it
may develop itself in each species of animals, it is always pre-
cisely the same. But another peculiarity is seen in instinct
to distinguish it from reason. Instinct jumps at one bound
into perfection : it is as good in the first stages of it as the
last. As soon as it can fairly develop itself, it is of its kind
perfect for the end designed. Thus, the young duck takes as
readily to the water as the old duck. The young beaver
appears as wise in architecture as the old beaver. The young
bee fabricates a cell with as much geometrical precision as
the old bee. The first efforts of instinct are as well directed
as the last. How different from reason ! Feebler in its com-
mencement than instinct, it gradually expands, grows more
perfect with the flight of time, and in its highest maturity
looks upward with longing eyes to yet nobler heights of ex-
cellence ! But instinct also is extremely limited in its range;
it only takes in few ends. It never goes out of a prescribed
LIFE AND INSTINCT. 85
circle. ]S[ot more uuiformlj do the planets move in their des-
tined circuits, than does instinct move in its allotted sphere.
Another peculiarity of instinct is, that it bears the clearest
possible mark of a foreign agency. The accuracy of instinct
is an imparted accuracy ; some infinitely higher power than
the animal gives instinct. How can it be otherwise ? Does
a person believe that the young crocodile, that takes to the
water as soon as it leaves the Qgg, has any thought or design
about water ? — that the bee, which builds a cell more perfect
than the art of man can imitate, does so as the result of study
or of experience ? — that the nest of the bird is fashioned by
reason ? Does it enter tlie head of a man that what human
reason or experience blunders in, animal thought perfects
itself in ? No ! Instinct is a mysterious power communi-
cated by God, that, blindly, yet with absolute certainty, impels
the animal to certain wise ends. The toil of learning may
do for reason, but instinct has no time for it. Is there not
then the highest proof of a designing mind, that what the
animal left to itself would be utterly incapable of attaining
unto by thought or experience, instinct secures immediatelj',
and when in the highest degree needed ? Is it thought that
leads the bird to meditate upon the wants of her future off-
spring, and leave the habit of ceaseless activity for the long,
the inactive process of sitting upon her eggs ? Yet we see,
without the slightest trace of reason, an end secured as wise
as if the bird had been endowed with the intelligence of a
Newton. How came the faculty of instinct in animals, if God
did not give it ? Can it for a moment be presumed that the
animal originated by any powers of his own instinct ? —
that, without thought or any knowledge of his subsequent
wants, he yet devised a facult}^ that in its appropriate sphere
was better than the highest reason ?
How came an animal "without foresight to get up some-
thing for certain ends better even than the most disciplined
reason could secure? How came such matchless subser-
viency to contain few but most wise ends, to come from a
source where experience was impossible and thought alto-
gether out of the question? Does not instinct, equally with
life, reveal the agency of an infinite God?
CHAPTER X.
THE HUMAN BODY AND MIND, AND THE TESTIMONY OF HISTORY
AND SCIENCE UPON THE ORIGIN OF MAN.
Man is a complex machine, comprehending organized
matter, life, and mind. The human form embodies a three-
fold union, not more mysterious in principle than complex
in construction. Man himself is a miracle of art. It may
appear a small thing to stand upon the feet; but the most
perfect statue cannot thus do : the slightest wind will over-
turn it; and yet with what ease and safety a man stands
erect or walks the earth ! Now, then, the diiFerent postures
of man are owing to the imperceptible yet constant balanc-
ing of the body by the muscles. One of the hardest works
of art is to make both sides of the body and head alike, — one
precisely resembling the other. And yet how uniform and
exact the proportions of the human frame ! Of the millions
who compose the human family, no two persons can be
found having exactly the same features. Thus, while in all
essential respects there runs through the whole race one
great principle of resemblance ; yet there is diversity of
feature enough alwaj^s to distinguish one man from another.
Observe the regularity of the animal structure. While ex-
ternally there is the most perfect resemblance in the limbs
in opposite sides of the body, while there is exact correlation
of parts, yet internally this is far from being the case. A
line drawn down the middle of the breast divides the thorax
into two, similar in all respects; yet the two sides inclose
very different contents. The heart lies on the left side, and
a lobe of lungs on the right, balancing each other neither in
size nor shape. Thus the external proportion in this and
other parts of the body does not arise from any equality in
the shape or contents of the internal body. One great per-
fection in the animal mass is package. Observe the variety
and number of instruments all securely stowed away in the
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THE HUMAN BODY AND MIND. 87
most convenieut compass ! Here at the center is the heart,
pumping at the rate of eighty strokes in a minute ; here
are two difterent sets of pipes, one carrying the blood from
the heart, the other returning it to the heart ; here are the
lungs distending and contracting their thousands of vesicles
by constant reciprocation ; here is the powerful chemistry of
the stomach, with the bowels silently propelling the changed
aliments ; here are the liver, the kidneys, the pancreas, the
parotid, all performing their peculiar office ; here is the in-
testinal canal, five times the length of the body, so important
in the animal economy, securely protected by being knit to
the edge of a broad, flat membrane, called the mesentery ;
here is the brain, incased in bone, the spinal marrow so deli-
cate, secured from injury by the wonderful mechanism that
surrounds it. And yet with so many movements and offices,
with such diversity of construction and position, such peculi-
arities of exercise, this living mass of heterogeneous sub-
stances and motions always keep in their respective spheres.
Man, unconscious of the mechanism within, moves through
life; day and night does he carry about a laboratory, where
nature performs her mysterious work, and existence passes
away through innumerable diversities of operation. Thus
the body is a moving machinery, so compact, so beneficently
arranged, that the flight of years and the changing seasons
do but evince a stronger proof of an origin from an all-wise
mind. Observe also the beauty of the body. An infinite
taste, a refinement of art, transcending all description, has
fashioned the human frame, has painted with hues more ex-
pressive than the rainbow the face of man, throwing into
every feature the passions of the soul, giving to every move-
ment propriety and grace, and revealing in every lineament
the impress of mind. Thus, if so decisive the evidence of
design in the body of man, much more clear is that evidence
in the soul or the intellect of man. It is man, as compounded
of the material and the immaterial, that demonstrates the
handiwork of God with absolute certainty. Give to matter
all the powers you please, none so wild as to imagine it ever
can originate will, perception, imagination, reason, con-
88 THE HUMAN BODY AND MIND,
science, and affection. These are the attributes alone of the
mind; they have no affinity, no likeness to the properties
of matter.
" Clay cannot cogitate," says Felling, " nor can any mov-
ing wheel reason, nor can the most spirituous parts of the
blood 'philosophize, nor can the finest motes that dance in the
sun consult or deliberate; nor can that glorious and enliven-
ing creature, the sun itself, entertain those meditations w^hich
bubble and spring out of one's mind ; nor can all the ma-
terial parts of the world put together form those contrivances,
desires, and affections which are the operations of the hu-
man soul; and to suppose, as some pretenders to sense and wit
do, that all these actions proceed from little restless atoms
capering about 4n the head, and falling accidentally into
various forms and contextures, doth argue rather that the
brains of such men are infested with flies and nits, than that
they understand anything of right reason and philosophy."
Upon no one subject is history more agreed than in fixing
some few thousand years ago a beginning to the human
species. No nation so savage, none so dark as to believe
that the human race existed from eternity. Consult all
Roman or Grecian poetry, study the legends of all the sages
of Eastern literature, investigate all the books of heathen
philosophy, and among them all the one great fact is recog-
nized,— the creation at some time of man. This fact, what-
ever may be the obscurity or contradiction respecting the
mode of it or the time, runs through all tradition, it inter-
weaves itself in all ancient philosophy and poetry. That
some thousand years ago man had an origin is recorded in
the written and the unwritten language of all nations upon
the face of the earth. The golden age of man, his once
primeval innocence, with the brazen and iron age that suc-
ceeded, is pictured forth in all the poetry and philosophy of
the world. No matter how confused the notions in respect
to the fall of man, most clearly is the fact made known of the
existence of the first man. So far as the voice of history,
sacred and profane, is concerned, we cannot doubt that there
was a time when the human race had a beorinnino^. Science
unites her voice with history to confirm the fact of man's
AND THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 89
origiu. The records of all investigations among the monu-
ments of antiquity point to the central region of Asia, whence
anciently proceeded the descendants of Shem, Ham, and
Japheth. Here was the cradle of the human race, here origi-
nated the three great streams of population from the three
sons of iToah. Tradition, even as the Bible, teaches ps that
the deluge destroyed a corrupt race of men, who were the
descendants of that happy pair that once lived in a state of
innocence. Science makes known to us that, among the re-
mains of the extinct species of animals that lie entombed in
the earth, there are no vestiges of man among the earliest
species of fish, reptiles, birds, and quadrupeds. If man had
existed from eternity, why so recent and late the records of
his being? Why do we not at least find his remains among
the earlier species of fish, birds, and quadrupeds? So far
as the investigations of geology go, they are all opposed to
the eternity of the human race. Geology discloses to us the
fact that the human remains are the last and the most
recent, while other races of organized creatures existed be-
fore. History and science testify to the comparatively recent
origin of man. The Bible record of man's creation is con-
firmed 'by history and science. If, then, we look to the
origin of man simply as a fact to be established by testi-
mony, there will be found a weight of evidence that man
came from the creative power of God vastly greater than we
can adequately conceive of, so that not only the first link in
the great chain of humanity, but every link in that chain,
viewed separately or collectively, point to the infinite mind.
" Humanity proper," says Professor Tayler Lewis, " or the
human proprium, did not grow, was no work of nature, but
had a divine, a supernatural, an instantaneous beginning.
There was a time, a moment, when man, — a man, — the
jmmus homo, began to be, who a moment before was not.
There was one in whom humanity commenced, and from
whom all subsequent humanity has been derived. There
was one who first began to be a man, and this principium
has its date from the first energizing of that higher life,
which came from a direct inbreathing of the Almighty and
Everlasting Father of Spirits."
CHAPTER XL
COMPARATIVE PHYSIOLOGY, AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.
One of the most significant indications not only of design
in the workl, but of a constant superintending Providence,
is the intimate relation which the inorganic kingdom sustains
to the organic, and the adjustment of laws most opposite in
their character to the general harmony of the system. The
development theory, by ascribing all the inorganic and or-
ganic changes to powers inherent in matter, and to a princi-
ple of transmutation, by which one species of vegetables or
animals generates a different species, and all from a gradual
development through great ages of time, has in it nothing
that confirms it in nature. Geology reveals how untrue this
theory is in the past ages of the world. Let us, then, as pe-
culiarly revealing the superintendence of God, notice some
of those minute but most important changes constantly
going on in the world. As we direct our inquiries into the
department of nature where are made known the first devel-
opments of being, we are most forcibly impressed with the
absurdity not only of a theory which denies distinct creations
to distinct species, but which, under the vague phraseology
of general law, dispenses with the necessity of an overruling
Providence. The microscope reveals to us the forms of the
globules of blood in herbivorous and carnivorous animals.
Now these globules diflfer in form and number according to
the character of the animal. In man, the globules are small
and nearly circular ; the globules are larger and of an oblong
spheroidal form in fishes and birds. The form is different
and still larger in reptiles. The form of the globules of blood
is also marked in the grand orders of the herbivorous and
graminivorous animals. Upon this wholly arbitrary distinc-
tion in the form and number of globules depends the vital
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COMPARATIVE PHYSIOLOGY, ETC. 91
eners^y. Should an animal be bled to syncope, and the blood
be permitted to flow on, death will ensue ; but if the same
kind of blood taken from another animal be injected into the
veins, the animal, if not dead, will recover ; but the blood of
the herbivorous animal cannot answer for injection into the
carnivora. Thus wdiile dissimilar globules have power to
rouse the animal for a short time, the animal cannot recover.
Here we see in the rudimentary particles of the body a dis-
tinction upon which life itself depends. If, then, according
to the development theory, the blood had been transmitted
from one animal to another of different species, the blood
would have changed its primary character. In vegetable
cells or utricles, there is the same diversity of form as in
the globules of the blood. Thus the cells are oval, round, or
lengthened, and sharpened at both ends, or they assume
tube-like forms.
" Observation," says M. Jussieu, " which proves the truth
of theories, determines the contrary on watching the devel-
opment of a vessel. We do not find any one which, in its
different phases, would have represented all the other kinds
of vessels ; and the same thing may be said of cells. Remark,
moreover, first, that in each part of a plant, such and such
modifications of cells, of fibers, of vessels are found. We
have, for instance, in certain places, unrollable tracheae,
though in others we never meet with them ; second, that in
spite of the similarity of the chemical composition of the
walls, that of their contents is quite different, and like the
shape constant in appearance, and agreeing with the place
w^hich the cavity occupies in the vegetable. Thus, therefore,
if all the elementary organs of vegetables commence their
growth as utricles, among which we cannot discover any ap-
preciable difference, except in their form, it is no less true
that each utricle is destined from the beginning to assume in
its ulterior development such a form and no other ; or to
elaborate such a substance and no other : it is not, therefore,
the same organ."
Most appropriately is it remarked by George Taylor,
" There must be something in the embryo which gives di-
92 COMPARATIVE PHYSIOLOGY,
rection to the individual growth, or there is an infinite power
presiding over the development growth of each one. This
position proves the immediate interposition, as well as the
omnipresence of the supreme cause ; and the former estab-
lishes the distinct and unchangeable character of each class.
One of these positions must be correct ; and as both of them
contradict the idea of transmutation or development, it is not
important which one we force our antagonists to accept."
Sajs Agassiz, " We know that one sort of an egg will only
give rise to one sort of an animal, therefore we must admit
that as an egg of one kind gives rise only to one sort of an
animal, there must be an immaterial principle presiding
over these changes, which is invariable in its nature, and is
properly the cause of the whole process."
Consider the harmony existing between the laws of heat
and light and the vegetable kingdom. It has been proved
that a ray of solar light contains several distinct principles;
one portion represents color, another portion affects the tem-
perature, while a third contains the chemical principle which
is invisible, and has no influence on the thermometer. What
agency does the action of these distinct principles of a ray of
solar light perform in vegetation ? The British Association
submitted the question to Mr. Hunt for investigation. In his
report, he says that light transmitted through yellow^ glass
has little or no influence upon the germination of seeds, as
the chemical portion of the ray does not pass through that
color. Every vegetable demands a proportion of all these
principles, and cannot survive without a certain portion of
these principles. Thus, germination, growth, and fructi-
fication depend upon changes in the proportion of them.
These changes are in harmony with the seasons. Says Mr.
Hunt, " It is now an ascertained fact that the solar beam
during spring contains a large amount of the actinic prin-
ciple so necessary at that season for the germination of
seeds and the development of buds. In summer thei-e is a
large proportion of the light-giving principle necessary for
the formation of the woody parts of the plant. As autumn
approaches, the calorific or heat-giving principles of the solar.
AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 93
ray increase. This is necessary to harden the woody parts,
and prepare them for the approaching winter. It is thus
that the proportions of the diiferent principles are changed
with the seasons, and thus that vegetation is germinated,
grown, and hardened by them."
In looking upon the vegetable kingdom we find that it
subserves to man two great purposes: one that of food,
clothing, and protection from the elements ; the other a
chemical and medicinal end. We find every country and
diversity of climate having its distinct order of vegetables.
Those vegetables most needed are most abundant. Thus,
the cereals most useful are cultivated as far north as the
seventieth degree of latitude. In the tropics, the banana,
date, yam, and bread-fruit trees are scattered over the whole
tropical zone. We find that ijature is one vast storehouse
where are deposited everything necessary for the support
of man. Unlimited provision is made to gratify the dif-
ferent tastes of man. Ornament is consulted as much as
utility. In the chemical composition of the animal and vege-
table kingdom, we see a marked difi'erence. The cellular
mass of plants is composed of nearly equal parts of carbon,
hydrogen, and oxygen ; but in animals, gelatine, composed
of unequal parts of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen,
is the primary material. Vegetables in their growth absorb
inorganic particles by the extremity of their roots ; animals
feed upon organic particles ; and by the nervous and lymphatic
vessels in the intestinal tube they absorb their nutriment.
In animals and vegetables respiration is altogether difterent :
that of animals is performed without intermission the whole
of life ; while light is absolutely necessary for vegetables.
Wide as may be the difiterence in respiration and nutrition in
the vegetable and animal kingdom, the organic apparatus is
even greater which performs these functions.
In the physical geography of the earth, we notice that a
large proportion of the continental element lies north of the
equator. The eastern hemisphere has a much larger area of
land than the western. Its greatest expansion is from east
to west, while the new continent has its greatest length from
94 COMPARATIVE PHYSIOLOGY, ETC.
north to south. The northern continents contain nearly two-
thirds of the continental area, or about twenty-two and a half
millions of square miles, while the southern contain sixteen
and a third millions only. The northern continents are more
indented and articulated, and therefore present in their con-
tours more variety : they are also possessed of inland seas
and gulfs ; while the southern are more compact, have fewer
indentations, and no inland seas. The northern continents
are almost entirely in the temperate zones; while the southern
are confined to the tropical and warm temperate zones. The
mountains, according to their arrangements, materially affect
the temperature of the continental climates. In the old
world the principal chains follow the direction of the paral-
lels, while in the new world they take the direction of the
meridian. The law, as in the case of the major axis, seems
to be entirely different in the eastern and western continents.
"The highest elevation of the continental masses," says
George Taylor, "following the direction of the mountain
chains, are uniformly located on the sides of the continents,
and not as might be expected at the center. The mountains
descend gradually towards the Atlantic and frozen oceans ;
while their slopes are rapid and precipitous tow^ards the
Pacific and Indian oceans."
" If the order were reversed," says Professor Guyot, " and
the elevation of the lands went on increasing toward the
north, the most civilized half of the globe at the present
would be a frozen and uninhabited desert."
Thus we find, even in the arrangement of the continents,
and the position of the mountain ranges, a clear indication
of divine wisdom and goodness.
CHAPTER XI I.
MEANING OF THE TERMS NATURE AND CHANCE.
So often and so loosely is the word nature used, so fre-
quently is it misapplied, that its true import is deserving of
careful consideration. Nature comprehends the universe,
but yet is used with more peculiar reference to the objects
that come under our immediate notice in the visible world.
But we cannot speak of the powers of nature abstracted from
the individual objects of nature. ^Nature, as the universe,
with which in its largest acceptation it is synonymous, is
made up of parts, and these parts, however related to each
other, are comprised in an infinite variety of objects. Thus,
to speak of nature in the aggregate as something distinct from
the objects of nature is most absurd, and yet the powers of
nature are often spoken of as if something resided in nature as
an original cause of all things. When adaptation and design
are admitted, we often hear the phrase, nature itself is the cause.
But why thus delude the mind with language so wanting in
intelligence and sense ? Why suffer the mind to be deceived
with the jingle of words absolutely without meaning ? Is
there no distinction between the first cause and second
causes ? Is there no difference between original power and
imparted power ? Do we speak of a self-active machine be-
cause we see the wheels move ? Do we confound a landscape
revealing a hundred tints of beauty upon the canvas with
the painter of that canvas ? Do we admire the artistic Avork
of the statue, and lose sight of the genius that fashioned it ?
E'ature has numberless objects, animate and inanimate ; it has
infinite diversities of collocation and adjustment, adaptations
of the utmost beauty and usefulness. If, commencing with
the objects of the inanimate world, we ask how came these
objects in existence, is it any solution to the question to say
(95)
96 MEANING OF THE TERMS
nature brought them in f But nature is only an assemblage of
objects. It is no explanation to say that the whole intro-
duced the separate parts, that the aggregate of all things
produced each separate member. The question is, how
did each separate object, animate and inanimate, come into
being ? Not how did the whole come into being. The
question is, what was the cause, the efficient author of the
particular objects that sum up the whole ? Now to shift the
proof from the part to the whole is poor logic, and worse
sense. If there is one truth more self-evident than any other,
it is, that existence does not prove self-creation. Because /
am, it is no proof that therefore I made myself. Because the
world is, that does not prove its self-creation. But the very
phrase self-creation involves an absurdit}'. That which is not,
cannot engender itself. I could not create myself before I
had an existence, even had I the powder afterwards of creat-
ing a world. When once it is seen that existing things have
a beginning, then the cause of that beginning must reside
out of itself. The question then is, did the separate objects
that go to make up nature have a beginning ? If so, then
nature in no sense was the first great cause. Nature itself
must be accounted for by a power out of itself, and distinct
from itself. As, by separating the several parts that go. to
make up nature, we reduce it to nothing, so when we account
for the separate things in nature, we cannot go for their cause
to the great whole. An aggregate of difi'erent things is no
cause of those things. Numberless second causes cannot
do away with the first cause. Thus, when nature is properly
viewed, we see the absurdity of making it the cause of the
objects that go to make it up. As well may a person enter
some great palace, and, viewing all around its wonders of art,
its noble proportions, its lofty walls, its stones of polished
marble, its well-formed windows, its walls decorated with
the richest paintings, and its numerous contrivances of
comfort and elegance, say the palace is the cause of all these
things. Is now the reasoning any less sophistical that con-
founds nature with the author of nature ? Is it not absurd
to make nature the cause of its separate parts, and lose sight
NATUBE AND CHANCE. 97
of an intelligent cause that created the whole, and each
member of the whole ?
So much has been said of chance and of the fortuitous
concourse of atoms, that in considering the personal agency
of God, it would be well to give these phrases a passing
notice. Whatever may be our view of the agency of God,
or his personal manifestation of power in the works of nature,
one thing is certain, — the great law that every event must
have a cause embraces all actual events, all changes, all
modifications of matter, and all begun existences. Adopt
either the hypothesis of no cause but God, or that of the first
cause and second causes, and in either case we are com-
pelled to the belief that there is no such thing as chance or
a fortuitous concourse of atoms ; if by either supposition we
mean causeless events or things, why is the word chance
used at all ? It is simply a term appropriate to human
ignorance. When we speak of anything taking place by
chance, all that is meant is, the cause is unknown or the
thing or event not directly the object of our purpose. But
because in relation to man in the restricted sphere of his
mind and his thoughts we do not see many things or events
the objects of human will or thought, yet everything is
caused as really as the most designed object of human work-
manship. An artist may chisel out a statue, but the chips of
marble that lie like useless rubbish at his side, the very dust
that floats in the air are caused as much as the statue itself.
Where, then, is the difference ? Simply here, — in the work-
manship of the statuary the main object of thought and pur-
pose is the due proportion of the body chiseled out of the
marble : that we say is designed, while the dust and broken
fragments of marble are not designed. But in what sense
are they not designed ? Simply in the sense of the statue
itself. But as necessary to that statue they are designed ;
they form the balance of design, or, so to speak, the residuum
of design. They are remotely objects of purpose and desire,
as the statue is directly an object of purpose. So far as
cause goes they are as really caused as the most perfect work-
manship of man. But if chance is so restricted in its meaning
7
98 MEANING OF TERMS NATURE AND CHANCE.
when applied to man, and if in no proper definition of the
term there can be such a thing as chance, more true is it in re-
lation to God that there can be no chance. The mind of God
is unlimited, his wisdom and knowledge as boundless as the
universe, his foresight extends to all events. Even the for-
tuities of existence are as much under his control and
knowledge as things that happen after the most regular and
precise order.
The far-reaching law of cause and effect reigns in the uni-
verse of mind and matter. God alone is uncaused, for he
alone is self-existent : he alone has no beginning or end.
In him reside the infinite depths of all causes. Chance with
God is impossible, for contingencies are as really under his
knowledge and direction as certainties. Contingencies with
God when he purposes are certainties.
CHAPTER XII I.
UNITY OF DESIGN IN NATURE.
ITature reveals through her vast domain one divine unity
of wisdom and goodness. Not only the first truth of phi-
losophy teaches us the absurdity of calling in more than one
great cause for the formation of the universe, but the uni-
verse itself carries with it the essential mark of divine one-
ness of construction. Every separate province is intimately
associated with the collective whole. Every part seems to be
made after one great pattern, and the mighty aggregate, from
the greatest to the least, appears to be tied together by one
chain of Divine Providence. Dividing the universe into
three parts, viz., that which pertains to matter, that which
may be included under the endless developments of mind and
instinct, and that which is comprised in the moral and ac-
countable part of our nature, and there wnll be found running
through the whole the clear trace of an origin from one infi-
nite source. iJ^aturalists have often exercised their minds in
investigating the great dependencies of one part of nature
upon another; they have found that, remove one element
from the atmosphere, or change the constitutional principles
of w^ater, or modify but a little the external appearance of our
continents or mountains, or reverse their present locality, or
alter the etherial combination of the solar ray, or remove any
of the primary ingredients of the earth, or derange but ever
so little the chemical properties of heat, and the result is ruin
to man as he is now constituted. Changes that at first sight
would appear unimportant, would soon propagate their influ-
ence by a thousand channels of communication, until one wide
derangement would affect the whole. Thus, to change but a
few degrees the relative position of the earth's axis, would
work an entire difference in the climate and condition of the
(99)
100 UNITY OF DESIGN IN NATURE.
world. Tlius, if we look at the world we find air, heat, land,
water, light, all having towards each other a relation so
peculiar, that alter that relation in the least and the whole is
permanently deranged. The collocations of matter, their
adjustments that show so signally the wisdom of God, reveal
also their oneness of design and origin. Not only does phi-
losophy teach us that the supposition of more than one great
cause is absurd and unnecessary, but all nature cries out
against a plurality of self-existing and independent deities.
No trace is there of such an absurdity in nature. Nature
points us to one infinite God and there leaves us. A plu-
rality of Gods must all have one design, or diflerent designs.
All must act in the same way, or diflerently. If the latter
were the case, nature would reveal herself one mighty scene
of disorder and contradiction. The condition of nature would
be abnormal, and all sensitive existence as now constituted
would be impossible : but should the former supposition be
correct, then nature would give the lie to herself, and every
page of her records would reveal one systematic deception,
since man would be compelled to believe in one God while in
reality there was a plurality of Gods. Such an idea is to the
last degree absurd. Search through all nature, and one vast
chain of dependence runs through the whole. One all-per-
vading unity is seen from the smallest to the greatest. Thus
it will be seen that the universe is made up of innumerable
parts all linked together; one great principle of gravitation
reaches to the remotest star. In the minute, even as in the
great objects of nature, there is seen the unity of God's work-
manship. As we go through the animal kingdom we find
that every species, every great genus carries throughout one
uniform pattern. Thus so marked is the unity of design,
that having made ourselves familiar with any one species of
animals, we shall find our great end secured through all the
diversities of this species.
" Ever}' organized individual," says Cuvier, " forms an
entire system of its own, all the parts of which must mutually
correspond and concur to produce a certain definite purpose,
by reciprocal reaction, or by combining towards the same
UNITY OF DESIGN IN NATURE. 101
end. Hence none of these separate parts can change their
forms without a corresponding change in the other parts of
the same animal, and consequently each of their parts, taken
separately, indicates all the other parts to which it has be-
longed. Thus, if the viscera of an animal are so organized
as to be fitted for the digestion of recent flesh only, it is also
requisite that the jaws should be so constructed as to fit
them for devouring prey; the claws must be constructed for
seizing and tearing it to pieces ; the teeth for cutting and
dividing its flesh ; the entire system of the limbs or organs of
motion for the pursuing and overtaking it ; and the organs
of sense for discovering it at a distance. The shape and the
structure of the teeth regulate the forms of the claws ; so
that a claw, a shoulder-blade, a condyle, a leg or arm bone,
or any other bone separately considered, enables us to dis-
cover the description of teeth to which they have belonged ;
and so also reciprocally we may determine the forms of the
other bones from the teeth. Thus, commencing an investi-
gation by a careful survey of any one bone by itself, a per-
son who is sufliciently master of the laws of organic struc-
ture may, as it were, reconstruct the whole animal to which
that bone had belonged. The smallest fragments of bone,
even the most apparently insignificant apophysis, possess to
the class, order, genus, and species of the animal to which
it belonged : insomuch that when we find merely the ex-
tremity of a well-preserved bone, we are able by careful
examination, assisted by analogy and exact comparison, to
determine the species to which it once belonged, as certainly
as if we had the entire animal before us."
Thus it will be manifest that unity of design is seen through
the whole animal kingdom. There is equally clear one
mighty chain of dependence all centering in one end. The
elements of earth, air, and water are indispensable for the
vegetable kingdom, and these three great departments of
nature are so adjusted to each other, and all so essential for
the intellectual and moral development of man, that any
change, however apparently small, in their relative position
would most vitally aftect the whole. So adjusted is one part
102 UNITY OF DESIGN IN NATURE.
of the world to another, and so connected is one world with
other worlds to their central sun, and so associated is one
solar system with another, that it would seem that the whole
universe, with all its countless worlds and revolutions, was
constituted upon one mighty plan with a mutual connection
so intimate that everything not only had its proper place,
but nothing could be spared out of its place. Thus, be the
catastrophes of nature ever so great, these are made to sub-
serve purposes most wise, and even through the greatest
confusion are ordained to bring forth order and beauty.
But the unity of God is as clearly manifest in the intel-
lectual and moral world. The world without us is exactly
adapted to the world within us. If God was not wise and
good, this never would have been so: if there were distinct
and independent authors of nature, such harmony of the ex-
ternal with the internal, such order and wise arrangement,
such unity of end and means never could be expected. Not
only would there be different plans, but discord in the plans ;
not only would we see no unity of end, but great diversity of
end; least of all should we see the outward world made to
correspond so exactly with the internal world, so that each
should so sympathize together and make both to act in such
unison. The things that are objective are so bound up with
the things subjective, that mutual concord in their normal
state ever exists. ITot more dependent is the body upon air,
water, and food for life, than is the intellect and moral na-
ture dependent upon the external world for development.
Eemove the senses that ally us with the world without, and
what becomes of the mind and heart existing in an embodied
condition in the world? The partial derangement of the
senses, or the loss of any one sense, shows to us clearly how
greatly fettered the mind is in its exercise. "Whether exist-
ence upon the earth would be possible with all the senses
removed is extremely questionable. Certainly, in such an
abnormal state the mind would be of no benefit to the body,
and all human life would be restricted to a very short time.
Through the medium of the senses we are brought into inti-
mate communion with the infinite developments of matter:
UNITY OF DESIGN IN NATURE. 103
we hear the countless modifications of sounds, we inhale the
fragrance of flowers, we see the beauty of nature, we touch
the smooth and the rough, we taste the sweet and the hitter ;
but do we consider that upon which the senses are built ?
Are we conscious of that mysterious union of the senses with
the mind, by which so intimate a sympathy is kept up be-
tween the external and the internal, the material and the im-
material ? If unity of end, the oneness of one great plan is
not here displayed, where is it displayed? That substances
so opposite in their nature, so essentially diverse in their
essence, should yet associate together in an intimacy so great
can be attributed only to one great design, revealing one
mind unlimited in wisdom and goodness. Thus the unity of
design in nature involves also the idea of the oneness of the
first great cause of nature, and intelligently considered ex-
poses the fallac}^ of an infinite series of causes and efiects.
Does not the idea of eflfect involve the idea of power ? Must
not all power in action or effects have a commencement
somewhere ? If a person should dream of an infinite chain
of cause and effect, no dreaming could do away with the fact
that each link in that chain involves a supporting power
somewhere. It is impossible to get rid of support by increas-
ing to infinity the number of links in this supposed chain of
cause and effect. The more links demanded for this chain,
the greater ultimately must be the strength of the supporting
power that holds the chain up. The mind is driven irre-
sistibly to the conclusion of the absurdity of an infinite series
of effects and causes, because the unity of design in nature
not only points to the oneness of its great author, but shows,
however incomprehensible God may be in himself, that yet
he must be the first great cause, whose power, infinite in
manifestation, holds up that chain of links surpassing in
number all finite estimation.
Our conclusion is the same if we consider especially those
effects bearing the clear marks of adaptation and design.
If one eflfect of contrivance cannot exist without a designing
mind, certainly no number of eflfects, however augmented,
could exist without such a mind.
104 UNITY OF DESIGN IN NATURE.
" Unity added to iatinity," says Pascal, " does not increase
it any more than a foot measure increases an infinite space.
What is finite vanishes before tliat which is infinite, and
becomes nothing. Thus does our understanding before God,
and our righteousness before his righteousness."
"We may certainly know there is a God without compre-
hending what he is ; and you ought by no means to conclude
there is no God, because you cannot perfectly comprehend
his nature."
CHAPTER XIV.
GENERAL HAPPINESS OF ANIMAL EXISTENCE, AND INTELLECTUAL
AND MORAL ACTION REVEALING THE GOODNESS AND MERCY
OP GOD.
Life upon the whole is a scene of enjoyment. Animal
existence is one of pleasure rather than pain. Happiness is
the rule, while suffering is the exception. Animal existence
is generally one long scene of liappiness, not indeed uniform,
not unattended with pain, but the proportion of suffering is
to the amount of enjoyment but very small. The uneasiness
or fear experienced is usually only enough to secure from
greater evils. One thing is made to counteract another. If
pain is long continued, it is small ; if violent, it is short. But
freedom from suffering, and with it long enjoyment, is the
condition of most of our existence. From the highest scale
of animal life to the lowest we find that life has its pleasure.
How does every day disclose new scenes of happiness for
creatures ! How pleasantly glide the hours away of sensitive
existence ! Moments of rapture may be few, but the serene
current of quiet pleasure, how uniform, how great ! Night
and day is given to us, — one for rest, the other for action.
Our toils sweeten the repose of night, our rest invigorates us
for the activity of the day. When we look upon some great
city as the sun goes down in the skies, and the moon marches
with noiseless step over the heavens, what keeps so many
thousands in slumber so sweet, and then awakes them to the
joys and duties of another day ? Why so uniform this suc-
cession of activity and repose ? Why fly so swiftly the
mighty hours ? Why do man and brute so unconsciously give
way to rest ? Is it not a peculiar mark of the divine good-
ness that the wants of our nature so great are met with such
uniformity ? As night brings with it repose for the exhausted
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106 GENERAL HAPPINESS, ETC.
body, and day returns with its active pleasures, do we not
with every passing hour see new proof of the benevolence of
God ? Could we conceive God thus kind if not good ? Does
the mother carefully prepare a bed for her infant and snaooth
his pillow, and hush him to slumber with her lullaby song,
unless she cares for her child ? Is her maternal solicitude no
proof of her love ? And when a care inlinitely greater is
exercised over us, and our hours of weakness are protected
from a thousand dangers, and we are kept from the destruc-
tion that wasteth at noonday, and the pestilence that walketh
in darkness, have we not high proof that God is good ? Re-
member, man is dependent upon the author of his existence
in a way that no creature is dependent upon another. De-
pendence in the one is relative, but with God it is absolute.
JSTot less constant is it than intimate and peculiar. The crea-
ture receives everything and gives nothing. Man is inlinitely
in debt to God, while God owes not a farthing. An eternity
cannot cancel man's obligations. We are constantly inclined
to the error that possession of life gives a right to life. But
how is this shown? Is not the existence of one hour of
happiness a boon by the Creator? Is not the gift of one
day of pleasure a greater bequest ? Is not the gift of a week,
a mouth, a year of enjoyment a favor greater still? But if
before exi'stence it would be absurd to speak of a right to it,
does its possession give a better title to it ? When we speak
of the kindness of creatures, their benevolence, we speak of
that which is relative, which must be restricted by a thou-
sand qualifications, which is dependent in its exercise by
innumerable contingencies ; but the benevolence of God is
absolute, it gushes forth from a well of fathomless depth,
from a fountain low down as the heart of God and vast as
his own boundless nature. Thus the value of the benevo-
lence of God is immeasurably enhanced, from the fact that it
is to his creatures a mere gratuity. The creature basks
' under the. sunshine of the divine benignity, while every ray
is free and undeserved. Be the favors of God great or small,
no creature can demand them as a right. If they come to
him, they come as a gratuity that God may give or withhold.
GENERAL HAPPINESS, ETC. 107
But the goodness of God is also seen from the wide diffusion
of happiness anioug creatures. This happiness is propor-
tioned to their natures. If we take the scale of animal life,
and, commencing with the bottom we ascend to the top, we
find that existence is with the lowest up to the highest of
creatures one uniform indication of the divine goodness.
Who that observes the play of life in the humblest of crea-
tures that doubts the enjoyment of existence ? In the
sportive movements of the j'oung of animals, is there not high
evidence of pleasure ? When we see the eagle soaring far
up in the air, or listen to the warbling of the little songster
upon the bush, have we no proof of the goodness of God ?
Why so universal the appearance of enjoyment ? Why do
we find that — search through the varied orders of animal
existence, investigate every species offish, or insect, or bird,
or quadruped — their condition is one of pleasure rather than
pain? Why is pain the rare exception, and enjoj^ment the
rule of life ? Why, from the ephemeral life of the insect of
an hour to the protracted existence of a century of time, do
we see every page of being written all over with the language
of enjoyment? Does not this show that God loves the hap-
piness of his creatures, and seeks to promote it? Happiness
may be divided into three kinds: that which is physical,
mental, and moral. The body is the seat of the appetites
and the involuntary action of the blood, the nerves, muscles,
lungs, and heart. In our physical nature lie the senses, such
as sight, hearing, taste, smell, and feeling. But the action of
the appetites, the involuntary movement of blood, nerves,
muscles, lungs, and heart might be painful rather than pleas-
urable, and yet we live in the world. A constant uneasiness
might attend the movement of the body and the gratification
of our senses, and yet not so great as the love of life. Our
physical existence might be barely endurable, without being
altogether unendurable. We may have a constant experience
of pain, and yet not so extreme as to supplant the fear of
death. Such a state of existence is supposable, why not
actual ? The reply is, the goodness of God. God loves the
happiness of his creatures too well to make their life only
108 GENERAL HAPPINESS, ETC.
endurable. So far from our physical state being only the
negation of pain, it is a positive source of enjoyment. It is
a physical pleasure to gratify suitably the appetites. All
animals love to see, and hear, and taste, and touch, and smell.
All the senses are avenues of pleasure; but more than this,
the involuntary action of the blood, nerves, muscles, and
lungs have in their wa}^ happiness; their disorder is always
attended with pain, their healthy action with comfort. But
why, unless God loves our happiness, should for the most
part the physical state of creatures reveal the involuntary
part of the body a condition of pleasant rather than painful
action ? Why does the process of physical life show the har-
monious action of a thousand springs never, as a rule, coming
in collision with each other? Why our physical mechanism
so seldom meeting ajar? Could we dissect our own bodies,
and look at those vital cords that tie our bones together;
could we watch the opening and shutting of millions of
valves, the blood pouring through countless channels, the
nerves permeating all over the system ; could the laboratory
within be unveiled where the secret chemistry of nature
works its miracles of assimilation ; could we study the mys-
tery of animal growth, the process of nervous and muscular
action, the separation of the oxygen from the air, the throwing
oft' of the carbon, and the intricacies of countless movements,
— should not our wonder of the wisdom of God be even sur-
passed by the feeling of his unlimited goodness ? It is not the
diversity of instruments in the body that is only to be admired,
but the happy harmony of their action. It is not that they
subserve the end of life alone, but that they secure so happy a
lifcj — a life, upon the whole, of great enjoyment ; a life closed
indeed by death and made less desirable by the infirmities of
age, but yet a life where the balance of pleasure far out-
weighs the evil of pain. Is it conceivable that a being not
good would adopt that course peculiar onlj" to a benevolent
God ? Would we not expect that misery would preponderate
in our system with a God who rejoiced in evil, and made evil
the end of his action ? Consider, that if benevolence in man
shows itself by seeking the happiness rather than misery of
GEXERAL HAPPINESS, ETC. 109
society, infinitely more does all nature show that benevolence
is the reigning principle in the heart of Grod. In a twofold
way is this seen : first, by the conscience, whose earliest lesson,
when unperverted, teaches us to hate wrong and love the
good; and then by the constant manifestation in the works
of creation that happiness is loved more than misery. Thus,
the benevolence of God is seen combining the two elements
of justice and love — -justice to regulate the love, love to in-
spire the justice; the one supreme in the mind of God, the
other in the heart of God. By justice the benevolence of
God is revealed in its majesty, by love in its amiableness, —
the one commands our esteem, the other our affection.
Through the varied ranks of animal being, happiness has
been seen to be the prevailing rule, while pain is only the
exception. But when we come to consider our mental and
moral organization there is more clearly seen the goodness
of God. "Wonderful as may be the mechanism of the body,
the mechanism of mind and heart is more so. Two facts in
respect to the soul of man all admit : the soul is mental
and it is moral. By mental is meant that the soul thinks
and reasons; by moral, that it feels and discriminates right
from wrong. But the condition of the soul as mental and
moral presents a most important subject of inquiry. What
is the uniform rule of mental and moral action? What is
the fruit of the suitable action of mind, conscience, and aflPec-
tion ? Does enjoyment or pain arise from the proper exer-
cise of the mental and moral faculties given to us by God ?
Eemember, mental and moral action is restricted to a right
exercise. We take into consideration alone the faculties of
the soul, in their mental and moral action harmonizing
together. We speak not of an unhealth}- action, or the sepa-
rate instruments of the soul in collision, but in harmony, and
confined in their exercise to their own legitimate sphere.
We afi&rm that happiness is the invariable fruit of right
mental and moral action : no pleasures so great as the
pleasures of thought and duty ; no satisfaction so sweet as the
approbation of conscience, the glow" of moral worth, or the
lofty joy of mental attainment. The highest happiness is
110 GENERAL HAPPINESS, ETC.
experienced when the will inspires the mind to noble effort,
or the heart to deeds of love. The pleasures of sense are
far inferior to the pleasures of thought, and of virtue. But
great as may be the pleasures of thought, the pleasures of
virtue are greater. As the moral part of man is the no-
blest of his faculties, so its right action secures the deepest
happiness. If, when we contemplate the pleasures of mind
and virtue, we find that their legitimate exercise results in
happiness, then is there not in this fact a high argument for
the goodness of God ? If our physical nature is ao con-
structed as to afford great pleasure, and the exercise of mind
and practice also of virtue conduces to our happiness, then
have we not a threefold reason, even that derived from our
physical, intellectual, and moral nature, for believing in the
goodness of God? Commencing with conscience, it wall be
seen that the great element of divine goodness is justice; that
it is not only the love of happiness, but the love of right with
happiness that marks the character of God; that virtue is a
higher end than enjoyment, — but if, with the highest end we
find another end aimed at of vast importance ; if both right
and happiness are made to go together as far as possible ; if
we see that the exercise of mind and virtue is attended with
great pleasure, that even apart from external influences, and
without those outward rewards that generally await the right
efforts of the mind and heart, there is an internal satisfaction
that more than repays the toil and self-denial experienced, —
then have we not the noblest proof of the goodness of God?
God would be good, if the right exercise of our mental and
moral faculties were attended only with that low degree of
comfort that results from the absence of pain or uneasiness ;
but when pleasures of the most exalted nature ensue from
the suitable action of our higher faculties, then must we not
believe that God, in thus bringing about the happiness of
man, does indeed show that next to right he supremely loves
the enjoyment of his creatures ? When we consider the
pleasures of thought, we find that they correspond to each
development of thought. They are not the same with one
kind of mental exercise as with another. The rapture of
GENERAL HAPPINESS, ETC. m
the orator or poet in tlieir movements of highest triumph is
peculiar to that kind of mental eftbrt ; but the man of science
or the naturalist, who studies the structure of vegetables, or
makes himself familiar with the history of the fishy tribes, the
insect race, the bird or the quadruped ; the anatomist, who
pries into the secrets of the physical structure; or the artist,
who pictures forth in marble or upon canvas his ideal of beauty
— all these have their own peculiar pleasures; pleasures that
correspond to each sphere of mental labor. Not more diver-
sified are the kinds of thought, than the enjoyments that spring
from them. Every labor of mind brings with it its own re-
ward. From the calm and tranquil pleasures that, like gentle
streams pursue their noiseless course, to those more noble
enjoyments that swell forth into mighty rivers, there is seen in
the exercise of mind every degree and variety of enjoyment.
The orator or poet may prefer his kind of happiness; but the
man of science, the historian, or the artist will not exchange
their pleasures for the former. Thus, not only is there the
greatest diversity of mental gifts, but as wide a diversity of
intellectual joys. But what language can do justice to the
pleasures of virtue? Virtue, like thought, has its high and
low sphere ; like thought it has its endless diversity of exer-
cise ; its throne is in the conscience. Conscience is not virtue,
but conscience tells what virtue is. Conscience shows its in-
herent right and worth ; virtue is the action of a pure
disposition and noble spirit ; conscience the herald that
proclaims its presence ; virtue is the homage of the heart
to God ; conscience the faculty which esteems that homage ;
virtue is the love of goodness ; conscience the approver of it.
Virtue is obedience to law ; conscience that which judges the
equity of law ; virtue is the heart's movement towards
that which is morally beautiful ; conscience the witness of
that beauty ; virtue is the reflection of the image of God ;
conscience the canvas upon which that image is portrayed.
Thus, we see that the pleasures of virtue, springing directly
from our moral nature, lead us at once to the recognition of
the goodness of God. How good must be that being who thus
makes the path of virtue so pleasant ! How must God love
112 GENERAL HAPPINESS, ETC.
moral excellence when he strews along the way of life roses
of immortal beauty ! Is it not a high evidence of the love of
God to lis, that duty is made our highest happiness ? Is
there not in the heart itself a fountain of joy that needs
but the call of duty to make it send forth its living waters?
If the exercise of mind is noble, is not that of virtue far more
so? Consider the variety of pleasures that spring from the
pursuit of virtue. The}- accord with the peculiar virtue ex-
ercised. Is the virtue of patience called for ? there is an
internal composure whose satisfaction can be experienced,
but not described. Is the virtue of courage practiced? it
brings with it a feeling of great pleasure. Is compassion to
the suftering, or the relief of the fatherless and poor exer-
cised ? then the purest joj's are awakened in the soul.
Whatever may be the class of virtues, each class has its own
reward. Not only do we see the greatest diversity in the
pleasures of virtue, but we see those pleasures spontaneous
and unforced. The will cannot create them where there is
no virtue ; and the will cannot suppress them when they rise
up in the heart. Man may counterfeit virtue, but he cannot
the joy of virtue. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of
thistles ? Even thus is it with virtue. Its sweet fruit can
never grow from the thorns and thistles of sin. But the
goodness of God is also seen from the fact that the most im-
perfect virtue is made to give some pleasure. Not great
virtues alone, but all virtues have their joys, — joys not de-
pendent upon outward circumstances, not like wealth or
honor, uncertain and soon passing away, but pleasures that are
permanent as virtue itself. The outward world may vanish
away, but the soul carries about with it a world of its own.
But the highest evidence of the goodness of God is seen from
a consideration of our state, sinful by nature. Goodness
from God to moral agents who have abused their freedom bj'
sin, who have fallen from perfect rectitude, is more than
goodness : it is goodness bearing the impress of mercy, —
goodness revealing itself by countless favors to the undeserv-
ing and to the unthankful. Thus, all God's bounty to us is
the bounty of his mercy; the pleasures he grants are the
GENERAL HAPPINESS, ETC. 113
fruits of his forbearance and compassion. The goodness of
God to lis is the goodness of mercy, infinite as his own heart
of love, and boundless as the wants of his erring children, —
mercy, deep-flowing as a sea over a world of sin, tender as
a mother's love for her infant, free as the air and divinely
rich.
" For so the light of the world in the morning of the crea-
tion," says Jeremy Taylor, " was spread abroad like a cur-
tain, and dwelt nowhere, but filled the 'expansum' with a
dissemination great as the unfoldings of the air's loose gar-
ment, or the wilder fringes of the fire, without knots, or order,
or combination, — but God gathered the beams in his hands,
and united them into a globe of fire, and all the light of the
world became the body of the sun ; and he lent some to his
weaker sister that walks in the night and guides a traveler,
and teaches him to distinguish a house from a river, or a
rock from a plain field, so is the mercy of God, and it filled
all that infinite distance and space that hath no measures
but the will of God, until God, designing to communicate
that excellency, and make it relative, created angels, that
he might have persons capable of huge gifts, and men who
he knew would need forgiveness, for so the angels, our elder
brothers, dwelt forever in the house of their Father, and
never broke his commandments; but we the younger, like
prodigals, forsook our Father's house, and went into a strange
country, and followed stranger courses, and spent the portion
of our nature, and forfeited all our title to the family, and
came to need another portion. For, ever since the fall of
Adam, — who, like an unfortunate man, spent all that a
wretched man could need, or a happy man could have, — our
life is repentance, and forgiveness is all our portion ; and,
though angels were objects of God's bounty, yet man only is
in proper speaking, the object of his mercy; and the mercy
which dwelt in an infinite circle became confined to a little
ring, and dwelt here below till it hath carried all God's por-
tion up to heaven, where it shall reign in glory upon our
crowned heads forever and forever. But, for him that con-
siders God's mercies, and dwells awhile in that depth, it is
114 GEXERAL HAPPIXESS. ETC.
hard not to talk widely and vrithout art, and order of dis-
coursings. St. Peter talked, lie knew not what, when he
entered into a cloud with Jesus upon Mount Tabor, though
it passed over him like the little curtains that ride upon the
north wind and pass between the sun and us ; and, when we
converse with a light greater than the sun, and taste a sweet-
ness more delicious than the dew of heaven, and in our
thoughts entertain the ravishments and harmony of that
atonement which reconciles God to man, and man to felicity,
it will be the more easily pardoned if we should be like per-
sons that admire much and say but little : and indeed we
can but confess the glories of the Lord by dazzled eyes, and
a stammering tongue, and a heart overcharged with the
miracles of this infinitv."
CHAPTER XV.
THE ^ESTHETIC NATURE OF MAN.
The nature of man is not only intellectual and moral, it is
also {esthetic. There is a principle of taste, of perception of
the sublime and beautiful, even as' of atfeetion, thought, or
moral discrimination. But in analyzing the principle of the
beautiful and the sublime in our nature, or the faculty of
taste, a great difficulty presents itself in the impossibility of
definition, or giving logical forms to our perceptions. The
fact is, the principle of taste in the mind by which so great a
pleasure is secured from the perception of beauty or sub-
limity, is most intimately associated with the affections. The
class of emotions that rise up in the mind when some object of
great beauty or sublimity is presented, is so difi'erent from
the intellectual apprehension of usefulness, that we at once
decide in our minds that utility and beauty can never be
confounded together. But what are the elements that enter
into our idea of the beautiful and the sublime ? In general
language, for only general language can be appropriate to the
description of a fjiculty whose exercise is so subtle as to elude
the power of delineation in numberless instances, we say that
order, harmony, proportion, fitness, are included in our per-
ceptions of that beautiful or sublime ; but the beautiful
clearly difit'ers from the sublime : greatness seems to belong to
the sublime, while smallness is necessary to our idea of
beauty. Thus, the language the ocean is sublime, but the
rivulet gently winding its way through a meadow is beauti-
ful. But the idea of the rugged or the precipitous also
enters into our conception of the sublime, while the smooth
and the gradual is with us essential to the perception of the
beautiful. Thus, the deep ravine, the rushing of water over
great rapids, the rugged sides of a high mountain, give to us
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116 THE ESTHETIC NATURE OF MAN.
the emotion of the sublime ; but a smooth lawn, a delicate
flower, a small hill clothed in verdure, we call beautiful.
Fitness and proportion enter peculiarlj' into our conception
of that beautiful. Thus, we always believe the beauty of a
body sensibly diminished, if a foot or hand or any member
of it is missing. A house with everything in proportion we
call beautiful, but variety and the unique is necessarj' to
the idea of the sublime. JSTow nature, by presenting the
greatest variety of objects, beautiful and sublime, directly re-
veals itself to the sesthetic part of our constitution. The
taste of man has a boundless tield for exercise in nature. In
these the development of the aesthetic part of our nature, and
the afibrding to it so vast a variety of objects for its exercise,
in making the world without us so adapted to the world
of taste within us, there is high proof of the goodness and
wisdom of God. The world is full of the beautiful and the
sublime. Wherever man goes he finds the principle of taste
within him directly appealed to. How powerful is the influ-
ence of this principle in our nature, may be- seen from the
fact that a very large proportion of our enjoyments arise from
its exercise. Thus, the perception of some object of sub-
limity or beauty awakens at once pleasure in the mind;
the contemplation of the deformed or the ugly awakens in
us feelings of pain. Observe how early the principle of
taste reveals itself! The child will be frightened by a
homely face long before he manifests the marks of reason.
Although the faculty of taste develops itself by exercise, and
becomes in proportion to its cultivation more refined, yet it
never in man, however degraded, appears to be altogether
lost. There is that in our nature that loves at all times the
beautiful and the sublime. We at all times feel what it is to
look upon some vast mountain scenery, the ocean lashed by
the angry wind into a tempest, and the quiet meadow-land, —
the smooth flowing of a stream, or the flower opening its
leaves to the sun. Thus, we can never lose in our minds the
deep impressions of the beautiful and the sublime of nature.
We ever associate that which we know to be essentially
diflerent, with our ideas of that which constitutes beauty or
THE ESTHETIC NATURE OF MAN. 117
sublimity. Thus, we pass ffoni natural objects to moral ob-
jects with rapid transition of mind, — we say virtues are beau-
tiful or sublime ; a daughter's attention to her aged mother
is beautiful ; a father's care for his child is beautiful ; a deed
of lofty heroism or of mauly courage is sublime ; virtue we
paint always as beautiful ; great self-sacriiices for the good of
others, we consider sublime. We never borrow from nature
our idea of the deformed or ugly, and attach it to virtue.
But vice we uniformly paint as ugly; the features of crime
we represent as hideous. Why do we find the external
world so exactly adapted to the esthetic part of our nature ?
Why a correspondence so fitting to our constitution? If
God was not good, should we see so man}' evidences to
awaken in us pleasure from the sublime and beautiful of
nature? Action in the inorganic or organic kingdom, and
especially ^^TtYi^ action, has in it peculiarly the sublime. Thus,
the tempest in its energy, the lightning flash, the earthquake,
all comprehend the sublime. The aesthetic part of our
nature not only shows itself in the emotions of hope, joy,
reverence, but also calls forth, at times, in the sublime the
emotion of fear. Unknown power has always in itself more
or less of fear; so also the dark and the obscure. But the
beautiful combines more the element of the delicate and the
feeble. Thus, fragility enters more into our conception of
beauty, while strength into our perception of the sublime.
We speak not of a flower as sublime, but beautiful. But the
lion or war-horse we call sublime when putting forth their
energies. Consider, also, the emotions of sublimity or
beauty as awakened by music. Sublime music is very dif-
ferent from beautiful music. Each kind of music borrows
in sound the elements that enter into the appearance of ex-
ternal objects. Thus, beautiful music has a soothing influ-
ence, but sublime music awakens us, and calls forth the
strength of our feelings. The beautiful is smooth and gentle,
the sublime impetuous and rugged. The one is like the
gradual slope of some green hill, the other the steep declivity
of a mountain. The sublime and the beautiful enter deeply
into nature, — nature in form, in sound, in color. How
118 THE ESTHETIC NATURE OF MAN.
combiued, yet complicated, are the avenues of pleasure that
present themselves to the principle of taste ! What a diver-
sity of enjoyment is opened up to man ! But there is some-
thin o- worthy of careful attention, as connected with the
sublime and the beautiful : it is the sympathy that exists be-
tween the [esthetic part of our nature and the moral part of
our nature. The one seems to love the company of the
other. Other things being equal, a virtuous man has more
pleasure, from the sublime and the beautiful, than a vicious
man. Vice always appears to contract the sensibilities to
that beautiful or sublime. Vice, while it hardens the affec-
tions, seems to throw a veil over the beauties of nature. As
virtue makes more refined the moral feelings, so it peculiarly
fits them for sympathy with the sesthetic part of our nature.
But vice, by making gross and blunt the moral perceptions,
incapacitates at the same time the taste for the appreciation
of the beautiful and the sublime. As delineating the sym-
pathy of the aesthetic with the moral nature of m^n, how
appropriately has Milton represented the happy pair in Para-
dise uniting together in their hymn of praise to God !
" These are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almigjity ! thine this universal frame,
Thus wondrous fair ; thyself how wondrous then,
Unspeakable ! who sitt'st above these heavens,
To us invisible, or dimly seen
In these thy lowest works ; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.
Speak, ye who best can tell, ye sons of light.
Angels ; for ye behold him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, day without night,
Circle his throne rejoicing ; ye in heaven,
On earth join all ye creatures, to extoll
Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.
Fairest of stars, lost in the train of night,
If better thou belong not to the dawn,
Sure pledge of day that crown 'st the smiling morn
With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere,
While day arises, that sweet hour of prime.
Thou sun, of this great world both eye and soul,
Acknowledge him thy greater, sound his praise
In thy eternal course, both when thou climb'st,
THE MSTHETIC NATURE OF MAN. 119
And when high noon hast gained, and when thou fall'st.
Moon, that now meet'st the orient sun, now fli'st.
With the fixed stars, fixed in their orb that flies ;
And ye five other wandering fires that move
In mystic dance not without song, resound
His praise, who out of darkness called up light."'
The charms of poetry all arise from a happy exhibition of
the beautiful and the sublime ; but the inspiration of the
poet, the fire of genius that kindles in the eye of the painter
or the sculptor, owe their exclusive origin to refinement of
taste embodied in the execution. Nor is this diflerent with
the masters of music: music is the sublime and the beautiful
embodied in sound. Observe, then, how diversified are the
sources of happiness that arise from the development of the
principle of taste I The inspiration of poetry, painting,
sculpture, and music, all reveal the goodness of that being
who has constituted us with a nature susceptible of so much
pleasure from the exercise of the principles of taste. In these,
the mysterious sympathy shown between the moral and
aesthetic parts of our nature, have we not a peculiar illustra-
tion of the divine goodness ? Would virtue appear to us so
beautiful and sublime, and vice when seen so deformed and
hateful, if God did not love the one and hate the other ?
Would nature thus be presented to the esthetic part of man,
did not its great author embody in himself the highest
beauty and sublimity ?
CHAPTER XVI.
THE IMAGINATION.
One of the noblest faculties of man is the imagination ;
but the imagination, by forming ideal pictures of the lovely
and the grand, brings into constant exercise the principle
of taste ; it creates over and over again in the mind those
images of beauty and sublimity which so powerfully influ-
ence the heart. Thus, its agency is seen in imparting to the
aesthetic part of our nature both refinement and strength,
delicacy and power, so that the mind has a far more vivid
sense of the objects of nature. Thus, we find a highly cul-
tivated taste more or less associated with the imagination.
Why is the imagination given to us unless it be to add vastly
to our happiness, as well as to promote virtue in man ?
Observe the external world as adapted to the exercise of the
imagination. That which strikes us as most wonderful in
nature is the exquisite fitness of the outward and visible,
through the medium of the senses, to the internal and spir-
itual. All nature would be a source of the highest wretch-
edness was not this peculiar fitness of things observed. It is
not only the adjustment of one faculty of the mind to an-
other ; not only the nice balancing of natural laws so that
the noblest order is made known; but there is revealed the
harmony of the world without us to the world within us,
— a harmony that brings into exercise every faculty of the
mind. Now the imagination finds in the external world an
unlimited field for development. It can retire within its
own castle, and bring before the mental vision those scenes
of beauty and of grandeur that so delight the senses. It can
recall the melody of music, whose sound long has passed
from the ear, and create within itself new strains of vocal
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THE IMAGINATION. 121
harmony. It can call up the features of a departed friend,
and throw over them a more enchanting loveliness than ever
v^as presented to the eye. It can upon the canvas of the
mind paint the masterpiece of the studio with richer colors
than ever beamed upon the artist from the wall. It can
give in thought a nobler beauty than ever glowed in the
creations of the chiseled marble. Thus the imagination has
in it a mysterious power of giving a vitality to the beautiful
and the sublime of nature. Its loftiest exercise brings us
into the deepest harmony with everything lovely and grand
without us. It throws new charms over the dull routine of
life, kindles high hope in the heart, and gives energy in all
the pursuits of life. Does not the provision of such a faculty
reveal the wisdom of an Infinite Being ? Would we wish to
be deprived of it? Then childhood would lose its highest
glow of beauty, — then youth would, like a scorched flower,
droop in its aspirations of hope, — then manhood would falter
in its arduous toil, — the energies of life would be sapped of
more than half their strength. But it is not the external
world only that presents a sphere for the imagination. It can,
from the dusty leaves of history, from the traditions of past
ages, from associations of the most diverse nature, create im-
ages of beauty and sublimity. How impressive the language
of Gray in his " Elegy written in a Country Church-yard !"
' Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death?
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire ;
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.
But knowledge to their eyes her humble page,
Kich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll ;
Chill Penury repressed their noble rage.
And froze the genial current of'the soul.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen.
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
122 THE IMAGINATION.
The imagination is remarkable for its early development
in tlie mind of genius. There seems to be in it something
more purely etherial, more allied to the highest refinement
of spirit than in the exercise of all the other faculties of the
mind. Notice, in respect to the imagination, one marked
peculiarity. Its earliest and purest development is often in
the form of devotion to the supreme being. God, in his
power, wisdom, and goodness, is a theme most congenial
to its exercise. The imagination loves the boundless, the
infinite. It readily ascends from nature to nature's God. It
finds its noblest field for imagery in the unlimited and in-
comprehensible. Thus, as the painter throws upon the
canvas a shade of darkness to augment the beauty of his con-
ceptions, so the veil of mystery thrown over the Deity gives
a far higher flight to the wings of fancy. Great as may be
the mystery of nature, the mystery of God is immeasurably
greater. Thus the imagination finds in its contemplation of
God, a theme boundless in its range as the universe. The
universe itself, with God recognized, seems to be the reflec-
tion of his character, — a mirror portraying his own image.
Thus, the genius of Hebrew poetry is pervaded with the de-
lineations of God. Thus, some of the earliest illustrations
of poetic art have as their exclusive theme God. Thus, often
the childhood of genius breaks forth in a hymn of praise to
the Deity. Observe the language of the friendless boy, Chat
terton, but eleven years old, who so early met with a melan-
choly grave.
" Almighty framer of the skies,
O let our pure devotion rise
Like incense in thy sight !
Wrapt in unpenetrable shade,
The texture of our souls was made
Till thy command gave light."
Thus, we see that imagination enters not only early, but
universally into all the creations of genius. What is our
idea of the highest development of mind and the noblest
efforts of thought, if it be not the actual realization, the em-
bodiment in statuary, painting, or words of the ideal concep-
THE IMAGINATION. 123
tious of beauty and sublimity, as made known in the imagi-
nation ? Here is the sphere of genius: its last effort is to give
permanence and living reality to others of the lovely and the
grand, as first conceived of in the mind. But why does the
imagination, in its exercise, secure so great pleasure? Why
does it create in the mind a living fountain of enjoyment, or
find a field so vast for its range, subjects so fitted for its cul-
tivation, unless God is good, and desires to be worshiped in
a manner suitable to his character and perfections? The
genius of Hebrew poetry is pervaded with the highest
elements of imaginative power. David, Isaiah, and Ezekiel
seem to have exhausted the storehouse of human thought in
delineating the majestic, the awful, the sublime, the wonder-
ful in God. Their minds, rising to the high themes of God's
nature and manifestations, convey thoughts so peculiar that
language itself staggers in utterance. Thus, poetic descrip-
tions of nature and of God seem to differ, in that, while the
former is more sensible and easy of delineation, the latter is
vastly more profound, and enters more intimately into the
deeps of the soul. The imagination revels in the beautiful
and the sublime of nature, but it is overwhelmed in the con-
sciousnpss of its littleness in the conception of God. The
idea of nature comes with its own limitations into the soul,
but the idea of God, the more clear in its vision the more it
enlarges, yet humbles the spirit of man. Nature has its
bounds to the imagination, even in its boundless variety, —
but God is an ocean, not more fathomless in its deeps than
inconceivably grand with that expansum where the horizon
forever rises and sits upon its everlasting waters. Thus, we
see why God would never permit an image of himself to be
made even to please the objective mind of the Hebrew. The
imagination was permitted to portray all the glories of na-
ture, every semblance of imagery, and all moral duties; and
the great facts of prophecy were shadowed forth by rites
and ceremonial pictures, surpassing in gorgeousness of de-
lineation the highest eftbrts of the heathen world. But the
imagination that dared to make an image of God, or picture
forth by any material emblem the awful mystery of his per-
124 THE IMAGINATION.
sonality, was accursed. Sinai encircled itself in a chain of
fire, warning every Israelite not to pass beyond the line that
separates the finite from the infinite. Study the genius of
Hebrew poetry, and the mind will be impressed with tlie
submissiveness, the docility, the reverential homage of the
imagination when contemplating God. It is altogether des-
titute of that sensual limitation, that vicious alliance of the
divine and the human that characterizes the theology of
paganism. Thus, while the poets of heathenism invariably
debase the idea of God, and its philosophers refine him away,
the result is that one class merges into idolatry, and the other
passes into atheism. The pagan imagination, with a two-
edged sword, destroyed either divine personality or existence;
but Hebrew fancy, controlled by inspiration, embodied the
element of the human in God enough only to enlist the affec-
tions, and the divine to sober the mind, so that the imagina-
tion escaped alike the evil of atheism and idolatry. In
speaking of the noble end for which the imagination was
made, it is fitting to allude to its fearful perversion, and that
debasement which makes it often a source of the greatest evil
^o man. The curse of most works upon poetry, fiction, and
philosophy is just a heathenish imagination. The fancy
made to observe the restraints of reason and virtue often
rushes wild over hill and dale like the horse of Mazeppa,
with the body of his master tied to it. Is it not most mourn-
ful to see often such a defilement of a fiiculty that would,
undepraved, subserve the highest pleasure and usefulness to
man ! When we see swine wallowing in the mire, our dis-
gust is relieved by the thought that swine were made for the
dirt, otherwise they would not have bristles ; but how difiier-
ent our feelings in beholding the songster that warbles upon
the bush, or man made in the image of God, lying down in
the filth ! So of the imagination degraded in its office, the
spectacle is more than disagreeable: it is revolting and un-
natural. We are pained to think that what can soar so high,
and hold converse with the angels, will make its bed where
only the lowest of the brute creation should find a congenial
home.
CHAPTER XVII.
CONSIDERATION OF ANGER AND SHAME, THE LOVE OF AMITY, OF
SOCIETY, AND THE POSSESSION OF PROPERTY.
There can be no doubt that the passion of anger may be
divided into the instinctive and the deliberate. The one may
be right in its exercise, while the other may be wrong. Thus,
we find that the natural influence of anger is to remove fear
from its possessor. It is seen through the whole animal crea-
tion. It rises up in the nature when injury is experienced
or threatened. Thus, we see the weak when attacked by the
more strong exhibit instinctivel}' anger. How the eye of the
boy flashes forth the emotion of anger when willfully struck
by a large one! Injury awakens this feeling in the mind.
Thus, not only do we experience this feeling when we suffer
an unprovoked injury, but we feel resentment whenever we
read or hear of atrocious injury in others. The principle of
resentment at hurt or wrong done, is universally implanted
in the mind of man. Thus, anger stands always a sentinel in
the heart whenever power is abused. Why this passion so
wide-spread in our nature? Why search through every grade
of the animal kingdom, — do we see its developments where
injury is threatened? Evidently because in the world it acts
as a safeguard, as an indispensable protection under innume-
rable circumstances. It disarms the strong of their greatest
power, — it keeps watch over the feebleness of the weak,
giving upon emergencies an unwonted power of defense.
Thus, while fear is most useful at times to enable us to escape
from anger, anger is equally serviceable to us often to meet
it. The one inspires caution, the other courage. Most ap-
propriately has Brown shown the value of this principle of
our nature.
" What should we think of the providence of nature, if
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126 ANGER AND SHAME,
when aggression was threatened against the weak and un-
armed, at a distance from the aid of others, there were
instantly and uniformly by the intervention of some wonder-
working power to rush into the hands of the defenseless a
sword, or other weapon of defense ? And yet this w^ould be
but a feeble assistance if compared with that which we re-
ceive from the simple emotions which Heaven has caused to
rush, as it were, into our mind for repelling every attack."
Thus the principle of anger, in its instinctive exercise, is
made by God to subserve the highest benefit. jSTature re-
veals as truly the design of God to make it a weapon of
defense, as if some immediate interposition of divine power
was exhibited. The whole world declares its adaptation
under suitable restraints for the purposes of life, and its
indispensable use in the economy of nature.
But the emotion of shame also subserves a most useful end,
as the defense of modesty and a restraining power in the
mind of the impure. Thus, this principle acts as a great wall
of defense to society. Commencing so early in our nature
it suppresses innumerable outbreaks of depravity. Its influ-
ence being internal, it operates upon one side to check
aggressions, and upon the other to defend from unlawful in-
dulgence. Thus, within the mind it is an ever-present
monitor of conduct, a vigilant sentinel upon the rights of
moral purity. The ways in which the emotion of shame
acts upon society are innumerable. Thus, often when other
motives fail of making their influence effectual, shame comes
in as a last resort, and saves from ruin where nobler senti-
ments fail. How frequently is this principle seen in the con-
dition of the individual, as securing an end of the greatest
value ! How often are the multitude restrained from ex-
cesses by this principle, that otherwise it would fall into !
The great power of shame is seen from the manner in which
it touches upon the sensibility of pride, or the feeling of self-
respect. Thus, when called into action it directly awakens
emotions in the heart, that with silent yet resistless energy
often controls the whole mind. History is full of the devel-
opments of this principle, influencing even millions when cir-
THE LOVE OF AMITY, ETC. 127
ciimstances powerfully call it forth. Thus, the shame of
defeat in war is often the sole protection of the soldier.
Thus, honor and shame operate as powerful incentives to
action, — the former a grateful, the latter a humiliating emo-
tion of the heart. One feeling is the reverse of the other,
and yet neither can be spared in the complex machinery of
our nature.
There is a class of the aiFections indispensable in the
economy of life, which reveal in a high degree divine skill
and benevolence. We refer to the love of family, society,
and the possession of property. Suppose, for a moment, the
love of family, comprehending the affection of parents to their
children, or children to their parents and each other, was
unknown, — suppose this mighty principle obliterated, w^here
would society be ? Where would the world be ? Society is
made up of families, but what could keep families together
with the absence of the principle of affection ?
How could society stand the shock of the sundering of the
million secret ties that bind parents to children, and children
to parents ? Where would be the means of support to those
too weak or too helpless to secure support for themselves ?
Where would be the care of the strong for the weak, or
those countless attentions that make up the everyday scenes
of existence ? Look upon society ! the bond that keeps
society together is a vastly stronger bond than civil govern-
ment. It is the affection that reigns in the family circle, the
principle that leads the individuals of a family to care for
each other. Thus, within the family are seen the deepest
sympathies. The circle of affection to be strong must be
small : general philanthropy may do for the mass, — the im-
pulse of mutual good will may subserve a most useful end to
the multitude ; but the family demands something stronger
than all this. It demands concentration of affection, not a dif-
fusion of it. It demands a singleness of good will, not gen-
eral philanthropy. The family to exist must have something
direct, positive, and immediate in the affections. Love must
show itself as self-sacrificing. The tie that binds the family
in the strongest way together, binds also the State the
128 ANGER AND SHAME,
stronger together, for the family calls into constant exercise
the principle of subordination, — there are learnt those lessons
of obedience that give security to the State. But the affec-
tion of the family calls into constant exercise the principle of
industry, of foresight, of disinterestedness, of kind and gen-
erous sympathy. Thus, the mother forgets herself in her
care for her infant, the father toils for his children, the chil-
dren obey and become the support of their parents. Thus,
the family is the nursery of the purest emotions of our na-
ture. If its cares are great, its joys are greater. It brings
into action the unselfish feelings of our nature. The small-
jiess of the family circle only makes it the stronger. While
affection by general philanthropy is dissipated, by particular
philanthropy it is concentrated, so that the family is best
adapted for the nursery of virtue. It preserves from ruin
millions of the human race. It throws a shield of defense,
the best the world knows of, over the infancy and childhood
of humanit}^ leading it up step by step into the power of self-
preservation, so that the family affection is not only the sen-
tinel that stands at the door of general dissoluteness, but the
highest safety of society, keeping it from moral earthquakes
and volcanoes, from tempests of enraged elements that other-
wise would rend it into pieces, shatter the body politic into
a thousand fragments, and light up all over the world funeral
piles of ruin. God never saves the State by overlooking the
family, — he gives that principle of affection that creates the
subordination of the little circle of home, and then widens
that circle to comprise the State.
But the love of possession is also a strong principle im-
planted by God to cement society together. Thus, we see the
first care of society is to protect the rights of property, for the
rights of property are essential for industry', perseverance, and
foresight. Take away all security to property, and industry'
and all the energies of a State are destroyed. Poverty, want,
ruin, come rapidly on ; consequently all government fences
round the property of the individual with a strong wall. The
love of possession may degenerate into avarice, — it may be
abused like every other natural principle of our nature, — but
THE LOVE OF AMITY, ETC. 129
God gave it for the wisest end, even to be next to the family
circle the strongest cement of society. As property is diftused
among the masses it leads to the fear of novel changes, and
imparts a dread of revolutions, so that the middle class be-
comes mighty and the extremes of society weak, so that
permanence is given, and the love of mutual subordination
strengthened. True liberty dies out with the great weaken-
ing or dissolution of the ties of property. General insecurity
is fatal to liberty. When there is no respect for the rights of
property, society rushes into anarchy, and anarchy, to avoid a
worse evil, rushes into despotism. Despotism, then, for self-
defense, invokes the power of the sword, and the violence of
war buries up in its gory bed the dearest rights of man.
Thus, under whatever aspect we may regard the constitu-
tion of man, we see in the workmanship of God the eternal
impress of his wisdom and goodness.
9
CHAPTER XVIII.
OMNISCIENCE, OMNIPRESENCE, AND SPIRITUALITY OF GOD.
In respect to the omniscience and omnipresence of God, it
need only be said that the mind can no more in the works of
nature limit the presence or the observation of God, than
the power or wisdom or beneficence of God. As the essence
of God must be forever beyond the reach of our faculties, so
must also the mode of the exercise of the attributes of God.
Where there is the action of the power of God, there must be
his presence, and where there is his presence there must be
his observation. It is vain to speak of the attributes of God
except in that popular language understood by all. We can
know nothing of the attributes of God except from their
manifestation, and from the exercise of reason and that light
which comes to us from Nature and Revelation. From this
we are led to the conviction that the action of the Deity in-
cludes his presence, and his presence his perception. But
how amazing is the idea of that great Being who is present
wherever there is the work of his hands ! who sees all
things in the wide universe; whose mind, unlimited in
thought, takes into one view all the myriads of worlds that
people the immensity of space ! What boundless grandeur
must belong to him who embraces within the ample range
of his vision the countless revolutions of suns and planets;
who, undistracted with the diversity of his cares, can give an
equal notice to the smallest as to the greatest of his works !
The mind of the creature is soon weary with thought, and
the brightest genius feebly flutters in its upward flight; but
the mind of God never tires, his eye never sleeps. There is
no darkness with him. All is open as the day. The worm
that crawls in the dust is not unobserved. The rustling of a
forest leaf in the wind is heard as distinctly as the music of a
(130)
OMNISCIENCE, OMNIPRESENCE, ETC. OF GOD. 131
clioir of angels. Imperfection marks the creature, perfection
the Creator.
" The omnipresence of God," sajs Dewar, " is necessarily
implied in his infinite perfection. If there be no perfection
wanting in a being who is infinitely perfect, and if it be a
perfection to be present everywhere, and at the same time ;
to be present everywhere, not successively by motion, but
without motion, then it follows that the all-perfect God is
omnipresent, infinite in himself, what power is there without
him to bound his nature and essence to time or space ; or
can we conceive that he would voluntarily place any restraint
on himself? Immutable in his being and perfections, it can-
not be said of him, that there is any place in heaven, or in
earth, or in the boundless void of space from which he is
absent ; or that he moves from one place to another.
Almighty in his power, what is there to limit him in creating
and in peopling many millions of worlds through an eternity
to come ? And must not he who forms be present in the
formation of his works, which he makes, and continues to be
present to direct and uphold them ? This was the induction of
the Apostle when persuading the Athenians of the omnipres-
ence of God. He is not far from every one of us, ' for in him
we live, and move, and have our being.' ' If we have life, and
breath, and all things, he from whom we receive them must
be in us and around us.' ' We are placed on a theater on
which we, and everything about us, are exhibiting the pres-
ence of God in all the power and benignity of his nature;
and if we are not yet admitted into the place of his peculiar
glory, we are allowed constantly to witness the excellence of
his working, and the wisdom of his councils.' "
The great idea that God is a spirit is the necessary deduc-
tion from his omnipresence and omniscience. His infinite
power and wisdom could not admit of that limitation included
in the very essence of matter. All that we can know of the na-
ture of God must be from the developments of that nature.
But nature presents her proofs of design ; power is seen in her
countless changes. The revolutions of myriads of worlds re-
veal the amazing power of God. But how is the infinite to be
132 OMNISCIENCE, OMNIPRESENCE,
confined to matter ? Matter is finite : it is and must be limited
in space. Matter is unintelligent: it thinks not nor reasons.
Spiritualize nature as much as we please we can never im-
part to it thought. Materialize mind as much as we please
we cannot give to it divisibility, extension, form, weight, and
color. Mind acts, matter is acted upon. To make God ma-
terial, or compound him of mind and matter, is essentially to
limit him in his very nature. It is to make him necessarily
imperfect. If God be not in his nature spiritual, an infinite
spirit, then he could not have unlimited power, he could not
be present over his wide universe, nor could his knowledge
extend to all events. Our most exalted idea of a substance
is that it thinks and reasons. But when we look upon the
substance of God as material, then we degrade God immeas-
urably. To ascribe matter to God, however we may modify
its nature or existence, must be infinitely unworthy of God.
But the very idea of power in its noblest exercise precludes
ascribing matter to God. God being self-existent must be
an infinitely self-active and powerful being. Could God's
power be manifest over the whole universe if it was limited
to any material substance ? Could God be omnipresent if he
was circumscribed to the sphere of matter ? Can that which
must be bounded by measurement and limited in space, be
appropriate to the nature of God ? God must be the author
of matter, or matter the author of God. But matter cannot
be the author of God, for then it would be eternal ; then it
would have a prior existence to God ; then that which is acted
upon would originate that which acts ; then the limited and
the finite would be superior to the unlimited and infinite ;
then that which has no thought would be superior to that
which thinks; then the material would excel the spiritual;
then matter would be God, and God matter; then the idea
of finite spirits would be absurd. If God was material there
would be nothing that was not material. The fundamental
distinction of soul and body w^ould be lost; there could be no
such thing as soul and body, and all thoughts would be only
refined materialism. Thus all lofty and good ideas of God,
all ideas coexistent with the phenomena of nature, make out
AND SPIRITUALITY OF GOB. I33
God to be spiritual, and the infinite source of all knowledge,
wisdom, and power. We can never conceive of God as in
any sense restricted in time or space. We cannot limit him
in any of his attributes; especially his nature must be infi-
nitely superior to all matter: mystery the most unexplained
rests upon the origin of matter, but no obscurity upon the
fact itself that God made matter, and that it is not a part of
his nature. The omnipresence and omniscience of God both
preclude the materiality of God, for the moment we think of
God in any other light than as a spirit, everywhere present
and possessed of all knowledge and power, then we set limits
to God. Our idea of the perfection of God forcibly confirms
the fact of his spirituality. The attributes of God are in
tlieir nature so peculiar and so wonderful that it is impossi-
ble to think of God in his essence other than as an infinite
spirit. Everything that carries with it the idea of inferiority
must be carefully excluded from God. There is that in our
deepest nature which teaches us there is something with-
out us and above us ; something self-caused and self-existent ;
something that cannot be circumscribed in space, or compre-
hended by finite thought; something that is independent of
all other things, and upon whom all other things depend;
something that is boundless in every direction, and unlimited
in thought, feeling, purpose, and mind ; something that made
all creatures and all worlds, and of which no language is ap-
propriate except that embodied in the w^ords, the Infinite and
the Perfect.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE EQUITY AND BENEVOLENCE OF GOD SHOWN FROM THE
MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
What may be the voluntary perversion of the moral work-
manship of God is altogether distinct from the fact as to what
was that workmanship as it came from God. W"e are to con-
sider not the debasement of man's moral nature, but the ac-
tual condition of that nature bestowed by God. Suppose we
are called to see the painting of some great artist : that paint-
ing may be old, or defaced by careless usage, and yet from
the lineaments that remain, althoagh greatly imperfect, we
may come to the conclusion that it was the creation of genius.
In man's moral nature, injured as it may be hy sin, there is
yet seen in conscience the workmanship of God.
Let us, then, examine the nature of conscience ; let us see
what is the work of our moral sensibilities, and then directly
do we, from the character of the divine workmanship, come
to the conclusion of his equity and benevolence. There are
those who have confined the argument upon the benevolence
of God alone, to the fact of the vast amount of happiness ex-
isting in the world. Having in one scale weighed the misery
existing, and in the other scale the happiness prevailing
among the difi'erent creatures made by God, and found that
misery was the exception and happiness the rule, they have
therefore with good reason inferred the benevolence of God.
But consider that duty, right, srnd not happiness is the great
idea upon which we base the equity and benevolence of God.
It is because what he has made is right, what he demands is
duty, that chiefly we infer the divine goodness. "When we
enter upon the question of the amount of happiness exist-
ing, the adaptation of the works of ci'eation to produce
pleasure, we do indeed find in these things a high proof of
. (134)
THE EQUITY AND BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. 135
the benevolence of God. But yet miseiy exists, and the ob-
jection pi-esents itself of moral evil. To meet that objection
we must stand upon different ground than that presented in
the happiness theory, — we must go to the fundamental idea
of virtue, beyond which we cannot proceed farther, even to
that wall of adamant spoken of by Mackintosh, "which
bounds human inquiry (and which has scarcely) ever been
discovered b}' any adventurer, until he was roused by the
shock which drove him back." What is that wall of ada-
mant, where all discovery must stop, which is the foundation
of all ethics, and even the immutable basis upon which divine
law and authority rests ? Is it not the idea of right, of duty ?
It is no adequate definition of virtue to say that it is useful,
it produces happiness, it accords with the fitness of things, it
is order, divine harmon}', it is moral beauty. These are the
fruits or the tendencies of virtue. The question presents itself,
why is virtue useful ? Why does it produce happiness, or
accord with the fitness of things ? Why does it engender
order, divine harmony, or moral beauty ? Why is virtue to
be supremely loved and obeyed ? Why is its opposite ever
to be rejected and worthy of hate? It is in the solutions to
such a question that conscience comes in with an answer
alike infallible and immutable. It does not say that virtue
is to be loved and vice hated, simply because the one is
useful and the other the reverse, — that the one represents
order, fitness, and moral beauty, and the other engenders dis-
order, contention, and deformity. There are reasons why it
would be the part of wisdom in us to be virtuous and not
vicious. But the fruits of a tree do not constitute the tree
itself. Beyond these reasons, there is the ultimate reason,
the wall of adamant that stops all farther inquiry, and makes
known the last element of all ethics. Virtue is virtue, because
it is right; because conscience pronounces upon it the approv-
ing verdict of duty. Vice is vice because it is wrong, and con-
science when it sees vice as vice declares it to be wrong.
Farther than this we cannot go in our last analysis of virtue
and vice ; here we reach the essential element in the nature
of virtue and vice which engenders the fruit of usefulness or
186 THE EQUITY AND
uselessness, happiness or misery, order or disorder, beauty or
deformity. The question then that is peculiarly to test the
fact of the equity and benevolence of God is simply, lohat is
the moral constitution of man ? not what is the moral consti-
tution in its state as perverted by man, but what is his moral
constitution as originally given by God? What are those
moral sensibilities as created in us by the Deity? There is a
wide distinction between power or faculty granted by God,
and the abuse of that power or faculty. ]S"o one would infer
that a steam-engine dashing itself upon the rocks was
made for this end. The construction of the steam-engine
shows that its true sphere was the railroad, and that it was
designed for the purpose of rapidity, yet safely conveying in
cars passengers and merchandise over the road. Even in its
greatest power of mischief by abuse, there is made known
wisdom and benevolence in its construction. The abuse of
the engine is not the end, but the perversion of the end for
which it was made. So of our moral constitution : it shows
the wisdom and benevolence of its great author, even when
most fearfully perverted. All can see the use of a compass
in the ship upon the wide ocean, and although by careless-
ness that compass may prove a great source of mischief, yet
the end for which it was made was beneficent. We right-
fully then discriminate between a thing and its abuse, power
and its perversion, faculty and its derangement. So in the
consideration of the moral constitution of man : we must look
away from its derangement by sin, to the thing itself; we
must view it as it might be and should be, rather than as it
appears in its ruin. Take the human body in the full tide of
health and the same body prostrated by disease, and how
mighty the contrast ! But who, in viewing the body loath-
some with the ravages of a mortal distemper, the limbs use-
less for service, the ear dull of hearing, the eye blind to the
external world, and the clammy sweat of death gathering
over the form of man, would say this was the end for which
the senses were made ; this the purpose which is made
known in the limbs; this the use of the whole mechanism
of the body ? ISTot so. The derangement or dissolution of
BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. 137
the animal economy was not the design of that economy ; the
cessation of its use was not the use itself Death may be a
necessary condition of animals in this world, and through sin
in man it may and is wisely ordained by God to befall the
human race; but this is not the design or great end to be sub-
served in the animal economy. So also by sin we see the
moral constitution in disorder and ruin; but as made by God
it reveals in the clearest light his equity and benevolence.
Here is the conscience, God's own workmanship, in the
heart of man as much as the intellect or the body. Does
that conscience when it sees a thing to be virtuous approve
of it? Does the conscience command us to do what we feel
to be duty, and as authoritative)}' demand that we should not
commit %m^ when sin is seen to he sin? The question is not
what conscience actually does do when abused, but simply
what is the nature of conscience unperverted, — what are its
decisions in a healthy state^? We are to look upon con-
science in its exercise just as we look upon a steam-engine
or a compass ; we judge of the wisdom and beneficence of
their workmanship simpl}' by what the steam-engine or com-
pass can or will do in tlieir appropriate sphere. The disas-
ters that will attend the wrong use of these instruments in
no respect affect the utility or wisdom of their construction.
In the same wa}^ must we look to the conscience as reveal-
ing the equity and benevolence of God. Some confound
conscience with virtue. As well may a man confound the axe
that cuts the wood with the wood itself. Virtue is an effect,
conscience an instrument; virtue is good done, conscience
that which urges to good and approves of it ; virtue is right
action, conscience that which constitutes the faculty of right
action. Thus, conscience and virtue stand related to each
other as agent and action, instrument and effect. To see in
conscience the evidence of the equity and benevolence of
God, we must view it especially in what it is designed to do;
we must look upon it as an instrument made by God for the
wisest end. Nothing is more mournful than to see the per-
version of conscience, and yet the fact that in different persons
its decisions are so diverse, is owinof to the use of conscience
138 THE EQUITY AND
out of the appropriate conditions of its sphere. There is not
one of the senses that will not deceive when abused in its
exercise. The faculties of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and
smelling will all be exercised under certain appropriate con-
ditions. The senses as truly give to us wrong ideas of the
external world out of their sphere, as they never mislead us
when exercised in their sphere. But does this fact ever lead
us to underrate the value of the senses ? Are we ever dis-
posed to think them useless, because of the mistakes we often
fall into by their wrong use? Because the senses are limited
in their range of operation, do we therefore infer that God is
not wise and good in giving to us the senses ? But the
senses are only the instruments of the body, just as the con-
science is the instrument of the soul. The dift'erence is
simply that the former is material while the latter is im-
material. Consequently we find that conscience is a facult}'
exclusively pertaining to a moral agent, and if the abuse of
the senses is no argument against the wisdom and benefi-
cence of God in their creation, equally true is it that the
perversions of conscience do not infringe upon the equity and
the goodness of God. As we look in physics upon the senses
as instruments, so also in ethics we must look upon the con--
science. As in the former we can show wisdom and benefi-
cence in God by tlieir legitimate use, so also we can in the
latter. The natural world reveals no more clearly the char-
acter of God than the moral world. While nature throws
light upon the natural attributes of God, so with truth it may
be said that the moral constitution of man peculiarly displays
the moral attributes of God.
The peculiar prerogative of the conscience is that it does
not look to the consequences of a thing, so much as the thing
itself. The conscience does not say. Do such a thing because
it is useful, but because it is right. Its language is not. Avoid
such a thing becausse it engenders misery, but because it is
wrong. It is the intellect that weighs in the balances conse-
quences. The sphere of the conscience is restricted to the
right and wrong of conduct. The conscience alone takes cog-
nizance of the internal state of a moral accent. It is not the
BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. 139
will of God that makes his own nature virtuous, but his na-
ture that makes his will virtuous. Conscience in man, when
unperverted, is an indication of what is the moral character
of God. As God's workmanship, it tells not so much what is
the Divine will, as what more comprehensively is his moral
character, including his nature and will. Can then there be
a doubt that if the conscience approves of the right, when
seen as such, and condemns the wrong, — if, even amid the
ruins of our moral nature it speaks of duty, of obligation, and
enforces right by its own peculiar sanctions, that the great
Author of conscience must himself approve of right and con-
demn wrong? What more conclusive evidence of the equity
of God ? Has God implanted a law within the heart impera-
tively demanding right action, and must not the maker of
such a law himself supremely love moral excellence, and hate
sin ? It is not said that conscience and virtue are the same :
the fundamental distinction between the two has been seen;
but here is the question. Does not conscience in man that tells
Mm to be virtuous, that unperverted leads to it, that guides
as an instrument, when not abused, to virtue, that approves
of the right wherever seen, and rebukes for wrong whenever
felt, — is not such a faculty a clear mark of the equity and
goodness of its author ? Can we for a moment believe that
the Deity gave man a moral nature that must condemn him-
self, and compel him to despise the author of his existence ?
Certainly there can be no supposition so absurd as that God
would 6e^fe himself in his own work. Man's work and God's
work are tw^o things altogether different. Man's work may
and does often cast reproach upon God, but God's work
never. God never would give moral sensibilities that the
more virtuous in man, the more they w^ould lead to the
contempt of their great author. As God can never hate him-
self, so never can he hate or be hated by his own work apart
from the abuse of that work. The essential idea to be dwelt
upon in considering conscience is, not what conscience actually
does do in its abuse, but simply what conscience can do
and would do when used as God meant it to be used. Unless
this distinction in ethics is always kept in mind, the contem-
140 THE EQUITY AND
platiou of conscience, as perverted in fallen nature, will be
more likelj' to throw darkness than light upon the moral
attributes of God. Great as may be the disorder in the
natural world, as the consequence of sin, yet the impartial
observer of human nature is compelled to admit a disorder
vastly greater in the moral world, the efiect of sin.
In contemplating conscience, a great allowance must be
made for sin, even as in mechanics the calculator of physical
forces always leaves a wide margin for the law of friction.
The distinctive element of sin has entered the moral world,
and its worst power is seen in perverting and blinding the
conscience. We do not see conscience in man as it is un-
folded in angels; nor is it now in man, as it will be in man
perfectly redeemed from the curse of sin ; but this fact has
nothing to do with the question, Is not the equity and the
benevolence of God shown from the moral constitution of
man ? Is not the conscience which makes known the moral
constitution of man an instrument in itself, as given by God,
wise, and good, and just? When we discriminate between
a thing and the abuse of a thing, then are we prepared suita-
bly to view the goodness of God in granting to man a con-
science. The conscience, in its proj^er exercise, is the moral
image of God. When the conscience tells us to do what is good
and to avoid what is evil, when it approves of what is right
and condemns the wrong, it reveals as truly the Divine dis-
position as if the Deity directly communicated his will by
miracle. Let it be understood that conscience is simply
spoken of as a natural faculty of the soul in its unperverted
exercise. It is given by God for a specific end, as much as the
eye, the hand, or the foot. The eye can see only right under
the appropriate conditions of its exercise; the ear can hear
only correctly when used in its true sphere; the hand or
the foot have their suitable range of exercise. So of the con-
science as a moral faculty of the soul ; it is to be looked upon
exclusively in its decisions, under its own peculiar and ap-
propriate conditions as constituted by God. Viewed in this
light, it is no argument whatever against the equity of God
and his goodness, that the conscience is often so wrong, and
BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. 141
its exercise so fearfully perverted. The simple question in
relation to the conscience is, what will it do when rightly
used ? What are its decisions under appropriate and suitable
conditions ?
Let us, then, consider conscience in its nature, — let us ex-
amine it as a law, a feeling, and a judge, — let us view it in its
supremacy over our nature, and then may we read from its
character and right exercise .the clear proof of the moral ex-
cellence of that Being who gave it to man,
" The truth seems to be," says Sir James Mackintosh,
"that the moral sentiments, in their mature state, are a class
of feelings, which have no other object but the mental disposi-
tions leading to voluntary action, and the voluntary' actions
which flow from these dispositions. We are pleased with some
dispositions and actions and displeased with others, in our-
selves and our fellows. We desire to cultivate the dispositions,
and to perform the actions, which we contemplate with satis-
faction. These objects, like all those of human appetite or de-
sire, are sought for their own sake. The peculiarity of these
desires is, that their gratification requires the use of no means ;
nothing (unless it be a volition) is interposed between the de-
sire and the voluntary act. It is impossible, therefore, that
these passions should undergo any change by transfer from
the end to the means, as is the case with other practical
principles. On the other hand, as soon as they are fixed on
these ends, they cannot regard any farther object. When
another passion prevails over them, the end of the moral is
converted into a means of gratification. But volitions and
actions are not themselves the ends, or last object in view of
an}' other desire or aversion. ]^othing stands between the
moral sentiments and their object. They are, as it were, in
contact with the will. It is this sort of mental position, if
the expression may be pardoned, that explains, or seems to
explain, those characteristic properties which true philoso-
phers ascribe to them, and which all reflecting men feel to
belong to them. Being the only desires, aversions, senti-
ments, or emotions which regard dispositions and actions,
they necessarili/ extend to the whole character and conduct, —
142 THE EQUITY AND
among- motives to action they alone are justly considered as
universal."
What, then, is that source of knowledge which tells us that
man has a conscience, and for his conduct is worthy of ap-
probation or disapprobation ? The reply is, consciousness.
Do we not, through another medium than the observation of
the senses, have the idea of right and wrong, the feeling of
joy or love, of esteem or aversion ? Are we not perfectly
persuaded of mental pleasure or pain, of the character of our
motives and conduct as good or bad ? If so, then the reality
of conscience is as certain as consciousness : the existence
of our moral sensibilities is as true as the reality of our
affections and intellect. Here, then, is seen the peculiar
office of conscience. It is the regulator in man's heart, that
is given by God to control his conduct. It is the instrument
made by God to exercise a universal supremacy over the
voluntary states of the mind. Its sphere of action is exclu-
sively internal. The decision of conscience is upon the state
of man as a moral agent. It is simply upon the question of
right and wrong that it decides.
" The supreme authority of conscience," saysDugald Stew-
art, " is felt and acknowledged by the worst, no less than by
the best of men ; for even they who have thrown off" all
hypocrisy with the world are at pains to conceal their real
character from their own eyes. No man, even in soliloquy
or private meditation, avowed to himself that he was a
villain ; nor do I believe that such a character as Joseph in
the ' School for Scandal ' (who is introduced as reflecting
coolly on his own knavery and baseness without any uneasi-
ness but what arises from the dread of detection) ever existed
in the world. Such men probably impose upon themselves
fully as much as they do upon others." Says Lord Shaftes-
bury, as quoted by Stewart, "We may defend villainy, and
cry up folly before the world, but to appear fools, madmen,
or varlets to ourselves, and prove to our faces that we are
really such, is insupportable. For so true a reverence has
every one for himself when he comes clearly to appear before
his close companion, that he had rather profess the vilest
BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. 143
things of himself in open company than hear his character
privately from his own mouth. So that we may readily from
hence conclude that the chief interest of ambition, avarice,
corruption, and every sly insinuating vice, is to prevent this
interview and familiarity of discourse, which is consequent
upon close retirement and inward recess."
In considering the nature of conscience one most important
question presents itself. What is the relation of the intellect
to the moral sense? "We can all of us see a vast difference
between the perception of an intellectual truth and the feel-
ing of obligation. In respect to the sensibility of right
and wrong, the distinction is fundamental between this and
the perception of the properties of a triangle, the knowledge
of the working of a machine, or a demonstration in anatomy,
or fact of history. The sphere of the intellect is to tell us
what is true; that of the conscience is to inform us what is
right, — the one is confined to knowledge, the other to moral
obligation. The intellect instructs us what to do, the con-
science how to do. Truth is the end of the one, duty of the
other; nor can any sophistry confound knowledge and duty.
The reasoning is one thing, the feeling of obligation is another.
While the intellect is so distinct from the conscience, it yet
sustains to it a most intimate relation. If the reasoning
power originates perceptions or new intellectual views, and
the conscience moral emotions or feelings of obligation, vet
it is greatly aided and supported by the various powers of
perception and comparison ; consequently the decisions of
conscience must be according to the knowledge possessed or
the light enjoyed. The same outward acts may have de-
cisions altogether different from the different motives that
may be known to influence the conduct. What the eon-
science looks at is the ^disposition of the mind, — the actual
state of the heart that leads to overt action. Consequently
its decisions must vary with the diverse degrees of knowl-
edge, and be clear or obscure, weak or strong, just in pro-
portion to the facilities possessed of attaining a correct
knowledge.
"Probably everyone," says Professor Upham, "can say
144 THE EQUITY AND
with confidence that he is conscious of a cliiFerence in the
moral emotions of approval and disapproval, and the mere
intellectual perceptions of agreement and disagreement
which are characteristic of reasoning. In the view of con-
sciousness there can be no doubt that they are regarded as
entirely diverse in their nature, and as utterly incapable of
being interchanged or identified with each other. The
moral feeling is one thing, and the intellectual perception or
suggestion involved, both in the processes and the result of
reasoning, is another. Although the reasoning power and
the conscience, or the moral being, are thus distinct from
each other in their nature, they are clearly connected in their
relations, as has been intimated already, inasmuch as the
intellect, particularly the ratiocinative or deductive part of it,
is the formation or basis of moral action. "We must know a
thing, it must first be an object of perception, before we
can take any moral cognizance of it ; and this is not all, — the
moral cognizance, as we have already had occasion to ex-
plain, will conform itself with great precision to the intel-
lectual cognizance — that is to say, it will take new ground
in its decisions in' conformity with new facts perceived. Con-
sequently we cannot rel}- perfectly on a moral decision which
is founded on a premature or imperfect knowledge. The
more carefully and judiciously we reason upon a subject, the
more thoroughly we understand it in itself and its relations,
the more confidently may we receive the estimate which the
voice of conscience makes of its moral character."
Thus, in contemplating the relation the intellect sustains
to the conscience, we find that conscience makes the intellect
to assist it as an instrument in its decisions. The intellect
acts the part of an indispensable servant that never can be
spared in the performance of its functions. The supremacy
of conscience is seen, in that it makes tributary to it the in-
tellect and the will, and exercises a universal sway over all
the voluntary states of the mind.
"There is a superior principle of reflection or conscience
in every man," says Butler, " which distinguishes between
the internal principles of the heart, as well as his external ac-
BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. 145
tions, which passes judgment upon himself, and upon them
pronounces deterrainatelj some actions to be in themselves
just, right, good, others to be in themselves evil, wrong, un-
just, which without being advised with, magisterially exists
itself, and disapproves or condemns him the doer of them ac-
cordingly, and which, if not forcibly stopped, naturally and
always of course goes on to anticipate a higher and more
effectual sentence, which shall second and affirm its own."
Let us then consider conscience in its universality as a law,
in its energy as a feeling, and in its greatness as a judge.
In considering conscience as a law, we are to remember that,
as a rule of divine origin, it is implanted as a first principle
in the moral constitution by God himself. It is, therefore,
that upon which the mind proceeds; that which directs the
reason and the judgment; that by which all that is praise-
worthy or is blamable is estimated. Consequently as a law
it is universal, and from which proceed our first lessons of
right and wrong. Thus, in the words of Adam Smith, we
saj^, "upon whatever we suppose that our moral faculties are
founded, whether upon a certain modification of reason, upon
an original instinct called moral sense, or on some other prin-
ciple of our nature, it cannot be doubted that they are given
us for the direction of our conduct in this life." So impressed
even were the ancients who had not the light of Revelation
to guide, with conscience as a rule, that Cicero in a well-
known passage says: " Right reason is itself a law congenial
to the feelings of nature, uniform, eternal, calling imperiously
to our duty, and peremptorily prohibiting every violation of
it." " Wor does it speak one language at Rome and another
at Athens, varying from place to place, or from time to time ;
but it addresses itself to all nations and to all ages, deriving
its authorit}' from the common sovereign of the universe, and
carrying home its sanctions to every heart by the inevitable
punishment which it inflicts on transgressors."
But we have a far higher authoritj* for conscience as a law
in the words of inspiration, for we read, "they who have no
law (that is, no written law) are a law unto themselves, which
shows the law written in their hearts." Thus, we see how
10
146 THE EQUITY AND
clearly defined is that faculty that makes us moral agents:
our responsibility rests upon the fact, not only that God has
given us a law revealed upon the pages of the Bible, but a
law revealed upon the pages of the heart, enstamped with a
Divine hand upon the very tablet of the soul. Thus we see
that however defaced may be the impression of that law ;
however perverted may be our moral sense ; however unsafe
by our sins we may make the conscience as a sole guide ;
yet still that law remains, still in legible characters is it
written upon the soul ; still, whether by our sins we make
our conscience unenlightened, or unfaithful, or troubled, or
hardened, that law, written in the heart, bears witness, and,
amid its greatest perversions, is alike universal in its sanc-
tions, and condemning in its abuse. Consequently we see
the excellence of the moral nature as given to us by God,
we see how noble, originally, is that constitution not depend-
ent for its principle of duty upon the ever-varying outward
relations of life. Here, within, does every man have a con-
science which, if he has no higher revelation, is a law to him-
self, a rule of duty in life bearing witness to his conduct, and
which, however perverted, will not make those in the deep-
est darkness of heathenism excusable for their sins, — a law
springing from no human source, but coming direct from
our Maker.
Consider then conscience in its energy as a feeling. Con-
science has to do not only with the reason, it is not only that
which directs the mind, giving to it uniformity in its deci-
sions, and making itself a rule of conduct universal as man.
But conscience has also its seat in the emotional part of our
nature. It is enthroned in the sfinsibilities, and thus has to
do with every class of our affections. It is this sphere of
conscience that gives to it an energy so great. Observe how
soon conscience shows itself as supreme over the feelings.
The words, "You ought to do so !" "I cannot bear to think
of it !" or " I am pleased that I obey my father or mother !"
" I am glad I did not hurt my brother, or sister, or school-
mate !" are the first exclamations of childhood and youth:
they come unbidden from the heart; they are the earliest
BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. 147
words of our youngest years. But with the increase of age
conscience displays also a mighty energy. By our perver-
sions of duty we may have smothered its voice, or silenced
the alarm-bell in our hearts, and jQt we cannot, by our wills
alone, control it; we cannot say. Thus far shall conscience go
in its reproaches and no farther. No human wisdom or might
is able to extinguish in the heart its reproaches. It comes
often to the mind like a thief in the night. It comes after
the drunken scene of midnight revelry to the miserable suf-
ferer, and adds a hundred reproaches to every pain that
lacerates the body. It comes at times to the gay pleasure-
seeker, and spoils all the merriment of the hour by its in-
ward stings. It comes to the oppressor of the poor and
helpless, and makes the heart to ache with its stern rebukes.
Upon the palace walls of godless wealth it writes, with an
invisible hand, the dread epitaph of its ruin.
But the energy of conscience upon the sensibilities is seen
peculiarly in cases of great crime. "What but conscience in
its reproaches is present to the murderer when he seeks to
drown the remembrance of his sin in the intoxicating cup !
What but conscience is present to him whom remorse for
some deep wrong drives to the madness of suicide ! Some-
times the sea is troubled with angry waves, and the waters
dash their white spray upon the rocks; sometimes the sk}^ is
dark with clouds, and the tempest-wind utters its dismal cvy ;
sometimes the rumbling thunder is heard, and the lightning
flashes its lurid light across the darkness. But these indica-
tions of the strife of nature but faintly represent the higher
strife that rages in the heart when conscience moves over the
sea of human sensibility. There are times when conscience
awakes to a more terrific energy, and flashes upon the soul
with a more scorching light. There are times when the roar
of the troubled waters is more fearful, and there gathers upon
the sky a deeper darkness. The emotional part of our nature
possesses in itself innumerable diversities of feeling. There is
joy and sorrow and fear and hate and love; and yet each one
of these master passions comes with an endless retinue of at-
tendant sensibilities. We may as well attempt to count the
148 THE EQUirr AND
number of the stars as that throng of emotions that pervade
the souL ISTow over these feelings conscience exercises an un-
limited swa}': her very throne is in the heart of human sen-
sibility. Here is it that she acknowledges no superior.
Having contemplated conscience in the painful emotions
engendered bj- wrong conduct, let us look to conscience in
the feelings of pleasure created by right conduct. Consider
that God has implanted in man a conscience to be independ-
ent of all outward circumstances, a rewarder of virtue. He
has given a conscience for the purpose of bringing man into
a state of peace and joy far superior to every external con-
dition of hap})iness. Thus, if conscience by its iniluence
over the sensibilities possesses in itself the elements of the
liighest wretchedness, it also has the secret of the noblest
happiness. "Who can describe the charm of its approval of
some virtuous deed ? Who delineate the peace that it creates
when its intimations of right are obeyed? Thus have we
looked upon nature when the setting sun threw its light upon
some landscape of surpassing beauty, — with tints of a thou-
sand colors sky and water were reflected : the summer breeze
wafted the sweet perfume of flowers, and gently did the
Avarbling of the bird die upon the ear. Here was nature's
harmony, and her mighty energies for evil controlled by a
law that subserved the richest pleasure and the noblest peace.
Thus with conscience when at peace with itself, over man's
nature in right conduct she exercises a nobler harmony than
is seen in the external world. In the influence of the con-
science upon the sensibilities in right conduct, we see the
great reason of the happiness that virtue brings with it. The
conscience in our nature is like a mirror: it reflects every-
thing that passes over it. Let the conduct be wa'ong, and it
reflects the moral deformity of the person himself. Let the
conduct be right, and the moral beauty of that virtue is with
equal faithfulness reflected. Thus the heart has within itself
a mirror upon which, in vivid distinctness, is delineated every
feature of our moral nature.
But there is another element in conscience having its seat
in the aflfections. That element consists in the mvsterious
BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. 149
power possessed by conscience to throw all the sensibilities
by sin into confusion, or unite them by virtue into harmony.
The sweeter the music of a harp, the more painful the dis-
cord wdien broken. The conscience of a good man is like
sweet music, and every sensibility of the nature is made to
give out a note of harmony ; while the sensibilities of a bad
man by conscience are rudely jostled together, and every
movement is that of discord. Thus is it that in wrong con-
duct conscience creates so great uneasiness in the sensibili-
ties Conscience rudely throws them into collision, — the
passions are moved out of their appropriate sphere, and made
to conflict with each other. Thus we see the meaning of
the language, " The wicked are like the troubled sea that
cannot rest." Conscience will not let the sensibilities rest,
it makes its sharp note of discord to vibrate with rude vio-
lence through the emotions, stirring them all up like a hive
of bees broken in upon, — making war in every member, and
bringing into hot pursuit every liend of mischief. It is in
the sensibilities that its energy is peculiarly displayed.
But conscience exerts over the sensibilities its highest in-
fluence through the law of association. We must under-
stand that law in order to see, in the strongest light, the
energy of conscience upon the emotions. Consider then the
thoughts that are made to rise up in the mind through the
influence of association. By this law past thoughts and deeds,
through the medium of some strikino^ incident or resem-
bhince, are presented to the mind. Thus, let a person, after
3'ears of absence, revisit the scenes of his childhood, and the
familiar events of his early years will be brought to mind by
the house in wdiich he once lived, by the fields where once
he roamed, by the running stream where once he played.
Should his eye light upon the portrait of a brother, or sister,
or mother, or father, or some aged relative long ago dead,
the principle of association within will recall to mind things
that had been before buried in forgetful n ess. The actions
of his past life \\\\\ come up before him in vivid distinctness.
iSTow conscience makes use of the principle of association to
impress its lessons most effectually upon the mind. It throws
150 THE EQUITY AND
a clear light upon the characters of our past history. Thus
we see how the man of atrocious crime shuns the spot that
once witnessed his sin. Thus we see how deeds of benevo-
lence, and great self-sacrifice for the good of others, throw
a spell of beauty over the local habitation that bore testi-
mony to our virtue.
It would seem as if conscience had in it the highest ele-
ments of our happiness or our misery. If this were not so,
why the eifort to harden it, or make it turn traitor to our
welfare? The wicked man never works so hard as when he
seeks to drown the reproaches of conscience, or make it give
an erroneous decision. Before we commit a great sin, we seek
by our sophistry to silence conscience, or compel it to give a
perverted acquiescence.
The most horrid tragedies of the French Revolution were
dignified under the abused name of law and ecpial rights.
The worst excesses of despotism are justified by appealing
to the necessity of preserving order. " Whom we hate we
defame," is an adage as old as the world. It would appear
as if the commission of wrong was more than half disrobed
of its hateful ness to the mind, when the mantle of a per-
verted conscience had been thrown over it. How expressive
the words, "But even their mind and conscience is defiled!"
Thus do we see the heathen casting her infant into the Gan-
ges, or throwing herself into the flame that consumes her
dead husband. Thus do we read of Ravaillac glorying in his
crime, while a nation mourns over a murdered king. Thus
do we hear of the stoic firmness of a Guy Fawkes, who was
arrested before he had succeeded in blowing up with powder
the Parliament and royal family of England. Nor is it only
in great sins that we see the eiFort made, and often with suc-
cess, in compelling conscience to a false decision. Tlie every-
day events of life show how careful men are to silence its
reproaches, or justify by it their sins.
Let us then consider conscience as a judge. We do but
half realize the power of conscience, unless we consider that
in a good degree it possesses the attributes of a judge. We
have viewed conscience in its universality as a law, and in
BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. 151
its energy as a feeling, but when we come to view it in its
judicial decisions we see most clearly what is comprehended
in the ^v'ord judgment. The fact that now by our sins we have
made our conscience blind, or hard, or in any way perverted
it, in no respect authorizes the conclusion that always it will
slumber, or never be in a different state. It is a faculty of
the mind restricted in its exercise by the present knowledge
possessed, and dependent in its decisions upon the amount
of light enjoyed, and the circumstances under which it is
called upon to utter its voice. Thus we see why the consciences
of different persons are so varied, and why different decisions
are made even upon the same acts. There are two states that
give diversity to the decisions of conscience: the circum-
stances without us, and those within us, — our external and
internal condition. Everything to the eye looks differently
upon a mountain to what it does in a valley, and yet the per-
ception to the QyQ may be in its sphere as true in one condi-
tion as in another. The inference then that change of cir-
cumstances, internal or external, or both, will have a mighty
influence in the decisions of conscience, is most clear. Who
knows not the fact that there are hours when long-buried
sins come, through the law of association, before the mind
like on army of giants! It was conscience that spoiled all
the pleasures of Belshazzar's feast, and made the knees of the
guilty monarch shake at the handwriting upon the wall. It
was conscience that made Felix tremble as Paul reasoned to
him of righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to come.
But the greatness of conscience as a judge will be mani-
fest in its highest power when there comes a revolution in
the circumstances of our existence. It is especially when
there passes over our being that mighty change that trans
fers us from this world to another; then conscience will, in
its new state of being, possess in its judicial decisions a far
greater energy of action. Think for a moment of the ten
thousand circumstances of this world that combine to silence
or pervert the decisions of conscience. As Delilah bound
round the sleeping Samson new ropes, she dreamed not that
when awake, the strong man, at the cry of the Philistines,
152 THE EQUITY AND
would break them as flax before the tire. So also we reason
of our conscience, that sleeping Samson in this world.
But when the great trump of the last daj^ is heard, — when
resounding through the heavens there enters the cold grave
the voice of God, "Awake ye dead, and come to judgment!"
conscience then no longer will be bound with the ropes of
Delihih. Coming forth trora the closed chambers where fee-
bly her voice was heard amid the confused clamor of human
passion in this life, conscience then will assume the preroga-
tives of a judge that will not be silenced in the discharge of
duty. The verdict of Christ our judge will meet with a re-
sponse in every heart. To the conscience itself will the
appeal of equity be made, and true to its high source, true
to its nature, true to the noblest privilege of its being, will
conscience utter forth a decision that shall be as irreversible
as the soul in its nature is immortal.
When we are asked why is virtue virtue, it may be very
well to say because virtue is useful, because it accords with
the litness of things, it is in harmon}' \v\i\\ all moral law, is
spiritual beauty and divine order. But all these things are
the fruits of virtue, the necessary attendants upon virtue, not
the tree itself. It is only when we say virtue is virtue, be-
cause it is right, that we may be said to reach that wall of ada-
mant beyond which all inquiry must stop. When the inter-
rogation is put, why is virtue useful, or why does it accord
with the fitness of things, or harmonize w^ith divine law and
order, or promote our noblest happiness ? — what other so-
lution to this question can be given than that virtue is some-
thing in itself intrinsically right, and is thus right, because
conscience, our moral nature, ever commands us when seen
to love it; because the feeling of obligation, universal as man, at
once springs up in the heart; because conscience, long before
the intellect can weigh the fruits of virtue, or calculate its
consequences, instinctively tells us to love it and hate its
opposite ; because imperatively as the voice of God con-
science demands that we should esteem, cherish, and fol-
low virtue, be the consequences what they may; because
conscience accuses us of wrong, where virtue is hated, and
BENEVOLEyCE OF GOB. I53
selfishness loved, be tlie advantages believed in ever so
great ?
But are we conscious bow directly we attain unto the evi-
dence of the equity and benevolence of God, when, in our ex-
amination of conscience, we find that it accords as a divine rule
of action implanted in man with the essential element of all
virtue? Do we suitably apprehend how much is included in
the simple fact that conscience tells us to do what is right,
approves of it when seen, and uniformly, when used as God
meant it should be used, condemns us for wrong-doing? Is
it not evident that such a faculty shows the essential virtue
of God and tells us that the great author of the conscience
loves that which is right, and hates that which is wrong ;
that he does so from his very nature before he made man,
before he revealed his law, and from eternity when man or
angel had no existence ? Can any absurdity be so great as
that which supposes that God's moral law should not be the
transcript of his own equity and benevolence? Is it possible
that the universal law of God, based upon the immutable dis-
tinction of right and wrong, should belie his own nature <? It
is one thing to consider conscience in its willful perversion,
or in that abuse created by a depraved will and heart, but
quite a different matter to view it simply as an original faculty
in its legitimate exercise.
"We believe that conscience in the fall of man, and in the
subsequent development of depravity in the human race,
sufiered with the rest of our nature; but conscience, even in
its greatest ruin, shows as conclusivelj- its origin from God
as the intellect or the body. And the reason why especially
the conscience is deserving of careful study, is that while the
natural attributes of God are shown in the creation of this
world and its inhabitants, there is a peculiar light thrown
upon the moral attributes of God in everything relating to
ihe moral nature of man. We distinguish between the moral
image of God as reflected from an unperverted conscience,
and conscience abused ; but we must not shut our eyes to the
great fact that God's equity, benevolence, and wisdom are seen
even in the conscience, however debased. By a wrong con-
154 THE EQUITY AND
ditioii of circumstances the needle of the compass may point
wrong; but who is disposed to question the wisdom and be-
nevolence of the compass in itself considered? Just so of
the conscience; we must view it as given to man for the no-
blest and most benevolent end.
Looking at it simply as an original faculty, we are irre-
sistibly driven to the inference that as the appropriate office
of conscience is to approve of right and condemn for wrong,
as duty is its exclusive sphere, and the very end for which it
was given, so also duty, eternal right, constitutes the essen-
tial glory of the nature of God. No supposition can be more
foolish and wicked than that God's work, as it comes from
his liauds, will throw falsehood upon his own nature, and re-
pudiate in its right action the very author of its being.
When we consider the happiness that arises from the exer-
cise of the bodily organs, the useful end secured by the
muscles of the human frame, the benevolence evinced in the
animal creation, and the adaptation of nature to the varied
offices of all creatures, we are indeed impressed with the
goodness of God. But it is especially when man is viewed
as having a conscience which is the great instrument by which
all moral obligation is seen and felt, whose sphere of action
is internal and limited to the merit and demerit of moral
character, that we must arrive to the conclusion that such an
instrument must come from a being who supremely loves the
right and hates the wrong, and is himself essentially and eter-
nally good.
"Duty," says Francis Bowen, "is not caused, for it never
began to be ; it has existed from eternity. We cannot even
conceive of a period when justice was not, or will not be
obligatory upon every being capable of understanding what
justice requires: upon the idea or feeling expressed by the
word ought, the whole science of morals depends. It diliers
not in degree, but in kind, from desire and appetite, so that
these can never really come into competition with it. In
truth it does not admit of degrees, for there are no half-way
obligations. Conscience either speaks absolutely, or not
at all."
BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. 155
Havinoj thus considered the o-reat element of virtue as con-
sisting in the idea of right or duty, and that this alone is the
exclusive sphere of conscience as the nohlest facult}' of man,
is it not evident that conscience in its nature reveals the es-
sential justice and henevolence of God? Does it not as a
rule of conduct manifest the actual disposition of the Deity
himself? Must we not infer that the great idea of right, of
moral obligation, or the feeling comprehended in the word
ought., had its origin from God ? Is it not evident, from the
consideration of the moral constitution of man, that God
loves that which is in its nature good and hates that which
is evil ; that he always approves of the right, and condemns
for the wrong? God thus acts, not so much because he has
made a law, as because his own iniiuite nature leads him to
love the right and hate the wrong.
It is a great step that we take to prove the equity and be-
nevolence of God, when we show that there is something in
virtue intrinsically good, and in its opposite inherently evil,
and that conscience, as an original faculty, enjoins in its
proper use the same love of virtue or right that reigns in the
heart of God. Thus far the consideration of virtue as it
comes before the intellect has been overlooked, and the atten-
tion confined to the relation that virtue sustains to the con-
science; but we must not confound the conscience with the
intellect or the affections. It is essentially different from both,
however intimately the conscience may be associated with
the intellect and affections; it is evidently designed by God
to be an absolute rule, and exercise a supreme control over
the whole moral nature. It calls upon the will to obey its
voice, upon the intellect to give to it information, and upon
the affections to love its beauty and urge to moral action. It
imperatively enjoins submission upon all the faculties of our
nature.
But the conscience is vastly strengthened in its exercise by
a written law: whatever may be its action in an unperverted
state, it is essentially dependent, in the present fallen condi-
tion of man, for its best exercise, upon the revealed will of
God. In considering the chief element of all virtue, it has
156 THE EQUITY AND
been seen that it must comprehend that which is addressed
to the highest part of our nature. If, by a careful analysis,
we distinguish between virtue as presented to the intellect
and affections, and virtue as presented to the conscience, we
shall find that the intellect tells us what is true, the affections
what is morally fit or beautiful, while the conscience gives
the feeling of ought, and the idea of right. Can we then dis-
criminate between the common quality of virtue and its first
element, when we reach that wall of adamant that bounds
all further inquiry ? Certainly we can, by simply consider-
ing virtue as it presents itself to the intellect and affections,
and as it presents itself to the conscience.
The intellect, as a perceiving power, tells us that virtue
upon the whole is useful, that it promotes the highest liappi-
ness, conforms to order, and harmonizes with all moral law.
The affections assure us that virtue is something in itself
beautiful, good, lovely, and most desirable ; but the conscience
imperatively tells us that virtm is right in its very essence, and
awakens the feeling of moral obligation. Our moral con-
stitution, with the threefold power of the intellect, affections,
and conscience, calls for the exercise of virtue. There is
then a twofold quality in all benevolence or goodness com-
mon to all virtue: first — justice, and then love. The justice
in benevolence or goodness regulates it, the love inspires it.
God's justice makes his conduct always right, his love
always urges him to right conduct. By justice the divine
benevolence is forever upon the side of equity, of moral or-
der and law, and by love always upon the side of that most
useful, most happy and good. The one reigns supreme in
the mind, the other in the heart of God.
With great appropriateness McCosh remarks, " All deep
and earnest inquirers into the nature of virtue have got at
least a partial view of the complex truth, each has seen it
under one aspect, and has gone away so ravished with the
sight that he never thought of going round the object and in-
quiring if it had another aspect equally lovely. Hutcheson
is right in saying that in all virtue there is benevolence, and
Edwards has given his theory a wider expansion in affirming
BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. 157
that love to being is of the very essence of virtuous action.
CLarke too enunciated a profound truth vrhen he said that
there is an eternal fitness in virtue, for there is such a fitness
in that righteousness which regulates benevolence. Reid
and Stewart and Cousin have developed the mental process
by which this eternal fitness is discovered, and have shown,
too, that virtue must reside in the will. Each has seen so
much of the truth, to use an image of Jouftroy, each has
seen one side of the pyramid, and has written beneath it, not
as he ought, this is one side of the pyramid, but this is the
pyramid. One party has seen the love, and another has seen
the rio^hteonsness. Hutcheson observed that afifection and
feeling were essential parts of all virtue, but took no cogni-
zance of the fixed principles by which they must be regu-
lated. Edwards, in a profound investigation, discovered that
love must be according to a rule, but did not follow out his
investigations so far as to discover the fundamental nature
of that rule, as being no less essential a part of that moral-
ity than love itself. Clarke and Cudworth, with clear intel-
lectual intuition, saw the presence of eternal and unresolv-
able principles. Reid and his followers have patiently
investigated the powers of the human mind by which these
principles are discovered ; but none of these latter philoso-
phers seem to give its proper place to the no less important
element of benevolence. The true theory is to be found, not
in the indiscriminate, not in the mere mechanical combina-
tion of the two, but in their chemical combination, in the
melting and fusing them into one."
Thus it will be seen how the ablest writers upon the na-
ture of virtue have differently presented the subject. But
virtue certainly has an aspect of peculiar value when contem-
plated in its relation to the conscience. It is not afiirmed
that the whole of virtue, in the widest import of the word,
is included in the idea of right. We would not, to use the
significant image of Jouftroy, make out the pyramid of vir-
tue all over to be only that which is presented in its relation
to the conscience. But there must be something upon which
the great fabric of virtue should stand; and what is that
158 THE EQUITY AND
foundation unless it be the immutable principle of right?
Where its eternal basis unless it be in righteousness ? Where
that wall of adamant, unless it be in the feeling of o?/^; if, the
sentiment of right, the lirst idea that lies at the root of all
moral obligation ? If the conscience is higher in its office
than the intellect or the atfections, why should we not go to
the noblest part of our nature for our most worthy idea of
virtue? Why, in viewing the separate beauties of the pyra-
mid of virtue, should we overlook the everlasting foundation
of rock upon which it stands ?
In considering the moral constitution of man we must not
overlook two elements that are essential to the existence of
that constitution, and universally admitted by it : those two
elements are personality aw^ freedom. It is personality that
distinguishes man from a thing ; it is freedom that gives re-
sponsibility. Remove personality, and man is no more a
moral agent than a stone; remove freedom, and man can
no more be praised or blamed for his conduct than the wheel
of a cotton- mill, or the boiler of a steamboat.
But where, as the great source of evidence, do we look for
personality and freedom? Is it not to the consciousness?
does this not give the absolute certainty of man a person,
and man free ? Who can doubt the fact that he thinks, or
feels ; and yet do thought and feeling and a sense of moral
obligation find their foundation in the perfect certainty that
the agent thus thinking, feeling, and having a sense of right
and wrong, is a person and free ? Can any process of reason
ever destroy this consciousness universal in man ? Many a
philosopher has attempted to destroy it, and have thought
to merge finite personality into the personality of God, and
finite freedom into a law, or mode of divine existence, and
thus have landed into pantheism ; but pantheism, in doing
away with human personality and freedom, must in consist-
ency do away with all right or wrong in man, and with this all
true accountability either to God or to man. But it is the
peculiarity of consciousness that no perversion of mind can do
away with its first principles. Some may reason themselves
into the idea that there is no such thing as pleasure or pain,
BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. 159
just as Berkeley imagined there was no external world; but
consciousness will not belie itself: experience is a school-
master too stubborn to be fooled with senseless argument.
There is another class of philosophers who are found in
the opposite extreme; they ignore altogether the existence
of God. There is nothing with them but man ; man is God
and God is man. Divine personality is but another name for
human personality, and the freedom of the Creator is all
merged into the liberty of the creature. But here man's
consciousness shows the atheist, even as the pantheist, in
error. Man's consciousness is intimately associated with the
idea of dependence, and this feeling of dependence shows
itself in human history in a thousand ways. It is the basis of
all systems of sacrifices to propitiate the favor of a higher
power, and it speaks out in all the prayers, all the worship,
and all the religion of man. Why so? Simply because hu-
man consciousness tells of human guilt, and groans in pain
with the burden of sin. But what is sin ? What is guilt?
Do stones pray ? Is there sorrow in trees ? Is the warbling of
the bird, or the roar of the lion, a confession of guilt? Do
we get our idea of churches or temples of worship, Prot-
estant or Catholic, Mohammedan or Pagan, from the beasts
of the field ? No indeed !
What does this show ? Does it not declare the great fact
of moral dependence with moral responsibility, — freedom
with personality? Is not human consciousness as hostile to
the atheist as to the pantheist? Is not the history of atheism
and pantheism that of extremes meeting, and both belying
each other ? Both start from one common point, even that
of denying the facts of consciousness : but the facts of con-
sciousness are the first principles, the axioms of all reason-
ing, and both atheist and pantheist show their senseless folly
by repudiating that upon which all reasoning is based. But
would not the mathematician show himself an idiot who
should formally announce that he should demonstrate the
high problems of geometry without admitting as first steps
the axioms of geometry ? But consciousness has its axioms
as much as mathematics. First truths do not admit of any
160 THE EQUITY AND
process of reason ; they would not be first principles or truths
if they were reasoned out ; they are the foundation of reason,
and reason cannot go higher than its source. The stream
does not make the fountain, but the fountain the stream.
The axiom that the whole is greater than its part cannot
admit a process of demonstration. No reason can make an
intuitive certainty any plainer The facts of consciousness
are as certain and universal as the axioms of mathematics,
but they are equally beyond the process of reason : reason,
like the senses, has its bounds; within its sphere it can lead
to certain truth, but no sooner does it get out of its sphere
than it shows its folly, first by confusing plain truth, and then
by making confusion worse confounded. This is peculiarly
so when reason attempts to do away with the fi\cts of con-
sciousness. It is the insane attempt of the head, and hands,
and feet, in the fable, to do away with the body ; but the
body destroyed, and the head, hands, and feet must perish
too. All that reason gets by denying the facts of conscious-
ness is self-destruction. If the foundation of all reason is
taken away, reason itself must fall to the ground. The facts
of consciousness, like the rock-bound coast of England, have
for ages withstood the impetuous waves of pantheism, athe-
ism, and materialism, and for ages have these angry billows
been beaten back, and yet while human depravity lasts will
they be denied or explained away; but no infidelity can con-
ceal these facts: they will project out like this rocky coast,
against which in vain dash the waves of the sea.
" Merely literary men," says Wilson, taking the thought
from Verplanck, "are slow to admit that vulgar minds can
have any rational perception of truths involving great and
hiffh contemplation. Thev overlook the distinction between
the nice analysis of principles, the accurate statement of
definitions, logical inferences, and the solution of difliculties,
and the structure of our own thoughts^ and the jilay of the affec-
tions. They discern not between the theory of metaphysical
science and the first truths and rational instincts which are
implanted in the hearts of all, and which prepare them to see
the glory of the Gospel, to feel its influence, and to argue
from both for both the divinity of Christianity."
BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. 161
The instinctive feelings of our nature, and those intuitive
truths upon which the whole science of reasoning is built,
are often very little considered. It has been the great mis-
take of most arguments upon the existence and attributes of
God, that the subtlety of metaphysics has been resorted to,
rather than those self-evident truths recognized by man in
all ages. The evidence for a God of infinite goodness and
justice is addressed to us through two mediums, — that of the
senses and the consciousness. Important as may be the
former, and necessary to satisfy the reason, yet the latter, in
the universality of its power and influence, far surpasses it.
There is none the less reality in the truth of the evidence of
consciousness because it cannot be clothed in the precise
language of logic. The feeling that I exist, or that my idea
of an external world has an objective reality, are truths as
certain as any axiom in mathematics. ITo demonstration to
a man can be higher than self-demonstration. Our nature is
so constructed that we instinctively believe that every effect
must have a cause, — that if man cannot create himself, or the
world create itself, or the laws of nature adjust themselves,
then we must look for a cause above and without these
things, by the double evidence of the senses and the con-
sciousness. We are forced to believe in an infinite cause,
self-existing, underived and eternal, — the author of man, of
nature, and its laws.
"When we study the conscience we find it to be a great law
of duty. Within the heart do we carry about a witness
for the goodness of God that no sophistry can obliterate.
We must believe in accordance with the first principles of
belief; we must think as we are constituted; our nature is
outraged if we do not thus think. We are upon a sea of end-
less uncertaint}' if we refuse thus to believe. We are forced
to admit, that even if conscience, an external world, ourselves
were chimeras, if by any possibility they could be mere
fictions of imagination ; yet we must act and think and have
as deep a conviction of the reality of things as if things were
real ; and however far we might venture upon the sea of skep-
ticism, yet we would be compelled by our inherent convic-
11
162 THE EQUITY AND
tions of reality to return back, for first principles cannot be
tortured into error as the deductions of reason. The skeptic
can gain nothing by disavowing the intuitive convictions of
his nature ; he does not better himself by his efforts of self-
annihilation.
" There is a spiritual sun," saysFenelon, "that enlightens
the soul more fully than the material sun does the body.
This sun of truth leaves no shadow, and it shines upon both
hemispheres. It is as brilliant in the night as in the day-
time ; it is not without that it sheds its rays, it dwells within
each one of us, — one man cannot hide its rays from another ;
whatever corner of the earth we may go to there it is. We
never need say to another. Stand back that I may see it ; you
hide its rays from me, you deprive me of that which is my
due. This glorious sun never sets; no clouds intercept its
rays but those formed by our passions. It is one bright day.
It sheds light upon the savage in the darkest caverns. There
are no eyes so weak that they cannot bear its light; and
there is no man so blind and miserable that does not walk
by the feeble light from this source that he still retains in
his conscience."
But this spiritual sun that Fenelon calls the conscience,
carries with it the highest evidence of the goodness of God.
By teaching us that duty is our highest end, — the acting
riirht the noblest exercise of man,— it reveals as truly the will
of God to us as if that will was written upon the sky. Why,
if God was not good, would he implant a principle in our
nature that would lead us' to despise wrong and injustice
whenever felt and seen ? Why thus instinctive the feelings
that rise up in the heart of approbation of right, of approval
of virtue, of esteem for the lovely and excellent, unless the
author of our nature himself loved the right and the good !
Let it be observed, skepticism cannot so confound the essen-
tial nature of things as to lead us to deny that there is reality
to the internal ideas of right and wrong. It cannot say
virtue and vice are only the deceptive creations of the im-
agination, as all the reasoning in the world will not convince
a man that there is no ocean that he gazes upon, no ground
BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. 163
upon which he walks, no sound that he hears, no flower that
he smells; so no sophistry can blind the mind to the inherent
reality of right and wrong, virtue and vice. Our knowledge
of these distinctions is none the less certain because it is in-
tuitive or self-evident. First truths are always intuitions:
no explanation can make clearer to us the idea that the
whole is greater than a part, or that two is more than one;
no reasoning can make clearer to us the idea of our self-
existence, or more convincing the feeling that we ought to
do what is right, and avoid what is wrong. Who but a
Being who loves the good and hates the bad would so con-
stitute the heart ? "Would God give in the soul of man a
spiritual sun to reveal' the deformity of sin and the beauty of
virtue, if that sun only unveiled that which would awaken
contempt of the Deity himself? What an absurdity, what
wickedness in the idea that the author of our moral constitu-
tion would not have it in its proper exercise the reflection of
his own justice and goodness !
" The great Creator," says Dr. Alexander, " has not left
himself without a witness in the heart of every man. It is
possible that a man may be so abandoned as to believe in
lies, and that he may come to disbelieve the God that made
and supports him. But he cannot obliterate the law written
in his heart ; he cannot divest himself of the conviction that
certain actions are morally wrong ; nor can he prevent the
stings of remorse when he commits sins of an enormous
kind. Men may indeed spin out refined metaphysical theo-
ries, and come to the conclusion that there is no diflference
between virtue and vice, and that these distinctions are the
result of education. But let some one commit a flagrant act
of injustice towards themselves, and theii' practical judgment
will soon give the lie to their theoretical opinions. As those
speculatists, who argue that there is no external world, will
avoid running against a post, or into the fire, as carefully
as other men, so they who endeavor to reason themselves
into the belief that virtue and vice are mere notions gener-
ated by education, cannot nevertheless avoid perceiving that
some actions are base, unjust, or ungrateful, and consequently
164 THE EQUITY AND
to be disapproved of, whether committed by themselves or
others."
Thus it will be seen that conscience is that spiritual sun
within us whose voice proclaims an ever-present God. This
arises not so much from the deductions of reason as from
the instructive feeling of our nature ; assuring us that the
great law within, universal as man, must have an author, and
that the Being who made us must, with the conscience, love
the good and hate the bad. Other evidences of the goodness
of God fall immeasurably short of this in conclusiveness and
power. This is the evidence every man carries about with
him in his own bosom, — immediate in its decision and instruc-
tive in its agency. Thus, we tind the existence of conscience
has far more to do with the idea of God and his righteous-
ness than is often imagined. Man feels more than he reas-
ons. The former is spontaneous, while the latter creeps
with slow pace over the ground. With undisciplined minds
this is peculiarly true. Thus, we see the fact of God's exist-
ence ; and his goodness, even when first announced, finds a
response of acquiescence so universal in the conscience.
Thus, we see the multitude of all ages, corrupt as they may
be, and ignorant as they may be, yet never in theory disput-
ing the evidence of a Supreme Being, and his goodness.
Confused as may be their idea of God, erroneous as may be
the conceptions of his moral character, misguided as maybe
the homage paid to false idols, yet conscience, however per-
verted, cannot easily be made to give up the idea of one
infinite Being of justice and goodness. When false philoso-
phy and the superstition of centuries have thrown their black
foliage over the foundation of the greatest of truths, and
enveloped thick in their embrace of death the noblest part
of man, yet conscience, the vxdl of adamant, is still seen by the
observer through the chinks and openings of that fatal
drapery that surrounds it.
Most convincingly has Pascal said, "We know the truth
not only by the reason but also by the heart ; it is by the
heart that we know first principles, and it is in vain that reas-
oning, which has no part in it, tries to combat them. The
BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. 165
Pjrrhoiiists, whose only object this is, strive for it in vain.
We know that we do not dream, however impotent we may
be to prove it b}^ reason ; this impotence proves nothing
more than the feebleness of our reason, but not the uncer-
tainty of all our knowledge as they pretend. For the knowl-
edge of first principles, as of space, time, movement, numbers,
is as certain as any of those that our reasonings give us.
And it is on this knowledge of the heart and instinct that
reason must support herself, and on this she founds her whole
procedure. The heart feels that there are three dimensions in
space, and that numbers are infinite ; and the reason demon-
strates its course, that there are no two square numbers of
which one is double the other. Principles are felt, proposi-
tions are proved ; and all with certaintj', although in ditter-
ent ways ; and it is as ridiculous for the reason to demand of
the heart proofs of its first principles, in order to be willing
to consent to them, as it would be for the heart to demand
of the reason a feeling of all the propositions that it demon-
strates in order to be willing to receive them."
The great author of the moral constitution of man has so
made it that it shall plainly testify to two things : First,
that he himself, as the absolute, the infinite, the eternal, loves
supremely duty ; secondly, that he loves supremely truth.
If we keep in mind the ever needful distinction between
God's work and man's perversion, we shall find that truth is
the natural end for which the mind is made, even as duty is
that for which the moral sensibilities are given. The melan-
choly history of man shows that God's purpose in his crea-
tion is frustrated by his natural love of error, even as by his
inclination to fly from the restraints of duty. But, because
we see the painful evidence that man is wrong in his head
and his heart, it does not imply that man is made for error
and guilt. It does not imply that God loves either. The
whole moral constitution of man speaks out against this in-
ference. What is the actual fact in relation to the intellect
and the heart ? We certainly can tell the use of an axe,
and for what it is intended, even if by abuse the edge of it
maybe as blunt as a fence rail, xs'ow the intellect was made
166 THE EQUITY AND
for truth. First, because through the senses in their appro-
priate sphere the facts of the outward world exactly corre-
spond to the internal impressions of the raind. The mind,
using the senses as instruments, is not deceived in relation to
external things. The idea mentally of a tree, a brook, a hill,
a house, corresponds with the things themselves. This is
always the case with the senses legitimately used. And
secondly, the professed object of the intellect in all investi-
gations is truth. Error as error is not professed to be the
end of human reason: error is often imbibed instead of the
truth; but the very fact that men are so ashamed to confess
that they are seeking error rather than truth, speaks
volumes in favor of God's making the mind for truth,
and to be satisiied only with it. What are all the fair pre-
tenses of error and its crooked by-paths but the unwilling-
concession of the mind to the worth of truth ! Truth d^->es
not hide its face as error does. Truth stands upon its own
merits, w^hile error is ever aiming to clothe its loathsome
body with the garb of truth. It will steal its semblance if it
cannot glory in its reality. Truth is constantly counterfeited,
because error seen in its naked hideousness revolts the mind.
But why should the mind revolt at error undisguised if it
was made for it ? If truth is a matter of indiiFerence with
God, why does he speak out so loudly in its favor in man's
moral constitution ? If the false currency of error is all the
same with the Deity as the genuine gold of truth, why has he
made the human mind so ashamed of error when exposed,
and so coniident and jpj'ful even when truth is established ?
The moral constitution is made not only for the actual reali-
ties of life, but the love of error and habitual self-deception
will put it all out of tune, and, like a sweet instrument of
music with the strings out of place, the very discords given
will show the perversion of that purpose for which it was in-
tended. All the professions of men boasting that they are
in search of the truth, reveal the great fact that error is not
a normal condition of the mind, but an abnormal condition.
God designed the mind to find out truth, and not to be
cheated every hour Avith delusions. As a melancholy fact.
BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. 167
men do constantly and perseveringly practice self-deception.
Reason is ever getting out of its sphere, and pretending to
decide things, where there is a perfect incompetence of
knowledge. Back of the reason there is the will and aiFec-
tions ; and if error is followed after more than truth, does not
Revelation give the solution to the difficulty in the words :
"And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the
world; and men loved darkness rather than light because
their deeds were evil."
Equally evident is it that God made the heart for duty.
All our moral sensibilities speak out the momentous truth
that their great Author is good and loves good in his crea-
tures, that truth and duty should be the aim of every moral
agent. JllTothing more strikingly illustrates God's end in
man's creation than the universal principle upon which all
civil law, all criminal law, and all courts of justice are based.
Two words sum up the professed end of all human govern-
ment, truth and duty. However philosophers may reason,
mankind can assume no other end in human law ; human
law may be oppressive, but it does not label oppression upon
its face ; civil enactments may be unjust, but they never pro-
fess to seek injustice rather than justice; human decisions
may be erroneous, but they never acknowledge that error
rather than truth is aimed at. It is not thus that error and
injustice walk the earth; their danger lies in their conceal-
ment, not their exposure. Here, then, is the stubborn fact
that alwaj's arrays itself against the atheist, the pantheist,
and the materialist. Mankind do act upon the principle,
whatever may be its misapplication, of treating vice as vice,
virtue as virtue, truth as truth, and error as error. Law does
profess and seek to carry out the great end of punishing vice,
protecting virtue, exposing error, and vindicating truth.
Law professing a different end would not be tolerated ;
humanity, corrupt as it is, rises up in wrath against legalized
injustice when exposed and judicial error unmasked. Ob-
serve how crime when punished is approved of; how inno-
cence tortured is condemned. Observe how the universal
voice of humanity calls for law, simply because the end pro-
168 THE EQUITY AND
fessed of law is truth and duty. Now this end, universally
professed by human law, shows clearly that the common
judgment of mankind in relation to truth and error, virtue
and vice, has its foundation in the consciousness or heart; it
is all based upon those first principles which no ingenuity or
reasoning can ignore. Indeed, those very philosophers who
loudly declaim against human personality and freedom and
responsibility; who confound moral agency with the fatalism
of mere law, and convert the great element of personality
into a thing ; those who disregard the essential distinction
between mind and matter, or who so deify cause and efi:ect
as to exclude the First Great Cause, all are compelled to go
upon the common principle of human law, that never ques-
tions the fact of the fundamental distinction between virtue
and vice, truth and error. Those philosophers who build in
their minds such fine castles of speculation, have as a plain
fact to confess their folly and repudiate their conclusions
whenever they are brought into collision with the actual
verities of life. Whatever may be the theories of philoso-
phers who seek to transcend the natural limits of reason and
deny the facts of consciousness, their practice in the every-
day concerns of life shows that they believe quite as firmly,
when their own interests are at stake, in personality, freedom,
truth, error, virtue, vice, and moral responsibility, as the
great multitude who never have had the presumption to
deny these things. All punishment and reward have their
reason in the first truths of consciousness. The very oaths
taken in a court of law involve the idea of divine authority
and human dependence and responsibility to it, confirmed by
that universal consciousness that teaches man that he is a
person, and an accountable person. Now the certainty that the
earth turns round upon its axis, or makes an annual revolu-
tion around the sun, is not more firmly established than the
facts of consciousness. It is a great truth, that deny them
as we may, we all of us have to act upon them ; all law is
built upon them ; all correct reason must use them as axioms.
When a certain slave, punished for theft, exclaimed to his
master, "I am fated (that is, necessitated) to steal," that mas-
BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. 169
terwas glad to repudiate iu practice his fine-spun philosophy
by replying to him, " And you are also/afeo? to he ivhipjml."
Looking, then, to the universally admitted facts of con-
sciousness, and considering the intuitive conviction of the
certainty of these facts, can we come to any other conclusion
than this, — that God, who made the human consciousness
and heart even as the intellect and faculty of reasoning, in-
tended that man's moral constitution should recognize the
personality and benevolence of God himself? Judging of
the maker by his workmanship, do we not find in the all-per-
vading conviction of human personality, of freedom, of moral
responsibility, of cause and effect, of the necessity and excel-
lence of virtue and truth, of the folly and injury of error and
vice, and the professed end of all law to arrive at truth and
establish justice, the certain evidence that if such is God's
work, such the established order of the world without us and
within us, then, notwithstanding the perversity of the mind
of man, his sinfulness and his guilt, notwithstanding the prev-
alence of error and crime, the character of God is vindicated,
and his being shown forth in his personality and freedom as
infinit>»'j wise, benevolent, and just?
CHAPTER XX.
"the problem of physical axd moral evil."
It will be our object to show that there have been ideas
attached to the import of the words omnipotence and infinite
benevolence altogether erroneous, and speculations upon what
the Deity might do or ought to do, in every respect unbe-
cominor the limited rans^e of the human mind.
" We have explained enough," says Leibnitz, " when we
have shown that there are cases where some disorder in a part
is necessary to the production of the greatest order in the
whole. But M. Boyle, it appears, demands a little too much.
He wishes that we should show him in detail how evil is linked
with the best possible plan of a universe. This would be a
perfect explanation of the phenomena. But we undertake
not to o^ive it, and what is more, we are not obliged to give
it, a thing impossible in the present state. It is enough for
us to make the observation, that nothing hinders, but that a
certain particular evil maybe linked with that which, viewed
in its totality, is the best. This imperfect explanation, and
which leaves something to be discovered in another life, is
sufficient for a solution of objections, but not for a compre-
hension of the thing."
This opinion of Leibnitz is deserving of careful considera-
tion. His hypothesis in respect to the introduction of evil
presents a serious obstacle in the way of those who would
imagine that its existence implied a deficiency in the benevo-
lence of God. TVhether correct or incorrect, it answers a
most useful purpose in throwing the burden of proof against
the divine benevolence upon the hands of skeptics. The
skeptic at least cannot say the present system may not on
the whole be the best possible to God; that his present
(170)
THE PROBLEM OF PHYSICAL AND MORAL EVIL. 171
universe, in its totality, witli the disorder of sin, may not be
better than any other possible universe to God. Reasoning
alone upon the ground that the greatest amount of happiness
is the greatest good, the skeptic, upon that assumption, cannot
say that for aught he knows there may not in its totality
be a greater amount of happiness in the present universe
with the incidental permission of evil, than would be in
another universe with no sin in it. If the greatest good is to
be measured by the greatest happiness in the aggregate, how
does the skeptic know but that the present universe embodies
more happiness than any other possible universe ? How does
he know but that a more permanent and larger increase of
good may result from the present order of things than from
any other ? Is the skeptic capable of prescribing to God what
should be his best kind of universe ? Does he know that
anything better, upon the whole, can be done than has been
done? Admitting that among all those possible universes
present to the mind of the Deity there was the weighing in
scales the aggregate happiness of each separate universe, can
the skeptic say that among them all the present universe,
called into existence by God, was not the best? Can his own
limited mind pronounce that God might do better than he
has done ? Can he say that there is a defect in divine power
or goodness ?
But the difficulty of the skeptic is greatly augmented when
he carefully ponders the real value of free moral agency.
One thing is certain : if sin is not possible, neither is virtue ;
if wrong cannot be committed, neither can right; if there is
no power to do evil, neither is their power to do good ; if
freedom of choice cannot exist in wickedness, neither can it
in holiness. The power of choice implies something to
choose between, vife.: the existence of two things, and one
diiierent from the other.
Free moral agency presupposes in its nature the possi-
bility of sin : for freedom in a creature to exist, there must
be the liberty of choice between the good and the evil.
The question is not then, whether a free moral agent cannot
sin, but whether he may not sin, and yet God do all things
172 THE PROBLEM OF PHYSICAL
for the best. It is whether sin and misery ma}' not exist, and
yet the present universe be the best possible to God.
We think the hypothesis of Leibnitz, upon the supposition
that the greatest good is the greatest amount of happiness,
impossible to be refuted. As such, the burden of proof is all
upon the side of the skeptic ; and, until he can show the con-
trary, he has no business to point to the existence of evil as
in any respect implying a defect in the goodness or in the
benevolence of God. It is not for the skeptic to call upon
the Christian believer to unravel the profound intricacies of
the problem of moral evil. The Christian but poorly under-
stands the real strength of his available ground when he
thinks it necessary to explain everything before he can call
upon his opponent to believe. Most happily has Leibnitz
thrown into the face of his learned adversary the unanswera-
ble w^ords : " But M. Boyle, it appears, demands a little too
much. He thinks that we should show him in detail how
evil is linked with the best possible plan of a universe. This
would he a yerfect explanation of the j^henomena."
]Srot only is it self-evident that this would be a perfect
explanation of the phenomena, but it is equally certain that
such an explanation is impossible to a finite mind. We
stand not at the commencement of the great chain of Divine
Providence, but more truly in the middle of that chain. Be-
hind us is a boundless eternity, before us lie ages everlasting.
How then, in the nature of things, can we take into detail
the universe of God ? How are we capable of sounding the
deeps of God's providence? When we measure wnth our
short line and plummet, are we conscious how vast is that
distance down which we think to go ? What arrogance then
to call upon the believer in God's inlinite goodness to explain
in detail the permission of evil ? Witfi the innumerable
positive proofs of the Divine goodness before him, is the
skeptic at liberty to question the fact of God's benevolence,
because he may not be able to see into the mystery of the
moral disorder that reigns in the world ?
Says Lactantius, who professes to have taken his views
from Epicurus : " The Deity is either willing to take away
AND MORAL EVIL. I73
all evil, but is not able to do so, in which case he is not om-
nipotent, or he is able to remove the evil, but is not willing,
in which case he is not benevolent; or he is neither willing
nor able, which is a denial of the perfections of God ; or he is
both able and willing to do away with the evil, and yet it
exists."
This dilemma, that at first sight appears so plausible, van-
ishes upon a nearer investigation. What does this dilemma
involve? Simply an assertion that cannot be proved, — even
the competence of a finite mind to prescribe what omnipo-
tence can do, and what infinite benevolence should do. But
can any scale be constructed by which we may measure infi-
nite power and benevolence ? Are we not aware that when
we separately contemplate the two attributes of infinite power
and goodness, we must look not to the outward development,
but the principle itself of Divine power and goodness ? If we
supposed omnipotence exhausted itself in the works of crea-
tion, if there was no other world or being that God could
make, then would not such an idea limit the infinity of God's
power ? Suppose the full compliment of worlds and beings
made up in the universe, if God could add nothing more,
would his power be unlimited ? If all possible exercise
of power is restricted to the present universe, then some-
thing more would be impossible. Suppose that universe
had in it a thousand degrees of happiness, one more de-
gree added would not be in the power of God. Equally
vague is the idea of the word infinite as applied to Divine
benevolence.
In the ver}" nature of things that which is infinite cannot
be restricted to actual development^ otherwise the infinite would
be finite. The measure of the infinit}- of God is to be esti-
mated from what he can do, — from the boundless resources
within his nature, — not the outward manifestation of that
nature. There is a necessary limit to a finite being of power
even as of goodness ; but the infinite being cannot exhaust
his power or benevolence in outward development, or he
would cease to be infinite and become finite. All works
must have an end ; that w^hich has a beginning in number
174 THE PROBLEM OF PHYSICAL
must have a termination in number. There is a limit to the
universe or there could be no commencement; as the uni-
verse is the aggregate of parts, so one part taken away or
something added that did not exist before, diminishes or
increases the number that goes to make np the whole. Con-
sequently, if the amount could not be increased, would not
the universe be the measure of the divine power rather than
the manifestation of it ? It should never be forgotten, that
it is wholly beyond the finite mind to prescribe bounds either
to the power or to the goodness of God.
What constitutes the essential idea of the infinity of the
attributes of God is the fact that the measure of it exists in
the nature of God, not in the outward developments of God
in the universe. The world we live in reveals the boundless
power and goodness of God, but it does not prescribe that
power or goodness, neither does the universe do it. God,
as infinite, must have in himself resources transcendentally
greater than any outward development of these resources.
" The greatest possible efibrt of infinite power," says Presi-
dent Appleton, " is a solecism in language. Infinite power is
a power without limits, but every effect is, and must be, finite.
It is absurd to speak of an effect equal to infinite power; and
it is impossible to imagine any effect so great that God can-
not produce a greater; for if all the creatures now existing
were elevated to the nature and dignity of angels, still, as
there is no 7ie plus ultra of Almighty power, they might be
raised still higher. Besides, their number might be increased.
But number implies limits; let it be doubled, trebled, or
multiplied by a million, still the product has limits; and a
limited effect bears no proportion to an unlimited cause. All
the objections to the goodness of God on account of his not
having produced happiness to the utmost of his power, do
therefore rest on absurdity. But suppose it were otherwise,
and the greatest possible effort of infinite power did not
imply a contradiction, it would still be perfectly beyond such
limited capacities as ours to ascertain whether Deity had pro-
ceeded to the utmost extent of such power in the production
of happiness. Consequently, if the objection were well-
AND MORAL EVIL. 175
founded, it would be impossible for Deity himself to enable
human creatures to ascertain his goodness."
One object in this valuable quotation is to make clear the
great truth, that no finite mind can prescribe bounds to the
power or the goodness of God. The actual development can
bear no comparison to the infinite cause. We have alluded
to the theory of Leibnitz, upon the best possible system of the
universe, not because we are partial to his optimism, which
we believe is open to objection, but because we think his
theory at least impossible to be refuted by that class of minds
who are so fond of weighing in the scales the necessarj- quan-
tity of the divine power and goodness ; who reason as if virtue
and liappiness were ponderable things, and as susceptible of
measurement and weight as sugar and corn ; but the fact is,
virtue and happiness are not capable of being weighed b}-
any analogy with material things. They refer to qualities of
moral agents, acts of responsible beings. Virtue and happi-
ness are abstract ideas, that apply not to the aggregate, but to
the individuals that make it up. It is not the univei'se that
is to be looked at, but each responsible agent in it. We are to
determine the quantity of virtue and happiness not by a
general abstraction that hems in the whole universe, but by
the merit of each individual in that universe. The divine
equity is vindicated if full justice is done to the individual,
no matter where in the scale of being he commenced, or
where he ended. It is the separate sphere where each act
that God looks at, not the whole with all compounded
together.
Let us examine what should be the chief end, and what is
the highest interest of man, — what, in truth, is the greatest
good. Is it liappiness or virtue ? Is it right or pleasure ? Is
it to be virtuous w^e should chiefly live for, or is it to be happy ?
When we contrast the two together, is not virtue the highest
of the two? The problem of the existence of physical and
moral evil is relieved of its greatest difficulty when vii-tue is
considered a greater good than happiness. God's chief end
in creation is not then to produce so much the greatest hap-
piness, as the greatest virtue; not to propose, as the highest
176 THE PROBLEM OF PHYSICAL
end to a moral agent, pleasure as duty. Happiness indeed is
connected with virtue, but it is the fruit, not the nature itself
of virtue, — the servant but not the master.
But if virtue is the highest interest of man, is not the lib-
erty to do wrong essential to its very existence? Would
there be any virtue if there was nothing to test it? If we
took away freedom, where would be the development of
right conduct? If we removed harm and suffering, where
would be the virtues of patience, of courage, of endurance,
of compassion, and of mercy ? Suppose the present universe
did not secure, in the aggregate, the greatest possible happi-
ness, who can sa}' that it does not the greatest possible virtue?
Suppose the ultimate stock of pleasure by the existence of
physical and moral evil diminished, who can say the devel-
opment of right may not be immeasurably increased ? Sup-
pose our finite minds might weigh the ultimate amount of
pleasure, and we should find it less than in some other pos-
sible universe, would not a vastly nobler manifestation of
right, a more brilliant development of virtue, more than
compensate for the loss?
But divine goodness is relieved of all objection if it can
be shown that anj- suffering, any moral evil, is consistent
with infinite benevolence. It is unnecessary for us to dis-
cuss the full amount, the extent, of moral or physical evil ;
all that we have to do is to show that any is consistent with
the goodness of God. No matter how large the amount of
evil, yet if some can be shown to be consistent with divine
benevolence, then the question at once is settled as to the
consistency of the permission of physical and moral evil
with infinite benevolence. For if some evil is necessary, or
consistent with the goodness of God, why not the existence
of all the present physical and moral evil ? Can any person
be competent to prescribe to Omnipotence what he should
do, where' he should stop, or how much evil it is proper for
him to permit in his universe ? If the greatest good is vir-
tue and not the highest pleasure, right and not the greatest
happiness; if duty is man's noblest interest, and not joy, —
AND MORAL EVIL. 177
then who can say that the present systen is not on the whole
the best for God to make ?
Let us then carefully examine whether any evil, physical
or moral, is consistent with the benevolence of God. Let
us commence with the lower order of creation. Pain and
death to the brutes are evils; but would animal existence be
possible, constituted as the world is, without death ? Is not
the aggregate amount of happiness vastly increased hy the
number of the inferior animals who come into existence ?
Would myriads of creatures enjoy existence unless death had
granted to them a sphere of enjoyment by the removal of a
surplus number? Estimating, where virtue and vice are
impossible, the goodness of God by the greatest amount of
happiness, can it be shown that as much enjoyment would
exist in the animal kingdom without death as with it? Con-
sider, also, that death renders certain an inconceivably
greater number to enjoy life. Consider again, that if it is a
gratuitous blessing to give life ; if the creature brought into
being had, previous to existence, no claim upon God for the
enjoyments granted in life, then certainly a creature has no
claim upon God for endless existence. If no favor was due
the creature before existence, certainly there can be no
demand upon God for a deathless being.
But the question at once is settled of the goodness of in-
flicting death, when the momentary evil is contrasted with
the vast amount of enjoyment afforded. Consider how great
is that enjoyment even among the lowest orders of creation !
If we could imagine them endowed with foresight, would
they not prefer their joyous life to having no life, and with
it no death ? If the cup of existence with its few pains was
offered in one hand, and non-existence with no pain in the
other, would it be difficult to determine which would be
chosen ? Contemplate the few pains that happen to the
brute creation. Now pain can be shown in the present con-
stitution of things to be a positive blessing. In the vast
majority of cases, to every individual of the brute creation,
it comes only at extremely long intervals of their existence.
The whole life is passed in enjoyment, in most cases, with
12
178 THE PROBLEM OF PHYSICAL
only the momentary uneasiness of death. Animals not hav-
ing human reason do not anticipate with dread their death.
'^ov are the pains upon the whole much greater than what
are absolutely needful for their preservation. Bodily pain is
the sentinel that keeps watch over the system. Had animals
no pain, no dread instinctive of suffering, it is inconceivable
how they could exist. No efforts would be made to avert
danger — no exertion to avoid destruction. The brute crea-
tion have just enough of uneasiness to urge to active eflbrt
to avoid physical evil. Animals are placed under just enough
of restraint to secure them from perpetual ruin.
]^or is the degree of pain equal with all. The lower down
we go in the animal scale the simpler the organization, the
more limited the sphere of exercise or enjoyment, the more
inferior the faculties, the less we have reason to believe is
the sensation of pain. Thus, as a compensation for a rela-
tive degradation in the scale of animal life, we see a diminution
of all sensibility to suffering. The head of a dragon-fly will
eat after it is severed from the body. One remarkable pecu-
liarity in respect to pain, and which reveals the benevolence
of God, is, that the nerves that give the sensation of pain are
mostly upon the surface of the body, and the deeper the in-
cision of the knife the less the pain. Thus, where it is most
needed we find pain, and where it is less needed less pain.
Upon the surface of the body there exists most danger, and
there is needed upon the surface of the body greater warn-
ing. The peculiarity of animal life is, that its existence
every moment would be endangered were it not for the prin-
ciple of fear engendered by pain. Can, then, the existence of
physical evil to the lower orders of creation conflict in any
degree with the benevolence of God ? Do we not find it
even a strong evidence of divine goodness? Could it be,
under the present constitution of things, dispensed with
without great detriment ? Here, then, is one step taken
to show that some evil is clearly consistent with infinite
benevolence !
Let us, then, ascend up to a higher order of creatures : let
us take man. Here we come to a free moral agent ; here we
AND MORAL EVIL. 179
find conscience, a moral sense, the feeling of responsibility
and obligation. If man is a free moral agent, then the pos-
sibility of his fiilling into sin is directly involved in it. Then
there must be liberty of choice, the ability of choosing between
the good and the bad, the inherent power of being virtuous or
vicious. The freedom involved in man's moral nature must
enable him to obey or disobey. Can the objector to the
divine goodness — because man is a sinner, and therefore liable
to sufi^ering and punishment — say that it would be better
that man's freedom should be taken awa}-, that his liberty
should cease to exist, than that he should be liable to evils
so great ?
Remove human freedom, and what is the result? Is it
not the absence of that which is man's highest privilege
and most exalted dignity ? Is God to be blamed because
man so perverts his highest prerogative ? Because man's
freedom can be made the instrument of his ruin, is that a
reason why infinite benevolence should not bestow it? Must
then there be, as the only alternative, the nature of brutes?
Is the goodness of God to be impeached because there may
be involved in the most costly gift a greater evil from its
abuse ? Would it be a blessing to have no conscience, no
freedom of choice, no exalted powers of man made in the
image of God, because that very moral agency involves in it
the essential power of free choice ? Is compulsory virtue,
virtue? Is forced freedom, freedom? Do we want to be
brutified, with no other power to guide than instinct? Do
we ask for mechanical action, and the disrobing of our na-
tures of reason, of conscience, and the angelic power of moral
faculties? Is such the price we would be willing to pay for
exemption from moral evil ?
But the fact that virtue, not happiness, duty, not pleas-
ure, right, not jo}', is the greatest good and our highest in-
terest, relieves the subject of moral and physical evil of its
greatest difiiculty. So long as we look upon happiness as the
greatest good, and the greatest happiness as the greatest end,
the mind will insensibly fall into the notion of happiness as
if it was subject to weight and measure, and the chief thing
180 THE PROBLEM OF PHYSICAL
to be considered in relation to man. Consequently we shall
imbibe the idea of the present sj'stera with Leibnitz, as the
best possible with God, and b}' onr peculiar theory of opti-
mism directly, if not knowingly, limit divine power or good-
ness. What other inference but this, while happiness, not
virtue, pleasure, not duty, is made the greatest good? But
exalt the idea of right, the principle of virtue, above happi-
ness, and then at once the inference is conclusive that hap-
piness and pleasure, as subordinate, may before the higher
principle of virtue and duty be sacrificed. The only question
we ever need ask is. What will make us virtuous? not. What
will make us happy? Then shall we judge not only that
happiness is inferior to virtue, but must always make way
for it : so for then, under certain circumstances, have we any
reason to doubt of the goodness of God because of the de-
nial of happiness, that we are compelled to admit that a
much higher blessing would be lost unless there was the
sacrifice of happiness.
The idea that suffering and pain, physical and mental,
throw doubt upon the goodness of God is at once shown
fallacious, when we consider that such suffering may be
essential for the trial of virtue, — that the noblest develop-
ment of virtue may be in a state of probation, — that the
world, as a scene of discipline, may be the best possible for
man a sinner, — that with wrong committed and liberty per-
verted, there must be sutfering and pain. Such an idea
makes every objection to the goodness of God from the
existence of evil altogether without foundation. The great
law of our finite condition is progress, not attainment.
Happiness, however great, is not the great end : virtue is the
grand end. But virtue is action, not a state ; it implies
effort, increase, constant progress. Happiness is being,
virtue is doing ; consequently the cultivation of virtue — the
giving to moral agents the noblest sphere for its exercise —
is a higher end in creation than happiness.
Temptation, evil, pain, trial, danger, may be necessarj' to
secure the noblest end of virtue, l^one can say it is not so.
None can aflirm that God has not chosen the best system for
AND MORAL EVIL. 181
such an object. None can ofter tlie existence of evil as any
objection to infinite goodness. Our moral constitution, the
light of nature and revelation, teach us the contrarj^; both
assure us that God is good. The divine benevolence is as
boundless as the divine wisdom and power. The problem
of moral and physical evil need not trouble a single mind;
it has nothing in it to infringe upon the goodness of God.
Our ignorance is the sole ground of our mistakes. We are
constantly liable to overlook the greatest good in an inferior
one. God, as inlinite in his perfections, cannot be fully com-
prehended by our finite minds, — finite in their progress.
This only we know, we can place no limit to the pow^er or
to the goodness of God. How ungrateful are we to complain
at God's works, — to imagine the fish should be elevated to
the scale of quadrupeds, quadrupeds to men, and men to
angels, — to be envious because some are more learned, or
rich, or higher in the scale of being than ourselves, — to find
fault, not with our want of virtue, but happiness, — to think
we might improve upon the order of the universe ! How
ungrateful to be spying out always the evils, and never to
think of the blessings ! Is there to be no end to our
captious questions ?
But these questions force us to pass beyond the limit
of human agency and human power, and lead us directly
into the infinite sphere of divine power and benevolence.
But let us abstain from language as thankless as it is useless.
Let us bow before the infinite mind. Let us trust in the
boundless goodness of God. Let virtue and eternal right be
the end of our being, and then happiness, such as God only
can give, shall be our portion.
Most appropriately, upon the permission of evil, does Ho-
race Bushnell remark : " So far, the possibility of evil ap-
pears to be necessarily involved in the existence of a realm
of powers ; whether it shall also be a fact, depends on other
considerations yet to be named. One of the most valued
and most triumphantly asserted arguments of our new school
of sophists is dismissed in this manner at the outset. God,
they say, is omnipotent, and being omnipotent, he can, of
182 THE PROBLEM OF PHYSICAL
course, do all things. If, therefore, he chooses to have no
sin, or disobedience, there will be no sin or disobedience ;
and if we fall on what is sin to us, it will only be a form of
good to him, and would be also to us, if we could see far
enough to comprehend the good. The argument is well
enough, in case men are things only and not powers; they
are, by the supposition, to act as being uncaused in their
action, which excludes any control of them by God's om-
nipotent force, and then what becomes of the argument ?
" But it will be peremptorily required of us, at this point,
to answer another question ; viz.. Why God should have
created a realm of powers, or free agents, if they must needs
be capable, in this manner, of wrong and misery ? Without
acknowledging for one moment that I am responsible for the
answer of any such question, and denying explicitly the
right of any mortal to disallow or discredit any act of God,
because he cannot comprehend the reasons of it, I will
simply say in replj', that it is enough for me to be allowed
the simple hypothesis that God preferred to have powers and
not things only; because he loves character; and apart from
this, cares not for all the mere things that can be piled in
the infinitude of space itself, even though they be diamonds;
because, in bestowing on a creature the perilous capacity of
character, he bestows the highest possibility of wrath and
glory, — a capacity to know, to love, to enjoy, to be consciously
great and blessed in the participation of his own divinity and
character. For if all the orbs of heaven were so many solid
Kohinoors, glittering eternally in the sun, what were they
either to themselves or to him ; or if they should roll eter-
nally, undisturbed in the balance of their attractions, what
were they to each other? Is it any impeachment of God
that he did not care to reign over an empire of stones ? If
he has deliberately chosen a kind of empire not to be ruled
by force; if he has deliberately set his children beyond that
kind of control, that they ma}- be governed by truth, reason,
love, want, fear, and the like, acting through their consent;
if we find them able to act against the will of God, as
stones and vegetables cannot, what more is necessary to
AND MORAL EVIL. 183
vindicate his goodness than to suggest that he has given
them, possibly, a capacity to break allegiance, in order
that there may be a meaning and a glory in allegiance,
when they choose it ? There is, then, such a thing in-
herent in the system of powers as a possibility of wrong ;
for, given the possibility of right, we have the possibility of
wvong."
CHAPTER XXI.
THE NATURAL AND THE SUPERNATURAL.
" The physical or immediate cause of any event," says Prof.
iN^ichol on the solar system, " is merely that event without
which as a precedent the other never occurs. We say that
one event causes or brings about another, not because aught
is visible — any peculiar virtue in the first event which neces-
sitates the second — but because it is so arranged in the
economy of the known universe that when the first happens
the second always follows it ; and if we find events so ordered,
that in a long series of changes they succeed each other in
a certain recognizable plan, we term that observed plan the
law of these events. The name, or word law, does not thus
involve the idea or any controlling power: it is the mere re-
sult of an observed succession, — the mode by which we thread
together in our minds the different events which befall; and
if the slightest element involving control is properl}' con-
nected with it, it can only be in reference to the relation of
such succession to spiritual or mental phenomena, and ulti-
mately as it represents that Idea in the Almighty mind
according to which the order in question was arranged.
" Regarding Law, not as causative, but expressive, — as
the simple indication of mighty arrangements, a gleam into
the finite mind from that of the Creator, — surely the farthest
stretch of vision which man can ever achieve is only a further
disclosure of Almighty glory and excellency."
The natural is peculiarly the sphere of the development of
law as related to second causes, or causes dependent for their
original power upon the First Cause. Now, whether this
divine power is every instant of time felt energizing all
second causes, and producing effects through an immediate
(184)
THE NATURAL AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 185
interposition of force in all cases, or whether a constitution
is given under the name of nature that has in itself a power
of causality distinct from the First Cause, that in certain sub-
ordinate relations may be said as restricted to this constitu-
tion to be developed from itself alone, yet one thing is
certain, the nature of everything as made by God is always
developed under its own laws; and this constitution, be it that
of a stone, a tree, a fish, a bird, or quadruped, shows itself
under natural laws specific to each thing or creature, and
unfolding itself under a uniform principle of order and ad-
justment.
It is easy to see how this regularity in all natural law is the
foundation of all the securit3'and happiness of creatures, and
why all liuman reasoning is based upon it. That God should
give a constitution to everything appropriate for the end for
which it was made, might easily be inferred from the fact
that he has himself a nature, and that nature is the embodi-
ment of all his infinite perfections. A correct idea of nature
and its laws, as related to creatures or anything created,
would dissipate the common illusion that regularity was
always inconsistent with change, and uniformity with sus-
pension. Nature never would be worshiped as the cause of
all things, or natural law deified at the expense of its maker.
But the great idea to consider is not so much what is the
constitution of nature, or what are its laws, as what is the
end for which this constitution w^as made, — what lies at the
foundation of all these processes of nature, and for which
they were instituted. In reply, we must consider that all
natural law, and all the varieties of inanimate or animate ex-
istence, have a relation to one grand whole, so that nothing
exclusively is made for itself. Thus, nature is not only a
process of development, each part aiding another, and all in-
terwoven together, but nature has for its end the shadowing
forth of the perfections of God and the display of his glory,
be it in inanimate or animate creation. No other end on the
admission of a God is possible or even conceivable. God
must be in himself the infinite center and circumference of all
existence, — all thought, all wisdom, power, and goodness, —
186 THE NATURAL AND
or we must deny the fundamental distinction between mind
and matter, and make nature and its laws the only God that
has a being, which would involve pantheism or materialism.
To undertake to define with clearness what is the constitu-
tion of nature, what are its laws and their relations one to
another, has been the hopeless effort of philosophers in all
ages. We can only say in popular language, what are the
obvious phenomena of nature ; we can only classify its opera-
tions under certain general laws ; we can only point the in-
quirer into its secrets to a few of the outside properties of
nature, and give specific names to each uniform diversity of
action ; but beyond this, the highest, even as the feeblest, in-
telligence must ever be in the dark.
Evidence most overwhelming is given to us to show that
nature is not God, or God nature; and when we have arrived
at the most obvious of all truths, that there is a God inde-
pendent of nature, its author and preserver, then the most
sensible of all inquiries must be, for what is nature made?
What are the phenomena of its existence ? How are they
developed, and what that individual and universal process
which limit its operations ? It is not difficult to reply to
such questions. Nature, as the workmanship of God, must
have a certain constitution, must develop itself under certain
laws ; those laws must have enstamped the impress of uni-
formit}', of a regular process, of like effects following like
causes, of invariabilit}' of action under similar circumstances,
of constant manifestation under its appropriate conditions.
But when the question is asked, must there never be any de-
viation ? must God never act above his natural laws, or give
a new power, or impose new relations, or institute new con-
ditions of development, or supersede these laws, or act in
direct opposition to them? This can only be answered by
saj'ing, that if there was a time when nature was not, if a
period did exist when its laws had no being, if evidence con-
clusive does show that nature itself is but a process of devel-
opment, and, following the law of the separate parts that go
to make it up, has revealed a birth, a maturity, and decline,
then in the process of ages the grand whole may and will
THE SUPERNATURAL. 187
reach that stage where a total change shall pass over its ex-
istence, and new laws and a new nature shall take the place
of the old.
In confirmation of this, science and revelation both agree ;
XhQy both point to the preadamite ages of the world, to the
evening and morning of those six days of creation, enstamp-
ing on all material things the great law of jjrocess, and
disabusing the mind of an endless perpetuity to any existing
manifestation of nature. The supernatural is peculiarly con-
sistent with the past history of this earth ; it is absolutely
essential whenever a new epoch of development comes into
existence. It is impossible to argue from the existing regu-
larity of nature's laws, that always this has been so, or that
never it will cease to be as it is. We have the records of
science and revelation to show that there was a time when
the great fabric of nature, including our earth and its in-
habitants, was first put up ; when new laws came in to carry
out new adjustments and conditions ; when a new process was
evolved from a pre-existent state, and nature put on a new
raiment; when life sprang from death, order from confusion,
and beauty from deformity.
The question then presents itself, is there anything more
than the natural? is the supernatural inconsistent with just
ideas of God or nature? i^ot if past history teaches the con-
trary ; not if the great end of creation must be to manifest
the perfections of God ; not if the light we can gather from
an investigation of nature, and the declarations of revelation
show that there are times when either nature must be created
or made anew, or there be interposed laws other and higher
than any now existing.
Most appropriatel}' does Professor George Fisher remark :
" There can be no doubt that a powerful tendency to panthe-
istic modes of thought is rife at the present day. The popu
lar literature, even in our country, is far more widely infected
in this way than unobservant readers are aware. The laws
of nature are hypostasized, — spoken of as if they were a self-
active being; and not unfrequently the same tendency leads
to the virtual, if not explicit, denial of the free and responsi-
188 THE NATURAL AND
ble nature of man. History is resolved by a class of writers
into the movement of a great macliine, — into the revolution
of events with which the free will neither of God nor of man
has any connection.
" We are thus brought back in our analysis of the contro-
versy with the existing unbelief to the postulates of natural
religion. On these the Christian apologist forms the pre-
sumption or anterior probability that a revelation will be
given. It is more and more apparent that the cause of natural
religion and that of revealed religion are bound up together.
But the native convictions of the human mind concerning
God and duty cannot be permanently destroj^ed. Atheism
is an affront alike to the inquiring reason and the uplooking
soul of man. Pantheism mocks his religious nature. It is
inconsistent with religion, with prayer, with worship, — with
that communion with a higher Being, which is religion. It
is inconsistent also with morality in any earnest meaning
of the term : for it empties free will and responsibilit}^,
holiness and sin, of their meaning. Every one who acknowl-
edges the feeling of guilt to be a reality and to represent the
truth, and every one who blames the conduct of another in
the very act, denies the pantheistic theory. Conscience must
prove in the long run stronger than any speculation, no
matter how plausible. In the soul itself, then, in its aspira-
tion after the living God, and its conviction of freedom and
of sin, there is erected an everlasting barrier against the in-
roads of false philosophy, and one that will be found to em-
brace within the shelter of its walls the cause of Christianity
itself."
Thus it will be seen that nature and its laws do not con-
flict with the development of the supernatural, for nature is
the result of the divine workmanship, and natural law origin-
ates from the constitution God imparts to nature. Panthe-
ism and materialism both are based upon the deilication of
nature and shutting out God from his works. Natural law,
if either is true, must resolve itself into an unyielding fatality,
and the utter denial of the supernatural. But admit the per-
sonality of God, the fact that nature is only the work of his
THE SUPERNATURAL. 189
hands, and then the inference is inevitable that the constitu-
tion that he has given to it must be such that nature in its
totahty will as certainly pass through a change involving the
necessity of the supernatural, as that any of its parts have a
birth, maturity, and decline. If the end for which nature
was made is to show forth the perfections of God, it must
appear to the last degree improbable that an eternity would
be given to it of the undeviating operation of natural law,
and that no principle of change should be enstamped upon
the works of God. It is the very fact that this uniformity is
broken in upon, that undeviating regularity has its prescribed
bounds, that natural law has its limits, that gives the highest
proof of a power above nature, which makes nature the ser-
vant and not the master; because God does interpose at
times, and gives a new nature, and new development of law,
and new relations and conditions of life; because he does
show that there is a birth, maturity, and decline, and that
when the time comes nature itself must die without super-
natural intervention, that God shows that the throne of do-
minion is restricted to himself alone. But suppose this
was not so, suppose nature had its eternal circuit of uni-
formity, suppose natural law never was broken in upon, and
all this visible earth, and sun, and moon, all this universal
nature existed under an inflexible and eternal type of devel-
opment, going round its endless circle of causality with no
forces emerging but those evolved in the ages of the past,
how certain the inference that nature must be God, or above
God!
Here we see the necessity of the supernatural. It is the
great principle manifested in Providence, shownng the de-
pendence of the creature upon the Creator, and that the world
is not a machine, having in itself wheels of perpetual move-
ment. Take the idea of the supernatural away, and nature
is reduced to a clock which, once wound up, runs forever.
Thus, as we study the constitution of nature, we are im-
pressed with the fact, ever growing in importance, that over
and above the first setting in motion the machinery of the
universe, there must be an ever-present power, above all
190 THE NATURAL AND
second causes, that superintends every instant the compli-
cated forces of universal nature, adjusting, regulating, direct-
ing and restraining, giving to each part its respective limit,
and combining the whole in one universal harmony. It is in
this way that alone we can solve the great problem of the
preservation of the universe, or account for the harmonious
adjustment of those laws that in other respects would involve
inextricable confusion;
Without entering into the investigation of the scriptural
meaning of the six days of creation, — as this more properly
comes under the department of revealed theology, — it is only
needful to say that all history and science confirm this won-
derful record of the preadamite ages. The evening and the
morning distinctly teach us of two different states of exist-
ence, and foreshadow in each of the six great epochs of crea-
tion the intervention of the supernatural to give a higher type
of being to our earth.
Most appropriately does Professor Tayler Lewis, in his
work on the six days of creation, remark: "As surely as
there is written on the rocks the long working of regular,
uninterrupted laws or methods, in which each step or stage
seems to come out of what went before, and to have given
birth to what comes after (for this is the only consistent
meaning we can attach to the word natural,) so surely is
there found another record as strangely, and we may even
say more unmistakably, engraved. From a higher world
than the natural there must have been from time to time a
sudden flashing in of the extraordinary, of the supernatural,
of a new morning after the long night of nature; or, in other
words, the divine power introducing, or bringing out, if any
prefer the term, a new element, a new force, a new law, a
new idea, call it what you will, accompanied with new
methods, or laws for its subsequent growth or development,
and then leaving it to their undisturbed operation."
This is precisely the idea we have of the great distinction
existing between the supernatural and the natural, which is
found enstamped on the records of all history and all science.
To conceive that an infinitely wise, powerful, and benevolent
THE SUPERNATURAL. 191
God would give up to nature all that which would peculiarly
mark his own existence as independent and above nature,
even as controlling it, is impossible. To believe this, a man
must shut his eyes to every good argument addressed to the
understanding, and be willfully blind to the clearest facts of
history. The great reason for the supernatural lies in the
necessity of revealing to all moral agents that God has nature
under his perfect control, that he acts according to his own
will, and cannot be confined in his movements to the sphere
of any natural law. To limit himself to this would be to
hide the most sensible evidence of his personality and infinite
superiority to nature, for nature is not, and cannot be, a self-
perpetuating machine with no end. There is enstamped on
all natures an inherent law of birth, maturity, and decline.
It is seen in all vegetation, all animal existence; and if we
carry the analogy into the history of nations as individuals,
we see there also a process of infancy, growth, manhood, and
decline; and could we measure the ages of inanimate exist-
ence, of the solid earth and planets, as we do the days of our
sun-measured lives, through the whole physical universe there
would be seen a mighty cyclical law pervading, and making
out as distinctly a limit to movement in time as there is en-
stamped a limit in extension. Space would no more certainly
have its boundary in the creation of worlds than time its
limit in their existence. As the natural was never made to
boast of an infinity of creations, so also it cannot an eternity
of duration. An inherent necessity must be in nature to die
out, or the supernatural never could reveal itself in its glory.
Nature must have its constitution from God, and that consti-
tution must teach the great lesson of its infinite inferiority to
its author. But how teach this lesson, except by a vivid
contrast with him ; how teach it unless it bears the impress
of subordination and dependence ? God is unchangeable, in-
finite, and eternal. Nature must be changeable, finite, and
limited. It must spring from the supernatural, be controlled
by it, and find its limit in it. Consequently, natural law,
while it must be a rule to the creature, can be no rule to
the Creator. God holds it in his hands as the charioteer
192 THE NATURAL AND
the reins of his fleet steeds, and while he permits them to run
in their appointed course, he yet controls those instruments
which otherwise would bring ruin upon all. If, then, as far
as our experience and observation go, as far as the teachings
of science and history extend, we find no exception to that
cj'clical law that limits with equal certainty the age of the
forest leaf as the monarch that roams the desert, the flower of
the field as the life of man, the insect of a day as the oak of
centuries, why should we hesitate to believe that the world
may die out as certainly as the creatures that inhabit it ? Why
should we refuse to credit the old age of the future, as we are
compelled to confess that of the past ? All this may be true,
and yet a higher stage of existence be superinduced upon
that which has ceased to be. A nobler life may be evolved
from that life which is quenched in death. The naturalist
alone must find everything to discourage him ; he never
looks upon nature, however fair, but that he reads in every
lineament the revolving wheel of birth and death. Not one
of the vegetable or animal creation is an exception : he rushes
for consolation to the solid earth ; he welcomes inanimate na-
ture ; he says, here is the changeless, the immutable, the
eternal ; here are laws whose uniformity is never broken in
upon ; here are the ages that roll on in an undying regu-
larity ; but, as he explores the buried-up archives of land
and sea and rock, as he climbs the mountains or goes down
into the deep caverns, he finds the extinct remains of species
of animals that speak of a condition totally unlike the pres-
ent; he finds proof of a pre-existing condition where even
the denizens of the land could not live ; beyond this he goes
where air and water could have no inhabitants, and ages be-
yond he sees a condition where all must be chaos and night.
"Why, then, should he infer that the present is more perma-
nent than the past; that the supernatural, so essential in ages
that have gone by, may not be equally as desirable in the
ages to come ?
This is peculiarly evident when we consider that natural
law only expresses the law of a part of nature, — that nature
is made up of an endless variety of things, and that each of
THE SUPERNATURAL. 193
the immberless parts of nature has its own law, and can only
exist by a proper adjustment to the whole. So when natural
law is spoken of, the question must always arise, What law? Is
it the law of the atmosphere, of heat, of gravitation, of chemi-
cal combination, of vegetation, of animal growth, or of any
thing else? Now, the word nature simply means the present
constitution of things with all its variety of laws ; and to
speak of this constitution as eternal and its laws as change-
less, is to belie all history and science as a fact, without any
attempt at explanation. We know that supernatural inter-
vention has alwaj's marked the ages of the world. The very
end for which the world was made, for which its varied in-
habitants were created, reveals the great fact that nature
has enstamped upon it a higher impress than that Avhich
secures its present action. The wliole follows the same
law that is the condition of the individual parts. The
circle of existence is no more endless than the process of de-
velopment,— the finite is as true in duration as the limit
of worlds in space. A higher power must intervene to give
a new impulse to the worn-out machinery of natural law ;
must impart to the old nature a new power; must bring it
under new conditions, and place it upon a nobler scale of de-
velopment. When the time-piece of the old world runs
down, then another supernatural intervention must wind it
up, and from the ruin of the past evolve a better creation.
" The position we have reached," says Professor Tayler
Lewis, "is that all natures — lesser natures, greater natures,
specific natures, general natures, the one universal nature —
have all one law of growth, maximum, decline, ortus, transihis,
interitus; and that if one outlives one or more revolutions, it
is only to go round in a similar cycle, with a corresponding
law of decrease at each repetition. In other words, the
cyclical law is the law of all natures, or, as we might say, the
nature of all natures. If we are not satisfied with any attempted
a 'priori ^YOoi\ there is the inductive, or a jjosteriori avgnvaeut
derived from experience. This may be very limited, but it
knows of no exceptions. It is decidedly against the doctrine
of any etenial progress severed from the idea of the super-
194 THE NATURAL AND
natural, as far as we can judge, from 'the things that are
seen;' this is the process of all natures. They all repeat
themselves, they all have a tendency to run out. We see it
everywhere in the natural world. We discover it, more-
over, in existences of a higher character, which, although
not strictly belonging to the physical in their essence, have
their manifestation in connection with it. We trace it to
some extent in the moral world, in social and political
systems, in psychological developments, in intellectual and
literary periods. These, too, have their growth, maximum,
decline. A nation has its birth, youth, manhood, and old
age. What we call the 'age,' too, presents often the same
manifestation. But in nature, strictly, as far as our observation
can extend, there are no exceptions, — none that are such, even
in appearance. Some of the periods are but for moments, —
that is, moments in our modes of estimation, — some are for
hours, some for days, for seasons, for years, for ages; but in
all the same cyclical law reigns predominant. Each has its
birth, its youth, its age, its perfection, and its imperfection, its
growth, its decay, its reviviscence, its winter, its spring, its
evening of torpor and repose, its new morning, when, like the
sun in its circuit, it again sets out to run its appointed round
as one of the lesser wheels in the Gilgal Toledeth, or the
great wheel of the universal nature.
" Unless, therefore, the Scripture expressly contradicts, we
cannot resist the conviction that would convey this analogy
from the lowest to the highest manifestation in the physical
universe. As we go back from solar days to seasons, from
seasons to years, from years to lesser times of plants and ani-
mals, from these to ages that witness the growth and decline
of species and genera, we cannot reject the thought that there
are still higher (i«^s, and seasons, and years. God and nature
cannot be supposed to stop short with our sense, and our his-
tory, and our inductions. The ever-widening spiral carries
us upward to the ages of ages — the aiw^^a^ tmv aluj'^w^ — pos-
sessed of the same cyclical character, and during which God
employed the same cyclical law in the production of worlds,
and Scripture does not forbid it. To one who will read it
THE SUPERNATURAL. 195
aright, the whole aspect of the sublime account in Genesis is
consistent alone with such a view, while it is greatly aided by
those remarkable expressions in other parts of the Bible,
where the utmost power of language seems taxed to convey
one, the idea of the vast duration of God's kingdom (his visible
outward dynamical kingdom) in the ages that preceded the
growth of our world as well as in those that are to come.
From all this we infer not only the fact, but the absolute ne-
cessity, of repeated creative or supernatural acts ; and this not
only to raise nature from time to time to a higher degree,
but to arouse and rescue her from that apparent death into
which, when left to herself, she must ever fall. The super-
natural becomes the originator of a new nature, or the re-
storer and vivifier of an old ; but this, too, in time runs out, or
tends to run out. There comes again the evening, the win-
ter, the period of growing torpor, from which a new creative
word alone can recall the dying c^'cle ; and hence the neces-
sity of such word, not only to the higher progress, but to the
very existence, of the universe. So also in the moral world.
Here, too, we trace a similar analogy, if not the same law.
In the moral as well as the physical kingdom, there is extraor-
dinary manifestation, the new life, the powerful growth, the
apparent decay, and then the long reign of ordinary moral
causes, until, when the spiritual seems almost sunk in the
natural, God comes forth from the 'hiding-place of his
power,' and there is a new exhibition of the supernatural
word and supernatural grace, reviving everything from its
night of torpor and decay. It is something more than a
metaphor when such reviviscences are styled a morning, and
the period they usher in,« day, — a day of light, a day of life,
a day of power, a day of the right hand of the Most High.
Such days as, we may yet expect, are coming upon the Church
and the world."
So full of importance is this forcible presentation of a sub-
ject that must ever involve the deepest mystery, that the mind
naturally lingers long in the contemplation of those ages that
have called forth, and always will call forth, the highest inter-
position of the supernatural ; and the question ai'ises. Why,
196 THE NATURAL AND
wlien a line is so distinctly drawn between God and liis
works, nature and its author, the law of the natural and the
supernatural, is there room in the human mind at all for the
vagaries of pantheism and materialism, or the degrading
systems of heathen superstition ? Why does human philos-
ophy carry with it so much the impress of ungodliness, and
tend so universally to the denial of God, or the removing
him from his works ? If humanity was sinless, would not the
tendency be as natural to view God in his works as that of
the law of heat to expand ? But considering the universal
friction of sin, are we not compelled to admit that the moral
disease that blinds the mind and hardens the heart is the
real solution to those difhculties that are presented in human
belief and practice ?
Arnold has well remarked, in one of his sermons, " The
clearest notion which can be given of rationalism would, I
think, be this, that it is the abuse of the understanding in
subjects where the divine and human, so to speak, are inter-
mingled. Of human things the understanding can judge, of
divine things it cannot; and thus, where the two are mixed
together, its inability to judge of the one part makes it de-
range the proportions of both, and the judgment of the whole
is vitiated. For example, the understanding examines a mi-
raculous history: it judges truly what I may call the human
part of the case, — that is to say, of the rarity of miracles, of
the fallibility of human testimony, of the proneness of most
minds to exaggeration, and of the critical arguments aftecting
the genuineness or date of the narrative itself. But it for-
gets the divine part, namely, the power and providence of
God, that he is really ever present among us, and that the
spiritual world which exists invisibly all around us, may con-
ceivably and by no means impossibly exist at some times, and
to some persons, even visibly."
Thus it will be seen that the admission of a personal God
brings with it the admission of nature dependent upon him,
brings with it the reasonableness of the supernatural, and in-
volves its development in accordance with no other law than
simply the will of the Creator, a power put forth that can be
THE SUPERNATURAL. 197
shown ouly by the simple fact, and which will ever in its
philosophy elude the highest researches of the human mind.
Revealed theology comes to us presupposing the great
truths of natural theology. It enters into no proof of the ex-
istence of God, of creation, of conscience, of the fall, of hu-
man sinfulness. These are the very foundations upon which
it builds ; they are the axioms, self-evident, universally ac-
knowledged, of all divine theology; the}^ form the admitted
propositions, felt and seen, and known to be never denied
with the shadow of reason ; and yet while denied they can
only be through an agency and cause that has its very seat
in the perversion, the prostitution, and, if possible, the abne-
gation of an element inhuman nature that God has placed as
the first and last witness of himself, even the conscience.
If the question is asked, Why is revealed theology denied ?
the answer must be found in the fact that some, if not all of
the axioms of natural theology are forgotten, ignored, or
positively rejected. It has been our object to show that the
natural, which is the sphere especially of second causes, must
involve the supernatural in some way. God must be the
First Cause of nature, and the parts which go to make it up
must intimately depend upon him. " Man uses machinery,"
says G. Cummings, " a lever to move a weight — but we do
not consider the power as in the machinery or the lever; as
in this instance the machinery does not render unnecessary
the agency of man, so do not secondary causes exclude the
agency of God."
Our idea, then, of all secondary causes, is simply that in the
world of matter the action is ah extra., while in the spiritual
world it is ab intra. Matter has its principle of movement
from without, mind from within. The constitution of nature,
in relation to both mind and matter, will, therefore, be in ac-
cordance with the law of each, except in those cases where
all natural law is suspended, or superseded, or made to give
way to another and totally different law. What that law will
be can only be decided in the mind of God himself. There
are innumerable cases where the supernatural is simply above
all natural law, where it means only a new force that is in-
198 THE NATURAL AND
fused into the old law, a new energy that gives higher efH-
cienej to the natural, and enables it to accomplish what
otherwise it would not.
Tljen, again, the supernatural nvny assume the type of
originating matter, introducing substances and their laws that
never before existed, as when the first matter was made, or
the first man. These all comprehend a distinct and perfectly
dift'erent application of power from that which subsequently
is manifested. Then, again, the supernatural may be seen
acting in direct opposition to existing laws, and producing
effects not only above all natural laws, but setting them alto-
gether aside, as in raising tlje dead to life. The type of the
supernatural in relation to mind and matter, may have as
varied an application as that manifested in mitural laws. It
may be concealed in its operation, with difficulty discrimi-
nated from the known operation of nature, or it may be as
obvious as the lightning flash, and compelling conviction of
the direct agency of God in the dullest intellect. Especially
in relation to mind the supernatural may be, and often is,
more concealed, for mind presents a profounder depth of
mystery even than matter, and therefore where most un-
known there may be most frequent the direct agenc}' of God.
And yet the view we entertain of the supernatural, and its
frequent occurrence when concealed, does not conflict witli
the exercise of man's free moral agency, or make impossible
the freedom of human volition with the existence of second
causes. The law of the mind and that of matter are totally
distinct in this respect, — that matter is passive and must be
acted upon, the force applied must be from without, while
mind acts from within, is self-caused, and therefore can, in per-
fect consistency with the supernatural, have connected with
it the element of individuality, of voluntariness, and free-
dom. It therefore exists under limitations, but not the limit-
ations of matter. As originating from the First Cause, it
must be dependent upon it, and yet that dependence be such
as to exalt it to the highest stage of moral responsibility, and
bring reward or its o})posite.
Here, then, we see nature under innumerable modes of man-
THE SUPERNATURAL. 199
ifestation, and expressive of substances totally distinct, each
having^ their own laws, and each in their existence and dura-
tion bounded bj' the law that existis in the divine mind. We
follow on the great chain of causation, and we reach finally
the last link that is upheld by the hand of God. The super-
natural is above, below, within, and around the natural. As
we resolve the forces of nature into their simplest elements,
we find behind them all more recondite forces that have
eluded our investigation; we go deeper and deeper still into
our analj'sis of the causes that keep the wheels of life in mo-
tion, or in the inanimate creation we submit to chemical law
the ditierent substances of nature ; and yet the uiost subtle
processes of the chemist teach us the great lesson that there
are causes at work, bound up in elements, that can never be
analyzed or understood. One thing, however, we do know,
that no inconsistency would be so great, no absurdity so mani-
fest, as to confound the natural and the supernatural in the
same thing.
Most appropriately does Professor Tayler Lewis remark,
" If any one ask, Why does God Avork in this way ? What
"need has he of natures? we can onl}- sa}', ' So it seemeth good
in his sight.' He could doubtless have made all things dif-
ferenth', but then we know it would not have been the best
way, because he has not adopted it. He works through na-
ture, or a succession of natures, no one developing another,
yet each pre})aring the way for the one that is to succeed.
We see enough of the universe to know that this is the
method, and, thus considered, the general view is unaffected
by the measures of duration. It is of no importance to the
argument whether the flow seems more or less rapid as
viewed from our stand-point, or as measured b}' the shorter
periods of that exactly divided physical sj-stem to which our
thinking, that is, our flow of ideas, has become confirmed. It
is still the great principle, whether it appears in the growth
of the fungus, the ' son of a night,' in the growth of the plant
that lives for years, in the growth of a tree that endures for
centuries, in the growth of worlds whose cyclical law extends
through ?eons of ages, embracing a duration equal perhajis to
200 THE NATURAL AND
millennial or millions of niilleiinial recurrences of such cycles
as are made by our exact sun-measured years. It is the great
principle for which we contend; and, this established, it cer-
tainly ought to guide us in our interpretations of a record
which professes to reveal the creative acts of God. If we thus
view nature as a stream of causation governed by a certain
law, which not onlj' regulates, but limits, its movements, then
the supernatural, as its name imparts, would be all above im-
iure, — in other words, that power of God which is employed
' according to the counsel of his own will,' in originating,
controlling, limiting, increasing, opposing, or terminating
nature, whether it be the universal, or any particular or par-
tial, nature. Thus regarded, the supernatural would assume
various aspects, to which we may give distinctive names. As
originating nature, we may call it the ante-natural: as adding a
new force to a previously existing nature, it may be styled
'prseternatural, althougli there are some uses of the word that
might var}' from this idea. If such new power, though
higher than tlie previous nature, is in harmony with and
works through it, tlius producing a higher order of results,
though still through it and by it, then it may be named the
connatural, since in this manner, in connection with the old,
it truly becomes itself a new nature. When the divine power
is in immediate and direct opposition to nature, breaking
through its laws, and producing events the opposite of what
would have come out of its unobstructed sequences, then
may we rightly call it the contra-natural, — such as those inter-
positions that are generally termed miraculous."
From this contemplation of the supernatural, it will be
seen that it must be totally opposed to those great errors
that for ages have been developed in the history of man.
Consider that type of error that goes under the general
name of superstition. The teudencj' of the human mind
perverted is like a pendulum, to swing between the two
extremes of superstition and intidelity. By a logical ne-
cessity, the mind not Christian must trust to one of these
two extremes of false belief or no belief. It must confide
in a system that degrades reason or deifies it, or trust
THE SUPERNATURAL. 201
iu the true God, and the supernatural as shown in natural
or revealed theology.
Under the aspect of superstition will come all the varied
forms of polytheism that have existed and do now exist in the
world. But polytheism, as its name imports, is the religion of
many gods. It consists in the degrading of God to a human
level, and giving supernatural qualities to creatures. It is
the deilication of nature under its endless forms. Polytheism
has been the prevailing sin of heathendom in all ages. It is
especially attractive to the ignorant masses of societv. It
saves the trial of thought, investigation, or the discipline of
reason and virtue. It gratifies in some sense the religious
craving of man, while it obliterates the most needful distinc-
tions to guide in the way of truth. The great error of all
superstition lies in attaching divine qualities and the super-
natural to creatures, or the objects of inanimate nature. It
will easily be seen that the polytheistic element must always,
witli the multitude, ignorant and depraved, be more power-
ful than that of any other form of delusion. It appeals im-
mediately to the senses. There is much in it to gratify the
aesthetic nature and take captive the imagination. It pro-
fesses to quiet the conscience under its load of guilt. It does
not limit itself to one form alone of worship. Its gods
are as varied as the caprice or passions of the nature. Its
objects of adoration are as numerous as the heart could de-
sire. The supernatural is not restricted to one god alone.
Thus ancient as well as modern polytheism has its uniform
type of the degradation of the true God. It worships in the
creature those qualities that are but the deification of human
selfishness, lust, and passion. The human, with all its infir-
mities and all its passions, is exalted to the divine, and con-
sequently the people, too ignorant to understand, or too
willful to learn, have been made the victims of priestcraft and
the most revolting superstitions. The chains of spiritual
slavery have been forged and riveted upon millions of the hu-
man family, simply by lowering the supernatural to the natu-
ral, and substituting false idols in the place of the true God.
Nature-worship, commencing first with the sun and moon
202 THE NATURAL AND
and stars, soon degenerated into that of the earth, air, water,
fire; and then, assuming a higher degree of grossness, there
came the adoration of dead heroes, elevated to demigods ; and
then the persons of living emperors were made divine, and
"worshiped as more than human ; and from this the descent was
rapid to the beasts of the Held, to lizards, crocodiles, snakes,
and even the insects. Xow, all this degradation of the human
mind arose from tlie false ideas entertained of the supernatu-
ral, and the confounding it with the natural ; it sprang from
giving to nature and its objects those powers that alone be-
longed to God. The i:)olytheistic element has even assumed
the garb of Christianity, and, wdiile it has spurned the more
revolting forms of superstition, yet has borrowed from the
heathen world precise!}' the same element that makes it so
opposed to true religion.
In Romanism, while the unity and the personality of God
are admitted, yet divine honors are paid to saints, to angels, to
the Virgin Mary, and the supernatural is ascribed where only
the natural belongs. The great peculiarity of Christianity is,
that it draws wide the line of distinction between the natural
and the supernatural ; it makes out God infinitelj' diiferent
from and above his workmanship. But polytheism, by remov-
ing this distinction, and ascribing the supernatural to the ob-
jects of nature, animate or inanimate, and especiall}' to beings
having human inlirmities, passions, and sins, ends in invert-
ing all moral traits. Virtues by it have been made vices, and
vices virtues. The worship of the heart being directed into
a wrong channel, adoration itself has been made an insult to
God ; and the more superstition has secured the control of hu-
man nature, the more it has deteriorated alike in true knowl-
edge and virtue. But if polytheism has been the religion of
the ignorant, pantheism has been that of the educated. The
polytheist has gods many, the pantheist makes all things God.
The one turns into a wrong channel the whole religious na-
ture, the other blocks up that channel with the rubbish of a
false philanthropy. The former blunts all the moral sensi-
bilities, the other refines them away. Both, as they take cap-
tive the mind and heart, are idolatrous; but the idolatry of
THE SUPERNATURAL. 2C3
the polytheist is s}>eeific and sensible, while that of the pan-
theist is general and vague. The supernatural, with the
former, is the common quality of all his idols ; with the latter,
the general condition of everything or nothing. God, in the
one, is degraded to nature ; in the other, nature is elevated to
God. In both the true God is denied or forgotten, because
all tlie qualities that distingaish God from nature are obliter-
ated. The injury done to the moral nature is most marked.
If in pantheism ideal or materialistic human responsibility
is ignored, in polytheism it is misdirected. The pantheist,
merging himself into the one universal substance, becomes
simply a passive recipient of influences that absolve him from
all accountability. The polytheist has his responsibility
divided or destroyed by the conflicting divinities that usurp
the worship of the heart. By the one class God is degraded
to the low level of sinful humanity, by the other his attri-
butes of personality, freedom, and holiness are refined away;
and thus man floats on the sea of destiny as the straws of
mere caprice, his own existence an enigma, to be swallowed
up at last in the infinite ocean of universal being. Trul}-, the
belief of the pantheist is as mournful as that of the polytheist ;
for to be dashed by an insane pride upon the rock of inexor-
able necessity is quite as sad as to be drowned by the love
of idols in the turbid waters of sensuality.
The evil of pantheism is not restricted to modern times.
It entered deeply into all the literature and philosophy of
the ancient world. Under different forms it flourished. In
Greece and Rome it was the common infirmity of all the edu-
cated classes. Disgusted with the imposture and priestcraft
of the state religions, the natural revulsion was infidelity, and
this became plausible only as it took the form of pantheism.
Unable to live without worshiping something, the educated
mind of the heathen lapsed into pantheism; for pantheism
allowed the deification of nature; and, discarding the super-
natural altogether, it permitted just that exaltation of hu-
manity that flattered the pride of the more cultivated por-
tion of society. Consequently, it entered largely into the
teachings of the Stoics and the philosophers; it taught the
204 THE NATURAL AND
doctriue of a relentless necessity, and gave to nature the type
of an unalterable fatality. By obliterating the chief distinc-
tiou between vice and virtue, it relieved the mind of the
dread of responsibility, and became the more attractive as it
gratified the pride that took away the fear of punishment.
Pantheism was the natural revulsion of the mind from the
grossuess of superstition ; simple atheism was too negative, and
not so congenial to the religious sensibilities. It was easier
to imagine everything God than nothing; to suppose nature
an external emanation from the Deity, uncreated like him-
self and a part of his being, than to deny the existence of
any God whatever. Modern pantheism is only the ancient
dressed up in a new garb ; it involves essentially the same
process of thought, and leads to the same results. The same
conclusions are reached by Spinoza and Hegel, that the
devotees of the old pantheistic philosophy arrived at;
both begin by nuiking no distinction between God and na-
ture, denying the divine personality, and end by removing
from man that freedom whicli involves accountability.
Thus it will be seen how false ideas of the supernatural have
so much to do with the development of polytheism and pan-
theism: they must lead to some form or other of superstition
or infidelity.
The existence of the supernatural is also opposed to the
postulates of deism, and every system of modern philosophy
which holds to the sufficiency alone of reason to guide man.
Modern infidelity assumes two forms : one, that which
holds to the sufficiency of reason alone in religion ; the other,
that which trusts implicitly to the intuitions and the feelings.
The former declares that the reason is enough to lead into
all essential truth and guide in the way of virtue ; the latter
insists upon the sensibilities as a source alone to be depended
upon ; both declare that the supernatural is unnecessary, and
cannot be proved. It is said that the mind can learn enough
to guide from the works of nature, and, as this shows an infi-
nite God, why seek for more evidence or knowledge of his
perfections ?
The supernatural is discarded simply upon the ground of
THE SUPERNATURAL. 205
the uniformity of natural law. But history and science, as
has been seen, conclusively establish the position that this
uniformity is neither uninterrupted nor eternal, and that mir-
acles, if impossible with man, are possible to God, and have
actually taken place. If, then, the mind turns to the present
or past condition of humanity, there is certainly nothing to
encourage the belief that man does not need the supernatu-
ral to help in his difficulties, or more truth than nature gives
to guide in his ignorance. The infidel, who looks alone to
his reason, or his intuitions and feelings, cannot find in the
unspeakable degradation of heathen nations anything to con-
vince him of their sufficiency. The question may well be
asked. If (he light of nature is all that man v^'ants to guide to
the knowledge of God, why has it not done this ? If natural
theology is amply sufficient to make mankind truthful, useful,
and virtuous, then what means the mass of human ignorance
and vice existing ?
Deism rests for its main support upon the idea of the im-
possibility of miracle, and the undeviating uniformity of
natural law ; but it must throw aside science and history,
ignore all the evidence of testimony, and trust itself to an
assertion that is at war with all just ideas of God. The su-
pernatural is not contrary to reason, or impossible ; it is not
contrary, for that which is above the reason is not therefore
opposed to it; nor is it impossible, for that which God has done
he may do again. Thus deism, which calls the reason alone
sufficient for the discovery of truth and the practice of vir-
tue, discards the supernatural ; because to admit it would be
to confess that human necessities demand something more
positive and reliable than the reason.
The infidel, who holds to the supreme authority of the in-
tuitions and the feelings, comes to the same conclusion, while
the road walked in may be altogether diflferent. The sensi-
bilities may be as wrong as the reason, and equally as unsafe
as the only guide to truth or virtue. It is just as proper for
a man to say that his reason is God's only revelation to him,
as his feelings or his intuitions, and equally as pernicious in
practice, if either assumption leads to the denying of the
206 THE NATURAL AND
supernatural. The real question of the present day, is that
involved in a true idea of the supernatural.
Reason discards superstition, hut it finds no better home
in the baseless fabrics of those schools of philosophers who
resort to materialism or idealism for support. The infidelity
that ends in denying human responsibility cannot get rid at
least of the conscience and the great fact of human govern-
ment; and while both make man accountable for his conduct
to man, with irresistible logic they point to a higher source
even of authority and law, that will not release any person
from obedience upon the fatalistic idea of man being simply
a machine. All correct ideas of theism, then, must lead to
the supernatural, as the only remedy against the deification of
natural law or the delusion of pantheism. The pendulum of
human belief may swing now in the direction of superstition,
and now in that of the opposite error of pantheism; but one
thing is certain, the human mind will never find its point of
rest, never reach the line of an exact equilibrium, where faith
may repose itself in the absolute certainty of truth, and
human reason reach the rock where safely it may build for
eternity, until it confidently trusts in the interposition of the
supernatural wherever infinite wisdom and benevolence may
dictate, independent of advice or help from any creature or
thing.
How necessary, then, that we should welcome all the light
that comes from histor}- and science, to show the actual de-
velopment of the supernatural ! Why is it that infidelity, that
trusts to the suificiency of reason and the light of nature,
should be so anxious to deny the supernatural ? Is it not
because, if admitted, it would compel to the reception of re-
vealed theology, and with this the whole system of doctrines
upon which it is based ? So long as the uniformity of natu-
ral law is regarded as perpetual, and nature the sole cause of
.all existence, it will always be true that revealed religion will
be denied. But the distinction has been shown between the
absolute and the finite, the uncreated and the created, and
that all nature must have its limit in those cyclical ages that
make indispensable the interposition of miracle. However
THE SUPERNATURAL. 207
second or final causes may be manifested in nature, jet all
have an appointed circle of duration, and when that is com-
pleted, the supernatural must intervene to restore, resuscitate,
or create a new nature. Consequently, nature is not a ma-
chine of unending movement, but something dependent on
the supernatural for its life as its first origin.
The professed aim of Christianity- is to distinguish between
the supernatural and the natural, and deliver from the fatal
errors of superstition. Unlike infidelity, it places nature in
its true relations to God ; to the reason it is a guide, and to
the sensibilities a restraining and regulating power. The
first end of infidelity is to discredit the supernatural. It
denies its reality altogether, or confounds it with the delu-
sions of superstition. The reason and the sensibilities being
made out the only guide, and nature the sole cause of all
things an emanation from God, or simply a part of that sub-
stance which is infinite and eternal, absolute and uncreated,
the natural tendency is to a belief that sin is a misfortune
rather than a crime, and that what is called the supernatural
is onlj' a more recondite process of nature or subtle develop-
ment. It is said that nature's laws are not fully understood,
and that a person must wait patiently until a higher sttige of
science and knowledge will account for that which seems to
be supernatural. The whole argument is based upon the
assertion that reason, the intuitions, or the sensibilities, are
alone sufficient to guide mankind, and that nature is the only
volume open for instruction ; but to read that volume as it
should be read, is not the aim of the infidel. By making
jiature divine, and her laws immutable and eternal, God is
as eflfectually shut out from the mind and the heart as if no
God existed. Superstition, with all its errors, admits human
responsibility and guilt, although it directs in a wrong chan-
nel the religious nature ; but infidelity seeks to extinguish it,
or to smother in delusive abstractions the deepest convictions
of the heart. Consequently, when infidelity finds a lodgment
in the mind, it first begins by denying the supernatural, and
then by deifying the natural. But there are truths in natural
theology that confront the infidel at the very door of his
208 THE XA TUBAL AXD
speculations, and which he mnst meet before he can show
that his nature-worship is sensible or right.
The great fact of the snpernatnral, under the imposing as-
pect of the miraculous, is constantly meeting him in science
and history ; and when it is viewed under its more concealed
aspects, it shows itself as the essential law that supports na-
ture and preserves the universe from ruin. The power of
God can never be shown to be delegated absolutely or ex
clusively to second causes. Give to nature as much as possi-
ble the mechanical aspect, and yet underlying all its move-
ments there is a divine energy that imparts the real force that
makes all the wheels move. Because miracles so seldom are
seen, and only at those great epochs of time when nature
must have a new nature, or when the old nature must be re-
suscitated, or when some crisis of momentous interest in the
moral world necessitates it, this yet is no argument against
the existence of the supernatural. The reason why the mi-
raculous should be of seldom occurrence is apparent; but this
does not prove that other forms of the supernatural are ever
wanting. Could we see the intimate dependence of nature
upon Gx>d. could we observe how all the diversities of sensi-
tive existence and all the complicated mechanism of the
physical universe do really hang upon his will, are directed
by his purpose, and made to act through his sustaining
power, we should then look upon the supernatural as the
normal condition of all nature, and the natural as related to
it as intimately as cause and effect. Gx"»d would be seen in his
works, worshiped as the author of all blessings, recognized
in all existences, and believed upon as infinite in all perfec-
tion. Man. to achieve the highest moral elevation, must avoid
equally superstition and infidelity: for, while the former con-
founds the natural with the supernatural, the latter makes out
only the natural existing, and this is his god.
But the ways in which the supernatural may exist and yet
not be recognized are innumerable. It may act with nature,
giving it only another direction, concealed, indeed, but not
the less real. Then it may be a new energy imparted in the
spiritual world ; and from this mental acts and feelings may
THE SUPERNATURAL. 200
originate impossible before. Then it may act through second
causes, in the wa}* of new thoughts, new motives, new im-
pulses, and this may be done in such a way as most effectu-
ally to secure the object desired. It may give in prayer a
more than mortal wisdom and directness, or it mav answer
it through countless varieties of adjustment of means to an
end higher than the natural, and yet in alliance with it.
Through the whole department of the physical and spiritual
universe it may be present, now helping, now changing, now
suppressing, and now adjusting the forces of nature, so that
without ever acting as in miracle against nature, it may yet
secure an end with a certainty as great as that of the
hio:hest exertion of creative enersv. How near the natural
may be to the supernatural is only faintly shadowed forth
in the words, " In him we live, and move, and have our
being." This is not mere metaphor : in a sense most vital
and true, God is spoken of as near to man, and near to all
the natures he has given, be they physical or moral.
The great element that distinguishes Christianity above all
superstition and all infidelity, is the revelation of the coexist-
ence of the human and the divine : the coworking of the
natural and the supernatural, each in their distinct sphere,
and yet each as truly as if only the human or the divine had
any action whatever.
The supernatural, then, is made known to us as existing in
man}" ways concealed, and then in the open method of mira-
cle. It may be often a power above nature, and altogether
distinct from it, and yet be an energy bringing about the
most important effects, undistinguished in the mind from the
common operations of nature. But the great cyclical law
holds all natures with a grasp that none can elude ; there does
come a time when the longest, even as the most ephemeral
of created things, must have an end. The undying youth of
anything made by God is possible only by the interposition
of miracle. God never confers immortality as the necessary
condition of any nature, — no nature is thus independent of
him. The inspired word declares the immortality of soul
U
210 THE NATURAL AND
and bod}' in the resurrection state, but it is only through the
interposition of the supernaturah
An inlierent power of endless life apart from this can
never be predicated of any creature, however exalted in virtue
or intelligence. God reserves to himself alone the power of
an endless life; and when he bestows it on any nature it
must come under the law of the supernatural, and not the
natural. Now, all infidelity overlooks this essential condi-
tion common to all natures, general or specific. Looking
on]}' to the regularity of natural law, it forgets that this does
not constitute the efficient cause, and that the endless per-
petuity of any nature can no more be shown to be its normal
condition than can the origin of any nature be proved to be
without miracle. If creation involves the necessity of the
supernatural, equally true does endless existence.
Infidelity, then, is just as unreasonable as superstition, and,
in some aspects, more pernicious. While boasting of freedom
from its bondage, it yet leads to the ver}' region and shadow
of death ; it forces man to the experience of a desolation,
where, upon the altar of an insane pride, there is sacri-
ficed all that can truly bless in time or save in eternity. It
calls itself free, but it is that freedom that grasps at the
shadow and loses the substance. Having none of the elevat-
ing truths of Christianity to guide or console, and nothing to
trust in but the poor light of human philosophy, it makes
more truly hopeless the condition than the gross delusions of
superstition. It rejoices in the idea that there is nothing
supernatural, that nature itself is eternal, and her laws alone
that deserve obedience or esteem ; but the idea of God,
however unwelcome, can never be altogether excluded from
the mind. If the infidel makes out, in his own mind, con-
science, responsibility, and divine law a dream, yet he will
find it impossible to shake it off; it will follow the nature
more persistently than the waking hours of the day, and
plunge it, though ever so reluctant, in one long night of
gloom.
What is there, then, that infidelity can stand upon, whether
it takes the form of rationalism, deism, materialistic, or ideal
THE SUPERNATURAL. 211
pan theism, or atheism ? What can be made out of nature
with the supernatural denied? Does it prove no God
and no miracle? Is its voice that of chance or fatalism?
Does it call itself eternal, or an emanation from the inii-
nite? Does it show law never changed or interrupted?
Is not its whole history that of birth, life, and death, of
ao;es measured by great or lesser epochs of time, all under
that mighty cyclical law that extends over the whole uni-
verse? Does it not teach the lesson of highest interest that
there is no creature or thing, no existence animate or inani-
mate, that is not as dependent on the Almighty for its being as
its creation? And whether that being shall survive in any in-
stance the universal law of all natures, must depend alone upoji
the interposition of God, imparting that which nature is power-
less to perform.
Most truly has Horace Bushnell, in his work on Nature
and the Supernatural, remarked : " God is expressed but not
measured by his works ; least of all, by the substances and
laws included under the general term nature. And yet how
liable are we, overpowered, as we often are, and oppressed by
the magnitudes of nature, to sutler the impression that there
can be nothing separate and superior beyond nature. The
eager mind of science, for example, sallying forth on excur-
sions of thought into the vast abysses of worlds, discovering
tracts of light that must have been shooting downward and
away from their sources, even for millions of ages, to have now
arrived at their mark, and then, discovering also that, by
such a reach of computation, it has not penetrated to the
center, but only reached the margin or outmost shore of the
vast iire-ocean, whose particles are astronomic worlds, falls
back spent; and having, as it were, no spring left for another
trial, or the endeavor of a stronger flight, surrenders, over-
mastered and helpless, crushed into silence. At such an
hour it is anything but a wonder that nature is taken for the
all, the veritable system of God; beyond which, or collateral
with which, there is nothing. For so long a time is science
improved upon by nature, not instructed by it; as if there
could be nothing greater than distance, measure, quantity.
212 THE NATURAL AND THE SUPERNATURAL.
and show nothing higher than the formal phatitude of things.
But the healthy, living mind will, sooner or later, recover
itself. It will spring up out of this prostration before nature
to imagine other things, which eye hath not seen, nor ear
heard, nor science computed. It will discover fires, even in
itself, that flame above the stars. It will break over and
through the narrow confines of stellar organization to con-
ceive a spiritual kosmos, or divine system, which contains
and uses, and is only shadowed in the faintest manner by, the
prodigious trivialities of external substance. Indeed, I think
all minds unsophisticated by science, or not disempowered by
external magnitudes, will conceive God as a being whose
fundamental plan, whose purpose, end, and system, are no-
wise measured by that which lies in dimension, even though
the dimensions be measureless. They will say, with Zophar,
still, — ' the measure thereof is longer than the earth, and
broader than the sea;' and the real, proper universe of God,
that which is to God the final cause of all things, will be to
them a realm so far transcending the outward immensity,
both in quantity and kind, that this latter will be scarcely
more than some outer gate of approach, or eyelet of obser-
vation."
CHAPTER XXII.
THE HUMAN, THE SUPERHUMAN, AND THE DIVINE.
The bnnian must comprehend all that which is in accord-
ance with its constitution. The constitution must be that
which is in acordance with its nature. Human, constitution,
and nature, all mean the same thing as related to man. But
what is man's nature, unless it be that which embraces both
his body and mind ? Is not his nature comprehensively the
phj'sical, mental, and moral parts of his constitution ? If
this is so, is it not a contradiction to speak of any part of
man's nature as supernatural ? The great idea all attach to
the human is simply that which pertains to the nature of the
human, and, therefore, that which is Vnanifested in accord-
ance with the laws of the human. All that is human is
therefore natural, so far as man's constitution is concerned;
and all that is natural must therefore mean all that acts in
accordance with the laws of the natural.
But it is said human volitions act outside of the line of
cause and effect, and therefore are supernatural. But cause
and effect cannot be restricted alone to the inorganic, organic,
or animal kingdom. It cannot be said that man in his voli-
tion is an exception to this law, because man is free in his
volitions. Those who hold this theory overlook the brute
creation, and do not consider that, in some respects, if true,
it must also hold real with brutes, so far as they have any-
thing corresponding to the human mind. The great mistake
many make in reasoning upon cause and effect, is that they
imagine it to be the same in mind as in matter, and because
in the physical world matter is passive, and must be acted
upon ; and the result invariably follows the same, from like
causes, with no possibility to the contrary, that this must be
equallv true in the spiritual world.
(213)
214 THE HUMAN, THE SUPERHUMAN,
Bat human volitions are self-caused, they are ah intra, and
with full power to the contrary', and therefore must be volun-
tary, free, and unforced. Cause and effect in the world of
mind are essentially diflerent from cause and effect in the
world of matter. iSTecessity rules in the one, freedom in the
other. Consequently, to illustrate mental and moral effects
by any analogy taken from matter, is unphilosophical, even
as it is opposed to the intuitive convictions of the under-
standing. And yet, in a real sense, all conduct proceeds
from motives; and there is always an influence as certain, in
the moral world, to be followed by effects, as exists through
the ofreat law of cause and effect in the world of matter.
Does any conduct lead to the idea that motives have had
nothing to do with that conduct? Is it not the peculiar pre-
rogative of the mind that it is susceptible to motives, and is
influenced always one way or another by motives ?
In that department of nature where cause and effect are
ah extra, we see the manifestation of a law of force irresisti-
ble? we can always say that such effects will follow invariably
such causes; and therefore the idea of freedom is altogether
wanting, and it is wanting because there is no power to the
contrary existing. But in the world of mind and human
volition it is essentially different. Because a man acts from
motives he is free, for there is always, ah intra, a power to the
contrary. Thus the true idea of moral freedom is invariably
power to act differently from that which is acted, and always
power to act free in the very volition that leads to vicious or
right conduct. There is first a self-conscious power in the
very act of choice, and then a perfect conviction of the mind
that a different course might be pursued. But if men act
from motives, then motives are a cause in conduct just as
truly as force is a cause in making a ball fly through the air.
But here consists the great difference, the ball is passive, and
has no power to resist the force applied, and must always act
the same wntli the same force applied, — like results will in-
variably follow from like causes ; but the mind has not only
the power to choose in all motives, to be influenced by one
and not by another, but it has a twofold freedom : — freedom
AND THE DIVINE. 215
ill the very act of choice, and freedom before this act to the
contrary. It has the highest evidence of this in conscious-
ness, and in all its feelings and thoughts in relation to the
conduct of others.
But still we know that conduct is as much the result of
motives presented as it is free in the act of choice. Now,
many have drawn the inference that because men act from
the strongest motives, that men must act from them, and that
conduct is as much the result of necessity as the rolling of a
stone is the result of force, and consequently human volitions
are not free. Here a double mistake is made : first, by con-
founding action ab intra with action ah extra^ that self-caused
with that acted upon, a development under the condition of
inherent activity with that of essential passivity ; and secondly,
by asserting that all choice proceeds from the strongest mo-
tive ; but the only plausible argument for this is simply assert-
ing that whatever brings about a certain result or effect is for
the time being the strongest motive, and inferring this because
the law of the strongest force always holds good in things;
but persons are not things because there is absolute freedom
to choose from the weaker motive as truly as from the
strongest motive, and in the case of sin because the weaker
motive does really exist to bring abont choice. The greatest
motive to a man is himself; and endless confusion has fol-
lowed this vain effort to weigh motives in the same scales
in which sugar and salt are weighed. The fact is, that con-
duct must be the result of motives, for it is an absurdity to
predicate choice with no influence, and therefore such influ-
ence must be in a true sense a cause of action.
All human volitions are absolutely free to take up with
any motive whatever. This being so, it is doing the cause
of moral freedom the greatest possible injustice to fasten on
to it the old theory of the strongest motive. In the sense in
which the term very often is used it leads to fatalism, and
creates a doctrine of necessity that is peculiarly pernicious
to that responsibility to which God and man hold us for our
conduct. It is begging the question to say that the strong-
est motive to a man is that which secures his choice. This
216 THE HUMAN, THE SUPERHUMAN,
is the very tiling in dispute. It is simply saying, because a
man acts from such a motive, therefore it is the strongest,
and it is the strongest because he thus acts. Now, all this is
assuming the very thing to be proved. Why may not God
make the human mind free to act from any motive, strong
or weak ? Why may not the very idea of guilt be involved
in taking the unworthy, the weak motive, in preference to
the noble and the strong? Why may not self-consciousness
declare that its great sin consists in disregarding the rational,
the good motive, and taking up with the irrational and the
foolish motive ? The fact is, the man determines the motive
vastly more than the motive the man.
And this leads us to consider that what passes under the
phrase, the strongest motive, is the most general, vague, and
loose of all expressions, and is used to mean much or little
as a man may please. The ideas comprehended in the word
motive are the most complex imaginable. It comprehends
everything that influences the mind; and what is it that in-
fluences the mind ? Who can tell ? It may be that without
us or that within us ; the internal or the external ; other
persons or ourselves; it may have reference to things ani-
mate or inanimate; feelings or perceptions, and a thousand
and one things which cannot be described.
Is it not then irrational to talk about the strongest motive
as if it was as susceptible of weight as a pound of coftee ?
Is it reasonable to believe a necessity exists in it to act from
it as irresistible as that which brings a stone to the ground ?
Upon a certain class of minds this method of reasoning is
peculiarly unhappy ; it drives them to the repudiation in vo-
litions of the law of cause and eft'ect, or the making out all
human volitions as supernatural. But we shall show that
the strict meaning of the supernatural is that which is above
nature, that which nature cannot do.
But is human volition not in accordance with the very na-
ture God has given to man, his very constitution? Is not this
humanity, with its complex powers, really natural, as distin-
guished from the supernatural? The fallacy of those who
call human volitions supernatural, is found in the fact that
AXD THE DIVINE. 217
they overlook the truth that the mhid was made to act natu-
rally as much as the body; to act according to its nature, and
as certainly as the action of the brute creation or the inor-
ganic kingdom: but, says the objector, mind is a power.
Very true, and so also the lioness fighting to save her young
is a power. The human power may be a very diiterent
power, but it is not for that a supernatural power. Mental
activity never can go further than its nature permits, no
more than physical power. The supernatural should only be
used as restricted to the divine. What is supernatural is
that which God does. The sphere of its activity is the divine,
while the natural is the sphere of the human. The error in
making all human volitions supernatural is quite as great as
that of denying altogether the supernatural. If the one leads
to infidelity, the other verges far into pantheism. Nature is
simply the constitution God has given to things and persons
— to his kingdom, be it inorganic, organic, animal, human, or
angelic. It is a comprehensive term, embodying everything
made in distinction from the maker. And the supernatural
is that which is above nature, or any power in it, be it phys-
ical or mental. It is of great importance that this distinction
should be clearly defined and resolutely held to. Give it up,
and the whole doctrine of inspiration as a divine influence
is thrown into confusion, and no line really, with truth, can
be drawn between the supernatural in that which man does
and the supernatural in that which God does. It is quite as
important that the mind sliould be disabused of the sophistry
conveyed in the -phrase, the strongest motive. Man is not a ma-
chine because it acts ab intra, is self-caused, and can choose
an}' motive whatever. The great sin in man lies in the fact
that it is abnormal, irrational, contrary to the strongest mo-
tives of right, happiness, affection, and goodness. It is a war
of the lower nature against the higher, passion against reason,
pride against humility, lust against purity, violence against
order, intemperance against temperance, avarice against pru-
dence, and hatred against love. The reason why the language,
the strongest motive, is held by us as always applicable to the
action of the mind, is because we insensibly fall into the idea
218 THE HUMAN, THE SUPERHUMAN,
that what is true of things is also so of persons. Cause and
effect in tilings is always as the strongest force, and there is
no power to the contrary. In things all is necessary, uni-
form, and inevitable. Thus, like causes produce like effects
under all circumstances and occasions But in mind the law
of causality is altogether distinct. There is no possible
analogy between the two. The difference is as radical as the
nature is distinct.
In all language we indeed speak of motives as the cause of
volition, because the mind is made to be influenced by them,
yet its freedom of action is the essential condition of its ex-
istence. The mental constitution is made for freedom, as
much as the air for breathing, and this freedom has a two-
fold character — power to act differently from what is done,
and then power to choose any motive whatever, strong or
weak. Why, then, is the language, the mind always acts
from the strongest motive, so common ? First, because we
fall insensibly into the idea that the mental constitution is a
sort of machine; secondl}', because we confound the success-
ful motive with the strongest motive. The mind always does
act from the successful motive, for this always is chosen in
preference to any other. But does this mean that what in-
fluences is in itself always the strongest motive ? Have
motives weight, as stone? Does not cojiscience dechire that
in sin the weakest motive is chosen ? Does not folly pecu-
liarly consist in taking up with the most insignificant con-
siderations, and overlooking the greatest ? Is not the very
guilt of wickedness, that it is so irrational, so senseless, so
destitute of all worthy motive? We cannot get round this
by saying that such motives to the wicked are the strongest ;
they are the successful motives, because they secure the re-
sult. But strength and success are not convertible terms.
The true idea of freedom is, that while it is the law of the
mind to act from motives, it is equally the law of the mind
to take up with any motive, and free always to do difterently
from that which it does do. The ambiguous phraseology of
the strongest motive leads into materialism, or into the fatal
error of necessity. In this sense we hold to the self-deter-
AND THE DIVINE. 219
mining power of the will ; not that motive has nothing to do
with the will, but that the will can act from any motive, and
always with power to the contrary. We contend that all this
action of the mind is natural, because it is in accordance with
tlie constitution God gave it. Volitions are as natural in the
spiritual world as gravitation in the material : the one is a
mental power, the other a physical power ; one is free, the
other necessitated ; one self-active, the other acted upon.
Force in the material world is always blind, in the spiritual
world intelligent; in one it has the essential characteristic of
necessity ; in the other, of liberty.
Holding, as we do, to the most unrestricted idea of freedom
in human volitions, and in no respect disposed to encumber
it with the ill-defined and unfortunate phraseology of the
strongest motive, believing that it is the man that determines
the motive vastly more than the motive the man, and that
motive is the most complex of all ideas, and cannot in any
true sense be defined in many cases of volition, and feeling
that no language should be used to impair in the least human
accountability and freedom, yet we cannot for a moment hold
to the opinion, full of danger to all correct ideas of inspi-
ration and the divine action upon men, that volitions are
supernatural. The supernatural is the divine, as distin-
guished from both the human and the superhuman. What
is the superhuman ? It is simply that which is above the
power, or transcends the strength of man. We read that
other beings exist besides the human : now, the exercise of
their power must be superhuman. Angels have a nature as
truly as men, but not the same nature: all their actions
must therefore be superhuman ; and if we could conceive of
an order of beings higher than the angelic, it would be true
that the action of such beings would be superangelic, as their
action is superhuman ; but in no true sense could their action
be called supernatural, for it is not above their nature, it is
as their nature, and therefore must be natural. To do away
with this distinction is to throw the greatest obscurity upon
the whole subject of the divine influences and power.
We believe God takes exclusively to himself the preroga-
220 THE HUMAN, THE SUPERHUMAN,
tive of the supernatural, for nature must, in innumerable
ways, be under his influence and control. All human or an-
gelic volition is in accordance with the constitution God
gives, and whenever action in either is above that constitu-
tion, then it is through the influence of the supernatural, and
the glory alone belongs to God. The idea of inspiration is
simply the influence of the Almighty on human thought
above the plane of the natural, and transcending all creature
power. The miraculous always includes the supernatural,
but the supernatural does not usually the miraculous. If it
is said that either, or both, act in accordance with law, it is
only true in the sense that this law is the will of God him-
self. The whole subject of law, as applied to the Deity, is
simply the method he proposes to himself, and what that
method is can only be known to God.
The divine, then, as distinguished from the human or the
superhuman, is simply the supernatural as the method of God
in relation to all his action in the world of matter or mind.
It embraces all degrees of the divine action, in controlling, di-
recting, or creating things or persons. It is the divine power,
as distinguished from all creature power. Consequently this
action of God must possess in its nature something essen-
tially distinct from all creature action, and all developments
of mind or matter. The supernatural is the sphere of God
alone, while nature, or the natural, is the sphere of all crea-
ture activity, be it human or angelic. It then should be
always remembered, that when the human mind acts above
the natural, or transcends the limits of the natural, then the
reason is simply it is under the control of the supernatural.
This is always divine, the energy of God himself coming in
contact with human activity and thought, and bringing about
those results that wolild be impossible if the natural only was
relied upon. This view of the supernatural is peculiarly con-
sistent with all correct ideas of second causes. Second
causes, in matter or mind, are the powers that are manifested
in both, and which grow out of the constitution of both. A
cause is force, force is power, and power is simply producing
results. Now, the doctrine of second causes, material or im-
AND THE DIVINE. 221
material, is based upon the fact that God has given to every
nature its own peculiar constitution, — that this constitution
has its own laws, and these laws are revealed by the activi-
ties of all natures in every department of God's kingdom.
To contend that there is only one cause, and deny second
causes, is simply the essence of pantheism, and all fatality as
applied to human conduct. It means that human action is but
a mode of the divine action, and consequently no such thing
as human responsibility. But we contend that God can make
second causes either necessary or free. He can give to crea-
tion a nature with no liberty/, as well as a nature iviih liberty.
This is what in human and angelic creatures he has done.
But the great First Cause must reserve for himself the sov-
ereignty of creation ; and while he gives all the freedom that
the creature can have, he certainly will not disrobe himself
of the supernatural, in directing and controlling all things in
subserviency to the highest good of the universe. It is for
this reason we object so strongly to the use of the super-
natural, as applied to human or angelic volitions. ISTeither
man nor angel can act above his own nature, or by any in-
herent energy get beyond the sphere of second causes. All
causality must be absolute or dependent: absolute in God,
for no restriction is admissible in it; dependent in creatures,
because it is God's gift, and confined to the nature he has
given: that nature may be necessary or free; its energy may
be ab extra or ab inira, and show either the irresponsibility of
things, or the accountability of persons.
Consider then how the divine acts upon things and per-
sons. Things are influenced by those forces that, corre-
sponding with their nature, invariably bring forth the same
results from the same causes. The law of causality in things
is in accordance with the principle of necessity, that admits
of no deviation, no change, no development outside of that
influence that uniformly brings about like results from like
causes. Things always demand, in all action, two or more
conditions: one the external force applied, the other the ob-
ject which receives this force. There must not only be two
or more conditions, but a corresponding relation between
222 THE HUMAN, THE SUPERHUMAN,
them. Thus oil and water do not mingle or combine, but
sugar and water do. But when we come to persons we see
the law of causality within.
There is an inherent power to choose between motives, to
act freely from any motive, to resist or yield to any influence
brought to bear upon the mind by motive. A person is self-
caused, he is made a rational being, and this means the ability
to take up with right or wrong motives. But a person could
not be a person and not be susceptible to motives from the
Avorld within him or without him ; he could not be a person
and yet a passive being, with a constitution where motives
could have no power. Things are not the objects of motives.
We do not reason with them, we cannot converse with them,
or teach them, or persuade them. There is an impassable
gulf between things and persons, for blind force is at an in-
finite remove from intelligent force. But a creature could
not be a creature and yet exempt from the law of cause and
effect. A man must choose something, he must act from
some kind of influence, good or bad, or he would be neither
a thing nor a person, and this would be an absurdity. The
divine, then, when it comes in contact with the human, when
a supernatural influence is made to bear upon the mind, is,
unless a direct miracle is worked, always in accordance with
the laws of the mind, giving a higher energy, or a new di-
rection, to those laws acting with the natural, while above
it, and ordinarily undistinguished from it; but in no true
sense can such action of the human be appropriated as its
own exclusively. The divine influence that secures the eflfect
within the sphere of the natural, while truly above it, must
be considei-ed the procuring cause of this effect, and to God
alone the glory belongs.
It will be seen how this view of the divine, as distin-
guished from the human or the superhuman, gives to it the
noblest aspect when made the object of human desire or
effort. If the human never acts above the natural, then the
supernatural is the reason, and this will throw the great-
est light upon the whole subject of inspiration, and teach us
that what distinguishes the Bible above all other books is.
AND THE DIVINE. 223
that it carries about witli it the ineffaceable impress of the
supernatural, the stamp of the divine, while all other books
are the offspring of the natural.
If now a person should ask, What is a miracle ? we reply,
First, it is not a natural effect; second, it does not lie within
the sphere of the human or the superhuman to accomplish.
An angel may work wonders, and do that which, done by a
man, would lead immediately to the inference that it was
supernatural ; but this action of the angel was simply super-
human, above that which a man could do, but not that which
an angel was made to do. As human beings, we might not
be able to distinguish between supernatural agency and super-
human, but as angels we should, for then we would be con-
scious of acting only in accordance w^th the nature God has
given us. When, then, we get beyond the domain of things,
or that of the irresponsible brute creation, we come to that
lofty sphere where God speaks of man as made in his own
image, and a being into whose nostrils he breathed the breath
of life. Here we reach the condition of moral accountability,
and that of persons that, however varied in the scale of crea-
tion, do yet all owe allegiance to God, and by him are
held responsible for their conduct.
Thus we have contemplated the human, the superhuman,
and the divine, for the great object of showing that the super-
natural is to be restricted to the working of God alone, outside
and above tlie realm of nature, and then to show that the law
of cause and effect can hold as true in the spiritual world as in
the material, and yet be perfectlj- consistent with moral free-
dom, and not only consistent with it, but the foundation upon
which it must rest, and the only principle by which charac-
ter can be formed in harmony with true liberty and respon-
sibility. Under the action of the human we then classify
everything that comes under the power of the human and
its laws. Under the superhuman we mean effects produced
by powers above the human, and yet in perfect consistency
with their nature, and according to natural laws imposed
upon superhuman beings by God. While under the divine
we mean always the supernatural, and that which God only
224 THE HUMAN, THE SUPERHUMAN;
can do. We hold this distinction of the greatest value in
having any intelligent idea of inspiration, and in its applica-
tion to the great themes of revelation. We believe God
made both men and angels to act according to the nature he
gave them, and in harmony with the laws of their being,
and therefore all such action must be natural, always except-
ing those cases where the supernatural is interposed to help,
or control, or secure, a higher end than the inherent powers
of their own natures could -secure. The divine coming thus
in contact with the human or the angelic, is God's own
method of securing in nature those results which give the
highest permanenc}^ and glory to his kingdom. Miracle is
the highest method of the supernatural, and will only appear
when needful to secure effects of the highest value in the
mind of God.
What, then, is sin ? It is, in the moral world, a condition of
unnature, a perversion of moral power, a spiritual deformity,
an abhorrent estrangement from those laws that, obeyed,
would secure everything blessed and happy. Sin is acting
against God, against his system of nature, against his will,
against his order of creation, an insult to the supreme au-
thorit}^ of Jehovah, and an abortive effort in the creature to
thwart the end of his kingdom.
What is sin toward self? It is moral suicide, the nourish-
ing of a cancer in the constitution, that, uncounteracted, un-
repented of and unforgiven, will bring with it death to the
soul. Sin is something that works ruin to the nature as cer-
tain as any derangement of the ph3'sical system : rather, sin
is a derangement affecting both soul and body, and must be
arrested in its course, or irretrievable ruin is the result. If
this is sin, we see why the interposition of the divine, in hu-
man affairs, is so indispensable ; and why miracle, to secure
certain ends in the moral recovery of man, is so much to be
desired.
The interposition of the divine in human affairs, is so much
the necessity of man a sinner, that were it dispensed with,
we should see no hope for the salvation of man.
We see, then, from the derangement sin has introduced
AND THE DIVINE. 225
iuto the world, from the disorder cDgendered by it in the
material and immaterial creation of God, how essential it is
for reversing this fatal tendency of evil that the supernatural,
under all its varied forms, should exist, and even miracle be
sometimes revealed to counteract the mischief that sin would
bring upon the individual or society. But miracle is the
manifestation of the divine power, on such occasions and
under such circumstances as most impressively to convince
the mind that God does what, in no sense, natural law could
do ; that even there is a suspension or setting aside of the
laws of nature, and the clearly-defined impress of the work-
ing of a Being who holds all laws under his perfect control,
and can, with infinite ease, bring about results that transcend
all creature activity or wisdom. Thus, miracle may be de-
lined as the highest order of the divine power, securing
efl'ects that do not come under the ordinary sphere of the su-
pernatural, and only worked upon occasions of the greatest
importance to God. Miracle, then, may well be described as
something more, and far different from the common provi-
dence of God, — the putting forth of his almightiness, accord-
ins: to the method of his own wisdom, and which is concealed
in his own mind.
Considering the supernatural and the divine as synony-
mous, and miracle as the especial revelation of the divine,
we are compelled, whenever we consider the terrible disor-
der of sin universal over the earth, to admit, under a personal
God, the necessity of just that kind of interposition to relieve
the wants of the human family, that is made known to us in
the Old and New Testaments, and to confess that miracle,
under the circumstances of its manifestation as recorded in
the Bible, is peculiarly suitable and appropriate for the great
end of human redemption.
Believing in miracle, as so essential in the restoration of
man under that divine system disclosed in revelation, we
would, for this very reason, look with the greatest suspicion
upon all miracles that do not carry upon their face the
evidences of the Bible, and cannot claim for their working
those divine proofs that give to real miracles their credibility.
15
226 THE HUMAN, SUPERHUMAN, AND DIVINE.
But especially would we make heaven-wide the distinction
that separates the divine power from the human or the
superhuman, and recognize always in the supernatural that
which is only divine, which not only is above all creature
power, but is as far removed from the power of the created
as the nature itself of the infinite is removed from that of
finite.
CHAPTER XXIII.
LIMITATIONS OF HUMAN THOUGHT.
The proper object of inquiry for the human mind is not
so much what is the subject-matter of nature and revelation,
not how the facts presented in both are made to harmonize
one with another, as what is the character of the human
mind and the essential limitations of thought. It is idle to
speculate upon worlds beyond the range of the telescope :
within the sphere alone of its power can the astronomer make
his calculations. Facts and theories are widely different.
Consider, then, the natural limitations of the mind of man,
and how differently individuals are affected by the same facts.
The consciousness and the senses are the two great instru-
ments of human thought, — one internal, the other external.
Take away any of the senses, and the mind is unable to com-
prehend the facts that properly come under the sense that is
removed. The blind man can have no idea of color, or the
deaf man of sound. So of the consciousness : while unable to
define it, we yet know that the different degrees of reflection,
reason, judgment, imagination, as well as the different states
of the emotional part of our nature, all have a most intimate
connection with it, and give to its action clearness or am-
biguity, strength or weakness. The first thing that marks
the human mind is its variety of development in different
persons. No two persons are alike in their minds or bodies.
Some have minds extremely weak and some strong ; some
excel in memory and some in judgment; some possess
great natural powers of reflection and others of observation ;
some show great inventive faculties, others seem only able to
imitate. The texture of some minds is coarse, that of others
refined. Undoubtedly, there is an original and essential
(22T)
228 LIMITATIONS OF
difference in the minds of different persons. Just as no two
trees of the forest are alike, and no two blades of grass are
exactly equal in shape, or color, or texture, so one of the
clearest marks of the individuality of the human race will be
found in the variety that exists among all who people this
world. This being so, must mould the ideas of every per-
son. The same facts may be admitted, but there cannot
be in all the same ideas connected with those facts. The
same truth may be confessed by two persons, and yet this
truth impress the consciousness of the one very unlike what
it does the other. It is, then, evident that this difference in
the minds of persons arises not only from circumstances in
which they are placed from education and the force of habit,
but from an original and essential variety in the minds of all.
The natural faculties do differ in strength, energy, compre-
hension, and acuteness in all persons. There is as much
a gradation in the scale of mind as in that of the develop-
ment of the body. The essential distinctions existing in the
material world only shadow forth distinctions as wide and
great in the intellectual and moral world, and these distinc-
tions all are consistent with personal freedom and accounta-
bility. The mind sympathizes intimately with the body ;
they mutually act and react upon each other. This being so,
the inference is unavoidable, that different persons have a
limitation in their ideas respecting material and immaterial
things, corresponding with the original and essential varieties
of mind existing in the world. What some may comprehend
most clearly, others may not; what maybe intuitively ob-
served by some, may be altogether unseen by others. Not
the mind only, but the emotional part of the nature, is widely
affected by the same things in different persons.
Thus, take the original differences in the human faculties,
and then those differences as modified or increased by edu-
cation and habit, and we see the widest gradation in human
thought with a corresponding limitation. But in addition to
this limitation of thought, so different in persons of the same
age, there is, with every one, a peculiar development of mind
from early infiincy to old age. That the human race came
HUMAN THOUGHT. 229'
into the world with anything that may be called innate ideas
it is impossible to prove ; so far from this, there is very clear
evidence to the contrary. Faculty and idea are not the
same ; faculties of thought, perception, and feeling, unde-
veloped in a restricted sense, must exist in infancy. The
senses and the consciousness, as the mere instruments of
thought and feeling, must have lying back a nature, with
faculties capable of thought and emotion under appropriate
circumstances; but infancy commences with no ideas, but
simply with faculties that, under certain conditions in action,
will develop thought and feeling. JSTow, the process of human
life is a process with a commencement with no ideas, but
simply original faculties of emotion and thought, gradually
developing into specific and expanding ideas and feelings.
Thus, we see not only in different persons an original
limitation of mind, as diverse as individual existence, but this
limitation diminishing with the progress of infancy into
youth, manhood, and maturity of life. The powers of the
human mind strengthen, and the mind expands with the in-
crease of years. All this must be taken into consideration in
the speculations of the reason. The reasoning power in one
man is very different from that in another, and then it is also
a thing of gradual development, commencing in every per-
son with only faculties in a crude and undeveloped state :
the mind shows itself absolute, with no ideas in the first
dawning of its existence, for faculty and ideas are not the
same, no more than the flint and the spark that is struck by
concussion from it ; and then there is, under appropriate con-
ditions, a growth of mind as striking and varied as the growth
of the body.
Consider, then, the limitations of the mind out of itself, —
limitations in relation to God, to his creation, material and
immaterial. Consider the simplest ideas with the individual.
The primar}' idea is that of /, a person, as distinct from other
persons and the outward world. But what is the source of
this idea ? Evidently the consciousness. Suppose the rea-
son attempts to prove this first truth of our existence. Can
anything more conclusive be ^•Ai^iho.n I think, therefore I am?
230 LIMITATIONS OF
And yet the whole force of this argument is found only in the
individual consciousness. The idea of distinct personality is
traced alone to the same source : from our idea of finite
personality we ascend to the idea of the infinite personality
of God. The great axioms of all truth, or rather the highest
truth, are found in the consciousness. But the limitation of
our minds is such that not only we cannot go back of the
consciousness for higher proof, we must take its decisions just
as they are, without imagining that any effort of reasoning
can make them clearer. The great facts of consciousness by
no process of argument can be improved upon : rather, elabo-
rate speculations only tend to obscure the mind respecting
these facts. All human action is based upon the admitted
facts of consciousness, teachingthe great truths of free agency,
of accountability, of right and wrong. And yet, what limita-
tion of mind in respect to the most clearly admitted facts of
self-existence ! Not to go bej^ond the individual, what an
impenetrable veil presents itself to human reason in that
which constitutes the essence of soul and body ! This is just
as evident when we consider the union of the soul and body ;
how body acts upon mind, or mind upon body ; how the
spiritual combines with the material, or how life enters into
the organism of the human frame, — all is as unexplained to
the mind of the adult as to that of the infant. The one
knows just as much of their mystery as the other. Let a
finite mind expand ever so much, let it grow to the capacity
of a Milton, a Newton, or a Bacon, and it will be found that
there are limitations of thought in every person never to be
done awaj' with.
But this is more evident when the world is contem-
plated. How we come into this world, live in it, or leave
it, beyond the apparent outward phenomena of life and
death, are subjects of the profoundest mystery. We see
nothing of this great earth beyond the contracted horizon of
our own individual consciousness and observation. Our own
limited thoughts give to us all we do know of self and the
outward world ; and yet think how extreme is our limitation
of thought in respect to the most familiar objects of sense.
HUMAN THOUGHT. 231
Take the bird : we know something of its shape, color, action,
and music. We open its body, and find out something of the
mystery wrapped up in it ; and yet in this bird there are won-
ders of mechanism beyond the reach of the microscope. Such
is the limitation of our minds that only a few of the most
obvious properties in the outward world, a few only of the
most sensible exhibitions of brute action, ever come under
our inspection. Men have neither the time nor the capacity
to know much of the world in which they live. Secrets
innumerable in earth, air, and water, and of animate and
inanimate creation, exist never to be disclosed to human
thought. So far from the highest researches of science ex-
hausting nature, they only open up regions inconceivably
grander of wonder.
Here, then, does the human mind show its limitation as
extreme, not only in the world comprehended in self, but in
all the objects of the external world. Nothing but the mere
surface of things is ever known. What is known of any one
thing is not the ten- thousandth part of that which is to be
known. As when a child takes a watch and plays with the
case and crystal, and admires the hands, and counts the little
figures, from one to twelve, marked upon the dial-plate, and
then thinks he knows all about the watch, so often does the
vanity of the human mind fancy itself posted up in the
knowledge of self or the world, when only there has been
but the infant playing of the reason with a few of the outside
properties of things.
We come now to consider objects of thought inconceiva-
bly grander than self, or the world, or the universe of worlds.
We enter upon the contemplation of God ; but how great is
the limitation of the mind here! Evidently what we dO'
know of God must be what he pleases to make known to us.
As the distance between the creature and the Creator is infi-
nite, so also the limitation of mind necessarily implied in the
finite must be as great. God reveals himself to man as the
First Cause, the Absolute, and the Infinite, but how can God,
as such, be comprehended by the finite ? Certainly only in
accordance with those modes of manifestation under which
232 LIMITATIONS OF
he chooses to reveal himself. Now, there are but two con-
ceivable ways of the mauifestatiou of God to man. Either
mail must ascend up to God, or God must condescend to
man. Either the finite mind must rise up to the infinite and
merge itself into the infinite, or the infinite must bring him-
self, so far as he can be known, within the sphere of the finite,
and come under human limitation so far as is consistent with
his nature. Now the finite cannot ascend up to the infinite,
there can be no merging of the creature into the Creator.
If man is so limited in thought respecting himself and the
world, infinitely more limited is he in relation to God. If
his knowledge of self and nature is so contracted, then what
must not it be of the unlimited God? There can be but one
way in which God in any sense can be known to the reason
of man : that way must be the descent of God to man, com-
ing to man as far as suitable under human limitations within
the sphere of human thought, and accommodated to the in-
fant capacities of his creatures. This is the development of
God in revelation ; but what does this lead to ? Is it not
that the first study of man should be what is the actual con-
dition of the human mind as related to the great facts made
known in nature and in revelation ? The first study of the
astronomer, before he reasons upon the stars, is the character
of the instrument he is to make use of for the purpose of
observation ; he can know only that which comes within the
range of the telescope. Should the finite then presume to
reason upon the infinite without first deciding upon its own
essential limitation of thought ? Is it not the wildest dream
of human pride to think of merging self into the infinite,
or ascending up into God ? Can a creature, unable even to
tell what is comprehended in a second cause, be competent
to conceive of the great First Cause?
If self-existence, under its own limitations, is a mystery
so profound, much more must be the existence of the Abso-
lute, in itself infinitely independent of all creatures and all
worlds. But if the only way in which God in any true sense
can be known to the human mind, is by accommodatino-
himself to the essential limitations of the mind, then the in-
HUMAN THOUGHT. 233
ference is unavoidable, that whenever the human reason at-
tempts to go beyond its own true sphere of thought it will
show its folly by its absurdity and contradiction. In other
words, the true province of the reason in relation to God is
simY}\y belief in great facts made known. The proper business
of the reason is to ascertain what God has said respecting
himself and man, what facts has he communicated to man,
and what are the evidences of a divine revelation to the hu-
man family. The reason is invited to make the most of all
the truth made known in nature or the Bible respecting God.
Whenever it attempts to erect itself into a self-constituted
tribunal, and say what God should do or not do, what he
should reveal or not reveal, what facts made known are con-
sistent with his attributes and what are not, then does human
reason transcend the boundary line of its limitation. What
is the consequence? Is it not contradiction in theory, and
absurdity in practice ?
Certainly, if God does make himself known to us in any
way, he will not previously ask the advice of his creatures.
God will show as much of himself, his character, and perfec-
tions, as he chooses to do, and no more. But suppose in this
world he permits the existence of sin, of disease, of death,
and of innumerable evils affecting man in his physical and
moral condition. Suppose directly or indirectly, as the con-
sequence of sin, all nature suffers, and disorder and pain
more or less abounds, what should be the natural inference?
Is it not that all these evils, external and internal, have a
natural tendency to bias the mind, and that, in addition to
the limitation of human thought, we must add also the
friction of sin, and view man not only in the essential little-
ness of his capacity, but even in the derangement of that
capacity by physical and moral evil ? This being so, there
is a great argument for caution and modesty in all reason-
ings upon God, his attributes, and the relation he sustains to
man. Every theory of the mind in moral reasoning that
does not take into account the friction of sin will be essen-
tially dejective.
What is the actual condition of the mind in every effort
234 LIMITATIONS OF
of reason to understand God as he has revealed himself to
man ? This is the first inquiry to make, for just as we have
a false estimate of the human mind, must be the erroneous
conception of God. Is it possible to think of God beyond
the range of human thought? If God in any sense is known,
can he be known except as he passes within the sphere of
human thought ? But suppose the individual consciousness
and mind has altogether a false estimate of itself; suppose
it vainly thinks its own vagaries realities, and confounds or
overlooks the great distinctions of right and wrong, truth and
error; suppose the mind grovels in sensuality, or is intoxi-
cated with the dreams of pride, — must not all this be taken
into account in its decisions respecting God? If the lens of
a telescope is defaced, will it not affect all the observations
of the astronomer? But when the calculations are found
wrong, are the stars at fault, or the instrument used to
observe them ?
There is a twofold limitation of thought in all reasoning
upon God — that which is the result of original contraction, and
that vitiation of mind the natural consequence of sin. The
difliculty lies not so much in the former as the latter. The
finite is the essential condition of all creatures, and it has a
scale of gradation from the archangel to the worm, from
moral agents, responsible and free, to the minutest insect.
But God makes himself known in a way corresponding to
the nature he has given to his creatures. To a large part
of his creation he does not choose to make himself known
in any manner. God gives to brute animals just those kind
of faculties that enable them to carry out the limited end of
their existence. In their own sphere, so diverse, they live
and die with a nature corresponding alone to the wants of
their contracted existence.
But whatever may be the limitations of human thought,
they do not exclude conscience and responsibility in the hu-
man family, since their existence is not only for time but
eternity. And yet the saddest thing connected with man-
kind is the vitiation of their nature by sin. God does in-
deed condescend to man, and accommodates himself to his
HUMAN THOUGHT. 235
nature ; but mau, by the abuse of his free agency, has made
himself sinful, otherwise there would be no error respecting
God as he reveals himself to human limitation. What
could be made known would never be mistaken, but clearly
believed in and acted upon ; while that which should tran-
scend the range of that limitation would be simply let alone
as wrong to intrude into. But the tendency of sin in the
mind is to make it bold where it should be timid, and timid
w^here it should be bold. It reverses all the natural order of
things. Instead of contenting itself with that which it may
know, it seeks to find out that which it cannot know. The
world is teeming with great facts, and God, by the direct
manifestation of his mind to man, is making known things
of transcendent importance to understand; and yet the folly
of the human mind in no respect is more manifest than in
passing over the sensible, the near, and the everyday facts
of existence, and rashly speculating upon the Divine Being,
as if the finite, the fallible, the weak, and the sinful was able
to grasp in thought the infinite, the absolute, the omnipres-
ent and omnipotent First Cause.
Thus, the curse of sin is seen either in man groveling in
the mire of sensuality, and not caring to think of God at all,
or it makes itself known in an insane pride that imagines it
can raise itself to God. But God only reveals himself in a
w^ay corresponding to the nature he gives to his creatures.
What is more clear than, if this is so, that the essential lim-
itation of the human mind would make it necessary to be-
lieve much that could not be understood, and submit to much
that must ever be unavoidable. For the very reason that
the finite cannot comprehend the infinite, or that the absolute
and self-existent could not be known by the limited mind of
man; for the very reason that all creatures who are but
second causes, are peculiarly dependent upon the First Cause,
is it not certain that all the speculations of philosophy must
be wrecked whenever they venture beyond the legitimate
limits of human thought?
But consider some of those characteristics of the human
mind that give the note of warning whenever it attempts to
236 LIMITATIONS OF
transgress its prescribed limits. First, whatever the mind
does know it knows almost exclusively in the way of simple
facts. This is true of all the familiar objects of sense that
daily come under the observation of man, and even this
knowledge is confined alone to the surface of facts. Thus,
the mind knows the existence of the ocean, its vastness, its
color, its saltness, and motion ; and yet what mysteries un-
known in the ocean ! Thus, the mind knows that there is
such a thing as the human body ; to reason a man out of
this belief is impossible. But what do we know of the bodies
we every moment carry about with us, except a few of the
most sensible properties of the human system? So of the
earth and air. Ages have passed over the human race, and
slowly accessions of knowledge have been made respecting
earth and air ; but what proportion does the known bear to
the unknown ? So also of rain, snow, sky, lightning, and
heat, there is vastlj' more to be known than is known.
But if this is so of the most apparent things in nature,
what must we not infer respecting the mind of man, and es-
pecially God ! Is it not evident that God in his infinite per-
fections can be known only as he reveals himself within the
sphere of human thought? But what must be the inference
respecting such knowledge? Is it not that it must not only
be accommodated to our mental limitation, but that it will
be given to us more for the regulation of our conduct in this
world than to gratif}^ the curiosity, more as a matter of be-
lief than mere reason, more for good living than for specu-
lation ? Remember that for practice a right belief subserves
all the purpose, and far better than elaborate research of
thought or profound reasoning. Belief is a short process,
available at every emergency of life ; but a man may die be-
fore he gets through with his reasoning: nor can human
action wait long upon the lagging and uncertain footsteps of
speculation. All right conduct need ask for is a right belief.
And yet an axiom of life, universally practiced about things
of this world, is discarded where God is concerned. In no
respect is the insanity of human pride more seen than in
presuming to dictate to God how he should make himself
known to the reason.
HUMAN THOUGHT. 237
But suppose he only discloses to man great facts in his
government; suppose he chooses to present his truth to lis
more in the way of assertion than argument, more under
the aspect of simple declaration than by any attempt to
gratify the reason; suppose God tells us v)}iat he is, rather
them how he is ; suppose he consults no one method of human
reason, either in the time, the way, or the character of his
great remedy for the moral disease of man ; sujjpose his
revelation is exclusively confined to the specific end of secur-
ing right conduct, — will the human mind dare assert that
God should not do so? As the human race consists of men,
women, and children, with only a brief span of life, and vast
issues hanging upon the improvement of their time ; as all
ought to believe right, does not the very course God takes to
make himself known to man, show infinite wisdom as accom-
modated not only to the limited sphere of human thought,
but also the sinfulness existing in that sphere ? There is no
difficulty in revelation that does not find its counterpart in
nature. There are no peculiar obscurities in the facts of the
Bible that are not equally evident in the facts of the physical
world. Nothing lies so far beyond the range of human
thought as the great law of cause and effect. The process of
all right reason is from the known to the unknown, from the
evidence of the seen and the felt to the belief of that unseen,
and, as yet, unfelt. But it is reversing all right reason to go
out of the sphere of human thought to explain that within its
sphere. The human mind, with a capacity extremely limited,
must content itself with simple facts and great axioms of
moral truth declared by God. Nothing is so fatal to all true
belief, even as all right reason, as to pretend to decide upon
that which it cannot know, or to reject that which bears the
stamp of the inspiration of God. Thus, take the divine pur-
poses and the free agency of man, viewed alone as great facts
made known in nature and revelation, and no difficulty need
present itself in relation to these facts more perplexing than
in other facts. But suppose the philosopher attempts to
reason them out, and show how they both harmonize with
each other : what is the result? In the very process of
238 LIMITATIONS OF
human reasou there is a limit passed, where, to proceed one
step farther, is plainly impossible. The dilficulty lies not so
much in the separate facts as in the attempt to blend them
together.
But why, at a certain point, must all reasoning stop,
or involve itself in absurdity and contradiction ? Why
does the imperative mandate of the individual consciousness
say. Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther? Evidently be-
cause the finite cannot comprehend the infinite ; because
there is an essential limitation of thought, beyond which all
thought falters. Suppose there may be an apparent contra-
diction in the efibrt to blend together God's purposes and
free moral agency : are either of these great facts to be de-
nied? The contradiction that appears to the mind arises
alone from its limitation. What appears to infringe upon
these facts only confirms them. For why this failure of th-e
mind to show how both, by God, are made to coalesce to-
gether, while the action of each is separate and independ-
ent? Why are we compelled to admit the facts, and yet
find the reason unable to reconcile them in their joint ex-
istence ? Is it that God has given to us a reason only
to confound it? Is it that there is any real contradiction
in the action of the divine purposes and free moral
agency ? Is one naturally opposed to the other ? Not in the
least! there is no real antagonism in the blending together
of the two. They act in perfect harmony with each other ;
both are essential, both true, and while there is a dependence
of one upon the other, it is not a dependence that in the
least infringes upon the sphere of either. Why, then, the
more we reason upon the mode of the joint existence of
both, is there an apparent contradiction, so that the full ad-
mission of one seems to preclude the existence of the other ?
All this arises from the inherent limitation of the mind, and
the impossibilit}' beyond a certain line of having the least idea
or knowledge of the infinite God. When the bird flies too
high in the air, its motion becomes weak and unsteady, and
it must soon descend to a region adapted to its nature. So
of the reason : when it attempts to fly too high into the
HUMAN THOUGHT. 239
mystery of the divine action and being, its very weakness
shows itself in absurdity and contradiction.
As facts made known, man's free moral agency and God's
purposes are most evident; but they are evident as facts to be
credited and acted upon, not as theories to be reasoned out
and demonstrated. Where is it that the difficulty shows
itself when the mind of man attempts by any process of rea-
son to blend together in one harmonious theory the union of
God's purposes and man's free moral agency ? Precisel}'
where the finite passes the line of its limitation and intrudes
into the infinite. It is evident there is the finite, and equally
evident there is the infinite ; but who can explain their joint
existence or reconcile it to the reason ? Denying the finite,
we merge into pantheism; denying the infinite, we plunge
into atheism; and either error destroys free moral agency.
Suppose we admit the finite and the infinite, but deny the
divine purposes : what kind of God do we make that has a
mind without a purpose, an intelligence without a will,
thought without intention, existence without wish, and per-
ception without choice ? If a man cannot be deprived of
purpose and yet be a man, could God lose his purposes and
yet be God ?
But, says an objector, I cannot reconcile the joint action of
man's free agency with God's purposes. The existence of
one seems to conflict with that of the other. But is it not
evident that what we are unable to comprehend should seem
contradictory ? Is there greater difficulty of comprehension
in this than in the joint action of thought and matter, spirit
and body ? But the joint existence of thought and matter,
spirit and body, cannot be denied because of their apparent
contradiction. Neither free agency nor the divine purposes
can be invalidated because of the seeming inconsistency of
their joint existence. Apparent contradictions are not real
ones. The Infinite can only be known as he condescends to
the limitation of human thought.
The whole doctrine of the incarnation of Christ is emi-
nently consistent with this view. The incarnation is revealed
as a simple fact to be believed, not a speculation to be rea-
240 LIMITATIONS OF
soiled upon. What has reason to do with that which, like
the infinite, is impossible to be conceived of? Says an ob-
jector, The incarnation is incomprehensible, and therefore
impossible. Yes ! the incarnation is impossible to be con-
ceived of by men, because it is as high above man as the
infinite is above the finite ; but is it therefore impossible to
God ? Cannot God bring this about, even if the compre-
hension of this truth is impossible to man ? The incarnation
of Christ, the Son of God, is the manifestation of the wisdom
of God to man in its highest and noblest aspect.
It is this great doctrine that tells us in the clearest manner
that when God makes himself known to man, when espe-
ciall}- he has some great purpose of mercy in view, he does it
in that way which corresponds with the nature of man and
his wants. It is the descent of God, so far as is suitable,
into the sphere of man and into the region of his limitation;
and, therefore, it is the assumption of that very limitation
necessary for the welfare of the human race. But are any to
imagine that God is finite or limited, because he takes upon
himself those limitations absolutely necessary for accommo-
dating himself to the contracted sphere of human compre-
hension and human action? Will any take advantage of
this to attribute infirmity to God, because he condescends to
the infirmity of man ? Wlien Christ said, " He that hath seen
me hath seen the Father," is it not obvious that Christ speaks
only under the restriction of human limitation ? Is not the
same great truth announced in other words, when Christ
declares to Thomas, " If ye had known me, ye should have
known ray Father also" ? This is all consistent with those
other assertions in the Bible, where God speaks of himself
as impossible to be seen, as the infinitely unknown. In the
one case, God speaks of himself as beyond the sphere of
human thought; in the other case, as condescending to come
within the range of the limitation of man. The great truth
of the incarnation of Christ, is God revealing himself under
human limitations, the infinite entering the sphere of the
finite ; but this very condescension adds inconceivably to the
glory of God, rather it is that glory, unlimited and eternal,
HUMAN THOUGHT. 241
coming under the restrictions essential in the finite, not
diminished, but, under the loveliest aspect of mercy, conform-
ing to that limitation inherent in the contracted sphere of
human thought and action. Yet this very condescension of
God is made the occasion of innumerable objections to the
plain facts of the Bible. But has it come to this, that either
God in no sense shall be known, or, if known as far as hu-
man limitation will permit, this very knowledge is to be
made the excuse for denying his infinite perfections and pur-
poses of wisdom and grace, or man's free moral agency?
In no sense is the limitation of the human mind more seen
than in the errors fallen into in the theories advocated of the
first cause and second causes, existence uncreated and exist-
ence created, the duration of mind and matter, time and eter-
nity. Yet it is certain that God existed from eternity, and as
certain that matter and mind created is finite. But either
matter and mind are derived from God, or they are not. If
we say they are parts of God, originating from his substance,
then we fall into pantheism, and pantheism is fatal to all hu-
man responsibility. If we say the finite does not originate
from the infinite, then something comes from nothing, that
which is proceeds from that which is not. Here creation,
which is exclusively the work of God, plunges the reason into
difficulties from which faith only can extricate the mind. If
God is the Absolute, the First Cause, the Infinite, then in
any way to make the finite, the derived, or any begun exist-
ence of mind or matter originating from God, does conflict
with the fact of creation in the production of something from
nothing. Creation is as much beyond the reason of man as
the existence of the infinite. Man must believe it as a fact
without explanation, or in the very effort to explain it the
mind rushes into pantheism or atheism. Say that the world
is a part of God, derived from him ; say that the human
mind is an emanation of the divine mind, and pantheism, with
its denial of second causes and responsibility, follows; say
that the universe is God, in the sense that nothing exists but
this, and atheism is the result, and with it, as with pantheism,
there is the denial of free agency and human responsibility.
16
242 LIMITATIONS OF
Thus, many a noble miucl has been wrecked in fruitless
speculations to solve the difficulties involved in the existence
of the absolute and the created, the underived and the finite,
the self-existent and existence begun ; but, other than as
facts made known, there can be no knowledge of these
things. To know the great things involved in the existence
of God and in creation, the finite capacity of man must en-
large itself to an infinite capacity, or man must become God.
But what absurdity in the idea ! Yet this very contradiction
of mind, — arising from abortive attempts to convert nature
into God, or God into nature ; to construct a theory that shall
tell how mind or matter exists ; how the infinite exists without
the finite, or the finite without the infinite ; how creation is
possible or impossible ; how the derived comes from the un-
derived, or how only one exists, — this confounding second
causes with the First Cause, all show that some fatal per-
versity of unbelief has taken hold of the mind.
In all reasoning from the personality of man to the per-
sonality of God, the limitation of the human mind is pecu-
liarly seen. From finite personality we ascend to the idea
of infinite personality. But the personality of man involves
not only individuality, a person distinct from all other per-
sons, but a local habitation for the soul, a sphere of existence
restricted and an essential limitation in the mode of human
life. Finite personality has a finite sphere" of existence and
development; in that sphere it is self-conscious; in its rela-
tions to the world it is altogether dependent ; its very life
and happiness must flow from its connection with that which
is out of it and above it. But the personality of God is in-
finite, unlimited, self-existent, and independent; its action
and happiness are in itself; perfect independence and absolute
freedom are its peculiar character. The personality of God
makes him in every respect essentially distinct from the uni-
verse. This personality of God, with his infinite attributes
of wisdom, power, goodness, and knowledge, is underived,
and therefore is the peculiar feature of the Absolute and the
First Cause. Because from the known we infer the unknown,
or because we believe from our own conscious personality in
HUMAN THOUGHT. 243
the personality of God, is it not the extreme of folly to
assert that God's personality in all respects resembles our
own ? Yet this great mistake is the source of all the contro-
versy that arises in disputing the revealed fact of the triune
existence of God, comprehending his essential unity of being
with three persons, — the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit.
But evidentlj' what constitutes tlie whole of the personality
of God is not within the sphere of the human mind to com-
prehend ; if, as a fact, it is made known that God is one being
and yet three persons, that fact is to be believed in from the
testimony of the sacred Scriptures. But, says an objector,
the word person, when used in relation to man, always means
one distinct being, and therefore three persons in tlie God-
head must mean three distinct beings. This does not follow.
If the objector could comprehend the infinite, he might then
be competent to say whether there is a real contradiction in
the doctrine of Trinitarians; he might then be prepiired to
question the consistency of this threefold personality with
the unity of the Godhead. But as the objector is finite in
mind and existence, how can he insist upon his own theorj^
as true if it conflicts with the plain assertions of the Bible ?
Does the same thing of necessity follow in the infinite being
of God that does follow in the limited existence of man ?
Suppose one person means in a finite sphere one being, and
three persons three beings, must the same logic be applied
to the infinite God? Until the mode of the divine existence
is known in its height and length and breadth and depth,
is it not presumption to assert that what happens to be true
in a finite relation is alone true in the infinite, the absolute,
and the First Cause? Is the limited capacity of man com-
petent to bring the charge of tritheism against those who
hold to the doctrine that there is but one God and yet three
persons in the Godhead ? What if, in reasoning from human
personality to the divine personality, there is an apparent
contradiction ? Does not this follow from the essential
limitation of the human faculties ?
The whole sul)ject is one altogether beyond the grasp of
244 LIMITATIONS OF
tlie compreliension of man, and it is to be credited as a fact
revealed, with no attempt to explain it. For, until all that
enters into divine personality is comprehended, there is an
obvious impossibility in asserting that the threefold person-
ality of God is inconsistent with his divine unity. Tritheism
does not follow because the doctrine is held of three persons
in the Godhead, and it does not follow simpl}^ because a pro-
cess of reasoning that would be correct in relation to man in
his linite capacity is not of necessity so when applied to the
infinite, the absolute, and the First Cause. In the nature of
things, the union of the human and the divine natures, and
the doctrine of three persons in one God, must, to be con-
ceived of in any sense, co-me under the limitations of human
thought; but we are not to attach our own limitations to God,
because in the way of accommodation to the infirmities of
our faculties God reveals himself. If to be known at all,
God must be known wathin the sphere of the finite; then let
us be thankful for such knowledge, let us humbly submit
our reason and hearts to it, and not pervert the divine conde-
scension into an arrogant denial of revealed facts. These
facts are not changed hy any imperfection in our own minds,
nor do they infringe upon the infinite perfection of God, but
they are given to us for right conduct, for more than curious
speculation, — for the trial of faith rather than reason.
There are many difliculties that are presented in the con-
sideration of facts made known respecting the divine govern-
ment, probation, heaven and hell; but these difficulties also
grow from the limitations of human thought, they are shown
as much in contemplating that which God declares he will do
as in that which pertains to the mode of his existence. Con-
sider how w^e come into this world, and what we are while
we live in it. IIow does the mind develop itself from infancy ?
Is not its growth slow, vitiated, and, through wn-ong habit or
association, subject to great perversion? Here then is the
finite, emerging under the thousand perverting influences of
sin, contemplating God as made known.
But is not the inference correct that God can only be most
inadequately apprehended, either in his character or in his
HUMAN THOUGHT. 245
government ? Is it not certain tliat manj^ difficulties will
present themselves from the position of man in his relation
to God ? Does it therefore follow that facts made known re-
specting what God does or will do, are inconsistent or contra-
dictory because they may appear so under the perverting in-
fluences of sin ? Is it not certain that the limitations of
human thought will experience also a kind of deceptiou that
arises from a person ignorant of those limits beyond which
the mind cannot go ? Facts are stubborn things that do not
bend to our theories. We may think them very contradic-
tory : we may say that if one kind of facts is true, another is
not true; we may say we cannot reconcile this fact with a
different fact made known, — but all will be of no use. It is
quite probable that as much contradiction will arise in the
mind respecting what God says he tvill do as in relation to
what God says he is. It is quite probable that the human
mind in its limitations will be often severely perplexed in all
reasoning about the facts of the divine government and the
issues of this short probation. There is a cause for this in
that finite capacity that cannot take in all the reasons for
God's conduct.
God must in himself have many reasons for what he does
that he will not see tit to communicate, — reasons that exoner-
ate him from the charge of partiality or injustice, and which
are concealed in his own infinite being. But more than this,
it is certain that God may have reasons for what he does that
could not be comprehended if made known, — reasons that lie
altogether beyond the finite capacity, and that are a rule to
him, while they may be no rule to us. The natural presump-
tion respecting a revelation of God's will to man is, that it
will be regulative rather than speculative ; more to secure
right action than to favor the reason. While God will not
treat the reason wnth contempt, he certainly will teach it its
true place before him, — he will encourage its development
but not its presumption.
Thus we find it. The whole import of the gospel to man
is to teach man how to live well and how to be saved, but
beyond this very little is said for the mere gratification of the
246 LIMITATIONS OF HUMAN THOUGHT.
mind. Yet objections in relation to God's government, and
especially the puni|liment denounced against the wicked, have
often been made. Either the truth of God's threatenings
against sin has been denied, or the mind has rebelled against
God as acting unworthy of himself. I^Tow it is obviously im-
possible for a finite capacity to say what God should do in
the punishment of si-n. The mind cannot, from any theory
of God, decide as to the character of his government or deal-
ings toward his creatures. True, we can say God will do
nothing unjust, unworthy of himself, or opposed to the great
law of equity ; but this is the very difficulty to encounter, to
decide what in all cases is just, equitable, or worthy of God.
Such a question, in its full import, can be decided only by
God himself.
It cannot come under the limited capacity of man to say
under all circumstances what God should do. Why so? Be-
cause, first, man does not know what all circumstances are,
and then man does not know all that God is. Here are two
mighty objections to any theory of the human mind respect-
ing what should be, in all cases, the mode of the divine con-
duct respecting his creatures. Man neither knows all that
God is, nor all the circumstances that are connected with his
conduct. Before, then, the mind presumes to dispute any re-
vealed fact, let it ask itself how far it is competent to sit in
judgment upon that fact. Is it not obvious that if the in-
strument of thought is distorted we shall have an erroneous
impression of the object of thought? Is it not certain that
if the mind is perverted it will pervert that which it professes
to contemplate ? Should not man, finite in all his faculties
and weak in all his powers, remember that here it sees in part
and knows in part; here the known bears no comparison to
the unknown ; here life is too short for idle dreams or useless
speculations ; here probation, with its issues for eternity, ad-
monishes all to seek first the kingdom of God and the
friendship of the Almighty, so that, in another and better
world, we may see as we are seen, and know as we are
known ?
CHAPTER XXIV.
ATHEISM.
"The living God, wHcli made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things
that are therein." — Acts, xiv. 15.
"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."— Psalm liii. 1.
Consider the condition of the atheist upon the supposition
that there is no God.
His condition upon the supposition that there is a God.
If atheism is tnie, then the whole system of natural and re-
vealed theology is false, — both are founded upon the ad-
mission that there is a God. If there is no God, then nature
is its own God. Chance is the deity that rules, or the law
unintelligent of an irreversible fatality, or some unknown
power selfexistent, pervading all substances, blindly de-
pendent upon nature, or itself a part of nature. The infinite
diversities of mind and matter have then no other origin than
chance, or some cause unknown and without intelligence, or
they had an existence uncaused and from eternity. There is,
then, no independent and Almighty Creator, self-existent
and uncaused, unlimited in his agency and knowledge, and
infinite in goodness, wisdom, and justice.
What does atheism gain by this ? The atheist is no better
off, in any respect, than those who believe in a God. By re-
moving the highest incentive to virtue and the greatest re-
straint upon sin, the atheist gains nothing either in virtue or
happiness. By holding to no higher tribunal for his conduct
than a human one, he makes not himself more useful or
happy, he adds nothing to his real pleasures or virtues. How
is the atheist better off in this world than the believer in a
God of infinite purity, justice, and benevolence? Suppose
him to find out the fact of liis inability to take care of him-
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248 ATHEISM.
self, or others to take care of him ; suppose him conscious
that uo human aid can soothe his pain, or relieve the suf-
ferings of the present hour, or the misery that threatens him
in the future, — is he better ofi" than those who believe in a
Being so wise and merciful that he can do that for them
that no human agency can perform ?
But the atheist is no better than the believer in a God in his
relations to society and in the happiness enjoyed from the con-
templation of the works of nature. Atheism does not help its
advocates to more usefulness or more peace of mind in the
family relation : it is a poor preparation for society. Certainly
civil and parental government must lose one main prop to
respect and efficiency with the fear of God removed, and the
sanctions of a higher than human authority done away with.
The atheist walks upon the earth, and yet believes in no
Creator of it ; he breathes the air, and confesses no Being
who mingles in such nice proportions those ethereal elements
that separated or united together in a ditFerent way would
destroy all animal life ; he beholds the sun, and wonders at
the mysterious light that, coming from the distant orb, gives
beauty and growth to all vegetation, and yet that sun has uo
intelligent author ; he admires the ocean with its ever-mov-
ing waters, and yet believes in uo infinite mind that combines
the waters together and makes them fit for countless inhab-
itants; he looks with awe upon the mountain, raising its
majestic head above the clouds, but whether there is a maker
of that mountain does not convince his mind ; he studies the
anatomy of the human frame, but the skill that forms the eye,
or constructs the bones, or sends the blood through the veins,
has its cause in no God.
The condition of the atheist, so far as the works of nature
are concerned, is far inferior in happiness to tliB believer in a
God. If atheism is true, — yet it bears upon its face everything
repulsive and gloomy, — if, in looking upon some masterpiece
of human mechanism, it is a pleasure to us to know some
intelligent cause, and recognize some mind that adjusted to-
gether the varied parts, is there no pleasure in looking upon
the universe and surveying the miracles of a divine workman-
ATHEISM. 249
ship ? When the atheist contemplates those worlds whose
rapid flight through space no finite mind can comprehend,
the endless diversities of hodies, each acting in accordance
with their respective laws, he sees no God in their formation.
Admitting that he is right, was there ever a truth more
repulsive or destitute of pleasure ?
The atheist is worse off than the heliever in a God, from
the fact that his highest rule of conduct must be human au-
thority, or what appears to him his own interests. But
human authority may be upon the side of vice, and the
atheist's self-interests may be the worst selfishness. If im-
punity to sin can be secured with no earthly punishment,
why be intimidated from transgression, since no punishment
can be experienced from a higher tribunal? If vice is more
profitable than virtue, why not be vicious, since there is no
God to xHiiiish ? If it is more pleasant to act as we please,
however pernicious to the welfare of others, why not do so,
if human justice can be averted and divine justice not expe-
rienced? If wealth, hoDor, or pleasure can be secured by
oppression or fraud, why not use these means to secure the
heart's desire, if there is no God to judge or condemn ?
Consider, also, that atheism, true or false, is revolting to
the conscience and those sensibilities of our nature not wholly
dead to all noble activity. If man has a lower nature that,
with passionate inclinations, leads him to sin, he yet has con-
science and reason, and the faculty of judgment, and natural
perceptions of what is true and honorable and fitting to
moral excellence. The idea of no God is opposed to the
voice of conscience, that speaks of an authority higher for hu-
man conduct than the laws alone of man. The atheist, by
suppressing the instinctive convictions of conscience and
reason, is in no way to advance his internal peace or pure
gratification. The atheist, by waging war with the better
part of his nature, only helps on the worse, — he not only
applies a burning torch to the magazine of his evil passions,
but removes away the natural reservoir of waters that God,
in mercy, has given to quench the flames of base desires.
Such is our nature, and such is the existing relation of things,
250 ATHEISM.
that virtue and happiness are both sacrificed by rebelling
against the conscience and permitting the lower part of our
nature to lord it over the higher. But our noblest impulses
are all favorable to the admission of a God, and our account-
ability to a source immeasurably superior to any human au-
thority. Atheism, so far as it dares, throws the whole
weight of its influence to help on the inferior part of our na-
ture. By waging war with our best impulses, and not heed-
ing the voice of conscience when it speaks of accountability
to a divine being, it weakens beyond description the moral
power to be virtuous. An atheistical heart is the hot-bed of
all vice. Human law can only suppress the outward devel-
opments of those sins more immediately dangerous to society.
What, then, is the mischief engendered in the community
when no fear of God exists to stop the deep under-currents
of sin ?
But consider atheism in its relation to the future. Either all
the enjoyments of the atheist are with the body, to be buried
in the grave, or, if there is a future life in reserve for him, he
has no reason to believe it will be any better or so good as
the present life. He takes, as a celebrated infidel once ex-
pressed, a leap in the dark; and how does he know but that he
may be as likely to jump into misery as into nothingness?
"What argument can he ofi:er to show that, if eternal oblivion
is not his portion after death, it may not be an existence
combining worse elements of wretchedness than the present ?
If the atheist instinctively shrinks from the death of the
brute, and, like Milton's fallen angels, would desire an exist-
ence even of pain to eternal nothingness, what kind of exist-
ence in the future has he to ofi'er ? With the denial of the
first truth of natural and revealed theology, what are the
hopes of the atheist after death ? Shutting out from his
mind Christ, the great medium of redemption, and absolving
himself from the sacred restraints of Christianit}', the atheist
adds to the hopelessness of his state by extinguishing even
the torch of nature. Thus, atheism, if true, is so gloomy and
repulsive that its admission involves in a worse than Egyp-
tian darkness the world. If atheism derides the restraints of
ATHEIS3L 2ol
religion, it has none of its elevating tendencies or hopes.
Atheism avoids the future, for the future is cheerless and un-
certain. Beyond this world all is doubt. The present life
is, then, the only sphere of action that the atheist loves to
contemplate. Man's vision is contracted to the few short
years of his mortal existence. But does the atheist imagine
that, by shutting out from the mind every beam of immor-
tality, he makes happier or better this world ? Does he dream
that, when he has enthroned in the heart the poor idols of
time, he has retrieved the losses of eternity ? If the atheist
has made out religion a fiction, and a personal God a delu-
sion, has he conferred any real favor upon man ? Is it not
true, the more contracted our hopes the less noble onr con-
duct ? Does the atheist imagine the good have any thanks
for a system that makes the present hour alone valuable and
extinguishes the bright hopes of the future ?
But consider the condition of the atheist upon the sup-
position that there is a God. If atheism is untrue, then what
follows ? The existence of God reveals the great fact of his
government, natural and moral. To learn what the govern-
ment of God is, we have two books to consult, — nature and
revelation. The first lesson we learn, as moral beings, is
that the present life is one of trial under the government of
God. Here upon this earth are we placed, with duties to per-
form and sins to resist. Here are we tempted, and yet not
compelled into sin ; allured to virtue, but not forced into it.
There are certain actions that human and divine law combine
to deter us from committing, while there are other deeds the
performance of which secures the approval of the divine law
and our conscience. Against the more atrocious develop-
ments of sin the laws of God and man are arrayed, while
with every impure desire or wrong purpose there is made
known the opposition of the will of God. Those sins that
cannot be reached by human government are all condemned
by divine law. Thus, even the atheist finds in his own ex-
perience that the sanctions of human and divine law are
upon him.
In this world for some sins the divine government pecu-
252 ATHEISM.
liarly manifests its indignation. In the very constitution of
man God writes the impress of his authority. Let a person
give himself up to strong drink, or the control of impure
passion, and even upon the body are inscribed the characters
of divine indignation. Let a person habitually foster in him-
self anger, or malice, or envy, or fraud, and it will not be
long before even the body will reveal the injury done to the
soul. Here, then, we see sensuality and intemperance writing
in lineaments of wrath their impress upon the form of man.
Here we see the baser passions of our nature inscribing their
fatal mark upon the soul and body of man.
Why, then, is the whole course of nature so hostile to sin
and so friendly to virtue ? Why does our constitution thus
reveal the misery of sin ? With the evidence of God, is
there not made known his moral government? Consider
that the government of God is uniformly upon the side of
virtue: it is based upon those principles that, acted out,
secure the highest welfare of every person. Thus, the laws
of God disapprove of all sin and approve of all virtue, — they
demand the performance of those duties that involve in them
the noblest blessings. If justice is an essential feature of
God's government, so is benevolence. Who but God insti-
tuted that system of things by which one kind of action pro-
motes our welfare while another results in our wretchedness?
Here, then, we see the truth revealed of a probationary state,
and that the divine purposes are tending to some higher con-
summation, where there is to be the revelation more perfectly
of God's dealings with mankind.
Another feature of God's government is, that it holds all
mankind accountable for their conduct. Law implies subjects.
All being under the government of God are bound to obey
his will.
Revelation makes known the great fact that the govern-
ment of God over man includes not only the present life, but
also the future, — that this Avorld is only a rude stage of exist-
ence, where are cultivated those plants that must have another
sphere of being to reach their maturity of sin or virtue. The
existence of God, with the clear intimations of his will in na-
ATHEISM. 253
tare and revelation, show ns a boundless future beyond the
grave, an illimitable expanse of time, where thought, feel-
ing, and perception continue, — where the soul will look back
upon the associations and scenes of time, even as the mariner
upon the ocean observes upon the far-distant sea the dim
outlines of the land no longer to be visited as his home or
the nursery of his infant years. Thus, God's government
in relation to man has in it progressive stages of develop-
ment, so that what now is dark will in the future become
clear, and what now is unknown will by creatures be under-
stood, so that the apparent irregularities with the evils sin
has introduced into the world will hereafter find an explana-
tion such as shall remove all doubt of the goodness of
God.
Another indication of the moral government of God is,
that there actually does exist in harmony with that govern-
ment a system of redemption by Christ. We live under the
strange anomaly of grace and law, of a system comprehend-
ing the most perfect justice and at the same time the most
unlimited mercy, — a system where divine law for a short
time stands in abeyance, while infinite love, through the
mediation of Christ, works its miracles of salvation for re-
deemed sinners. To deny the ftict of God's existence, and con-
sequently his government, under a system of law, would be far
more excusable than to deny them under a system of grace.
If atheism under the former would reveal neither reason nor
wisdom, what shall be said of atheism under the latter? The
real sin lies not so much in the mind that pretends to believe
there is no good evidence of God's existence, as in the heart
that wishes it to be so. It is an indication not so much of
want of intellect as want of all good sensibility to the grand-
est of truths and the best of beings. How slender is the
argument necessary to induce a man to embark his fortune
in an enterprise where nothing can be lost by the venture, but
everything may be gained ! But the atheist reverses this rule
of wisdom : he ventures his all where nothing is gained if
there is no God, and everything is lost if there is. The atheist
increases his condemnation by presuming upon such a course
254 ATHEISM.
under an economy of grace. "While atheistical in heart, grace
can be no grace to him, — the golden h^nrs of probation in re-
spect to salvation are nothing to him, — angels of love inviting
to a fairer world can be no angels to him, — ministers of affec-
tion standing by his sleeping couch, or present in the sweet
retirement of home, can avail nothing for him ; with the
denial of God he cuts himself aloof from all those influences
that would otherwise lead him to heaven. When he looks
upon nature, with her endless diversities of form, he looks
upon a blank, a causeless something with no intelligent au-
thor; when he surveys the heavens, he recognizes only an
unmeaning law, or a blind chance ; all creation is open for
inspection, but its great Author is denied. The Being who
paints the flower of the fleld or the rainbow that arches the
sky, or gives music to the bird that warbles, or strength and
intelligence to man, is forgotten.
To see more clearly the real nature of atheism, let us con-
trast it in its influence with Christianity. It is not our object
to speak of the truth of Christianity, or discuss the evidences
of its divine origin. We only purpose to portray it in its
influence upon mankind. Atheism comes professedly to de-
liver the mind from the shackles of Christianity. To believe
in the God of revelation would be to deny itself. To admit
a God would be to admit the duties we owe to him, and all
the sanctions of his moral government ; but if there is no
God, then Christianity is a fable, and the sanctions of religion
are unfounded. In what respect, then, is atheism better than
Christianity ? Here are the ills of life, with their inevitable
attendants. Here come death and sickness, and poverty
and hunger and want, all the wretchedness of CTime and the
pains of dissipation and folly: these things do exist in the
world. Two difterent schemes are presented to remedy the
evils of the present life — atheism and Christianity; each as
diverse as light and darkness. In what respect does atheism
remedy the ills of life, or give the assurance of a better state
beyond the grave ? No rule of judgment more correct than
that based upon the influence exerted. Atheism says there
is no God, consequently there is no Saviour for sinners, no
ATHEISM. 255
immortality of blessedness as made known is revelation for
the believing in Christ ; atheism at the best can offer nothing
beyond the grave but a condition like that of the present life,
and that even it cannot make certain by a single argument.
It must of necessity, therefore, limit its promises and hopes
to the present world. What does it offer? By removing all
the restraints of the future it shuts up the mind only to the
enjoyments of the present hour. What does it offer for that
hour ? What the paradise it makes out of this life ?
Atheism has indeed its conventional rules, but all those
rules it discards when opportunity gives impunity and license
gratification. It forms for itself a code of laws, and the chief
one upon the list is, your own pleasure is your highest law,
and your only restraint should be the impossibility of gratifi-
cation. Thus it embodies in itself, as its essential element,
that which discards all moral obligation, or any rule of duty
that depends upon the will of God and the best welfare of
mankind. Examine, then, atheism in its influence upon the
individual and upon society. One of the first things we
learn in coming into the world is, that our own pleasure, to
be innocent, must not be at the expense of the pleasure of
others, and our own gratification, to be right, must never in-
fringe upon the best interests of society. Christianity makes
around each individual a circle, and says, beyond that circle
you must not go, or you trespass upon the rights of your
neighbor. To e-o without your circle is to exclude vourself
from all the real pleasures of your circle, as well as do injury
to others. Thus the chief element of Christianity is that of
good restraint, because by it the individual and the commu-
nity move in harmony, and by respecting the rights of each
the interests of the whole are mutually promoted. What
does atheism do ? It breaks down that wall of self-protection
that binds all society together with the cord of friendship
and of love. By giving a license to the passions and appe-
tites of our nature that Christianity condemns, by absolving
the individual from holy restraints that the gospel approves
of, it turns the individual loose upon the community, to be to
society, wherever his own selfish interests may lead, its greatest
256 ATHEISM.
enemy. How then does atheism benefit the world? As far
as it can go or it dares to go, it mocks at the wholesome
restraints of religion, and makes no higher law to the indi-
vidual than his private inclination. What of the sweets of
life does it offer to society more than the religion of Christ ?
It is the glory of atheism to absolve the individual and society
from those restraints that religion most earnestly seeks to im-
pose. Its creed consists in no religion. Christ and God are
names that atheism would obliterate from the memory of all,
or only rehearse them to show its triumph over religion.
After throwing the Bible into the fire, and stifling with its
profane scofits every aspiration of holiness, — after it makes
itself an undisputed master of the cottage and the palace, and
is the public guest of the nation and the idol of its warmest
love, what are the rewards it bestows, what the substitute it
ofifers for the hopes of the gospel ?
When atheism had one triumph in France, what did it do?
It secured the national divorcement of the people from the
restraints of the Bible. It placed upon the throne the God-
dess of Reason, and made all Paris ring with its hymn of tri-
umph over the death of Christianity. But anarchy and ruin
followed in the rear of its track, — the guillotine drank up
the best blood of the nation, — personal property and life
every day were endangered, and the sword of atheism, in a few
short years, devoured three millions of the people. Equality,
fraternity, and liberty were the only trinity adored ; but no
heathen temple could reveal three gods more vile or more
cruel. The equality of atheism aimed to obliterate the just
distinctions of society that alone preserved it from stagna-
tion,— its fraternity attempted to bind, by the coercion of
physical force, those diverse orders of mankind in unison
whose hearts alone could be reached by moral renovation, —
its liberty was but another name for passion uncontrolled by
those good influences that give to freedom its only value.
Thus did atheism show itself when it had a fair opportunity;
and who would wish to see repeated like scenes of its vic-
tory ?
But atheism, in doing away with the laws of God, tends di-
A THEISM. 257
rectly to do away with parental and civil law; its code of mo-
rality is so corrupt that it does not oifer to society a single
support. By removing the highest restraint upon vice it
suiters it to roam at large, until it becomes so formidable that
it even welcomes as a self-protection the greatest absurdities
of superstition. Atheism, having nothing to recommend it,
seeks to pass itself off under the guise of something that is
better, and is never more ill at ease than when it finds itself
stripped of the garment of false religion, that it assumes to
enable it more effectually to make its thrusts at that re-
ligion which is true. Atheism destroys those generous
emotions that lead to self-sacrifice for the general good.
It freezes up the purest sensibilities and the noblest sym-
pathies of our nature. By introducing as the only standard
of conduct its mercenary code of selfishness, it effectually
suppresses all the promptings of virtue and of disinterested
affection. Having converted the belief of God into a fable,
and the atoning love of Christ into a device of supersti-
tion, it destroys, with the highest check upon vice, the
loftiest hopes of man. Possessing in itself no intrinsic merit,
giving no good support to society or security to domestic
purity, it wanders over the earth with the mark of Cain upon
its forehead, and all the wretchedness of the first murderer in
its heart.
No thanks to atheism for those checks that God, in mercy,
has placed upon its progress, — no thanks to it for that law
of self-preservation that makes even the most corrupt to
shudder with the good at the contemplation of its prospec-
tive triumphs. Well n;ay mothers weep, and children, aban-
doned, cry, and the aged and oppressed groan in despair,
when atheism walks with bold and merciless visage in their
midst ! Well may nature clothe herself in a robe of dark-
ness, and throw over all her scenes of loveliness and beauty
a drapery of mourning, when atheism sits upon the world's
throne, and sings his bloody hymn of victory over the death
and burial of Christianity !
17
REVEALED THEOLOGY.
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REVEALED THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER I.
NECESSITY OF A REVELATION FROM GOD.
The foundation of all our reasoning upon the evidences of
Christianity rests upon the admission of three truths, estab-
lished by the light of nature, — God, Conscience, and Man a
sinner, responsible and free.
We enter now upon the discussion of the great questions :
Is the Bible a revelation, in any sense, of the mind and will
of Cod ?
Were the writers of the Bible inspired by God, and how
inspired ?
Have we, in the Old and New Testaments, a clear exhibi-
tion of the mind, character, purposes, and feelings of God
toward man ?
Is not the Bible, in the highest sense, a supreme authority
for human conduct ?
What is the proof of the Divine Mission of Christ, and what
its necessity?
If, in reply to these questions, it is shown that the Bible is
from God, then it must be infinitely superior to any human
production, as making known God's will, and it must have
the sanctions of its great Author, demanding our faith and
obedience. But if the Bible has only a human origin, then
it must have only a human authority, and consequently our
obligation to believe and obey it must be measured by a
human standard. As the words of God are infinitely superior
in dignity to the words of man, so also, if the Bible contains
only the words of man, is not inspired, then must it be as in-
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262 NECESSITY OF A
ferior in worth to an inspired production as man himself is
inferior to God.
A revelation from God is necessary for us, not only because
we are sinners, and need every favorable influence to lead us
in the right way, but especially because the light of nature
has failed to guide men aright. ISow, God has a right to
speak to us in the way he thinks best. The question for
us to consider is simply one of fact: Has God spoken to us?
We cannot prescribe to God the mode of the divine com-
munications. It is not for us to say how God shall speak to us,
or when he shall thus do. God may not choose to reveal to
us all the reasons of his conduct. The infidel objects to the
Christian scheme because it is a revelation given to us, not
at once, but at different periods of the world ; but, unless
this was most pleasing to God, he would not have resorted to
it. He objects that an obscure nation of Jews was the chosen
depository of the divine messages to man, but God has a
right to select whom he pleases for such a work. He objects
to the difficulties of revelation, but he might as well object
to the difficulties of nature. He objects to the mysteries of
the gospel, but there are other mysteries in the world besides
those of revelation. He objects to many things incompre-
hensible in the Bible, but his objection is equally valid
against the incomprehensible of his own body. We might
go on to speak of many other objections, but it is not neces-
sary here. Our object is only to establish the proposition
that whoever admits the existence of God must also admit
his right to give a revelation of his will in the way and time
most pleasing to him. The question for us to settle is
simply a question of fact.
The Scriptures come to us as the word of God ; they pro-
fess to be divinely inspired and a revelation of his will. Are
they what they profess? In deciding upon this question,
there is one uniform law of belief that is never to be forgot-
ten. This law is, that we are authorized to believe in any-
thing when the reasons for belief are greater than the
reasons for unbelief. Thus, we credit testimony just in pro-
portion to the evidence existing. By a law of our minds we
REVELATION FROM GOD. 263
are authorized to believe whenever the evidence for a thins;
is greater than the evidence against it. The question is not
so much the degree of evidence that the Bible is the word of
God, as is there any evidence at all that it is such ? Before
we are authorized to reject it as a divine revelation, we
must show that there is greater evidence that it is not such,
than that it does come from God. It is not for us to pre-
scribe to God hoW' much evidence he must give us to show
the Bible divine. Our only course is to take the revelation,
as it comes to us, and examine its credentials. It may have
great or small credentials, few or many, but if the word of
God has any credentials, we are to receive it, so long as no
evidence exists to the contrary. Here is the stumbling-block
with many in receiving the Bible as the word of God. They
prescribe to God just the evidence he must give, and if their
standard is not reached they reject the Bible; they say we
must have evidence as demonstrative as mathematical evi-
dence; they say such objections in respect to style or his-
toric narrations of Jewish customs, battles, manners, or lan-
guage, must be fully cleared up to their satisfaction before
the}' receive the Bible as the word of God. All such reasoning
is alike irreverent and out of place. "We have no more right to
prescribe to God the exact mode or degree of revelation than
we have the matter of it. This is the business alone of the au-
thor of revelation and does not concern those who receive it.
Whether God's revelation comes to us with a high or low
degree of evidence, whether its mode suits our feelings or not,
are questions that are not to influence us to the rejection of
the word of God. Our simple business is, to see if we can
offset with our evidences, the evidences of Christianity. If
the evidences of Christianity excel ever so little the evidences
against it, it is reasonable in us to believe in the Bible.
Thus, taking a position the most favorable for the unbeliever,
it can be shown that thousands receive the Bible, and yet
they may give vastly less proof of it than what really exists.
Here consists the great error of infidelity. It imagines that,
by raising difiiculties in the Bible and apparent inconsisten-
cies, the Bible can be disproved. But the real question is,
264 NECESSITY OF A
Does any evidence exist that the Bible is the word of God ?
If 80, that evidence must be disproved before it can be denied
that the Bible comes from God. If the Bible had but a
thousandth part of its present evidence, yet that evidence ex-
isting would sanction belief. If we can clear up the difficul-
ties of the infidel, it is well ; but if we cannot, his infidelity
does not disprove the Bible. Are there not, however, multi-
tudes, because of some specious objection, or some verbal
inaccuracy, who throw away the Bible ? They wait not for
infidelity to prove miracles and prophecy false and the thou-
sand internal evidences of the Bible, — they willingly suffer
the whole to be condemned because of those few difficulties
which they cannot master. Suppose, for argument, the ob-
jector to prove out one chapter or book uninspired, he has
yet, step by step, to prove out every chapter and book of
revelation uninspired ; suppose him to prove that the evi-
dence of the Bible as the word of God is small, he has yet to
prove, before with reason it can be rejected, that there is no
evidence whatever, great or small, that the Bible is the word
of God. All this he must do before he can be entitled to con-
fidence. Should God choose to give us little evidence of
a divine revelation, then we ought to receive that evidence
and make the most of it. Evidence is evidence, be it small
or great, and with no higher evidence to offset it the part of
reason and good judgment is to receive it.
Having established the proposition that we are bound to
believe in all evidence whatever, in proportion to its value
and truth, and that no evidence, if good, is to be rejected,
even if small, we will consider the great question of the ne-
cessity of a revelation from God. If the Bible is not neces-
sary for us, — if it is useless as it concerns our best interests,
there is a high presumption against its being the word of
God. If we do not need a revelation from God it is reasona-
able to believe that God, who does nothing uselessly, will not
give us a revelation. On the other hand, if we do need a
revelation from God to make us better and happier, — if it
would advance our best interests for this life and the life to
come to have a divine communication from God, then it is
REVELATION FROM GOD. 266
probable that God will give us ^ revelation to guide, en-
lighten, and save. To determine the probability of a revela-
tion from God, from its necessity, we are to consider three
subjects : God, conscience, and the history of the human race.
First, let us consider God. His existence is admitted : then,
in power, he must be infinite; consequently he can give a re-
velation with its credentials, when and as he pleases. But
God is also admitted to be just: then, if there is any way by
which that justice can be sustained and sinners saved, it
is highly probable he will make it known. But God is
admitted to be good : then, if benevolent, it is probable
he will reveal that which may bless mankind. Here, then,
is God, powerful, just, and good. Is this truth admitted?
Where, then, the improbability that he would give, if needed,
a revelation ?
Thus, so far as God is concerned, we cannot say a revelation
from him is impossible or improbable. Look to the conscience
and man's history' to see if it is not necessary. Consider the
conscience, can it be hardened, or blinded, or made treach-
erous, or unfaithful ? Can the moral nature be so perverted
as to call evil good, and good evil ? To answer this question
we point to facts. The world is full of blind, hard, and un-
faithful consciences. What one thinks is dut}^ another thinks
is a crime. The Hindoo believes in self-immolation ; the
Chinese think infiinticide meritorious. The heathen moralist
glories in suicide, and the worst excesses of impure passion
by the pagan are justified as most honorable to the Deity. A
wrong conscience is the parent of the worst deeds of fanati-
cism, and the constant annoj-ance of all civil legislation. A
perverted conscience is the source of all religious delusion,
even as it is of cruel bigotry. Before the assassin plunges
the dagger into the heart of his victim he will offer a prayer
to the Virgin Mary, if not unto God, and the darkest atroci-
ties of superstition must first be made justifiable by the
verdict of an unfaithful conscience. Thus do we find the
strangest inconsistencies approved of by the conscience, and
the very thing one person believes true or virtuous, another
condemns as false and vicious. If thus the conscience, which
266 NECESSITY OF A
God lias given to us, is so^perverted, does it not need a divine
revelation to guide it ? Is there not necessary, in order to cor-
rect this ever-changing needle, some infallible standard of
right conduct? If conscience is all we want to guide us
right, why does it not thus do ? Is it possible, or probable,
admitting the goodness of God and his desire to save sinners,
that he would leave the human family alone to so treacher-
ous a pilot? 1^0 matter if we exclusively are to blame for
the abuse of conscience, the fact, wide as the world, exists of
its perverted movements. What more probable than that at
some time a better guide might be given ?
But there are other reasons why a revelation from God is
most needful. Consider human experience in past history.
If the deists think they can get along very well without a
revelation from God, the greatest geniuses and most gifted
minds of antiquity did not think so. They deplored the
wretched state of things, and most fervently prayed for a
purer light, and better guide. They did not consider nature's
light enough, rather they felt like blind men groping their
way over mountains of danger. Plato tells us, "We know
not of ourselves what worship to pay to God, or what peti-
tions to offer. We must expect a lawgiver from heaven to
instruct us; and oh, how I long to see that man, and who he
is ! he must be of a nature superior to man's {i.e. divine),
because of the unwillingness of men to be guided except by
superiors. He must be a mediator."
Socrates, as revealing the prevailing darkness in respect to
a future state, said a short time before his death, "I hope
I go to good men, but this I do not affirm. I am going out
of the world, you remain ; which is better is known to
God."
In the well-known dialogue between Socrates and Alci-
biades, on the duties of religious worship, Alcibiades is
going to the temple to pra}" ; Socrates meets him and dis-
suades him from prayer on account of his inability to man-
age the duty aright. " To me," he says, " it seems best to
be quiet ; it is necessary to wait till you learn how you ought
to behave towards the gods and towards man." "And when.
REVELATION FROM GOD. 267
0 Socrates! shall that time be, and who will instruct me?"
says the wondering disciple, " for gladly would I see this
man who he is." " He is one," replied Socrates, " who cares
for you; but, as Homer represents Minerva taking away the
darkness from the eyes of Diomedes that he may distinguish
a god from a man, so it is necessary that he should first take
away the darkness from your mind, and then bring near
those things by which you shall know good and evil." "Let
him take away," rejoins Alcibiades, " if he will, the darkness
or any other thing, for I am prepared to decline none of those
things which are commanded by him, whoever this man is,
if I shall be made better."
Plato, speaking of human nature, says, " I have heard
from the wise men that we are now dead and the body is
our sepulcher."* Again he says, " The prime evil is inborn
in souls; it is implanted in men to sin."t Again, "The
nature of mankind is greatly degenerated and depraved ; all
manner of disorders infest human nature, and men, being
impotent, are torn in pieces b}' their lusts as by so many
wild horses."J He also speaks of an "evil nature," "an
evil in nature," "a disease in nature," "a destruction of
harmony in the soul." Tracing the origin of this diseased
state, he says, " That in times past the divine nature flour-
ished in men ; but, at length, being mixed with mortal cus-
tom, it fell into ruin ; hence an inundation of evils in the
race."§ Again, " The cause of corruption is from our
parents, so that we never relinquish their evil way, or escape
the blemish of their evil habit." || Also, " That after the
golden age the universe, b}' reason of that confusion that
came upon it, would have been quite dissolved had not God
again taken it upon him to sit at the helm and govern the
world, and restore its disordered and almost disjointed parts
to their primeval order. "^
Seneca speaks quite despairingly of our possible recovery
by any means. He says, " Our corrupt nature has drunk in
* Gorgias, fol. 493. f Leg. p. 731. % Politicus, p. 274.
I Critias, p. 400. || Timseus, 103. ^ Politicus, 251.
268 NECESSITY OF A
such deep draughts of iniquity, which are so far incorporated
in its very howels that you cannot remove it save by tearing
them out." And yet he conceives, in the faintest manner,
some possibility of supernatural aid. " No man is able to
clear himself; let some one give him a hand; let some one
lead him out."* He also says, as if he were writing out
another Yllth chapter of the Romans, "What is it, Lucilius,
that, when we set ourselves in one way, draws us another,
and when we desire to avoid any course, drives us into it ?
What is it that so wrestles with our mind, allowing us never
to settle any good resolution once for all ?"t
Ovid also joins in the same confession. "If I could
I would be more sane. But some unknown force drags
me against my will. Desire draws me one way, con-
viction another. I see the better and approve, the worse I
follow."!
Thus also Xenophanes closes off his work on nature in these
words : " '^o man has discovered any certainty, nor will dis-
cover it, concerning the gods, and what I say of the uni-
verse. For if he uttered what is even more perfect, still he
does not know it, but conjecture hangs over all."
Pliny, confessing the wretched hunger of his soul, saw no
relief to it better than suicide. " It is difficult," he writes,
" to say whether it might not be better for men to be wholly
without religion than to have one of this kind [viz. that of
his country], which is a reproach to its object. The vanity
of man, and his insatiable longing after existence, have led
him also to dream of a life after death. A being full of con-
tradictions, he is the most wretched of creatures, since the
other creatures have no wants transcending the bounds of
their nature; man is full of desires and wants that reach to
infinity, and can never be satisfied. Among these so great
evils, the best thing God has bestowed on man is the power
to take his own life."§
Clement, the Roman, tells us how he was harassed from
childhood by questions which paganism could not help him
* Ep. 52. t Ep. 52. X Metam. vii. 18. g Hist. Nat., lib. vii.
REVELATION FROM GOD. 269
to answer : such as relate to his being and immortality, the
origin of the world and its continuance, when it began, when
it will end, and whither his present life is to carry him.
" Incessantly haunted," he says, " by such thoughts as these,
which came I knew not whence, I was sorely troubled, so
that I grew pale and emaciated I resorted to the
schools of the philosophers, hoping to find some certain foun-
dation. I saw nothing but the piling up and tearing down
of theories. Thus was I driven to and fro by the diiferent
representations, and forced to conclude that things appear
not as they are in themselves, but as they happen to be
presented on this or that side. I was made dizzier than
ever, and from the bottom of my heart sighed for deliver-
ance."*
Such is nature's longing for something greater than nature's
light. To see the necessity of a divine revelation, we have
only to look to ancient and modern paganism. The question
is not what natural religion can do, but what it has done.
Has it made clear the unity of God ? Look to the innumer-
able idols adored of heathen lands ! Has it made manifest the
moral perfections of God ? Look to the idol gods where
Christianity does not exist! What their character! Who
knows not, that has made himself acquainted with their his-
tory, that they personified every vice most degrading to hu-
manity ? Has natural religion given any consistent ideas of
a future state ? Look to the sensual paradise of Mohammed,
the elysium for heroes of the Greek and Roman mytholo-
gist ? Look to the Druids' home for warriors, and the bloody
hall of Odin ! Has natural religion established a good code
of morals ? Consult the heathen bible for the virtues of hu-
mility, of disinterested benevolence, of supreme love to God !
Has it defined the nature of virtue ? Look to the innumer-
able speculations of pagan writers ! Amid uncertainty so
great, how needful a divine revelation !
The world has had a fair experiment of what it could and
would do without it. As age after age rplled on, every form
* Neander's Hist., vol. i. pp. 32, 33.
270 NECESSITY OF A
of superstition was tried, and every device of man had an
opportunity for development. But how melancholy the
record of history ! The great empires of the earth rose and
fell, and nation and individual evinced no self-restoring power.
In the deepest darkness of mind millions went to the grave;
but the grave itself was not so gloomy as those living waves
of spiritual death that rolled their dark waters over the
hopeless fabrics of human science and learning. Philos-
ophy tried her utmost; and there arose in the academy
giants in intellect, but they resembled only the lurid
flashes of the thunder-storm that but revealed more
vividly the surrounding darkness. Legislation and civil
power tried their utmost to stem the tide of human cor-
ruption. Dreading the mischief of atheism, and the pas-
sions unrestrained, the lovers of humanity, appealing to the
religious principle of our natures, enthroned superstition in
marble palaces, and gave to idol worship the great seal of
state ; but religion itself became corrupt as the grave, and
virtue expired upon the sacrificial altar. Then came the
appeal to the love of the beautiful, and humanity was tried
to see if beauty and goodness would coalesce. Painting and
statuary, such as man never had seen, adorned the temples
of Athens, and Corinth and Rome became majestic with
those famed structures of art that every succeeding age has
only imitated to fail in. But the beautiful neither explained
virtue nor enforced it, it gave no better idea of G-od, and the
golden age of beauty and art did but reveal a deeper abyss of
human corruption and helplessness. The temple to the un-
known God was the only temple destitute of a worshiper, and
the highest age of civilization, even as the darkest abode of
savage existence, all proclaimed the necessity of a revelation
from God.
But to see in the clearest light the absolute need for man's
highest welfare that God should give a revelation, let us in-
terrogate the oracles of natural religion to see if there is a
satisfactory explanation to the question, the most important
that man can ask, How can man be just with God ?
It is the peculiar glory of the Gospel of Christ to answer
REVELATION FROM GOD. 271
this question, and enforce, by every variety of illustration, the
divinely instituted remedy for sinners. The question before
us to consider is. Does natural religion explain and make
intelligent an effectual remedy for sin ? Does the light of
nature show how man can be just with God? To show most
clearly the necessity of a revelation from God, we are not
compelled to prove that the light of nature in no sense can
make known an atonement for sin. Even admitting that
there could be some intimations of the mode by which God
may be just and yet save sinners, yet the great difficulty to
be met is, — has, as a matter of fact, natural religion in any
true sense made intelligent and satisfactory to the mind a
mode by which a just God in consistency with his law can
pardon and save sinners ? J/* so, then we believe one great
design of a revelation from God is useless ; but if not so, then
we have the highest possible evidence of our need of a divine
revelation. It is not necessai-y to enter into the intricacies of
the question, what, on this subject, natural religion may re-
veal. We intend to wander into no speculations upon this
point, but to confine our remarks to fact, and fact alone.
But in reasoning upon facts, two important ways are needful
to arrive at a right decision. First, arguments adduced from
admitted principles, which, in themselves, are facts, — then a
consultation of history of what has actually taken place. By
this course, we have two chains to strengthen our argument, —
right theory, and the results of that theory. A physician, in
prescribing for his patient, must have a correct theory in his
mind of the nature and cause of the supposed disease, and
then he must know, to a good extent, what is actually the
disease. His correct theory will tell him what medicine to
give, and his knowledge of the actual state of the disease,
when to give the medicine. In the same manner are we to
investigate the question. How can we from the light of na-
ture learn? How can man be just with God? The neces-
sity of a revelation from God is evident in other important
respects. Great and many are the reasons why we should
welcome it, apart from its wonderful disclosure of the only
way a sinner can be saved; but here peculiarly we would rest
272 NECESSITY OF A
our argument for the absolute need of the Bible that brings
life and immortality to light.
God, conscience, and man a sinner, are admitted : natural
religion shows as much as this. How are we from these
truths to arrive at the result that God can pardon the sinner,
and will do it ? Let it be remembered we now are to shut
our Bibles, and go to work without the light that comes to us
from the sacred page, to show how God can or will pardon
and save a rebel against his law. It is confessed that God is
just, but the first principle of justice is to punish sin ; but if
God is just, he must have a just law. What, then, is the voice
of divine law ? Does it not pronounce punishment to the
sinner ? Does it not give a reward to the obedient ? What
is our first idea of human law ? Is it not a command with a
penalty attached for disobedience ? But is that penalty re-
pentance ? Is repentance the punishment threatened the vio-
lator of human law? Is contrition for sin and amendment
for life the penalty denounced by human tribunals against
those who transgress the law of the state ? Certainly not.
For no human government could stand a day with law sus-
tained by such terms. But is advice the penalty of human
law ? When a thief steals our property, or an assassin mur-
ders a citizen of a state, and before the legal tribunal is con-
victed of the same, is the penalty for his transgression ad-
vice ? Are they told to do better for the future, not again to
transgress the law, and then dismissed to their former state
of freedom? But what law upon such a condition could
command respect or have any existence ? Our idea of law is
evil or punishment inflicted upon its violation. Repentance
and advice have nothing to do with law. Law does not re-
cognize such language as appropriate penalties. As repent-
ance or advice cannot wipe away sin, so are they equally
ineffectual to sustain the sanctions of human authority. But
what is true of the law of man, must, for the same reason, be
true of divine law. It is no more sensible to disrobe the law
of God of its penalty, than human law. If the law of man
could not exist with no penalty, equally true divine law could
not. If we would consider human government as a mockery,
REVELATION FROM GOD. 273
with no penalty for disobedience than repentance and advice,
even so must we look upon divine government. There must
be, with the one as with the other, punishment for disobe-
dience. But if that government, be it human or divine, is
just, then the lawgiver, for the same reason he rewards the
obedient, must inflict punishment on the disobedient. But
there is a higher argument for this in conscience. What
does conscience say? Is not the first lesson she teaches us
the lesson that sin deserves punishment ? Does she not con-
demn us for sin ? Does she say to the sinner. You may de-
fraud, or commit perjury, or violence upon the person of
your neighbor, if you but repent of it ? Are good advice and
repentance the penalties she attaches to sin ? Certainly not.
Conscience shows us our sins and their desert of punishment,
and there she stops. She can go no farther than denounce sin,
and with the verdict she pronounces, if guilty, give to it a
present punishment, even as a gloomy foreboding of future
evil.
Look, then, to the sinner as self-condemned by his own
conscience. What does the light of nature teach him as a
remedy for his sin? Is it repentance? But still the sinner
asks the question, How can this save me under a just God ?
Still the sinner instinctively interrogates his conscience.
How would it do for a human law to have such a penalty for
transgression ? Still he asks the question, Provided God did
save from punishment upon such a condition, what is to be-
come of his law ? what of respect for his authority ? We ask
nature, and seek for all the light she can bring us from natu-
ral religion, to extricate us from this difficulty. We demand
something to satisfy our minds, to appease the reproaches of
conscience, sensible of sin and a violation of God's law, that
must demand a perfect obedience. As we have no divine
revelation to go to, showing to us a crucified Saviour offered
to. the acceptance and salvation of all upon faith and love, we
wish, shut up alone to the Book of !N"ature, to have natural
reliffion teach us the o-reat truth of an atonement for sin.
We have already come to the conclusion that repentance, or
18
274 NECESSITY OF A
good resolutions, or any effort for future obedience, cannot
save us guilty.
We have decided that if human law cannot be sustained
by such sanctions, certainly divine law cannot. If God is
just, then the more just the more certain the penalty of pun-
ishment. We wish now to know from nature's light our
remedy. We wish to solve the greatest of difficulties, — a just
God and a sinner saved. No such mysterious anomaly as
this can we find in human government. She utters no other
voice than. Obey or be jM/iished. No light does conscience
throw upon this question. With tenfold energy she reite-
rates the voice of law. Obey or be jyunished. Again do we in-
terrogate nature. We ask, How may we be savedbfrom sin?
The response comes back to us, cheerless as the grave. Obey
or be punished. Here we are in a worse than Egyptian dark-
ness ; but the instinct of preservation will catch at every straw
that floats upon the troubled sea of human existence. Our
theory gives us no hope ; its conclusions, from admitted prin-
ciples, irresistible, reveal no remedy : as a last resort we
turn to the history of man as actually revealed. The ques-
tion now is. Is there, throwing theory away, any clearly re-
vealed remedy for sin in nature's works or in the facts of
human history ? Remember, we are not to bring in revela-
tion to help us out of our difficulty. The question is, Can
w^e get out of it without revelation ?
By one process of argument I have shown we cannot; I
am now to resort to another kind of argument, drawn from
existing facts in the works of nature and man's history. The
doctrine of revelation is, that Christ, being a divine and per-
fect substitute for sin, has sustained the claims of justice vio-
lated, and made it consistent with God to save the sinner in
harmony -with a perfect moral law. In other words, it points
out a way by which the law can be honored and yet the
sinner saved. The question is. Can we find out from nature's
works and the history of man a remedy for sin ? Is there
an intelligible and clear mode made known, except in reve-
lation, of the way in which a sinner, in consistency with a
just law, can be saved ? We will give the widest latitude of
REVELATION FROM GOD. 275
range, the most liberal concession to the inquirer after the
solution of this great problem of human destiny without
revelation. We will sa}-, You may go wherever your reason
or imagination may lead you to find out how a sinner, under
a perfect moral government, can be saved in consistency with
divine law. "Where can a divine substitute for sin be found?
Search the records of nature. Let the inquirer have, as far
as possible, the benefit of the argument derived from the
principle of substitution seen in the violation of natural law,
by which we see where a bone is broken, or the flesh cut, or
the human system prostrated by disease, that nature, by a
mysterious power, exerts herself to repair the mischief occa-
sioned. Let the most be made out of the principle of substi-
tution seen in human life, where a mother saves by her own
pains the life of her son, or a father wearies himself with toil
to provide for his family. Let us give due credit to the
thousand instances of suffering for the benefit of others,
and that mighty principle that runs through all society, of
averting by others those evils that otherwise would fall upon
ourselves. Here, indeed, is substitution of a certain nature
seen. As a greater illustration of the principle of substitu-
tion, let the inquirer of nature point us to the sacrifices
innumerable of mankind in all ages of bloody victims upon
the altar to propitiate the favor or avert the anger of heathen
divinities. And yet where do we find any satisfactory evidence
of a substitute for sin of such a character as to avert from the
sinner the punishment of sin ? We see sin followed by pun-
ishment in this world ; why may it not be in the future ?
When we have given the most favorable construction to a
remedial system, existing to a limited extent, to avoid natural
evil, what assurance have we from nature of a system of
redemption for the lost sinner? After gleaning up all the
favorable evidences we can to throw light upon the problem,
How can God be just and the sinner saved ? how much is the
darkness removed ? Search the world over with no Bible,
and to what is the sinner directed as a ground of hope
that he may be saved? We have already seen that we
cannot look to repentance as a valid foundation to rest upon.
•276 NECESSITY OF A
We must look to some principle of substitution, some person
who can bear our sins and sustain himself a broken law.
But we wish to find out where that substitution is in nature,
and the remedy for our wants that is presented. We cer-
tainly cannot delude ourselves with the idea that brute ani-
mals can save us from the punishment of sin. What value
in their blood to avert the sword of divine justice ? We
cannot look to a mortal man like ourselves for a remedy ; he
cannot, as a sinner, save himself, much less save us. ^ We
cannot look for an atonement to the collective purity or good-
ness of any number of men, in any age or every age. No
human goodness can cancel the sin of a single day, much less
the sins of a whole life. Let us, then, search the world over
to see if we can find a perfect being, one who never has
sinned. I will suppose that such a spotless illustration of
humanity has actually been found: I will suppose that one
man, escaping every taint of corruption and as pure as Adam
unfallen, has been discovered. Let us make him an atone-
ment for our sins. But can we do it? He can save himself
only when perfect in obeying divine law ; as a subject of law,
all he can do is to obey law. What works of supererogation
has he to oft'set the sins of mankind? What can he do to
avert from a single sinner the penalty of law? He can do
nothino;. We must 2:0 to a source hio-her even than law
itself; we must mount to a height of dignity so loft}', that
law, even like the clouds that encircle the earth, is tran-
scended by the majestic summit that towers above in the
heavens. Where does the light of nature show us such a
substitute ? Where, except in revelation, do we find the
anomaly of God and man united, — of humanity to suffer for
our sins, and divinity' to honor the law ? Where in nature
do we find one person possessing traits so diverse and so
peculiar, that every claim of the Godhead and yet every
interest of man are blended together in harmony ?
Here is conscience, in the heart of man, condemning for
sin, but we ask in vain of her for a remedy. She shows us
our ruin, but no way of escaping from it. Here is divine
law speaking the same language that human law does, — that
REVELATION FROM GOD. 277
repentance or future obedience is no atonement for sin.
Here is man in liis historj', in every age, experiencing the
evils of sin, and yet in vain striving to satisfy the claims of
justice by the sacrifice of animals or the bodily tortures of
self-immolation. Where, with no revelation to guide us, is
the remedy for sin? We will consult the nations of antiquity.
Upon the fertile plain of Dura, where the ancient Assyrian
worshiped, is the temple of Babel, — long is that procession
that ascends the steps of Babylon's great tower. Here are
worshiped the sun, and moon, and stars; but in these
heathen rites do we find a remedy for sin ? Again, we visit
the land of the ancient Canaauite, and see a ferocious multi-
tude shouting at the infant cry tliat ascends from the bloody
arms of Moloch. Is it here we find consolation for a troubled
conscience ? Now, in famed Epliesus, we view the great
temple of Diana, the wonder of the world; but in the pro-
fane scenes there witnessed do we find a relief to the mind ?
Disgusted with the impure and cruel homage paid to idols,
we turn to the schools of the philosophers and visit the quiet
scenes of the Academy and the Porch. Here is the collected
wisdom of the world ; here the learned few come to specu-
late upon the mysterious problem of human destiny. We
listen, with eager interest, to the sages of the old world, — but
the first of all truths — of an Infinite God, the Creator of the
universe from nothing— is not settled ; all the boasted philoso-
phy of centuries of learning commences in a fundamental
error, — the denial of a Creator of matter and spirit. From
nothing nothing can come, is that axiom of delusion that
alike subverted the in:in-iortality of the soul and the infinite
wisdom and power of one Supreme God.
AVe wish to find out the nature of virtue, but of the three
hundred definitions given, not one includes humility or
disinterested benevolence. We inquire, What is the chief
end of man ? The Epicurean places it in pleasure, — the
Stoic, in the suppression of our natural sympathies. We
ask for the evidence of a future state. The disciples of
Pythagoras speak to us of the transmigration of souls into
diflerent animals, and those of Plato of the existence of souls
278 NECESSITY OF A
before the world. We ask, Who are the favored residents of
heaven? and we are pointed to warriors whose fatal violence
has desolated the earth, and made by revenge and craft un-
numbered beings most miserable and degraded.
Bewildered amid contradictions so great, and errors so
many, upon the plainest truths of Christianity, we try once
more to see what light the filmed seats of human learning
and art could throw upon the most practical and most inter-
esting of all questions, How can man be just with God ? But,
instead of one God of infinite, natural, and moral perfection,
we are pointed to a thousand subordinate divinities, and we
must fi.rst balance our accounts with them before even we
may presume to think of the presiding deity of the pagan
Pantheon ; and then, when we have reached the last of the
gods, what do we find? A being having no interest in his
creatures, and so absorbed in himself as to leave to others the
management of human affairs. But, worse than this, the very
vices that conscience upbraids us for are deified in gods, not
to worship which is a state offense. "N^eed it be said that w^e
may try in vain to find out anything upon the greatest of
truths, when even the alphabet of a divine revelation is
unknown ?
Let us then interrogate every other religion but that of the
Bible fi)r an answer to the question. How shall man be just
with God? We will leave the pagan rites of the South Sea
Islander, and the dark atrocities of those cannibal supersti-
tions that degrade the Malay and the Patagonian to the level
of the brute ; we will not rehearse the story of those Mexican
priests whose temples, dedicated to the god of war and the
hosts of heaven, struck terror in the heart of the stern Span-
iard when he viewed the skulls of thousands of victims
offered in bloody sacrifices to their sanguinary deities ; we
will go to those better religions, venerable for their existence
through long centuries, and holding in their iron grasp mil-
lions of worshipers. But we appeal in vain for any light to
show how, as sinners, we may be saved, to the devotees of the
Grand Lama, or that vast empire of China whose onlj- Bible
consists in the principles of Confucius. We then turn to
REVELATION FROM GOD. 279
Mohammedanism, stretching its glooni}^ sway over the fairest
roirions of Africa and the o-reat continent of Asia; bnt tlie
Koran gives to us a morality without love, and a religion
without faith ; propagated by the sword, it is no less cruel in
its practice than corrupt in its rewards ; offering no true
atonement for sin, it gives no other pardon than a home for
sensualists.
Finally, as a last resort, we will go to the evangelists of
intidelity and read over the acts of the apostles of Deism.
Perhaps these new lights can tell us something better than
the Bible, and prove how useless to us is a revelation from
God. But who of this Ishmael army of infidels shall be our
authoritative standard of belief and practice? Shall we take
Spinoza, or Strauss? But the one proves out the universe
God, the other God is the universe. Shall we, flying from
this German abyss of speculative nonsense, resort to the more
intelligent epistles of Voltaire or Rousseau? But the fonner,
fighting all his lifetime against religion, died in the arms of
the Roman Catholic Church; and the other, a notorious
debauchee, died, saying, "0 God, I give thee my soul, pure
and untainted as it came from thy hands !"
Shall we go to the English school of infidels? Lord Herbert
declares lust and passion no more blameworthy than thirst
and hunger. Hobbes denied any real distinction between
right and wrong. Lord Bolingbroke placed the chief hap-
piness of man in the gratification of the sensual nature.
Hume declared self-denial and humility positive vices. If the
first principles of morality are denied, who among these
Ishmaelites of absurd confusion, can tell us how a just God
can pardon a sinner ?
We are driven to revelation alone for an answer to this
question. There and there only is the great problem of human
destiny solved; and if we find it not there we find it in no
other place.
Here do we take our stand, and show, by an argument
that must be irresistible to every reasoning, upright mind,
the infinite necessity of a revelation from God, — a necessity
based upon the deepest wants of our nature, — a necessity so
280 NECESSITY OF A REVELATION FROM GOD.
great that, if revelation is not true, there is uot oue ray of
light to cheer the wretched family of man, — a necessity such
as our nature, spiritual and immortal, must, if it ever does
awake to its destitution, feel too mighty for language to de-
scribe,— a necessity so commanding, that it would be high
treason to God to disavow, and an act of perjury to con-
science to deny.
What, then, is the gospel remedy for sin ? How does it
teach justification with Grod? All is summed up in the
words, " Where sin hath abounded, grace doth much more
abound." The advent, life, death, and resurrection of Christ
have introduced us into an economv of cjrace. Law is sus-
tained by the great Mediator; justice is satisfied. The sinner
is saved not because he comes up to that which the law de-
mands, but simply that he fnlfills the conditions of grace.
The language of law is, Do and live ; of grace. Live and do.
Law says. Obey perfectly, and you shall be saved ; grace says.
Believe in Christ, and you shall be saved. The obedience of
the one is legal; of the other, evangelical. The obedience
of the law is alike impossible and hopeless. Try ever so
hard, and you come short of it. Go through with self-in-
flicted tortures, but these do not save. Make the most of
your merits and good works, but they cannot come up to the
standard of divine law. But salvation by grace honors the
law, because it secures what the law does not, — the obedience
of love. Our sins had dug for us a gulf fathomless in wretch-
edness; they had erected a wall of separation between us
and God, high as heaven and deep as perdition; but the vi-
carious sacrifice of Christ bridges over that gulf, surmounts
that wall, gives to us an open communication with heaven.
The mystery of the- cross angels desire to look into, for the
cross averts from our heads the sword of justice, bids the
trembling sinner hope even unto the end, banishes from the
soul despair, assures him that justification, impossible by law,
is possible by Christ, and bids him seize the outstretched
hand of the angel of hope, and, from the deepest hell of his
own corruptions, to ascend up to the highest heaven of God's
love.
CHAPTER 11.
CHRIST.
The birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ are the
foundation of all revelation ; consequently the all-important
question at once presents itself to the mind. Is Christ that
which he professes himself to be ? Is he the Son of God ?
Does he truly establish his claims to be heard and obeyed by
works that prove him to be all that the Bible asserts ?
First, consider, is Christ merely a fiction of the imagina-
tion, a brilliant idea of an unreal personage got up by enthu-
siasts or intentional deceivers ? There have been those who
have thought thus, — some, who have contrived to force
themselves into the belief that Christ was not an actual per-
son as delineated, but one invented by the mind for a certain
end. Suppose, then, to prove a real Christ appearing in
the world at the commencement of the Christian era, we
follow the stream of time back, so that we may have as near
a view as possible of the divine author of Christianity. TVe
will go to the most reliable sources, and from them find out
the solution to a question of vast interest. Was Christ a
fiction or a reality, a person or a painting?
Nero's persecution of the Christians took place in the sixty-
fourth and sixty-fifth years of oar era. The execution of
Christ by Pilate occurred about thirty-five years previously.
As Bayne, in his work on the testimony of Christ to Chris-
tianity, has well said : " This Christ, who was honored in
Rome in a manner so transcendent, in a manner which, on
the showing of Tacitus, resembled the honor paid to a God,
had lived only so long before. Whatever time is required to
account for the phenomenon of Christ's worship on such a
scale and with such an intensity, is rigidly confined within
thirty-five years. If legend was accumulated ; if incident
(281)
282 ■ CHRIST.
was exaggerated; if fable was invented; if a real individual
was invested with a garment of myth ; if the popular im-
a2:ination surrounded him with a halo, and mao;nified him
into a divinity ; if enthusiasm contributed its colored fancies,
fanaticism its distempered heat, and superstition its darker
imagery, — the whole work had to be done in little more than
the number of years which now, in 1862, have elapsed since
the death of Walter Scott."
Let us now turn to Tacitus, the Roman historian, and care-
fully read over those words, the truth of which is undisputed.
" The most skeptical criticism," says Gibbon, whose au-
thority in such a case is absolutely conclusive, " is obliged to
respect the integrity of this celebrated passage of Tacitus."
The circumstances are thus detailed by Tacitus :
"N'ero judiciall}' accused of the oflense and punished with
the most studied torments a set of men, hated for their
wickedness, who were commonly called Christians. The
author of that sect was Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius,
sufiered death by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate.
The vile superstition, repressed for a time, again broke out,
not only in Judea, the nest of mischief, but in the city also,
whither all atrocious and scandalous things flow, and where
all flourish. At first those only were apprehended who con-
fessed themselves of that sect ; afterward a vast multitude
discovered by them, all of whom were condemned, not so
much for the crime of burning the city as for their enmity
to mankind. Their executions were so contrived as to ex-
pose them to derision and contempt. Some were covered
with the skins of wild beasts, that they might be torn to
pieces; some crucified; while others, having been daubed
over with combustible materials, were set up as lights in the
night-time, and thus burned to death. For these spectacles
Nero gave his own gardens, and at the same time exhibited
there the diversions of the circus, sometimes standing in the
crowd as a spectator, in the habit of a charioteer, and at other
times driving a chariot himself; until at length these men,
though really criminal and deserving exemplary punishment,
began to be commiserated as people who were destroyed not
CHRIST. 283
out of regard to the public welfare, but only to gratify the
cruelty of one man."
Observe this great fact. Christ, the author of Christian! t}^,
came into a sin-loving and persecuting world; he distinctly
told his disciples that as their Master was treated so would
the}' be; as he was hated, so also would be their condition.
The disciples, then, of Christ were not deceived as to the real
character of his mission. They knew that the opposition of
the world must be encountered,^its contempt, its wrath, its
malice, its misapprehension and fiercest attacks upon their
persons, property, and reputation. jSTow, this passage of Taci-
tus described a notorious fact within thirty-iive years from
Christ's death.
The question now is. Are men so fond of fiction as to suffer
so much for it, knowing it to be such ? Who can say that
at a period of the world where the mind was peculiarly re-
tentive of great events and personages, especially if of recent
existence, where the scarcity of all parchments and their cost-
liness made it of the first importance to tell of facts as they
really took place, any motive could exist for taking up with
a fictitious Christ, or any story whatever not founded on
fact ? Remember, thirty-five years was a very short time in-
deed to fabricate a lie; and then, when that lie exposed to
persecution and death, is it possible that it could be success-
ful ? jSTow, men do not naturally love persecution, igno-
miny, or death: if these evils are encountered, some powerful
motive must exist to induce submission to them. Tacitus
distinctly asserts that thousands were persecuted and put to
death for Christ, because they believed in him, and openly
professed his name. Is it possible that, if there was no
Christ, any could be found voluntarily taking up with that
which they knew was false, and suffering persecution for
such an end? Is it possible Christ's disciples would give up
all earthly comfort, peace, or reward, for only the fiction of
a Christ? The supposition that they were sincere, but de-
luded with the idea of a Christ when there was no Christ, is
equally absurd. They had too much at stake to be easily
deceived: deceit was their ruin, truth their salvation. Did
284 CHRIST.
only tbirtj-five 3'ears elapse and yet they not know a real
person from a fictitious one, especially when mistake sub-
jected them to all manner of tribulations, with nothing what-
ever to be gained by it ?
But let us consult Jewish accounts of Christ. The Talmud-
ical literature of the second century gives great importance
to Christ's miracles. " The later Jews," says Mr. Baden
Powell, in "Essays and Reviews," "adopted the strange
legend of the Seplicr Toldeth Jeshu (book of the generation
of Jesus), which describes his miracles substantially as in the
Gospels, but says that he obtained his power by hiding himself
in the temple, and possessing himself of the secret ineftable
name by virtue of which such wonders could be wrought."
Mr. Powell quotes also, from Limborch, this statement of
Orobio, a Jewish writer: — " Tbe Jews disbelieved, not be-
cause they denied that the works which are related in the
Gospels were done by Jesus, but because they did not suffer
themselves to be persuaded by them that Jesus was the
Messiah." Here, then, we have Jewish as well as Roman
testimony to the fact that such a person as Christ actually
existed, and then we have the highest proof from the suffer-
ings of the early Christians that they did not die for a fiction,
but were persuaded on the best of evidence that Jesus of
]^azareth lived, taught, and died to save men. Such a per-
son, then, as Christ, suffered and died under Pontius Pilate,
the Roman governor. For more than eighteen centuries the
Christian Church has commemorated his death. The two
sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, observed by
millions through all these centuries, testify to the most unde-
niable of tacts, that Christ did live and die as narrated by the
four Evangelists.
The question of the greatest interest now presents itself.
What was the personal character of Christ, both intellectual
and moral ? We will look simply in a human relation, and
for argument's sake consider him as we would any man,
to testify to important facts. Certain things were declared
by Christ himself. Was Christ competent to testify to these
things of himself, and Avas he truthful ? If incompetent, he
CHRIST. 285
might be mistaken ; \^ untruthful, he certainly deceived ; and in
either case we cannot credit the works alleged of him.
JSTotice, then, the intellectnal and the moral character of
Christ, because upon a correct idea of both will depend the
solution of all the difficulties that are presented in his pro-
fessed works. Volumes innumerable have been written
upon Christ's character. He has engrossed the thoughts of
the purest and the noblest intellects of every age, and yet it
may be said with the greatest truth that new beauties and
new wonders are presented under whatever aspect Christ is
viewed. The theme is utterly inexhaustible. We may view
this or that development of the Saviour's character, and yet it
rises up before the mind with such a mysterious grandeur,
such a sacred majesty, so unapproachable in its purity, so
profound in its wisdom, so transparent in its simplicity, so
unique in its manifestation, so perfectly consistent and true
and right, that infidels, even while denying his supernatural
nature or works, have confessed with amazement his tran-
scendent excellence.
In a single chapter but very little can be said of the charac-
ter of our Saviour, and yet enough to show that of all men
Christ had an intellect of the clearest, sharpest, and most
wonderful strength. ISTot one cloud of error passed over it.
Sagacity of the rarest nature distinguished him. Always
self-possessed, he never for a moment was at a loss to say
the right word at the right time. Christ ever manifested the
highest wisdom. He outwitted his foes, while he con-
founded their malice. But what adds peculiar force to the
mind of Christ was his perfect knowledge of that which he
should be called to go through with. He was prepared for
every exigency, because he knew just what was the trial of
his patience.
It is impossible to look to the intellect of Christ without
noticing the sharp outline of those features that gave abso-
lute distinctness to the ideas advanced, and appropriateness
to all his words. The four Evangelists dwell mostly upon the
three last years of his life ; they give us only a few hints of
the period of his infancy and youth. Doubtless Christ, as a
286 CHRIST.
man, grew in stature and knowledge ; with perfect humanity,
he always confot-med to its essential conditions ; nothing out
of place, but everything is in place both in his words and
conduct. Christ's intellect came in contact with all condi-
tions of men, the high and the low, the weak and the power-
ful, the learned and the unlearned, and yet not in the slight-
est degree %vas it ever injured by this contact so intimate.
ISTor did Christ in his youth enjoy the advantages of the
schools ; he lived in Nazareth, a by-word even with the Jews
for its dissoluteness of manners,' its ignorance and wicked-
ness ; his parents were poor, himself brought up to the trade
of a carpenter. We have no evidence that he had any ad-
vantages whatever for learning; his occupation precluded him
from the leisure essential for success in acquiring much
knowledge. Surrounded by influences the most unfriendly,
the child of poverty, toiling from day to day to obtain sub-
sistence for his body, encouraged by no persons in power, he
yet suddenly emerges from his obscurity and draws upon
himself the eager gaze of all classes in society, not only be-
cause of his wisdom, but those mighty works that challenged
the severest scrutiny, while they carried with them the
clearest evidence of his Messiahship.
Observe how Christ unfolded truth to his disciples, how
wisely he conformed his instructions to their situation, while
all the plots of his enemies were unmasked by the inimitable
excellence and point of his language toward them. Could
the profoundest, clearest, strongest intellect the world has
ever seen be mistaken as to whether miracles were worked
or not? — whether works were performed accrediting his
mission or not ? Remember, Christ declared, over and over
again, that his works showed him from God, and challenged
the most embittered of his foes to examine them. Remem-
ber that, however we may view Christ, one thing is certain,
he knew what he was about. Jesus did know whether he
worked miracles or not. He was no enthusiast, no visionary
mortal, capable, by the excess of his imagination or the undue
development of any other faculty of the mind, of being de-
ceived. His perfect self-possession and intuitive sagacity, that
CHRIST. 287
singular discernment that never for an instant forsook him,
the character of his instructions, his answers to the Scrihes
and Pharisees, and all his actions, evinced one thing, — Christ
knew what he was about ; others might be deceived, but he
was not; othei's might attach an exaggerated importance to
unessentials, but Christ did not. The knowledge he dis-
played, his lofty sei-enity, his amber-like clearness of intel-
lect, that saw ever absolute truth without imperfection, that
robust strength of thought that grasped in a moment the
most perplexing subjects and unraveled difficulties that
for centuries had perplexed the wisest thinkers, all testify to
one self-evident truth, — Christ kneio lohat he was about. This
is especiall}' evident when we consider that there is not one
instance on record of his ever beino; mistaken, ever being;
outwitted by his enemies. They tried often to ensnare him,
but he uniformly confounded them. Thus, in the question
of the tribute-money, in that of the woman who had married
seven husbands, or the one taken in adultery, or the i eply to
the Scribes and Pharisees who would have him tell by what
authority he acted, and in many other instances, Christ never
spoke unadvisedly, or in any way placed himself in a false
position.
Have we not, then, the most conclusive evidence that
Christ kneia what he was about, and could not be wanting in
intelligence ? The next question to be considered is. Was
Christ honest? was he true? was he what he professed himself
to be ? Here notice a most remarkable fact: very few indeed
even of those who have rejected the Bible as the word of
God, and denied the reality of miracles, have ever been so
presumptuous as to assert .that Christ was dishonest. The
greatest skeptics have recoiled instinctively from such an idea,
so fearful and so repulsive. "We can safely say that the
worst of infidels would shudder to assert that Christ was an
impostor. Whatever may be said against Christianity, the
last and the most unfounded of all assertions is that which
impeaches the moral character of Christ. Remember how
monstrous the thought, that one whose instructions were so
full of wisdom, tenderness, love, and compassion, whose life
288 CHRIST.
was so marked by self-denial and voluntary suffering for
others' good, whose whole history, from the cradle to the
grave, was that of the highest illustration of innocence,
should be capable of dishonesty !
Observe Christ as he revealed himself in his conduct and
instructions, and say where can an instance be found of the
least swerving from the rule of the most absolute rectitude.
As the mind thinks of those varied and extraordinary condi-
tions of his life, where our Saviour came in contact with sin
in its most malignant shape, can it be shown that his spot-
less raiment of righteousness was deiiled by the least stain ?
Observe that occasions were presented of severest trial ; and
yet did all this trial produce any other effect than to reveal
with a brighter luster his wonderful virtue ? Follow Christ
from the commencement of his ministry of three years to
its consummation upon the cross, and say whether the ex-
quisite sensitiveness of his nature yielded ever so little before
the force of temptation?
Kow, one thing is certain, either Christ worked the mira-
cles he professed, either he was all he taught of himself, or
he was dishonest. There is really no other alternative. We
have seen his amazing sagacity and intelligence, and this
fact establishes the proposition, — Christ knew what he ivas
ohoiit; if so, then we are shut up to the alternative, — Christ
was what he professed himself to be, or he was dishonest.
We hold the skeptic to this stern, this irresistible fact. In
our other chapters we give proofs from many sources to show
the Bible fr(5m God; but this only goes to show that Christ
also was from God; and if so, then what he said was true,
and what he worked confirms his words as perfectly reliable
and deserving of confidence.
In the remarkable work of " Ecce Homo," where the au-
thor contemplates mostly the human of Christ, it will be
seen that he has portrayed with marked ability this aspect
of our Saviour. Let us look closely to the humanity of
Christ alone, and it will be found that, considered simply as
a man, the sun at noonday is not more visible in the heavens
than is displayed the honesty of Christ in all that he said or
CHRIST. 289
did ; and yet that honesty in a human relation involves
Christ's honesty in a divine relation, and the truth he spoke
as a man irresistibly forces us to confess his truthfulness as
the Son of God. No person can confess his veracity as the
Son of man, without crossing that line that tells of his truth-
fulness as the Son of God. For certain purposes it may be
well to contemplate Christ in simply a human relation, but
the mind, as it gazes at the fairest picture of humanity that
ever the world has seen, must, if true to itself, pass into the
awfully mysterious domain of his divine attributes. Not the
prismatic colors of the sunbeam are so blended together iis
the supernatural and the human in Christ. Not a drop of
water so holds in its composition the elements of hydrogen
and oxygen as does the person of Jesus the twofold excel-
lence of a human and divine nature. All this must be ad-
mitted if we confess his miracles; and his miracles must be
admitted if we hold to his honesty. If it is impossible to
conceive of Christ as imposed upon, equally dijfficult is it to
imagine him to deceive.
Which horn of the dilemma does the skeptic take ? Does
jhe say Christ was imposed upon ? Then he must admit his
destitution of intelligence, his incompetence, his extraordi-
nary want of all discernment and wisdom ; but, worse than this,
he must also declare that the apostles were deceived as to
Christ's miracles, and that his enemies who confessed them
true while they attributed them to Beelzebub, and also the
Christians of the first century, were deluded, and suffered
only in the cause of deception. Take the other horn of the
dilemma; Was Christ an impostor? Did he act untruthfully
or deceitfully? But this supposition, that should blister the
tongue of any mortal who would make it, is at war with the
first dictate of conscience, and equally at war with every
principle of correct reasoning or good sensibility.
That man may well tremble who throws upon the charac-
ter of Christ the imputation of dishonesty. No, not the
worst infidels will do this. They will shut their eyes to
the proofs of Christ's divine mission, while they praise his
virtues; they will extol his goodness, his love, his mercy, his
" 19
290 CHRIST.
tender sympathy with the suffering, his wisdom, his moral
beauty, and yet they will turn round and deny the super-
natural of his character, and refuse to credit his miracles.
They will call his incarnation a fiction, and his resurrection
a delusion. Monstrous inconsistency ! Admit a God, and
deny that he cannot become incarnated in his Son ! Admit
sin, and yet refuse to see its only remedy ! Admit Christ's
virtue, and deny his works ! Admit that Jesus was all sym-
pathy, love, sincerity, and truth, and yet refuse to see or
hear what he says of himself! Admit everything human,
and yet impeach that humanity really of deception ! All
this the skeptic must do unless he is willing to take the New
Testament and interpret it simply according to the plain
meaning of the language.
The question is. Did Christ do what he said he would do?
Was he what he professed to be ? Did Christ work miracles
as conclusive evidence, with the end for which he came, and
the nature of his instructions, that he came from God and
was heaven-descended? If he was thus, then he was honest;
if not, then could he be honest?
Let us, then, contemplate Christ in what he said of himself
and that which he professed to do. Three things we have
attempted to show: First, Christ was no fiction; secondly,
not deceived; thirdly, no deceiver. Let us now consider what
Christ said of himself and what was said of him by the
apostles. The argument is cumulative. If inspired men
confirm all that Christ declared himself to be, and testify to
the reality of his works, then the evidence comes with aug-
mented force to show that the character of Christ involved
his works, and his works his character; his veracity proves his
miracles, and his miracles his veracity; his disciples show the
truthfulness of their Master, and that truthfulness proves the
reality of their discipleship. In our other chapters the evi-
dence of prophecy and miracles is given, with many other
proofs. All that now is needed, is to quote the words of
Jesus himself and the apostles of Jesus, showing clearly that
unless we impeach Christ's character we must admit his
works and the reality of his divine mission. When John
CHRIST. 291
the Baptist was thrown into prison, he sent messengers to
ask directly of Clirist whether he was the Messiah or not.
Jesus answered, "Go and show John again those things
which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and
the lame walk: the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear:
the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached
to them ; and blessed is he whosoever shall not be oifended
in me." Two things here are directly asserted: miraculous
power, and to the jpoor proclamation of good tidings. Ob-
serve that miracles are never divorced from their end ; they
are always worked for a worthy object. The four evangel-
ists represent Christ as working miracles ; they are inter-
woven in the whole web of his ministry. Christ referred to
his mighty works as aggravating the guilt immeasurably of
the cities that rejected him. He speaks thus of liis works :
" The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear wit-
ness of me." Now, Christ never had a low idea of his mira-
cles. In the circumstances of his advent, life, and mission,
they were of incalculable value. The method of proof he
proposed was of the most direct and positive character.
Christ plainly pointed to his works. These works, says
Christ, are my credentials, the royal seal of God himself;
and, thus addressing those who heard him and saw his mira-
cles, he challenged them to show those miracles false, or to
prove that they Avere worked by any other than God's own
Son. Christ challenged the Jews in any respect to show
him a sinner, or in the least thing to prove him recreant to
his duty to man or God. They could not do it; his enemies
were dumb before him, — absolutely confounded by the
demonstrations he gave of his authority as the true prophet
of God and his own well-beloved Son, Miracles b}" Christ
had always an evidential character, simply worked as an un-
ansA'erable argument to show that he was just what he pro-
fessed himself to be. Christ did not say that his life or his
teachings alone proved him from God; but, taken in connec-
tion with his miracles, none could refuse to reject him with-
out the deepest guilt and exposure to the severest punishment
of God. Think for a moment how eagerly the enemies of
292 CHRIST.
our Saviour would have seized upon one false miracle and
made mountains out of a single mistake, if Christ gave them
really this opportunity. But Christ did not give his crafty
foes an inch of land to stand upon, — he left them all sus-
pended in the air by the cord of their own malice. Thus,
observe, no charge was brought against Christ before Pilate
of working false miracles. Christ was fully in the power of
his enemies; but they could not point to a single instance of
deception on his part, either in his actions or his words.
They cloaked their hatred indeed under the charge of blas-
phemy, and yet they perversely shut their eyes to the only
thing that was able to prove it, and that was to show that
Christ worked no miracles. Observe the ocular and tactual
demonstration of his resurrection given to Thomas. Christ
did not repel him, but invited him to the fullest proof of his
miraculous victory over the grave. What more appropriate
exclamation after such a proof than those words of amaze-
ment that broke from his lips, "My Lord and my God !"
Read over the declarations of the evangelists and of Paul
respecting Christ's miracles, and can anything be more plain
than that Christ professed to raise the dead, and did thus
actually do ? To add tenfold weight to his proof of oneness
with God, and his divine commission as the Saviour of the
world, he confidently predicts his own death, and lays down
his life in confirmation of this truth. Thus there is the
highest possible evidence given that he was what he professed
himself to be, in that he made his death and resurrection
credentials that he was sent from God. Observe especially
how Christ spoke of those who would not believe upon him.
Did Christ work no miracles, he could not thus speak Avithout
bringing into absolute contempt his mission, even in the
minds of his disciples. "Who ever made assertions of such
startling importance, or assumed a position of such amazing
significance ? What words of awful grandeur fell from his
lips, all directly assuming equality with God, and leaving
the impression upon the mind that while in one sense he was
man, in another sense he was infinitely above man, and dis-
tinct from him! It is self-evident that assumptions of such
CHRIST. 293
startling siguificauce must rest upon the solid basis of mira-
cles, or they would be indignantly repelled by even his sin-
cerest friends.
Christ had to do with three classes of persons — open ene-
mies, curious spectators, weak but true disciples. Certainly
his bitter foes, and his prying and indifferent spectators,
would not for a moment regard him, or be silenced by him,
unless he did work miracles; and his disciples without them
could not be persuaded to follow him. Now, the foes of
Christ could do nothing against him except under false pre-
tenses, while the curious confessed his mighty works, while
they would not deny themselves for him, and his disciples
had their faith every day confirmed, until it became a con-
viction of the mind so strong as to lead them to forsake all
worldly good to secure the approbation of their Master, en-
durino; all evils for that cause that enlisted the hio-hest love
of their hearts.
Observe also the oneness of all Christ's purposes for the
benefit of the world. Jesus was singularly elevated above the
age in which he lived. With Jewish bigotry he had no
sympathy ; he favored neither the exclusiveness of Judaism
nor the vices of Gentileism. There w^as a unity in all his
conduct, a oneness of aim that never deviated from the most
perfect rectitude. If Christ had not been what he professed
himself to be, he could not uniformly have persevered in the
course he did. When we read the historians of Christ, we
find all the four evangelists agreeing in recording, without
collusion, the everyday acts of his life, and his instructions
to his disciples. They all agree in confirming the miracles
he worked, and reveal Christ as^ always having the same great
end in view, even the salvation of the world. Not a single
valid discrepancy can be found ; not one conflicting statement.
Look to the grandeur of the end Christ ever had in his mind.
How infinitely insignificant the temporal glory of a nation
to the salvation of the world ! How mean the benefit of an
earthly state in comparison to the salvation of the soul ! In
contrast, how contracted all the glory of the earth !
It is in the nobleness of all Christ's instructions and life
294 CHRIST.
that we see also the impossibility of deception. From the
manger to the cross, all had an intimate relation to this great
end. As the great author of redemption, Christ never for a
moment permitted himself to lose sight of it. Appearing
in an age singularly bigoted, among a people attached to
idolatry, to the Mosaic ritual and the ceremonial law, he yet
borrowed in his life and instructions not one trait of the age
he lived in, or had in himself a single element that was in
unison with the popular spirit. Equally opposed was Christ
to the philosophy and practices of the Gentile world. His
kingdom was not of this earth. He neither asked its favors
nor feared its frowns. He neither succumbed to the prejudices
nor trembled beneath the power of the might}' ; was neither
seduced by the riches nor dazzled by the honors of the world.
Solitary, in his own glory did he reveal himself, in his divin-
ity the most unapproachable, and in his humanity the most
accessible. Possessing in himself the most diverse qualities,
he combined the most opposite virtues ; meek and gentle
beyond conception, yet calm, resolute, and energetic; weep-
ing at the grave of Lazarus, and rebuking the pride of the
Pharisees in language never to be surpassed in severity ;
familiar to little children, and yet making the Jewish San-
hedrim amazed before the awfulness of his reserve. To him
the most helpless, the most ignorant and destitute of this
world's goods, could approach without fear ; and yet the ele-
ments of nature were all subservient to his word. The
wisdom of Christ clearly shows him from God. One un-
guarded expression of veneration to his mother would have
laid deep in human nature a valid foundation for an idolatry
the most insidious and powerful, — an idolatry that supports
the whole system of Eomanism, and which needed but a
word to make it as universal as the Bible itself. But no
language can portray the inimitable caution of Christ : with
a divine foresight, he looked through all coming ages, and
provided an antidote for every spiritual disease of man.
CHAPTER III.
CHRIST AS MORALIST, LEGISLATOR, REDEEMER, AND KING.
We will consider Clirist in those most extraordinary feat-
ures that make him, in distinction from all human beings,
the moralist, legislator, redeemer, and king of mankind, and
which prove him, in connection with miracles and prophecy,
to be not only the Son of man, but the Son of man in a sense
essentially dift'erent and infinitely superior to that which can
be predicated of any of Adam's posterity.
The chapters on miracles and prophecj-, with that upon
the success of Christianity in the first century, enter in as
conclusive proof of that which Christ says of himself, and
should be read not only as connecting links of the great
chain of evidence showing the Bible from God, but as re-
vealing with the utmost clearness that Christ is the Alpha
and Omega of all revelation, the First and Last of all that
which constitutes redemption for man.
Never was there an age of the world where morality was
based upon principles more fundamentally wrong than that
ao'e in which Christ came. The antediluvian ag-e mie-ht in
the grossness of sin be worse, but certainly the age that wit-
nessed the advent of Christ to this world excelled in every-
thing hj'pocritical and false. The Roman conquests had in-
troduced outward unity in the political world, and established
a centralized power that broke down the separating walls
that in past ages had divided one nation from another ; but
those conquests were based upon force : fear in the conquered
nations brought about an external obedience, while at heart
there was no sympathy or real union. So far as the Roman
world was concerned, all morality centered in the state and
(295)
296 CHRIST AS A MORALIST,
all virtue was summed up in obedience to C?esar. Political
idolatry liad taken the place of the homage paid in former
ages to the gods, and heathenism itself had changed its old
garb for a more liberal superstition, which included in the
divinities adored, successful generals and emperors. But
things, if possible, were worse in Judea; for there all the ex-
clusiveness of Judaism existed, while there was a total de-
parture from the heroic virtues of the age of Joshua or David,
or even the later times of the Maccabees. The fire of pure
devotion had almost gone out upon the sacrificial altar, and
but a few feeble sparks were seen in those worshipers who
impatiently looked for the coming of the Messiah. So far
as morality was concerned, Judea exhibited the spectacle of
a whitewashed sepulcher, an empty shell, with all that once
constituted the value of the nut extracted. Society was divided
into two great classes — gross sinners and plausible moralists.
The former class knew themselves to be sinners, but cared
little about leaving off sinning, while the latter class felt them-
selves to be righteous, Avhile practically they were profoundly
ignorant of the first principles of all virtue, or at heart hostile
to them. The open sinners and the legalists all agreed in one
thing, that God in some way should be worshiped, and all
were pleased with that kind of worship which dispensed with
the self-sacrificing homage of the eoul, Avhile they submitted
to the outward form of religion. How radically corrupt was
that state of society when one class practiced that which
they would not learn, and the other taught that which they
would not practice ! where conscience was alike defiled
and unfaithful, and the only religion that prevailed was a
painted caricature of the true ! What was Judea, morally
considered, but a monstrous and grotesque exhibition of
whatever was bigoted, supercilious, and formal ? The
legalists were looked upon by the multitude as very
pious. There was the exact washing of cups and platters,
the precise payment of mint and anise, the most punctual
observance of fast-days and feast-days ; there were religious
processions without number, holy banners, sacred badges,
ecclesiastical intonations, fragrant incense, long faces, and
• LEGISLATOR, REDEEMER, AND KING. 297
sackcloth garments. Never, probably, did the temple or the
streets witness prayers so long, or manners more exact, or
religion more vociferous.
The Scribes and Pharisees were never more pleased than
when they heard the respectful salutation of Rabbi ! Rabbi!
And these were the authorized teachers of the people. As
the author of "Ecce Homo" has well said, " The legalist be-
lieves that the old method by which their ancestors had
arrived at a knowledge of the requirements of duty, namely,
divine inspiration, was no longer available, and that nothing
more remained but carefully to collect the results at which
their ancestors had arrived by this method, to adopt their
results as rules, and to observe them punctiliously. De-
voutly believing that in the most trifling matter, where
action was involved, there was a right course and a wrong-
one, and at the same time entirely deserted by the instinct
or inspiration which distinguishes the one from the other,
they invented the most frivolous casuistry that has ever been
known ; they overburdened men's memories and perplexed
their lives with an endless multitude of rules, which some-
times were simply trivial ; e.g. an egg laid on a festival
day may be eaten, according to the school of Shammai ; but
the school of Hillel says it must not be eaten ; and at other
times were immoral, as in the case of the Corban, which
Christ selected for censure." "But it is evident that Christ
was not better pleased with their good deeds than with their
bad ones. Their good deeds had the nature of imposture;
that is, they did not proceed from the motives from which
such deeds naturally spring, and from which the public sup-
posed them to spring. When these men tithed their property
for the service of religion, did they do so from the ardent
feelings which had suggested the oblations of David in old
times? No doubt the people thought so; but in truth they
paid tithes from a motive which might just as well have
prompted them to take tithes — respect for a traditional rule.
When they searched and sifted the Scriptures, fancying, as
Christ said, that in them they had eternal life, did they do so
because they felt deeply the wisdom of the old prophets and
298 CHRIST AS A MORALIST,
legislators? The people no doubt thought that these dili-
gent students were possessed with the spirit of what they
read ; but the truth was that they only pored over the ancient
scrolls because they understood that it was proper to read
them ; therefore the more they read the less they understood.
And they paid the same reverence to the languid futilities of
some purblind commentator as to the inspirations of Isaiah.
When they lauded the ancient prophets, and built their
sepulchers, was it because thej^ were congenial spirits, formed
in their school, and bent upon following in their steps? The
people thought so; but Christ pronounced, with memorable
point and truth, what is true of many other worshipers of
antiquity besides the Pharisees, that they were the legitimate
representatives of those who kilted the jjvophets, and that they
betrayed this by the very worship which they paid to their
memory."
Here, then, were two classes Christ had to deal with: the
people, ignorant, deluded, and vicious; the teachers, proud,
hypocritical, and false, having just enough of the appearance
of virtue to escape the consequences of vice, but not enough
to deliver from its secret power. In both classes morality
was misunderstood in its great principles, and therefore all
duty was misdirected or unperformed. But the mischief was
incalculably greater upon the side of duty, submitted to only
in its form, than where neither its form nor spirit was carried
out; for the people were in a condition where they might be
reached, while the Pharisees were in a state where all reason
or proof was useless. The mists that hung over the ignorant
multitude, openly sinning and experiencing the penalties of
a cost confessed to be alike unclean and undone, might be
cleared away by the divine teachings of that Saviour who
healed men in their bodies as in their souls ; but that delusion
that enchained the privileged order had other and more
fatal elements of evil than those which characterized the
people. Pride, with its triple coat of mail, bigotry, ever
jealous of its prerogatives, and a fanatical regard for those
forms that brought consideration and wealth, ever stood in
the way; consequently, of all classes the legalists were
LEGISLATOR, REDEEMER, AND KINO. 299
most hostile to Christ; and the reason lay in the fact that
Christ not only proved their morality baseless, but took
away the cloak of hypocrisy by which they deceived the
people. Now, in all duty, Christ enforced, as never before,
the value of a right state of heart. All his instructions were
directed to the great point of personal holiness. There must
be some principle at the root of all obedience, which makes
all action right, and without which no word or deed has in it
that which could commend itself to God. What especially was
the idea of this principle and its sphere of activity? It was
the affections under the law of right — not a theory of right,
but an impulse of right, a condition where all the sensibili-
ties are awakened, and all directed in the pure channel of
holy love. The first principle of morality taught by Christ
was, that no duty toward God or man could be rightly per-
formed without the heart. In other words, Christ dwelt upon
the spirit of obedience rather than form — its internal devel-
opment rather than its external. But the essence of all duty
consisted in holy love — its impelling principle must be this,
because this alone is the only effectual antidote against
temptation and sin ; but the right action of the sensibilities
was the last thing thought of by the legalists, and the least
understood by all classes. Religion had degenerated into
mere form, and all worship had ceased to have that principle
that alone could make it pleasing in the sight of God, or
tliat spirit without which he could not be approached. Thus
all duty had become simply an affair of outward action, leav-
ing the source itself of morality untouched.
Judaism differed in that' age from paganism onlj^ in that it
was more intellectually right. It had lost that element of
obedience that inspired Abraham, and David, and Isaiah,
and simply became an affiair of punctilious observance, an
empty routine of tiresome ceremonies. But Christ not only
pre-eminently taught the right source of all morality, but also
its right method. This method was singularly comprehensive
and original. It was peculiarly adapted to the N'ew Dispen-
sation which he introduced into the world. The nature of
morality in Judaism was exclusive. It had its animus in the
300 CHRIST AS A MORALIST,
stereotyped forms of a Dispensation that was to be super-
seded by a better. Consequently, Christ taught that our
neighbor was not the Jew alone, but the Gentile, and that
mercy and kindness to all men were as imperative as to
the children of Abraham. Both Jews and Gentiles had no
true idea of morality toward enemies or aliens. How to act
under injuries was the most perplexing of all problems to
solve. But Christ enforced a line of conduct under injury
absolutely original, if we look to the leading authorities
among both Jews and Gentiles. Thus, among the Romans,
forgiveness toward enemies, the suppressing of a revenge-
ful spirit toward conquered foes, hardly entered at all into the
idea of morality. This was looked upon rather as a vice than
a virtue, or, if a virtue, something beyond human attainment.
Among the Jews, if positive enmity did not exist toward
strangers or Gentiles, positive indifference did, and the prin-
ciple of forgiveness as enforced by Christ toward all man-
kind was absolutely unknown. This, in practice, was a
version of the moral law neither felt nor understood. But
morality, as inculcated by Christ, not only broke down the
separating wall between Judaism and Gentileism, and made
all mankind children of one common Father, but, in relation
to God, the soul, and a future state, principles were taught
far in advance of anything inculcated in the Old Testament.
Christ came not only to establish the law and the prophets,
but to give something vastly superior. Thus the Fatherhood
of God was brought out with wonderful distinctness, and also
his personal interest in every son and daughter of Adam ;
not only God under the aspect of reconciliation, but God
under the aspect of Providence. So, also, of the soul. How
vivid the light that is flashed upon it by the instructions of
Christ ! How prominently is it brought out in its value and
amazing interests ! Thus Christ places the seal of royalty
upon every soul, be the outward condition ever so poor, ob-
scure, and afflicted : he not only asserts the fact, next to that
of God's existence, of the utmost importance for man to know
and feel, but he throws around this fact circumstances of
worth that never before entered the mind of any person.
LEGISLATOR, REDEEMER, AND KING. 301
So, also, of a future state. Here we see how great the value
of that kind of morality taught by Christ: happiness or
misery in the future, the resurrection to life or condemna-
tion, all have an intimate bearing upon the character of our
lives and the actual condition of the heart of every person.
The great thing demanded for heaven was the possession of
some principle that should be of universal application, and
\Qt so simple, so true, so elemental in its nature as to make
it suitable for every condition of mankind, and perfectly
adapted to the object of his mission to save the soul. What
was that principle, lying at the root of all true morality, and
which, as an indispensable step, secured ultimately a right
state of heart? One word is enough to express it: faith, or
confidence. Christ rested everything upon that simple test,
which alone was possible or practicable for all mankind.
How was this test enforced ? Simply by saying, If you have
confidence in me, you will regard my possession worthy of all
necessary sacrifice. You will take up your cross for me.
Thus, morality was based upon the double foundation of
right faith and right love, faith that should bring this love,
love that should bring this faith ; both in their very nature
must lie not upon the surface of humanity, but at the center,
the heart, and both must exist wherever there was true
obedience. Now, the diiference between the legalists and
Christ was this : legalists insisted upon forms and rules to
bring about right morality ; Christ, upon faith and love.
The one was satisfied with the shell of religion, the other
only with the meat of it. ,
Here observe the reason why the legalists were so severely
censured by Christ, and so openly and frequently rebuked in
the sternest language. Not because they were worse than all
other classes, — this does not follow necessarily, — but because
they were vastly more dangerous. "With pagans, publicans,
and open sinners, with the confessedly immoral and disso-
lute, with all that class excommunicated from the select order
of pietists or consecrated religionists, and especially such as
came under the ban of civil law and suffered the penalties
of the outraged sentiments of society, there was an access
302 CHRIST AS A MORALIST,
by Christ immensely more easy, and. they could be approached
far more successfully. But between the legalists and Christ
an irreconcilable hostility, and a barrier immeasurably more
difhcult, existed. The legalists had borrowed enough of the
garb of true religion to make it plausible with the mul-
titude, but^were utterly destitute of its spirit; they assumed
to be the teachers of morality, while they were the slaves of
conventional rules, forms, and ceremonies : moreover, they ex-
isted as the strongest defenders of an exclusive Judaism.
But the nature of Christ's mission had superseded this, and
the end of his advent to this w^orld was to do away with all
the distinctions of Jew and Gentile and upon the wants of a
common humanity introduce a religion that should be essen-
tially universal. Consequently, before Christ could proceed
one step toward establishing Christianity, he must destroy
the whole system of legalism in the estimation of the people,
aud bring into deserved contempt the hypocritical teachers
of it.
A new era had dawned upon the world, but the Scribes
and Pharisees had shut their eyes to the miracles of our
Saviour, or had willfully perverted them into the workings of
Beelzebub, and, wdiile they borrowed all that was burdensome
and formal in the religion of the prophets, they were utterly
destitute of their spirit. They had simply floated like chips
upon the sea of humanity, and like chips they had been
thrown upon the beach, useless for all purposes conducive to
human welfare. Contenting themselves with being mere
surface-teachers, they grew worse and worse, until they had
arrived at just that point where in honest morality they were
worse than the people, while in pretension they assumed to
be immeasurably better. Christ could not tolerate them
without sacrificing that cause for which he was willing to
suffer and to die.
Consider Christ as a legislator. Moses was the legislator
of a nation, Christ of the world. The genius of the one was
exclusive, that of the other universal. Moses' legislation was
restricted to the ceremonial law and the ten commandments,
Christ's legislation embodied the spirit of all right law, while
LEGISLATOR, REDEEMER, AND KING. 303
he did away with all burdensome forms and all ceremonies
that could not assume a world-wide adaptation. Of outward
observances Christ restricted himself to three — open profes-
sion with his visible church, baptism, and the sacrament of
the Lord's Supper ; but, strictly speaking, the last two were
only enjoined, for they included the iirst. N^ow, the legislation
of Christ diiiered essentially from that of Moses in that it not
only had a world-wide adaptation, but it had a vastly more
positive character. Its spirit was essentially aggressive and
comprehensive. The morality of the former consisted more
in not doing evil — Thou shall 7iot, was the animus of it, — while
the morality of Christ consisted in doing good, and its watch-
word was, Thou shall.
For motives Moses relied more on temporal rewards and
punishments, but Christ on eternal. The one appealed to
the present, the other to the future. The legislation of
Moses was adapted to a specific end, that of Christ to a
general end. Thus, while the legislation of Moses may be
compared to a river flowing on in a prescribed channel,
that of Christ could only be likened to the ocean washing
great continents and fit for the commerce of the world.
ISTotice the address of Christ to the Samaritan woman at the
well of water : " But the hour cometh, and now is, when the
true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in
truth ; for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is
a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in
spirit and in truth."
Now the legislation of Christ was exactly of that charac-
ter that made him a law to all his true disciples. The prin-
ciple simply consisted in holding up an idea of excellence in
his own person and instructions so perfect that nothing could
be added to it, and nothing, without loss, taken from it.
This ideal, if not attainable in this world, was ever to be
reached after, and in itself was the most eflfectual antidote
for sin. The legislation of Moses threw a man more upon
his own resources, while that of Christ aimed constantly to
throw a person upon the resources of God. By proposing a
perfect standard, it tasght most clearly human dependence
304 CHRIST AS A MORALIST,
and divine strength, and thus, while it developed humility,
it at the same time inspired the noblest courage. The
legislation of Christ carried with it far more effectual power
to restrain from sin than that of Moses, because, while that of
Moses had more reference to the outward act, Christ's legis-
lation had peculiar relation to the disposition. As sin has
its source in the disposition, so, to cure man of sin, Christ
taught that the root of it existing in the heart must be ex-
tracted. All then of Christ's legislation went directly to the
source of all mischief, either in the individual or the commu-
nity, and taught the one great lesson that the same principle
that made a man right with God would lead him to be right
with his neighbor, and that wherever there was the true love
of the oue, there also would be the true love of the other.
Equally different in the legislation of Moses and of Christ
were the motives to obedience presented by each. The
present world, with the one, was the great motive power,
with its rewards and punishments, while the future world
was that most constantly appealed unto by Christ. It there-
fore followed that where faith existed there also a motive
power must exist, as superior in reality as the future life is
more important than the present. Besides, the very mission
of Christ demanded a more vivid presentation of the future
world ; and thus, when the time came for a higher revelation,
we see that it was given under just those circumstances that
made it a wonderful power in making progressive the re-
ligion of Christ. Thus the whole condition of humanit}^ was
changed, or vitally affected, by the greater truths communi-
cated of the life beyond the grave. These truths had
in them that which had an especial bearing upon the
soul. Christ, as a legislator, brought to bear upon obe-
dience all the motive power of three worlds. It was, then,
not only as a moralist that he spoke, but as a legislator he
enacted; and while he borrowed all that was useful of that
old dispensation, he engrafted principles and motives into the
new that made it peculiarlj^ his own. In all the civil and
social relations of life, Christ's legislation was just that which
made it adapted to all ages and countries. It studiously
LEGISLATOR, REDEEMER, AND KING. 305
avoided having anytbing to do with the civil power, or with
the merely outward relations of society, or with any mere
social organization. The supreme wisdom of this will be seen
when we reflect that society was immeasurably more cor-
rupt in its spirit than in its forms, and, in the nature of things,
must go through with endless outward changes to be made
essentially better. Christ therefore shunned, in his legislation
to his disciples, the least approximation to any one form or
organization of society. He recognized most clearly the
divine authority in the abstract of all civil government, but
he would not be a partisan of any. Thus all of Christ's legis-
lation was to eifect a change in the outward relations of
society, by going directly to the heart of it and creating a
right spirit in the individual, and, through the individual, in
the community. The spirit right, and, by an irresistible
law of moral gravitation, the forms in time would be right;
while the spirit WTong, and all forms would be perverted, and
degenerate into some kind or other of civil or social despot-
ism. And the course of Christ's legislation was pre-eminently
adapted to the age in which he lived. jSTo age excelled it in
forms and ceremonies, and none came up to it in a radically
corrupt and bad spirit. Society was rotten at its very core,
and the first thing to be done was to apply a remedy to the
inmost seat of the disease. IITow, the legalists were content
with painting over this sepulcher of humanity ; Christ only
with raising the dead bodies in it. Consequently, in the
memorable instance of the tribute-money, the woman taken
in adultery, and the course taken by Jesus at Pilate's Hall,
we see how careful Christ was to abstain from any appear-
ance of interfering with the civil relations of society. So
in the ecclesiastical and social relations of society, Christ
freely mingled with all classes, and indorsed by his presence
all those outward forms by which the machinery of society
moved on; and yet his legislation was peculiarly adapted, by
introducing a new spirit, to work ultimately a change in the
form itself. Remember, our Saviour made laws for his church
and the world, and not for a sect or a nation ; he inculcated
those principles of love to God and man that, in their secret
20
306 CHRIST AS A MORALIST,
and powerful movement in the heart of society, would in time
bring about the highest moral, civil, and social elevation of
man, and ultimately create those right forms and rules that
would secure the noblest welfare of man ; but Christ com-
menced with the root of society, and not its branches, knowing
full wxU that unless the spirit was made right, all its outward
developments must be wrong.
Let us now consider Christ as the Redeemer of man. Here
we see, as has been shown in the chapter upon the gospel solu-
tion to the question of the sinner saved and the law sustained,
that Christ alone met the conditions of this most perplexing of
all problems. But there is an aspect to the subject of Christ
the Redeemer of man worthy of ca^^eful consideration ; that is,
the great necessity of man was twofold, — a vicarious sacrifice,
and a perfect example. This involved the incarnation of
Christ, and a sensible and perfect illustration of all virtue ;
virtue not alone in the abstract, but the concrete; virtue
under all those conditions made essential for redemption.
]!Tow, however unnecessary skeptics of the present day may
deem the incarnation and death of Christ, yet we cannot
study the systems of religion in the ancient world without
being impressed with the idea that there ran through all
pagan idolatry that which told of an earnest longing for
some sensible manifestation of God, and especially that
which should show a way of deliverance from sin'
In our chapter upon the necessity of a revelation from God,
it will be seen how earnest the longing for some manifestation
of God that had been for ages withheld from the world.
'^OY does it change the fact of this longing that the imagin-
ation had invented innumerable methods of divine mani-
festation that were opposed to all true reason and good
judgment. Awfully depraved as were those inventions by
which God was brought into communication with man, yet
those incarnations that embodied the idea of present divin-
ities, however monstrous in their conception, truly told of a
want that had showed itself from the earliest ages of the world.
Now we say that the incarnation of Christ precisely met this
want, while it eliminated from it everything that was im-
LEGISLATOR, REDEEMER, AND KING. 307
pure and unreasonable. The foct that Christ in a vicarious
sense was the Redeemer of man, as well as his Redeemer bj his
holy example, and that both his sacrifice and his life were di-
vine, is the one great miracle of miracles, the central fact of all
facts, and the only thing that promised to solve the difficul-
ties of man's existence in the world. It is impossible to hold
converse with the philosophy of paganism, and study the
writings of Homer, Plato, Socrates, Cicero, or Virgil, with-
out finding that which told of the evil of sin, and that which
manifested an earnest desire to know some way by Avhich
man might be delivered from the bondage that enthralled
him.
Thus, Young, in his work upon the " Christ of History,"
has well remarked : " We cannot hope to discover, in the re-
ligious of mankind, the method of solving the deepest
problem of Christianity, but it is quite possible that they may
illustrate, perhaps confirm, the only satisfactory solution which
has yet been suggested. In these religions, almost without
exception, the idea of incarnation will be found under one
form or another. It is related, that Paul and Barnabas, in
the city of Lystra, were about to receive divine honors ; Bar-
nabas was to be worshiped as an incarnation of Jupiter, and
Paul as an incarnation of Mercury. The people of Lacouia
cried, ' The gods have come down to us in the likeness of
men.' The noticeable fact is, that this was not a new and
strange thought to them, but an opportunity familiar and
generally received, and which, therefore, at once occurred to
them as afi:brding an easy interpretation of what they had
seen and heard in connection with the two foreigners. The
numberless metamorphoses of the gods of ancient Greece
and Rome, and in the Eastern world the incarnations of
Brahm, the avatars of Vishnu, and the human form of
Kreeshna, and its reappearance in successive ages, are signifi-
cant and demonstrative on this subject. Among almost all
nations, and from the earliest period of which any authentic
record has been preserved down to our own times, the idea of
God incarnating himself is found. But mankind do not
universally and for successive ages adopt that which is wholly
308 CHRIST AS A MORALIST,
false. On tlie most philosophical grounds it may be argued
that the continued and wide acceptance of the notion of in-
carnation in the world, is decisive proof that it must have
some basis of truth. The idea, indeed, if admitted hymen at
all, was manifestly for conscience and reason in their most
reverent and subdued exercise, and not for imagination. It
was too awfully sacred for imagination, even in its most
chastened movements, to have approached. But imagina-
tion, unchasteued, irreverent, impure, coarse, and wild, dared
to violate this sanctity. The result we behold in the con-
tradictions, absurdities, blasphemies, and offenses against
all faith and religious feeling and taste of which the world
is full."
"But, in spite of the humiliations and revolting facts of this
kind which abound, it may be argued incontrovertibly that
the idea itself of incarnation must, from its universality, have
some basis of truth. One of two things, or both, may be legiti-
mately presumed : either this idea is the traditionary vestige
of some primitive revelation, or there must be some grand
necessity of universal human nature which it is felt can be
met only by the doctrine of incarnation in one form or other.
The deep sense of such a necessity all nations and all times
have proclaimed ; and does not Christianity reveal the only
actual provision which has been made to meet this universal
want ? It was a promise in the beginning, it was a hope
and a faith in successive ages, and in the fullness of the times
the promise was fulfilled, the faith and the hope were realized.
Once for all a response worthy of God w^as given to the cry
of humanit}^ ; once for all, to meet a grand necessity, to
achieve what no otherwise could have been achieved for the
redemption of man, God incarnated himself. The union of
divinity with humanity is the onl}' principle which harmo-
nizes the outward facts and the moral aspects of the life of
Jesus Christ. Disgusted with the absurdities and shocked
by the impurities and impieties of mythological incarna-
tions, conscience and reason find rest in oiw incaimation for
all tim£.''
"In the personal character of Christ, then, we have the
LEGISLATOR, REDEEMER, AND KING. 309
evidence not o\\\y of a higher office, but of a higher nature, than
ever belonged to man ; the evidence of an essential constitu-
tional separation from all men, in him who was holy, harm-
less, undeiiled, and separate from sinners ; in Jesus, the Son
of Alary, the words of the ancient oracle received their beauti-
ful fulfillment : ' Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is
given ; and the government shall be upon his shoulders ;
and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the
Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.' " —
Isaiah, ix. 6.
The great central fact of all revelation is, that Christ is the
Redeemer. In its comprehensive import it embodies, as has
been seen, two essential ideas — first, Christ a perfect exam-
ple ; secondly, Christ a perfect sacrifice. Consequently,
while the -incarnation of the Son of God is in itself the
profoundest of mysteries, it yet offers the only solution
to the question involved in the reconciliation of man to
God, and presents the only valid foundation for reason to
build upon or faith to inspire to virtue. But the incarna-
tion of Christ was the necessary condition of his expiation
for sin, just as his perfect sacrifice is the only foundation
for redemption.
Let us now view Christ under the aspect of a king. Here
observe, kingship may or does have two spheres of existence
— one exclusively of this world, the other of the next; one
temporal, the other spiritual ; one limited only to time, the
other bounded only by eternity. Observe, then, that at the
very commencement of Christ's ministry our Saviour studi-
ously avoided the former kingship, and this resolution on
many occasions flashed out with peculiar power. ]^ot only
did Christ not seek temporal power, wealth, fame, or influ-
ence, he upon every occasion avoided it. The precise difii-
culty with the Jews was simply that Christ w^ould not assume
worldly kingship. It mortified their pride, repelled their
hopes, irritated beyond measure all their national vanity, to
see Christ performing the works of a prophet of God, and
yet avoiding and contemning that earthly position which the
Jews reasonably thought he should take. Thus, -we read, the
310 CHRIST AS A MORALIST,
multitude sought to make Christ a king, but he would not
be induced thus to be made their earthly master.
Christ disclaimed all pretensions of a worldly nature; he
forbade his disciples to harbor the thought even that his king-
dom was of this world, and to the Jews this was peculiarly
vexatious. With ample credentials to place him in the high-
est earthly position, he yet promised his disciples only the
contempt and persecution of the world. jSTow this attitude
upon the part of Christ was the real cause of his rejectiou
by the Jews. What they looked for was an earthly king ;
what they desired was one who would lead them on to vic-
tory and make the lloman nation let go its grasp upon their
national life. A king was the very thing they dreamed of
and most earnestly prayed for; it formed the absorbing sub-
ject of their thoughts, and was that which \\\qj expected the
Messiah to be. And Christ boldly told the Jews he w^as a
king; he asserted this before the judgment-seat of Pilate;
he proclaimed it wherever he went ; he died with his king-
ship prominent in his words and actions. But Christ, to be
consistentl}' a Redeemer, must be only a spiritual king;
and no other kingship was in harmony with the great end
of an atonement ; and this spiritual kingship carried with
it the two greatest of all attributes, — universality and eter-
nity. It was a kingship for all ages, and a kingship for
all conditions and races of men. It was world-wide and
unending.
Such a kingship was of necessity spiritual, and demanded
of all its subjects faith and love. Consequently, it was more
far-reaching in its claims and ends as the obedience of the
spirit, its affection and confidence, ai'e infinitely superior to
outv/ard obedience, or submission to visible and worldly
power. The kingship of Christ was of just that character
that made it singularly appropriate to the object of his mis-
sion and the benetit of man. Christ did not seek any other
influence over his disciples than that which proceeded from
the voluntary homage of the heart and was the free expres-
sion of aftection and confidence. Consequently, the kingdom
of Christ diriercd altogether in the nature of the power em-
LEGISLATOR, REDEEMER, AND KING. 311
ployed from that of earthly kingdoms, which was simply the
law of force^ or the authority of the sword. This was the
glory of Rome, of her Caesars and her Herods and Pilates ;
but the law of love was the propelling influence of Christ's
kingdom. Its throne was in the spiritual nature of man,
that comprehended the conscience, reason, and aifection; con-
sequently, in all the civil relations of life, Christ uniformly
abstained from any acts or words that would make him a
party to any civil authority. He inculcated submission and
obedience, while he would not be made a judge to indorse
any party whatever in authority.
Thus, in the tribute-money, Christ laid down a rule of
universal application, while with infinite wisdom he confined
himself alone to that kingship which was spiritual. IsTor was
it possible, for the end in view, that Christ should combine
temporal and spiritual power, an earthly and a heavenly king-
ship; both must be kept distinct, for any alliance with the
kino;doms of the world would be fatal to his o-reat end of re-
demptiou from sin. This was chief in all the thoughts of
Christ, and therefore his kingship must have enstamped upon
it universality and eternity, and that only was consistent
with its spirituality. But there was a sense where the con-
dition of redemption was changed, when the cure of sin
working inwardlj^ had extended to that which was outward
and bodily, where with the highest truth it may be said that
the kingdom of Christ was sensible, visible, and of the
world to come. Christ uniforml}' taught that he was not
only a spiritual king, claiming the deepest homage of the
heart, demanding obedience in all relations of life, and im-
posing sanctions that embraced three worlds, but that when
the set time should come, that kingship would assume an out-
ward and visible form, as in this life it was strictly spiritual
and had its sway over only the mind and heart. Repeat-
edly did Christ take upon himself that which most signifi-
cantly told of his royal authority; but he also declared that
the time would come when his kingship should be as sensi-
ble and visible as it had been spiritual, and' that as truly
would he be outwardlj^ a king as then he was spiritually
312 CHRIST AS A MORALIST,
unknown and unrecognized, except by those who in their
hearts submitted to his dirine authority ; and the reason hxy
in the fact, that as the cure of sin was to commence inwardly
and work outwardly, so also should Christ's reign correspond
with the exact progress of redemption from its imperfect to
its perfected condition.
Thus it will be seen that a true idea of the kingship of
Christ is the very key-note to the understanding of his in-
structions to his disciples and his mission to save sinners.
It has been seen that Christ had one great end in view, that
absorbed all his tlioughts and inspired to all his sacrifices
That end was redemption, — first of the soul, then of the body.
ISTow, the assumption of an outward and earthly kingship
would have defeated this end when our Saviour came into
the world. It would, indeed, have exactly corresponded with
the views and feelings of the Jews, but it would also have
extinguished all those hopes built upon the universality and
spirituality of his kingdom. Christ aimed in every way to
disappoint and thwart the contracted and selfish views held
of his kingship by the Jews. To gratify them was to sacri-
fice his .mission. Consequently, our Redeemer studiously
avoided all that favored the expectations of his countrymen.
His mission was not for a nation, but for the world; and,
therefore, the spirituality rather than the visible or outward
manifestation of his kingdom was chiefly aimed at. What
Christ sought after was, to convince all that an atonement
for sin was inconsistent with worldly kingship ; for redemp-
tion not onl}^ involved a cross upon the part of Christ, but
also self-sacrifice upon that of his disciples. How incon-
gruous with this, any other position than that which Christ
actually took !
It will, therefore, be seen that the mission of Christ Avas
peculiarly spiritual, even as sacrificial, and aimed at nothing
less than making practicable and universal a way of recon-
ciliation with God, and the very reason that led the Jews
to reject Christ was the highest reason, rightly considered,
for receiving him. The difiiculty with the Jew was, that
in interpreting the prophets no true distinction was made
LEGISLATOR, REDEEMER, AND KING. 313
between the first and the second coming of Christ ; but the
Old, even as the iSTew Testament, made a world-wide differ-
ence in these two great and most momentous events. The
first coming of Christ must, of necessity, be that of humilia-
tion, while his second coming bad only the marks of regal
triumph and supremacy. Christ's first coming was more to
secure the great end of a perfect priesthood, while his second
coming involved especially the idea of a perfect kingship; and
yet the kingdom of Christ was as real in his first as it will be
in his second coming, only it will then be both spiritual and
visible and possess all those characteristics that will adapt it
for a sphere of existence altogether different. Consequently,
we see the consummate wisdom Christ always displayed
when the subject of his kingship was alluded to.
In this world everything earthly and sensual was elimi-
nated from it, because it was not of this earth ; it coveted
neither its favors nor trembled beneath its frowns ; it bor-
rowed not one feature in common with the kino-doms of this
life ; it presented a marked contrast to everything that
attracted the admiration and love of worldly characters, and
sought only to reveal itself as spiritual and universal. The
very comprehensiveness of the spirit embodied in it was fatal
to the hopes of the Jews ; and, while they aimed only to secure
that which was national, Christ thought only of that which
was designed for all men and all ages. And here notice a most
singular and extraordinary evidence of the divine character of
our Saviour's mission : it was not only absolutely original in
its conception, but in its execution. It borrowed nothing of
the age he lived in, it appealed to none of the hopes common
to mankind, it resorted to none of those measures essential
for securing the prizes of earth. We find nothing in the life
or instructions of Christ that would give the least idea of
being a copy from any human original. Christ was his own
original. Xothing like him ever before appeared on this
earth, and nothing in all subsequent ages has ever assumed
the lineaments of his person. And the distinguishing pecu-
liarity of the life of Christ consisted in his reserve both of
power and knowledge. It was this that filled his disciples
314 CHRIST AS A 310 R A LI ST, ETC.
with such admiration and awe. They saw Christ giving at
times, for most beneficent ends, the most amazing evidence of
power, and, yet while subject to the wants of humanity, taking
notliing for himself; ever willing to do good to others, but
never solicitous to appropriate even needful comforts for his
own person. He walked the ground a living embodiment of
all that was unselfish and generous. The Lamb of God was
the appropriate designation of his character. In that form of
divinest workmanship there were stores of inexhaustible
knowledge, even as power. And yet the reticence of Christ
was quite as extraordinary as his hours of instruction. Our
Saviour never deviated from one great end, even that of the
redemption of body and soul, and his kingship in the age of
his first advent was just that which corresponded to the
actual wants of the world. A kingdom of love, as distin-
guished from a kingdom of force, was the leading feature of
Christ's spiritual reign, and in the very principles which
marked its development and the moral triumphs which
followed in its progress there was revealed an infinite supe-
riority to all the kingdoms of this earth.
CHAPTER IV.
EVIDENCE OF MIRACLES.
We define a miracle to be a visible sign given directly and in-
telligently to man from God, to show the suspension of a law of
nature, or that God has interposed his power to control the
established course of nature. We consider miracles that
are real as strictly supernatural, or something above human
or angelic power, bat we do not mean to comprehend in
miracles all signs, or wonders, or that even which is not hu-
man. We W'Ould not call the agenc}' of good or bad angels
miraculous, although superhuman. Nor do we mean to say
that there may be. no cases on record where God permits
things to be done which ma}' not have very much the appear-
ance of miracles ; but what we do mean to say is, that when
God works miracles they are so clearly defined, they come
under such circumstances and for such occasions, that show
them distinctly to be from him, and not from any creature
source.
We do not purpose so much to investigate what may be
miraculous, or what is the extent of miracles, as to confine
our remarks to that which all must admit to proceed from a
visible interposition of God, of such a nature as to be impos-
sible to be performed by any creature, or to take place ac-
cording to the known course of nature.
The question now is, Is there any probability that God
would work miracles to substantiate a revelation of his wuU?
We reply, that it is in the highest degree probable that God
would give such credentials to his will. Consider the end
to be attained unto. The infinite Being who holds all natural
law in his hands, can, whenever he sees fit, either break in
upon their uniformity, or so control them, or introduce in
connection with them other laws, as to secure the great re-
(315)
316 EVIDENCE OF MIRACLES.
suit of miracle, so sensible as to strike conviction of their
divine origin in the dullest minds. The simple question to
consider is, Does not the Bible, revealing Christ the Saviour
of sinners, a future state of rewards and punishments, the
judgment and the resurrection, need miracles as suitable
credentials with mankind ? The question is not whether
there is evidence enough without miracles to authorize us to
believe and obey the Bible, but whether, constituted as men
are, without miracles the Bible would be believed in, or be
received as from God. What men should do, and what they
will do, are two questions altogether ditierent. How could
Christ prove, without miracles, to the Jews his divine mis-
sion ? How, w^ithout miracles, in the early days of Chris-
tianity, could it have made way against the opposition and
unbelief of the world ? How could Moses have delivered
from Egypt the Israelites, without the miraculous interposi-
tion of God? But more than this, the Bible comes to us
denouncing the severest punishment to those who reject it
and do not in their hearts receive the great author of Chris-
tianity. Why such severity of punishment, if so important
and conclusive credentials as miracles are not given ?
Christ even rested also his claims as the Son of God upon
miracles. He openly said that he was not to be believed in
unless he did the works that no other man could do, works
above all human or angelic power, works that God only
could perform, who alone controls nature's laws, and can break
in upon their undeviating uniformity. Considering the
greatness of the end to be accomplished, considering that
the very existence of Christianity depended upon miracles,
is it not highly probable that God would work them ? Con-
sider the adaptation of the Bible to our wants : why then
should we not have the royal seal of its divine origin ? Here
is a watch : it is well made, every wheel is in its place, every
part is adjusted to its separate office, nothing is absent but
the hands to point out the minutes and the hours: why
should not those hands be given to the watch ? They go to
complete one great design : why not given ?
Now, here is a revelation of a great system of redemption
EVIDENCE OF MIRACLES. 317
perfectly adapted to all our wants, but it needs credentials
that it has come from God, credentials of such a nature that
if wanting, millions who receive the Bible as divine would
reject to their ruin. Admitting the existence of an infinitely
powerful, wise, and good God, is it not in the highest degree
probable they would be given ? God is able to work mira-
cles ; there is then no want of power thus to do. God is in-
linitely wise to secure the great end of redemption ; there is,
then, every probability upon the side of wisdom that mira-
cles would be worked. God is as good as he is powerful and
wise ; there is, then, in his mercy, the strongest presump-
tion that there will be miracles.
But Christ, professing himself to be from God, and God
manifest in the flesh, repeatedly declaring his mission divine,
proposing to himself the amazing end of the redemption of
the soul forever and the salvation of the world, of necessity
based the great evidence of his supernatural advent to this
earth upon miracles; he boldly asserted that if he did not
the works that no man could do, then he was not entitled to
belief, while he denounced the severest condemnation upon
those who would not believe upon him, simply because they
refused to credit that which could not with reason be denied.
Now, the whole mission of Christ, the age in which he ap-
peared, the violent enemies encountered, and all the obsta-
cles so formidable to be mastered, made miracles of the
utmost importance to the success of Christianity: is it not
most reasonable to suppose that such credentials would be
granted by an all-powerful, wise, and merciful God ?
The great reason why many reject miracles arises from
two errors: first, overlooking the fact of a personal God of
infinite freedom and power, holding all laws in complete sub-
jection to his will, the absolute originator of all existence,
and its laws, material and immaterial ; and then in believing
in no other laws but the laws of nature, and the eternity of
their duration, even as undeviating uniformity. Conse-
quently, when miracle is spoken of, they say, Will God vio-
late his own laws, will he act against nature, will he ordain
a method of operation in nature, and yet counteract it ?
318 EVIDENCE OF MIRACLES.
But all this reasoning springs from a false view of nature.
Nature is made for a certain end; but suppose a higher end
is to be secured, will nature, by its uniformity of laws unhi-
terrupted, be permitted by God to defeat this end ? Will God
be so dependent upon his own workmanship as not to show
to his creatures his superiority to it ?
As theists, we cannot limit God to the exclusive sphere of
his natural laws. God must have a sphere of action above
those laws, and able, whenever some great and wise end is
to be secured, to take away the veil of nature, remove the
tliick folds of its garment, and show visibly and nakedly,
without any obstructing medium, the glittering sign of his
awful presence. But more than this : we contend that if
miracles are not in accordance with the existing laws of na-
ture, they may be in perfect harmony with other laws. If
God suspends one kind of law, it may be to introduce another
and superior kind of hxw; and if creating power has existed
in tlie past ages of the world, and does now, and will ever,
exist with God, then certainly it is most absurd to say that
the Almighty has not controlling, suspending, regulating,
or counteracting power. If God can make a world, he can
make it move as he pleases.
Did the Bible contain idle fables, absurd contradictions,
immoral instructions; did it approve of theft, profanity,
avarice, pride, deceit, impurity, murder; was its general
scope in favor of selfishness, or parental or civil disobedi-
ence, a disposition lawless of human or divine restraints,
such a Bible would have an internal evidence that it was not
from God, that would, in the highest degree, make miracles
in its confirmation improbable, and even impossible. But
from an examination of the general scope of the Bible, and
its adaptation to elevate and bless man, we find directly tlie
reverse. Such being the case, with a revelation worthy of mir-
acles, and needing miracles to make it to be received, where
the slightest improbability of miracles ? Where is there the
least evidence, from the uniformitj' of nature's laws, that mir-
acles would not be given, considering the end to be attained?
Let it be remembered we are arguing as theists, not
EVIDENCE OF MIRACLES. 319
atheists. We believe in a personal God infinitely higher
than natural law, in his power able to work miracles, and
from his wisdom and goodness disposed thus to do, provided
there is an end to be attained unto worth}' of the breaking in
upon the uniformity of natural law. Christianity presents
itself as such an end. Everything depends, in its reception,
upon miracles. There are the mightiest obstacles to be over-
come, the most formidable corruption of human nature and
the world. Where, then, the improbability that God's am-
bassador to this earth should bring the royal seal of his
divine commission ? Is there not, then, the highest moral
certainty that if such an ambassador does come to man, he
will have the seal of heaven to make evident his divine
origin ?
There can, then, be no presumptive evidence against the
miracles of Christianity simply from the uniformity of
natural law? This uniformity is the very thing that consti-
tutes the idea of a miracle Were this uniformity broken in
upon every day miracles would become common events, and
lose all their value; but worse than this, all certainty, and
all the plain rules of living and thinking, w^ould be deranged,
natural law would lose all its importance, and confusion reign
triumphant. God, who does nothing without a wise end,
has made, therefore, miracles of rare occurrence, and only at
great epochs of time and emergency of events. Miracles are
the reverse movement of the great engine of God's provi-
dence. They constitute an indispensable check to natural
law. They mark the signal sovereignty of God over law,
and reveal a far grander power behind the mighty machinery
of the universe, by which God, at fit times, interposes to ac-
complish his vast purposes of wisdom.
While, therefore, under common circumstances and on or-
dinary occasions miracles are the most improbable of events,
and ought not to be believed in, yet, in extraordinary emer-
gencies, when certain occasions of vast moment transpire,
they are of all things the most probable. Thus, we find, with
the great multitude of Christians, the strongest proof of the
validity of miracles consists in the adaptation of the Bible to
320 EVIDENCE OF MIRACLES.
their wants; and because of their absolute necessity to sub-
stantiate the divine mission of Christ a supernatural revela-
tion must have a supernatural proof. Christ, if true in his
words, must be true in his works. If his veracity is to be
believed in, then the miraculous evidence of that veracity
must be credited. Miracles are to be believed, not only
upon the ground that a most wise and beneficent end was
secured by them, but because the truthfulness of Chris-
tianity hangs upon them.
The ethics of the Bible all depend upon its proofs, and its
proofs upon its ethics. The supernatural is the foundation
upon which the whole system of redemption rests.
How certain, then, that God will work miracles when some
great end is to be attained by them ; some end honorable to
God, and in harmony with the noblest interests of man. This
is not only theologically true, but true also to science. "We
assert that whatever science does say upon miraculous inter-
positions at great epochs of time is all upon the side of reve-
lation, and corresponds altogether with the view, that
whenever some mighty end was to be attained unto that
natural law could not reach, that end was consummated by
miracles, by the setting aside of natural law, or by the direct
interposition of God. Thus, in the solid stratas of the earth
are piled, with the regularity of shelves in a book-case, im-
mense masses of different orders of animals, commencing with
the inferior type of animal organization and going up to the
highest rank of creatures below man, reptiles, fishes, birds,
and quadrupeds. This earth shows unmistakable evidence
of the uniformity of natnral law being broken in upon, that
there were epochs of time when changes took place that
can be accounted for by no system of gradual development
according to law, but only by a sudden, direct, and violent
interruption of law and miraculous interposition of God.
But we have an additional evidence from reason to believe
that natural law may be suspended and miracle intervene.
Suppose natural law either could not, or would not, in its
uniformity, at any time be suspended ; suppose its course
was so undeviating that no end to be accomplished, however
EVIDENCE OF MIRACLES. 321
worthy, would avail to have it suspended, — where the visi-
ble evidence to man of the sovereignty of God over matter ?
Butworse than this ; would not law be deified at the expense
of God ? Would not God be forever forgotten by sinners
when they never saw nature's uniformity broken in upon ?
Here it is that miracles, under some circumstances, are so
necessary and so probable. Here it is that we find God
teaching man lessons alike of his omnipotence and bis
wisdom. We come, then, to the conclusion, that so exalted
is the end Christianity is designed to subserve, so worthy the
object that it aims to secure, that miracles are not only in
the highest degree probable, but necessary.
Upon what ground are we then to believe that miracles by
God have been worked to give credit to the claims of revela-
tion ? There are but two possible grounds, — that of sight, of
actual observation ourselves, and that of the testimony of
others. But it is more than eighteen hundred years since
Christ died : more than three thousand years since the won-
ders of Egypt and the giving the law upon Sinai: more
than four thousand years since the flood. Upon what ground,
but that of testimony, can we believe in these miracles ?
Personal observation of these miracles, to us, is out of the
question. In what way can we believe in them, if not by
testimony? There are those who have said, "We will not
believe a miracle unless we can see it." A French iniidel
once said, " Why does not God show an evidence of mira-
cles by writing his name upon the sky?" Suppose God
should do just what the folly of some would have him do,
work miracles ever}' day 'and before all mankind for their
convenience : what would be the result ? First, there being
only the unworthy end to accomplish of gratifying an idle
curiosity, the highest evidence of the genuineness of Bible
miracles would be taken away ; and secondlj', these events so
common would interrupt all the harmon}' of natural laws
and break up the whole system of nature's uniformity. Con-
fusion would take the place of order, and uncertainty derange
all human foresight. Who would travel, if the certainty was
as great of going backward as forward ? Who would eat, if
21
322 EVIDENCE OF MIRACLES.
there was a probability as strong of starving on food as re-
ceiving benefit from it ? Is it not most unreasonable, then,
to demand of God miracles, when there is neither a worthy
end to be reached, nor benefit secured ?
When it can be shown that natural law is unable to secure
the end that miracle does, that some great epoch in human
history has come making necessary the interposition of God,
when it can be shown that nature is utterly helpless to secure
the noblest welfare of man, and that the highest moral con-
siderations demand the manifestation of the supernatural,
then the evidence of testimony is of the greatest value. A
celebrated infidel, of more acuteness than wit, and more
sophistry than wisdom, had the presumption in an essay
upon miracles to say that " no amount of testimony could
prove the miracles of the Bible, — that experience was greater
against them than for them." Upon the atheist's ground, or
that of the pantheist, that there is no God in distinction from
his works, no independent Being infinitely above and separate
from nature, or that nature itself is God, the opponents of
Hume could not fairly reply to his arguments ; he might well
say that the experience of man in the uniformity of natural law
should outweigh all evidence to the contrary. But there was
another ground, where a child might contend with the
greatest of skeptics and come oft" a victor, — it was that of
theism, — the existence of a personal God superior to all law ;
one who had the power to interrupt his laws, or suspend
them, or to introduce other and higher laws, and the wisdom
thus to do whenever some worthy and glorious end w^as to
be subserved by thus acting. All argument is thrown away
with a man upon miracles who does not recognize and feel
the reality of an infinitely wise, good, and powerful God.
That admitted, and then we can take up all testimony for
the miracles of revelation with as little embarrassment as
the testimony that is given to us to prove the existence of
Alexander, or Csesar, or Napoleon, especially when^we show
the necessity of the Bible for the wants of man, and its
adaptation for the human family in all ages, and the wise
and benevolent end that the miracles of the Bible are de-
signed to secure.
EVIDENCE OF MIRACLES. 323
Our argumeut is then narrowed down to the simple point,
Have we good testimony- for the miracles of the Bible ? To
this we reply, more conclusive, more irresistible, more con-
firmed by friends and foes, than can be given of any facts of
ancient history uninspired.
It is no small evidence of the genuineness of the Bible
miracles that, after more than eighteen centuries of the most
searching scrutiny, millions of the human race, all through
this long interval of time, have believed in them. Who are
those millions? Are they found among the ignorant or most
enlightened, of mankind ? Are they of the wisest and best,
or are they seen among the dullest and worst, of men ? No-
thing can be more evident than that where Christianity pre-
vails, and is most from the heart received, there exists the
strongest faith in miracles as recorded in the Bible, and there
is shown the highest type of whatever is noble, and pure,
and intelligent.
One thing is certain; if Christianity is anything, it is
that which is supernatural, and if its miracles are removed
we take from it all that makes it a religion for sinners.. Elimi-
nate from the Bible its divine element, and we have nothing
left but a residuum of rationalism, as empty of all power to
benefit man as the teachings of any heathen moralist. It
can be shown that no false religion could go through the
ordeal of the Bible.
Mohammed never dared to base the reception of the Ko-
ran upon miracles. Coming in the darkest age of the w^orld,
and among a people the most credulous, yet even this most
successful of impostors never presumed to work miracles, or
his follow^ers to believe that he did. But the Bible rests the
evidence of its divinity, and its claim to be loved and re-
ceived, upon miracles. Christ came with the w^ords ever
upon his lips, " Believe not unless I do the w^orks no other
man can do." Our Saviour rested his mission upon miracles.
This was the test he oifered to all. Is it possible that the
Jews, in the most enlightened age, never would have found
out the deception, if no miracles were worked ? Is it pos-
sible that when Christ w^as arraigned for trial before the
324 EVIDENCE OF MIRACLES.
Jewish Sanhedrim and the Roman governor, no charge
would have been brought against him of attempting to de-
ceive by false miracles, if indeed Christ worked no miracles?
Xow, the great fact that is ever to be borne in mind re-
specting the miracles of the Bible, is simply this : they con.o
under circumstances and upon occasions essentially diiFercct
from all false miracles or wonders. It is the moral element
connected with Scripture miracles that makes them so prob-
able. It is because they are worked for no frivolous end;
they come when the necessities of man really demand ; they
appear at those epochs of time when the impotence of natural
law is self-evident ; where God is needed to interpose with a
visible demonstration of his power, to flash conviction upon
the mind. Consequently, the marked feature of the Bible
miracles is their necessity, and their peculiar adaptation for
the end proposed of confirming the truth of the word of
God. Observe, in contrast to real miracles, the false miracles
professed at difl'erent periods of the world to be worked. If
there were false Messiahs in the age immediately preceding
thje downfall of the Jewish race and their dispersion over the
world, predicted by Christ himself, with equal truth there
have been false miracles to impose upon the people ; but
there are tests always to discriminate between gold that is
gold and gold that has only the cqyj^earanee of it. The false
miracles bore upon the face of them, as well as carried about
in their ver}- nature, the clearest proof of being but counter-
feits. They were w^anting altogether in the moral element that
marks all the Bible miracles. Then the circumstances under
which they took place were favorable for deception ; then
the character of the persons who professed to work them
was such- as would naturally awaken suspicion ; and, to
crown the whole, not a solitary case in all history can be
shown," outside of the Bible, of the raising of the dead, the walk-
ing upon the waves of the sea, the feeding of five thousand
people upon a few loaves and fishes, or making the winds and
elements of nature instantly obedient to a word. Remember,
it is not so much the miracles of the Bible in their number
as in their significant nature that shows their infinite distance
EVIDENCE OF MIRACLES. 325
from all other miracles. Magicians, like the priests of
Egypt, with their enchantments may turn their rods into ser-
pents, or what appear to be serpents; but remcmhtr, Aaron's
rod, that swallowed them all up, is the genuine miracle.
Now the A'espasianic wonders Hume speaks of as "among
the best attested miracles in all profane history," or that
related by the Cardinal de Retz, of a man recovering his leg
by the rubbing of holy oil upon the stump, or that of the cures
effected at the tomb of Abb^ Paris, all carry with them
the marks of base coin. No miracles except those of the
Bible can for a moment stand the test of a sound and search-
ing criticism. Utterly deficient in the moral element, they
come in a w\ay so unnatural, are witnessed, too, w^here decep-
tion is so easy, and profess an end so unworthy of God, that
the true miracles appear in contrast like the sun at noonday,
making infinitely insignificant the poor rush-lights of human
pride and presum})tion.
Our first idea of a true miracle is, that while it comes under
the supernatural, yet it is the most marked and peculiar
action of the supernatural. It is just that agency of God
that he makes use of only on those few and most momentous
occasions where a necessity exists for something altogether
different from any other mode of the supernatural. Can any
person sa}^ that in the government of God he may not see
exigencies where the interposition of miracle would be most
wise and benevolent ? Take creation : what law of nature,
we ask, where there is no law of nature? What natural
acting, where the natural does not exist? We talk of laws,
and laws of nature, often without understanding anything
that is meant by laws. In ninety-nine cases in a hundred,
it is only convenient phraseology to cover up our ignorance
of the whole subject. To make that to exist which never
existed before, is the highest exercise of the supernatural,
and such as most appropriately we call miraculous. It is
miraculous in tw^o important senses : the giving of a new
nature, and then new laws to that nature. It means simply
acting differently from any previously existing laws of nature,
and then, so far as any laws that do exist, in opposition to
326 EVIDENCE OF MIRACLES.
those laws. "When God makes something from nothing, or
creates a new nature, he is not restricted to the dictionary
of an old nature for the methods of his action. God is not
so limited in his resources that he can only help himself to
something that formerly existed, and act exclusively after
those old processes that have once been in operation. Those
old processes would not do in a new creation, and, if they
might do, they would only be resorted to upon the ground
simply of being the best that could be made use of
Our second idea of miracle is, that God never wastes
almightiness in it. Ability to work and working are two
very different things. There is no waste with God. What
may be fashioned out of the old he takes, and what cannot
he supplies. The laws of nature in existence that may be
used he does thus use, and to that which cannot be used he
imparts new. Man may throw away the crumbs that fall
from his table, but God has some use for everything. Ac-
cordingly, the miraculous will correspond in its development
and frequency with the actual wants of the universe and the
counsel of God after his own method of justice, benevolence,
and wisdom.
, Our third idea of miracle is, that it is introduced just
where and when the laws of nature are wanting, and is
especially that form of the supernatural, and that recupera-
tive energy of God's action that exists when the old nature
is run out, or when a new nature must be made. Thus, the
law of birth and death never can introduce the resurrection
state. The old nature has in it nothino; to brins; about a
resurrection body ; no existing law in nature can accomplish
this. The resurrection is a new nature to the body, raised
from the grave w^ith new laws and new ends of existence.
This great miracle, substantiated by the resurrection of
Christ, is introduced to bring about that which never before
existed, as well as to incorporate into the new body what
has existed. The reason for this miracle lies in the fact that
the old nature is utterly inadequate, by an}^ process of law, to
produce the resurrection body ; it is not only above the sphere
of the natural, but really in opposition to processes that exist
EVIDENCE OF MIRACLES. 327
in the natural, so that miracle comes in, as in creation, to
secure a result that is not only divine but in the highest degree
transcends all creature power. Miracle is essential for two
great ends : first, the creating of the substance of all things
material and immaterial, bringing into being all the exist-
ences outside that of God ; and secondly, acting as the infinite
recuperative energ}' of the universe in securing that which
nature herself is unable to secure. Much as we may admire
that recuperative energy in nature acting in accordance with
established lavi^s, by which injuries are repaired to the body,
and the human system recovers from the power of disease,
yet there is a sense where nature itself dies out and must
be not so much repaired as made over again under new laws
and conditions of being. Now here is a recuperative energy,
not imparted to the machinery of nature, not incorporated
in any method of its own action, but above it and without it,
where no second causes have sway and where alone God
works. This energy is revealed in creative epochs of time,
and when the cyclical ages have run out.
Our fourth idea of miracle is, that it takes place at those
periods of time most suitable for securing the great end of
divine wisdom and goodness, and, therefore, can be known
only to God himself. Our human reason must be in accord-
ance with the laws of the natural, and we can only infer the
contrary when God speaks and points out the wa3\ If it is
said that miracle, as defined, implies that God has not made
nature as it should be made, and that it throws a reflection
upon his wisdom in not giving to nature and its laws power
to secure what miracle does, the reply is, God never meant
that nature, even as the principle of second causes, should
do everything in the universe, God never intended that his
own sovereignty should be thrown into the shade by an}^
action of natural law.
Our fifth idea of miracle is, that while we may not be able
to trace it to any natural law, yet it may, for aught we know,
be as truly under laws above nature as those effects that take
place through natural law in the plane of nature. Ko person
can say that God may not have a law of working of exact in-
328 EVIDENCE OF MIRACLES.
variability, under like circumstances, as truly as in any natural
law ; and therefore, when miracle is spoken of as in viola-
tion of the laws of nature, or opposition to them, then the
one who thus objects to miracles must show, to be consistent,
that God has no other laws but those in the line of nature,
and that nature itself is eternal; he must show that nature
needs no interposition of the supernatural, and that when
God made any nature it was for an existence without end.
But we contend that immortality is the gift of God ; it is
something outside of nature, and, in itself, exclusively within
the sphere of the supernatural. There has never, apart from
the word of God, been any valid reason for affirming immor-
tality to mind or matter. This condition must be the result
of those circumstances and effects brought about by a divine
power, and not through the simple influence of natural law.
We know that the soul is immortal, not because of its own
inherent power of endless life, but through the supernatural
energy of God in securing it to the soul ; and we know the
body, under certain conditions, to be also immortal, because
it is brought about by the miraculous energy of God. When,
then, nature dies out, when all the powers of the natural fail
to secure certain results intended by God, miracle comes in,
not in violation of natural law, for natural law goes as far as
it can and then stops, but in accordance with the higher law
of the supernatural after the purpose of the Deity. God,
then, has a place for miracles in the universe just as truly as
a place for natural law, but that place is not to be found in
nature, but in a sphere of activity immeasurably above it. It
will be seen that, in nature, laws that are of invariable action
to a certain extent are suspended, or other laws introduced, as
the law of contraction by cold or expansion by heat, operating
with invariable certainty through the whole realm of nature;
but in the case of the freezing of water at a certain point the
reverse actually takes place, and expansion by cold fol-
lows, while in that of steam or vapor a like deviation from
the law of contraction by cold, or expansion by heat, follows.
jN^ow, miracle, to secure a certain end, may be as truly in ac-
cordance with a law above nature, having its activity in the
EVIDENCE OF MIRACLES. 329
direct working of God himself, as any deviation in nature
from a general law. How can a person consistently object
to miracle who admits creation? How can one say that
miracles are impossible, or improbable, who sees prevailing
through all nature the great principle of birth and death ;
who cannot show, by any deduction of reason or fact of
science, an inherent immortality in anything connected with
the inorganic or organic kingdom ? How unphilosophical
to speak of that as unreasonable, because it takes place
after no natural law, but in a sphere immeasurably above it !
Because we know some laws, is not the inference foolish that
we know all laws ? If nature, left to itself, must fail, is it
not unwise to suppose that God has no other resources in re-
serve, and that, in a way best known to him, he cannot bring
about effects such as miracles to show his own perfect sover-
eignty over nature, and the infinite ease with which he se-
cures the vast ends of his wisdom and benevolence ?
In all the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testa-
ment, how true the words of Paul : " God also bearing them
witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers
miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own
win."
CHAPTER V.
MIRACLES OF CHRIST.
Were four separate witnesses to record facts seen by them,
the highest evidence of truth to ns would be, with variety of
language and diversity in minute details, an exact agreement
in every essential circumstance. Precisely the same have we
in the four narratives of the life and miracles of Christ.
Their agreement in every important particular shows their
veracity, and their variety of style and unimportant discrep-
ancies evince that they had no collusion between them, and
that each narrative is an independent treatise.
Let us contemplate, in relation to the miracles of Christ,
four things :
1. AVhat were these miracles ?
2. The age in which they were worked.
3. How Christ's miracles differed from all other miracles.
4. The impossibilit}' of deception either in the Author of
tbese miracles or those who recorded them.
Our object is only to mention them in the order which
Trench, in his valuable work on miracles, has given, while
the student of miracles is directed to this work, and others
on the same subject, in connection with a careful perusal of
the four Evangelists, for a fuller knowledge of the details
and the circumstances connected with their working.
1. The water made wine.
2. The healing of the nobleman's son.
3. The first miraculous draught of fishes.
4. The stilling of the tempest.
5. The demoniacs in the country of the Gadarenes.
6. The raising of Jairus's daughter.
7. The woman with the issue of blood.
8. The opening of the ej-es of the blind in the house.
(330) ^ "^
MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 331
9. The healing- of the paralytic.
10. The cleansing of the leper.
11. The healing of the centurion's servant.
12. The demoniacs in the synagogues of Capernaum.
13. The healing of Simon's wife's mother.
14. The raising of the widow's sou.
15. The healing of the impotent man at Bethesda.
16. The miraculous feeding of five thousand.
17. The walking on the sea.
18. The opening of the eyes of one born blind.
19. The restoring of the man with a withered hand.
20. The woman with a spirit of infirmity.
21. The healing of a man with a dropsy.
22. The cleansing of the ten lepers.
23. The healing of the daughter of the Syrophenician
woman.
24. The healing of one deaf and dumb.
25. The miraculous feeding of four thousand.
26. The opening of the eyes of two blind men at Beth-
saida.
27. The healing of the lunatic child.
28. The stater in the fish's mouth.
29. The raising of Lazarus.
30. The opening of the eyes of two blind men near
Jericho.
31. The withering of the fruitless fig-tree.
32. The healing of Malchus's ear.
33. The second miraculous draught of fishes
Observe, that while the circumstances under which these
miracles were worked clearly show a supernatural power,
there were yet some of more marked significance than others,
and which could not possibly be mistaken for anything less
than a most wonderful interposition of God, in showing a
divine superiority to all natural law, and the counteraction
of it in such a way as to prove the reality of the Messiahship
of Christ. Remember, the miracles worked were not only
for a most beneficent end, but absolutely necessary to sub-
stantiate the claims of Christ for the belief of all and the
332 MIRACLES OF CHRIST.
obedience of all. The question before the Jews was simply,
Is Christ the true Messiah? Is his assertion that he was the
Son of God, even as the Son of man, in a peculiar and most
extraordinary sense, founded on reality and deserving to be
universally trusted in ? Now, the credentials to prove this
were miracles. If Moses needed miracles to show his mis-
sion from God and impose laws upon the Jews, much more
did Christ need miracles to impose laws upon the world and
prove his Son ship with the Father. The mission of Moses
bore no comparison in importance to the mission of Christ.
Moses introduced the legal dispensation, Christ the Christian
dispensation. Moses was simply human, Christ was divine;
the one was set apart for a nation only, the other for all
nations. Consequently, the significancy of the mission of
Christ constituted in itself the highest reason for miracles.
Without them the claims of Christ could not be sustained.
All the predictions concerning Christ were of the nature to
demand miracles. The prophets foretold that the Messiah
would work them ; and, as the belief in this was universal
among the Jews, miracles constituted in that age the strong-
est evidence of the truthfulness of his mission.
Some of the miracles of Christ were of such a character
that we read the people were beyond measure astonished,
saying, " He hath done all things well." Observe, espe-
ciall}^ the miracle of feeding iive thousand at one time, and
four thousand at another, with a few loaves and fishes, and
the baskets full of fragments taken up after this astonishing
exhibition of supernatural power. Observe the walking of
Christ upon tlie waves of the sea, the instant stilling of the
tempest, the cleansing of the ten lepers, the opening of the
eyes of one born blind, the raising of the widow's son, and
the raising of Lazarus. Consider the end for which the
miracles of Christ were worked, and the character of his in-
structions, and it will be found that they were indispensable
for the proof of his divine mission. They were the most effi-
cient instruments to prove the authority of his instructions,
and to show to his disciples that they were under a teacher
deserving of their most sincere attachment and obedience.
MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 333
What, then, was the age in which they were worked ?
This age was the very period of the world most nufavorable
for deception. The prevailing spirit was formalism and
skepticism. The ruling class among the Jews was that of
the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The former were the
bigots of Judea, the latter the infidels. One buried up in
senseless ceremonies and forms the true religion, the other
were skeptical of all religion. One made void the law through
the vain traditions of the elders, the other in practice repu-
diated the law. The religious convictions of both classes
never penetrated beneath the mere shell of devotion, and,
with but few exceptions, true piety was almost unknown in
Judea. Never, perhaps, did infidelity, which denied the
most fundamental truths of the Old Testament, or formalism,
which covered them all up in the rubbish of superstition,
abound more than when the Son of God came to his own
and his own received him not.
The age when Christ came was peculiarly an enlightened
age as contrasted with preceding ages. Thus, the Son of
God came constantly in contact with the mind of the nation,
fully awake, and disposed narrowly to examine into all claims
for a homage and obedience that professed to derive their
authority from God alone. It will also be remembered that
the Jewish nation was then under Eoman sway. The Jews
desired nothing so much as a king to throw off this hateful
bondage ; and the Messiah that should assert a spiritual
kingship, while he would disclaim all worldly power or inten-
tion of coming in conflict with a foreign power, would by
this awaken most efl:ectually the hostility of the ruling class
among the Jews, and secure only the enmity or contempt of
the nation. Now, the very fact that Christ declared that
his kingdom was not of this world, and that he would have
nothing to do in opposing the dominion of foreigners, made it
a task a thousandfold more difficult to convince the Jews of
his Messiahship and secure their confidence. Christ placed
himself directly in opposition to all the prejudices and all the
cherished hopes of the people. Is it possible that the mira-
cles of Christ under a test so severe would not be at once ex-
334 MIRACLES OF CHRIST.
posed, if indeed 7iot real ? It is natural to admit what falls
in with our feelings and our aspirations; but is it not hard to
confess to the truth of that which is opposed to the most
loved idols of the heart? Now, Christ worked his miracles
under such conditions that failure would in any instance
have been eagerly seized upon by his enemies as an argu-
ment to prove the falsity of his claims. Enemies that
ascribed his miracles to Beelzebub because they were com-
pelled to confess their truth, would have infinitely preferred
to have attributed them to imposture, if the charge could
be sustained. Enemies that accused him of blasphemy, and
constrained, by their malignant devices, the Roman governor
to order his crucifixion, would have felt it a signal triumph
to show that Christ had deceived the people by false mir-
acles.
.But it should be always borne in mind that they uni-
formly confessed to the truth of his miracles, while they
attributed them to the wrong source. Christ silenced his
deadly foes by saying that Satan would not fight against
himself, or willingly encourage an enemj- in his own house
to destroy his kingdom. But the all-important fact, as prov-
ing with the Jews at that age of the world the truthfulness
of Christ's miracles, is seen in that they were opposed to
Jesus, not upon the ground that he worked no miracles, but
that he claimed only a spiritual dominion and was not dis-
posed to interfere with the Roman power. Rather than sub-
mit to such a Messiah, they would Avelcome any impostor that
flattered their national vanity and professed himself willing
to deliver them from a foreign 3'Oke.
Observe, also, how Christ's miracles diifered from all other
miracles.
First. In their number. Our Saviour worked miracles far
more numerous than Moses, or any other person mentioned
in the Bible. His miracles were all crowded into a period
of about three years ; and yet how were those three years
filled up with a brilliant succession of mighty works ! Most
truly with the public ministry of Christ did there appear the
epoch of miracles. The end was worthy of this display of
MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 335
almighty power. Miracles flashed before the people with a
distinctuess and genuineness that could not be denied.
Friends and foes were alike forced to confess the mighty
deeds of Jesus. Christ challenged investigation, he worked
his miracles in a way so clear and so convincing that unbe-
lief itself had to attribute them to Beelzebub, and the deep-
est enmitj' must torture them into the working of Satan.
Now, the miracles of Christ were so numerous that finally
the only alternative left the Jews was submission or cruci-
fixion. Hatred itself could see no other way than believing
in a spiritual Messiah or killing him ; but even this last re-
sort of wickedness could not succeed unless every form of
justice was made a mocker}-, and the night rather than the
day was made to witness their deeds of darkness and the
treachery of Judas.
Second. All of Christ's miracles (remarks Trench) were
worked with the utmost freedom and ease. "How difierent,
in this respect, from the miracles of Moses and Elijah and
Elisha and others ! Christ speaks but the word, and it is done.
Thus Moses must plead and struggle with God, 'Heal her
now, O God, I beseech thee,' ere the plague of leprosy is re-
moved from his sister, and not even so can he instantly win
the blessing; but Christ heals a leper by his touch, and ten
with even less than this, — merely by the power of his will
and at a distance. Elijah must pray long, and his servant go
up seven times, before tokens of the rain appear; he also
stretches himself thrice on the child and cries unto the Lord,
and painfully wins back his life. And Elisha with even
more eftbrt, and only after partial failure, restores the child
of the Shunamite to life. But Christ show^s himself the
Lord of the living and the dead, raising the dead with as
much ease as he performed the commonest transactions of
life. Moses show's impatience, but Christ reveals no imper-
fection in any miracle."
Third. " Where also," says Trench, " the miracles are
similar in kind, his are larger and freer and more glorious.
Elisha feeds a hundred men with twenty loaves, but he five
thousand with five. They have continually their instrument
336 MIRACLES OF CHRIST.
of power to which the wonder-working power is linked.
Moses has his rod, his statF of wonder, to divide the Red
Sea and to accomplish his other mighty acts, without which
he is nothing; his tree to heal the bitter waters ; Elijah di-
vides the waters with his mantle ; Elisha heals the spring
with a cruse of salt. But Christ accomplishes his miracles
simply by the agency of his word, or by a touch ; or, if he
takes anything as a channel of his healing power, it is from
himself he takes it; or should he, as once he does, use any
foreign medium (John, ix. 6), yet by other miracles of like
kind, in which he has recourse to no such extraneous helps,
he declares plainly that this was a free choice, and not of any
necessity."
Fourth. "Wliile their miracles and those of the apostles
are ever done in the name of, and with the attribution of the
glory to, another, ' Stand still and see the salvation of the
Lord, which he will show you;' 'In the name of Jesus
Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk;' 'Eneas, Jesus Christ
maketh thee whole ;' his are ever wrought in his own name
and as in his own power. '■Iimll,\>e thou clean.' 'Thou
deaf and dumb spirit, I charge thee come out of him.'
'Young man, I say unto thee, Arise.' Even when he prays,
being about to perform one of his mighty w^orks, his disci-
ples shall learn, even from his prayer itself, that herein he is
asking for a power which he had not indwelling in him, but
indeed is only testifying thus to the unbroken oneness of his
life with his Father's, just as on another occasion he will not
suffer his disciples to suppose that it is for any but for their
sakes that the testimony from heaven is borne unto him.
Thus needful was it for them, thus needful for all, that they
should have great and exclusive thoughts of him, and should
not class him with any other, even the greatest and the holi-
est of the children of men."
Trench, in comparing the evangelical with other cycles of
miracles, with great truth remarks :
" "We do not find miracles sown broadcast over the whole
of the Old Testament history, but they all cluster round a
very few eminent persons, and have reference to certain
MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 337
great epochs and crises of the kingdom of God. Abraham,
the father of the faithful, David, the great theocratic king,
Daniel, the ' man greatly beloved,' are alike entirely without
them, that is, they do no miracles; such may be accomplished
in behalf of them, but they themselves accomplish none.
In fact, there are but two great outbursts of these : the tirst,
at the establishing of the kingdom under Moses and Joshua,
on which occasion it is at once evident that they could not
have been wanting ; the second, in the time of Elijah and
Elisha, and then also there was utmost need, when it was
a question whether the court religion which the apostate
kings of Israel had set up should not quite overbear the true
worehip of Jehovah, when the Levitical priesthood was es-
tablished and the faithful were but a scattered few among the
ten tribes. Then, in that decisive Bpoch of the kingdom's
history, the two great prophets — they, too, in a subordinate
sense, the beginners of a new period — arose, equipped with
powers that should witness that He whose servants they were
was the God of Israel, however Israel might refuse to ac-
knowledge him. There is here in all this an entire absence
of prodigality in the use of miracles ; thej' are ultimate re-
sources, reserved for the great needs of God's kingdom, not its
daily incidents ; they are not cheap off-hand expedients, which
may always be appealed to, but come only into play when no-
thing else would have supplied their room. How unlike this
moderation to the wasteful expenditure of miracles in the
church history of the middle ages ! There no perplexity can
occur so trifling that a miracle will not l)e brought in to solve
it; there is almost no saint, certainly no distinguished one,
without his nimbus of miracles around his head : they are
aidorned with these in rivalry with one another, in rivalry with
Christ himself; no acknowledgment like this, 'John did no
miracle,' in any of the records of their lives, finding place."
Trench also remarks: "The miracles of Scripture, and,
among these, not so much the miracles of the Old Covenant
as the miracles of Christ and his apostles, being the miracles
of that highest and latest dispensation under which we live,
we have a right to consider as normal, in their chief features
22
338 MIRACLES OF CHRIST.
at least, for all future miracles, if such were to continue in
the church. The details, the local coloring, may be different
and there were no need to be perplexed at such a difference
appearing ; yet the later must not be in their inner spirit
totally unlike the earlier, or they carry the sentence of con-
demnation on their front. They must not, for instance, lead
us back under the bondage of the senses, while those others
were ever framed to release from that bondage. They must
not be aimless and objectless, fantastic freaks of power, while
those had every one of them a meaning and distinct ethical
aim, were bridges by which Christ found access from men's
bodies to their souls, — manifestations of his glory that men
might be drawn to the glory itself. They must not be ludi-
crous and grotesque, saintly jests, while those were evermore
reserved and solemn and awful ; and lastly, they must not be
seals and witnesses to aught which the conscience, enlight-
ened by the word and Spirit of God, — whereunto is the ulti-
mate appeal, and which stands above the miracle, and not be-
neath it, — protests against as untrue (the innumerable Romish
miracles which attest transubstantiation), or as error largely
mingled with the truth (the miracles which go to uphold the
whole Romish system), those other having set their seal only
to the absolutely true. Miracles such as any of these we are
bound by all which we hold most sacred, by all which the
Word of God has taught us, to reject and to refuse."
Consider the impossibility of deception either in the author
of those miracles, or those who recorded them.
How could Christ, who worked such miracles as are re-
corded by the four evangelists, be either deceived or deceive ?
Look to the chain of evidence to show the truth. They
were in the Old Testament predicted to take place under the
coming Messiah ; they were worked for the noblest end ; they
took place under such circumstances as were most unfavora-
ble for concealment ; they were confessed to by enemies as
true, even while they were attributed to satanic power.
Christ based the truth of his mission upon them ; he chal-
lenged investigation ; he called for belief in these miracles
simply upon the ground that they could not be denied.
MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 339
At the trial of Jesus, could any doubt be throwu upon
these miracles, the most would be made of it by his relent-
less foes : but Christ's enemies were silent, simply because
the miracles could not be denied. At the crucifixion the
chief prie^-ts and Pharisees dared not in a single instance
to charge our Saviour with deception. His accusers said, re-
vilino- him, " He saved others, himself he cannot save."
Observe, also, the greatness of the condemnation Christ
pronounced against those who would not believe upon him.
Upon what was this based ? Upon the ground that he per-
formed luorks which no other man could do ; and because his
mission was fully attested to by these works shown to be di-
vine, therefore all were inexcusable for unbelief and reject-
ing him. Could there be any meaning in this, did Christ
work no miracles? "Would there be any reality in the de-
nunciations of Christ against unbelievers if there was no-
thins: miraculous in his works to believe in ? If Christ was
deceived, could his disciples be willing to follow him, confess
him before the world, or ever attempt to convince his ene-
mies of the truth of our Saviour's mission, if nothing of
miracle could be shown to prove his claims ? Christ could
not deceive, for then he would cease to be a holy example
for all to imitate ; neither could he be deceived, for then he
could not present any inducement to follow him, or any dis-
position be shown upon the part of his disciples to suffer
and die for him. Besides, Christ came to introduce the
Christian dispensation, to be the Saviour of the world. "With-
out miracles it would have been impossible to secure the
confidence of friends, or silence the malicious charges of
enemies.
To that generation, when it was all-important that mira-
cles should be granted to prove the words of Christ, the ab-
sence of these miracles would be always an unanswerable
argument against the mission itself. Equally obvious is it
that those who recorded the miracles of Jesus could neither
deceive nor be deceived. Men do not rush into torture, dis-
grace, death, without a motive. Human nature does not
welcome poverty, persecution, contempt, and the loss of all
340 MIRACLES OF CHRIST.
worldly considerations, without a reason. And the circum-
stances that attended Christ and his disciples, the hardships
they voluntarily endured, the extreme privation they were
subjected to, all show the utter impossibility of passing ofi'
any miracle as true that was false. Eemember, Christ wished
none to follow him who had no faith and love to him ; he
welcomed to his heart no disciple who was not willing to
take up his cross and follow him. Over and over again did
our Saviour disabuse the mind of his followers of any worldly
advantage to be reaped from the acceptance of him. He had
nothing of the earth to offer to his disciples, and, conse-
quently, there could be no reason, no possible motive, to
suffer and die for Christ, unless he had performed those
mighty works which no man could do, and which, when per-
formed, afforded evidence irresistible that all the miracles
recorded were true and came from God.
CHAPTEE VI.
BIRTH, RESURRECTION, AND ASCENSION OP CHRIST, AND THE
MIRACLES OF HIS APOSTLES.
Three great miracles are connected with the person of
Christ, — his birth, his resurrection, and his ascension. The
birth of our Saviour was in the highest sense supernatural;
born of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Ghost, he had strictly our
humanity, without any taint of original sin ; he came into the
world a perfect child, even as he showed himself afterward a
perfect youth and man. The circumstances connected with
the advent of Christ into the world were all most peculiar and
most wonderful. Christ was preceded, as foretold, by John
the Baptist, who proclaimed the mission of the Redeemer of
man, and confessed his immeasurable inferiorit}^ to him.
Angels heralded his coming with the song of the shepherds
keeping their flocks by night, " Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace, good will toward men." "Well might
they by the angel be addressed in the words: '^Behold, I
bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all
people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David
a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." The birthplace of
Christ, the Messiah, was foretold by Micah, who was n'early
cotemporary with Isaiah: "Thou, Bethlehem Ephratah,
though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out
of thee shall He come forth unto me, who is to be ruler in
Israel." Now, all profane history coincides with sacred his-
tory, in the accuracy of the fulfillment of all the predictions
concerning the circumstances under which Christ came to
the world. The flight of Joseph into Egypt was owing to
the murder of the infants of Bethlehem by the cruel order
of Herod, and the residence of Joseph and Mary in IsTaza-
reth resulted from the known cruelty and wickedness of
(341)
342 BIRTH, RESURRECTION, AND
Archelaus, who succeeded his father in the rule of Judea. No
fact in history, sacred or profane, is better established than
the supernatural birth of Christ, and the wonderful events
connected with it.
Consider the great miracle of the resurrection of Christ.
This event was fully confirmed by the clearest evidence.
Thomas had not oulv the evidence of sio-ht, but of touch.
Christ, not once, but often was seen by the disciples, and
finally, before his ascension, he was seen of five hundred of
the brethren. Every precaution had been used to secure
death and prevent Christ's resurrection, foretold by himself.
A Roman soldier had pierced his side with a spear, a guard
was placed over his sepulcher, his disciples were few and de-
spised, scattered and unbelieving. They could neither
credit his testimony nor be consoled in view of his death.
And 3'et, if Christ did not rise from the dead, how happened
it that Jews and Romans, friends and enemies, were all de-
ceived ? How happened it that the sacred historians should
fabricate a story that would only expose them to the con-
tempt of the good and the persecution of the wicked; that
they should invent a lie where no motive existed for it
and no possibility appeared of making it believed ? Why
should the chief priests attempt to bribe the Roman guard to
circulate the story that Christ's disciples stole him away, if
indeed our Saviour did not rise from the grave? Why
should the disciples proclaim Christ to all as arisen from the
grave, unless the proof of this mighty miracle was of such a
nature as to be impossible to be denied ? The disciples of
our Lord could not invent the story of Christ's resurrection,
if untrue ; for those who crucified our Saviour would have
been glad of doing the same to his followers if they were
convicted of falsehood and blasphemy; and certainly, if
honest men, they were in no condition to be deceived. Their
master had been subjected to an ignominious death ; his grave
was watched by jealous enemies ; no human power could
deliver even the dead body of their Lord from the possession
of the Roman soldiers. Now, what motive could exist to
practice a deception that ofi:ered no worldly advantages, and
ASCENSION OF CHRIST, ETC. 343
exposed to certain calamity all who attempted it? How
happened it that, in conhrmation of a falsehood, Peter
should have boldly charged home upon the Jews the cru-
cifixion of Christ, and that three thousand at the day of
Pentecost, deceived by an impostor, should sacrifice, with
all the disciples of Christ, every earthly good in confirma-
tion of an untruth ?
Consider, as another evidence of the truth of the wonder-
ful works of Christ, the substantial agreement of the four
evangelists, who have recorded the miracles of Christ, and
the united confirmation in their favor of the other disciples.
Let it be borne in mind that while there does exist in the
four evangelists a substantial agreement upon essential
facts and the main scope of the subject-matter of thought,
there yet is embodied in these narratives of the life and doc-
trines of Christ their own peculiar idiosyncrasies of mind
and that marked individuality which conclusively show
neither sameness nor servile imitation; and this very diver-
sity of style, with unity of end and harmony in every im-
portant particular, carries with it the highest internal evi-
dence of truth.
The ascension of our Lord took place forty days after his
resurrection upon the Mount of Olives, about two miles from
Jerusalem. Xow, this great event is shown true by the tes-
timony of witnesses who could not have been deceived. As
an indisputable: fact, it is recorded by the lour evangelists ;
it accorded also with the predictions of Christ, and was made
necessary by the supernatural character of his mission and
the nature of all his instructions to his disciples. It was not
only essential for the success of Christianity that Christ
should rise from the dead, but that he should, after confer-
ring the gift of the Holy Spirit upon his followers, return
bodily to his Father in heaven. Christ having made an
atonement for the sins of the world, it became him to show
not only his triumph over the grave, but the glory of his
spiritual reign, by returning unto that home of infinite
blessedness from which he came to redeem lost man.
The miraculous character of the birth, resurrection, and
344 BIRTH, RESURRECTION, AND
ascension of Christ was in perfect harmony not only with
the predictions of the prophets of the Old Testament, but
with the character of his instructions and the nature of his
mission in this world. As the Son of God, coming for the
specific end of the redemption of sinners, it would have been
impossible to secure that end without the threefold miracle
of his birth, resurrection, and ascension. The visible king-
ship of Christ, at his first advent, would have conflicted with
his spiritual reign in the hearts of his followers ; and there-
fore it was essential that Christ should, after attaining unto
the end of his mission, return unto his Father. Eemember,
also, that so indispensable especially was the resurrection of
our Lord, that he based upon it the whole success of his re-
ligion in the world, and the disciples made the fact of Christ
rising from the dead the all-conclusive argument of Chris-
tianity, and boldly challenged the severest investigation to
disprove it. This alone encouraged them and confirmed
their faith upon an immovable foundation. With the cer-
tainty of this truth ever present in their minds, they did not
hesitate to come into conflict with the enemies of the Re-
deemer, and convict them in their unbelief of a sin as unreas-
onable as it was pernicious to all their interests for time and
eternity. Now, could the disciples of Christ have dared to
attempt to palm oft" an imposition upon the world, when the
whole world, spiritually, was in arms against Christianity, and
would cheerfully crush it unless based upow truth that no
sophistry could gainsay, nor ingenuity deny ?
Consider the miracles worked by the apostles after the
death and the ascension of Christ into the heavens. Those
miracles took place under circumstances where deception
was impossible. As one instance, take the case of the lame
man from his birth instantly healed by Peter ; he was known
by all the Jews who resorted to the temple ; he sat at the
gate called Beautiful. There, before a great concourse of
people, before enemies who would not be deceived, this lame
man, at a word, immediately received strength in his feet
and ankle-bones, and, leaping up, stood, and walked, praising
God.
ASCENSION OF CHRIST, ETC. 345
The priests of the temple and the Sadducees, grieved that
Christ and his resurrection should be taught, hiid hold upon
Peter and John and put them in confinement. But mark
the result of that, miracle in confirmation of tlie divine mis-
sion of the Sou of God. Five thousand believed upon the
apostles, and those captious euemies who saw the boldness of
Peter and John, and the man which was healed standing with
them, could not say anything against it, and, in their con-
fusion, exclaimed, " What shall we do to these men ? for
that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them
is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem, and we
cannot deny it." Can any have the credality to believe
that when Judaism was tottering on its throne, when a long-
standing hierarchy was endangered, when temple and priest
and the whole system of Mosaic ritualism, venerable for ages
of growth, shook like an aspen-leaf before a few obscure, un-
learned men, destitute alike of power, wealth, and honor,
that imposture could have been palmed ofi:'? If the miracles
professed to be worked were false, the disciples gained
nothing but the contempt of all good persons and the cer-
tain triumph of their opponents. There was too much at
stake to imagine even a chailce for imposture.
Consider, also, that not two nor three great miracles were
professed to be worked in confirmation of Christianity, but
many, upon various occasions, and where the greatest pub-
licity was courted ; miracles, too, when the religion of Christ
was in its infancy, when the wealth, power, learning, and
influence of the state were arrayed against it; miracles so
numerous, under such a combination of circumstances, that
one failure clearly proved would discredit the w^hole; where
the chance for deception was not as one to a million ; where
no occasional success would do, but uniform, uninterrupted
triumph in all cases was essential to secure confidence and
belief. Consider that converts from the ranks of enemies
were secured in vast multitudes, of every rank and profession
of life, among Jews and Gentiles ; converts who sacrificed
riches and honors, security, and all pleasures held dear by
the world, for a conviction of the mind that no misfortune
346 BIRTH, RESURRECTION, AND
could shake, and no enmity master. Kovv, this is a fact
borne out by history, sacred and profane. Josephus, Tacitus,
Julian, Celsus, and Porpliyry, not friends only, but enemies,
coutirm this fact. And then, upon the side of friends, not
the writers of the Bible only, but the apostolic fathers, Bar-
nabas, Clement, Hermes, Ignatius, and Poly carp, — the leaders
of the Christian Church, and historians after the age of the
apostles, — Justin Martyr, Irenteus, Tertullian, the two
Gregories, and Jerome, all coniirm the indisputable fact of
the greatness anel the number of the miracles of theiTew Tes-
tiiment. The Jews, in every age, preserved with sedulous
care the Old Testament ; the miracles of that are not only
universally acknowledged by the Jews themselves in every
age, but are confessed true by Christ and the apostles, i^o
such mass of testimony exists for other historic facts. The
truth that Caesar composed his Commentaries, or Alexander
fought his battles, rests not upon a hundredth part of the tes-
timony that the miracles of revelation do; and yet who
doubts that Ctesar or Alexander once lived, or fought the
battles recorded ?
But, as an additional evidence of the miracles of Christ
and his apostles, consider that no possible motive could exist
for deception. A man must have a motive for lying; but
what motive for lying could exist with the writers of the
Bible?
Truth, when persecuted, when, like a hunted, forlorn out-
cast, it walks upon thorns, dwells in the caverns of the earth,
lives where the world's honors, riches, and pleasures die out, —
truth that is gibbeted, burnt at the stake, devoured b}' the
lions of a Roman amphitheater, — truth crucihed, hated, de-
spised, and tormented in the family and the state, made igno-
minious and painful, — truth sitting in sackcloth and ashes, is
not avowed, loved, believed in by thousands, unless it be
truth. If the disciples of Christ did not work miracles, the^^
neither could nor would profess them ; and if their reality was
not confirmed by testimonj- that could not be denied, then
thousands would not have sacrificed everything for decep-
tion,— deception that conferred neither pleasure, honor, nor
ASCENSIOX OP CHRIST, ETC. 347
wealth, — deception that subjected to ever}' outward calamity
aud the upbraidiugs of au abused nature and perjured con-
science. A story like this demands the greatest conceivable
credulity, and involves itself a greater miracle than all the
miracles of the Bible together. If, after a consideration of
the circumstances connected with the miracles of Christ and
the apostles, they are not to be credited, then it is impossible
to imagine any fact of history worthy of belief.
CHAPTER VII.
MIRACLES OF MOSES.
With the patriarchal dispensation and the calling of Abra-
ham, more than nineteen hundred years before the coming
of Christ, there was made known the distinct separation of
a nation, the lineal descendants of Abraham, who should be
the chosen depositaries of the gospel, and of whom, as con-
cerning the flesh, Christ should come. The promise that in
Abraham, as the father of the faithful, the nations of the
earth should be blessed, was more particularly manifested
Avhen Christ our Saviour appeared; but in ■ another sense
was the world benefited by the selection of a distinct race
to be the especial objects of the divine protection and love.
The world, at the calling of Abraham, had greatly relapsed
into idolatry. To preserve the knowledge of the true God,
it was necessary that one nation should be set apart for the
express object of maintaining a knowledge of the unity of
the true God. Consequently, we find the selection of the
Jews, who were to be distinguished as the keepers of the
sacred oracles, and for whom a succession of wonders were
to be worked to preserve them from being altogether de-
stroyed by the idolatrous nations by which they were sur-
rounded. During the years that elapsed from the calling of
Abraham to the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, we have
made known the increasing wickedness of the Canaanites,
who were the original inhabitants of Palestine. It was when
the cup of their iniquity Avas full, after an existence of more
than four hundred years before the calling of Abraham, that
we have made known to us the wonders in the land of Egypt.
Let us, then, consider the miracles of Moses in the land of
Egypt, and see if in any way they can be made to appear the
(348)
MIRACLES OF MOSES. 349
work alone of human power. Let us consider the circum-
stances of the Israelites and the peculiar relation they sus-
tained to the Egyptians, and see if any other than a divine
power, miraculously put forth, could account for the deliver-
ance of the oppressed Israelites.
As soon as Pharaoh, who befriended Joseph and his breth-
ren, was dead, there arose in Egypt a race of kings who
looked with jealousy upon the strangers in their midst ; they
viewed with fear and envy their rapid increase, and began to
devise ways by which they might be brought wholly under
their power. To destroy them would be to lose their useful
services as slaves ; to let them continue in their natural in-
crease would be making them too formidable for their inter-
ests. The only course that presented itself as adapted to
their end was to keep them in abject bondage, and to slay
their male children. Thus their hardships, with their growth
as a nation, increased, and what slavery could not do, Pha-
raoh sought to accomplish by infanticide. But in the darkest
day of their adversity God raised up for them in the house
of Pharaoh a deliverer. Moses, so called because saved from
the water, was appointed by God to secure the independence
of his nation. At the age of eighty years he commenced
that series of wonders that has made memorable to all suc-
ceeding time the land of Egypt. But consider the circum-
stances under which the ten plagues were sent upon Egypt,
and the end for which they were sent.
The Egyptians were sunk into the deepest idolatry ; they
worshiped not only the sun, moon, and stars, but birds, rep-
tiles, and brute animals. To suppose that the Israelites were
not contaminated by the example of their masters is to con-
tradict their subsequent history in the desert, and their known
inclination to worship idols. In Egypt, with the vices of
slaves they had all the fear of slaves. Every manly and noble
impulse seemed to be crushed under that iron bondage which
befell them. Doomed to the thankless task of brickmaking,
unrewarded for the severest toil, their male offspring mur-
dered, all national hope, all energy, seemed to have expired.
They distrust their deliverer, Moses; they upbraid him when
350 MIRACLES OF MOSES.
doing the best service for them, and alike in their actions
and their whole deportment they appear to be only degraded
slaves. To effect simply a deliverance from bondage to the
Israelites was but a small part of the task of Moses. It was
to educate them to a better religion, to impress upon their
minds the one true God, to deliver them from the idolatry
even more than the slavery of the Egyptians, — this was the
great task to be performed. On the other hand, the Egyp-
tians were proud in their oppression ; they were given up to
the most cruel despotisi^i even as the most debasing idolatry.
Neither king nor nation would of their own accord emancipate
the Jews. Here, then, we see a twofold end to be attained
unto by miracle, even deliverance from bondage and the
counteraction of idolatry, under circumstances that would
clearly show the supremacy of the God of the Jews. Conse-
quently, we see that the known instrumentality selected for
the Jews was such as to preclude the idea that the work per-
formed was of man and not of God. Not only was the end
proposed for miracles most suitable, and worthy of God, but
such as could not be attained unto by any human power. No
human power could save the Israelites or conquer the Egyp-
tians, in the peculiar circumstances in which they were placed.
No human power was able to conduct through the desert the
Israelites, and from the debasement of slaves to make them
a free and powerful nation. If Moses could, unaided by the
direct power of God, have guided the Jews to the promised
land, with no miracles as the credentials of his authority, he
yet could not without miracles have made the Jews acknowl-
edge the unity of God and his infinite superiority to the
gods of the Egyptians. It was not simply to deliver the Jews
from civil bondage, but to educate them as the chosen people
of God, — that was the end to be secured. Thus we see a
double occasion for the Mosaic miracles. First, the necessity
of the miraculous interposition of God, to secure for the
Jews, in their low condition, political freedom, and then the
necessity, equally great, to emancipate the Jews from Egyp-
tian idolatry. Now, all the means adopted to deliver the Is-
raelites were designed to impress upon their minds the infi-
MIRACLES OF MOSES. 351
nite superiority of the one God to the polytheism of the
heathen. The Jews were to be set apart from all nations as
the peculiar people of God, and to be made a standing monu-
ment to the nations of the earth of the superiority of God to
all idols. Does not the whole history of the wonderful pres-
ervation of the Israelites in Egypt, and their more wonderful
deliverance, show that this was the end to be secured ? So
far from the improbability of miracles professed to be worked
by Moses, it is impossible to account for the preservation of
the Jews, and their subsequent possession of Canaan, without
a miraculous interposition of God. What more improbable,
if Moses worked no miracles, than that a whole nation, con-
sisting of more than three millions, could be induced, in oppo-
sition to a powerful enem}^, to leave Egypt ? But this im-
probability is augmented a thousandfold when we consider
the forty years' wanderings of the Jews in the desert. That
three millions could subsist a year in the desert, or be induced
to stay half that time as wanderers over the desolate land
of Arabia, is an impossibilit}' in itself, without a miraculous
interposition of God. But not only were miracles necessary
to deliver the Jews, but without them neither Pharaoh nor
the Jews could be convinced of the divine mission of Moses.
Moses was a fugitive from Pharaoh's court, a friendless out-
cast from the honors and emoluments of power; he had
nothing in himself to deliver the Jews. He was no less an
object of aversion to the Egyptians than of suspicion to his
brethren. "Without riches, fame, or military strength, his
very proposition to deliver from bondage the Jews, without
miracles, was the most visionary imaginable. But, more than
this, Pharaoh was not to be persuaded to let the Israelites go
without miracles. Even when he did let them go, after the
most majestic tokens of divine power, it was extorted from
his fears, and not from his love. His heart clung to his idols.
How, without a miraculous interposition, was Pharaoh to be
compelled to let the Israelites go ? Consider the great inter-
ests at stake demanding miracles. If ever there was an occa-
sion for their use, certainly the introduction of the Mosaic
or legal dispensation was one. The patriarchal state was to
352 MIRACLES OF MOSES.
be succeeded by a higher development of the divine mercy
to mankind. The promise to Abraham was to be fulfilled in
the gathering together of a nation, free and powerful, in the
predicted land of Canaan. Consequently, as preparatory to
the coming of Christ, the unity of God, and the nature of
his law, and the necessity of an atonement for sin, were to be
revealed in a far more impressive way than ever before. If
the calling of Abraham was attended with miracles, more
truly the ushering in of the law of Sinai, and the political
and moral elevation of a whole nation, under the most de-
pressed circumstances, demanded the interposition of God.
Let us, then, consider the ten plagues of Egypt and the
subsequent miracles of Moses. They come to us as facts re-
vealed in the Bible and confirmed by the light that profane
history throws upon that age. Miracles are events so ex-
traordinary as to forbid the supposition of the operation of
natural law. They come as events marking the supernatural
working of God. Consequently, they are the credentials of
God, to show that he works, and that he is to be believed in.
In order to convince Pharaoh, or the Jews, Moses must work
miracles. He goes to Pharaoh with the demand to let Israel
go. What was the natural course, under these circumstances,
for Pharaoh to pursue ? Evidently, to question the authority
of Moses for making a request so extraordinary; and thus he
did. " And Pharaoh said. Who is Jehovah, that I should
obey his voice ? I know not Jehovah, neither will I let Israel
go." Again Moses is sent to repeat the command. The
king refuses, upon their want of authority, and demands a
miracle as the evidence. A miracle is wrought, — Aaron
throws down his staff, and it becomes a serpent, i^ow, what-
ever may have been the enchantments of the Egyptian priests,
it is certain that they performed by their magic wonders, in-
ferior, it may be, to those of Moses and Aaron, but of such
a nature as to give a plausible objection to the refusal of the
king to let the Israelites go. We pretend not to say whether
the legerdemain of the magicians of Pharaoh was miraculous
or not, but my argument for miracles of the most unques-
tionable nature is but the more confirmed when the preju-
MIRACLES OF MOSES. 353
diced mind of the king, shielding himself by the magic of
his priests, arrogantly gave Moses and Aaron to understand
that his men could work as o-ood miracles, if not as o:reat, as
themselves, and, consequently, his authority was as good as
theirs. Henceforth God commissioned Aaron and Moses to
work other miracles. The Nile is turned into blood, and the
frogs cover the land. The magicians, upon an inferior scale,
to the mind of the king apparently effect the same wonders.
Thus, in the trial between God and the gods of Pharaoh, the
result thus far had been only to the king the acknowledgment
that Moses was the superior magician. Now miracles were to
be worked, so peculiar and so wonderful as to compel Pharaoh
and his priests to give up in despair, and confess the divine
authority of the mission of Moses. Commencing with the
mildest form of miracle, there was to flash before the mind
a far higher indication of the power of God. The plague of
lice conies, a miracle of creation ; the magicians renew their
efforts, but altogether fail in imitating it. Pharaoh, now
stripped of every apology, fiercely intrenches himself in the
stubbornness of his heart, and refuses to let the people go.
Then comes the swarm of flies; then the plague of boils and
blains; then the plague of hail; then of locusts, which de-
vour all the green herbage of Egypt; then of the three days'
darkness; then of the more fearful visitation of the death of
the flrst-born ; and, finall}', this increasing series of divine
visitations of wrath upon a godless king and nation is con-
summated in the drowning of Pharaoh and the Egyptians in
the Red Sea.
The circumstances in which the Israelites were placed, pre-
vious to this fearful destruction of the Egyptians, were most
extraordinar}'. Skeptics have solaced themselves with the
idea that the Israelites might have passed over a branch of
the Red Sea, at the northern extremity, as being only an
estuary at low tide. But what the Israelites might have
done is quite diflerent from the actua.l course they were re-
quired to take. The great design of the series of the Mosaic
miracles was to convince the Jews of the unity and absolute
supremacy of the God of Abraham above all the gods of
23
354 MIRACLES OF 3I0SES.
Egypt. Consequently, upon a scale the most magnificent,
we read of tliat series of wonders that were to prepare the
way for the emancipation of tlie whole nation from civil and
religious bondage. The end was worthy of the means. The
design was such only as God could conceive of and omnis-
cience execute. True religion, the knowledge of the one
infinite and glorious God, had nearly expired from the earth.
In what better way, then, than that revealed in the Bible,
was there to be a counteraction of an evil so universal and
so threatening ? But there was another design in the destruc-
tion of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, of vast importance.
All the other miracles worked in Egypt had awed, but not
subdued, the avaricious spirit of the Egyptians. The march-
ing forth of the vast multitude of the Israelites from Egypt
had been extorted from the fears and not the willing consent
of either king or people. Consequently, a feeble, enslaved
army, encumbered with women and children, wandering
within a few days' march from Egypt, would be, sooner or
later, a prey to the incensed Egyptians. Some decisive blow
was to be struck, so great and so powerful as that henceforth
the timorous hearts of the Israelites would have nothing to
fear from their old oppressors. This was the primary object
of the miracle of the Red Sea, expressly declared in the
inspired word: "I will be honored upon Pharaoh and all
liis hosts, that the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord."
Instead, therefore, of the Israelites taking the main road,
the open route at the head of the Red Sea, leading into the
desert, they are ordered to march down the shore to the
south, by a route which could lead them only into the heart
of Africa, and in defiles so bad as that, if pursued, they could
neither fight nor fly. Never were the wise taken in their own
craftiness more effectually than Pharaoh and his host. Reas-
oning upon all human calculation, victory was both certain
and easy for the Egyptians. Pharaoh pursued after his
slaves, and soon reached their encampment. On one side was
the desert, upon the other the Red Sea, and directly in their
rear, shutting out all possibility of escape, were the mighty
forces of the land of Egypt, with their chariots of war.
MIRACLES OF MOSES. 355
Under what circumstances could a miracle be more uecessary,
or impress the mind with a deeper conviction of the superi-
ority of Jehovah to the false gods of Egypt? Unless God
interposed, all was lost. With a bitter taunt the Israelites
(.■ry out against their leader, " Were there no graves in Egypt,
that thou hast taken us away to die in the. wilderness ?"
God now commands Moses to stretch out his rod over the
Red Sea, "that the Israelites may pass on dry ground."
The Egyptians follow in after them. When the morning
watch is come, the Israelites reach the shore, and the whole
body of the Egyptians are in the sea-bed. What a spectacle
now presents itself of awful grandeur !
Over the sea-sand the enemy's chariots drive heavilj'. At
last the}' evy out, " The Lord fighteth for Israel." The com-
mand is given, "And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out
thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon
the Egj'ptians." The destruction was total. " There re-
mained not so much as one of them."
We will not dwell upon the other miracles of Moses. For
wise reasons the Israelites were condemned to wander forty
years in the desert. But for a multitude so great to subsist
in the desert so long, miracles constant and vast were abso-
lutely necessary-. But the end was worthy of the means. The
desert was to be the school of religion and good discipline for
the Israelites. Here was the law of Sinai to be given, with its
majestic glory. Here was to be the pillar of cloud by
day, and the pillar of fire by night. Here the consecrated
priests were to bear the Ark of the Covenant, where abode
the awful Shechinah. Here manna daily was to come down
from heaven, except upon the holy Sabbath. Here waters
from the rock were to flow to quench the thirst of the
multitude. All was one vast series of miracles such as
man never yet had seen, for one great end, the preservation
of true religion. For this object a nation was selected and
surrounded with all* the tokens of an ever-present God.
For this object the rigid discipline of forty years was en-
forced to wean the Israelites from the idols of the heathen.
A new dispensation was to be ushered in, amid the fires
356 MIRACLES OF 310SES.
of Sinai and its dread thunders. The end was such that
nothing but miracle could secure it. God was to be every-
thing, man nothing. Human instrumentality was to be for-
gotten before the steady blaze of divine agency. ISTow, such
are revealed facts : of their philosophy we know nothing.
But one thing is certain : the Israelites never could have been
delivered from Egypt, never preserved in the desert, they
neither would nor could have received Moses as their leader,
or submitted to the law of Sinai, or conformed to the cere-
monial ritual, or acknowledged as divine the Pentateuch,
or confessed in every age that the mission of Moses was
from God, had not the miracles recorded been worked.
CHAPTER VIIL
EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY.
Prophecy is the history of the future ; it is the exercise of
a foresight into events jet to come, such only as omniscience
is capable of. Human beings have often attempted to pry
into the future, and to pronounce with confidence upon events
yet to take place. The heathen have had their oracles. The
most renowned nations of antiquity have been influenced to
place confidence in the auguries of soothsayers, or the famed
responses of Delphi or Dodona. The restless curiosity of
man has often attempted to unveil the secrets of futurity and
fathom the deep purposes of God. To a certain extent, some
knowledge of the future may be reached by an uninspired
man. When some law of the mental or phj'sical world is
understood, it can be found out from its known results what
in the future will be its operation. The mind of man may
attain unto some knowledge of futurity by the experience of
the past. But this knowledge is only of the most general
nature ; nothing is known of particulars. The limit of hu-
man predictions is circumscribed within the most narrow
boundary, and cannot extend to things specific, minute, and
multiplied. We may say that a man who gives himself up to
the habitual sway of his appetites or passions, having the love
of strong drink, or anger and violence, will die prematurely.
But who can designate the hour or minute of his decease?
We may predict from the ravages of the pestilence the wide-
spread disease that will ensue; but who can mark the number
of victims, or foretell the exact period and extent of the in-
roads of the unseen destroyer?
From mathematical laws the eclipse may be predicted
years before the event takes place ; but who can say when law
itself may not be suspended by miracle, or foretell the future
changes that will take place among those myriads of worlds
r ^ (357)
358 EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY.
that people tlie universe? Even upon the most common
events of life uncertainty rests. The darkness that encircles
the future, none but an omniscient eye can penetrate. The
prophecies of the Bible differ in every respect from the pro-
ductions of heathen oracles. Kot more marked is the differ-
ence between gold and its counterfeit, than is the distinction
between the prophecies of the Scriptures and uninspired pro-
ductions. Take, as an illustration, the celebrated oracles of
Delphi and Dodona. Here, as in false miracles, we can
trace every wonder to mere human contrivance and the
practiced arts of successful impostors. Reason itself would
dictate that it was impossible for man to predict minutely,
with great variety of specification, and combining a multi-
tude of improbabilities, the history for a single year of any
person, or that of a nation. Now, when the heathen oracles
were consulted, the responses given had reference not only to
a short period, but were in the highest degree general and
vague. They were only procured by great riches, and were
surrounded by such difficulties as to be for any good end not
only inaccessible, but useless. Among the heathen it is
estimated that there were in repute no less than three hun-
dred oracles ; but an illustration of a few will give the char-
acter of the whole. Their general characteristics were am-
biguity, obscurity, and convertibility. Two instances in
point will clearly show this. " When Croesus was to invade
the Medes and Persians, he consulted the oracle of Delphos
as to the issue of his expedition." The answer was, " that
by passing the river Halys, and making war upon the Per-
sians, he would ruin a great empire." What empire? his
own, or that of the Persians? Crcesus interpreted the empire to
be that of the Persians, and consequentl}^ made war upon the
Persians and lost his crown, and was upon the point also of
losing his life. When Pyrrhus made war upon the Romans,
the same oracle was consulted; the answer was couched in a
single line of Latin, but so equivocal in meaning, that it may
be read either that " Pyrrhus should conquer the Romans,
or that the Romans should conquer Pyrrhus." The issue
is well known. Pyrrhus, interpreting the oracle in his favor,
EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY. 359
returned defeated to his country after a long and disastrous
struggle.
Contrast the prophecies of the Bible. We have now refer-
ence to fulfilled prophecy alone. Unfulfilled prophecy has
reference to the mighty events of the future, and, whether
clearly or obscurely given, is to be interpreted when future
history shall become past history, and the world itself shall
end. But, for our purpose, it is only necessary to speak of
those prophecies already fulfilled, and to show by the exact
correspondence of the events themselves the divine origin of
the Bible.
Tn considering miracles, it will be seen that a good end is
one essential proof of a miracle. God is the author of order,
of adaptation, of righteousness, and of wisdom. Conse-
quently, when he works a miracle it is to some good purpose,
to bring about some righteous and wise end. [Now, the
scheme of redemption from sin and its fearful consequences
is an end sufficiently great, wise, and good to call for the
interposition of miracle as an essential means for the accom-
plishment of such an end. It is this which makes Bible
miracles so probable, and because of which v,^q are called so
firmly to credit the evidence given. But prophecy is as
strong an evidence of the divine origin of the Scriptures, and
is as essential to carry out the great system of redemption, as
miracles. A large part of the Bible consists of prophecy.
Commencing with Adam in Eden, it ends only when another
Eden, fairer than that which was lost, shall be ushered into
the world, renewed by the mighty power of God and regen-
erated by the Eternal Spirit through all its countless millions.
If miracles hold a most essential place in the Bible, prophecy
holds a position as important, if not more so. It forms an
argument of irresistible force to prove that God himself was
the author of the Bible, making use in its composition of
man as the instrument of his will.
The great end of prophecy is to unfold the vast scheme
of redemption by Christ in its commencement and in its
termination. It is to unfold to man in every age the
vast purposes of God's redeeming love. We therefore
360 EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY.
find that prophecy bridges over the whole interval of man's
history. It begins with an Eden lost, and ends in an Eden
restored. ISTow, as it is impossible for a human mind to
conceive of the scheme of redemption as revealed in the
Bible, it is equally impossible for any uninspired mind to
give the history of that redemption ; and yet we find exactly
portrayed in the Old Testament, centuries before the fulfill-
ment, the character of Christ, the Messiah, and his future suf-
ferings, death, and resurrection. What mortal man could fab-
ricate such a character, or predict it? What number of men
could combine together to invent a story to be proved true
ill after-ages in the most minute details, and, without collu-
sion with one another, to find that story consistent in every
part and realized in the whole ? There is not only an impos-
sibility upon the side of motive, but of ability. For Moses,
for David, for Isaiah and Daniel to predict the coming Mes-
siah, accurately portray his character, the redemption from
sin he was to secure to mankind, and yet each living in dif-
ferent ages of the world, with no community of interest, no
motive possible for deception, this must show them to be
inspired by God.
Consider that the one was the lawgiver to the Jews, the
other a mighty king. Isaiah, according to tradition, was
sawn asunder six hundred and ninety-eight years before
Christ, and Daniel was thrown for his integrity into the lions'
den. Can now those separate predictions, all verified by the
events with so remote a separation of time and so great a
diversity of circumstance, have their origin from no divine
source ? If there is anything in which human ability shows
its weakness, its utter impotency, it is in predicting things
in the future. With all the light of experience, with all the
aid of analogy, with all the assistance of history, philosophy,
and science, nothing is so perfectly beyond the mind of man
as any intelligent or minute predictions of events of human
conduct to transpire a year hence; but that inability is aug-
mented a thousandfold when centuries and ages must inter-
vene between the giving and the accomplishment of the
prophecy. Mohammed never based his Koran upon prophecy;
EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY. 3(11
the most successful of impostors, he never presumed to tax
the credulity of the darkest age of the world by any attempt
at prophecy. So certainly would this fail him that he would
not attempt that which, unsuccessful, would prove the most
powerful enemy to his cause. Why, then, did the Bible risk
everything upon prophecy, even as miracles ? Why did the
writers of the Scriptures attempt wonders so great? The
reason is, God, not man, was the source of inspiration ; divine
truth fears no scrutiny, however searching. The end for
which all prophecy was given was to subserve the great
purpose of building the temple of Christianity. In that tem-
ple there was a use for stones of every variety, and every
material that composed it; each had its separate position and
its peculiar office. As one vast system, Christianity was a
scheme to be developed gradually. Every age went to make
up a part of that temple that was destined ultimatel}^ to
be perfected in one glorious fabric of truth and love.
Let us now consider some of the prophecies of the Bible
as revealing its origin from God. We have seen how we
may discriminate between true and false prophecy. The last
is general, equivocal, ambiguous, and having only a short
period for veriiication, and, above all, given under circum-
stances highly favorable for conjecture. The true prophec}^
must be minute, discriminating, clearly corresponding with
the event predicted, and given under circumstances where
mere conjecture is impossible; and, to crown the whole,
the end to be attained unto, as in miracles, must be shown
to be wise and good, such as is worthy of God and useful
to man. By such tests let us examine the prophecies of
the Bible, to see if indeed they are genuine. We have
spoken of the general scope of prophecy in its relation to
Christ and his scheme of redemption. Before, then, entering
upon the investigation of the more important prophecies, we
will give, as an illustration of the minuteness of detail in the
prophecies of the Bible, a few illustrations from those prophe-
cies less noticed by the general reader.
The destruction of the altar of Bethel was predicted in the
year before Christ 975: "And behold, there came a man of
362 EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY.
God out of Judab, by the word of the Lord, 0 altar! altar!
thus saith the Lord, Behold, a child shall be born unto the
house of David, Josiah by name, and upon thee shall he
offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon
thee, and men's bones shall be burned upon thee." An im-
mediate sign was superadded in the withering of Jeroboam's
arm, and in the rending of the altar, and the accomplish-
ment of this prediction was in the year before- Christ 624,
,and the interval between the prophecy and the fulfillment
was three hundred and fifty-one years; Josephus makes the
years that intervene three hundred and sixty-one. Thus we
see in respect to time how remote the prophecy was from its
fulfillment. Li the twenty-third chapter of the second of
Kings we read in these words of the fulfillment of a pro-
phecy more than three centuries and a half after its pre-
diction.
"Moreover, the altar that was at Bethel, and the high
place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to
sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he broke
down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small to
powder, and burned the grove; and as Josiah turned himself
he spied the sepulchers that were there in the mount, and
sent and took the bones out of the sepulchers, and burned
them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word
of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed." Observe
how exact was this accomplishment, although the distance
that intervened was between the reign of Jeroboam and the
reign of Josiah.
At the fall of Jericho, " Joshua adjured them, saying,
Cursed be the man, before the Lord, that riseth up and
buildeth this city of Jericho; he shall lay the foundation
thereof in his first-born, and in his youngest son shall he set
up the gates of it." This sentence was pronounced in the
year before Christ 915. In the first of Kings, sixteenth chap-
ter, we read: "In his days," that is, during the reign of
Ahab, "did Iliel the Bethelite build Jericho; he laid the
foundation thereof in Abram, his first-born, and set up the
2:ates thereof in his voungest son, Seo-ab, according to the
EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY. 303
word of the Lord which he spake by Joshua, the son of
Nun." Between the prophecy and the event there is a space
of five hundred and tliirty-three years. As an example of
minute prediction and singular fulfillment, compare the
twenty-fourth chapter of Jeremiah with the twelfth of Ezekiel.
In the former scripture it was foretold by one prophet that
Zedekiah, the king of Judah, should be delivered into the
hand of the king of Babylon, and behold his eyes, and speak
with him mouth to mouth, and go to Babylon. In the latter,
it was foretold by another prophet that Zedekiah should not
see Babylon, though he should die there. But is there not
a contradiction here? How could Zedekiah be taken to
Babylon, behold her king, and die there, and yet never see
the city ? But the history of the kings of Judah, written
without any design of pointing out the fulfillment of proph-
ecy, explains this difRculty. Zedekiah was delivered into
the hands of the king of Babylon, and beheld his eyes, and
spoke with him mouth to mouth, not, however, at Babylon,
but at Riblah. Then his eyes were put out, by command of
his captor. In this state he went to Babylon, and died there,
having never seen the city of his captivity.
As another illustration of wonderful minuteness as well
as accuracy, consider the prophecies of the fall and destruc-
tion of Babylon, the most ancient of the cities of the Old
World. It became so famous after the time of N'ebuchad-
nezzar that it was called the Great Babylon, the glory of king-
doms, the beauty of the Chaldee's excellency. With a circuit
of walls sixty miles in compass, it was located in a most fer-
tile plain. The city had a hundred gates, made of solid
brass, and its mighty walls, according to Herodotus, Avere
three hundred and fifty feet in height and eighty-seven feet
in thickness, so that six chariots could go abreast upon them.
How improbable, to human calculation, that a city so power-
ful, the metropolis of a vast empire, should come, with all its
strength, to naught ! But Isaiah, one hundred and sixty
years before her ruin, when she was at the height of her
glory, predicted : "It shall never be inhabited, neither shall
it be dwelt in from generation to o-encration, neither shall
364 EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY.
the Arabian pitcli tent there, neither shall the shepherds
make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall
lie there, and the houses shall be full of doleful creatures,
and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there, and
the wild beasts of the desert shall cry in their desolate houses,
and dragons in their pleasant palaces." " How hath the
golden city ceased!" "Her pomp is brought down to the
grave." Sixteen centuries have passed since her foundations
were inhabited by a human being. Deterred by reptiles and
wild beasts, the wandering Arab never pitches his tent there.
Once famous for the richness of its pastures, the shepherds
make no fold. Reptiles, bats, and doleful creatures, jackals,
hyenas, and lions, inhabit the holes and caverns and marshes
of the desolate city. In the fourth century Babylon was a
hunting-ground for the Persian monarchs. By the over-
flowing of the Euphrates, pools of stagnant water are left
in the hollow places of the ancient site, thus realizing the
prediction, '■'■ It shall he a 2)ossession for the bitieni, and pools of
water.''' The manner of the taking of the city was no less
clearly predicted. First, the river was to be dried up; " And
I will dry up the rivers ;" and this is declared in reference
to Cyrus, whom the prophet calls his shepherd; and by him
the river was turned out of its channel. Then the brazen
gates were to be left open. " Thus saith the Lord to his
anointed, to Cyrus, — I will loose the loins of kings, to open
before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates shall not be
shut." By the oversight of the Babylonians, the gates were
left open on the night of the festival, when the king was
slain. Notice another minute circumstance of a prophecy
given more than a century before its fulfillment. The assault
was to be on two sides of the city, north and south. "One
part shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet
another, to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken at
one end," or is taken at " each end." Cyrus commanded his
troops to enter in two detachments the city, by each of the
sides through which the river passed, and to advance till
they met in the center.
Tyre was once the emporium of the world, the theater of
EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY. 365
an immense commerce and navigation. " Situate at the
entry of the sea, she was a merchant of the people for many
isles, all nations were her merchants in all sorts of things. The
ships of Tarshish did sing of her in the market, and she was
replenished and made very glorious in the midst of the seas."
It was of this mistress of princes that Ezekiel prophesied in
the name of the Lord, " I will scrape the dust from her and
make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for the
spreading of nets in the midst of the sea." "N"ot only was
her utter ruin pointed out, but even the use that would be
made of her site, and the kind of men that would inhabit
her, were pointed out more than a thousand years before her
complete destruction. Shaw, in his Travels, describes the
port of Tyre as so choked up that the boats of ihe fishermen,
loho now and then come to the place and dry their nets upon its
rocks and ruins, can hardly enter. The iniidel Volney says
the whole village of Tyre contains only fifty or sixt}' poor
families, who live obscurely on the produce of their little
ground and a trifling fishery.
Concerning Egypt, once so mighty, it was said, "It shall
be the basest of the kingdoms ; neither shall it exalt itself
any more above the nations ; that the pride of her power
should come down ; that her land, and all that was there-
in, should be made waste by the hand of strangers; that
there should be no more a prince of the land of Egypt, and
the scepter of Egypt should depart awa}"." The most re-
markable portion of this prophecy is that which declares
that there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt.
From the conquest of the Persians, three hundred and
fifty years before Christ, to the present day, Egypt has
been broken, she has been governed by strangers, and
every eftbrt to raise an Egyptian to the throne has been de-
feated. Egypt has literally been, since that conquest, the
basest of kingdoms. Says the infidel Volney, confirming
every delineation of revelation, "Deprived twenty-three cen-
turies ago of her natural proprietors, she has seen her fertile
fields successively a prey to the Persians, the Macedonians,
the Romans, the Greeks, the Arabs, the Georgians, and at
366 EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY.
length the race of Tartars, distinguished by the name of Ot-
toman Turks. The Mamelukes, purchased as slaves and in-
troduced as soldiers, soon usurped the power and elected a
leader. If their first establishment was a sino-ular event,
their continuance was no less extraordinary. They are re-
placed by slaves brought from their original country. The
system of oppression is methodical. Everything the trav-
eler sees or hears reminds him he is in the country of slavery
and tyranny." Who but God could portray thus accurately,
through ages of time, the history of 'these nations of anti-
quity ?
"Where now is Babylon, with her hundred gates of brass,
her lofty walls, her noble palaces, the wonder of millions?
Where is Tyre, queen of cities, the haven of ships, control-
ling the commerce of the nations? Where is Egypt, that
land of the pyramids, where the Pharaohs reigned, the
richest of countries, the granary of the world? Alas ! deso-
lation reigns supreme. The proud monuments of human
grandeur and wealth have crumbled into the dust. The
warrior and the slave, the king and the peasant, the mighty
and the obscure, rest in one common oblivion and sleep in
one common ruin. But the word of God shall stand, and
his truth be fulfilled, though kingdoms fall to rise no more,
though empires pass away as a dream, and all the glory of
the earth come to naught.
Every reader of history knows that after the deluge the
human family proceeded in three great lines of population
from the three sons of Noah, — Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
From these three sons the world was to be repeopled with
inhabitants. The human family w^as to diverge in three
mighty streams of population, whose waters were ultimatelv
to extend over the remotest regions of the earth, and yet
each stream was to have distinct characteristics that should
with infallible precision mark the history of each separate
race to the end of time.
Let lis then observe if actual events in the history of the
world have verified the predictions of Noah to his three sons,
as the representatives of the three great races of men who
EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY. 367
have peopled, and do now people, the earth. It is unnecevSsary
to dwell upon the circumstances of Noah's predictions to his
three sons. The common version of the Bible reads, " And
he said, Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be
unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of
Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant, God shall enlarge
Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem ; and Ca-
naan shall be his servant." Now, Canaan was the son of
Ham, and Ham, the father of Canaan, is mentioned in the
preceding part of the stoi-y. In these three verses the
Arabic version has "father of Canaan" instead of "Canaan.''
Some copies of the Septuagint have Ham instead of Canaan ;
and, with great reason, the most correct reading of the Hebrew
text has been believed to be, " Cursed be Ham, the father of
Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren."
But, however the Hebrew text may be translated, the import
of the prophecy had peculiar reference to the posterity of the
three sons, as the representatives of the three races that were
to people the world.
What has been the fulfillment of this prophecy? In the
first place, the descendants of Ham, or Canaan, were to be,
in their social and civil condition, inferior to the descendants
of Shem and Japheth, and in a state of servitude to them.
This was the general characteristic of the posterit}' of Ham.
From Ham descended the inhabitants of Sodom and Go-
morrah, the aborigines of Palestine, under the general name
of Canaanites, whom the children of Israel, or descendants
of Shem, expelled from the land and reduced to servitude.
From Ham Egypt was settled, and most of Africa. Observe,
now, the history of Ham's posterity from the earliest age to
the present day. Says Bishop Newton, " It is very well known
that the word brethren., in Hebrew, comprehends more distant
relations. The descendants of Canaan were to be subjected
to the descendants of both Shem and Japheth ; and the
natural consequence of vice in communities, as well as in
single persons, is slavery." The wars of the Israelites with
the ancient Canaanites clearly show their subjection, through
centuries, to the posterity of Shem. The land of Ham was
368 EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY.
subdued bj the Persians, the descendants of Sbem ; after-
wards by tlie Grecians, the posterity of Japheth, and from
that time it has been constantly in subjection to the posterity
either of Shem or Japheth.
The whole continent of Africa was peopled principally by
the children of Ham; and for how many ages have the better
parts of the country been under the dominion of the Romans,
then of the Saracens, and now of the Turks! Look to the
barbarism, the deep ignorance, the innumerable savage tribes,
the wide-spread bondage, and the fearful atrocities of the slave-
trade, that for ages have existed in that ill-fated country !
IIow evident the fulfillment of prophecy ! Of Shem it
was said, "Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan
shall be his servant;" plainly intimating that the Lord would
be his God in a peculiar manner. Consequently, we iind the
Israelites the descendants of Shem, and that for several gen-
erations the church of God was among his posterit}', and
especially of them, as concerning the flesh, Christ came.
Of Japheth it was said, " God shall enlarge Japheth, and
he shall dwell in the tents of Shem ; and Canaan shall be
servant to them," or their servant. Was, then, Japheth
more enlarged than the rest ? This was true in two respects,
both in territory- and in children.
Japheth's posterity included all Europe, and the possession
of lesser Asia, Media, part of Armenia, Iberia, and Albania,
and the vast regions of the ISTorth which anciently the Scy-
thians inhabited, but now the Tartars. The progeny also of
Japheth excelled that of Shem, or Ham. It was also said
that he "should dwell in the tents of Shem." In either
sense the prophecy has been most literally fulfilled. In the
former sense, it was true when the Shechinah or divine pres-
ence rested on the ark, and dwelt in the tabernacle and
temple of the Jews ; and, in the latter sense, it was fulfilled
when the Greeks and Romans, the descendants of Japheth,
subdued and possessed Judea, and other countries belonging
to Shem.
Of Ishmael it was predicted, " And he will be a wild
man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's
EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY. 369
hand against him, and he shall dwell in the presence of his
brethren." "And I will make him a great nation." Most
literally has this prophecy been fulfilled in the posterity of
Ishmael. They have lived to the present da}' by prey and
rapine. They have ever existed a distinct people. Two cir-
cumstances most extraordinary have marked the descendants
of Ishmael, — a state of continual war, hateful and hated, and
yet an existence in the presence of all other nations. While
Ishmael's hand was against every man, and every man's hand
against him, he yetj to the present day, has dwelt in the pres-
ence of his brethren. The sword, that has devoured so many
nations, has spared the posterity of Ishmael. In constant war-
fare, the sons of Ishmael, free, independent, never subdued,
have been the wild, untamed children of the desert. Not-
withstanding the perpetual enmity between them and the rest
of mankind, the Arabs, the children of Ishmael, have never
been conquered. Alexander, the conqueror of Asia, in vain
attempted to subdue them. The Persians, who preceded the
Grecians, could never compel the nation, as a body, to pay
tribute, or reduce the wandering Arabs to obedience. In
vain the Romans strove to subdue the whole nation. Their
success was onl}- partial, and speedily followed by total dis-
comfiture. Pompey, Trajan, and Severus, with great armies,
attempted the conquest of this wild race, but only to expe-
rience defeat. When we come to the time of their famous
prophet Mohammed, we see the Saracens overrunning, in a
few years, more countries than the Romans in many centu-
ries; but while the Arabs were often masters, the}- were
never slaves, and when their great empire was dissolved, and
they were confined to their native limits, they yet preserved
their independence against Tartars, Mamelukes, Turks, and
all foreign enemies whatever. To this day the Turks, lords of
the adjacent countries, so far from being able to restrain the
depredations of the Arabs, have been compelled to pay them
an annual tribute for the safe passage and security of the
pilgrims who go in great companies to Mecca.
Notice the predictions in relation to Abraham, Jacob, and
his twelve sons.
24
370 EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY.
Of Abraham it was said, " That in blessing I will bless
thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the
stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea-
shore ; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies ;
and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed ;
because thou hast obeyed my voice."
Now, Abraham was born about two thousand years before
Christ; and most literally have the predictions concerning
Abraham been accomplished. First, as to his posterity.
The family of this patriarch has from remote antiquity been
extremely numerous ; from him are derived many tribes of
Arabs, descending through Ishmael, and others by Keturah,
to say nothing of the Jews ; neither has there been on the
face of the earth, since Noah and his sons, any man whose
posterity is equally extensive ; any man to whom so many na-
tions refer their origin. Others may have begotten families,
but Abraham is the father of nations. Hoav truly were all
the nations of the earth blessed in the great fact that Christ
was of the seed of Abraham !
Notice, also, the predictions of Jacob respecting his twelve
sons. All were exactly carried out ; their separate conditions
in the land of Canaan, also the superiorit}' of Judah, and that
through him in the line of descent the Messiah should come,
were each verified by the events. How wonderfully has his-
tory shown, in the relation Judah sustained to the other
tribes of Israel, and that the scepter continued among the
Jews, and that they had kings of their own nation in the
persons of the Herods, the truthfulness of the prediction,
" The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver
from between his feet, until Shiloh come ; and unto him shall
the gathering of the people be." It was only after the com-
ing of the Messiah, the Shiloh of prophecy, that the final dis-
persion of the Jewish race took place, and the dominion
passed away with their temple and civil power.
Consider, also, the surprising delineations of Daniel in
respect to the four great empires of the earth, each to be
erected upon the ruins of the preceding kingdom. Now,
Daniel was born about six centuries before Christ. At the
EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY. 371
time of his prediction, Babylon, the metropolis of Chaldea,
stood at the head of the nations of the earth ; and yet, soon
after, the gloiy of it passed away. So minnte and compre-
hensive were the prophecies of Daniel, embracing the history
of Chaldea, Persia, Macedon, and Rome, so exact was the
fnlfillment in every particular, that Porphyry, the most
learned of the enemies of Christianity in the third century,
impressed with the exact correspondence between the predic-
tions and the event, asserted that the prophecy could not
have been written by Daniel, but by some one in Judea in
the time of Antiochus Epiphanes ; while Paine, famous
for his iniidelity, and no less so for his wretched end, con-
fessed the authenticity of the book of Daniel. Paine denud
the fulfillment. Porphyry the authenticit}' ; Porphyry ac-
knowledged the fulfillment, Paine the authenticity. ^'■He
taketh the wise in their own craftiness."
" Now, we conclude," sa3^s Calmet, " that if we find cer-
tain events predicted long before they happened, — if they be
so clearly described that, when completed, the description
applies to the subject, — if they be related by persons entirely
unconcerned in the events, and expecting to be removed
trom the stage of life long before they took place, then we
demonstrate that some power superior to humanity has been
pleased to impart so much of its designs and counsels'as are
referred to in such predictions."
Calmet in his Dictionary of the Holy Bible has, in Daniel's
Prophecy of Four Kingdoms, represented by four beasts,
given with great brevity and comprehensiveness their fulfill-
ment. Let us observe this instance of prophecy compared
with history, the chief incidents only being selected and
numbered.
THE FIEST BEAST. ASSYEIAN EMPIKE.
1. A lion, The Babylonian empire;
2. having eagle's wings; Nineveh, etc. added to it — but
3. the wings were plucked ; Nineveh was almost destroyed at the
fall of Sardanapalus ;
4. it was raised from the ground, yet this empire was again elevated to
power,
372
EVIDENCE OF PBOPHECF.
THE FIRST BEAST.
ASSYRIAN EMPIRE.
5. and made to stand on the feet as and seemed to acquire stability under
a man, Nebuchadnezzar,
6. and a man's heart was given to it. who laid the foundation of its subse-
quent policy and authority.
(Dan. chap, iv.)
THE SECOND BEAST.
PERSIAN EMPIRE.
1. A ram,
2. which had two horns,
3. both high,
4. but one higher than the other
5. the highest came up last ;
Darius, or the Persian power,
composed of Media and Persia,
both considerable provinces.
Media the most powerful :
yet this most powerful Median em-
pire, under Dejoces, rose after the
other,
6. the ram pushed north west, south, and extended its conquests under Cy-
rus over Lydia, etc., west; over
Asia, north ; over Babylon, etc.,
south, and,
7. did as he pleased, and became ruling over such extent of country,
great. was a great empire.
THE THIRD BEAST.
1. A he-goat
2. came from the west,
3. gliding swiftly over the earth ;
4. ran into the ram in the fury of his
power,
5. smote him,
6. brake his two horns,
7. cast him on the ground,
8. stamped on him, and
9. waxed very great.
10. When he was strong, his great
horn was broken, and
11. instead of it came up four not able
ones
GRECIAN EMPIRE.
Alexander, or the Greek power,
came from Europe (west of Asia)
with unexampled rapidity of success ;
attacked Darius furiously and
beat him at the Granicus, Issus, etc.,
conquered Persia and Media, etc.,
ruined the power of Darius,
insomuch that Darius was mur-
dered, etc.
Alexander overran Bactriana, to In-
dia;
but died at Babylon, in the zenith of
his fsime and power ;
his dominions were parceled among
Seleucus, Antigonus, Ptolemy,
Cassander (who had been his offi-
cers),
EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY. 373
THE THIRD BEAST. GEECIAN EMPIRE.
12. toward the four winds of heaven ; in Babylon, Asia Minor, Egypt,
Greece.
13. out of one of them a little horn Antiochus the Great, succeeded by
waxed great Antiochus Epiphanes,
14. toward the south and east, conquered Egypt, etc.,
15. which took away the daily sacri- and endeavored utterly to subvert
lice, and cast down the sanctu- the Jewish polity, polluting their
ary. temple, worship, and sacrifices to
the utmost of his power.
(Dan. chap. vii. 3-12.)
Now, Calmet makes Daniel's vision of the Four Beasts in
the beginning of Belshazzar's reign, a. m. 3-148 ; and the
time when Darius Codomannus was conquered by Alexan-
der the Great, a. m. 3674 ; and the time when Antiochus
Epiphanes forcibly took Jerusalem and entered the temple,
robbing it of precious vessels to the value of eighteen
hundred talents, a. m. 3834. Thus, in one case there is
an interval of one hundred and twenty-six years, and in the
other of three hundred and eighty-six years, between the pre-
diction and the fulfillment.
" When I behold a scheme," says Bishop Mcllvaine, " so
vast as to embrace all time, and yet so minute that it can de-*
tail the events of an hour ; so general that in a few lines it
predicts the history of the four mightiest empires, and yet so
particular that chapters are devoted to the history of one in-
dividual ; 80 diversified in its materials as to be made up of
contributions from men of all ages and minds during a
period of four thousand years, and yet so identical that one
spirit and one grand harmonious purpose animate the whole;
when I compare all this, arrayed as it is in the richest poetry
and loftiest eloquence that eye of man ever read, with what-
ever else in the world ever pretended to the praise of pro-
phecy : I behold a grandeur of conception, a sublimity of de-
sign, an all-controlling power of execution, a unity ajid
self-depending supremacy of mind which bespeaks the om-
niscience and omnipotence of Ilim who ' was, and is, and is to
come, the Almighty.' I say nothing yet of the fuliillment of any
374 EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY.
portion of this stupendous plan ; I only say, look at the plan
itself in all its comprehensiveness and minuteness, and tell me
if it be not utterly at variance with all human experience,
and in itself perfectly incredible, that imposture should have
conceived such a scheme, or should even have dared to com-
mit its course to a venture that could only succeed by a con-
tinuance of miraculous fortune through all ages of the world.
Consider the plan itself, the various minds that carried on
the succession of its several predictions, forming a line of holy
men from the earliest periods of antediluvian history down
to the last of the apostles of Christ ; see how they all agree
in spirit and purpose, while yet so different in character and
circumstances; see how they all unite in testifying of Christ;
so that, as the last of thein said, 'the testimony of Jesus is
the spirit of prophecy ;' then tell me how imposture can be
supposed to have wrought unexposed for so many thousands
of years; how it could have chosen its agents out of forty
centuries, out of circumstances so disadvantageous, and bid
them embrace such an immense range of subjects for their
predictions, and yet without any inconsistency, or want of
harmony, or anything incompatible with the idea of one all-
pervading mind having regulated the whole. I do not now
say that so much as one prophecy has been fuliilled; I only
say, and I challenge all denial, that not a single prediction
in the wdiole succession can be shown to have failed, or to be
contradicted by the times or events to which it referred ; I
only assert that, while many of the prophecies remain unful-
lilled, because the times they relate to have not arrived, a
very great number must have either been fulfilled already, or
have utterly failed ; and yet no unbeliever could ever put his
hand on that portion of history which contradicted the truth
of any. I ask you to remember this important and undenia-
ble fact, and then say whether it is not most impressive evi-
dence that another mind than that of man was the author of
the prophecies of the Bible ; whether it can be supposed pos-
sible, in the nature of things, that human ingenuity could
have contrived a volume of predictions reaching so far, —
extending so widely, — telling so much, — assuming such par-
EVIDENCE OF PBOPHEGY. 375
ticularitj, without having been contradicted by a single event
in the history of nearly six thousand years."
This eloquent argument of Bishop Mcllvaine we believe
irresistible in its appropriateness and its truth. The most
ingenious skepticism cannot reply to the negative evidence alone
of prophec}'. Here are these numerous predictions in the
Bible, extending over the whole interval of time that marks
the existence of man upon this earth. Has a single predic-
tion been proved false? Has one recorded miracle, one pro-
phecy, been shown a failure? We challenge the whole col-
lege of infidels to substantiate, by good argument, one solitary
instance of failure. It cannot be done. The united skepti-
cism of the world has never yet proved false a single recorded
miracle or prediction of the Scriptures. Is not this negative
evidence, saying nothing now of the fact of fulfillment, of
immense value to prove the Bible from God?
What greater illustration of credulity than to believe this
mighty system of prophecy, in its unity and minuteness of
detail, to be the work alone, through so many ages, of unin-
spired men, and yet not be able to point out a single case of
failure !
CHAPTER IX.
PREDICTIONS CONCERNING CHRIST, AND BY CHRIST.
As Christ, the Son of God, is the great theme of all reve-
lation, so we find that all prophecy, in its main scope, centers
upon him. Commencing with Adam, in Eden, in that
memorable prediction, "The seed of the woman shall bruise
the serpent's head," we find the prophetic delineations of the
Messiah that was to come, growing clearer, more minute, and
more grand as that eventful period drew nigh when the Son of
God was to become incarnate and suffer and die for the sins
of the world. Christ not only based the truth of his Messiah-
fihip upon miracles, but upon prophecy. He acknowledged the
inspiration of the Old Testament ; he rebuked the Pharisees
for corrupting it by giving undue prominence to the tradi-
tions of the elders ; he discoursed to the people from the
ancient prophets, and constantly turned the attention of the
Jews to their own Scriptures, as atibrding irresistible evi-
dence of the truth of his Messiahship. In the same manner
did the apostles of Christ refer to the Old Testament as the
strongest proof of the divine mission of Christ. With such
a varied and great number of predictions in the Old Testa-
ment in respect to Christ, we can only select a very few ; and
the illustrations given will be to show especially one feature
of prophecy, which is, minuteness of specification. We shall
say nothing of the comprehensiveness, or grandeur, or great
variety of predictions, in respect to Christ, that, commencing
from the earliest age, reach to the last hour of time. It is
enough for our purpose if we show from the wonderful
minuteness of detail the impossibility of the Scriptures
being the production alone of man. Daniel, five hundred
and fifty-six years before Christ, determined the year of his
coming, — when four hundred and ninety years should be
(3t6)
PREDICTIONS CONCERNING CHRIST, ETC. 377
accomplished from the going forth of the command to rebuild
Jerusalem. The accurate Dr. Prideaux has established that
the event corresponded with the prediction exactly to a
mouth. For in the month jSTisan was the decree granted to
Ezra, and in the middle of iSTisan Christ suffered, just four
liundred and ninety years after.
Christ was predicted to come into the world at that very
time when he actually did come ; and, as a wonderful con-
firmation of the truth of the predictions of the prophets
concerning the Messiah, and the period of his entrance into
the world, we find that there was, not only in Judea but in
all the country round about, a universal expectation of the
appearance of this Messiah. This is seen in the dismay and
concealed envy of Ilerod when he interrogated the chief
priests and scribes at what place the King of Israel should
be born, and was troubled in his mind when they told him
that their Scriptures said, in Bethlehem of Judea. It is seen,
also, in his command to massacre the infants of that place,
in the vain hope of including in the number the future King
of Israel. The advent of Christ into the world was at the
very time when the Jewish mind was most awake to his actual
coming, and when they thought that the period had indeed
come when the predictions concerning him would be accom-
plished. Christ was predicted to be betrayed and sold. Ex-
actly the sum ^vhich Judas covenanted was foretold. Zecha-
riah, personifying the Saviour, says : " They weighed for my
price thirty pieces of silver." The very use of this money
was foretold by the prophet: " And the Lord said unto me.
Cast it unto the potter ; and I took the thirty pieces of silver,
and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord." Thus
Judas cast down the thirty pieces of silver into the temple,
and the money was applied to the purchase of the " potter's
field." He was to be forsaken by his disciples : " I looked
for some to have pity, and there was none ; and for comfort-
ers, but I found none." The place of his birth was desig-
nated by Micah: "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though
thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of
thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be the ruler in
378 rnh: DICTIONS concerning cubist,
]si-iU'l ; whose g-()iiii;s forth luivc been of old, i'roni everlast-
inii;." And in Matthew wo read: "Now wlien Jesus was
born in Bethlehem of Judea." (vhrist was to bo preeeded by
a remarkable pei'son, rosomblin"- Elijah. And in Isaiah wo
I'oad : "The voice of him that erioth in the wilderness, Tre-
])are ye the way of the Lord, make straii;ht in the desert a
hio-hway for onr (lod." In Matthew we tind the fultillment,
in the words : " In those days came John the Baptist, preach-
ing in the wilderness of Judoa, and saying, Repent yo, for
the kingdom of hea\'en is jit hand." lie was to work mira-
cles, says Isaiali : "Then the eyes of the blind shall be
openi'd, and the ears o[' the deaf shall be unstopped. Then
shall the lame num leap as an hart, and the tongue of the
dumb sing." In instances too numerous to mention, these
were the very miracles C^hrist worked, lie was to be rejected
by his own countrymen, says Isaiah : "And he shall be for a
sanctuaiT ; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of
ollense to both tlu' houst's ot' Israel." Says dc>hn, in contir-
inatit)n : " lie came unto his own, and his own received him
not.'' l[o was to be scourged, mocked, and spit upon, says
Isaiah: "• 1 gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to
them that plucked otf the hair; I hid not my face from
shame and s[)itting." And we read in Matthew: "Then
did they spit in his face, and buffeted him ; and others
smote him with the palms ot' their hands." His hands and
feet were to be ]>ierced. In the i'salms we read: "The
a8send)ly oi' the wicd<ed have enclosed me; they pierced my
liands and my feet." This is the more remarkable, as cru-
citixion was a punishment not known among the Jews.
lie was to be mocked and reviled on the cross; and in the
Psalms we road: " All they tliat see me laugh me to scorn ;
they slioot out the lip; thoy shake the head, saying, lie
trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him; let hiiii
deliver him, seeing he delighted in him." It was predicted
that his garments wore to bo parted, and upon his vesture
lots wore to be cast. In the Psalms wo road: " They part
my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture."
And in John we road of the fultillment, when the soldiers
AND BV CUBIST. 379
said: "Let us not rend it, but ca8t lots ibr it, whose it shidl
be," while his garments they divided into four parts. He
was to make his grave with the rieh; and we read of Joseph
of Arimathea laying the body of Jesus in his own new tomb,
which he had hewn out of a rock.
Ill the Psalms we read : " It was not he that hated me, that
did magnify himself against me; then I would have hidmijSi{f
from him; but it was thou, a man, my equal, my guide, and
mine acquaintance." In John we read: " And Judas also,
which betrayed him, fiiieiv (he phtce, for Jesus ofttimes resorted
thither with his disciples."
In Micah we read : "They shall smite the judge of Israel
with a rod upon his cheek." In Matthew we read : "They
took the reed, and smote him on the head."
In the Psalms we read: "They gave me also gall lor my
meat ; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink ;" and
in Matthew we read: "They gave him vinegar to drink,
mingled with gall." In the Psalms we read: "He keepeth
all his bones, not one of them is broken." In John we are
told : " These things were done that the Scripture might be
fuliilled, A bone of him shall not be broken."
In Isaiah we read: "He was numbered with the trans-
gressors." In Luke we are told : " They crucified him, and
the malefactors, one on the right hand and the other on the
left."
While in the Psalms we read : " They cast lots for my
vesture," in John we are told the reason : " But his coat was
without seam, woven from the top throughout."
Consider the predictions of Christ himself. Christ pre-
dicted his own resurrection ; and yet how impossible an event
of this nature, unless he had been what he professed to be,
the Son of God ! Christ foretold the rapid spread of the
gospel; the persecutions of the disciples; the precise manner
of Peter's martyrdom ; the continuance of John till after the
destruction of Jerusalem ; the rejection of the Jews; and
the bringing in of the Gentiles into the church of God. But
let us consider the predictions of Christ in respect to the
destruction of Jerusalem. History confirms, in the most
380 PREDICTIONS CONCERNING CHRIST,
minute particulars, every preclictiou of Christ. Two great
historians, Josephus and Tacitus, — tlie one a Jew, the other
a Roman, — both unfriendly to Christianity, confirm by their
united testimony the predictions of Christ respecting the de-
struction of Jerusalem and the subsequent condition of the
Jews. The destruction of Jerusalem was in the seventieth
year of the Christian era ; the prophecies of Matthew were
published thirty years before fulfillment, and were declared
by our Saviour thirty-seven years before their fulfillment.
Observe that at the time of prediction the Jews were at peace
with the Romans, the temple stood in all its glor}-, and
nothing corresponded with the fearful calamities foretold by
our Saviour. False Christs were to appear; and not two
years after the crucifixion, Simon Magus was heard boasting
himself as the Son of God ; and, as we come nearer the fatal
event, the country was tilled with impostors, who deceived
the people. Christ also predicted famines, and pestilences,
and earthquakes in divers places. And historians speak of the
raging of pestilences in various places, and earthquakes, as
signs of the times. Christ foretold who the enemy should be,
their fury and power, in the proverbial expression : " Whereso-
ever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together,'' The car-
cass was the Jewish nation, given over as thoroughly corrupt
and forsaken by God. The eagles were the characteristic in-
signia of the Romans. The means by which Jerusalem should
be taken were minutely delineated. "The days shall come
upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee,
and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side." How-
ever improbable these events, they actually took place. The
inhabitants were kept in Jerusalem by Titus, with a wall and
trench measuring about five miles in circumference. The
ruin of the city was foretold in these words : " They shall
lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within
them ; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon
another that shall not be thrown down." Jerusalem, with
its massive walls, with its magnificent temple, was totally
demolished. Terentius Rufus, a captain of the army of
Titus, did with a plowshare beat up the foundations of the
AXD BY CHBIST. 381
temple. Says Gibbon : "A plowsbare was drawn over tbe
consecrated ground, as a sign of perpetual interdiction."
Christ predicted of tbe Jews : " They shall fall by the edge
of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations."
Josephus computes over eleven hundred thousand as de-
stroyed in Jerusalem alone, and upwards of one million
three hundred thousand who perished during these days of
vengeance. Over ninety-seven thousand were carried into
slavery, beside multitudes banished in different places. But
there is another remarkable prophecy that has received an
exact fulfillment. " Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the
Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." Nearly
eighteen hundred years have elapsed since the destruction of
Jerusalem, and observe that, during these long centuries, the
Jews have not been re-established in Jerusalem. Romans,
Saracens, Christians, Turks, have in turn possessed and
trodden down the holy city, but the Jews, strangers in their
native hxnd, outcasts in the home of their fathers, have wan-
dered over the earth, a persecuted, despised, but distinct
race ; mingling with every nation, but uniting with none ; a
standing miracle of preservation, a perpetual monument of
the truth of prophecy, showing the Bible from God, and
proving conclusively the divine mission of Christ.
CHAPTER X.
THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE FIRST CENTURY.
If the introduction of the Mosaic economy demanded
miracles, the introduction of tlie Christian dispensation did
much more demand miracles. There were greater interests
at stake, more important ends to be accomplished, and far
higher obstacles to encounter. The divine mission of Moses
was principally to educate a nation in the unity of the one
(aod, and preserve a chosen people from the polytheism of a
world sunk in heathen idolatry. It was to keep for the
appointed time the oracles of God among the chosen people,
and secure a moral and political salvation to the lineal de-
scendants of Abraham. But the introduction of Christianity
was to break down the separating wall between Judaism and
Gentileism. It was to teach new doctrines, make more clear
the old, and embrace in the brotherhood of one faith not one
nation only, but the world. It was not in Judea only, but in
every land, that the true worshipers were to be publicly
recognized as the accepted of God. The gorgeous ceremo-
nial, the ritualistic service, of Judaism, had accomplished the
end for which by God it had been instituted. All typical
sacrifices were consummated in the great antitype, Christ,
and the death of the Son of God had introduced a new era
in human affairs. Here was come the mighty epoch sung
by Jewish bards. Here arose in the world that event of
transcendent interest that was to mould the destinies of every
succeeding age. That miracles at such a period were neces-
sary to confirm the divine mission of Christ, no infidelity can
have the hardihood to deny. That they were really worked,
history, both sacred and profane, combines to assure the
mind. But there is another link to the chain of evidence to
show the Bible the word of God. • That link is the success
(382)
TEE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY, ETC. 383
of Christianity during the first century that elapsed from the
death of its divine author. The argument is simply this.
The success of Christianity was of such a nature that no
human power alone is an adequate reason for it. Conse-
quently it must be from God, and therefore the Bible, that
embodies all the truth of Christianity, is from God. Both
must go together. The divine success of religion cannot be
divorced from the divine record of that religion. If the one
was of God, the other must also be of God. We do not now
enter upon the subject of the inspiration of the Bible, but
onl}^ the truth of the divine mission of Christ, and conse-
quently the divine origin of his doctrines and instructions.
Let us consider the circumstances that existed at the intro-
duction of Christianity, and the obstacles that the disciples
of Christ had to encounter, and see if upon the principles of
human reason we can attribute the success of the religion of
Christ to any other cause than the power of God, or a super-
natural and divine agency. There are some things which
human beings can and will do, and some things which they
either cannot do or will not do. Men act from motives. Let
us, then, see if the success of Christianity can be accounted
for upon any other supposition than that Christianity was
from God. The introduction of Christianity was at a period
of the world, and among a nation, and connected with such
circumstances, that it could not possibly have encountered
successfully the obstacles opposed to it, had not Christianity
been from God. As the fabrication of man, a system of hu-
man device, it must have been strangled in its very cradle,
and expired long before it could have attracted the notice of
the world. One great reason existed for this. Christ came
in a way and under those circumstances that directly arrayed
against him the whole Jewish nation. Christ assumed titles,
propounded docrines, and denounced judgment, that made
him peculiarly unacceptable to his countrymen. The learned
men of the nation, looking only to the brilliant predictions
in respect to his second coming in the Old Testament, had
confounded his first coming with his second coming, and for-
gotten the necessar}' humiliation of the divine author of
384 THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY
Christianity in the regal triumph of that more brilliant epoch
of the world's history when Christ shall assume distinctively
to the world's gaze the attributes of a judge and a king. But,
more than this, the Jews not only had lost sight of the pre-
dictions in respect to Christ's humiliation, hut had carnalized
all true ideas of the glory of Christ as a king and a judge.
They fell into the twofold error of overlookino- the humili-
ation of his first coming and Judaizing his second coming.
Upon every principle of reason, then, the mission of Christ
to the Jews, if not divine, would be accommodated to the pre-
judices and feelings of the Jews. If Christ was not of God,
he neither would nor could have set himself against every
prospect of worldly success, and perseveringly taken a course
that ended only in ignominy and death and the deprivation
of all that is held valuable upon the earth. One of two things
is certain, — Christ was of this world, or he was not ; he came
as the divinely accredited messenger of God, or he did not
thus come. What worldly motive could influence Christ to
take the course he did take ? All conduct must be based
upon motives. If Christ was not divinely commissioned by
God, he must be of this world. His mission, and his claims
to be believed in as sent of God, must be either true or false.
There is no middle ground between a heavenly Messiah and
a worldly impostor.
The last supposition gives us the absurd anomaly of an indi-
vidual actuated b}- worldly motives, and yet in his whole life
and death taking a course that in the clearest and most
effectual way -^as directly opposed to all worldly advance-
ment, all that is honored or considered as pleasant and de-
sirable by this world ; a citizen alone of this earth, influ-
enced as an impostor by worldly motives, and yet in every
act of his life taking the very course that no man of the world
will take, courting poverty, suffering, disgrace, death, and all
for that which was false, — an impostor doing that which
promised neither the favor of God nor of man, which could
secure neither the riches of time nor eternity. Human nature
is made up of no such kind of material as that. No axiom in
mathematics more true than that motives will correspond to
IX THE FIBST CENTUBY. 385
the conduct pursued. For a man from God to act a whole
lifetime like an impostor, or an impostor like a man from
God, — for a person influenced by worldly motives perse-
veringly to live and die against worldly motives, — is the
greatest of all absurdities. It is to suppose a criterion of con-
duct that the human heart never can adopt.
But consider the conduct of the Jews toward Christ. All
their cherished hopes of an earthly potentate were studiousl}^
defeated by Christ. His cradle was the manger of oxen, his
occupation that of the carpenter's son. His sympathies were
with the despised of his race.- His instructions constantly re-
buked their pride, conflicted with all their ideas of worldly
supremacy, threw contempt upon their priesthood, abrogated
their ritual, and waged a constant war with their cherished
exclusiveness as a nation. Christ promised nothing that was
not most offensive to all influenced by earthly motives. A
most expressive term embodies the appearance of Christ to
his nation, — ^^ stumbling -block ." The conduct of the Jews
toward Christ evinced that he was looked upon peculiarly
as a stumbling-block. Xo matter how clear the proofs of his
divine mission, that mission itself was hateful in the extreme to
the Jewish nation. ISTo one fact in history is so clearly proved
as this. What inference more natural, than that if Christ was
only an impostor and did not come from God, his mission
would die upon the same cross that witnessed his death ? Not
only is such an inference what all men in reason would make,
but an inference certain to be verified by the actual results.
But what was the fact? The success of Christianity was a
success precisely under those circumstances that declared it
to be from God.
Amid a nation's scoffs, in ignominy and fearful pain, the
great author of Christianity had died upon the cross, j^o day
of gloom like that in human history ! Christ's body was
committed to the grave ; his disciples, disconsolate, had dis-
persed ; few and despised, they possessed in themselves not
one element of strength. Regarded as the victims of a mis-
erable delusion, they were scattered, with no bond of union,
and had no other protection than the world's contempt and
25
386 THE SUCCESS OF CHBISTIANITY
their own poverty and destitution of power and fame. Who
but God was to resuscitate those ahnost extinguished fires
of Christianity? It seemed as if every combination of cir-
cumstance had been brought together to show the impotence
of human power, and the perfect helplessness of the disciples
of Christ in every earthly point of view. But mark what
followed. Upon the fiftieth day after the death of Christ,
before a great assembly of Jews and strangers from other
nations, Peter, one of the disciples, arose and addressed the
multitude. Notice the character of his speech, and its eflect
upon the assembly :
" Jesus of l!^azareth (said Peter), being delivered by the de-
terminate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken,
and by wicked hands have crucified and slain : whom God
hath raised up. Therefore let all the house of Israel know
assuredl}^, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye
have crucified, both Lord and Christ."
Upon the supposition that Christ was of this world, and
consequently not raised from the dead, what madness to utter
such language ! How could the deluded disciple of a false
Messiah boldly charge home upon the Jews a crime of which
they were guiltless, even the crucifixion of the Son of God,
or dare avow an event so miraculous as his resurrection, if it
had not taken place ? Surrounded by a nation of unbe-
lievers, with the whole Jewish hierarchy as enemies most
bitter, how happened it that Peter (if Christ was not of God)
presumed to utter an untruth at the time when detection
was inevitable and exposure certain ? But what was the
result ? Three thousand souls were that day added to the
infant Church.
Observe, then, the success that ensued from that day.
Twelve apostles are sent forth, to achieve a far mightier vic-
tory than the military conquest of the earth. They enter upon
a warfare that brings to them neither riches, nor earthly
honors, nor ease. And who are these twelve apostles ? They
are not famed for learning, they have no wealth, they com-
mand no force of arms. They enter upon this enterprise, ob-
scure, friendless, simple, unprotected men, despised by the
IX THE FIRST CENTUBT. 387
noble and great, iinhonored by the multitude, and unloved
by the people. What do they propose to do ?
It is the subversion of Judaism, an uncompromising hostility
to the idols o^ the heathen, an open, life-long war with every
embodiment of evil, be it in the individual or the state.
What apostles of any other religion ever proposed to them-
selves such a task ? And yet these twelve men, mostly fish-
ermen, dare attempt a task more formidable than ever yet
entered the heart of man.
Consider the state of the world at that time. The Roman
Empire was master of the earth. The imperial eagle floated
on every banner, and the remotest regions of the civilized
world acknowledged the supremacy of Csesar. But Rome
was one vast superstructure of idolatry. The civil and the
religious code were intimately blended together, and pagan-
ism embodied in itself all the wealth and power of the earth.
The worship of idols was the law of the state, and disobedi-
ence was branded with infamy and subjected to torture and to
death. It was also the most enlightened age of the world.
Not only was all the idolatry of the earth arrayed against
Christianity, but all its boasted philosophy. On one side was
all the formalism of Judaism, and upon the other all the
grossness of heathenism, both arrayed in deadly issue with
the new religion.
Upon what principle, then, unless it be the supernatural
intervention of God, an agency infinitely superior to human
instrumentality, are we to account for the success of the
apostles ? Be it remembered, the weapons of their warfare
were not carnal, but spiritual. They had no rank, no riches,
no military power, to recommend them. They disclaimed all
such instrumentality. Mohammed achieved his victories b}'
the sword, and offered a paradise of sensualism to his fol-
lowers. But the apostles of Christ held no sword in their
hands, and offered to their disciples in this life nothing but
the loss of all that the earth esteems valuable or pleasant.
They held up, indeed, a crown of beauty and glory; but it
was of heaven, not of this earth.
Such was the greatness of the task imposed upon the apos-
§88 THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY
ties. Do thej hesitate to undertake it? Far from it. The
very disciples that fled upon the trial of their Master, and
the apostle who trembled before the poor words of a woman
in the hall of judgment, boldly take upon thertiselves a war-
fare against a world lying in sin, whose field of battle was
in every land, and protracted as long as life itself; and what
was their success ? "And the word of God increased ; and
the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly;
and a great company of the priests were obedient to the
faith." The Christian religion was not confined to Judea.
Its disciples penetrated far beyond the limits of the Roman
Empire. Multitudes daily were added to the church. In
Rome itself, in the palace of the Caesars, the gospel was
preached. In famed Corinth, abandoned to every vice, be-
lievers were found. At Athens the voice of Paul was heard.
For the first time desert lands saw the banner of the cross,
and lonely forests resounded with the hymn of Jesus. Before
thirty years had elapsed from the death of Christ, churches
were planted throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, through
Greece, the islands of the -r^gcan Sea, the sea-coast of Africa,
and far into Italy.
The number of converts is described as "a great number,"
"great multitudes," "much people." The opposers of
Christianity at Thessalonica exclaim against the apostles,
" that they who had turned the vjorld upside down, were come
hither also." Demetrius complained of Paul, " that not only
at Ephesus, but also throughout all Asia, he had persuaded
and turned away much people." Jerusalem, the chief seat
of Jewish bigotry, had in it many thousands of believers. The
Christians, by the testimony of Tacitus, had become so nu-
merous at Rome that a " great multitude were seized." In
forty years more we are told, in a celebrated letter of Pliny
the Roman Governor of Pontus and Bithynia, that Christi-
anity had long subsisted in these provinces, though so remote
from Judea; also, that " many of all ages and of every rank,
of both sexes, likewise, were accused to Pliny of being
Christians." Justin Martyr, who wrote one hundred years
after the gospel was first preached to the Gentiles, thus de-
LV THE FIRST CENTUBY. 389
scribes the extent of Christianity in his time : " There is not
a nation, either Greek or barbarian, or of any other name,
even of those who wander in tribes and live in tents, among
whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered to the Father
and Creator of the universe by the name of the crucified
Jesus." Of the converts, even Gibbon unites in this testi-
mony: "As they emerged from sin and superstition to the
glorious hope of immortality, they resolved to devote them-
selves to a life not only of virtue, but of penitence ; the
desire of perfection became the ruling passion of their
soul."
But not less remarkable was the success of Christianity in
the first century than formidable the opposition encountered.
Eome became alarmed for her idols. Superstition trembled
on her throne. The great men of the earth were combined
against the cross. Of the twelve apostles, all but one died
martj'rs to tlie faith ; and even the beloved John, in his last
days, was banished to the lonely Patmos.
The first apostles of Mohammed all entered into earthly
honors and became chieftains over the conquered realms of
their master; but the apostles of Christ were imprisoned,
tortured, and persecuted unto death. Their baptism was a
baptism of blood. To the contumely of a world, the bitter
rage of incensed Judaism and pagan craft, were they con-
stantly exposed. Weary, abandoned, desolate, with hunger,
and cold, and want, unrewarded by riches, ease, or honor,
they pursued their toilsome journej^ over land and sea, —
harmless as their Master, they found no resting place. They
spoke before princes and kings ; but paganism, wielding
the power of the state, exerted all her might to crush the
religion of the cross. Upon the rack innumerable men and
women and children were tortured, — infants were cast into
the fire, — all that the dungeon, the stake, the wild beasts of
the circus could do, was tried ; and yet victory and the cross did
but go together. In prisons dark, in the raging flame, upon
the bed of torture, before the ferocious beasts of the amphi-
theater, did the song of the martyr arise, and a brighter crown
than the Csesars ever wore glittered before the eye of the
390 THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY, ETC.
persecuted disciple of Christ. lu his ear he heard a sweeter
minstrelsy than ever echoed in Diana's temple or arose from
the assembled multitude of the Parthenon.
The imposing system of paganism fell before the purity of
the religion of Christ ; and yet the only weapons were truth
and love. Such was the success of Christianity. Keasou as
we may and believe as we may, the fact that it was from
God, and not of man, was supernatural in its origin, and not
natural, was accompanied by miracles and enforced by the
eternal Spirit, is the only thing that can explain the mission
of Christ, the power of his instructions, and the success of
his apostles.
Take away from us this argument, and these great events,
never to be effaced from the page of history, will present to
skepticism an anomaly of absurdity, a contradiction in all the
principles of human life, so strange that even a thousand
miracles would be far more easy to credit than a supposition
so unnatural.
The success of Christianity during the first century, under
obstacles so great and in conflict with prejudices so invete-
rate, carries with it evidence most conclusive of the divine
origin of the religion of Christ. The age when our Saviour
came into the world was peculiarly unfavorable to any
attempt to palm off upon the credulity of the multitude a
system of imposture. It was just the age to test most clearly
the reality of miracles, and displayed to the greatest advan-
tage the truthfulness of the divine mission of the Son of
God. It was the supernatural character of that mission, and
its holy credentials from God himself, that carried with it the
convictions of its disciples and made it triumph over all
obstacles.
CHAPTER XL
ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE TO HUMAN NATURE AND THE
CONSCIENCE.
When the great fact is shown that we need a revelation
from God, when the mind assents to this clearest of truths,
then are we in afiivorahle condition to go directly to the con-
sideration of the evidences of Christianity. Let us, then,
take the Bible and carefully examine its credentials. Let us
thoroughly investigate its proofs demanding our belief and
proclaiming itself from God. The Bible invites us to such
an examination, — it seeks to impose no belief that is not
based upon the highest interests of our nature, and that has
not to support it arguments of irresistible strength and im-
portance. LTnlike all pretended revelations, it is open to the
freest and the most searching scrutiny. Coming to us with
its tremendous sanctions, it demands our most careful, most
earnest, and most faithful examination. It has nothing to
conceal in respect to its credentials. It seeks not to impose
a faith without reason, or a practice without evidence. It
calls not upon us to believe in its divine origin without
giving the clearest proofs that it comes from God. Let us,
then, commence the task of an examination whether the
Bible is in truth a revelation from God, and an authoritative
standard of belief and practice. But in what attitude shall
we present ourselves? Shall we go as learners? Shall we
come willing to receive the truth? Let us remember, we
must be deeply committed to^our own personal interests.
Our belief or no belief will not change the immutable sanc-
tions of the Bible, Our own opinions, right or wrong, will
not alter one fact of inspiration. If the Bible is from God,
it will stand immovable as the throne of Jehovah, even
(391)
392 ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE
thouffh orenerations of unbelievers treat it as a fable. But there
is one argument, before entering upon the evidences of Chris-
tianity, that we have the right to make the most of. What
may affect our personal interests for time and eternity should
be attentively studied, and every evidence given for its truth
should be received with candor. It should make a great dif-
ference with a person who is told of the danger of a river that
he must cross, and that of one which he has not to cross.
Belief in the one affects his personal interests, but belief in
the other does not. It is of little consequence what his belief
may be of one river; while his personal safety depends upon
a correct belief in the other case. Apply the same reasoning
to the Bible. True or not true, our own interests are inti-
mately involved. If true, it is the charter of a glorious im-
mortality beyond the grave ; if not true, we are shut up
alone to the unassisted light of nature, with all its deepening
gloom and fearful intimations of ruin. Now, such a subject
is not to be treated as we treat the facts of science or the
mere discoveries of human knowledge. He who plows the
land may believe in either the Ptolemaic or the Copernican
system of astronomy, but he will get as good a harvest whether
he believes the sun moves round the earth or the earth round
the sun ; but it is a very different thing with him whether he
believes the Bible is from God, or the offspring of human
craft and simply a fable. As a wrong belief in the Bible is
made a subject of condemnation, so the interests of the unbe-
liever are affected for time and eternity by the feet alone of
his unbelief. This is the reason why it is so needful for us
to consider the evidences of Christianity. What conclusion,
then, are we to arrive at in respect to the evidence that the
Bible comes from God? Just the conclusion that we arrive
at from any evidence in respect to those things which affect
our interests for this life alone. We take such evidence as
presents itself, great or small, and make the most of it. All
human action in worldly things is based upon this. The
practical rule of all our conduct is action, whenever the evi-
dence of a thing exceeds the evidence against a thing. What
demonstrative Droof has the merchant, who commits histrea-
TO HUMAN NATURE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 393
sures to the treacherous sea, that he shall ever see the vessel
in which his riches are embarked? And yet how little evidence
is necessary to induce thousands, with sufficient reason, to do
bushiess upon the great waters ! Of the millions who now
travel by the mysterious agency of steam, how many person-
ally examine that swift engine that brings them in safety to
their journey's end? What but probable evidence, and that,
too, of a very limited nature, controls our conduct in most of
the atfairs of this life ? Principles of action that all in this
world confess to be reasonable and good, many disavow when
a revelation from God is presented. In this life many scruple
not to risk everything upon the feeblest testimony, and yet
no testimony, however great, will induce them to believe the
Bible. Every difficulty is magnified into a mountain, and
the smallest objections are made to offset the most irresistible
arguments in favor of a divine revelation. Believing in the
great facts of nature upon evidence the most feeble, they dis-
believe the God of nature in his inspired word upon evidence
the most grand and conclusive. Works of human produc-
tion they receive with unhesitating confidence, while the in-
spired words of God are treated with contempt and neglect.
Thousands admitting the existence and exploits of Alexan-
der, or Cffisar, or IsTapoleon, with a confidence the most im-
plicit, yet doubt or deny the divine mission of Jesus Christ,
and his atonement for sin, although sustained by the accu-
mulated evidence of centuries and made memorable by the
blood of unnumbered martyrs. How shall we account for
this ? Simply upon the ground that in one case our personal
interests are aflfected, and in the other they are not. To admit
the truth of the Bible is to admit its divine sanctions, and to
believe that it comes from God is also to believe in the con-
demnation that it pronounces upon its rejection. Here lies
the secret of that infidelity that would do away with the
Bible, and consequently with its sanctions. Here is the cause
of that sophistry that would reject inspired truth because of
the personality of its application. Yet the very fact that our
interests are intimately involved in our belief or disbelief of
the Bible, is the highest reason for a most earnest and faith-
394 ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE
ful examinatiou of its evidences. The very fact that our des-
tiuy for eternity may be at stake, is the most convincing of
arguments to induce us to treat with candor every proof that
the Bible comes from God. Here we take our stand. We
say, be the evidences great or small for the inspiration of the
Scriptures, that evidence, if good, should be received such
as it is, and the most made of it.
We come now to the Bible, and inquire if this book, which
professes to be from God, is adapted to our nature. Does it
meet the demands of our moral constitution ? Is it in all
respects suited to be our guide in this world to a better ? If
not, then the evidence of miracles and prophecy must, with
us, have little weight ; if its representations of our state are
erroneous and its general character destitute of purity or
veracity, we say such a work cannot be the offspring of a
good and holy God. God cannot be the author of that which
belies his nature or throws contempt upon his attributes of
truth and holiness.
But we say more than this : it is impossible that the record
of miracles and prophecy should, under such circumstances,
be a true record, as God only can work miracles and pre-
dict events to take place hundreds and thousands of years
before their actual occurrence. So, also, a Bible of the char-
acter described would be impossible to be substantiated by
genuine miracles and prophecy; for God never would work
miracles for an end unworthy of himself.
But if we find the Bible is adapted to our nature, as the
key is adapted to the lock, — if we see that it presents a per-
fect model of purity, love, and goodness for imitation, — if it
reflects like a mirror our condition, and combines every ex-
cellence to attract the mind, — if it suits us in every condition
of life, and has in all ages and every land an adaptation to
our necessities, — if it delineates God as the universal Father,
caring equally for the humblest as the greatest of beings, —
if it shows the infinite love of Christ his Son, and reveals an
atonement for the sins of the world, — if it unfolds a redemp-
tive process commencing from the earliest age and consum-
mated in the salvation of millions of the human race, — if it
TO HUMAN NATURE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 395
discloses the law honored and the sinner saved, justice and
mercy meeting together, — if at every period of our lives it
has something fitted for our instruction, and can adapt itself
to every variety of intellect, and give lessons of wisdom to
the peasant-boy and the king, to the young and the aged, —
if to every faculty of our nature it giv^es out a note of har-
mony, and insinuates itself into all the intricacies of our
moral being, then do we have the most convincing proof that
such a book must come from God.
Let us, then, examine the Bible, to see if it is adapted to
our nature, — if it unlocks the door of our hearts. "We
will commence with conscience. Does the Bible meet
the demands of our conscience? Do its truths alone
give peace to the conscience and a ground of firm support ?
Search the world over, and we find that no religion but
that of the Bible can satisfy the conscience, or meet its
boundless wants. It belongs to the intellect to tell us what
is true, but the conscience has the prerogative alone of telling
us what is right; its decisions are immediate and intuitive.
What is there in the Bible that the conscience can show is
wrong? Look to the morality of revelation. What is there
in it that conscience does not approve of? What purity of
thought, as of overt act, is commanded in the Bible ! What
moral excellence is there that conscience does not respond to
as most noble and worthy of God ?
Consider, then, in what respects the Bible is adapted to the
conscience. It is peculiarly adapted to it in its decisions 'of
what is morally good and right. It is not in the power of
the intellect to make what is in itself wrong right, or to turn
right into wrong. There is an essential difference in our per-
ceptions of what is true and right, and that which is false and
wrong. The Bible is distinguished above all other books in
that pre-eminently it is addressed to. the conscience. It comes
to this noblest of our faculties, and speaks directly to the
deepest convictions of our moral nature. It dehueates the
character of God in such a light that conscience, if it dreads
divine justice, yet responds immediate!}^ to the truthfulness
of its exhibition. It delineates the purity of God and his be-
396 ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE
nevolence in such a way that couscience at once pronounces
a verdict of approbation.
There are certain moral duties so plain, so needful, and so
imperious in their obligation, that when clearly exhibited to
the njind there will be a response from conscience of appro-
bation, from the most degraded even as the most exalted of
men. Thus, sinceritj' and truth in our intercourse with so-
ciety,— thus, self-denial for others' good, — thus, the possession
of a just and benevolent spirit, — thus, the shunning of treach-
ery, mui'der, or violence upon the property or character of
our neighbor, — thus, uprightness in our daily intercourse, and
freedom from avarice, revenge, and deceit, — thus, kindness
toward the helpless, affection to parents or children, are duties
as universal as man, all growing out of the great law of love,
as boundless in its extent as the universe of God.
All these duties are enforced in the Bible in a way pecu-
liar for the greatness of their sanctions and the clearness of
their application. What does conscience do when appealed
to by these duties of the word of God? Conscience pro-
nounces them right. It has no long process of argument to
go through with, no complicated series of questions to ask.
Conscience at once says. These duties are right, these duties
promote our noblest interests, these duties we must comply
with or we endanger our immortal happiness. Nor does it
demand a mind educated in the schools, or learned in the
arts and sciences. In the heart of the most ignorant, the
simplest, the rudest of men, yes, in the infant soul of the
child just entering upon the stage of life, conscience, true to
its high origin, true to the noblest prerogative of its being,
tells us all that these duties are right, are good, — that they
harmonize with our highest welfare, and will secure, if per-
formed, the approbation of God.
"We ask, where in any book but the Bible is conscience
so intelligently, so earnestly, and so effectually appealed
to ? We ask, where among all the books of human origin
is couscience so deeply, so truthfully addressed? But there
is another argument, of the highest importance, to con-
sider What book but the Bible imposes such sanctions
TO HUMAN NATURE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 397
upon the conscience, demands so imperious]}' its cultiva-
tion and the bringing it under the truth and all good in-
fluences? What book but the Bible so widely addresses
itself to the conscience under all circumstances and in all
relations of life ? The conscience is that which tells us
what is right Where except in the Bible do we find
the appeal so constantly and so effectually made to that
which conscience tells us is right f Is the principle of right
the principle of false religions? Is the conscience intelli-
gently, truthfully, and rightfully appealed to in the pagan
shasters, or in the pretended 'revelations of successful im-
postors? Is the conscience, the noblest faculty of man, the
thing most sought after in the Koran of Mohammed? Is it
esteemed chief in value in the Sibylline leaves of the Roman
and Grecian prophetess, — the Druid rites of the ancient
Briton, — the songs of the Scandinavian warrior, — the Bible
of the Persian fire-worshiper, — or any of those pagan
Scriptures that now hold sway over millions of the human
race? Where except in the Christian Bible do we find the
conscience treated as God intended it should be treated?
Where except in inspiration do we find every sanction,
every command, every duty, based upon the immutable, the
eternal principle of right, — right such as the conscience feels
and knows, — such as it recognizes immediately in every age
and every land, — right such as the peasant-boy feels as keenly
as the monarch upon his throne, — right so universal, so clearly
defined, so pervading, so omnipresent in every action and
thought, that among all races and in every country, in the
earliest cradle of civilization as in the latest abode of re-
finement and wealth, human nature' gives but one response,
and conscience pronounces but one unchanging verdict?
Where except in the Bible do we find conscience treated
as the minister of God ? Where except there do we find
the unsullied, the perfect mirror of every moral excellence
and of all right presented to it ? In every other system of re-
ligion conscience is abased, is trampled upon, is perverted, is
made the tool of designing men, is seduced into sin, is de-
nied, or considered unworthy of attention. This mighty
398 ADAPTATION OF TEE BIBLE
principle of human nature, to whicli all superstition owes its
power, and by whicli all false religions achieve their triumphs,
is degraded from its lofty seat in the heart of man, is drugged
with the cruel nostrums of impurity and deceit, is imprisoned
in an iron cage, is made a perjured witness in man's heart.
How unlike the treatment it receives from the Bible ! There
it is recognized in man and woman ; there it is tenderly cared
for; there it is cherished even as a plant of celestial beauty ;
there it is talked unto even as a father converses with the
child of his love; there a more than mother's sympathy
greets it even in its wanderings, and the wisdom of God
stoops to beguile it into the path of duty. There is the con-
science of the repenting sinner received even as that prodigal
was welcomed to a feast such as the eldest brother never saw.
But the Bible not only shows itself the best friend to the con
science; it also reveals itself as its guide. It has already
been seen that conscience in itself is not a sufficient guide, —
that it needs something more clear, more imperative, and
more effectual, to restrain sin. Where except in the Bible is
there a guide for the conscience? Where is there in any
other religion a directory of conduct so comprehensive, so
universal, as is found in the word of God ? What duty so
small that it does not enjoin? what virtue so great that it
does not include? As a system of morality alone, what so
good as the Bible, or so convincing ? Where are sanctions
so commanding, or rules of behavior better for this life? We
need for the conscience an authoritative and an unerring
guide. We need something that shall enlighten it in duty,
awaken it to right action, purify it from corrupt desires, and
make it sensitive to wrong. Where except in the Bible is
the conscience able to find such a guide as shall deliver from
all error, preserve from all corruption, make courageous in
adversity, and pure in prosperous days ? Where except in
the Bible are we to look for a guide to conscience so effectual
as that in all relations of life and in every age it shall be
competent for all wants ? If there was no other argument
for the divine origin of the Scriptures, this alone is reason
enough for a cordial reception. We would say that the Bible
TO HUMAN NATURE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 399
being so superior to all other productions as a guide to the
conscience, this should be, until a better substitute was pro-
Tided (if such a supposition is possible), our practical guide
through this world. Try any other key but the Bible, and
in vain will it fit itself to the mysterious lock of the con-
science ; in vain can any other system be found that shall
meet the wants of conscience. Rather, all false religions live
by the perversions of conscience. Like tyrants, they use
conscience as a slave; they so misuse, or blind, or harden
conscience, that it gives a forced acquiescence to errors the
most fearful and practices the most corrupt. Conscience
is compelled to walk barefooted over the iron spikes of
superstition, and its lacerated body made to bleed at every
step.
There are some subjects connected with human interests
beyond the grasp of the unassisted mind of man. One is, how
man, a sinner, can be justified with God. Equally diflicult
is it for man to declare the future condition of the body
after death, or to prove the immortality of the soul. Such
subjects reach far beyond the efforts of the intellect. If the
Bible comes to us throwing the brightest light upon the
realities of the future state, — if it comes opening up the deep
mysteries of our nature, our existence in this world and the
life beyond the grave, — if it speaks of the resurrection of
the body, and confirms the truth of that resurrection b}^ the
well-authenticated resurrection of Christ, — then such gleams
of light into futurity, such glorious yet awful distinctness of
delineation of another world, such an amazing insight into
the deepest yet greatest of truths, can come from no human
source. This we do know from history, even as from the
clearest deductions of reason. We do know that where the
Bible is unknown, where man is left unassisted by an}' light
from revelation, these truths are not known. The deepest,
the most wide-spread ignorance prevails upon subjects most
intimately connected with man's welfare. The experiment
has been tried upon a great scale, how much man left to
himself can find out in respect to his condition for a future
life. That experiment has uniformly been found to reveal
400 ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE
the human mind utterly inadequate to make known such
truths or give any satisfactory evidence of them.
In respect to the resurrection of the body, no conjecture
of man has been made. This truth, when announced by
Paul to the Athenians, was ridiculed as the wildest dream
of the imagination. The Bible makes known not only new
truths, as the resurpection, God reconciled to man by the
death of Christ, an immortality of soul and body, and
the absolute creation of matter from nothing, but it throws
the greatest distinctness upon those truths that the light of
nature has dimly apprehended. Just as when the naked qjq
sees in the heavens the obscure outlines of stars, or gazes
upon the moon reflecting the sunlight, and then assists its
vision by a telescope, so that the stars appear clearly and re-
volving planets are seen, and mountains aud mighty ravines
upon the moon's surface are discovered, — even thus the Bible
throws light upon truths obscurely intimated by the unas-
sisted reason of man. What in the physical world the tele-
scope does to the heavens, in the moral world the Bible does
to the mind and heart. Here alone we might rest our argu-
ment for the divine origin of the Bible. We might say, if
the reason of man has never found out such truths, and if
the truths that reason has made known are revealed with a
hundredfold distinctness in revelation, then certairily such a
production must come from a higher than human source. But
let us consider the Bible as adapted to the conscience. The
conscience is a discriminating faculty. However perverted,
it does not lose all of its power or susceptibility to good im-
pressions. If treated as a slave, yet even when degraded by
abuse, and manacled with the chains of superstition, it is not
wholly deadened to every idea of right, or unconscious of all
moral beauty and equity. Trembling it may be in every
sinew and nerve, suffering it may be under the cruel lash of
bigotry and ferocious ignorance, yet even in its lowest estate
it will assert the high prerogatives of its existence and re-
veal the nobility of its divine original.
When false philosophy and the superstition of centuries
have thrown their black foliao-e over the foundation of the
TO HUMAN NATURE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 401
greatest of truths, 3'et conscience, the wall of adamant, is still
seen by the observer through the chinks and openings of that
fatal drapery that surrounds it. Consider, then, the adapta-
tion of the Bible to it. In the first place, conscience has a
natural sense of justice ; it feels that wrong should be pun-
ished, and goodness rewarded; it feels that inequality of
birth, or wealth, or station, does not give impunity to trans-
gression, or make wickedness right. It instinctively declares
that the man of rank and riches should not murder, or de-
fraud, or in any way injure his neighbor, any more than the
man of obscurity and poverty ; it pronounces the law right
when its penalty is visited impartially upon all transgressors
and none are suifered to escape punishment when condemned
as guilty. AYhat conscience declares is right to be done to
others, it declares is right to be done to self. Take two per-
sons, a man guilty of an atrocious crime and a man innocent
of it. You cannot reverse the decision of conscience in these
two persons. The feeling and the approbation of innocence
cannot dwell in the heart of the guilty man ; neither can the
sting of remorse embitter the thoughts of him guiltless of this
crime.
Such being conscience, what is its decision in respect to
the actual existing state of the world ? Here often crime is
triumphant and vice successful, while virtue frequently is de-
famed, and goodness pining in want. Here is the strongest
inequality of merit, ignorance and vice advanced to wealth
and rank, while knowledge and virtue are condemned to djes-
titution and suffering. It is often true that crime will se-
cure rewards that ignorance sighs for in vain. The natural
feeling of justice, that conscience possesses, declares that such
a disturbed state of things, such an inequality of merit, should
be adjusted in another state. If here punishment and reward
cannot be meted out to every individual, there should be
another state, where the equilibrium of justice will be
restored, where successful crime shall iind no impunity, and
unrewarded virtue shall completely triumph. The Bible
meets this discriminating sense of justice in conscience; it
acknowledges the disorders of the present world, and makes
26
402 ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE
certain another state where those disorders shall be rectified.
Thus, as long ago as the time of Job, we read of a state of
things like that which exists at the present day. Some, says
he, " remove the landmarks : they violently take awa}'
flocks, and feed thereof. They drive away the ass of the
fatherless. They take the widow's ox for a pledge. They
cause the naked to lodge without clothing, that they have no
covering in the cold. They pluck the fatherless from the
breast, and take a pledge of the poor. Men groan from out
of the city, and the soul of the wounded criethout: yet God
layeth not folly to them." " Wherefore do the wicked live,
become old, yea, are mighty in power? Their seed is estab-
lished in their sight with them, and their offspring before
their eyes. They spend their days in wealth, and in a mo-
ment go down to the grave."
" The earth," says he, " is given into the hands of the
wicked, he covereth the faces of the judges thereof; if not,
'"Where and who is he?' " As much as to say, this must be
reconciled, whether we can reconcile it with the righteous
government of God or not. Thus was Job perplexed before
the light of Christianity.
The Psalmist found no relief under the same difficulty
until he went to the sanctuary of God and there saw the end
of the wicked. Solomon, too, says, " Moreover, I saw under
the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there,
and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there."
Then, as furnishing the true solution of the difficulty, he ex-
claims, "I said in my heart, God shall judge the righteous
and the wicked."
Thus revelation refers those cases which need adjudication
to God and a future state, and thus complies with that princi-
ple of equity that is felt in every conscience. In this respect,
how peculiarl}' adapted is the Bible to the conscience! It
assures the mind of a judgment to come, and of the restitution
of all things, when every difficulty shall be solved, and every
doubt removed of equity in the administration of the world.
But the Bible meets the demands of conscience in that it
furnishes a perfect system of ethics, or moral duties. Con-
TO HUMAN NATURE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 403
science is a faculty that discriminates between right and
wrong The Bible is distinguished above all other books
in that the conscience finds in it a standard of absolute per-
fection in every moral duty. It is alike comprehensive and
particular, comprisiug all duties to God and man, and yet
giving to each duty its appropriate value. It does not exalt
a minor virtue into a superior virtue, nor degrade the higher
traits of moral excellence to a subordinate position. It does
not affix an undue prominence to alms-giving and neglect
the duties of honest}- and truth. It does not extol courage
at the expense of humility, nor recommend fast-days and
festivals to the detriment of industry and justice. It enjoins
parental obedience and submission to civil magistrates, but
not when that obedience conflicts w^ith the higher claims of
God and humanity. It instructs servants to work faithfully
for their masters, and masters to treat their servants as chil-
dren of a common parent and brethren in the Lord. It dis-
countenances impurity in thought even as in overt act, and
yet affixes the seal of the divine approbation upon the sa-
cred ordinance of marriage, and carefully watches over that
solitary rose brought from the garden of Eden. It delegates
to man a sovereignty over the lower orders of creation, but
refuses to call him good who is unmerciful to his beast. Thus
the conscience finds in the Bible a perfect system of ethics, — a
summary of duties that comprehend all things needful to be
done in ever}' relation of life. But, what is of more importance,
all these duties have their proper place. Like some beauti-
ful temple of harmonious proportion, the ethics of the gos-
pel never conflict with each other; from the foundation to the
dome, every stone is where it should be, and every column
preserves its proper symmetry. Go round about that temple,
examine ever}' separate part and the whole collectively, and
the artist eye of an angel can neither discover a fault nor re-
commend an additional beauty. For fallen man the morality
of the Bible is just what it should be, and no better can be
made or even imagined. The ethics of the Bible are im-
measurably superior to those of any other book ; confirming
all the o-ood the lisfht of nature discovers, it adds to it a
404 ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE
morality peculiarly its own, and blends both together in a
way impossible to be improved upon. What better code of
morality than the ten commandments ? What discourse
more excellent than Christ's sermon on the Mount ? Historj-
has shown us how distorted a morality human ingenuity can
get up when it attempts to improve upon the Bible, — when
it sets itself up to be wiser than God. Thus, for ages, celi-
bacy was recommended as the pattern of all goodness, and
marriage contemned even when monkish presumption dared
not to call it wrong ; but the fruit of this extra virtue was wide-
spread dissoluteness, and the sacrifice for an imaginary excel-
lence of the noblest of social blessings, as well as the most
commanding of domestic duties. Thus, for ages, fasts and
penances were unduly extolled, and an exaggerated merit put
upon the laceration of the body and the denying the lawful
claims of our physical nature ; and the consequence was a
Pharisaical righteousness and the forgetting of the chief duties
of the gospel. Thus, for ages, festival days and pilgrimages
were observed; and the fruit was universal idleness and pov
erty. Thus, in times past and at the present daj-, socialistic
ideas of civil government, of servitude, of the domestic rela-
tion, and of the free community of persons and goods, have
prevailed, and the maxims of the gospel have been derided
as antiquated and oppressive ; but the fruit of all this progress
beyond the Bible has been found to be only strife, impurity,
and dissoluteness. So exactly adapted is the morality of the
gospel to conscience and the state of man as a fallen being,
that every attempt to improve upon the Bible in its represen-
tations of human nature, in any of its maxims, or the duties
imposed upon us as members of the family or the state, has
invariably proved a failure. The ordinances of God have
shown themselves better and wiser than the devices of man.
If, now, the Bible is not from God, why is it that the con-
science finds in it a truthfulness, a propriety, an adaptation,
and an excellence in the morality enjoined that it finds in no
other book? IIow happens it that, if this is a human pro-
duction, its ethics are so superior, that the greatest skeptics
speak of it in its moral duties as the best, the purest, the
TO HUMAN NATURE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 405
noblest of books ? How happeus it that a volume that
consists of sixtj'-six separate books, of Avhich tlie book of
Psalms contains no less tlian one bnndrecl and fifty dis-
tinct compositions, — a volume tbat contains many hundred
separate treatises, having no other connection with each
other than that they treat of the same general matters or
were composed by the same persons, — a volume of differ-
ent compositions, that occupied a period of fifteen or six-
teen centuries in their production, and which professes to
cover, historically and prophetically, the whole period of
man's existence upon this earth, — a volume embracing every
variety of style, — whose principal authors were about thirty,
not including those under the general division, from every
rank in life, kings, shepherds, magistrates, soldiers, scholars,
judges, priests, generals, fishermen, farmers, tax-gatherers, —
a volume with ethics so pure, with no collision of facts, no
disagreement of truths, alike the most diversified and yet the
most unique, — a volume embracing the whole circle of duties
to God and man, adjusted for every age, appropriate for all
countries, alike good for the peasant-boj^ and the king, the
Tefined and the rustic, the rich and the poor, — a guide alike
excellent for every conscience, suitable for all times and oc-
casions,— how happens it that such a volume should spring
from human contrivance and be alone the offspring of human
learning? How happens so great an agreement with so
wonderful a diversity of subjects ? No other such book is
there in all the libraries of the world. How wonderful that
moral duties should be so delineated and enforced as to be
recognized appropriate and excellent by the conscience in all
ages and countries ! If ethics so pure, so universal, so com-
manding, were only of human origin, would it not be a mira-
cle of strangeness more wonderful than all other miracles
too'ether? If the writers of these books were honest men,
they would not palm off their compositions as divine, if
they were human ; and if these men were dishonest, the}^
could not. Take which supposition we please, and we arrive
at the same conclusion: honesty would not, and dishonesty could
not, compose the Scriptures.
406 ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE
There is an incidental proof of the divine origin of the
Bible deserving of high consideration. This proof consists
in the fact that, while so perfectly adapted to the conscience
as a discriminating power, it never attempts to secure an in-
fluence over the conscience by any of those methods so
common in false religions. Every system of human inven-
tion is local in its nature, and consults present advantage
rather than future success. Thus we find all the common
ideas of science and art prevailing at the time the pretended
revelation is made, eagerly made use of as available to secure
a power over the conscience. No matter Avhether those pop-
ular ideas are true or false, no matter whether they corre-
spond to actual facts in science or not, they are embodied in
all the antichristian Bibles. Thus it is only necessary to give
the actual truths of natural science and philosophy to prove
false the heathen shasters, and every production of man pre-
suming to claim a divine origin. A correct demonstration
in astronomy or chemistry will undermine the whole fabric
of any book professing to be a revelation from God, other
than the Bible.
What is the course pursued in the Scriptures ? Had the
actual facts of science been made known, the ages in which
the different treatises of the Bible were written would not
have been prepared to receive them ; and had the folse ideas
been communicated, after-ages of infidels would have gloried
over the fallibility of the Bible, the conscience would have
been imposed upon by untruths, and the proud philosophers
of the present day would have pointed with a skeptical sneer
to the Bible as a musty collection of antiquated notions,
unfit to be received by the more advanced children of civil-
ization and knowledge.
But what is the fact? "With a studied reserve and a
guarded caution impossible for uninspired men to exercise,
all the compositions of the Bible were made. The unavoid-
able prejudices and feelings of ages less enlightened found
nothing in the Bible to contradict directlj' the prevailing
opinions in astronomy, chemistry, and geolog}", and at the
same time nothing to substantiate or confirm those opinions.
TO HUMAN NATURE AND THE CONSCIENCE. 407
The lauguage of popular life, even as at present, was made
use of, but in no such sense as to authorize the belief of a
single false statement in science, history, or physical geogra-
phy. Here consists the immeasurable superiority of the
Scriptures to everj' human production. Take any history,
or important composition of poetry or philosophy of any
one age, and the prevailing errors of the day are found inter-
woven into it. N"ot so, however, in the Bible; adapted
to the age in which each separate treatise was written, ex-
tending over a period of sixteen centuries, it has in it not
one false statement in science, — it seeks to impose upon the
conscience not a single influence that owes its charm to error.
It is as true to the intellectual as to the moral nature ; and
every research of the present day, in every department of
knowledge, is forced to acknowledge the consummate wisdom
that dictated the writings of the Bible ; a wisdom infinite in
foresight, and not less infinite in beauty of adaptation ; a wis-
dom so great that the revelation of the remotest age of anti-
quity can be adjusted to the present day, and from which not
a single chapter can be spared without a detriment to the
whole.
But the Bible is not only adapted to the conscience in that,
unlike false religions, it seeks to secure no influence over it
by error, but especially in that it afibrds to the conscience
the only firm and the only good foundation to rest upon.
There is that in man's nature that points to something higher
than man, higher than law itself, higher than all created
power, as necessary to save from sin. There is that in con-
science that cannot be satisfied with the imposing glare of
religious deceit, or the most attractive mummeries of super-
stition. There is a feeling in conscience that can find no
resting-place except it be in the cross of Christ. As the
dove sent out of the ark by Noah flew restless over the waters
of a drowning world, and found no green spot to repose her
wearied body amid the wide-spread desolations of the flood,
80 conscience can find no resting-place in false religions, and
wanders unsatisfied among the ruins of a fallen nature. It
is in the Bible alone that the conscience finds its deepest
408 ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE, ETC.
wants met. Here is found that perfect key that opens the
door of human nature. What more convincing argument
to reveal its origin from God ?
Why for so many ages, if the Bible is not divine, have not
human wisdom and learning found out something adapted
to the conscience ? How happened it, if the Bible is not
from God, that there sprang up amid the mountains of Judea,
amid a nation comparatively obscure and in every respect
inferior to the renowned nations of antiquity in learning,
in refinement, in science, in philosophy, and art, a book
adapted to the conscience in all ages and in every land ; a
book so superior that it has triumphed over every device of
superstition and every argument of infidelity; so superior
that conscience finds alone in it a perfect standard of conduct
and yet the only panacea for sin ; so superior that it has
found its way to millions of firesides and is bowed to as di-
vine alike in the palace and the hovel ; so superior that it
has supplanted the proudest systems of superstition, and
formed the foundation of the highest civilization of modern
times ; so superior that it has commanded the respect and
obedience of the wisest and best of every age, and for whose
preservation the blood of countless martyrs has flowed, and
would yet flow, if necessary, to the last hour of time ?
CHAPTER XII.
ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE TO THE AFFECTIONS AND THE WILL.
The popular language of the word of God in respect to
the affections will be found, upon a careful examination, to
embody more truth in the relation which the affections sus-
tain to the intellect and the will, than can be found in any
metaphysical treatise. The difficulty often in metaphysical
reasoning is that the will is divorced from the affections and
considered too exclusively the moving agent of human con-
duct ; but, in fact, the affections have as much to do with our
actions as the will has. The will is the executive agent, and
its decisions control the conduct: without volition we will
never act. But what is it, in the main, that leads to volition ?
what is it that makes the will decide upon any course of life ?
Evidently, the affections : lying back of the will, they yet
most powerfully influence it. Whenever the will attempts
to act contrary to the affections, the action is constrained, re-
luctant, and cheerless. The outward obedience may be ren-
dered, but inwardly there is sometliing that hangs like a
weight upon the will; that something acts constantly as a
restraining power, ever increasing in energy, until, like a roll-
ing ball under the influence of ceaseless friction, the will at
length stops.
Thus difficult is it in human conduct to act against the
affections. The intellect, the conscience, and the will may
all be upon one side, and yet if the affections are upon the
other side they will turn the balance. IIow often is this
seen in human life ! How often is it true that the lover of
strong drink, or of any other vice, has turned back again,
against his better judgment, against his conscience, and made
even the opposing will at last to yield ! Thus, in the Bible we
read, " With the heart man believeth unto righteousness,"
rather than with the will. The heart is the seat of the aftec-
(409)
410 ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE
tions, and it is always addressed in the Bible in preference to
tlie will: that right, and the will is right, — that wrong, and
the will must be wrong. The overlooking of this fact has
often occasioned great error in presenting the subject of reli-
gion to the mind. It is sometimes said that conversion con-
sists in volition; but conversion consists in a change of heart
rather than in right willing.
No difficulty about the will, if the heart is right; but unless
that is so, the will is more unmanageable than any mind can
conceive of. Its volitions are cheerless, reluctant, inconstant,
and feeble. There is a moral gravitation in the wrong di-
rection, a principle of vicious attraction that invariably over-
comes at last. Overt acts may indeed be performed, but a
loveless obedience is soon converted into open rebellion.
With the affections against the will, there is an under-current
of unremitting energy; nothing can effectually stem that
current. The will may try to do it, but every moment it
grows weaker. Before the will can grow daily in strength,
until it becomes fixed into habit, and habit becomes con-
verted into nature, there must be the turning of the affec-
tions. If the will has the affections upon its side, it will
triumph over all obstacles; if against it, the smallest impedi-
ments will be enough to prevent success. When the serpent
in the garden tempted Eve, the appeal first was made to the
understanding. The devil, skilled in the science of war,
stormed first the castle that guarded the entrance to the
affections. Says the tempter, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall
not eat of every tree of the garden ? As much as to say,
Is it possible that God, a good being, could have prohibited
a single tree in Eden ? Here doubt of the goodness and ve-
racity of God was suggested. Then comes the bold avowal,
" Ye shall not surelj" die." With the principle of confidence
in God destroyed, the next step to be taken is the securing
of the understanding. The tempter now appeals directly to
the strongest principle of human nature, — the love of knowl-
edge, or curiosity, and the love of ambition, or aggran-
dizement. " For God doth know that in the day ye eat
thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as
gods, knowing good and evil."
TO THE AFFECTIONS AND THE WILL. 411
The way is now folly open for the conquest of the aftec-
tions; these must lirst be gained over to the side of sin before
there is a direct action of the will. "And when the woman
saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant
to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she
took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her
husband with her, and he did eat."
Thus we see that the affections were appealed to in a
threefold way. The tree was good for food ; that carried'the
appetites: it was pleasant to the eyes; that gained over the
love of the beautiful : it was a tree to be desired to make one
wise ; that secured the love of knowledge. Here is a strik-
ing illustration of the manner in which the affections are
appealed to. The affections have to do with three parts of
our nature, — the sensuous, the sesthetic, and the intellectual.
One is the seat of the appetites, the other of the taste, and
the last of the reason. No sooner had these susceptibilities
of our nature been gained, than we read of the overt act
which consummated the decision of the will, in the words,
" She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat."
Let us, then, consider in what respect the Bible is adapted
to the affections. The affections are the emotional part of
our nature, intimately associated with the body, the taste,
ai>d the mind, — sensuous, ?esthetic, and intellectual. Let
us consider first the sensuous part of our nature. The
body, since the fall, with the animal wants has stepped be-
yond its legitimate sphere and encroached upon the nobler
part of man, the conscience and the mind. Appetite has
made man, created in the image of God, the slave of unlaw^-
ful desires. What is the result? The appetites getting
the ascendency over the conscience and the reason, the
affections are carried away by the sensuous part. In the
[esthetic and intellectual nature of man, also, all the suscepti-
bilities being upon the side of sin, the will and the con-
science are weakened and depraved. Before the fall the
affections were exactly balanced, and ever acted in harmony;
but since the fall the sensuous part of the affections has pre-
ponderated over the nobler part, and consequently the result
412 ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE
has beeu that sin, exercising a control over the affections in
every part, has, through the heart, made tributary to it the
wilL Consider, then, the adaptation of the Bible to the
aflections. In the first place, the Bible regulates the affec-
tions. The sensuous love that exists at the expense of the
aesthetic and intellectual is made subordinate to the nobler
principles of our nature. The gratification of the appetite
is considered inferior to the love of that which is beautiful,
or noble, or refined, or intellectual. Those mental and moral
traits that ally man to an angel are deemed infinitely superior
to those animal propensities that are common to the brutes.
But the Bible especially cultivates that part of the affections
which is most intimately connected with the conscience.
Thus, when the mind perceives some good action, some noble
or worthy deed in another, there is a feeling of moral appro-
bation. The affections are so constituted as to feel resent-
ment at wrong conduct, while they can be awakened to a
high degree of pleasure when there is the consideration of
some illustrious act that confers lasting benefit upon man-
kind. They can also be aroused to the deepest feeling of
contempt or hatred of some atrocious deed of treachery or
crime. Where except in the Bible is there such an appeal
made to the moral feelings ? Where are the affections in
any other book so often, so earnestly, and so effectually ad-
dressed in all that exalts or ennobles man? Here is man,
with a sensuous nature that from the fall constantly seeks,
with its passions and appetites, to encroach upon the nobler
class of affections. How is that ever-increasing tendency to
the undue gratification of sense to be obviated ? Evidently,
by the most skillfully adjusted system of motives to those
affections which comprehend the love of the beautiful, the
wise, and the good ; which are associated peculiarly with the
intellect and the moral sense. The affections find the Bible
in every respect adapted to every existing want of the social
and family relation. ISTo religion like Christianity so guards
and honors the relation of father and mother, or brother and
sister. Rather, other religions leave the most sacred ties of
nature exposed to the rude inroads of enemies ; other re-
TO TEE AFFECTIOyi^ AND THE WILL. 413
ligions pull down those barriers that God in nature has
erected to preserve the purity of the domestic institution ;
other religions foster those appetites that constantly need the
most vigilant caution to restrain. The pagan shasters and
the Koran of Mohammed have no effectual antidote to the
immoderate indulgence of the senses. Rather, in their delin-
eations of heathen gods or the paradise of the Mohammedan,
little or no restraint is exercised over the appetites. This
was a part of human nature too difficult to manage. Conse-
quently, we find license is given to those passions that, unlaw-
fully indulged in, do more to injure the moral and intellectual
part of man than all other sins together. Here the profound
wisdom of Christianity is displayed to most advantage. It
seeks not to destroy the passions, but to regulate them. It
keeps the river of sense within its natural bounds, and
throws up an embankment when its swelling waters would
deluge the land. By appealing more to the aesthetic and
intellectual part of the affections, it nicely preserves the
equipoise that ever should exist between the varied classes
of feelings that agitate the soul. Thus we find that the
affections have in the Bible their highest security and their
noblest development. Whatever is pure, or generous, or
noble, or good, whatever tends to repress what is low, or
deo'radino' to a human being-, finds in revelation a most
effectual aid.
The Bible is especially adapted to the afifections in the reli-
gious sensibilities. Man has moral feelings as well as appe-
tites : one allies him with the angels, the other with the brutes.
Thus, in the heart of man there are two classes of feelings,
each pulling in an opposite direction. That which pertains
to the moral nature speaks of God, of the future world, of
right and wrong, and of human accountability. That which
pertains to the sense urges on to sensuous gratification in its
varied forms. It is the preponderance of this part of the
afifections in the heart of man that leads him so constantly
into sin ; with mighty attraction it draws all the nobler feelings
after it, until by successive stages of debasement there seems
tobe obliterated, except in the intellect, everything that distin-
414 ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE
guishes a man from a brute. Here, then, consists the highest
adaptation of the Bible to the affections ; for that only is
adapted to them which ennobles and purifies them.
The religious sensibilities, the moral feelings, are most
effectually and constantly appealed to, cherished, and
strengthened. Where nature fails, a supernatural grace is
given. Thus, the whole tendency and aim of the Bible is to
reverse the fatal attraction in man's heart to that which per-
tains alone to the body. Compare by this test the religion
of Christ with the religions that disclaim Christianity. In the
one case we see a uniform, persevering effort to raise man
above the unlawful sway of the senses; in the other, as marked
an influence to bring him into bondage to his lower nature.
The one raises man to the level of the angel, the other de-
grades him to that of the brute. No matter if the intellect-
ual and iiesthetic part of the affections is addressed in other
religions than the Bible, — no matter if the heathen have
their code of morals that comprise some of the duties of life,
— yet we judge of false religions by their prevailing spirit and
tendency, not by their occasional virtues. By such a test, what
contrast greater than that which exists between the religion
of Christ and every system that disavows Christianity ?
But the Bible is adapted to the affections in the intimate
sympathy manifested toward those who suffer when the ties
of social life and of family are sundered. What more sooth-
ing than the w^ords of consolation addressed to him who has
lost a father, or mother, or brother, or sister ? Where do
poverty and want find such supports when the world is dark
and life's pilgrimage is strewed with thorns ? A Bible for
the prosperous and the happy, — a Bible for sunny days and
bright skies, — a Bible for the noble, the rich, or the gifted, —
a Bible for such classes only, — such a Bible would be no
Bible for the great mass of mankind. It is the appropriate-
ness of Christ's religion for dark days and storms, for adverse
winds and the cold winter of life, that makes it most useful
and that most clearly reveals its divine origin. It is when
affliction, like night, comes down upon the heart, and suffer-
ing and pain are the daily lot, when friends are taken away
TO THE AFFECTIONS AND THE WILL. 415
and the dearest ties of earth are sundered, — it is in such a
fire that we test the purity of the gold. By such an ordeal,
how immeasurably superior the Bible is shown, to all other
books ! To the soul of man it speaks of Christ the Saviour,
of the resurrection, and the life of heaven, and the guardian
angels, — of God the infinite Father, and the Holy Spirit
the regenerator. Well might the martyrs rejoice at the
loss of all earthly things, well might they triumph upon the
rack and at the stake, Avhen themes so grand, so pure, so
noble, and so soothing absorbed the afiections. For every
deprivation of sense it repays by treasures whose value is
but faintly shadowed forth in the words, " a far more ex-
ceeding and eternal weight of glory."
Consider not only the appropriateness of the Bible to
the afiJections, but the wise indulgence it gives to them in
seasons of afiliction. Stoicism, with its rough severity, en-
genders an unnatural pride, while it sacrifices the natural
feelings. If it teaches us not to weep, it attains its end only
by the dismemberment of our nature. By repressing the
outbursts of natural affection, it converts humanity into a
stone. Far more wisely adapted is Christianity to our na-
ture. The great author of Christianity wept at the grave of
Lazarus, and in the sublime words, "Jesus wept," we have
humanity revealed in its noblest, its most exalted form.
Stoicism would destroy such a humanity; but in its ruin
would be buried the best part of man. Directly the reverse
of the influence of Stoicism is that of Epicureanism. The
afltections by this are brutified, drowned in a sea of sensuality.
They are stupefied and infinitely debased. The themes that
the Bible presents to the affections are pure, noble, and most
excellent. By them, while the affections are softened, the}-
are also strengthened, made to entwine around pillars of im-
mortal beauty and loveliness. But Epicureanism tramples
the affections into the mire and shuts out from the mind
every beam of glory. Its religion is. Eat, drink, and be merry.
Its only life is this world, and all that lies beyond is oblivion
and death. Thus it gives to the sensual gratification a value
most disproportionate, and, having no heaven in the future, it
416 • ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE
would make out the short pleasures of sense the ouly para-
dise for man. To man in darkness of mind, in those hours
when affliction throws gloom and wretchedness over the
soul, Epicureanism has the same unvarying lesson, the same
dull and groveling humanity, "Eat, drink, and be merry,"
and the lacerated feelings of the soul are soothed with the
only words, "Live while you live, the Epicure would say,
and seize the pleasures of the present da}-." How differently
are the affections treated in the Bible ! Before the riches of
heaven, earth's riches appear infinitely little; before the
pleasures of immortality, all the pleasures of the world
dwindle into insignificance.
Let us, then, consider the adaptation of the Bible to the
will. The will is intimately associated with the affections.
What, then, is true of the affections is equally so of the will.
What is adapted in the Bible to the one must be so to the
other. There are two aspects in which the will finds the
Bible adapted to it: first, as a regulating power; secondly,
as a strengthening and energizing power. When the appe-
tites and affections are enslaved by sin, the result is that the
will is to the last degree irregular and inconstant in the per-
formance of duty; it is so unstable in doing right that
every wind can blow it round the compass, and every breath
of air make it change from a right direction. The smallest
temptations will upset the best resolutions. What matters
it that the will is right this moment, if the next moment it is a
slave to every gust of passion or appetite ?
With the affections and appetites enchained by sin, the will
is mighty for vice and persevering in wrong. Like some
sick man in a delirium, it possesses great strengths and
weaknesses, now working miracles of energy, again more
feeble than an infant. Here it is that Christianity comes in
as a regulator to movements so inconstant and so vicious.
For every emergency of our nature it has its separate class
of motives ; those motives act in a twofold way : first as a re-
straining power, again as an invigorating power. Fear is
the mighty instrument by which it restrains the will from sin,
hope the elixir of life by which it. strengthens it to good.
TO THE AFFECTIONS AND THE WILL. 417
IsTo sanctions so terrible to the transgressor as those of
revelation, no inducements so persuasive to right action.
To the sinner, rushing impetuously into iniquity, it speaks
of the worm that never dies, and of the lire that is never
quenched; it speaks of a prison whose gate mercy never
enters, and of a punishment where justice never tires.
This is not the place for us to discuss the question of the
truth of such representations. Our only object now is to
consider the Bible as adapted to the will; and here, resting
the whole question of future punishment upon the fitness of
things, we say, that to accomplish the end effectually of se-
curing men from sin, the element of fear in a divine revela-
tion is absolutely necessary. It is so in human governments ;
why not so in the divine government? All law rests upon
the element of fear; all penalties are but living embodiments
of fear realized. Constituted as men are, to make the Bible
adapted to restrain from sin, it must have the element of
fear ; and thus we find it. No book has in it such motives of
fear to deter the will from sin.
Consider also the Bible as adapted to the will, in having
the element of hope. Despair is the death of all action, the
eepulcher of all happiness. Did the Bible present but one
kind of motives, and that resting alone upon the element of
fear, no language could describe the gloom that would rest
upon all human affairs, no thought conceive of the depres-
sion that would weigh down the spirits of men. Observe
how revelation adjusts itself to that which most effectually
can move the will. "What are the inducements a skillful
general presents to his soldiers when the battle waxes hot
and gleaming swords and the storm-fire of death rage
around ? Is the element of fear, of disgrace, the certainty
of a worse end than that secured by the enem}^ alone ap-
pealed to? Far from it. A twofold combination of mo-
tive is presented, — fear and hope. Other principles of human
nature are addressed than those affected by fear. Amid the
smoke and the carnage of war, the soldier's eye is lighted
up with the hope of victory, the glory of conquest, and the
laurel of fame. Honor holds over his head her glittering
27
418 ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE, ETC.
crown, and the music notes of a nation's gratitude steal upon
his ear. Just so is it in the word of God. The Christian
soldier is nerved to his more diiBcult and far longer warfare
by a combination of motive to the will, surpassing all lan-
guage to describe. Would the tired soldier retreat and go
back to sin ? Fear stands at the gate of such a thought, and
urges him to stand his ground, by representations of disgrace
and ruin such as make the blood run cold to think upon.
Would he go forward ? Hope stands with angel smile, and
cheers him with music richer by far than earth's sweetest
minstrelsy. Thus, while on the one side the will is restrained,
on the other it is encouraged and strengthened. Deficient
in vital power, by seeking divine help a celestial energy is
bestowed ; then does it recover from its natural fickleness in
doing right, and perseveres in a true direction.
Thus, the will of man, by nature weak, inconstant, change-
able, and uncertain, becomes, through the word of God im-
parting to it a vital power, strong, constant, unwavering, and
fixed, and triumphs at last, with heaven for its home, Christ
for its portion, and immortal blessedness for its reward. We
could not, if we would, improve upon the philosophy of the
Bible.
CHAPTER XIII.
ADAPTATION OP THE BIBLE TO THE INTELLECT AND THE
IxMAGINATION.
Man is a complex being ; he has body, soul, and spirit.
The body is material, the soul mental, and the spirit directly
of divine origin. Thus, we read of the body at death return-
ing to the dust, but of the spirit as returning to God who
gave it. The soul and spirit of man possess not only a con-
science, or a moral nature, but most intimately associated
with that nature are the intellect, the imagination, the affec-
tions, and the will. If it is of the highest importance that
the Bible should be adapted to the conscience, which pecu-
liarly distinguishes man as a moral agent, it is no less
important that there should be an adaptation in the Bible
to the other faculties of man's nature; but most intimately
associated with that nature are the intellect, the imagination,
the affections, and the will.
Let us, then, consider the adaptation of the Bible to t|je
intellect of man. Before truth can reach the conscience
and the affections and direct the will, it must first be per-
ceived by the intellect. The understanding must be en-
lightened, or the heart cannot be reached. Christianity is a
system of great truths ; and these truths must be apprehended,
or the conscience and the will cannot act. Thus we see
Christianity comes to us as light comes to the material
world. The very design of the Bible is to chase away moral
darkness. One of its chief ends is to correct the errors of a
wrong understanding. But how is this to be done ? Evi-
dently, by the communication to the mind of new truths,
and the making clearer old truths, by telling us what the un-
aided light of nature cannot reveal, and making more sensible
to the mind those truths which it may reveal. Thus we find
(419)
420 ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE
the Bible : it comes to us not as the enemj^ of natural re-
ligion, not to oppose or supplant it, but to give an immeasur-
able value to every truth of nature, and then to supply what
it is most essentially deficient in by new truths of its own.
Christianity, then, is adapted to the intellect in that it tells
us, in respect to all moral duties, truths more clearly than
nature, and adds others peculiarly its own. It takes every
sound timber out of the old fabric of nature, and reconstructs a
new temple of truth with every material available in the old. It
gives to the intellect strength, by giving to it light ; it greatly
expands the mind, by giving to it worthy objects of contem-
plation. As food nourishes the body, so do the truths of the
Bible nourish the mind of man, imparting vigor, energy, di-
rectness of application, and comprehension of thought. But
the Bible greatly enlarges the intellect by the variety of sub-
jects upon which it treats. Commencing with the fall of
man, it carries the understanding through ages of time, even
until the mediatorial kingdom of Christ is delivered up unto
the Father. From the infancy of humanity to its highest
maturity, from the blissful Eden of primeval innocence to
the last closing scenes of a redemptive process, we find com-
prehended an epitome of maij's history. In antiquity no
book is like the Bible. Some of its treatises were written
far beyond the age of Herodotus ; far beyond the founding
of Greece or Rome ; far beyond the time when Homer sang
of Ulysses and Priam and ruined Troy; far beyond any
authentic history of the most ancient nations of Asia or
Africa. Of the vast interval of time that comprehended the
antediluvian world, of those centuries that elapsed after the
flood to the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, no unin-
spired history can give any intelligent account. All is in-
volved in fable or dreamy speculation. But the Bible, briefly
and sufHciently for our wants if not for our curiosity, has
bridged over the mighty chasm that separates authentic
from fabulous history; it has supplied the lost links in that
great chain essential for any intelligent comprehension of
man's history and destiny. Not only does the intellect find
this great want supplied, but it has an unbounded field
TO THE INTELLECT AND IMAGINATION. 421
for the noblest exercise in the vast, the diversitied and deep
truths communicated.
God might have given us a Bible consisting of onl}^ one
book, and yet that book would be more valuable to us, as
coming from God, than all the libraries in the world; but he
has given to us, in the Old and New Testaments, sixty-six
books. These treatises are written in everj variety of stjde;
they are composed by the most diverse class of writers ; they
extend over a period of sixteen centuries, and yet compre-
hend, with the highest adaptation to after-ages, all the pecu-
liarities of language and customs of each separate period of
their composition. Particular and yet general, they embody
the widest latitude of style with the greatest beauty of lan-
guage. No uninspired productions have equaled the Scrip-
tures in intellectual merit. In poetry, David and Isaiah, in
the sublimity of their subjects, the majesty of their delinea-
tions, far excel Homer, Yirgil, Dante, or Milton. In liistory
no book can compare in value to Genesis. In ethics the in-
structions of Christ and the apostles, in respect to ever}- duty
of man, are infinitely superior to all other writings. Who
ever in philosophy has excelled Paul in depth or clearness ?
It is not only in the higher departments of literature that the
Bible is so superior, but also in the more delicate and refined
descriptions of incidents and persons. No appeals to human
sensibility are so chaste in beauty or so true to nature as those
found in the Scriptures. No story, for simplicit}^, or pathos,
or beauty of delineation, has yet equaled that of Joseph and
his brethren ; or, for appropriateness and surpassing direct-
ness of application, Nathan's parable to David. Thus, were
the Bible looked upon only as a book for the intellect, its ab-
sence could not be supplied by all other books. What has
so waked up the human mind as the Bible? What has so
absorbed the attention of all thinkers as the Scriptures ?
From the nursery, where childhood's youngest days are spent,
to manhood's highest development, the Bible has been the
book of books, so simple and clear in some parts that an in-
fant can understand, and in others so deep, so profound and
mysterious, as to baffle the keenness of an angel's vision;
422 ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE
here a stream so lucid and gentle that a child may cross
unhurt, and there an ocean of thought so interminable and
so majestic as to elude forever all human discovery.
But the chief merit of the Bible as a production for the in-
tellect is that every important truth of immediate utility and
pertaining to direct duty, either to man or to God, is revealed
with the utmost clearness. What is necessary to save man
as a sinner and make him better for this world and lit for
heaven, is communicated with the most wonderful appropri-
ateness and directness. When the Bible is read, there is some-
thing in its style so unlike that of all other books, such a deep
transparency of thought in respect to our nature, such amazing
sagacity to detect all the windings of man's heart, a wisdom
so unequaled for its suitableness to the everyday duties of
life, that the most common conviction of the mind, even when
the evidence of miracles and of prophecy is not considered, is,
Such a book must proceed frDm God himself. Who else can
produce it? Where that college of sages existing over the
long period of sixteen centuries, who could have composed
the Scriptures, embodying the excellences of every age and
adapted to the wants of all, — whose truths, like virgin gold,
are unalloyed with error and absolutely free from an}' imper-
fection ? But the Bible is also most suitable for the intel-
lect in that it closely imitates nature in its composition.
Look to the material world ; the great facts of science do
not all lie upon the surface of things ; running through all the
works of nature there is a vast system, or order of arrange-
ment; but that order is concealed from common observers.
The mind must study long and patientlj', Avith earnestness
and the docility of a child, before even the outlines of that
mysterious harmony will reveal itself. The intellect must be
tasked before it can grasp even the rude shadow of that glo-
rious order that reigns triumphant in nature. Here, in the
universe of God's works, the mind of man may wander over
riches surpassing all thought ; but yet that mind must work.
All around nature profusely spreads her unexhausted stores ;
but they come not to man without his own exertion. Just
80 is it in the Bible. Here are pearls and diamonds, there
TO THE INTELLECT AND HI AGINATION. 423
rubies and sapphire stones, and gold and silver, and marble
and iron ; but man must use his intellect to get at them ; he
must work, as in nature, to be rich, with the riches of the
word of God. These treasures lie concealed beneath the sur-
face ; they call for vigorous energy to secure them ; and never
yet did an earnest mind fail in having a reward. Here con-
sists peculiarly the adaptation of the Bible to the intellect. ISTo
other book has ever so awakened, or can so awaken, man's
thoughts. How noble that order, that all-comprehending
system that reigns in nature! How divine the harmony that
exists in the works of God ! But the Bible reveals to the
intellect an order more glorious and a harmony more beau-
tiful in the moral world. It reveals the moral law extending
over angels and men, with a wider range than that of the
mysterious principle of attraction that keeps planets and suns
in their spheres. It reveals a system of redemption far more
wonderful than nature's greatest truths.
But the Bible is also adapted to the intellect in that it
reveals the best kind of knowledge. There are two depart-
ments of knowledge. One has reference to the separate
parts that go to make up the whole, and the other to the ulti-
mate design of the whole. The former, to a good degree,
may be attained by man without a revelation direct from
God ; but the latter is altogether beyond human cogni-
zance. Thus, a man may tell the relation the bones bear to
the body, and how the process of digestion is carried on, or
how the blood flows and the muscles and veins are connected
with the body; but no man, without a divine revelation, can
tell the great end of existence, or the ultimate design of God
in creation, or what should be the chief object of human ex-
istence. We may know something of the relations of parts
to the whole, but not the ultimate object of the whole itself.
Here man's knowledge must fail him, when he attempts to
explain the great mystery of the end of man in creation,
and the ultimate design of the redemptive system, coeval
with the fall of maii ; a system devised from eternity by God,
and destined to be carried on through higher and yet
higher stages of development, until the redeemed of the
424 ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE
human family shall reach a stage of absolute perfection;
until in heaven the regenerated family of man shall look
back upon the old home of their sorrow and sin as the mari-
ner upon the ocean looks upon the dim and far-distant outlines
of some barren island where once he had spent days of ship-
wreck and of trouble. Such a system, in its ultimate end,
cannot be apprehended by an uninspired mind. It demands
a knowledge far superior to human power. Thus the intel-
lect, in the Bible, is impressed not only with the beauty of
the several parts that go to make up the whole, but with the
perfection of the whole and the design of the system of Chris-
tianity itself The mind finds in the Bible a system old as
the world, coeval with man, and extending through successive
stages of higher development to the last hour of time; a
system that adjusts itself to every age and yet is equal to the
wants of all ages ; a system rich with the treasures of the
Godhead, and alike universal in its sanctions and its bless-
ings ; a system waking up the mind with ideas of the most
amazing grandeur, and presenting for action the most pow-
erful motives.
The Bible is also peculiarl}- adapted to the intellect in that
for the multitude it presents the most useful and appropriate
subjects of thought. To the favored few of wealth and
leisure and highly cultivated taste, to that smaller number
who are giants in reason and scholarship, no book is more
worthy of study than the Bible ; they may know ever so
much, but there are fields of thought in the Scriptures that
can never be explored, subjects too great for angels to grasp.
But the mass of mankind have not the advantages of wealth
and learning. The pressing calls of business, and those
avocations that demand constant labor, leave but little time
for study or reading. Now, the Bible is just the book for
the multitude. It is not so voluminous as to require for its
perusal much time, or so exclusively of one style as to be
unsuited to the different classes of minds. Children may de-
lischt themselves with its stories and histories; the more
advanced may ever meditate with profit upon its moral truths
and reasonings. Some may please themselves more with the
TO THE INTELLECT AND IMAGINATION. 425
sympathy and patience of Job, others with the everyday wis-
dom of Solomon. Some may love more the lofty devotion
of David, others the sublimity of Isaiah or Ezekiel. The
lover of narrative may be more attracted by the books of
Moses, while the keen investigator of deep things may find
a mine of gold in the revelations of Daniel and John. No-
thing in solemnity, or beauty, or appropriateness, can equal
the teachings of the apostolic epistles. And yet there is
another adaptation of the Bible to the intellect which should
never be omitted. It is the revelation of a remedy for sin.
This has been alluded to in considering the adaptation of the
Bible to the conscience; but there is a natural restlessness
in the mind of man in connection with conscience, that needs
something to moderate the anxiety of thought that arises
under the consciousness of sin.
In nothing is the Bible more appropriate to the intellect
than in that, when received into the heart, it gives peace alike
to the understanding and the conscience. Man may degrade
himself to the level of the brutes ; he may practically think
and act as if eating and drinking and sleeping and hoard-
ing up money constituted the chief and only business of life;
but there is something about the intellect that will not always
be cajoled by such a perversion of its powers; the fires of
an innate immortality will at times blaze forth, and the
thoughts restlessly ponder the great question of human des-
tiny. When, then, the intellect and the conscience both are
awakened, the scoff of the skeptic or the sneer of the infidel
will not always lull into slumber with the delusive idea that
death is an eternal sleep, or that man and the brute differ
only in respect to their bodily construction or animal wants.
When the mind in any respect apprehends the great truth of
the immortality of the soul, it will ponder the question of
its probable happiness or miser}^ in the future ; it will medi-
tate upon the nature and end of sin, and shrink with in-
stinctive fear from its legitimate fruit. The intellect of man
needs not only the Bible to show how it may attain true
peace, but it needs it to give a right end and purpose to the
mind.
426 ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE
The world is full of wasted intellects, genius misapplied,
aud learning abused. Let no man talk of the waste of
money, when the waste of mind is infinitely greater. While
man has a soul, he must think; before thought can be
stopped, the mind itself must be annihilated. The question
is not whether a mind shall think, that is already settled,
but hoio it shall think. Shall man immortal think only of
his animal wants, the gratification of his sensual nature, or
shall he think upon his destiny for two worlds, upon God
and Christ, and being good, and fitting himself for a holier
and better state than this life? If such subjects should
awaken attention and employ the thoughts of man, then for
such an object the Bible is alike the greatest and the best of
books.
The Bible is adapted equally to the imagination. Says
Stewart, " The faculty of the imagination is the great
spring of human activity, and the principal source of human
improvement. As it delights in presenting to the mind
scenes and characters more perfect than those which we are
acquainted with, it prevents us from ever being completely
satisfied with our present condition or with our past attain-
ments, and engages us continually in the pursuit of some un-
tried enjoyment or of some ideal excellence." Again he
says, " Tired and disgusted with this world of imperfection,
we delight to escape to another, of the poets' creation, where
the charms of nature wear an eternal bloom, and where
scenes of enjoyment are opened up to us suited to the vast
capacities of the human mind."
The imagination may be looked upon as a source of enjoy-
ment and principle of activity. In one respect it gives the
highest pleasure, in another it inspires to action and exists
as an eflicient agent in moulding the human character. God
has given to man no impertinent faculty. In the material
world we find that beauty is consulted as much as utility.
Flowers are not suitable for food, but they are none the less
good in their place. They are a high source of pleasure;
their beauty pleases the eye, and their fragrance the sense
of smell. Now, the imagination is a faculty that loves to
TO THE INTELLECT AND IMAGINATION. 427
form ideal pictures of loveliness and joy. How airy are its
castles in youth ! How is manhood charmed with its crea-
tions !
The question, then, is. How shall the imagination God has
given to man be most suitablj' employed ? "Where shall it
iind its purest enjoyment and its noblest sphere of activity ?
In the Bible, is the reply. How often has an ill-regulated
fancy engendered the worst mischief to the mind ! How
often have its feverish dreams embittered the sweets of life
and unfitted for active duty ! How often has its improper
exercise created a sickly sensibility, and nourished a mental
disease as pernicious as au}^ malady that ever has affected
the body ! But in the Bible, while the imagination has the
widest scope, there are innumerable checks to its unlawful
rovings. Here every element of beauty is brought into re-
quisition, and infinitely nobler paintings than nature can
offer. Here a richer rainbow of colors spans the sky than
man ever saw arching the material heavens. Here the judg-
ment day and the resurrection morn, here the world en-
veloped in one sheeted flame, and the archangel's trump, and
the Son of God descending from the skies, and the great
white throne, and angels innumerable, and myriads of hu-
man beings, are the themes for contemphition. Where such
another field for the imagination ? where other elements of
such sublimity and transcendent glory? The imagination
needs realities to dwell upon, — not dreams. There, in the
Bible, are living certainties surpassing the highest stretch of
thought. Here "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither
have entered into the heart of man, the things which God
hath prepared for them that love him."
But the Bible is adapted to the imagination in that it gives
perfect models for imitation. Thus, it is peculiarly con-
structed as a formative power to the imagination ; it regulates
it, moulds it into a proper shape, and preserves it from false
standards of character. No language can describe the mis-
chief engendered by the imagination degrading virtues into
vices and elevating vices into virtues ; and yet the whole
heathen mythology is full of this inversion of moral traits.
428 ADAPTATION OF THE BIBLE
"Witness the pagan representations of heaven, the specuha-
tions of Plato respecting a future state, the Hindoo system
and transmigration of souls, and the paradise of Mohammed.
How impure and unnatural the heathen gods ! How debasing
their morality ! How pernicious their influence upon the
mind! Now, the most marked effect of the Bible upon the
imagination is, it purifies while it strengthens it; it retines
and 3'et regulates it. It exerts a mighty power in preserving-
it from the seductive charms of sense and time keeping it
from the corruption of the world while elevating it above the
world. Thus, the imagination, by reading the Bible, is not
only kept from Utopian dreams, but exists in the soul as a
deep incentive to useful action. Coming in contact with the
mind of God, dwelling upon holy and divine themes, it
catches the immortal fire of heaven, warm with the flame of
the sacred altar; it stimulates the dormant faculties of the
soul, gives new strength to the afl'ections and new energy to
the will. Thus the Christian martja' serenely encounters
the torture of the stake, and sings hymns of victory upon
the gibbet and the rack. Thus, when pagan persecution
became hot as Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, even women and
children welcomed death, and the aged and the infirm exult-
ingly gave themselves up to the civil power. Thus, under
the cruel sway of papal bigotr}-, we read of the heroic firm
ness of the Waldenses and the Albigenses, and the noble
army of Huguenot martyrs, and Scotland's bravest sons. Call
this, if you please, an excited imagination; it was an imagi-
nation with reason for its guide and God for its end. It was
an imagination purified by fine gold, and as superior to the
cold and selfish maxims of the world as heaven is higher
than the earth. It was an imagination reposing on no
damask cushions, regaled with no voluptuous incense, and
dwelling in no marble palace, but disciplined in the rough
school of adversity, with the storm-cradle of war for its
couch, and hunger and nakedness for its daily lot.
Call not that of human origin that can so elevate man
above this earth ; say not that a book that can so reach every
faculty of man can be the fruit of uninspired wisdom. Go,
TO THE INTELLECT AND IMAGINATION. 429
if not yet convinced, to the death-bed of the Christian, and
witness amid the dissolutions of nature the last utterances of
the good. Observe the smile that lights up the countenance
ere yet the spirit has left the body; meditate upon the hope,
the peace, the faith, and the joy that leave their last impress
upon that countenance now fixed in the slumber of the grave ;
and then think not strange the exclamation of a celebrated
intidel, when questioned by his child in whose system he
should believe, m Afs or that of her Christian mother : "Believe,
my child, in the religion of your mother T'
CHAPTER XIV.
MORAL POWER OF CHRISTIANITY.
In the two kinds of evidence that exert an influence upon
the heart, we see that the evidence which convinces the rea-
son differs only from that which satisfies the feelings by the
mode in which it is apprehended. Reason arrives at proof by
a slow process, the affections by a quick process ; the former
is protracted in time, the latter immediate. The sphere of
the one is the intellect, that weighs and compares arguments;
the other the moral sensibilities, that instinctively decide
upon the question of right and wrong, of fitness or unfitness.
The sensibilities are intimately affected by whatever pertains
to moral beauty and harmony, just as we see in a harp that
the kind of music given is made to depend upon the skill
and delicacy of the touch of the hand. Thus with the moral
sensibilities: some foreign power must reach those sensibili-
ties and come in contact with them, before there comes forth
a response.
The first evidence of the moral power of Christianity upon
the human soul is shown in the exclusive supremacy it gives
to God, and the infinite authority of his will to control our
conduct. When, then, the Bible is welcomed into the heart
of man, the intellect pronounces that such an authority has
to support it, in the Bible, sufficient evidence for belief; and
the sensibilities pronounce a decision in favor of the right-
ness and fitness of such an authority. Consequently, Christi-
anity reveals itself as a power, a divine power, lajdng alike its
sanctions upon the reason and the affections, compelling the
one to assent to the divine truth of the Bible, and the other
to admit the divine excellence of the Bible. Thus is there
made known a power bringing into captivity the thoughts
(430)
MORAL POWER OF CHRISTIANITY. 431
and feelings to the obedience of Christ, and leading the rea-
son and the conscience to the condition of submission to the
authority of God. It is in this respect that religion owes its
very meaning. Its derivation, from the two words re and ligo^
is to bind anew, or bind over again. Thus Christianity as a
religion evinces its power in binding anew the mind and
heart to the service of God, and urging to a cordial obedience
the reason and the conscience, throwing over both the com-
mianding sanctions of a superior power, and leading to its re-
ception from the conviction of the transcendent excellence of
the divine will. It. is this peculiarity that distinguishes the
Bible from uninspired productions. When we read the
words of a man, we find that, resting upon no higher au-
thority than human reason, we are at liberty to treat those
words according to that common standard by which we
measure one man by another or compare ourselves with
others of mankind. But when we read the words of God
the case is altogether difi'erent: we come then to a standard
of belief and practice as far above man as God himself is
above the creature. Here we see a power revealed by which
anew the reason and the conscience are bound, a power that
rests itself upon omnipotence and a wisdom as boundless
as the universe.
Such is the manner in which Christianity comes to us. It
comes making known to the reason and the sensibilities a
standard of belief and practice that embodies in it not only
a divine authority, but a revelation of that which is as supe-
rior to the unassisted light of nature as heaven is higher
than the earth. Consequently, we see in the Bible a sacred-
ness that is absent in any production of man. There are
gleams and flashes in it of a divine light. We discover in
its representations of human nature a handwriting so pecu-
liar as to baffle alike the ingenuity of man to imitate or invent,
— such a deep transparency of wisdom, such inimitable con-
ciseness and yet comprehensiveness of thought, that the mind
of man seems to come, as it were, into the presence-chamber
of the Deity and see there reflected from its walls the bright-
ness of his glory. The moral power of Christianity is seen,
432 MORAL POWER OF CHRISTIAN.! TF.
like a mighty magnet, drawing to itself tlie endless diversi-
ties of human thought and feehng, infusing into the soul of
man a new Hfe, urging to duty by new ties, and controlling
with heavenly sanctions every conflicting element of the na-
ture of man. Another evidence of the moral power of Chris-
tianity is manifested in the harmony it preserves between
reason and faith. No word has been so misused as the word
faith in relation to the Bible and to Christ. Because faith
has its own peculiar sphere, it has often been imagined that
it is opposed to the reason, or in its nature hostile to it;
but such an objection would be equally valid against the
afl:ections. There is nothing in faith opposed to right
reason; it is only when reason is perverted, when it is abused
and transcends its sphere, that any issue exists between the
two. True faith is the result of the reason and the sensibili-
ties submitting to the reality of good evidence in the Bible
to prove it from God. It is simply the affectionate assent
of the mind to revealed truths so entire as to lead to right
practice. There can be no true faith without the exercise of
the reason, any more than without the exercise of the sensi-
bilities ; both are necessary for the existence even of faith.
Such being the fact, the power of Christianity is peculiarly
displayed in the harmony it institutes with faith and all the
faculties of the soul. The error of skepticism is that it over-
looks the true sphere of reason, while that of superstition is
that it binds it in its sphere. The one makes reason a home-
less fugitive without a guide; the other, a timorous slave
trembling under the lash of a tyrant. Thus it will be seen
that while the one drives reason over a sea of doubts, the
other imprisons it upon a desolate island. But Christianity
avoids both extremes, and preserves a happy medium be-
tween the two. Does not reason find in revelation a bound-
less field for activity ? Is it not there treated as a friend ?
Is anything demanded of it that is not most suitable? Is it
not right that reason should not go out of its sphere and re-
ject facts because of the difiiculties connected with those
facts ? "When belief upon the highest reason is demanded,
should reason object?
3I0BAL FOWEB OF CHRISTIANITY. 433
"What, then, is the rehition that faith sustains to reason and
the sensibilities in the Bible ? There are two kinds of evi-
dence to these two parts of our nature to show it from God.
Upon the great question of what is right, what in its nature
is fit and suitable, the sensibilities give an immediate re-
sponse in favor of the Bible. They declare that it is right
that God should command and man obej", that it is suitable
to practice the precepts of the Old and New Testaments, and
good to do that which they demand of us toward God and
man. There is a moral beauty in the Bible that the sensi-
bilities instinctively perceive; there is a correspondence to
the laws of our being that they at once recognize. They feel
that the divine law should tolerate no sin, and that its sanc-
tions are founded in justice ; however indisposed by sin,
they must yet confess the purity and excellence of Christ.
There is such a divine goodness about the Bible, such a
sympathy with man as a fallen being, such an interest dis-
played in his welfare, such a solicitude to heal his spiritual
maladies, that the sensibilities must feel that the Bible is the
best of books. The reason also, when it uses appropriately
the varied instruments which God has placed in its hands to
detect falsehood from truth, finds in the Bible no contradic-
tion in recorded facts, and no error in principles. All the
evidences from miracles and prophecy are found to be valid.
Reason is obliged to assent not only to the reality of the
proof, but to the greatness of the proof.
There is in the Bible a combined power of evidence, ac-
cumulating with every age, and growing brighter and
brighter with the flight of time. What, then, is the relation
that faith in the Bible sustains both to reason and the sensi-
bilities? Reason and the sensibilities having evidence enough
to prove the Bible from God, it only remains that the heart
should believe it such, and practice what it believes. The
moral power of Christianity is seen in that it ennobles both
the reason and the sensibilities and harmonizes both. The
sensibilities it makes pure, the reason it exalts. It recon-
ciles both. Conscience finding in revelation a right standard,
and reason a sufficient evidence, by a true belief they both
28
434 MORAL POWER OF CHRISTIANITY.
move on in unison. IS'o higher proof can there be to the
soul of the divine power of the Bible, than the peace it gives
to the conscience, and the assurance it imparts to the reason.
Man, as a fallen being, as a sinner before God, carries about
in his heart discordant elements, a state of perpetual dis-
quietude, and a ceaseless conflict in the sensibilities and the
reason. Conscience feels the existence of sin, and the reason
proves it.
Another illustration of the power of Christianity is dis-
played in the treatment of those sensibilities of our nature
that show human accountability. There are in our nature
religious wants that must be satisfied, a deep apprehension
of the justice of that Being before whose tribunal the con-
duct must pass for scrutiny and the deeds of a whole life be
examined.
Human nature must be annihilated before those sensibili-
ties that speak of obligation to the Deity, and that mysterious
relation that man sustains to God, can be destroyed. Amid
the grossest errors of superstition, or the blind groping of
skepticism, man yet carries about in his own heart that
which tells of duty to a superior Being and unfolds a dread
accountability to the infinite Creator of body and spirit.
In nothing is the power of Christianity more clearly seen
than in the cultivation of this religious sense in man, and
the careful fostering of those sensibilities that distinguish
him from the brutes. When Christianity speaks to our
moral nature, it touches upon that which at once reveals its
divine source. Amid the endless diversities of human char-
acter, it speaks of the greatness of man's spiritual wants
and the efficacj^ of the remedy as revealed in Christ. Chris-
tianity presents the only true sphere for the moral nature of
man. Away from God, reason becomes dark, and the sensi-
bilities corrupt. As the moral nature departs at a greater
distance from him, there reigns within a wider anarchy, or a
more debasing bondage to error. Christianit}^ tends directly
to reverse this downward progress : it counteracts the repul-
sive power of sin that alike darkens the intellect and corrupts
the heart. "With mighty attraction it brings it back to the
MORAL POWER OF CHRISTIANITY. 435
genial warmth of the suu, it melts that ice which encircles the
heart, it penetrates with its warm beams the frozen regions
of spiritual death, and creates the verdure of summer where
once ruled the desolation of winter.
But the peculiar power of Christianity is seen in the inti-
mate alliance with it of the Spirit of God. It was the co-
operation of the Eternal Spirit that first indited the words of
the Bible, and gives such energy to the truth of God. He is
a discerner of the thoughts ; with infinite sagacity he brings
to the conscience and the reason the truths of the Bible, and
compels us to look to the faithful exhibition of our own
hearts. Our motives are weighed in the balances ; our most
secret thoughts are scanned ; the deepest recesses of our
souls are laid open to our inspection. To make us know
ourselves is as much the aim of Christianity as to lead us to
the knowledge of God. Thus, the power of Christianity is
shown by leading the heart to the knowledge of itself and
the knowledge of God, leading to th'e renunciation of sin,
imparting to the soul new hopes, and throwing over every
relation of life new sanctions. Man, a sinner, through a
divine influence finds strength to resist temptation, courage
to contend with difficulties, and hope to inspire to effort.
Thus there begins in the soul a reverse movement from sin.
That fatal attraction of a corrupt nature that once kept from
the service of God is exchanged for that other attraction that
draws the heart to God, leading nearer and yet nearer to the
fountain-source of heaven's love, the peace of conscience,
and the enjoyments of that which surpasses all thought to
describe. The Holy Spirit always acts in unison with the
Sacred Scriptures ; he teaches no revelation not compre-
hended in the Bible; being the embodiment of the mind of
God, he takes of the inspired word and impresses that word
upon the heart of man, writing it as it were upon the table
of the soul with the point of a diamond, and inscribing in
legible characters those immutable truths contained in the
Holy Scriptures.
Thus the power of Christianity is seen by bringing the
sensibilities and the reason into a condition of obedience to
436 MORAL POWEB OF CHBISTIANITY.
God. As a messenger from heaven, the Bible comes to us
revealing Christ our Saviour, and opening up to the lost
family of man the way to eternal life. It urges us to listen
to the voice of our best friend and hear the entreaties of that
celestial wisdom that would secure for us the immortality of
the sons of God, and warns us not to reject our noblest
security, and that salvation purchased for us by the blood
of Christ.
The moral power of Christianity is also seen in its direct
effects upon society, and its remote influences. Its power
has been contemplated upon the individual heart. Observe,
now, how society is made to feel its presence. The religion
of Christ is peculiarly the light of the world. It has in it
the truth that is able to make wise unto salvation. Its power
is seen in every community where it exists, in raising the
standard of moral excellence and suppressing the more vi-
cious inroads of selfishness. Thus, when those lands where
the Bible is read and Christ's religion prevails are contrasted
with the regions that are destitute of Christianity, we see at
once a marked superiority in all that advances the welfare of
man. What is it but the moral power of Christianity that has
• relieved the horrors of war, that has suppressed the evils of
slavery, or checked the ravages of intemperance ? What is
it but Christianity that has discountenanced every form of
licentiousness, and thrown in every age its shield of protec-
tion over the most sacred relations of the family and the
rights of woman ? What is it but Christianity that has curbed
the violence of war, or given moderation to civil rulers, or
guided with safety human governments, or repressed the
arrogance of party spirit? Christianity has changed, where-
ever it has prevailed, the whole condition of society. By
making supreme the authority of God, it has most effectually
put down the tyranny of man, and given a sure foundation
to all the virtues. By revealing a Saviour from sin, it has
satisfied the demands of conscience, and opened up to the
soul an immortality and blessedness beyond the grave. Thus
has this power effected the reconciliation of man to God,
broken down that wall of adamant that separates the sinner
MOEAL POWEB OF CHRISTIANITY. 437
from the Deity, and thrown upon the path of the sincere
believer the full blaze of heaven's glory. How great, then,
the responsibility the very existence of Christianity brings
with it! It places man upon a new trial for his happiness,
and binds him to the performance of duties that no ingenuity
can evade, no hatred escape. Those duties rest upon us
wherever we may go ; and, ever present, man has no other
alternative than to obey and be saved, or disobey and be lost.
With the highest meaning the words come to us, as once
they came to the woman of Samaria :
" Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life ;
he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he
live."
CHAPTER XV.
THE HARMONY OF SCIENCE AND REVELATION.
We can couceive of no greater injury to the cause of
Christianity than the over-zealous effort to represent the
investigations of science as opposed to revehxtiou. Science
is a record of facts; and what is revelation but a record
of facts ? The student of science may be in error in what
he believes to be the record of facts; and what is to prevent
the student of revelation from being in error also in respect
to some of its facts ? Why is the human mind more infallible
in the one than in the other? "Why does the interpreter of
Scripture assume that his system of interpretation in all
things is necessarily/ right, and that of those who in honesty
differ from him is wrong ? It is of the very essence of dog-
matism to pronounce without examination upon the inter-
pretation of another, while it eulogizes its own as the only
correct one. Especially is this so when the subjects proposed
for discussion are recondite and not of vital consequence;
when diversity of view may be held without any departure
from essential truth ; when minute coincidences and subtle
distinctions only are called in question ; when no one promi-
nent doctrine of the Bible is doubted or denied ; when there
is only a difference of sentiment upon views of altogether
inferior importance, and which should only be treated with
moderation or dissented from with good temper. But, most
unnecessarily, it happens that when the lover of science pro-
pounds, as did Galileo or Copernicus, views somewhat differ-
ent from the common interpretation, there is often, with over-
heated theological partisans, an alarm raised, as if the whole
Bible was in its credibility endangered, and in its very foun-
dations undermined. But the difficulty is, they were wrong,
and not their Scriptures. It is their interpretation that is er-
(438)
HARMONY OF SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 439
roneous, and not the Bible. Why should every new discovery
in the sciences be hailed as the harbinger of evil, and a new
truth made known be regarded as an obtrusive novelty? The
Bible is no suspicious character, deprecating the steps of every
adventurer in knowledge ; it thunders no anathema against
the student of science. Free as the air itself, generous as
the maguiiicent variety of nature, noble as its great Author,
it offers itself for the deepest, the widest, the most searching
scrutiny ; it fears no foe, and it compromises with no enemy ;
it has no retraction to make, and no chain to fetter the
loftiest stretch of human thought. But it does, with reason,
demand that thought should be lawful and investigation
true, — that the lover of science should be humble before the
iniinite Author of science, and treat with deference the un-
equivocal assertions of revelation. It does demand that
unripe speculation should not be indorsed as truth, nor infant
theories be worshiped as the maturity of knowledge. Let
us, first, ask ourselves. What is the attitude of the Bible
toward science ? what ground does it take ? Everything de-
pends upon a correct answer to this question. The business
of revelation has especial reference to all moral duty, to
our relations, as responsible beings, to God and man. All
truth made known has immediate bearing upon this point.
Here is the dividing line between essential and unessential
truth. Whatever has a moral aspect — whatever relates to
God or to man — is essential. Beyond this point truth made
known is incidental ; and views, correct or incorrect, upon
such truths, never should be regarded as of vital importance.
Now, all the cardinal doctrines of the Bible are intimately
connected with duties toward God and man, and therefore
come under that which it is essential to receive. A man if he
does not breathe the air will die ; but it does not follow that
death will result from his wearing a red coat rather than a black
one. To demand a rigid and undeviating uniformity upon the
minutiffi of revelation, an exact agreement upon all unessential
truth, is asking too much of human nature. So long as God
has made minds to differ, and constitutional varieties of
thought as much as of body, it follows that there must be dif-
440 THE HARMONY OF
ferences of opinion upon the niinutiee of the Bible. The
Bible treats all scientific truth as pertaining to the minutiae
of revelation ; it treats it as unessential for uniformity of
belief. All moral duty and right belief upon Christ are
of the utmost importance; but not so with the discoveries
of science ; not so with the beauties of art or the embellish-
ments of poetry ; not so with the graces of style or the
closeness of logic. It is the Christian infinitely more in his
heart than in his speculative notions that is looked at; his
uprightness of conduct, more than his expansion of mind.
Consequently, with revelation the greatest heresy is wicked-
ness, and the worst infidelity a bad life. And yet, while re-
garding mainly the conduct, the right reception of the Bible
leads directly to uniformity of belief upon all essential truth.
The Bible uses popular language upon all subjects. The
precision of the metaphysicians can be obtained only by
adopting their abstrnseness of language. Their exactness is
purchased at the expense of clearness. But would it be
proper for the Bible, made for all ages and all men, to make
use of a dialect unintelligible to ninety-nine hundredths of the
human family? Would it be proper for God to exchange
adaptation for exclusiveness, compactness for indefinite ex-
pansion, and that golden coin current among all nations for
bills of credit valueless beyond a limited circle? Would it
be proper to throw^ away in popular language a medium of
thought as universal as the water we drink, for metaphysical
preciseness that, like the spiced wines of the rich, are only
available for the few ? We come, then, to the conclusion that
the language of the Bible is the best possible. Does that
language conflict with any of the plain facts of science?
There is yet to be shown the first discrepancy with the
truths of science. Remember, the Bible presents no formal
treatise upon astronomy, geology, or chemistry. It would
not, if it did, adapt itself to the moral wants of the world in
all ages ; it would have been in the highest degree premature
to enter into the intricacies of recent discoveries, or teach
those scientific truths made known within the last three cen-
turies. Moral truth comes before intellectual novelty; the
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 441
former relates to salvation, the latter to refinement of mind,
and is as inferior in value as the soul is of more consequence
than the body. The only thing necessary to show is that
there is no collision between the two, that one is in harmony
with the other, that no theory in the Bible is propounded
inconsistent with any legitimate truth of science. Right
science does not demand of revelation the giving up of popu-
lar language, nor does revelation demand of science the
abandonment of a single truth. Both are in unison. Igno-
rance may imagine a disagreement, and make discrepancies
out of its doubts, but knowledge, like the telescope, resolves
mists into nebulae, and nebulte into stars. Let the arrogant
disbeliever clear his glasses, or make better ones, and he will
soon find all mistakes summed up in his own presumption
and want of knowledge.
" Christianity," says President L. W. Green, " courts in-
vestigation,— she invites scrutiny, — she challenges discussion,
— she throws down her gauntlet of defiance to every antago-
nist,— and in every age a thousand foes have leaped forward
to mingle in the assault. They come from every quarter,
and of every character, — each hoary superstition, each beard-
less science. They wield every weapon of refined or barbar-
ous warfare, drawn from the domain of history or fiction, of
imagination or of fact. They dig into the bowels of the
earth, and hew the granite mountain, — they explore the un-
fathomed depths of space, search the sepulchers of buried
nations, decipher hieroglyphical inscriptions in temples, pyr-
amids, and tombs, study the fabulous genealogies and fabu-
lous astronomies of races whose sublime progenitors, accord-
ing to their own account, must have been cotemporaries of
the saurian tribes of an earlier world. There is not a false
religion upon earth that could bear the test of such a scru-
tiny for a single year, — that would not vanish instantaneously
before the light of a single science. The telescope and micro-
scope alone would suffice to overthrow all the ancient reli-
gions of Farther Asia. That the Sacred Scriptures should
have come forth not only unharmed, but victorious, from all
the conflicts of eighteen centuries, — that not one of their fifty
442 THE HARMONY OF
writers has ever uttered or suggested an opinion contrary
to any of those facts which the lapse of twenty-three hundred
years has revealed, — that each new discovery in science,
each fact drawn forth from pyramid or pillar, from sepulcher
or coin, from mutilated monument or half-defaced inscrip-
tion, should only serve to throw new light upon their mean-
ing and add new evidence to their credibility, — is perhaps the
completest specimen wliich the whole range of human learn-
ing has yet afforded of the truth of a theory established by
millions of independent harmonies, mounting up, in their
combined and multiple result, to billions of probabilities in
its favor, with absolutely nothing to the contrary. The his-
tory of these objections against Christianity would he, in-
deed, her proudest vindication. Geology herself, in all her
cycles, does not present more curious specimens of infidel
objections, long buried and forgotten beneath the huge
masses of argument and learning with which consecrated
genius has overwhelmed and preserved them, — at once their
monument and sepulcher. First it was objected against the
genuineness of the sacred records, 'that we have not the
very works of the evangelists and apostles themselves.' Sa-
cred learning has'distinctly proven that these identical writ-
ings existed, and were read in public assemblies throughout
the civilized world, during the first century, — were quoted
by numerous writers, their immediate successors, during the
three succeeding centuries, in such profusion that the whole
New Testament, in every essential fact and doctrine, might be
reconstructed from the quotations by these various authors ;
thus presenting a larger amount of testimony to this single
book, in the course of three centuries, than could be gathered
from all the writers of all centuries, in behalf of the Greek and
Roman classics, all combined. It was then objected against
their ' uncorrupted preservation,'' ' that they had been trans-
mitted, throug-h many centuries, by means of various manu-
scripts written by different hands; and that Mill, and other
critics, had discovered a corresponding number of various
readings, casting thus a serious doubt over the integrity and
authority of the received texts.' The most profound investi-
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 443
gations of modern times have proven that all these doubtful
readings are really of slight importance ; and even were each
admitted, or the passages in which each occur all stricken
from the Bible, not one essential doctrine of our faith would
be in the slightest degree affected ; and the great fabric of
sacred truth would remain as complete in its proportions, its
symmetry and strength, as some vast cathedral, from whose
strong foundations or lofty dome the hand of folly or the
lapse of time had crumbled the minutest portion of the
cement which served to unite, but did not constitute, the
massive marble of which the building was composed. Driven
by successive defeats from the sure terra fir ma of historical
testimony, infidelity took refuge amidst the hieroglyphics of
Egypt and the astronomy of the Hindoos. Bailly proved to
his own satisfaction, from the record of eclipses among the
Hindoos, that the existence of man upon earth was many
thousand years earlier than the Mosaic history would allow ;
and this whimsical vagary of a visionary man, though hooted
out of France by the wit of Voltaire and the science of
D'Alembert, was long an established article of faith among
the enlightened infidels of England, Scotland, and America.
Mathematical demonstration and historical testimony have
since combined to show that these eclipses were calculated
clumsily^ backwards, for ages that were past, and cannot be
dated so early as the commencement of the Christian era.
" Some French savans attached to Napoleon's army during
the expedition into Egypt discovered mysterious zodiacs.
Though unable to decipher the hieroglyphics with certainty,
one thing was indisputable, — that the zodiacs were con-
structed at the lowest seventeen thousand, probably eighteen
thousand, years ago; and the writer well remembers how his
boyish faith was shaken by the bold assertions and con-
temptuous sneers of the Edinburgh Review against all who
hesitated to receive their oracular utterance, founded, as
they said, upon mathematical demonstration. Champollion
and his co-laborers have read the inscription, and find that
it belongs to the age of Tiberius Csesar. Comparative anat-
omy, meantime, had become, through the genius of Cuvier,
444 THE HARMONY OF
an Important field of investigation, and presented many
striking examples of the analogical resemblance between the
structure of man and that of other animated beings. Pro-
fessor Oken, descending one day the Hartz Mountains, be-
held the beautiful blanched skull of a land. ' I picked it up,
regarded it intently,' says he: ' the thing was done.' Since
that time the skull has been regarded as a vertebral column.
Rapidly over all Europe and throughout all scientitic circles
spread the bold hypothesis that the skull is but a develop-
ment of the spine, part of that other more comprehensive
theory of development which represents man — intellectual,
moral, immortal man — as the development of the brute, —
itself the development of some monad, or mollusk, which
has been smitten into life by tlie action of electricity upon a
gelatinous monad. This vertebral portion of a brutal theory,
sprang from the skull of a beast, long since emptied of its
brains, had passed like a flood of lightning through his
disorganized brain, and he very naturally concluded that all
human intelligence is the result of an electric spark passed
through an unorganized gelatinous monad. It has been well
remarked by an able writer that the strongest argument in
favor of this theory is, that any human being should ever
have been found willing to adopt, much more to assert with
eagerness, this high relationship to the orang-outang and
ape. Congeniality of sympathy may have community of
orio-in. 'A fellow-feelino; makes us wondrous kind.' Hooted
from the earth, the development h^^pothesis took refuge
amidst the distant nebulae of the farther heavens. Driven
thence by Lord Rosse's telescope, it returned again to the
earth ; and the last sad record of its tragic fate assures us
that, hemmed and jammed in at last between granite pyra-
mids and huge masses of old red sandstone, it was shivered
to atoms by a blow from the stone hammer of a Caledonian
quarrier, and of all its prodigious 'creations' no 'vestiges'
now remain."
When we observe the countless worlds opened up to our
view by the telescope, we perceive that the vast creation of
God is as diversified in its nature as it is hour ''
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 445
tent ; we enjoy new and grand fields of thought, that find no
limit in subjects and no sameness in variety. Happy is it for
the cause of truth that the Bible, while it touches cautiously
upon themes of purely scientific interest, never infringes
upon any well-attested fact of science. It does indeed clothe
its language in a popular garb; but so carefully worded is
every sentence that no assertion is made to conflict with the
clearly established truths of nature. But more than this :
whatever revelation says, when subjected to a careful in-
vestigation, confirms science rather than otherwise. Its tes-
timony is positive, rather than negative; it not only says
nothing against the facts of science, but much to strengthen
them. Thus, while every, other book presenting claims of a
religious character, and in opposition in its teachings to the
Bible, stumbles upon the very threshold of the new discov-
eries of science, the Bible, true in every age, is yet revealed
with brighter luster in the more brilliant unfolding of the
truths of nature in the present age.
It has been thought by many that if the researches of
astronomy or chemistry are not in conflict with revelation,
if nothing of validity can be found to disprove the Mosaic
account of the unity of the origin of man, the oneness of
his descent from a single stock, yet at least the dis*coveries
of geology, or its teachings, are opposed to the Mosaic ac-
count of the six days' creation. But let it be remembered,
the Bible does not hold itself as the servant of the particular
features of geology. It does not undertake to father all the
conflicting views of this new science; it does not indorse all
that may be called the instructions of this science; and yet
it will be seen that it does not conflict with its essential feat-
ures, but rather is in harmony with the whole scope of geol-
ogy, when viewed with a spirit of candor and impartiality.
"What, then, are some of the essential elements of geology ?
First. It teaches that one epoch of ruin and creation is
succeeded by another of a higher grade of vegetable or of
animal being.
Second. It teaches great catastrophes of ruin as followed
by creations of vegetable and animal life.
446 THE HABMONY OF
Third. It teaches that these epochs extended over vast
periods of time and were of indefinite extent.
Fourth. It teaches every epoch as introduced hy miracle
rather than a gradual development of natural law.
The question, then, is, Are these teachings wi reoliUj opposed
to revelation? To investigate this subject, in justice to the
Bible, is our object. We do not now discuss the question
whether geology is true or whether the Bible is true. The
only thing to be done is to ascertain what is the true inter-
pretation of the first chapter of Genesis. How are we to
understand it? The Mosaic narrative commences with tbe
declaration that "In the beo-innino^ God created the heaven
and the earth." These few words briefly state the great fact
of the original creation of the material elements at a time dis-
tinctly preceding the operations of the first day. This opinion
is in accordance not only with the most natural interpreta-
tion, but it harmonizes with the sentiments of tbe whole sci-
entific world, and has to support it the authority of the most
learned of the Christian church. It is a sublime exhibition
of the great truth of the absolute creation of God, and his
perfect power in bringing into existence every material
element. Thus, the first verse explicitly asserts the creation
of the universe, including the sidereal systems; "and the
earth," — especially alluding to our own planet as the subse-
quent scene of the operations of the six days about to be
described. Thus, in this verse no information is given of
events unconnected with the history of man. Millions of
years may therefore have intervened before the creation of
man, in wbich the sidereal systems and the earth may have
passed through vast periods of time. No limit is placed to
the ages which may have elapsed between the hegmniiig in
which God created the heaven and the earth, and the evening,
or the commencement of the first day of the Mosaic narra-
tive. To assert the contrary is acting without any good
reason. Why may not this be so? Does Moses assert the
contrary? So far from this, Moses expressly declares, in
the following verse, that " the earth was without form, and
void," evidently speaking of a chaotic state of the earth ;
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 447
but this condition of the earth must have been subsequent to
the state of things spoken of in the first verse, where t!ie
original creation of the earth, or its elements, is described.
T];iere is no authority for making the first verse and the first
half of the second verse cotemporary with the first day's
work. Says E B. Pusey, Eegius Professor of Hebrew in
Oxford: "The point, however, upon which the interpreta-
tion of the first chapter of Genesis appears to me really to
turn, is whether the first two verses are merely a summary
statement of what is related in detail in the rest of the chap-
ter, and a sort of introduction to it, or whether they contain
an account of an act of creation ; and this last seems to me
to be their true interpretation : first, because there is no other
account of the creation of the earth; secondly, the second
verse describes the condition of the earth when so created,
and thus prepares for the account of the work of the six
days. But, if they speak of an}' creation, it appears to me
that this creation ' in the beginning' was previous to the six
days, because, as you will observe, the creation of each day
is preceded by the declaration that God said, or willed, that
such things shall be (' and God said') ; and therefore the very
form of the narrative seems to imply that the creation of the
first day began when these words are first used, i.e. with the
creation of light, in verse third. The time, then, of the crea-
tion in verse first appears not to be defined ; we are tokl only
what alone we are concerned with, — that all things were
made by God. Nor is this any new opinion. Many of the
fathers supposed the first two verses of Genesis to contain an
account of a distinct and prior act of creation ; some, as
Augustine, Theodoret, and others, that of the creation of
matter ; others, that of the elements ; others, again (and they
are the most numerous), imagine that not these visible heav-
ens, but what they think to be called elsewhere 'the highest
heavens,' ' the heaven of heavens,' are here spoken of. Our
visible heavens being related to have been created on the
second day, Petovius himself regards the light as the only
act of creation of the first day (' de opere primse diei, i.e.
luce'); considering the first two verses as a summary of the
448 THE HARMONY OF
account of creation which was about to follow, and a general
cTeclaration that all things were made by God."
Professor Pusey also remarks that the words "Let there be
light" " by no means necessarily imply, any more than the
English words by which thej- are transhited, that light had
never existed before. They may speak only of the substitu-
tion of light for darkness upon the surface of this our planet.
Whether light had existed before in other parts of God's
creation, or had existed upon this earth before the darkness
described in verse second, is foreign to the purpose of the
narrative."
Dr. Buckland, in his Bridgewater Treatise, remarks, con-
cernino; the earth mentioned in the first verse of Genesis:
" We have further mention of this ancient earth and ancient
sea in the ninth verse, in which the waters are commanded
to be gathered together into one place, and the dry land to
appear; this dry land being the same earth whose material
creation had been announced in the first verse, and whose
temporary submersion and temporary darkness are described
in the second verse. The ap)pearance of the land and the
gathering together of the waters are the only facts afiirmed re-
specting them in the ninth verse; but neither land nor water
is said to have been created on tlie third day. A similar in-
terpretation may be given of the fourteenth and four suc-
ceeding verses. What is herein stated of the celestial
luminaries seems to be spoken soleh' with reference to our
planet, and more especially to the human race then about to
be placed upon it. We are not told that the substance of the
sun and moon were first called into existence upon the fourth
day; the text may equally imply that these bodies were then
prepared, and appointed to certain high ofiices of high im-
portance to mankind: to give 'light upon the earth, and
to rule over the day and over the night ;' to be 'for signs,
and for seasons, and for days, and years.' The fact of their
creation had been stated before, in the first verse. The stars
also are mentioned in these words only (Gen. i. 16), almost
parenthetically, as if for the sole purpose of announcing that
they also were made by the same power as those luminaries
SCIEXCE ASD REVELATIOX. 449
whicli are more important to us. This very slight notice of
the countless hosts of the celestial bodies, all of which are
probably suns, the centers of other planetary systems, while
our little satellite, the moon, is mentioned as next in impor-
tance to the sun, shows clearly that astronomical phenomena
are here spoken of only according to their relative impor-
tance to our earth and to mankind, and without any regard
to their real importance in the boundless universe. It seems
impossible to include the fixed stars among those bodies
which are said (Gen. i. 17) to have been set in the firmament
of the heavens to give light upon the earth ; since, without
the aid of telescopes, by far the greater number of them are
invisible. The same principle seems to pervade the descrip-
tion of the creation which concerns our planet. The creation
of its component matter having been announced in the first
verse, the phenomena of geology, like those of astronomy,
are passed over in silence, and the narrative proceeds at once
to details of the actual creation which have more immediate
reference to man. The interpretation here proposed seems,
moreover, to solve the difliculty which would otherwise
attend the statement of the appearance of light upon the
first day, while the sun and moon and stars are not made
to appear until the fourth. If we suppose all the heavenly
bodies and the earth to have been created at the indefinitely
distant time designated by the word 'beginning,' and that the
darkness described on the evening of the first day was a tem-
porary darkness produced by the accumulation of dense
vapors 'upon the face of the deep,' an incipient dispersion
of these vapors may have readmitted light to the earth upon
the first day, while the exciting cause of light was still ob-
scured ; and the farther purification of the atmosphere upon
the fourth day may have caused the sun and moon and stars
to reappear in the firmament of heaven, to assume their new
relations to the newly modified earth and to the human race.
TVe have evidence of the presence of light during long and
distant periods of time, in which the many extinct fossil
forms of animal life succeeded one another upon the early
surface of the globe. This evidence consists in the petrified
29
450 THE HARMONY OF
remains of eyes of animals found in geological formations
of various ages."
" It appears higbly probable, from recent discoveries, tbat
ligbt is not a material substance, but- only an effect of undula-
tions of ether ; that this infinitely subtle and elastic ether per-
vades all space, and even the interior of all bodies : so long as
it remains at rest, there is total darkness; when it is put in a
peculiar state of vibration, the sensation of light is produced:
this vibration may be excited by various causes; e.g. by the
sun, by the stars, by electricity, combustion, etc. If, then,
Hght be not a substance, but only a series of vibrations of
ether, i.e. an effect produced on a subtle fluid by the excite-
ment of one or many extraneous causes, it can be hardly said
to have been created, though it may be literally said to be
called into action."
" Lastly, in the reference made in the fourth command-
ment (Exod. XX. 11) to the six days of the Mosaic creation,
the word asali, ' made,' is the same which is used in Gen. i. 7,
and which has been shown to be less strong and less compre-
hensive than hora, 'created;' and, as it by no means necessa-
rily implies creation out of nothing, it may be here employed
to express a new arrangement of materials that existed be-
fore. After all, it should be recollected that the question is
not respecting the correctness of the Mosaic narrative, but of
our interpretation of it ; and still further, it should be borne
in mind that the object of this account was not to state in
what manner, but by whom, the w^orld was made."
"JSTeither the first verse, nor the first half of the second,"
says Chalmers, " forms any part of the narrative of the first
day's operations, — the whole forming a preparatory sentence,
disclosing to us the initial act of creation at some remote and
undefined period, and the chaotic state of the world at the
commencement of those successive acts of creative power by
which, out of rude and undigested materials, the present har-
mony of nature was ushered into being. Between the initial
act and the details of Genesis, the world, for aught w^e know,
might have been the theater of many revolutions, the traces
of which geology may still investigate."
SCIENCE AND BEVELATION. 451
Our object, in these extracts from men whose opinion is
deserving of high consideration, is simply to show that there
is no inconsistency between revelation and the essential feat-
ures of geological science. It is enough if it is proved that
the statements of the one do not, in respect to the antiquity
of this earth, conflict with the statements of the other. It is
all-sufficient if the Mosaic narrative is found, in its essential
features, to correspond with the records of natural science.
The only apparent difficulty presented is in the light of the
first day, and the appearance of the sun and moon the fourth
day ;■ but this difficulty vanishes upon a careful considera-
tion of the true import of the Mosaic narrative. Recent in-
vestigations in astronomy have shown the intimate analogy
of our sun with the fixed stars. It has been proved that the
stars are suns, like our own, and that variability, rather than
uniformity, is the condition of their light : thus, at different
periods of the world, some stars have, even within the short
record of man, been found to intermit in their light, to blaze
forth with unwonted brilliancy, and then suddenly die away
altogether, or vastly decrease in the light given.
Says l^ichol. Professor of Astronomy in Glasgow Univer-
sity: "The question cannot fail to suggest itself here,
^whether the sun is now as he ever wnll be, or only in one state
or epoch of his efficiency, as the radiant source of light and
heat.' The new star in Cassiopeia, seen by Tycho, for in-
stance, indicated some great change in the light and heat
of an orb. That star never moved from its place ; and during
its course from extreme brilliancy to apparent extinction, the
color of its light altered, passing through the hues of a dying
conflagration.''
Here have we facts unquestionable of astronomy, showing
that suns in their light at different epochs may and do pass
through an amazing change. Some are relighted and some
extinguished. Thus, the sun is a light-hearer ; and why may it
not at the great epoch of the six days' creation, during the pe-
riod of chaos and darkness, have been obscured or previously
been in a mighty transition from light to darkness ? Why
may not the chaotic state of the preadamite earth have been
452 THE HABMONY OF
owing to one of those vast catastrophes that suddenly, through
the loss of the heat and light of the sun, have thrown all
things into darkness and chaotic confusion? Why should our
sun prove an exception to other suns ? If this hypothesis
cannot be proved, it may be safely said that it cannot be dis-
proved. There is every analogy in science to favor it, and
nothing against it. Thus, the more we study the true import
of revelation the more clearly do we discover the real har-
mony existing between it and science. Wliile the Bible does
not profess to give a treatise upon the sciences, there yet is
nothing to conflict wnth them ; and where it does speak out,
all its allusions are such as make known its origin from God.
" There is, then," says the eloquent Gaussen, " no physical
error in the Scriptures; and this great fact becomes always
more admirable in proportion as it is more clearly contem-
plated. N'ever will 3-ou find a single sentence in opposition
to the just notions which science has imparted to us con-
cerning the form of our glol)e, its magnitude and its geology,
— upon the void and upon space, — upon the planets and their
masses, their courses, their dimensions, or their influences,
— upon the suns wdiich people the depths of space, upon their
number, their nature, their immensity. You shall not find
one of the authors of the Bible who has, in speaking of the
visible world, let fall from his pen one only of those sentences
which in other books contradict the reality of fixcts ; none
who make the heavens a firmament, as do the Seventy, St. Je-
rome, and all the fathers of the church ; none who make the
world, as Plato did, an intelligent animal; none who reduce
everything below to the four elements of the ancients ; not
one who has spoken of the mountains as Mohammed did, of
the cosmogony as BufFon, of the antipodes as Lucretius, as
Plutarch, as Pliny, as Lactantius, as St. Augustine, as the
Pope Zachara. When the Scriptures speak of the form of
the earth, they make it a globe ; when they speak of the posi-
tion of this globe in the bosom of the universe, they suspend
it iqmn nothing. When they speak of its age, not only do
they put its creation, as well as that of the heavens, in the
' beginning,' — that is, before the ages which they cannot or
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 453
will not number, — but they are also careful to place it before
the breaking up of chaos and the creation of man, the crea-
tion of angels, of archangels, of principalities and powers,
their trial, the fall of some and their ruin, the perseverance
of others and their glory. When they speak of the heavens,
they employ to designate and define them the most philo-
sophic and the most eloquent expression wdiicli the Greeks
in the Septuagint translation, the Latin Vulgate, and all the
Christian fathers in their discourses, have pretended to im-
prove, and which they have distorted because it seemed to
them opposed to the science of their day. The heavens in the
Bible are ' the expanse,' they are the vacant space, or ether,
or immensity, and not the ' firmamentum' of Jerome, nor
the ' a-cspicofm of the Alexandrian interpreters, nor the eighth
heaven, firm., solid, crystalline, and incorruptible, of Aristotle
and of all the ancients; and although the Hebrew term, so re-
markable, recurs seventeen times in the Old Testament, and
the Seventy have rendered it seventeen times by ' areijiojiKx
(firmament), never have the Scriptures in the ITew Testament
used this expression of the Greek interpreters in this sense.
AVhen they speak of the air, the gravity of lohich was
unknown before Galileo, they tell us that at the creation
' God gave to the air its weight.' (Job, xxvii. 5.) When they
speak of the light, they present it to us as an element inde-
pendent of the sun, and as anterior by three epochs to the
period in which that luminary was formed. When they
speak of the interior state of our globe, they teach us that
while its surface gives us bread, ' beneath it is on fire.' (Job, xxvii.
5.) When they speak of the mountains, they distinguish
them as primary and secondary; they represent them as being
born; they make them rise; they abase the valleys ; they speak
as a geological poet of our day would do: ' The mountains
were lifted up (elevated), 0 Lord ; the valleys were abased
(Hebrew, "descended") in the place which thou hadst as-
signed them.' "
Thus do science and revelation walk together in harmony,
both pointing to the same glorious power and wisdom, reveal-
ing the same infinite Author, and urging to Christian duty
with the tokens of an ever-present God.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE.
The doctrine of the Bible upon the origin of the human
fomily is, that the whole race of man proceeded from Adam
and Eve ; that their iirst home was the garden of Eden ; their
condition one of perfect innocence, and as they came from
the hands of God they had enstamped upon them the image
of their Maker, and were alike sinless and free in the ex-
ercise of their natural powers. As such, of their own free-
dom, as responsible moral agents, they fell from their high
estate, and thus brought upon themselves the punishment
of sin.
Is there anything in the condition of the human family to
disprove this statement? anything to show the Mosaic re-
cord false ? It will be our design to reply to this question.
If history, so far as it can be relied upon, confirms the record
of Moses, if the researches of science can show nothing in the
diversity of the human race to disprove this statement, then
have we a high proof of the gennineness of the Mosaic his-
tory, and additional argument to confirm the inspiration of
the Bible.
Consider, in the first place, that all the earliest accounts
of the origin of man point to a first period of innocence and
happiness. The golden age of the poets of antiquit}^ pointed
to such a period. The traditions of the earliest state of man all
had reference to a condition different from his present state.
As the majestic columns of some ancient temple, that lie
scattered upon the ground, point out the grandeur of its
former state, so, also, there is that in human nature that
seems to intimate that man is but a wreck of what he
once was, and that he only carries about with him the rem-
nants of his original glory. Thus, as we study the tra-
(454)
THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE. 455
ditions of history or look to man in his present condition,
there is nothing to disprove the Mosaic record, but rather
much to confirm it. Among the many events of history, few
can surpass in interest the occasion when Paul for the first
time addressed the learned Athenians. Ascending the steps
of the Areopagus, there was presented to his eye a scene of
nature unequaled in majesty and loveliness. There lay be-
hind him the JEgean Sea, Upon Mars Hill stood the famed
temple of ancient idolatry. Before him were gathered the
inquisitive, the imaginative, the pleasure-loving Athenians.
Among them were the philosophers, and such as delighted
in the arts and those works of beauty for which the land of
Greece was renowned. But what was the mission of Paul?
It was to teach doctrines, to advance opinions, opposed to all
their previous habits of thought, their ancient customs, their
religion, and their habitual life. It was to show their whole
system of idol-worship wrong, their whole theology based
upon error. It was to reveal the one infinite God, the one
perfect atonement of Christ, and that only system of redemp-
tion by .which man can be saved. It was to make known the
unity of the human family as descended from one common
parentage and having one common blood. It was to make
clear the great truth that man was involved in the ruin of the
same fall, and had the same duties to perform, and the same
immortality of blessedness to secure, and greatness of misery
to avoid. But the unity of the human race, as descended
from Adam and Eve, was an idea foreign to the proud Athe-
nians. They gloried in an origin distinct from that of other
nations. They regarded themselves as auroy^Oo'^eq, sprung from
the sacred soil of Attica, underived, and independent of
other fimiilies of mankind. Paul considered it essential to
Christianity to show that the unity of the divine nature in-,
volvedthe unity of the human, and that the oneness of the
race involved the oneness of the source from which the race
sprang. " God, that made the world and all things therein,
hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on'all
the face of the earth ; and hath determined the times before
appointed, and the bounds of their habitation."
456 THE UNITY OF
Thus the unity of the human race was by Paul regarded
as essential to the system of redemption by Christ, since that
redemption was based upon the idea of one common ex-
posure to ruin, through the fall of one common parentage :
this is seen in the parallel run at length between the fall of the
race in Adam, and its redemption in Christ. Thus, the apos-
tle, in Romans, declares, "By one man sin entered into the
world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men."
"As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners,
so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."
" For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be
made alive." " The first man Adam was made a living
soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." Thus,
in the universal headship of the one we see the counterpart
in the universal headship of the other. We do not attempt
to define the mysterious relation Adam sustained to the
human family. It is not our object to illustrate in its essen-
tial elements the oneness of the human race through a
common parentage. We only state that the Scripture lan-
guage unequivocally asserts that oneness. It declares the fact
of a descent from Adam, the first man, of all the nations of
the earth ; it asserts that as sin was introduced by the first
man, so was redemption by the second man, Christ ; it com-
pares the two together, contrasts the diflerence of each, and
most plainly asserts but one common father of the whole
human race. Now, this truth stands upon the same ground
as do all the revealed truths of the Bible. It is most inti-
mately linked with the inspiration of the word of God. It is
asserted not only in Genesis, but implied in every book of
the Bible. Not a single intimation is there to the contrary in
any book of the Bible. Thus the plenary inspiration of the
Scriptures must be shown to be erroneous, before the fact of
a common origin can be disproved, even if its general inspi-
ration is admitted; because the unity of the human race is
one great link in the chain to show the fullest inspiration of
the Bible.
If, then, history and the Bible point to the central region
of Asia as the cradle of the human race, — if early tradition
THE HUMAN RACE. 457
in all the works of aucieut philosophers and poets speak of a
golden age of innocence, and correspond in their essential
features with the account of inspiration, — must not the most
demonstrative, the most irresistible evidence be presented to
lead us to doubt a fact admitted so universally in all ages of
the world ?
Is it enough to raise objections only from the diversity in
the human family ? Are we to throw every evidence from
history and revelation away, because of the cavils of modern
skepticism upon this subject? Who knows not how easy it
is to raise objections upon all subjects? Who is ignorant
how common doubt is ? If some students of science please
to question the parentage of man from Adam, is it not equally
evident how unanimous has been the opinion of the wisest
and the best in every age in confirmation of the oneness of
the family of man as coming from a single stock ? But,
leaving the ground of inspiration, let us see if upon the
ground alone of science the descent of the human family
from one stock can be disproved.
We will first see if there are greater varieties in the human
species than among the different species of animals ; if so, are
those varieties so peculiar and distinct as to authorize the
setting aside of the voice of history and revelation ? Now, it
can be most clearly proved that the varieties of animals of
the lower species are as great and even far greater than exist
in the human species; and that also among existing varieties
the distinction is not so marked among men as among quad-
rupeds. Thus we must in consistency believe that the human
species had a common parentage, even as all other distinct
species of animals, if we repudiate the idea of a distinct
parentage for every variety of animals. We cannot suppose
that the most marked peculiarities of the human species
had each a distinct creation, any more than the most marked
peculiarities of the dog race or the cat race. But this is
not all. Varieties of form, color, size, strength, and intel-
ligence among the dififerent species of animals are so
blended gether in each that it is impossible to say where
the creation of these distinct species, or varieties, com-
458 THE UNITY OF.
menced. One man may make out two, another five, and
another ten distinct creations for each prominent variety in
each species; and yet some other student, progressing farther
in science, may even double the number. Where is this sub-
division of creation among the varieties of species to end ? So
of the human species : upon the ground of a common origin
from one stock, we can find no difliculty with the existing
varieties of the race of man ; but, if we must go to a different
creation for each of the most prominent varieties, we know not
where to stop. The varieties of form, color, strength, intel-
ligence, are so infinite in their minute shades, these varieties
so blend with one another, that the most difiicult of tasks is
to separate each prominent varietj'. IIow, upon the score of
ease in classifying the varieties of the human family, are we
bettered when we resort to the theory of five or six different
origins? We must, in consistency, carry out the same prin-
ciple in classifying the varieties of each species of animals.
What are we to do in determining how few or how many are
the diverse creations in each species ? Thus we see at once
how inextricable is the confusion that arises from atternpting
to make out so many different origins in the human family'.
What prevents the same principle of analogy from holding
equally good in the existing varieties of animals? ^ow, in the
strict nomenclature of science, a species is a class of animals
having a descent from one stock: if, then, we ignore the idea
of the human race coming from one stock, why, when greater
varieties can be shown in the species of animals, are we to
single out the human race as an exception ? Why are we
to resort to a kind of argument with the race of man that
we do not follow out with the race of dogs, cats, lions, or
horses?
There are two great laws in respect to species. One is
that each species, within certain limits, is susceptible of in-
finite variety ; another law is, that beyond those limits each
species remains permanent, with rigid adherence to an unde-
viating law of development. Thus, we may see a vast variety
of dogs, but no dog ever emerges into the sheep, no sheep
ever puts on the features of the cat. Nature has interposed
THE HUMAN RACE. 459
an impassable barrier to each species of animals, so that
amalgamation is impossible; and thus there can be no inter-
change with each species. Thus, by the law of variety, we
see a most happy adaptation to the differences of climate and
country ; while, by the law of development of species, there
are no monstrosities in nature and no compounding of
orio'inal differences. By the one law we have a most usefr.l
facility of being conformed to the varied climates and
countries of the earth, while by the other law is preserved
the harmony of animal existence. "With the first law domes-
ticity and migration are possible, and with the latter the
peculiarities of each species are permanently retained. Both
are indispensable. We see that nature has implanted an
invincible repugnance to union among the different species,
and given to each species an undeviating character of one-
ness. The law of organic life is that each species shall pro-
pagate its kind, and no other; and whatever apparent ex-
ceptions may exist, we know the limit of development is
exceedingly contracted, and that, as in the case of mules and
hybrid plants and animals, there is wanting the power of
reproduction. Consequently, the race becomes extinct, and
the hybrid is incapable of establishing a new species. The
question, then, to decide is, Are there greater varieties
among the human species than among the species of quad-
rupeds ? If the varieties of animals in each species are as
2:reat, or greater than in the human race, then, if we admit
that species means the descent from one stock, we cannot
with any shadow of reason doubt that the human race
came from one stock. Varieties of species are formed from
an endless diversity of circumstances. ISoi only are cli-
mate, domestication, country, the intermingling with dif-
ferent varieties of the same species, to be considered, but
occasional accidents without any known cause. Thus,
ill 1791, upon the farm of Seth Wright, of Massachusetts,
one ewe gave birth to a male lamb which had a longer body
and shorter legs than the rest of the breed, with the fore-legs
crooked. This form making it impossible for the sheep to
leap fences, it was resolved to perpetuate this accidental
460 THE UNITY OF
variety, which was accordingly done. Thus, also, a race of
swiiie with solid hoofs arose in Hungary in the same way ;
and recently, without any assignable cause, the same singular
variety has made its appearance along the banks of the Red
River, in our own country. The Spaniards, when they dis-
covered this country, found none of the domestic animals
existing here which were used in Europe. They were
accordingly introduced, and, escaping, strayed from their
owners and ran wild in the forest, and have thus continued
for several centuries. The result is, the obliteration of the
characteristics of the domesticated animals, and a reappear-
ance of some of the typal marks of the wild state, and a
generation of new and striking characteristics, in accommo-
dation to their new circumstances.
" The wild hog of our forests," says T. V. Moore, " bears
a striking likeness to the wild boar of the Old World.
The hog of the high mountains of Parumus resembles the
wild boar of France. Instead of being covered with bristles,
however, as the domestic breed from which they sprang,
they have a thick fur, often crisp, and sometimes an under-
coat of wool. Instead of being generally white or spotted,
they are uniformly black, except in some warmer regions,
where they are red, like the young peccary. The anatomical
structure has changed, adapting itself to the new habits of
the animal, in an elongation of the snout, a vaulting of the
forehead, a lengthening of the hind legs ; and, in the case of
those left on the island of Cubagua, a monstrous elongation
of the toes to half a span. The ox has undergone the same
changes. In some of the provinces of South America a
variety has been produced called ' prelones,' having a very
rare and fine fur. In other provinces a variety is produced
with an entirely naked skin, like the dog of Mexico or of
Guinea. In Columbia, owing to the immense size of farms
and other causes, the practice of milking was laid aside ; and
the result has been that the secretion of milk in the cows,
like the same function in other animals of this class, is only
an occasional phenomenon, and confined strictly to the period
of suckling the calf As soon as the calf is removed, the
THE HUMAN BACE. 461
milk ceases to flow, as in the case of other mammals. The
same changes have taken place in other animals. The Avilcl
dog of the Pampas never barks, as the domestic animal
does, but howls like the wolf; while the wild cat has, in like
manner, lost the habit of caterwanling. The wild horse of
the higher plains of South America becomes covered with a
long, shaggj^ fur, or is of a uniform chestnut color. The
sheep of the central Cordilleras, if not shorn, produces a
thick, matted, woolly fleece, which gradually breaks oflT in
shaggy tufts, and leaves underneath a short, fine hair,
shining and smooth, like that of the goat, and the wool
never reappears. The same changes have been produced in
geese and gallinaceous fowls. A variety has sprung up
called rumpless fowls, wdiich want from one to six of the
caudal vertebrte. The same varieties have sprung up in
other parts of the world. The fat-tailed sheep of Tartary
loses it? posterior mass of fat when removed to the steppes
of Siberia, whose scant and bitter herbage is less favorable
to the secretion of adipose matter. The African sheep has
become large, like the goat, and exchanged its wool for hair.
TheWallachian sheep has put on large, perpendicular, spiral
horns, and in like manner become clothed with hair. Some
also have four, and even six, horns. The wild horses of
Eastern Siberia have the same anatomical difierences from
the tame ones that we noticed in the case of the swine ; and
culture, climate, and other causes have produced the widest
varieties, — from the little, shaggy pony of the Shetlands,
that scrambles up the highland crags like a goat, to the
gigantic steed of Flanders, or the Conestoga of Pennsyl-
vania, which will sometimes drag a load of four tons on the
level ground. "Whether the dog and the wolf are of the same
species, is a question about which there is some difference of
opinion among naturalists ; but there is a very general agree-
ment that all varieties of the dog- must be referred to one
species. Between these there is the widest difference, — from
the gigantic St. Bernard, that will carry a frozen traveler to the
convent; the shaggy Newfoundland, with his webbed feet
and his aquatic habits; and the scentless and almost tongue-
462 THE UNITF OF
less greyhound ; to the little lapdog that nestles in a lad^-'s
arms, the nosing foxhound, whose scent is almost a miracle,
the ratting terrier, and the naked Mexican dog, that has an
additional toe. The cow presents the most diverse varieties, —
from the little Surat ox, not larger than a dog, to the humped
and long-eared Brahmin cow, and the gigantic prize ox that
will weigh two tons. The domesticated fowls and pigeons
have assumed varieties enough to fill a page, .some of them
of the most diverse character; varying from the largest size
to the most dwarfish, and possessing every peculiarity com-
patible with the preservation of the species, in the feathers,
the form, the wattles, and the psychological traits and habits."
From this brief summary of facts, is there any greater
variety among the human species than exists in the different
species of the lower orders of animals? Are we to infer that
the diversities of color and form are as great even as exist
in the species of the dog, the cat, the sheep, and the ox?
The resemblances in all essential respects are identical in the
human race. The race presents only varieties of form and
color that cannot compare, in extent and diversity, to the
varieties existing in the ditferent species of animals.
Observe that the range of circumstances for the existence
of the human family is vastly greater than for that of any
other species of animals. Man exists all over the earth, and
yet there is not in any respect so marked a difference as exists
among the varieties of any one extended species of animals.
Why, then, when there are greater reasons for varieties of
the human family from greater combination of circumstances,
and yet not so great or prominent distinctions as are mani-
fested in the species of animals, should we, against the voice
of history and inspiration, attempt to designate different ori-
gins to the human race, and not do the same with the varie-
ties of the species of dog, cat, sheep, and oxen ? Why is
skepticism reasonable upon the subject of man's single
parentage in denying it altogether, and unreasonable when
it uses the same argument in respect to the varieties existing
among the different species of animals? Why should we
doubt the origin of all the human race from Adam, and
THE HUMAN BACE. 463
not believe that the fundamental idea of species among ani-
mals forbids the supposition of distinct creations for each ex-
isting variety in the human family, as it does in the particu-
lar species of animals and birds?
The argument is simply this. Believing that the wide-
spread varieties among each species of animals must all,
from the fundamental idea of species, proceed from one com-
mon stock, then, there being no greater, or even so great
varieties in the human species as in the lower species of ani-
mals, it follows conclusively that the human race also came
from one stock. But there are those who deny the premises
upon which the argument from natural causes is built to es-
tablish the fact of the unity of the human race. We then
will take those who claim for the wide varieties of animals
a distinct creation, and, consequcintly, a distinct creation for
the fundamental varieties of the human species, upon their
own ground, and show that even there the unity of the human
race cannot be disproved.
Those who deny the oneness of the origin of man claim
at least four marked varieties among the human species as
having each a distinct creation. These are the Caucasian
race, the Mongolian, the Indian, and the African race. The
advocate for the distinct creation of the parentage of each of
these races must also, in consistency, admit a distinct creation
for all the existing varieties that are most marked of the dif-
ferent species of animals. All admit creation by miracle of
every species of animals. The question is, are the varieties
also created b}^ miracle? Are they also placed by miracle
in their peculiar locations? Miracle, if it means anything, is
something that supersedes or transcends natural law. We
do not say the hair grows by miracle, but by the agency of
natural law. What is miracle is the creation of man or the cre-
ation of the different species of animals. Natural law cannot
create: it may perpetuate existence, but it never can give it.
Whoever reads the Bible must be impressed with the fact
that miracle is never resorted to except in extreme emer-
gencies and under the most imperious circumstances. It
comes in only as an extraordinary event when natural causes
464 TEE UNITY OP
are perfectly inadequate to effect objects the most desirable.
Thus, the creation of the world, of the first parents, of each
species, and the resurrection of Christ, were miracles simply
because natural causes were perfectly inadequate for such
events. But where do we find miracle resorted to except when
absolutely necessary ? Where do we find the course of nature
interrupted, and its uniformity broken in upon, except under
circumstances the most extraordinary, and onl}'' when the
sphere of law was too limited to effect objects of transcend-
ent importance ?
One great objection to so many distinct creations among
men and animals is, that there is a superfluity of miracle. It
has already been seen that variety among species is a law as
needful as the law of propagation of distinct species. Variety
subserves purposes as useful within a certain sphere, as uni-
formity out of that sphere. We can well imagine the neces-
sity for a great variety of dogs, cats, horses, oxen, and sheep;
but we are at a loss to conceive of the benefit of an amals-a-
mation together of all these five species. It is very service-
able to have so great a diversity in each species, but very
unserviceable to have one species confounded with another.
There is a vast difference between diversity and monstrosity.
Suppose we believe that natural causes, such as climate, habits
of life, domestication, locality, etc., are not sufficient to ac-
count for the wide diversity existing among the species of
animals; does the distinct creation of the fundamental varie-
ties of each species of dogs, cats, horses, oxen, and sheep, by
miracle, present with the placing of them in different locali-
ties a hypothesis as natural, as free from objection, as con-
sistent with natural history and revelation, as the hypothesis
that God, when he created each species of animals, created
with that species a principle of variety, not simply dependent
upon natural causes, but to a certain extent of greater inherent
potency, which, combined with natural causes, would even-
tuate at the necessary period in all the needful diversity of
species? Call this principle, if you choose, miraculous inter-
position, yet it is vastly more simple, more free from objec-
tion, more in accordance with natural history and the law of
THE HUMAN RACE. 465
propagation of species, than the operation of two distinct
and disconnected influences, first miracles for each variety
of importance, and then natural causes.
Reflect upon the vast multiplicity of miracles, and upon the
cumbersome and complicated agency that is demanded to ac-
count for the diversities of the species of animals. Reflect
upon the unnecessary amount of miracle involved in this last
hypothesis. It is a good rule in philosophy never to bring in
more causes than are appropriate for a given result. Where is
the necessity for so many miracles ? It is no reply to this
objection to ascribe to the believer in the unity of descent
of each species of animals and of the human race, the empty
sophism of continued supernatural interposition to bring
about the existing varieties among the different species of
animals or of the human race. It is time enough to make
an assertion when proof is given. We do not hold to the
necessity of a constant supernatural intervention to account
for the varieties of species. We believe that at one bold stroke
God may have implanted in the physical constitution a prin-
ciple amply sufficient to account for the most wide-spread va-
rieties among species, in combination with natural causes.
We believe, if natural causes may not of themselves account
for these varieties, law may, as originally implanted by a
supernatural agency in the constitution. Is not this a
hypothesis far more natural than the twofold multiplicity
of miracle demanded by the contrary hypothesis, — first,
that by the distinct creation of fundamental varieties;
second, that by the placing of animals in distinct localities?
Both hypotheses demand miracle; but the question is, Which
demands the fewest miracles? — which miracles upon the
most reasonable grounds, and most in harmony with the
agency of natural causes ?
The first hypothesis, which combines miracle and natural
causes together, makes physical law, originally implanted in
the constitution, the great fact itself of supernatural interpo-
sition by God ; while the latter hypothesis, besides having as
many dividing lines in the shape of varieties as there are
hairs upon the head, demands miracles as numerous as the
30
466 THE UNITY OF
fundamental varieties of the human race and the species of
animals.
Let us now confine our attention to the race of man. It is
objected to the theory of natural causes and of accidental
varieties that they are insufficient to account for the four
great races included in the Caucasian, the Mongolian, the
Indian, and the African race. Let us, for argument's sake,
admit the objection. But does it prove four distinct crea-
tions ? Far from it. There must yet be proved, from other
and different sources, four distinct creations. It is not
enough to batter down the argument of natural causes or
accidental varieties. The fact must be shown that history
and inspiration are friendly to this hypothesis. If both are
opposed to it, then there remains a hypothesis that must be
overthrown, or all the learned disquisitions to the contrary
amount to nothing. What matters the insufficiency of na-
tural causes or incidental varieties, if but one solitary fact
well attested arrays its bold front against the hypothesis of
different creations? What matters it, provided upon the
score of miracle the unity of the human race from 07\e origin
is more natural, through the supposition of one great law of
miracle originally implanted, and if also, upon that of history
and revelation, this unity of origin is doubly confirmed? Are
facts to give place to fanciful theories ? Are novelties of
science to browbeat all sober science, and with it also the
voice of history and revelation ?
There are those at the present day who think they can
give proof of Moses tripping up upon great spiritual facts
of science and history. But Moses is a far more stubborn
authority than many are sufficiently aware of; and a man
may as well make up his mind to encounter the lightnings
of Sinai as to demonstrate in a blunder this greatest sage
of antiquity. We have read of the weak sophism that
Moses only intended to teach great moral truths, and not
science. This, however, is not the question. The ques-
tion is. Did Moses, in fact, teach any 'physical error? Did
Moses inculcate anything opposed to the clear truths of
geology, astronomy, chemistry, and natural history ? This is
THE HUMAN RACE. 467
the question. Not what Moses designed to teach, but what in
fact he did teach. Believing that not a single error can be
found in all his writings, w^e will not admit in him blunders
without proof. If God gave him inspiration enough to
teach moral truths, and great facts of history from the
earliest ages, he gave him inspiration enough to avoid
making physical blunders that would inevitably, in a later
day, be made the excuse for rejecting his morality and his
historj' in one lump, and with it undermining the whole su-
perstructure of the Bible as inspired by God. Inspiration
has as much to do in keeping from all error as in imparting
truth ; and we wall not bow to the dogmatism of those skep-
tics who think they have done Moses a vast favor by indors-
ing alone, with a patronizing air, his morality and civil code.
Whether Moses was learned in the new discoveries of modern
times or not, he was made by God sufficiently learned not to
bring into disrepute the Bible by arraying it against the
absolute truth of science. Let us, then, briefly look to two
sources of evidence, to show the unity of the human race, as
descended from one stock :
Ist. History.
2d. Miraculous interposition, in combination with natural
law,
" We find," says Layard, " that it has been assumed and
reasoned upon, as an admitted fact, that Egypt was first
peopled from Ethiopia proper, — that is, from the countries to
the south of it. That Egypt was settled by the children of
Mizraim, the second son of Ham, is universally admitted.
But that the land from whence they came and peopled
Egypt was Ethiopia, is not made probable b}'^ any good evi-
dence. It has been supposed that Meroe, the capital of Ethi-
opia, was the cradle of Thebes, and that the nation of the Ethi-
opians lived under a civil and religious system identical with
that of Egypt, long before Egypt was inhabited. But there
are many monumental and historical evidences to the con-
trary. The pyramids were, by the unanimous tradition of
the Egyptian priests, the oldest monuments of Egypt; but
they are not in the neighborhood of Thebes, but of Memphis,
on the crown of the delta, on the east bank of the Nile.
468 '^HE UNITY OF
" The first mortal who ruled Egypt, according to Manetho,
was Menes. This name occurs at the head of a procession
of statues of the kings of Egypt, depicted on one of the
walls of the palace of Luxor, at Thebes. This king is said
to have laid the foundation of Memphis, which was hitherto
a marsh, by means of embankments, lakes, and other arti-
ficial means. Josephus, the Jewish historian, informs us that
he lived many years before the times of Abraham. From
the monuments of Ethiopia the inference from the inscrip-
tions is that they were among the most ancient erected in
the eighteenth dynasty of the kings of Egypt, who reigned
long after Egypt became a settled kingdom. They also
intimate plainly that Ethiopia was a province or dependency
of Egypt, and continued apparently so until the Psammeticus,
about five hundred years before Christ. The picture of a
pyramid forms a part of the hieroglyphic name of Memphis,
and the inference is, from the immutability of all things in
Egypt, that the foundation of the pyramids was coeval with
that of the city. The form of the temple of Belus, at Baby-
lon, according to Herodotus, was pyramidal. It is also an
ascertained fact that the ancient idolatries, all over the world,
particularly affected this form in their sacred edifices. These
circumstances, with others, render it probable that the temple
of Belus served for an example and pattern of the pyramids
of Egypt. Thus, the early migration to Egypt was not from
Ethiopia, but the plain of Shinar, or from the banks of the
Euphrates, where once stood the city of Babylon, near the
place of the tower of Babel. It was soon after the confusion
of tongues that befell the impious builders of Babel, about
two thousand two hundred and sixty- six years before Christ,
that we have good evidence to believe there first proceeded
the emigration to Egypt, and the settlement of the country.
We must look to the Bible for our clearest light upon the
first settlement of Egypt."
Before the confusion of tongues there was but one language
spoken. We know that the plain of Shinar was the place
where the tower of Babel was built. It was then from an-
cient Assyria, in the land of Chaldea, that civilization and
THE HUMAN RACE. 469
the arts came to Egypt, and all the monumental evidences
of Egypt evince the fact, so clearly established in the Bible,
that its early origin is to be attributed not to a roving tribe
dwelling in Ethiopia, but to the builders of the tower of
Babel or their immediate descendants.
There is one strong probability, from the comparison be-
tween the ancient language of the Egyptians and that of the
Shemitic race, through the line of the ancient Hebrews.
There can be no doubt that the origin of language with al-
phabetical characters could not be of mere human invention.
"Without a written language, society goes back to barbarism.
N^ow, it was not from the savage state, but from the civilized
state, that all nations had their origin. The fact that before
the confusion of Babel the earth was of one tongue implies a
high degree of civilization. "Without a common language
there could be no union and no great undertaking. The im-
pious attempt to build a tower for idolatrous purposes, with
the monumental evidences of it, and all the intimations of
sacred and profane history, shows this. One great effect of
the confusion of tongues, and the dispersion of those en-
gaged in erecting the tower of Babel, would be to bring on,
in the course of time, an uncivilized state. It is clearly
shown in the Scriptures that the descendants of Shem re-
tained longer than those of Ham or Japheth the knowledge
of God, and were to a greater extent free from idolatry.
The inference must be plain, that the curse of the confu-
sion of tongues would rest more lightly upon them than upon
those who descended from Ham and Japheth. The descend-
ants of Shem have always written alphabetically the most
perfect kind of writing.
The Shemitic race was permitted to take up their residence
not far removed from the scene of the confusion of tongues.
But the unhappy sons of Mizraim, the son of Ham, appear
to have wandered forth from their habitation disabled from
any longer articulating the sounds of that which has been
the language of the whole human race.
When we have arrived at the great fact that Egypt was
settled not by a roving tribe of Ethiopians, but by the im-
470 THE UNITY OF
mediate descenaants of the builders of the tower of Babel
upon the plain of Shinar, then, knowing the origin of one of
the most ancient of the nations of antiquity, we have a
stand-point of the highest value in tracing the historic unity
of the human family as descended from one stock. Two
great events are clearly proved by sacred and profane his-
tory: first the deluge, and then the confusion of tongues upon
the plain of Shinar, two thousand two hundred and sixtj'-six
years before Christ.
A¥e will not enter upon the disputed question of the extent
of the deluge ; the only fact of material importance to know
is, whether it was so universal as to drown all the existing
families of the earth but one, that of ]^oah. We have not
the slightest proof that any of the antediluvians survived the
flood except the family of ISToah. Sacred history is strength-
ened by profane history in the position that this great catas-
trophe completed the ruin of all but one family of the ante-
diluvians. Great speculations have been made to show the
vast extent of the population of the world at the time of the
flood; but, in our opinion, the number of the antediluvians
was far less than is commonly supposed. From the great
longevity of the inhabitants before the flood, Methuselah
being removed but three generations from Adam, we know
that the ratio of increase could not correspond with that which
exists under our short-lived generations, which, upon the
most liberal calculation, do not extend over thirty-five years
as an average.
The drowning of the Old World must, according to the in-
timations of history, have swept away a population that was
mostly included in a comparatively limited extent of country.
That event taking place, according to the common chro-
nology, in the year of the world 1788, we have only one hun-
dred and thirty-two years intervening from the flood to the
building of Babel and the confusion of tongues; and we are
informed that Noah lived after the flood three hundred and
fifty years. The evidence, then, is very clear that we have
first the year of the world 1656, or nearly that, to show that
the deluge swept oft' a race of men evidently in their Ian-
THE HUMAN RACE. 471
guage homogeneous, and in their local residence living near
together. And then to show also that there was but one lan-
guage and nation upon the earth, we have another period,
the building of the tower of Babel and the confusion of
tongues, one hundred and thirty-two years after, and, accord-
ing to the common reckoning, two hundred and eighteen
years before the death of Noah. Admitting the longevity of
the antediluvians, we are distinctly informed that the whole
earth was of one language and of one speech, in the first verse
of the eleventh of Genesis, and in the eighth and ninth verses
of the same chapter, we are also told that the " Lord scat-
tered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth,
and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of
it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the
language of all the earth."
Now, history, both sacred and profane, assures us that the
three sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, were, with
their immediate descendants, each, a few years after the con-
fusion of tongues, the patriarchs of three great divisions of
the earth, not exelnsively, but generally., the original founders
of Asia, Africa, and Europe. To Shem, with his grandsons,
was portioned out Asia, to Ham Africa, to Japheth Europe.
The issue of the three sons of Noah, as they are set down in
Holy Writ, are, commencing with Japheth, — the sons Gomer,
Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. From
Gomer descended the Cimbrians; from Magog the Scyth-
ians and Turks; from Madai the Medes ; from Javan the
lonians, Greeks; from Meshech the Muscovites; from Tiras
the Thracians.
The sons of Shem were Asshur, Mynas, or Elam, Ar-
phaxad, Lud, and Aram. From Asshur came the Assyrians •
from Mynas, or Elam, the Persians ; from Arphaxad the Chal-
deans ; from Lud the Syrians, and from Aram the Aramites.
The sons of Ham were Gush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan.
From Gush descended Nimrod, from whom came the Ethi-
opians ; from Mizraim descended the Egyptians ; from
Phut the Mauritanians; and from Canaan descended the Ca-
naanites.
472 T'RE UNITY OF
Thus does tlie voice of history identify the peopling of the
earth with the descendants of the family of Noah. But that
family were evidently homogeneous in their language with the
antediluvians, and in their features resembled those who
were swept away by the flood.
We have, then, the starting-point of the confusion of
tongues at Babel, from whence to trace the vast differences
of language that subsequently arose. We know that the
peopling of the earth and the dispersion of the inhabitants
over the earth must proceed from necessity, rather than from
choice. A race of men who are homogeneous in language,
customs, habits, color, etc. do not readily emigrate into dif-
ferent portions of the world, far apart and separated from
each other by natural obstacles of great power. Men are
naturally social in their tendencies, and it is impossible that
the whole race will be dismembered, and form separate and
distinct parties, which diverge from each other with increas-
ing energy from year to year, unless there are causes of
mighty efficacy at work to bring about this end. The con-
fusion of tongues presents the solution of the most difficult
problem of history, even the fundamental differences of lan-
guage. That confusion was effected evidently by miraculous
agency, and was of such power as to secure the widest dis-
persion over the earth. It has been seen that Nimrod was
the father of the Ethiopians, and Mizraim, the second son
of Ham, of the Egyptians.
" There is nothing," says Layard, " in history, either sacred
or profane, or in the traditions handed down to us, against
attributing the highest antiquity to the Assyrian empire. In
the land of Shinar, in the country watered by the Tigris and
the Euphrates, the Scriptures place the earliest habitations
of the human race. We have evidence that at the earliest
period the belief was current, both among the Egyptians
and Jews, that the first settlements were in Assyria, and that
from Chaldea civilization and the arts and sciences were
spread over the world. Abraham and his family, above 1900
years before Christ, migrated from a land already thickly in
habited and possessing great cities. According to Josephus,
THE HUMAN RACE. 473
the four confederate kings who marched in the time of the
patriarchs against the people of Sodom and the neighboring
cities were under a king of Assyria whose empire extended
all over Asia."
We arrive, then, at a conclusion, confirmed by sacred and
profane history, that the gross idolatry that prevailed in
Egypt had its origin in Assyria, and that, as early as the
time of Abraham, Egypt was far advanced in civilization,
and even then the seat of monuments pointing out to the
aged patriarch an origin from the plain of Shinar. The curse
pronounced against Babylon, consigning one of the most
fertile portions of the earth to the most fearful desolation,
lay evidentlj' in a deeper cause than the mere oppression of
the Jews. Egypt oppressed them more, but its punishment
has not been so conspicuous. Babylon was far more the
mother of idolatry than of oppression. Here originated
those germs of error that found in Egypt so prolific a soil.
The first settlers on the banks of the Nile were idolaters.
From the first truths in respect to God, the immortality of
the soul, a future state of rewards and punishments, we
notice upon their monuments the most striking evidence of
successive stages of degeneracy, by which the earlier intima-
tions of sacred truth were hidden under a darker robe of
idolatry. The deification of the sun appears to be the
earliest form under which idolatry manifested itself From
a metaphor, or type of God, the sun became a symbol, an
image, — God's vicegerent, his living representative, — God
himself. There is hardly a monument upon which that
luminary is not represented and invoked as a deity. Thus
the unity of God was set forth in a way that led the people into
polytheism, while the real unity of the Deity was known only
to the priests, and hidden from the common people. The
result was soon the grossest form of idol worship. Animal
worship, according to Manetho, was introduced by Chous, the
second king of the second dynasty. The origin of this appears
to have been the endeavor to express in their picture-writing
the various attributes of God, by the delineation of a living
being possessing, as they fancied, similar attributes. Thus,
474 THE UNITY OF
the hawk was the living representative or embodied symbol
of man}' gods. In the same spirit of coarse symbolism, the
vigilance and watchful care of God over the creation were
degraded into the likeness of a dog. The vengeance of God
was personified under the form of a crocodile, or an idol
having the head of this reptile. But the study of the Egyp-
tian temples reveals the fact that they were acquainted with
the mysterious truth of the triple existence of God, The
primary form or antitype of their mythology is a triad of
divinities, composed of Ammou, the father, Mout, the
mother, and Chous, the infant son. This triad passes through
an immense number of intermediate triads, until it reaches
the earth, where, under the forms of Osiris, Isis, and Horus,
it becomes incarnate. Thus, the innumerable idols of Egypt
had their origin from the perversions of sacred truth, and
reveal the fact that the land of the Chaldees — the region
washed by the Tigris and the Euphrates — was the mother
of those impious idolatries that brought on the ruin of Nine-
veh and Babylon.
We have thus shown that the plain of Shinar, in Chaldea,
where stood the tower of Babel, evidently points out the
source of the lirst emigration into Egypt, and was the ear-
liest cradle of the civilization of the earth. What follows,
but that to the marked event that brought on the change of
language and the dispersion over the earth we are to at-
tribute those essential differences that subsequently have
characterized the human race ?
If one clear case of miraculous interposition can be made
out to account for the diversities of the human language,
then certainly one of the most marked peculiarities that
appear in the different nations of the earth can be accounted
for. We say, then, to him who denies the unity of the race
from one stock, that, even supposing incidental varieties and
natural causes not sufficient to account for such a wide-spread
diversity, it does not follow that there are no other causes
independent of distinct creations, in different localities, to
account for the wide differences existing in the form, color,
and anatomical constr'iction of the diverse nations of the
THE HUMAN RACE. 475
earth. Suppose the great law of adaptation, in combination
with habit, climate, distinct locality, etc., does not clearly
reveal the secret of human diversities; are we therefore
driven to the hypothesis of distinct creations at difterent
periods of the world ? Certainly not.
We can trace the thread of history to a period when the
whole earth was of one language. "We can trace the origin
of nations to the three sons of Noah and their immediate
descendants. We can trace upon the monuments of Egypt
and Assyria the birthplace of these respective countries.
We can trace the first great break in one universal language.
tVe can see miracle as clearl}' inscribed upon the confusion
of tongues as upon the first creation of man. AVe have,
then, only to say that if the researches of science compel to
the conclusion that incidental varieties and natural causes
will not satisfactorily account for the fundamental diver-
sities existing in the four great races of the earth, there
remains another hypothesis that must be overturned before
any good reason can be found for four or more distinct crea-
tions of man. The miracle invoked to account, if needed,
for the diversities of the human family at the confusion of
tongues, in combination w^ith natural causes, is far more
probable than the contrary hypothesis of varied and distinct
miracles of creation at difi^erent times and in difl:erent lo-
calities.
The great catastrophe of the confusion of tongues intro-
ducing with it organic changes and fundamental varieties of
color and form, to be more permanently developed in after-
ages in combination with difl[ereuces of habit, climate, coun-
try, and other causes, is a hypothesis, to say the least, that
cannot be shown false. It is vastly more in unison with his-
tory, sacred and profane ; it is amply sufiicient for the great-
est changes ; and there is no argument which can avail to
overthrow it upon the ground of the impotency of natural
causes.
Above all things, the voice of history, the earliest tradi-
tions of mankind, point to the family of Noah as a second
time peopling the earth, and as the only stock whence
476 THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN BACE.
have issued the existing varieties of the race of man ; and
whoever denies this has a harder task before him to sustain
his position than ever Pharaoh had in making war against
the ten plagues of Egypt.
Thus we see the twofold difficulty to overcome, of those
who deny the unitj' of the human race from one common
parentage. First, they must show, upon the ground of natural
causes, that the diversities existing in the human species are
greater than those existing in the species of dogs, horses,
sheep, oxen, cats, etc. Secondly, they must show that, pro-
vided the diversities in the human race are greater, or that
natural causes may not be sufficient to account for them, God
did not, at the confusion of tongues upon the plain of Shinar,
by one bold interposition of miracle, in connection with natu-
ral causes, bring about all the existing varieties in the human
family. We do not see any necessity for introducing miracle
at all in securing the known diversity in the human race, for
we do not see in this race such great varieties as exist in
the different species of animals; but, if miracle must be in-
voked to account for these varieties among men, yet even
then we must see that one miracle such as that which took
place at Babel, is an hypothesis far more reasonable, and
more in accordance with history, than four, six, or a greater
number of miracles in the creation, in different parts of the
earth, of those marked diversities that appear in the human
family.
CHAPTER XVII.
INTEGRITY OF THE SACRED CANON.
The New Testament canon contains no book written by
Christ, It consists of five historical books, one prophetical,
and twenty-one epistolary. Of the historical books, four,
called Gospels, are ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John. They contain brief histories of the life and death of
Christ, his teachings, and his resurrection. The fifth, called
the Acts, is ascribed to Luke. Of the Epistles, fourteen are
ascribed to Paul; the remaining seven, called Catholic, are as-
cribed one to James, two to Peter, three to John, and one to
Jude. The only prophetical book is ascribed to John, the
author of the Gospel and the three Epistles.
Consider, first, the language and the style. After the con-
quests of Alexander the Great, the various dialects of the
Greeks became mingled together and extensively diffused all
over the East. The Greek became the court language of the
Romans in the East. While, therefore, the Syro-Chaldaic, or
Hebrew, was the vernacular tongue of the Jews who resided
in Palestine, Greek was extensively spoken as the language
of commerce. Thus the Greek, partaking of the Jewish
idiom, was the dialect current at the time, in which are in-
terspersed some traces of the Latin language. Such is, in
fact, the language of the New Testament, in its style and
manner. In its minute correspondences it was just what
might be expected of the age in which it was written. "What
now is the external evidence of the genuineness of the New
Testament ?
Let us commence with the age of the apostles. Barnabas
of Cyprus is frequently mentioned as a co-laborer of Paul;
Clement, as a fellow-laborer of Paul, afterward Bishop of
(477)
478 INTEGBITY OF THE
Rome; Hermas, probably the same saluted by Paul in the
Epistle to the Romans ; Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, in
Syria, where he is said to have been ordained by Peter ;
Polycarp, a disciple of John, ordained by him Bishop of
Smyrna, where he died a martyr ; and Papias, the companion
of Polycarp. Now, -in the brief writings and fragments of
these few apostolical fathers which have descended to us we
find nearly all the books of our New Testament quoted or
alluded to ; nor did they recognize any other books than
those in our canon.
Let us descend a little later into the second century, and
examine the writings of Justin Martyr, a.d, 140, of Ire-
nseus, A.D. 178, of Clement of Alexandria, a.d. 194, and of
Tertullian, a.d. 200. Justin tells us that the memoirs and
records of the apostles and their companions were read and
expounded in the assemblies of Christians for divine worship
on the Sabbath-day. Irenteus says, " there were but four
gospels," the same as we now have; he also says of Poly-
carp, whom he had seen in his youth, " I can tell the place
in which the blessed Polycarp sat and taught, and his going
out and coming in, and the manner of his life, and the form
of his person, and the discourses he made to the people,
and how he related his conversation with John and others
who had seen the Lord, both concerning his miracles and his
doctrines, as he had received them from the eye-witnesses of
the word of life ; all which Polycarp related agreeably to the
Scriptures."
Of Polycarp one undoubted epistle remains; and in this,
though short, we have about forty clear allusions to the New
Testament. Twenty-five or thirty-five years after follows
Justin Martyr, universally known in the ancient Church. In
his writings are thirty-five plain quotations from the Gospel of
Matthew alone, and in one part a considerable portion of the
Sermon on the Mount, in the very words of Matthew. Ire-
nseus mentions the code of the New Testament as well as the
Old, and calls the one, as the other, the oracles of God. Says
Irenseus, " We have not received the knowledge of the way
of our salvation by any other than those by whom the gospel
SACRED CANON. 479
has been brought to us : which gospel they first preached,
and afterwards by the will of God committed to writing, that
it might be, for all time to come, the foundation and pillar of
our faith. For after our Lord arose from the dead, and they
were endued from above with the power of the Holy Ghost
coming down upon them, they received a perfect knowledge
of all things. They then went forth to all the ends of the
earth, declaring to men the blessing of heavenly peace, having
all of them, and every one alike, the gospel of God. Mat-
thew, then among the Jews, wrote a gospel in their own lan-
guage, while Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel at
Rome and founding a church there; and, after their exit,
Mark, another disciple and interpreter of Peter, delivered to
us in writing the things that had been preached by Peter;
and Luke, the companion of Paul, put down in a book the
gospel preached by him. Afterward, John, the disciple of
the Lord, who also leaned upon his breast, likewise pub-
lished a gospel while he dwelt at Ephesus, in Asia."
Says Justin Martyr, speaking of the general usage of the
Christian Church, " The memoirs of the apostles or the writ-
ings of the prophets are read according as the time allows ;
and, when the reader has ended, the president makes a dis-
course."
Polycarp, a Companion of the apostles, says, " I trust ye
are well exercised in the Holy Scriptures, as in these Scrip-
tures it is said, ' Be ye angry and sin not;' " thus showing
that there were Scripture writings distinguished as the
"Holy Scriptures." Li the first century we have more than
two hundred quotations and allusions to our sacred books, in
which there is an incidental testimony more valuable than
any formal testimon}^ could be. In the second centur}^ the
testimony is more full and express. Of this age there are
thirty-six writers whose works in some parts have come down
to us. In the third and fourth centuries there are more than
one hundred authors whose works testily to the authenticity
of these books. Dr. Lardner, in speaking of the works of
Irenseus, Clement of Alexandria, and TertuUian, says,
"There are perhaps more and larger quotations of the small
480 INTEGBITY OF THE
volume of the New Testament than of all the works of
Cicero, though of so uncommon excellence for thought and
style, in the writers of all characters for several ages."
There have descended to us thirteen well-authenticated
catalogues of the genuine and canonical books in the two
following centuries. In settling the canon we find from
Eusebius, a.d. 315, that there were seven books concerning
which the grounds of the doubts are fully given. He says,
" In the first place are to be ranked the sacred four Gospels ;
then the book of the Acts of the Apostles ; after that are to
be reckoned the Epistles of Paul ; in the next place, that
called the First Epistle of John, and the Epistle of Peter, are
to be esteemed authentic. After this is to be placed the
Revelation of John, about which we shall observe the dif-
ferent opinions at proper seasons. Of the controverted, yet
well known or approved by the most, are that called the
Epistle of James, and that of Jude, and the second of Peter,
and the second and third of John, whether written by the
evangelist or by another of the same name." But concern-
ing the last all doubts were gradually removed; and by the
time of Jerome and Augustine, a.d. 342-420, many cata-
logues are given, including our present books and none
other.
President Hopkins, in a very comprehensive yet brief
manner, embodies a great amount of argument upon the
integrity and authenticity of the books of the I^ew Testa-
ment ; and we shall from him make a few extracts.
"While, therefore, it appears that the writings of thelSTew
Testament were some of them collected into a volume in the
apostolical times, under the name of the Gospels and the
Epistles ; while the references to this volume during the
second century are almost numberless; while no doubt ever
arose respecting the mass of then;, — still, the book which we
now receive was not, in all its parts, formally agreed upon,
in consequence of a careful examination of ancient testi-
mony, until between three and four hundred years after the
birth of Christ. It will be remembered, however, that if
^SACBED CANON. 481
every part of the ITew Testament concerning which there was
then dispute were blotted out, the argument for the truth of
Christianity woukl not l)e in the least invalidated. There is,
therefore, direct evidence, as perfect as the nature of the case
admits, that those writings on which we depend for the truth
of the Christian religion have existed, and were received
without doubt, from the very first. So full and unexception-
able is the testimony thus given by the early writers, that it
woukl seem, in the absence of anything to contradict it or to
throw over it the slightest discredit, that further evidence
could not be needed. Indeed, if we were to stop here we
should have a body of evidence for the authenticity of these
writings such as can be adduced in favor of no others of
equal antiquity. The writings of Cicero are quoted by
Quintilian, which shows that they were then extant and
ascribed to him. But the writings of Cicero excited no con-
troversy; they gave rise to no general opposition; they
created no sects. Hence we have no means of knowing
how these works were regarded by enemies or by rival
parties appealing to their authority. This, when it can be
obtained, is the very highest kind of evidence ; and in
respect to the Christian Scriptures it is most full and satis-
factory. The heretical writers do indeed sometimes deny
that the apostle or writer is an infallible authority ; but they
never deny that the books were written by those to whom
they were ascribed. Thus, the Cerinthians and the Ebionites,
who sprang up while St. John was yet living, wished to
retain the Mosaic law, and hence rejected the Epistles of
Paul while they retained the Gospel of Matthew; and Mar-
cion, A.D. 130, who rejected the Old Testament and was ex-
communicated, though greatly incensed, and though he
speaks disparagingly of several of the books, nowhere inti-
mates that they were forgeries.
"The same may be said of the ancient sects. "We have,
also, the indirect testimony of the enemies of Christianity, as
Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian. Of these, Celsas flourished
only about a hundred years after the Gospels were published,
31
482 INTEGRITY OF THE
and was an acute and bitter adversary; and it seems quite
impossible that any one of them, much more the whole,
should have been forged and yet he not know or suspect it.
He attacks the books ; he speaks of contradictions and diffi-
culties in them ; but he hints no suspicion that they were
forged. Indeed, he admits the writings, for he says, ' These
things, then, we have alleged to you out of your own writ-
ings, not needing any other weapons.' In Porphyry, born
A.D. 233 (the most sensible and severe adversary of Christi-
anity that antiquity can produce), we find no trace of any
suspicion that the Christian writings were not authentic,
though he pronounces the prophecy of Daniel a forgery.
Porphyry did not even deny the truth of the Gospel history.
He admitted that the miracles were performed by Christ,
but imputed them to magic, which he said he learned in
Egypt. Julian, commonly called the Apostate, flourished
from A.D. 331 to 363. He quotes the four Gospels and the
Acts, and nowhere gives any intimation that he suspected
the whole or an}^ part of them to be forgeries.
"Another source of evidence is to be found in ancient ver-
sions and manuscripts. The Syriac version was probably
made early in the second century, and the first Latin version
almost as early. Of course the New Testament must have
existed, and been received as the standard of Christian truth,
before these versions were made. Of ancient manuscripts
containing the New Testament or parts thereof, there are
several thousands. About five hundred of the most im-
portant have been collated with great care: many of them
are of great antiquity. The Codex Vaticanus is believed, on
very satisfactory evidence, to be of the fourth century, and the
Codex Alexandrianus of the fifth, — perhaps both much earlier.
Thus these manuscripts connect with manuscripts com-
pared by Jerome and Eusebius, a.d. 315-420, who prepared
critical editions of the New Testament from manuscripts then
ancient. The prodigious number of these manuscripts, the
distant countries whence they were collected, and the identity
of their contents with the quotations of the fathers of diflereut
SACRED CANON. 48S
ages, place the New Testament incomparably above all other
ancient works in point of authenticity.
" Is there, then, we are ready to ask, any kind of external
evidence conceivable which is wanting to our sacred books ?
But, strong as is the external proof, it hardly equals that
which is to be derived from the circumstances of the case,
and from internal evidence. For if these writings are not
authentic they must be forgeries ; and they are of such a
character, and purport to have been written under such cir-
cumstances, as to render a forgery of them impossible. Here,
for example, are no fewer than nine letters which claim to
have been written to numerous bodies of men and received
of them ; and can any man believe that such letters, often
containing severe reproof, could have been received and read,
as we know these were by the early Christians, if they were
forgeries? Come, now, says Tertullian, born only sixty years
after the death of St. John, ' Come, now, who wilt exercise
thy curiosity more profitably in the business of thy salvation,
run through the apostolical churches in which the very
chairs of the apostles still preside, in which their authentic
letters are recited, sounding forth the voice and representing
the countenance of each.'
" Can any man suppose that letters thus spoken of at that
early age could be forged? Besides, when could they have
been forged ? Not, certainly, during the lives of the apostles,
for then they would have confuted them ; and after their
death it is morally impossible that such letters should have
been received as from them by any body of Christians."
We have not time to dwell longer upon the New Testa-
ment ; and we now will briefly consider the Old. In the first
place, Christ and the apostles indorsed the Jewish canon, as
it then existed, as divine Scripture ; and this canon was the
same as our Old Testament.
" I was daily with you," says Christ to those who came to
apprehend him, " in the temple, teaching, and ye took me
not; but the Scripture must be fulfilled." "Think not that I
am come to des^troy the low, or the projyheis ; I am not come to
484 INTEGRITY OF THE
destro}^, but to fulfill." " These are the words which I spake
unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be
fulfilled which were written in the hv) of 3Ioses, and in the
jjrophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me." "All Scripture
is given by inspiration of God," says Paul. Thus, in the
New Testament, the apostles indorse all the Scriptures in
current use among the Jews. The Old Testament is con-
stantly appealed to as the ivord of God. While, also, the
Jewish Scriptures are constantly quoted, there is no intima-
tion that they are in any part what they should not be. The
common allusions to them show the esteem in which they
are held; as, " Thus saith the Scriptures ;" " Thus saith the
Lord ;" " As the Holy Ghost saith ;" " As it is written." Is,
then, the Jewish canon the same as our Old Testament?
Consider the testimony of the New Testament. In the New
Testament nearly all the books of the Old are alluded to or
quoted. Then, again, we have the testimony of Jewish
writers, especially of Josephus, born about a.d. 37, a few
years after the death of Christ. In his treatise defending the
authenticity and credibility of the Jewish Scriptures, he
says : " For we have not among us myriads of books, dis-
cordant and conflicting, but only twenty-two books, contain-
ing the history of all past time, and justly believed to be
divine. Of these, five belong to Moses, which contain the
laws, and the traditions of the origin of mankind until his
death. This period is little less than three thousand years.
From the death of Moses to the reign of Artaxerxes, king
of the Persians after Xerxes, the prophets who came after
Moses recorded the events of their times in thirteen books.
The four remaining books contain hymns to God and rules
of life for man. From Artaxerxes to our own time, every-
thing has been written ; but it is not esteemed of equal credit
with what preceded, because there has not been an exact
succession of prophets. And it is evident from fact how
we believe in our Scriptures ; for through so long a period
already elapsed, no one has dared to add anything, or take
from them, or to make alterations ; but it is implanted in all
SACRED CANON. 485
Jews, from their very birth, to consider them oracles of God
{^9£di duyij-ara)^ and to abide by them, and for them, if need be,
cheerfully to die." The testimony also of the early Christian
fathers conclusively shows that the Jewish canon, as indorsed
by Christ and the apostles, was precisely the same as that of
our Old Testament. Consider, also, the great fact that from
the time of Christ to the present day Christians as well as
Jews have held in equal veneration the Old Testament. In
respect to the preservation of the text of the Old and New
Testaments, we cannot do better than quote the language of
Professor Sampson, of Virginia :
" I return, then, to the affirmation that of no books so
ancient has the text been so certainly and so well preserved
as that of the books which compose our Old and New Testa-
ments. There are, indeed, here and there passages, and still
ofteuer clauses, the integrity of which there may be some good
reason to suspect; and there are hundreds and thousands of
minor variations brought to light by a careful comparison of
manuscripts, versions, and quotations. But of these the
great majority do not afl'ect the sense in the least, and could
not, therefore, be expressed in a good translation ; and
Where they do, either a judicious criticism can determine the
true reading, or it is unimportant to the Christian system,
and generally to the passage itself, which of several readings,
that may be about equally sustained, shall be adopted as
original. The very means of multiplying the various read-
ings, viz. the great number of documents to be compared,
have always furnished so many eft'ectual guards to prevent
corruption of the text, and furnish now ample means of cor-
recting it, where correction is needed. It is precisely those
books, classic as well as sacred, of which we have fewest
manuscripts and other documents, and, consequently, com-
paratively few various readings, that the text is most liable
to suspicion. On the other hand, the text of those is most
certain for which we have the greatest number of documents,
especially manuscripts, to compare, and, consequently, the
greatest number of various readings actually occurring.
486 INTEGRITY OF THE SACRED CANON.
Thus has Providence by natural means, and without a
miracle, preserved the text of all the Sacred Scriptures ; and
it is vain for skepticism longer to hope to find a cover for its
unbelief under the flimsy pretext of its corruption, — either
accidental or designed. The worst text that could be pub-
lished on the authority of any manuscripts would not alter
a single phase of Christianity."
Can we, then, question the integrity of the sacred canon,
or the truth of the words of inspiration, " I, Jesus, have
sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the
churches" ?
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE PLENARY INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE.
"When, in addition to prophecies and miracles, we have in
the Scriptures a most wonderful adaptation to our wants;
when we see in thom the exhibition of truths far more clear
than the light of nature can make known, and the revelation
of new and most important truths that no uninspired mind
could discover ; when, looking at the character of Christ, we
see a perfect model of all virtue, as well as the only possible
medium of salvation for sinners, and then consider the suc-
cess of Christianity under circumstances that would crush it,«
if not divine, the conclusion is irresistible that the whole
system of religion in the Scriptures of the Old and New Tes-
tament is of God, and not of human origin.
The inspiration of the Bible does not rest upon the fact
alone of the assertion of the sacred writers to their inspira-
tion. While this assertion is an additional argument to prove
the Bible from God, it yet forms but one link of a mighty
chain that binds the whole together. Until the other evidences
have been disproved, there is not the shadow of a reason for
the assertion that the Bible is not of God. With the exist-
ence of the great facts of the adaptation of the Bible, mira-
cles, prophecies, the divine excellence of Christ's character,
and the success of Christianity, the authority of the Bible, as
revealing a system of religion from God, rests upon an im-
movable foundation : that authority is infallible, and therefore
not of human origin.
But the general inspiration of the Bible is not to be
confounded with the plenary inspiration of the Bible. The
former has already been shown. If nothing more was done,
this would be enough to authorize us to receive tlie Bible as
(48T)
THE PLENARY INSPIRATION
the word of God, and to submit to the Christian religion
with all its truths as alike infallible and divine. With the
general inspiration of the Bible it is perfectly consistent that
there may exist some errors of history or science, some mis-
takes of dates or persons or representations of physical phe-
nomena, or even some deficiencies of moral truths. We do
not think these things actually to exist in the Bible ; but sup-
pose they do? Suppose, for reasons best known to God, he
should permit a record defective in some respects to be given
to man : does that prove the whole defective ? Are miracles,
prophecies, the adaptation of the Bible to our wants, the di-
vine virtues of Christ, and the success of Christianity, all to
count for nothing because of such deficiencies ? Must we
throw away the Bible because of some imperfections ? Must
we disown in the main the divine authority of the Scriptures
because it does not extend to every chapter and verse? Here
infidelity, upon its own ground, may be shown to be baseless
and unworthy of confidence. Even should we go so far as to
admit that a very large part of the Bible was not inspired,
this would not prove the whole Bible uninspired. If the ob-
jections of infidelity were conceded as to many things recorded
as facts, yet this would not do away with the evidence of
miracles and prophecy; this would not subvert the proof of
the divine mission of Christ ; this would not do away with
the adaptation of the Bible to our wants We assert that,
taking the lowest ground, admitting even a thousand mis-
takes, and confessing to great error upon much that is of im-
portance to believe in the Scriptures, enough would still
remain to prove that the Bible in all essential respects is of
God, and bears the impress of a higher than human authority.
God has not placed his word upon such precarious ground
that it will be subverted, or proved not divine, unless every-
thing claimed for it is established. ITot one angel, but a
thousand, guard its divine authority ; and before that author-
ity can be destroyed it is necessary that the whole angelic
band that stand sentinel over their sacred trust should be dis-
armed. We believe that no idea is more fallacious than the
assertion that one, or two, or twenty, or a hundred errors in
OF THE BIBLE. 489
the Holy Scriptures would conclusively show that the Bible
was not divine and that God had nothing to do with its com-
position. These ei-rors would, indeed, be clear objections to
the divine authority of those parts of the Bible where thej^
existed ; for God is the author only of truth; but they could
not form a valid argument for the rejection of the whole Bible
as from God, and for the assertion that it had but one ele-
ment, even the human, and therefore must stand upon the
same ground as all other works. Consequently, we say that,
under the most unfavorable admissions, even upon the very
low ground that some delight to stand upon, it cannot be
shown that the Bible has not general inspiration, that Chris-
tianity as a system is not divine, that the Old and Kew Tes-
taments do not, in their essential features, bear the impress
of God, and that there is not a high sense in which the Bible
diifers from all other books, giving to it a supreme authority
that would not be applicable to any human production.
We claim for the Bible a general inspiration, if nothing
more. AYe say that even if that inspiration was made in a high
degree defective, yet the Bible would stand upon a foundation
altogether different from all other books ; that enough would
still remain in it to make tlie Holy Scriptures w^orthy of the
highest respect and deserving the most considerate attention
and love. So long as the grand central truth stands out, of
Christ, the Messiah, sent by God, — so long as any one undis-
puted miracle of his can be proved, or a single prediction
that carries with it the impress of a divine mind, — then, upon
the simple authority of but one miracle and but one predic-
tion, we claim for the Bible enough of inspiration to make it
w^orthy of confidence, when upon the side of this miracle
and prophecy there is the conclusive test of adaptation and
approimateness to our wants as sinners. But, in claiming at
least for the Bible a general inspiration, we would be under-
stood clearly to deny that there is any necessity for taking
the low ground supposed, or that general inspiration does not
comprehend vastly more than this. Our object is onlj- to
show that there is no reason in the arsrument that one or
many errors, even if established, would prove the Bible not
490 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION
from God. These errors would be defects, but not reasons
for an absolute rejection of the Bible. We might wish the
Bible free from them, but their existence would not show that
no parts of the Bible were from God. It must ever be remem-
bered that objections against the Bible must be proved before
they can have any weight, and that those who would under-
mine its divine authority must have something better than
assertion. When the general inspiration of the Scriptures
is shown, be it of a high or low character, enough will always
remain to show the divinity of its origin; and this, con-
sidered simply as a fact established, must ever bring with it
the deepest claim upon our homage and respect.
But we enter now upon the subject of the plenary ivsivration
of the Bible. This is a step higher than the general inspiration
of the Old and New Testaments. Plenary inspiration includes
all that general inspiration does; it differs only in that it is a
more perfect kind of inspiration. The Bible is generally in-
spired if it shows conclusively the divine authority of the
Christian religion, and all the essential facts relating to that
religion. It is generally inspired if the writers of tlie Bible
were under such an influence of the Holy Spirit as to enable
them to communicate the great facts of the Bible as infallible
truths, with the sanction of God as to their reality and their
binding obligation. Inspiration rests not so much upon the
truth of the Bible, — other books are as true, — as upon the
fact that those books proceed from God, are enforced by his
authority, and are required to be believed in by divine sanc-
tions. The plenary inspiration of the Bible comprises all
this ; but its peculiar distinction from general inspiration
consists in the fact that plenary inspiration has allusion to
the mind especially of the writer. Plenary inspiration has
reference to the precise language of the writing itself. As
language is made up of words, and the best mode of inspira-
tion must be the expression in the original manuscripts of the
exact words of the Holy Spirit, consequently the Holy Scrip-
tures, if plenarily inspired, must embody the selection of the
best kind of language to accomplish the precise end of every
book in the word of God. But what is the best kind of han-
OF THE BIBLE. 491
guage to communicate the mind of God to man, unless it be
language embodying the very words of the Holy Spirit?
This is in no respect inconsistent with the great idea that the
Bible has in it largely a human element as well as a divine
element. The Bible was made for man ; it must, therefore,
have in it the human as well as the divine, and both elements
blended together. The divine element must exist to show
its infallible authority ; the human element, to adapt it to the
endless conditions of human wants. Without the one, it
would not be from God ; without the other, it might do for
angels, but not for mankind. Now, whenever the plenary
inspiration of the Bible is spoken of, we would be under-
stood to mean simply that the minds of the writers of the
Bible were under such guidance or influence of the Holy
Spirit as to give in human language, in a way the most ap-
propriate under the circumstances, the mind of God, his
thoughts or will. Thus, while the human element is made
use of, it is under such control as to secure also the divine
element. The human element, in all its numberless modes
of expression, is employed, while the divine element, as a
restraining and regulating power, exists to give those sanc-
tions that should exalt the Bible above all other books. I^^ow,
to speak of the plenary inspiration of the Bible, with the
mind alone of the writers inspired in different degrees, and
yet no direct superintendence in respect to their choice of
language, — no such inspiration as to lead in all cases to the
selection of the best words, words the most appropriate,
concise, and adapted to the ideas that are communicated, —
is in no respect to come up to the full meaning of plenary
inspiration.
It is evident that the best kind of inspiration must have
relation not only to the substance of truth, but also to its mode.
There must be some regard to the dress of truth, as well as to
the body of it. Ideas, to have their most appropriate mean-
ing, must be embodied in appropriate words. Language must
lose much of its power unless there is due regard to suitable
expression. This is what we claim for plenary inspiration. It
is simply divine truth clothed in suitable words, and in that
492 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION
very langaage most appropriate to convey the mind of God.
By plenary inspiration of the Bible it is not meant that
no verbal inaccuracies may not have crept into the transla-
tions of the Bible from the original copy : we do not hold
that the translators of the Bible were inspired, because that
is not necessary in a translation; a heathen as well as a
Christian may translate from one language to another ; but
what is meant is that the very language of the original
manuscripts of the Bible, as much as the thoughts of the
writers, was under the direct superintendence of the Holy
Spirit, so that the writers of the Bible were truly the aman-
uenses of the Holy Spirit, presenting his thoughts with the
best selection of words. But should it be said that this
would exclude the human element and leave only the divine,
in reply we say, this does not follow if the Holy Spirit
makes use of the idiosyncrasy of the different writers of the
Bible, and permits each to express himself after his own
peculiar constitution and in accordance with the varying con-
ditions of the human mind. The essential thing is to avoid
error, and express truth in the best manner ; this may in
the wisest manner be attained by leaving each -writer to
speak in his own way, and in harmony with the nature
.God has given him, and the circumstances in which he is
placed.
Our idea of plenary inspiration is simply that God com-
municates his mind in the best way for mankind. Now, the
question is. Does plenary inspiration discard the human ele-
ment? Not at all. It makes use of it intimately blended or
pervaded by the divine element. Thus, the human element
is that which makes a revelation adapted to man in sympathy
with man, — something permitted to man in accordance with
the endless diversities of his condition in this world ; while the
divine element preserves from error, and gives the sanction of
God to the truth. We hold that all this is perfectly consistent
with plenary inspiration. It is not that God speaks alone, or
that man speaks alone, but that God, through his all-per-
vading and controlling Spirit, makes use of the idiosyncrasy of
each writer, while he preserves that idiosyncrasy from error,
OF THE BIBLE. 493
and leads it to the expression of such ideas in such a way
as best to secure the end of a suitable revelation of his will
and thoughts to man. God gives a Bible not to angels, but
to mankind ; and therefore all his communications to men
must be in accordance with their peculiar wants and circum-
stances. Thus the human element and the divine are made
to blend together in this respect, that God condescends to
the limited capacities of man in such away as to communicate
his mind as best it may be understood within the sphere of the
human, while the human is so guided as to be kept from error,
and 80 enlightened as to declare such truths as most truly
will secure the great end of human redemption. How, then,
is plenary inspiration inconsistent with the fullest admission
of the human element in the Bible ? There is no more diffi-
culty in God's consulting the mode of truth than in his con-
sulting the substance of truth, and no more inappropriate-
ness in his prescribing the manner of revelation than in his
prescribing the essences. Rather we should infer that God
would have respect not only to his word, but to the way
of its communication; and this is just what we mean by
plenary inspiration. Will, then, any one say that because
God makes use of the peculiar idiosyncrasy of each writer
of the Bible, the Bible is therefore not plenarily inspired ?
We do not see liow both the human and the divine elements
combine ; but do we not see the fact itself? Do we not see
that God speaks to us not in angelic but in human language,
and therefore must accommodate himself to the essential
limitation and even imperfection of human language ? God
comes with just as much truth in the different conditions of
our earthly existence as we can most suitably comprehend,
and at the same time with just that truth which most wisely
in all ages will secure the great end of human redemption.
We think a singular want of consideration has been shown
in accounting for this peculiarity of the revelation of God's
mind to man. That which is the highest excellence of
the Bible is interpreted into the denial of its plenary inspi-
ration ; and because the human element is admitted we are
told that the divine element is either unnecessary or impossi-
494 THE PLENABY INSPIRATION
ble. But how does this follow ? The divine element is in-
dispensable to keep from error, and equally essential to se-
cure the best mode of presenting truth. Why may not both
be made use of in perfect consistency with the proper devel-
opment of the human element ? We think the most dan-
gerous heresy of the present day in relation to inspiration
is found in the assertion that if God speaks man cannot
speak, and if man speaks God cannot speak, — in other words,
the denial of the blending of the human and the divine ele-
ments in inspiration. It is this very union of both that makes
the Bible the noblest, the best and most useful of all books,
and gives to it in all conditions of life the authority of God.
There are three forms of error into which the mind falls
in relation to the inspiration of the Bible, — those of infidelity,
of pantheism, and of superstition. Infidelit}' denies the divine
element in the Bible altogether; pantheism makes all in the
Bible an emanation from God alone, in common with every-
thing else; while superstition misapplies the human and the
divine in the Holy Scriptures, so as to degrade both. The
infidel sees no God in the Bible ; the pantheist sees no man ;
while the superstitious sees neither God nor man, in the sense
in which both are delineated in the Sacred Scriptures.
After the general inspiration of the Bible is show^n, but
two things are needful to be established in order to show the
plenary or the best possible kind of inspiration. ISTo person
can doubt that if there runs through the Bible a great chain
of prophecy, — if there are scattered all over the Sacred
Scriptures predictions fulfilled and unfulfilled, — then the
writers of the Bible must be under a general inspiration of
God ; for they certainly could not foretell, hundreds of years
before accomplisliment, events to take place Prophecy of
itself shows inspiration ; and now if, in connection with this,
a most wonderful adaptation to human wants is seen in the
Bible, and truths are declared which were never known
before, or which were universally forgotten or perverted if
ever known, then the reason is more conclusive still for
concluding that the Scriptures are generally inspired. What
man cannot do must, if done, be accomplished by God;
OF THE BIBLE. 495
aud we have only to notice in the Bible that which man can-
not do, thrown alone upon his own resources, to find an irre-
sistible argument for the general inspiration of the Bible.
This general inspiration is not destroj'ed because of errors dis-
covered in history, oi'' science, or even ethical statements. It
is not destroyed if much can be shown in the Bible that is use-
less, or inappropriate, or inconsistent with othler portions of the
Scriptures; for, remember, miracles, prophecy, adaptation,
success of Christianity in the first century, and the perfect
character of Christ, must each and all be shown false before
with clear argument a person can say that in no sense is the
Bible inspired or the work of God. What a hopeless task has
the infidel, then, before him ! This fivefold rope of strength
ties the Bible together. Not one strand, but all, must be cut
before any valid excuse can be given for the rejection of the
Scriptures. How preposterous, then, the conduct of those
who think, feel, and act as if the Bible was proved to be only
of human origin, because they believe some objection has
been sustained against the Scriptures ! They might as well
deny the existence of the sun because of some spots on its
surface, or that of the moon because it is partially obscured
by the clouds.
We do not hesitate to say that the general inspiration of
the Bible rests upon a foundation of granite as firm as the
everlasting hills, — a foundation even more strong and endur-
ing, since the earth itself shall pass away. Infidelity, then,
under the most favorable admissions, can accomplish nothing
against it ; and, consequently, there is an all-sufiicient ground
for loving and receiving the Bible as the word of God, if it
is only generally inspired. The diamonds and pearls in an
earthen vessel are none the less diamonds and pearls because
of the rubbish that may be mixed up with them; and, if it
would be insanity to reject the treasures because of the rub-
bish, has infidelity anything to boast of because it thinks it
can show valid objections or errors in the Bible ?
We are convinced that not only the general inspiration of
the Bible can be shown, but that we can even take a higher
step, and prove it plenary inspiration, in the true sense of
this language.
496 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION
"What, then, is necessary to prove the plenary inspiration
of the Bible ? After the general inspiration of the Scrip-
tures is shown, but two things are needful to be established,
to show the plenarj' or best kind of inspiration.
1st. That no errors in history, science, or ethical truths
exist in the Bible.
2d. That the inspiration of all the Scriptures be asserted in
the Bible in such a manner as to show their plenary inspira-
tion.
The first proposition has nothing to do with variations of
language, or those slight discrepancies of words that arise
from different copies. The Bible does not attempt to father
the mistakes of copyists or the different interpretations of its
readers. If, according to the well-established laws of popular
language, no error can be shown in the Bible, then it is
conclusively proved to be free from all scientific, historical, or
ethical untruths. What erroneous statement is there in the
Bible? If one can be shown, then, so far as that statement is
concerned, the Bible in that portion is not inspired, for the
Holy Ghost is not the author of error, but of truth ; but even
this admitted, and the general inspiration of the Scriptures is
not touched. But it can with confidence be said that no
such statement can be shown. The skeptic cannot laj^ his hand
upon a single error in the word of God. Often has it been
tried, and as often has it been found that the mistake ex-
isted in the mind of the objector, and not in the Holy Scrip-
tures.
The more careful the investigations into the field of science,
and the more clear the classification of the facts of history,
the deeper has been found the harmony of science and pro-
fane history with the Bible. While the Bible comes to
us with the main object of teaching moral truth, it has
never asserted a single thing inconsistent with any truth
made known in science or with any fact of history. That
the Bible does not profess to give us a treatise upon geology,
or astronomy, or chemistry, so far from being a blemish,
is a great excellence. It has higher objects to accomplish
than to waste time upon subjects that are connected only
OF THE BIBLE. 497
with the intellect and of no immediate use to advance the
end of revelation.
Consider the second proposition. Is the plenary inspira-
tion of the Bible asserted in the word of God ?
Plenary inspiration has alread}^ been defined to be such a
superintendence of the Holy Spirit as to reach to the lan-
guage of the writers of the Bible, and consequently as includ-
ing the choice of the most appropriate words that embody in
the best phraseology the natural characteristics of the writer.
What constitutes plenary inspiration is far more the condition
of the writing than of the writer. The mind of the writer may
be in different states under the influence of the Holy Spirit,
or that mind may be left to write man}- things in the natural
state, under no particular excitement of the Holy Spirit.
What constitutes plenary inspiration is simply that the
thoughts and language of the writer should be pre-
cisely such as the Holy Spirit would compose if left to write
the Bible without the aid of human instrumentality. The
confusion that rests upon this subject is cleared away if we
distinguish between the Scriptures and the human instru-
mentality that composed them. Plenary inspiration has
reference to the Scriptures themselves, rather than to the
writers of them. The end to be secured was the composing
of certain events in history and certain great moral truths in
such a variety as to be adapted to every class of mind and every
human want. To accomplish that end, human instruments
were made use of; as to the mode of the divine influence upon
the mind, this is a matter that it does not concern us to inves-
tigate. The inspiration was such as to be adequate for the task
to be performed; and that task was the composing of truths
without error, facts without needless redundance, events with
conciseness, and all things suitable to know best adapted for
the age in which they were written, and for subsequent ages,
under the direct supervision of the Holy Spirit, so that no
human imperfections should mar the writings or human mis-
take destroy their divine authority in any respect. But the
same infinite wisdom that made use of men, and not angels,
to compose the Scriptures, to secure their highest adap-
32
498 THE PLENABY INSPIRATION
tation, selected different writers in different ages, who should
embody in writing enough of the peculiarities of the age in
which they lived to mark the period when they were written,
and at the same time enough of the peculiarities of the
writers not to weaken the evidence of their individuality. .
The differences of style, the singular diversity of expression,
so often objected to the plenary inspiration of the Bible, is
the highest evidence of that inspiration. This diversity of
style, these numerous writers, with all their peculiarities of
thought and expression, give an individuality to the Bible
infinitely superior to one dead level of style and expression.
The Holy Spirit made use of such a variety of instruments
to make their writings adapted to the diversities of every
age, the peculiarities of every land, and every condition of
life. Thus, as the divinity of Christ became incarnated in
his humanity to give a more perfect illustration of virtue
and secure the redemption of man, so the mind of God may
be said to be incarnated in the Holy Scriptures through the
use of human instrumentality in their composition, and the
embodying, in perfect consistency with divine truth, all the
endless diversities of human thought and feeling and action.
And yet one of the highest internal evidences of inspiration
is made use of by many to disprove altogether the plenary
inspiration of the Bible ; as if God, who condescended so
much to human wants as to suffer his Son to assume hu-
manity and die upon the cross, could not make use of all the
diversity of human instrumentality without destroying the
divine authority of his word. It is sometimes said that the
plenar}' inspiration of the Bible is unnecessary, provided the
mind was inspired in respect to the thoughts, and that the
writers of the Scriptures were left alone to their own judg-
ment and fidelity. But an inspiration that had no reference
to the manner, the peculiar selection of the right language
or words, would not be sufficient to guard against all redun-
dancy, all improprieties of expression, and all mistakes. With-
out such an inspiration as directly to affect the language or
secure the right selection of words, essential error might be
communicated, and mistakes be made, through the too great
OF THE BIBLE. 499
liberty of the writers. How without a plenary inspiration
could such an inimitable conciseness be manifested as is seen
in the Bible, embodying such an immense variety of truths,
through so many centuries, in a space so small ? How could
there be a perfect assurance that all the Bible is the word of
God, or that man is not by his own authority speaking to us
rather than God himself, and therefore we must pronounce
an opinion from a human rather than a divine source ? Con-
sider directly the evidence of the Scriptures upon this sub-
ject. When Christ, in Luke, speaks of the persecutions the
apostles should experience after his death, he declares to
them, " For I will give you a mouth and a wisdom which all
your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay or resist." In
John he declares, " The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost,
whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you
all things, and bring all things to your remembrance what-
soever I have said unto you." The claim to inspiration is
clearly made by the apostles in those passages where they
place their own writings upon the same footing with the
books of the Old Testament. For St. Paul, speaking of the
Holy Scrii')tures, — a common expression among the Jews, — in
which Timothy had been instructed from his childhood, says,
" All Scripture is given by inspiration of God ;" thus includ-
ing the Old and New Testaments. St. Peter, speaking of the
ancient prophets, says, " The Spirit of Christ was in them,"
and " The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man ;
but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost." The quotations of our Lord and his apostles from
the books of the Old Testament are often introduced with
the expression in which their inspiration is directly asserted.
" Thus spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias ;" " By the mouth of
thy servant David thou hast said." And St. Peter charges the
Christians, " Be mindful of the words which were spoken be-
fore by the holy prophets, and of the commandments Of us the
apostles." In the book of Revelation we read of the per-
sonal inspiration of John in the words, "Jesus sent and
signified by his angel to his servant John the things that
were to come to pass." Paul to the Corinthians thus ex-
500 THE PLENABY INSPIRATION
presses himself: " AYliicli things we speak not in the words
which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost
teacheth." Storr and Flatt give the following interpretation
to this text : " Paul," they say, " asserts that the doctrines
of Christianity were revealed to him by the almighty agency
of God himself; and, finally, that the inspiration of the Di-
vine Spirit extended even to his words, and to all his ex-
hibitions of revealed truths." They add that "St. Paul
clearly distinguishes between the doctrine itself and the
manner in which it is communicated." St. Peter tells us
that he wrote all his letters not only with the words which
the Holy Ghost teacheth, but also, as were the other scnptures
(of the Old Testament), according to the wisdom given unto
him. All the Scriptures are also indiscriminately called
the icoi^d of God; not only is the entire Bible called the
ivord of God, but without distinction it is called the oracles
of God. What word more expressive to show a complete
inspiration, extending even to the words, than the lan-
guage, oracles of God? Christ, speaking of the Old Testa-
ment, says, " All things which are written concerning me in
Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms, must be fulfilled." It
is worthy of remark that Jesus Christ and the apostles
habitually applied the title of loropliets to all the authors of the
Old Testament. Their habitual designation of the entire
Scriptures was, "Moses and the prophets." David says,
" The Spirit of the Lord has spoken by me.'' "And his word
was upon my tongue.'^ Says Christ to the Jews, "Is it not
written hi your law ?" thus afiirming the divine authority of
their Scriptures ; thus agreeing with the testimony of Zacha-
rias, in Luke, " It is God who hath spoken by the mouth of
his holy prophets, which have been since the world began."
It was twenty or thirty years after the Pentecost that Peter
was pleased to quote " All the epistles of Paul, his well-
beloved brother," and that he spoke of them as " sacred
writings," which already in his day made part of the holy
letters and were to be classed with the rest of the Scriptures.
He assigns to them the same rank, and he declares that
ignorant men could not pervert them but to their own
OF THE BIBLE. 501
destruction. We quote this important passage : " Even as
our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given
unto him, hath written unto you; as also in all his epistles,
speaking in them of these things ; in which are some things
hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and
unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto
their own destruction."
Many other passages might be given to show the plenary
inspiration of the Bible, an inspiration so perfect as to extend
to the words written. Such an inspiration is also confirmed
by the reason that often the prophets themselves did not
understand the full import of what they wrote, and conse-
quently must have been directed in their very language.
"With such an inspiration the conduct of the Jews in respect
to their Scriptures, and the sentiments of the Christian
Church in the first century and in later times, concur. If
such an amount of evidence does not establish the plenary
inspiration of the Scriptures, we are at a loss to conceive
what argument can do it.
Plenary inspiration has, especially, relation to the original
manuscripts from which the Bible has been copied. Nor does
it attempt any nice subdivision, or lay down any rules by which
in one chapter we may detect the inspiration of suggestion,
in another that of elevation, and in another that of superin-
tendence. Great confusion has arisen from confounding the
book itself with the mind of the writer. But plenary inspi-
ration does not so much contemplate the mind of the writer as
that which is written; its purpose is consummated if what is
written is such as God himself would write were human instru-
mentality discarded. Consequently, the mind of the writer
may be in an endless varietj' of states, and yet, with the
widest diversity of feeling and thought, there may be plenary
inspiration. ISTor does the true idea of this inspiration
admit that one part of the Bible is any less or an^- more in-
spired than another, or that in one place there is an inspira-
tion of a high kind and in another of an inferior kind.
Either the Bible is plenarily inspired, or it is not : if it is, then
one part of the Bible is as truly the word of God as another
502 THE PLENABT INSPIRATION
pitrt ; if it is not, then those parts of the Bible which are unin-
spired are not of divine authority. If the general inspiration
of the Bible is admitted, then it becomes those who deny its
plenary inspiration to show clearly what parts are not inspired.
It is not enough to admit in vague language that the Bible is
tlie word of God ; it must be shown what part is not the word
of God. It is not enough to contend for diverse kinds of in-
spiration ; the line should be clearly drawn where the inspi-
ration of superintendeucy becomes that of elevation, or the
inspiration of elevation becomes that of suggestion. If the
Bible makes no such distinctions, it is not necessary that we
should. The difficulty lies in misapprehending what is meant
by the plenary inspiration of the Bible. Let us suppose that a
man who wishes to communicate certain important facts in
respect to his family, and with those facts certain moral in-
structions, to a friend in a distant land, employs his son as an
amanuensis to write to that friend. Now, some things the sou
may know without any direct instruction from the father;
some things he may not know, and may need direct instruc-
tion ; some things he may partially know, and in those respects
in which he is ignorant he may need to be set right. The
son writes the letter, and the father indorses it, after reading
it over, with his name. That letter is trul}- the fatlier's letter;
it communicates his mind, it expresses his thoughts, — it may
be all the better for embodying the peculiarities of the son's
mind. What more reasonable than that God should in like
manner, in his letters to his children, make use of the diverse
individuality of the writers of the Holy Scriptures and em-
body the endless diversities of thought peculiar to each writer?
Why doubt the pknary inspiration of the Scriptures because
a free use is made of the peculiarities of every mind and age ?
Were truths communicated by every writer in the same
manner, we should suspect collusion or mutual connivance.
But the very diversity of style by each writer obviating alto-
gether this difficulty, is often spoken of in such a way as to
disparage their plenary inspiration. Great confusion will
arise in the mind unless the writing and the writer are
not always kept distinct in the consideration of the sub-
OF THE BIBLE. 503
ject of plenarj^ inspiration. Upon the clay of Pentecost
many spoke with new tongues, and in a high sense may, in
their thoughts and feelings, have been under the influence of
the Holy Spirit; but Peter and the apostles alone were au-
thorized to write with an authority as great for their Epis-
tles as for the very words that issued from them upon
that memorable occasion. The Apostle Paul, for example,
had not " received the gospel from man, but by revelation
of Jesus Christ." He wrote "all his letters," as St. Peter
tells us, " not only with the words which the Holy Grhost
teacheth, but also as were the other scriptures [of the Old
Testament], according to the wisdom given unto him."
It will, then, be seen that what may have been the peculiar
state of the mind of the writers of the Bible, what rna}^ have
been the diversity of the influences of the Holy Spirit upon
each writer, are inquiries that do not enter into the subject
of plenary inspiration. From the nature of the case, these in-
quiries are too intricate and involved to afford any good
ground to stand upon. We do not know but that the mode
of the Spirit's influence changed with every writer, or that
the same writer was under different influences of a high or
a low degree at different times ; but, as in the illustration of
the son who was the amanuensis of his father in writing to a
friend in a distant land, it was seen that the authoritj' of the
father was not affected by his accommodation to the peculi-
arities of the mind of the son, or by his permission to write
things known equally as well by the son as by the father, so
also in the word of God an accommodation to the mind of
the writer, or a permission to write things that did not need
a direct revelation, in no respect invalidates the divine au-
thority of the writing. All that is necessary to know is the
simple fact. Are the writings of the Old and the New Testa-
ments, mdiscriminatehj called the word of God, acknowledged
without limitation to be inspired, and treated as such, by the
Jews and the early Christians ?
We have already shown the frequent and direct asser-
tion b}' the sacred writers of their inspiration. It has been
seen that they acknowledged no graduated scale of high or
504 THE PLENARY L\SPIBATION
low inspiration, or confessed to one part of" the Bible as of
greater authority than another. These retined distinctions
are the work of a later day. They are not even intimated
in the Bible. The Gospels are not extolled more than the
Epistles, or the New Testament praised at the expense of the
Old. Christ himself asserts that he came not to destroy the law
or the prophets, but to establish them ; he came as a living
illustration of the divine truth of the Old Testament, not to
supersede it as good only for a barbarous age, but through
all coming time to give the impress by every prophetic fulfill-
ment of the divinity of its origin. ISTo reasoning is so desti-
tute of proof as that which infers that because the coming of
Christ was the superseding of the ceremonial law, therefore
it was the superseding of the Old Testament. But nothing
can supersede or dispense with an inspired book : if it comes
from God, its authority is divine, were its age millions of
years. The ceremonial law, with the Levitical rites, as
adapted for one age and one nation alone, like the Ark of
the Covenant or the sacred temple, has passed away, and
the express mission, example, and precepts of Christ have
dispensed with their observance.
But what has that to do with the fact of the inspiration of
the Old Testament, or the binding authority of that, even as
of the E^ew, with the single exception of the ceremonial and
Levitical law and rites, alone instituted for a particular age
of the world and one nation ?
One of the greatest mistakes in respect to a divine revela-
tion is the losing sight of its progressive nature. The Bible
is not stereotyped for one age ; it is a book for all ages. Con-
sequently, it must at the same time be local and universal,
must have a specifi.c adaptation to certain periods of the world
and a general adaptation to all periods and all nations. Why
overlook a feature so essential for a genuine inspiration, and
make that very fact which is a high argument for its divine
authority an excuse for the disparaging of its claims ? Were
the Bible adapted only for the present age of the world,
we should see mdeed nothing in it antiquated or old-fash-
ioned, nothing but an exclusive fitness for the present state
OF THE :BIBLE. 505
of society. But would not this supposed excellence be a
great defect ? In some other age of the world, where revolu-
tions have altered all the existing relations of society, how
deeply would be felt this deficiency in the Scriptures !
Why, then, should we seek to improve upon God's method
of revealing truth ? Why should we imagine that our
modern standard is any better than the standard of God's
own choosing?
There is another mistake in respect to tlie inspiration of
the Bible, deserving of careful consideration. It is that di-
rect assertions of inspiration should be made by each writer
of the Bible to give sufficient proof of the plenary inspira-
tion of the Scriptures. But upon what does the inspiration
of the Scriptures rest ? Not simply upon their own assertion
of inspiration. What would that assertion be worth were
there no adaptation in the Bible to our wants, no miracles
and no prophecies ? To prove conclusively the inspiration
of the Bible, we must first consider those separate chains of
argument embodied in the necessity, the adaptation, the
miracles, the prophecies, the success of Christianity in the
first century, and especially the perfect character of Christ
and his divine mission. While these separate chains of
proof exist, the Bible would be clearly of divine origin, even
if not one word was said of its inspiration. The inspiration
of the Bible is shown far more by these tests than bj" any
assertions by the sacred writers of their own inspiration. But
the manner in which Christ referred to the Old Testament,
the uniform respect and deference with which he treated it,
the way in which it was regarded by the Jews, their scrupu-
lous exactness in its preservation, the testimony of Josephus
and all their historians to its sacred character, and the sub-
sequent testimony to the inspiration of the New Testament,
combine to give a higher confirmation to the divine authority
of the Bible. The difficulty in our ideas of the inspiration
of the Bible is that we are constantlj^ inclined to look only
to one side of the question and to confine our view to one
aspect of the subject. But let us consider that all the sep-
arate proofs given to us of the divine authority of the Bible
606 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION
are iutiiiiately blended together, and, like the colors of the
rainbow, form one glorious arch.
Consider, then, the magnitude of the task of that man
who attempts to prove the Bible uninspired. Before he can
succeed in such a task, he must show false not one chain of
proof, but the whole foundation upon which rests the inspira-
tion of the Bible. He must, step by step, remove each
separate chain from its place, and prove the whole a fabrica-
tion of man. He must impeach the character of Christ
himself, and prove the divine Author of Christianity either
an impostor or an ignorant enthusiast. He must show that
the writers of the Bible were either deceivers or deceived;
and then, after establishing as a fact that the Bible is the
work either of impostors or of men imposed upon, he must
admit, in the very face of his successful logic, that the Bible,
after all, is the most sublime, the most useful, the most ex-
cellent production the world has ever seen, — that, true or
false, to remove it from society would leave a blank so de-
plorable as to make even atheism tremble and infidelity grow
pale with fear.
Upon such a foundation does the inspiration of the Bible
rest. Did we look to one kind of proof alone, our minds
might sometimes be troubled by the objections of the
skeptic ; but when we consider that the inspiration of the
Bible can lay claim, directly or indirectly, to all the separate
chains of reasoning that go to prove the Scriptures from
God, — when we consider that the deeper the examination the
more clearly blazes forth the truth of the divinity of the
Scriptures, — then truly do- we have the highest demonstra-
tion that they come from God.
Of those who deny the plenary inspiration of the Bible, it
may be asked. Why more difficult for God to have the whole
Bible inspired than a part of it ? In nature we see no half-
work; what is made is perfect in its kind, as it comes from
God, and adapted to its end. Is it not as necessary that the
written word should be as free from defects as the works of
nature ? Is the mighty process of redemption in its record
Jess important, and do we see a finish in the one that we do
OF THE BIBLE. 507
not in the other? Consider that the separate chains of evi-
dence upon whicli the entire inspiration of the Scriptures
rests are not confined to one book of the Bible, but are
common to the whole. When, therefore, we say such a
part of the Bible is not inspired, to be consistent we must
show that it is not linked in with the rest, and that its re-
moval would be no injury to the whole. But can we
cut out this or that part of the Bible as useless or as an
excrescence? Can we treat the Holy Scriptures as we would
treat a vase of precious stones and stubble and dirt and
rubbish? Can w^e say, Here are the precious stones, and here
the useless rubbish ? But, if the Bible was only in part inspired,
this would be a correct proceeding. The business of the
commentator would be chiefly to separate the inspired from
the uninspired ; to label one part of the Bible as from God
and another as from man, — one as of divine authority and the
other as only of human origin and consequently having no
more than a hmnan sanction. But, worse than this, upon
such a supposition we are afloat upon a wide sea of uncer-
tainty and doubt. Who can prove that any landmarks are
given in the Bible b}^ which one part may be shown human
alid another divine, — o-ne from God and another only from
man ? Who can show those places that rest upon the infalli-
l)le authority of God, and those portions which are supported
onh' by the fallible opinions of man ? Is it not easy to see that
instead of our reason deciding upon the general fact of the
Bible as the word of God, it must have put upon it the
task of culling out the human from the divine, — that the
infiillibility of the Scriptures would be seriously injured?
Here are two authorities, — one fallible, the other infallible,
and both mixed up together. Where are we ? The boast of
the Papal church is its infallibility, but the glory of Protest-
antism is the belief in the one only infallible standard contained
in the Bible,
But when we admit that some parts of the Bible are from
God and some parts not from God, — some portions divine,
some only human, — we must, to be consistent, say that those
parts of the Bible alone human must be fallible, and carry
508 THK PLENARY INSPIBATION
with tbera no higher sanction than any other production of
man. And then at once we oome to the chief difficulty,
How are these two parts to be so separated as always to be
distinguished and never to blend into each other ? Would
we not by this really give to Romanism its greatest power of
assault, and confess that the church alone should say what is
to be received as divine and what is to be rejected as only
human ? Would we not say by this that the Bible was not
to be read by all classes of persons, unless as interpreted by
the constitutional authority of the church? Thus it will be
seen that the moment we undertake to cut up the Bible into
two parts, one fallible and the other infallible, we weaken
the evidence of the whole ; we give credit to the assumptions
of the Romanists, and give the highest plausibility to the
papal dogma of infallibility.
The true idea of plenary- inspiration leaves an ample mar-
gin for the human element in the Bible, while it does not
conflict with the divine element : it only insists upon the plain
fact that what it indorses by God as his word should have'
his authority coexisting with it. In no other waj- can the Bible,
with its ample proofs of divinity, have that influence over
the human mind that belongs to it by equity and all reason.
True, in the interpretation of the Bible according to the
fundamental principle of Protestantism, every person, must
answer to his own conscience and to God for the word read ;
but this is infinitely safer and more in harmony with right
liberty and wisdom, than having the Council of Trent decide
upon our faith, or a papal priesthood tell us what of the
Bible we should read and what we should not read, what
we should believe upon in it and what we should not believe.
One of the most fruitful sources of infidelity is the confused
idea held as to the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures.
Whether the Bible is indeed from God, or only from man, is
the great question of the present day. It has been the question
of all ages, and will be to all time to come, until sin, temp-
tation, and all moral evil are banished from the earth. Con-
stituted, then, as human nature is, fallen as it is, can it be
expected that a book that conies into such antagonism
OF THE BIBLE. 509
with all sin, be it in the individual or in the State, that sets
forth principles that cut at the root of every organized system
of oppression or error, of superstition and wrong, should not
encounter the most searching scrutiny ? The Bible welcomes
such a scrutiny, but pronounces its anathema upon those who
are compelled to confess its truth, its divinity, and yet who
will not receive it or in any true sense believe in it. ]^ow,
we say that the Bible, affixing consequences so weighty upon
its reception or rejection, will not, if from God, be deiicient
in evidence to show this. There is too much at stake to doubt
for a moment this assertion. Consequently, the Bible may
justly be said to be full of all evidences to show it from God.
View it under any or all aspects, and the mind is over-
whelmed with the greatness and the variety of proof. It is
most siiitable that the plenary inspiration of the Bible should
be just as it is, — no more, and no less. Xo more; for then
the human element intimately blended with it, interwoven
like the thread in the very cloth itself, would be deficient,
and then the Bible would lose its strongest access to the
heart of man : it might be a better book for angels, but it
would not be so good for man. All that plenary inspiration
claims is just enough of divinity to give to the IIol}' Scriptures
the roj'al seal of God's own hand; this, with all reasonable
persons, should be sufficient. In the Bible, human instru-
mentality, with the endless diversities of human feeling and
expression, and the modes of thought common to one age of
the world and to all ages, is made use of. But this is its highest
charm : it shows that, as the Sabbath was made for man, so
the Bible was made for man ; it is man's book and it is God's
book; it is man's treasure and God's blessing; it is man's
birthright, and yet God's gift. All other books in contrast
are insignificant; for it contains all human wisdom and all
divine wisdom, an incarnation of truth and a divinity of
origin. Plenary inspiration is, then, appropriately the sum-
ming up of all the other multitudinous evidences of the
Bible, and carrying with them the declaration " that all
Scripture is given by inspiration of God." So intimately
blended together are all the Scriptures, that we cannot sever
510 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE.
one portion from the rest without invalidating the whole.
To prove the Old Testament not divine, is not indeed to
prove the New not from God ; but most seriously it injures
the evidence of the New Testament. To prove one book of
the New Testament not from God, does not disprove the
other books; but it greatly weakens the strength of their
evidence.
In respect to the variations in different readings, they are
too insignificant to deserve attention, and all can be referred
to the diversity of copyists. In no respect can it be shown
that they afl:ect the fact of inspiration ; and as for errors, it is
time enough to admit them when they are proved. More
than eighteen centuries have elapsed since the death and the
resurrection of Christ; there has been no want of opposers
and enemies to the Bible, of every variety of talent and
every advantage of observation; and yet not a single error of
any fact of history, any truth of science, or any contradiction
of testimony among the writers of the Bible has been shoAvn.
Every discovery of science, every additional light thrown
upon the history of the past, every research into antiquity,
has only confirmed the truthfulness of the Bible. The prog-
ress of knowledge has shown that the errors lay in our
minds, not in the word of God, and that our ignorance was
the mother of those faults that are attributed to the Bible.
And thus will it be proved true that the Bible is inspired' by
God, even though the heavens and the earth should pass
away.
CHAPTER XIX.
HISTORIC OUTLINE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
The Old Testament marks a period of the world essentially
different from the New Testament. With the former com-
mence the creation of the world, the fall of man, the patri-
archal and the legal dispensations.
Let us consider the Old Testament in its revelation of God.
But what is the mode of all revelation of God to us? Is it
a complete communication of all truth at once, or is it the
gradual unfolding of truth at difterent periods of the world ?
Evidently, the latter. And yet, because there is not the
same communication of truth in the Old Testament as in the
New, — because when the Christian economy commenced
there was a higher development of truth, — many have under-
rated the Old Testament ; they have imagined that it was
superseded by the New Testament. But the New Testament
uniformly confirms the Old and is built upon it. It indeed
introduces us to a higher stage of truth, but at the same
time it rests as a foundation upon the Old. In considering,
then, the revelation of God in the Old Testament, we must
bear in mind that this revelation was in accordance with the
existing wants of the world. It Avas a revelation that was
best adapted to the state of society existing before the ush-
ering in of the Christian dispensation. Many seem to forget
this great fact, in judging of the Old Testament. They do
not carry their minds back to the early age of the world, and
consider the peculiar wants of a period far remote from the
present. The Old Testament has three distinct periods of
time, — that which is comprised in the antediluvian world,
that which is included in the post-diluvian age, or the age
of the patriarchs, and that which comprehends the Mosaic
(511)
512 HISTORIC OUTLINE OF THE
economy, or legal dispensation. The antediluvian world forms
a period of history remarkable for its brevity. All that
remains to ns of this distant age is embodied in a few
chapters of Genesis; but enough is told us to reveal the
extreme apostas}^ of man and the mercy and justice of God.
The age of the post-diluvian patriarchs makes known to
us a period of the world recovering from the great catas-
trophe of the deluge, with the confusion of tongues at Babel,
and the regal authority invested in a few great heads of
families. The Mosaic dispensation gives to us an election
from the nations of the earth of a distinct people, who were
destined to be the chosen depositaries of the Scriptures and
to be signally distinguished by privileges and divine interpo-
sitions in their favor. Thus the different ages of the world
before the coming of Christ demanded a revelation from God
adapted to the peculiar stiite of each period of time; and
thus we find it. One melancholy fact, confirmed by all his-
tory, is taught us in the Bible, — the extreme tendency of
man to degenerate. We find this most clearly shown in the
antediluvian world. Here we read of two classes, called the
sons of God and the daughters of men, and of the rapid
corruption of the better part of society by the unlawful in-
tercourse with the most depraved, until the whole earth then
peopled revealed one loathsome mass of moral pollution.
A few good men in vain strove to resist the depravity of the
times. Then came the deluge, sweeping awaj' the guilty
inhabitants of the world. But the antediluvian earth, from
the great longevity of the population, had the noblest oppor-
tunity of having through tradition a knowledge of the fall,
and of becoming acquainted with the character of God.
"When the legal dispensation was introduced, we see a widely
different state of the world. The new world had become to
a great extent peopled. The confusion of tongues had
resulted in scattering multitudes over the earth. But the
whole earth then inhabited had relapsed into idolatry. The
primitive ideas of God in his unity and moral excellence had
been greatly obscured. Subordinate divinities had usurped
the place of the supreme God, and the nations of the earth
OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY. 513
had followed after idols that neither see, nor hear, nor taste,
nor smell, nor touch, — idols originally but representatives of
imaginary gods, but whose worship soon degenerated into the
deification of human beings. What, then, was the great de-
sign of the legal dispensation ? It was to rescue a people from
the grossness of the surrounding paganism, and free them
from the bewitching snares of idolatry. But in what did
the idolatry of the ancient world consist? Was it the denial
altogether of one supreme God, or was it not rather the
gross corruption of this first truth of religion ? Evidently,
the latter.
The learned Cudworth has clearly proved " that the pagan
polytheism must be understood as used for created intel-
lectual beings, superior to men, that ought to be religiously
worshiped. That this was no refinement or interpolation of
paganism, as might possibly be suspected, but that the
doctrine of the most ancient pagan theologers and greatest
promoters of polytheism was agreeable hereunto. First, Zo-
roaster, the chief promoter of polytheism in the Eastern parts,
acknowledged one supreme Deity, the maker of the world,
proved from Eubulus in Porphyry, besides his own words
cited by Eusebius. That Orpheus, commonly called by the
Greeks the Theologer, asserted one supreme Deity, proved
b}' his own words out of pagan theology. That the Egyptians
themselves, the most polytheistic of all nations, had an ac-
knowledgment among them of one supreme Deity. That the
poets, who were the greatest depravers of the pagan theology,
and by their fables of the gods made it look more aristocrat-
ically, did themselves, notwithstanding, acknowledge a mon-
archy, one prince and father of gods. That all the pagan
pliilosophers who were theist universally asserted a mundane
monarchy. Pythagoras, as much apolytheist as any, and yet
his first principle of things as well as numbers, a monad or
unity. Anaxagoras, one mind ordering all things for good.
Xenophanes, one and all, and his one god the greatest among
gods."
This opinion of Cudworth is high authority to confirm the
fact that a First Cause, or Supreme God, was generally ac-
33
514 HIST OB I C OUTLINE OF THE
knowledged among the ancient pagans. But here was \\\q great
mistake. The idea of one supreme God was not only merely
speculative, exerting no practical influence over the popular
mind, but that idea was immeasurably corrupted by the intro-
duction of subordinate divinities. God was forgotten among
the increasing host of idols who had usurped the place of all
worship. Thus, while one God in theory might be held to,
in practice inferior divinities controlled the mind and ab-
sorbed the affections of the multitude. Indeed, the pagan
polytheism consisted in the deification of the creature and
the total neglect of all devotion to the Creator. Commencinsr
in its mildest form with the worship of the sun and moon
and stars, the adoration of fire and the elements of earth,
air, and w^ater, it passed through successive stages of degen-
eracy until it comprehended the adoration of the meanest of
reptiles and insects. Thus the host of gods continued to in-
crease, until in some places there w^ere as many gods as
people, thirty thousand being reckoned at Rome itself. But
the worst feature connected with the pagan polytheism was the
rapid corruption of manners from the deification of things
vicious and contemptible. When the standard of moral
excellence was so low, what must have been the di-pravity en-
gendered ! Thus, we see the most cruel rites, the most licen-
tious practices, connected with the worship of the gods. The
intellect and heart were immeasurably debased. The most
sacred relations of the family were grossly broken in upon,
and the transition was rapid from the corruption of manners
to the most galling servitude of body.
Another feature connected with the ancient polytheism
was its alliance with the state. The state upheld the popu-
lar religion, and the religion upheld the state. What was the
consequence? Political slavery went hand in hand with the
superstition of the masses, and the idolatry of the people
helped on the tyranny of kings and nobles. Thus was
ancient paganism not only the source of the deepest moral
corruption, robbing God of his rightful homage, removing
from the mind the restraining fear of an All-wise Being, ab-
solving from human love his attributes of goodness and
OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY. 515
mercy, and eradicating from the mind the lofty hopes his
true worship only can create. Bat ancient paganism was a
terrific state engine. Superstition, taking the place of the
true worship of God, brought with it civil bondage. Forg-
ing a double chain for mind and body, it plunged the human
family into a deeper abyss of wretchedness. Taking advan-
tage of the principle in man that upbraids for sin, it held
over an enslaved conscience a whip of scorpions. Cruelty
and impiety were the constant attendants upon pagan super-
stition ; but there followed in its train, also, a demon as fear-
ful,— that of universal political and moral slavery. Thus,
wherever pagan superstition most abounded, there also it
engendered a more debasing bondage of body and mind.
Freedom died upon her impure and bloody altars, and even
the natural virtues became ferocious when nurtured b}' her
unhallowed religion. The guilt of pagan superstition and the
idolatry created by it consisted in an abuse of the light of
nature, and the reckless disregard of the light communi-
cated through tradition from the earliest ages. The growing
love of idol worship engendered worse idols, and the corrupt
philosophy and poetry of the ancients introduced a more
debasing condition of things. The words of the Apostle
Paul give us a true picture of the sin of heathendom : " Be-
cause that when they knew God, they glorified him not as
God, neither were thankful ; but became vain in their im-
aginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Profess-
ing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed
the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible
man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping
things."
What, then, was the great design of the Jewish theocracy
and the legal dispensation? It was, evidently, to counteract
the ancient idolatry and preserve the worship of the true God.
The end to be secured was to unveil the character of God
with greater distinctness, and select a nation for the preser-
vation of the divine oracles. But how could this end be
reached without the miraculous interposition of God ? "When
Abraham was called, we see in the father of the faithful the
516 HISTORIC OUTLINE OF THE
first commencement of that series of divine interpositions
that were, through successive ages, to grow brighter and
brighter, and secure the great end of rescuing the world
from total apostasy. Many seem to forget the peculiar cir-
cumstances that demanded the Jewish theocracy, and the
mighty reasons for that series of stupendous miracles that
took place upon the leading of the Israelites from Egypt.
Egypt then was the most powerful and civilized nation of
the earth. But all this supremacy imparted only a more fatal
energy to the debasing superstitions of the Egyptians. The
land of Egypt had degenerated into a land of idols. Priestlj'
and civil tyranny, both wedded to .the grossest idolatry, had
withered the virtues of the people and given to their vices a
more than ordinary virulence.
What was to be done ? If the world was ever after to be
redeemed, or future millions preserved from total estrange-
ment from God, what better course could be conceived of
than was devised to turn back the tide of moral corruption
that was fast fitting the world for another deluge? The
Israelites never would have followed Moses, never would
have submitted to the long journey in the desert, never
would have obeyed his rigid enactments, had not his mission
to them been most clearly proved to be divine. How absurd
the supposition that nearly three millions of people would
all consent to leave their home in Egypt, to encounter the
perils of the desert, to give up the idol-worship of their
Egyptian masters, to wander with no natural means of sub-
sistence for so many years in the desert, if God had not
directly interposed to supply their wants!
But the great fact of the drowning of the Egyptians in the
Red Sea has been confirmed b}^ sacred and profane history.
No proof has ever been oft'ered to show that this memorable
event did not take place. Here, then, in the miracles worked
for the preservation of the Israelites and the ruin of their
tyrannical masters, we see the great end secured of interpos-
ing a barrier to the wide-spread desolations of polytheism.
Everything was adapted to this end. The ancient systems
of superstition took captive the senses. Stealing with magical
OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY. 517
power over the heart, they corrupted the aftections. Their
superstition, allying itself with the state, wielded the power
of the civil magistrate, and, both being linked together, there
followed one vast system of bondage to body and mind, and
the gross corruption of morals. The w^orship of the one true
God was forgotten in the homage paid to inferior divinities,
and the tendencies of the human heart, naturally downward,
received from the reigning idolatry a threefold energ}^ for evil.
Conceive, then, if possible, how dark must have been the
prospects of the world if no such system as the Mosaic econ-
omy had been introduced. Superficial and unthinking minds
look with contempt upon the Jewish ritual and the peculiar
laws and ordinances of the Israelites. They seem to think
unnecessary the forms of the theocracy, and all the details
of the temple service and priesthood and sacrifice. They
cannot understand the meaning of so strict a ceremonial and
such rigid rites. But are such persons conscious what the
condition of the world then was, and what was the peculiar
character of the Jewish mind? Do the}' imagine that, with
their constant tendency to relapse into the gorgeous idolatry
of the heathen around them, they needed nothing to strike
favorably tl>e senses and beguile them from the snares of
false idols ? The whole system of the Jewish theocracy was
admirably adapted to the wants of the Israelites. Their cei-e-
monies, free from the impurity and cruelty of the heathen
rites, were most happily designed to wean them from their
attachment to idolatry. All their rites were calculated to
make a deep impression upon the senses, and thus to forestall
the fascinations of heathen worship; and yet their worship
was highly spiritual. God was recognized as the supreme
authority, and the temporal rewards and chastisements he
sent were of the very natur(; to deliver the mind from the
bondage of idolatry, "We have spoken of the union of church
and state among the heathen, of the intimate connection of
the civil and the ecclesiastical power, and of the immeasura-
ble strength given to idolatrj- b}' this course. The Jewish
theocracy struck a death-blow at the universal triumph of
superstition: by uniting the civil with the religious govern
518 ■ HISTOBIC OUTLINE OF THE
raent of the Jews, bj making the autlioritj' of God supreme
in church and m state, it linked both together at a period of
the world when every external restraint was needed to sup-
press the encroachments of heathenism.
The power of ancient paganism consisted especially in
leading the mind of the people to believe that the control of
tlieir gods was exercised in all their domestic concerns and
all their civil relations. The one God obscurely recognized by
the multitude was forgotten in the host of subordinate divini-
ties that took under their management the everj'day afl'airs of
life and all their social and political relations. Consequently,
all true ideas of the providence of God, extending to all
thino;s, exercisino: a care over the smallest as well as the
greatest aflairs of life, were whollj' lost sight of. With tins
forgetful n ess, all homage of God was corrupted into the
worship of his creatures ; and false idols took away that
sense of duty, of obligation, of fear, of hope and love, that
should be centered upon the one God. The church and
state mutually sustaining each other in corruption, both
secured the fatal bondage of mind and heart. But the
Jewish theocracy, by uniting church and state, by making
all authority to emanate from God, presented a double barrier
to the encroachments of superstition, God, in his daily
providence ; God, in his hatred of idols ; God, in his per-
sonal agency; God, as the rewarder of the good; God, as
the immediate author of temporal prosperity or adversity ;
God, as forgiving sin through the medium of sacrifices ;
God, as a visible guide, infinite in power and goodness ; God,
in his divine unity, abhorring any representation by images, —
this was the great barrier against the attacks of idolatry.
Here idolatry was met upon its own ground. Superstition
had bound, for greater strength, church and state together;
the Jewish theocracy cemented in one bond of friendship
the civil and religious power. Superstition had captivated
the senses by imposing rites and a gorgeous ceremonial; the
Jewish theocracy gave rites more imposing and a ceremonial
far more lofty and grand. Superstition had seduced the
conscience by a false expiation in sacrifices to idols ; the
OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY. 519
Jewish theocracy gave peace to the troubled conscience by
pure sacrifices to the one' God. Superstition taught the
providence of innumerable gods over all the affairs of life ;
the Jewish theocracy inculcated the providence of God in
everything relating to this earthly existence. Superstition
invoked temporal sanctions, and all the motives drawn from
earthly prosperity or adversity, to sustain its power over the
mind ; the Jewish theocracy also revealed earthly sanctions,
and powerfully influenced the mind by fear and hope, drawn
from worldly adversity or prosperity.
Thus it will be seen that, wherever the sway of false idols
extended, there yet existed upon the earth one living illus-
tration of the one only true God. The Jewish theocracy,
resplendent in miracles, made invincible by the personal inter-
position of God, stood like a mighty rock against the waves of
superstition that rolled against it. It met superstition at every
avenue. It lived as a constant rebuke to the grossness of
idolatry. Both b}' rewarding the Isi-aelites for obedience
and by punishing them for disobedience, it gave a lesson of
infinite value to the world. It rescued the unity of God from
the fatal perversions of superstition, enforced its sacredness
by demonstrations of almighty power, and threw gleams of
light over that moral darkness that had settled upon the
nations. But the Jewish theocrac}' was most wonderfully
adapted for the illustration of an atonement for sin. There is
no error more fatal than the belief that the obedience of the
sinner can atone for sin, or satisfy the demands of infinite
justice. But in all the sacrifices of the Jews the doctrine was
distinctly taught that some way was provided, symbolized by
the blood of the Lamb, for the expiation of sin. Here con-
science found a valid ground of hope; here it rested under
its load of sin. The Jewish theocracy inculcated faith, the
very principle that lies at the foundation of all true religion,
and the only thing that can ever lead the heart to a cheerful
obedience. But here was its infinite superiority to the super-
stitious belief of the heathen. The faith in false idols, in
their power of averting calamity or giving favors, was a
false faith, — a faith of incalculable mischief to the heart, for
520 HISTORIC OUTLINE OF THE
if was at war alike with true reason and true pietj. But the
faith demanded of the Israelites in the offering up of sacrifices
was a faith that embodied in it a security, a reasonable sense
of acceptance with God, that superstition was utterly deficient
in. Consequently, the whole system of Jewish theocracy
was most appropriate for an introduction to the Christian
dispensation. It had a part to fulfill of the greatest impor-
tance in the usliering in of a nobler system upon the world.
Let us, then, look to some of the principles of the Hebrew
polity, as revealing the character and attributes of God. One
great truth, that of the creation, was taught by Moses in a
way unknown to heathen philosophers. The reason of man,
attempting to go bej'ond its depth and to plunge into the
deepest mysteries, made darkness more dark, and led the
popular mind into greater errors than even the theology
of the poets. A misguided fancy was bad enough, but
the misguided philosophy of the ancients was v,'orse. The
former was the mother of superstition, but the latter of the
most pernicious skepticism. Thus the popular mind, vi-
brating between the two extremes of superstition and
infidelity, never became fixed upon the great truth of God
as the Creator of the world. Thus, erroneous upon the first
trutli of revelation, there was no limit to the multiplication
of gods representing the greatest inconsistency of principle^
so that divinities grew in number as the world became older,
and were more corrupt in the highest civilization than even
in the depths of savage existence. Thus, while on the one
side ignorance was the parent of superstition, upon the other
side knowledge became the author of the highest refinement
of cruelty and corruption. Thus, had it not been for the
Jewish theocracy, the world would have lost its last hope.
But upon the great fact of the creation of the world the Mo-
saic record is nrost clear and authoritative. Here an amount
of knowledge is communicated vastly surpassing all the learn-
ing of paganism. In nothing was the impotence of heathen
philosophy more clearly displayed than in its vain attempt to
thread its way through the ages of patriarchal and antedilu-
vian times. Here science and poetry and history threw only
OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY. 521
faint gleams of liglit, that seemed but to make more palpa-
ble the darkness that involved in oblivion the early ages of
the world. Bat the Mosaic record, by briefly communicat-
ing the fact of the creation and the fall of man, at one stroke
demolished all the theories of pagan theologers. The fall of
our first parents is the only key that explains the mystery of
human corruption, while at the same time it reveals the
necessity of the direct interposition of God to counteract the
inevitable ruin of that tall. The Hebrew polity revealed
also the great fact that the worship of God, the purity of
his service, was a higher end than state expediency. "With
the heathen, religion was made subservient to the state;
Hmong the Jews, the state was subservient to religion. In the
Jewish polity, the salvation of tlie state, its noblest develop-
ment, its highest prosperity, were made to hang upon the
purity of the worship of God. Thus, the Sabbath to be kept
holy was recognized as of binding obligation upon the
people, — the public worship of God was to be strictly ob-
served,— the ceremonial law, demanding the greatest personal
cleanliness and purity of sacritice, was in ever}' place en-
joined. The priesthood were placed above a slavish depend-
ence upon the caprice of the multitude, and their support
was a duty that involved the very existence of their polity
and state. The state in its very existence hung upon the
obedience of God. With this obedience came glory and pros-
perity ; without it, disgrace and ruin. The system of the
Jewish theocracy was designed to be a living contrast to
heathenism and an ever-present rebuke to false idols. In
the land of Jndea there was a demonstration to be made of
the momentous truth that the worship of the one God was
an end immeasurably superior to any other object. What was
the revelation of God and of his attributes in that worship?
First, God in his unity was made known, God as the iniinite
Father, God as the Creator, God as transcendently just and
good and merciful and forgiving of offenses, — God, through
the institution of sacrifices, as making known a way of re-
demption for the sinner, — God as a personal agent, — God in
his love of men of sincerity and truth, of men liberal and
522 HISTORIC OUTLINE OF THE
kind toward strangers and charitable to the poor, — God in
his purity, — God the avenger of the oppressed, the punisher
of the sacrilegious and the licentious, — God in his greatness,
his omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. Thus the
Hebrew polity was not more singular in its construction
than adapted to the end of the redemption of a nation and
the salvation of millions. To make more conspicuous the
personal agency and character of the true God, all the cir-
cumstances connected with the Jewish state were such as to
preclude the glory of man or the arrogance of human boast-
ing. Small in territory, surrounded by rival or hostile com-
munities, unwarlike as a nation, the Jewish state was con-
lined within a narrow circle. In human learning it was
greatly surpassed by heathen nations. Judea was not the
land for philosophy or for science. The Jews were not the
warriors of the earth. Their generals led no great armies far
oft' into tlie remote regions of Asia or Africa. ISTo Jewish
legions entered the wastes of Europe. The wars of the Jews
w^ere wars more of protection than of aggression.
The chosen people were confined to a territory compara-
tively small. It was the purity of religious worship, the
preservation of the church, for which the whole Hebrew
polity was instituted. The glory of foreign conquests, the
glitter of human learning, the refinement of philosophy, the
beauties of statuary or painting, the magic of science, did
not belong to the Jewish theocrac}'. Why not ? Evidently,
because the whole design of the system was to make God
everything and man nothing. It was to show the immeas-
urable superiority of the true worship of God and of the duties
that grow from his service, to the glitter of human glory or
the pride of human art or learning. What was the result ?
Judea was a moral oasis in the great desert of the world.
In spite of all the apostasy of the Jews, notwithstanding their
constant declension into idolatry, the ancient world never
saw a land so blessed as Palestine.
AYhile the lust of conquest swept as a desolating scourge
over the earth, while war brought political slavery and a new-
host of idols in its train, Judea probably enjoyed a higher
OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY. 523
degree of real freedom than the whole world besides. Its
law enjoining a seven-years jubilee and absolving tlie help-
less from degrading bondage had in it more of true liberty
than all the exaggerated freedom of Greece or Rome. With
Greece and Rome, state considerations were everything,
moral considerations nothing. The highest virtue was patri-
otism, or obedience to the state; but the state was a coalition
of idolatry and the spirit of war. The one held a sword
over the soul, the other over the body ; the one was moral, the
other military, despotism. But in Judea servitude died out
before the worship of God, and oppression was rebuked the
more the true spirit of the theocracy was cultivated. In
Athens there were usually from ten to thirty thousand free-
men ; but the slaves amounted to four hundred thousand, and
even more. The freemen of Sparta and Rome were not
more numerous, in proportion to those whom they held in a
slavery even more terrible than the Athenian. To use the
language of Edmund Burke, " The free states never formed,
though they were taken all together, the thousandth part of
the habitable globe; the freemen in those states were never
the twentieth part of the people; and the time they subsisted
is scarce anything in that immense ocean of duration in
which time are so nearly commensurate. Therefore, call
these free states, or popular governments, or what you please,
when we consider the majority of their inhabitants and
regard the natural rights of mankind, they must appear
in reality and truth no better than pitiful and oppressive
oligarchies."
But the Hebrew polity was not more eminently favorable
to freedom and adapted to secure the highest practicable
civil and religious liberty, than it was deeply opposed to the
common crimes of the heathen. In Sparta infanticide was
enacted by law. The parent in Rome had absolute con-
trol of the life of his children. The murder of children was
often a part of the religious worship of the heathen. The
whole system of paganism is pervaded with the spirit of
cruelty to aged parents and to children, and also with the
most wide-spread dissoluteness of manners. When cruelty and
524 HISTORIC OUTLINE OF THE
impurity entered into the very heart of heathen religion,
what must have been the corruption engendered among the
worshipers !
How foreign was all this from the Jewish code, when
the professed design of that code was to present a contrast
as great as possible to the religion and manners of pagan
nations ! Thus, we read the language, " Delile not ye your-
selves in any of these things, for in all these the nations are
defiled which I cast out before you, and the land is defiled ;
therefore I do visit the iniquitj- thereof upon it, and the land
itself voniiteth out her inhabitants." " Ye shall be holy unto
me ; for I the Lord thy God am holy, and have severed you
from other people that ye should be mine."
The prevailing spirit of the Hebrew literature is shown
in tlie Scriptures as noble and pure. Moses was not a law-
giver only, but a moralist. Outward obedience to law was
not only enjoined, but the true spirit of divine law was
taught, commanding not only not to steal, but not to covet.
A good state of mind and heart was enjoined, as much
as external conformity to rulers. The Hebrew literature
and history, as given to us in the books of Moses and the
writings of the prophets and eminent men recorded in the
Bible, not only reveal the character of God in a way so sen-
sible and plain as to reach every understanding, but in the
way that is best adapted to give us grand and pure concep-
tions of the divine nature and attributes. Extending over
so many centuries, composed of such a diversity of persons,
one would imagine that all unity would be lost and errors
innumerable would creep in. And thus it would be were
the books of the Old Testament 7iot inspired. iS'ot so. Al-
thougli written in popular language, although using the ut-
most freedom of description, there exists in the Bible no error
in science, no u. worthy conception of the divine character.
God is revealed not in the abstract, as an idea, a spiritual
substance, a vague First Cause, a mere originator of matter,
or the first order or law of things, not with the indefiniteness
of heathen sages, nor yet clothed in the sensuous dress of
poetic genius. But he is everywhere spoken of as a personal
OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY. 525
God; be is delineated in all the vividness of actual life, feel-
ing, thinking, seeing, knowing, acting, loving all good,
liating all evil, a rewarder of righteousness, an avenger of
sin, superintending the works of his hands, divinely one in
his substance, infinitely pure and good, self-existing from
eternity, one Father in heaven, and one omnipotent King
upon earth. What if pagan nations excelled the Jews in
mere earthly literature or learning? what if Palestine was
despised before great emperors whose dominion extended
over the remotest regions of the world ? what if the glory
of arms was the ruling passion of the nations of antiquity ?
what if battle-fields and the blood of slaughtered enemies
were the highest themes of poetic praise? what if Roman
conquests or Grecian statuary and painting called forth the
noblest art of the historian ? — yet Hebrew literature, sublimely
great in its theme, majestic with the fire of inspiration, noble
as the lofty song of praise that echoed within the walls of the
consecrated temple, divinely pure and grand as the evening
sky trembling all over with starry pulses of glory, could yet
throw into the shad-e all pagan learning and art. Before the
words of the sacred prophet we bow the knee and are
silent:
" Thou, 0 God, hast laid of old the foundations of the
earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands; they shall
perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax
old like a garment ; as a vesture shalt thou change them,
and they shall be changed ; but thou art the same, and thy
years shall have no end."
CHAPTER XX.
HISTORIC OUTLINE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
All history reveals the great fact that ther revelation of
God is o:iven in the most appropriate period for such a reve-
lation. When we come to the period of the Christian dispen-
sation, we come to a state of the world very different from
the ages that preceded it. The Roman power was then in
its glory. It was in the Augustan age of Rome that Christ
our Saviour came to this world. It was in the fullness of time
that the Son of God became incarnate and provided a way
for the redemption of the earth. In the dream of N"ebu-
chadnezzar we read of the great image of gold, silver, brass,
and iron, symbolizing four leading monarchies of the world,
— the Babylonian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman.
The inspired Daniel portrayed, before the monarch of famed
Babylon, the destiny of those kingdoms that were to succeed
each other and each in turn ravage the earth. First came
Babylon, the richest nation of the East. Nebuchadnezzar,
exulting in the pride of his power, saw, in the words of the
prophet, his vast dominion pass into the hands of Persia.
Then Persia, with her gorgeous pomp and servitude, came
under the brazen sway of the Grecians. Then Greece, the
land of philosophy and poetry, fell beneath the iron rule of
Rome. Here were four great powers, each to succeed the
other ; each was to exert a mighty influence over the world,
and each at last was to be conquered by the power that
came after it. But there was a fifth power, greater than all
the other powers put together. It was a power distinct from
the powers represented by the gold, silver, brass, and iron of
the image. It was a power supernatural in its origin, sym-
bolized by a stone cut out without hands, which smote the
(526)
THE NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY. 527
image upon his feet, that were of iron and day, and broke
them to pieces. Looking upon the historic map of the
world, let us briefly survey those four great powers that
were ultimately to be supplanted by the fifth power, spoken
of in the prophetic words, "And in the days of those kings
shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never
be destroyed ; and the kingdom shall not be left to other
people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these
kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." Babylon, the pow-
erful oppressor of the Jews, in one memorable night fell
before the arms of Cyrus the Persian. The infatuated
monarch, at a great festival, had left the gates of the city
open, and himself and his lords were reveling together
when a mysterious handwriting upon the walls of the palace
made his knees to tremble, and foretold the immediate ruin
of himself and his kingdom. Soon the city was captured by
the Medes and Persians. Less than two hundred years after,
the general profligacy of paganism, the wide-spread dissipa-
tion of manners, the fruit of luxury and despotism, and the
oppression of the chosen people, hurried on the ruin of the
mighty Persian empire. Alexander, the most resistless de-
vastator the world has ever seen, in two years laid the
Persian monarchy even with the ground. But the empire
of the Macedonian soldier, reared by ambition and blood,
fell in fragments on his grave. Four dynasties divided the
power of Alexander ; but the two most sanguinary and hostile
to Palestine were the Ptolemies and the Seleucidse, the sove-
reigns of Egypt and of Syria. From the division of the Mace-
donian empire to the reign of Herod Jerusalem was captured
six times by foreign armies. For two hundred years Judea
witnessed a fearful duration of misery and carnage. Li the
language of Josephus, " The Jews resembled a ship tossed
by a hurricane and bufl'eted on both sides by the waves,
while they lay in the midst of contending seas." In that
century events of transcendent interest were crowded, even
the birth, life, and death of Christ, the promulgation of Chris-
tianity, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the final ruin of the
Jewish nation. But the Roman power that then triumphed
528 HISTORIC OUTLINE OF THE
over the eartli was Ji power of iron. It consolidated in one
vast empire the whole civilized earth. It extended from the
Caucasus to Mauritania, and from the rising to the setting
of the sun. Nothino- could withstand the colossal streno-th
of the Roman legions. Greece overran the earth, — Rome
conquered it. Rome itself was but a military camp, vast,
resistless, and unj'ielding. "With an energy undaunted by
the greatest obstacles, the Roman armies brought under their
sway the remotest regions of the earth. When Christianity
was given to the world, the Roman empire had received that
form of government which was best adapted to its universal
diffusion. It was a government that had the energy of a
republic with the broad ambition of a monarchy. Roman
arms introduced civilization. Hostile nations were united
under one vast power. The science and literature of the
conquered were welcomed in the imperial city. Memorable
was that general peace which for a short time, in the reign
of Augustus Csesar, rested upon the earth. It was fitting
that the Prince of Peace should come at a time when the
clash of arms was hushed, and belligerent nations took a
short respite befqre the world was again to be given up to
foreign and civil violence. Gently, almost unnoticed and
unknown, did the fifth power, symbolized by the stone cut
out without hands, make its appearance.
In Bethlehem of Judea there was born, in the manger of
oxen, an infant. The shepherds,i keeping their sheep by
night, heard the song of the angels, and, guided by a star of
glory, visited the little stranger. The world's Redeemer,
heralded by angels, came in poverty, obscurity, and want.
In a Roman palace there sat a dark-minded man. Restlessly
did Herod ponder over the prophetic intimations of the mys-
terious king who was to come. The public mind was awake.
The wise men of the land were looking for some great event.
The suspicious Herod issues his decree. There is weeping
with the mothers of Bethlehem. The savage command had
had gone forth and spent its force in vain. The parents
depart with the young child into Egypt, and there for thirty
years dwells the Son of God. The time of his public mission
NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY. 529
commences. For three years he becomes the great teacher
of his countrymen. He works miracles to prove his divinity.
He speaks the word, and the dead are raised. He heals the
blind. The ears of the deaf are opened. The lepers are
cleansed, and the lame are made whole. The sick in a mo-
ment are restored to health. He walks upon the waves of the
sea. The winds obey his voice. Christ, onr Saviour, was tlie
world's creditor, but the world knew liim not. His disciples
that followed liim misunderstood him. He was despised and
rejected of men. But before his wisdom human malice stood
abashed. Enemies innumerable surrounded his path. The
chief priests and scribes seek his death. Before tlie Roman
governor he is brought. The multitude cry out, " N'ot this
man, but Barabbas !" A slavish fear stifles the sentiment of
humanity and justice in Pilate. Christ is crucitied between
two thieves. Hours big witli the destiny of the worlA roll
on. The last moment comes. The words, " it is finished"
fall from the lips of Jesus. The battle is fought and won.
Christ is laid in the grave. In three days he breaks from the
bondage of the tomb. Death is conquered. Our Saviour
ascends to God his Father, and now begin the great victories
of the kingdom of the stone.
In the survey of the early prophetic developments of the
kingdom of the stone that was to appear during the exist-
ence of the four great powers of the earth, and destined to
break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and to
stand forever, let us contemplate two things as revealing
God and his attributes :
1st. What is Christianity' ?
2d. What is the relation it sustains to the world, and its
ultimate condition in the world ?
" The true conception of Christianity," says Croly, " is not
that of a new religion, but of an old receiving a more perfect
form ; the seed ph^^ted in the day of Abraham, shut up but
maturing in the day of Judah, and shooting above the earth
in the day of Christ ; the primal faith, buried in weakness to
be raised in power ; the body laid in the grave with the
patriarchal dispensation ; the spirit existing, but separate
34
530 HISTORIC OUTLINE OF THE
and viewless, in the Mosaic ; the spirit and body reunited,
with more vivid attributes, a nobler shape, and a perpetual
existence, in the Christian. Tlie apostles continually declare
this identity of principle with the religion of Abraham.
They claim expressly under the Abrahamic covenant. St.
Paul, alternately astonished at the dullness and indignant
at the prejudice which could doubt that he himself was a
champion of the true national religion, cries out, ' For the
hope of Israel am I bound with this chain.' He unhesi-
tatingly accounts for the reluctance of the Jews to adopt
Christianity, not on ground that they were wedded to the
religion of Abraham, but that they had substituted another
in its place ; and loftily denies their claim to the very title
of Israelite: 'all are not Israel that are of Israel.' Peter,
like the preachers of righteousness in the days before the
flood;- warns the Jews of the ruin which is the inevitable
consequence of their ajwstasy from the primal faith; and our
Lord himself, in the most distinct, detailed, and impressive
declaration of divine wrath ever given, first charges the
people with revolt from the spirit of this faith, and then pro-
nounces the coming of that deluge of Afc and sword which
was to extirpate the being of the nation as the result of the
crime."
Thus, it will be seen that Christianity in its spirit was es-
sentially the same with the religion of the patriarchal and
Mosaic dispensations. But in what respects did it difl'er?
Just as the full development of a tree differs from its infency
and early youth; just as the body of the child difiJers from
the maturity of a man. The primal faith had existed from
the fall ; it lived in the hearts of the good of antediluvian
times; it inspired the devotions of the early patriarchs; it
assumed a national, visible form in the Mosaic economj-; it
took upon itself a more glorious shape in the Christian dis-
pensation. Old as the world, it called^upon man in every
age to recognize the great truth of God infinite in justice,
goodness, and mercy. But in the Christian dispensation
gleams of vivid light revealed God not only in his unity,
but in the threefold existence of his unity. God the Father,
NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY. 531
God the Son, and God the Eternal Spirit were tlie three
personal agents made known in the vast system of redemp-
tion; a mystery explaining the deep secrets of the moral uni-
verse, yet most unexplained in itself.
Thus the Christian was called upon to recognize, in his
salvation, three personal agents, — the Father, the Redeemer,
the Sanctifier, unity in trinity, trinity in unity. It was the
glory of the New Testament to unfold the system of re-
demption so as to meet the wants of all ages and all classes,
so as to reveal God in his attributes of mercy, condescension,
compassion and love, in a way impossible by the light of
nature. God incarnate in Christ was that mystery of myste-
ries that upheaved the foundations of the old world, changed
the wdiole aspect of society, gave to man the security of a
happy immortality, and disarmed death of its dread sting.
The cross became the hope of millions. An empire was
founded before whose victories the exploits of Alexander
or Csesar became infinitely insignificant.
Thus, the religion of Christ embodied in it every truth
known before, with truths peculiarly its own. It spoke of
the world to come in its spirituality and its happiness, of the
resurrection, and the judgment. But Christianity in its na-
ture was universal, and not local. It was not a religion pe-
culiarly for the Jew, but a religion as much for the Gentile
as the Jew, a religion that comprehended the world. .Its
very forms were simple, adapted for all ages and nations.
Its whole spirit was fitted for the moral elevation of man,
calling forth the exercise of every virtue, and making the
heart no less happy than good. But Christianity was also
the noblest development of moral freedom. So clearly did
it teach the relations of man to man, and of man to God,
that its reception into the heart emancipated the conscience
and redeemed the soul. It brought with it the restoration
of man. By making supreme the authority of God, and
infallible the declarations of his word, it eft'ectually delivered
the conscience from the tyranny of man.
Thus, the gospel, wherever it made progress, and just so
far as it was welcomed in its purity, laid a foundation for
532 HISTORIC OUTLIXE OF THE
true libert}' such as tlie world had never before seen. It
was not in Jerusalem that God only was to be worshiped,
it was not alone to the chosen people that Christ came upon
his mission of love. Wide as the world were to be the tri-*
umphs of the cross, boundless as the wants of man were
to be the blessings of the gospel. Consequently, there
was the development of a power immeasurably superior to
Roman arms. It came in direct collision with the iron sway
of the fourth kingdom. Its war was personal with pagan
idolatry. It entered into no compromise with the tyranny
and impurity of superstition. It was death to civil and reli-
gious despotism.
Thus a divine force was revealed, — a power that trampled
into the dust the altar and the throne of paganism, a power
that hurled defiance at the whole pantheon of heathen gods.
Judaism was local, and could not call forth the same hostility
of superstition ; Christianity was universal, and essentially
aggressive. Consequently, superstition and Christianity could
not live together. The triumph of one was the death of the
other. The world had either to exterminate Christianity or
to corrupt it. It could not exist in its purity in alliance with
superstition. Hence the reason for its hatred, and those fierce
battles that were fought to stay its progress. Christianity is
especially to man the highest development of the character
of God. Christ was God manifest in the flesh; his humanity
shot forth vivid gleams of light that unveiled the heart of the
Deity himself. The disclosures of truth are far greater in the
New than in the Old Testament. Christ impersonated the
virtues of. God. In him purity, love, compassion, truth, were
divinely embodied. The virtues of Christ were virtues sub-
jected to the severest trials, virtues godlike and infinite.
The character of God was represented to man so sensibly
that Christ himself was declared to be the express image of
the Father. In him was a revelation of goodness such alone
as reigns in the heart of God. In him was mercy delineated
such as God alone could manifest. In him was love expressed
whose depth was infinite, — love boundless as the great ocean
of eternity, love vast as the universe, love not only re-
NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY. 533
vealed in glory, not only resplendent upon its throne of
dominion, love not only grand as heralded by angels and
sweet as the music of heaven's choir, but love in suffering,
love groaning beneath the terrors of divine law, love ex-
piring upon the cross, love resting itself in the grave of
man. Here was a development of God such as the world
had never before seen, — a development of God in his conde-
scension, whose myster}^ the angels desire to look into. It is
not abstract virtue, but impersonated virtue, that most moves
the heart of man ; virtue sensible, virtue in action, virtue in
trial, virtue a living embodiment of thought, feeling, pur-
pose, will, and afiection. Such was the virtue of Christ;
such, in Christ, is the image of the Father. Thus the attri-
butes of God, through Christ, are revealed with a distinct-
ness such as most sensibly to influence the mind of man.
As accountable beings, the knowledge of the moral attributes
of God is inconceivably more valuable than the knowledge
of his moral attributes. The knowledge of God made known
to us in the Old and New Testaments is to us of the highest
possible importance. In the inspired oracles all the light of
nature is confirmed, and in addition to that light there is a
development of the character of God that affects our condi-
tion for two worlds. It is not the fact that the Bible reveals
life and immortality to man, that makes it a gift of the noblest
value, but it is because God, in our relation to him, is there
shown to us in the threefold office of Father, Redeemer, and
Sanctifier. It is not because heaven is unveiled resplendent
in purity and glory, but because a way is showni to us by which
we may reach heaven. It is not because divine justice is seen
with sanctions vast as the universe, and law comprehensive
as God himself, but because an atonement for sin is provided
which, through faith in the great Mediator, can save unto the
uttermost those who believe and repent of sin.
What, then, is the relation Christianity sustains to the
world, and what its ultimate condition in the world ? Chris-
tianity, in its origin, nature, power, and success, involves in
its existence the noblest development of God and his attri-
butes. It is Christianity that gives peculiar brightness, as
534 HISTORIC OUTLINE OF THE
well as distinctness, to the moral character of God. Let us,
then, consider the relation Christianity sustains to the world,
and its ultimate condition in the world. Christianity and
the world lying in sin are antagonistic forces. The one is
natural, the other supernatural ; the one is temporal, tlie
other spiritual. IIow, then, is Christianity to exist in the
world? It can only exist by the subjugation to itself of
the world. Two powers so opposite in their nature can
never coalesce. Does not the prophetic history of the
four kingdoms of the earth coming in contact with the fifth
kingdom of the stone, reveal this ? How can two forces
so opposite in their character and manifestation unite ?
The relation, then, Christianity sustains to the world must
be the relation of hostility to the development of all sin. But
sin develops itself in the individual and collectively in the na-
tion. It is revealed in the person, and in the mass the aggre-
gate of persons. Its action is twofold, forgetfulness of God
and evil toward man; the heart wrong with the Deity and
wrong with our fellow-men. The external development of sin
toward God is shown in fiilse religions and no religion, in
superstition and infidelity. The former includes the endless
forms of delusion by which the conscience is bound, the
liberty of the soul encroached upon, and the open vices of
impurity, cruelty, and religious slavery deified. Superstition
inverts all moral distinctions. It degrades virtues into vices,
and exalts vices into virtues. But infidelity, in throwing off
the shackles of superstition, throws off also all subordination
to God. It acknowledges no God to control the life, and to
whose obedience the heart should submit. Its highest au-
thority is itself. Its only idol is the uncontrolled gratification
of its desires. Thus, both superstition and infidelity embody
those sins that make war directly with the supreme authority
of God ; both result in man's highest ruin, while each secures
it in a different way. Superstition undeifies the Creator;
infidelity deifies the creature. Superstition drags God down
to the low level of man and even to the beasts that perish;
infidelity arrogates for man that which only God can have.
Superstition dwells in low marshes and stagnant pools where
NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY. 535
a deadly miasma perpetually ascends; infidelity makes its
home in frozen regions where all life and vegetation die oat.
Superstition is the nurse of ignorance and sensuality; infi-
delity of presumption and pride. Superstition enchains the
reason ; infidelity maddens it. The one reduces human
nature to abject servility ; the other drives it into senseless
arrogance. Superstition erects its throne upon the conscience
blind and brutish; infidelity, upon the conscience conceited
and foolish. The one refuses to exercise the reason God has
given to man ; the other refuses to submit the reason where
alone reason can become reasonable.
What is especially the development of sin toward man ?
Sin exists under all those forms of vice toward man that
conscience so instinctively pronounces to be wrong. Thus, it'
reveals itself in oppression-, in envy, hatred, malice, avarice,
wastefuhiess, and all unlawful gratification of the appetites
and the passions. Must not Christianity, then, be at war
with all the developments of sin ? Must it not in its influ-
ence be a spiritual power, creating in man a true recognition
of God, and a true love to man ? Must it not be an agency
bringing the world, wherever it exists, into harmony with
God, and the obedience of virtue? But its ultimate condi-
tion in the world can only be known by the revelation of God
to man. Is the Bible such a revelation? Then the ques-
tion is settled: admit its truth, — admit that it gives to us a
higher manifestation of the character of God, his moral
government, and the purposes of his scheme of redemption
than the light of nature can or does make known, — admit
that history confirms its great facts, that Christianity is a
divine reality, — and at once we must come to the conclu-
sion that the final triumph of Christianity is certain; just as
certain as the word of God.
Let, then, the world roll on, — let, like the raging sea, the
nations be troubled, — let nature open her storehouse of
tempests and the elements be confounded together. Yet the
war shall not be forever. Freedom shall not alwa3's groan in
chains, or the altars of superstition be red with blood. Infi-
delity shall not forever scourge the earth, nor despotism crush
536 HISTOBIC OUTLINE, ETC.
the nations into the dust. God maj^ not constantly be for-
gotten in his works, nor the creature be deilied at the expense
of the Creator. The tifth kingdom is to stand forever, its power
is never to end. The cross must yet triumph over pagan
lands, and Christianity reign from pole to pole. ISTature is
yet to reveal with greater loveliness the power of God, and
earth to smile with the nobler beauty of his wisdom. The
moral excellence of God is yet to tiasli with brighter light
from the sacred page, and God in his goodness is to be made
known with far more vivid clearness. Nature and revelation
shall then unite with greater glory their beams of light, and
both shall speak of the mercy of God to man forever.
Then with truth, in the significant words of Giliillan, it
can be said that " the prophecies of all genuine poets since
the world began shall have a living fultillmeut in the general
countenance and heart of man. Nor shall the spirit of
progress and aspiring change be extinct. To meet the new
discoveries below, and the new stars and constellations flash-
ing dov/n always from the inflnite above, or drawing nearer,
or becoming brighter in the mystic dance of the heavens,
men's minds must arise in sympathy and brighten in unison.
Who shall picture what the state of society, and what the
progress of human souls, at that astronomical era when the
Cross shall shine in our southern heaven, and the Lyre shall
include our polar star amid its burning strings ? Must there
not then break forth from our orb a voice of song, holier
than Amphion's, sweeter than all Orphean measures, compar-
able to that fabled melody by which the spheres were said to
attune their motions ; comparable say rather to that nobler
song wherewith when earth, a stranger, first appeared in the
sky, she was saluted by the morning stars singing together,
and all the sons of God shouting for joy ?"
CHAPTER XXL
THE DIFFICULTIES OF SKEPTICISM.
It is wise to inquire of any system of skepticism that dis-
cards the Bible, what it proposes as a substitute for Christi-
anity.
The Bible comes to us embodying a religion of facts^ a
statement not only of principles, but of events, based upon
the authority of God, with those evidences that invite our
investigation and challenge our belief. It has been seen that
man as an intellectual and moral being, as possessing con-
science, reason, and affections, has certain wants in his na-
ture, as in his body, that demand their appropriate food.
Those spiritual wants demand, like the body, that which
shall satisfy them, that which shall till the vast capacity of
the human heart, and heal the moral disease that sin has in-
troduced into the soul. The Bible comes to man professing
to be a divine remedy, and giving the credentials of its heav-
enly origin. It consists of two divisions : that which per-
tains to theology or to belief, and that which is comprehended
in ethics or practice. It teaches us first what we are to
believe, and then what we are to do.
What, then, is the relation that the Bible sustains to hu-
man reason ? Here is the point at which skepticism enters
upon its diverging road ; here commences the issue between
infidelity and Christianity. The ground taken in the Bible
in relation to human reason is simply this: here are certain
facts in respect to God, liis moral government, and a system
of redemption, and certain facts in relation to man, his
past, present, and future condition; and here are the evi-
dences to show that what the Bible demands as necessary
to believe and practice are not only true, but have a divine
sanction. What the Bible demands of human reason is, that
(537)
538 THE DIFFICULTIES
those evidences to show it from God should be carefully ex-
amined and treated with candor. For this purpose the Bible
presents its varied kinds of evidence to every faculty of the
mind and every susceptibility of the nature. The question
it puts to the reason is, Do not these evidences prove the
Scriptures divine? Can adaptation, prophecy, miracles, the
truth of Christ's mission from God, be denied? Can its
moral excellence, its suitableness for the everyday duties of
life, be questioned ?
The province of reason, then, is to examine the credentials
of the Bible, to decide the question of their genuineness, to
come to a definite conclusion whether one or all of them do
not show the Scriptures to be from God. In connection with
human reason is the conscience, whose duty it is to decide
upon the right or wrong of things. The fact that the evi-
dences of the Bible appeal to the conscience is a proof of its
riffhtness, of its harmony w^ith virtue and all moral excel-
lence. The only question, then, to decide is, Does not the
Bible give sufficient evidence to prove it from God? Can
the reason and the conscience deny the varied arguments to
prove the Bible from God ? Eemember, every evidence the
Bible presents to the mind to show it from God must be re-
ceived or shown false. If the skeptic denies the evidences,
his reason must be good for that denial; he must show that
his objections are sufficient to authorize the rejection of the
Bible. K he cannot thus do, if the evidences are valid to
prove the Bible the word of God, then the question is settled.
All that reason has to do is to believe and submit.
For the reason to sit in judgment upon the facts of revela-
tion, to object to this or that event or statement on account
of the incomprehensible, the mysterious, or the difficult con-
nected with those facts, while the Bible is confessed to be
from God, shows not merely presumption, but absurdity'.
What is the course the Bible takes with the reason, and the
relation it sustains to it? It presents the credentials of its
divine authority, demands their examination by the reason
and conscience, and then, upon the ground of the validitj' of
its claims, requii'es that its facts should be believed in and
OF SKEPTICISM. 539
its duties practiced. Is it not right that God should say
what he pleases, and reasonable that man, when good evi-
dence is given, should believe what is said ? The question
is not, Are we to believe in what we cannot understand? but,
Should not facts recorded in the Bible be believed in, what-
ever may be the mystery connected with those facts ? Here
it is that skepticism dissents from a proposition so plain. It
takes the ground that the reason should decide not only
upon the evidences of a divine revelation, but upon the /ads
of a divine revelation. It assumes that reason should pass
judgment upon every Bible fact, and receive or reject every
recorded fact according as it suits the reason or does not suit
it. What is the result ? The ground of infallibility is
shifted at once from revelation to reason. It is not revela-
tion that is infallible, but reason ; not the facts of the Bible
that are to be received, but the philosophy of those facts
that must be inquired into. Instead of reason submitting to
the standard of the Bible, the Bible must submit to the
standard of reason. What it approves of is true, what it
does not approve of is false. What it likes is to be received,
what it dislikes rejected. Consequently, the only authoi-ity
to be relied upon is the reason. Instead of the Bible being
a guide to the reason, the reason is a guide to the Bible. It
is the judge not only of the evidences, but even of the facts,
of the Bible, and this book before the reason must assume
the same attitude as any uninspired production. Skepticism,
commencing with this fundamental error, is compelled, how-
ever reluctant, into another.
Human reason being the only infallible authority, and as-
suming to sit in judgment upon the facts of revelation with
their philosophy, it follows that every man's reason as to
what should be believed and practiced in the Bible is his
own exclusive master and sole authority. Thus, after shift-
ing the infallibility of the Scriptures to human reason, it
gives no better rule of judgment than the endless diversities
of every man's reason. Every difference of opinion is right
if the reason thinks so, and to be believed in if the reason
assents to it. One man rejects this fact because of its mys-
540 THE DIFFICULTIES
tery, another that statement on account of its incomprehen-
sibility. This precept is absurd because it does not suit the
feelings, and that command of God is unsuitable because of
its harshness. Thus, instead of the Bible regulating our
feelings and reason, they must both be called upon to regu-
late the Bible. It is not enough that the Bible gives evi-
dences to prove it from God to the reason and the conscience,
but reason must also decide, even upon recorded facts, what
are to be received and what rejected.
Consider, now, the difhculties skepticism brings upon itself
when it assumes this standard. By elevating reason above its
sphere^ it degrades it in its sphere. When reason submits to
revelation, both move together harmoniously. Reason linds
in revelation an infallible guide upon subjects of the deepest
value to ' human interests. Revelation comes to reason as a
friend ; it urges it to walk in that way that secures its lasting
benefit. Thus united in one boiid of friendship, reason
becomes ennobled, it enlars-es itself to its i>:lorious teachings,
and grows wise unto salvation ; but in the other case reason
becomes of necessity the enemy of revelation. They are at
issue upon a vital point. Reason demands of revelation that
which it will not submit to, and revelation demands of reason
that which it rejects. What is the consequence ? As God's
word is greater than human reason, so in a drawn battle
between the two the weaker side must be crushed. Here is
the issue. The Bible will not go down to the level of the
reason, and the reason will not come up to the standard of
the Bible. Revelation will not be the servant of reason, nor
reason the servant of revelation. Consequentl}', all the
blessings of a revelation, from God must be lost to the
reason. What are the benefits skepticism secures by such an
unnatural warfare? It is proper that after it presumes to be
wiser than revelation it should show its superiority^ by the
greater blessings it bestows. What are those blessings?
One is, every man should believe Avhat facts of the Bible he
thinks best, and perform what duties he pleases. Our reason
is our only infallible standard, and if it blows every day
round the compass, we must go with it. Thus does skepti-
OF SKEPTICISM. 541
cism force ns upon a boundless sea of uncertainty and doubt.
Reason, throwing, like a mad mariner, the chart and compass
overboard, floats upon the waters at the mercy of every gale,
and exposed to every quicksand and rock. What, then, does
skepticism gain b}' making a Lucifer out of reason and
exalting it into a god ? Having seated itself upon the throne
of revelation, what good does it secure to reason b}' thus
pampering its pride ? Here is sin, with its countless evils, in
the world. Here is conscience, accusing of sin. Here are
the upbraidings of remorse and the exposure to punishment.
Let the reason of the skeptic assure us how w^e may escape
punishment, avert all evils, and secure our highest welfare in
this world and the next. But can he do it? Alas! while
reason rejects the Bible, it has no ark to save us from the
deluge. Flying from revealed to natural religion, it loses all
the benefits of the former and secures no certainty in the
latter. Driven over a wild ocean of doubt, it is tossed by
every billow, only to be engulfed when hope expires and
happiness finds an eternal grave. The greatest difficulty of
skepticism is, it makes no provision for the highest want of
our nature. That want is, some infallible authority revealing
facts that shall satisfj- the conscience, regulate the affections,
and guide the reason. Certainly that infallibility cannot lie
in the reason; for it is liable to error, and subject to endless
difterences of opinion. If infallibility is to be found any-
where, it must be in the Bible ; and as such the reason must
submit to revelation or sufter the consequences of its rejec-
tion. !N'ow, the reason, by presuming to pass judgment upon
the facts of the Bible, by not contenting itself with the
evidences, but assuming to admit only such facts as suit the
mind, leads to the virtual denial of any higher authority
than its owni, and therefore makes itself infallible rather
than the Scriptures. Thus skepticism denies to man his
greatest want, that which he needs most deeply, and substi-
tutes for heaven's light the false fire that but dazzles to mis-
lead. For certainty it gives doubt, and exchanges the bread
of eternal life for a scorpion or a stone. Man, feeble, erring,
sinful, and unhappy, is flattered with a profane idea of his
542 THE DIFFICULTIES
godlike reason, and instructed in the art of believing in
everything else rather than tTiose immutable truths that bear
upon their face the impress of the Deit3^ Thus skepticism,
having deprived the reason of its noblest security and best
friend, sends it, a homeless fugitive, to wander where night
never ends and toil is forever destitute of hope or joy.
Consider, also, another great difRcultj^ of skepticism. On
account of the incomprehensibility of the Bible, or the mys-
tery of its facts, or their unpleasantness to the feelings, the
reason rejects revelation and suffers itself to be led alone by
its own standard. But when it comes to the works of nature,
when it considers the endless variety of the things of earth,
it encounters that which is equally mysterious or incompre-
hensible. Reason does not escape from that in nature which
it iiuds in the word of God. Here are obstacles as great to
be surmounted, facts as dark to be explained, and wonders
as mysterious as meet the mind in revelation. Why does
not the skeptic take the same liberty with the facts of nature
that he indulges himself with when he comes to the Bible ?
AVhy does not he use the same argument with nature as with
revelation ? If the incomprehensible in the Bible is to be re-
jected, why not that in nature? If the skeptic must lower
revelation down to his standard, why not the works of nature?
There are other mysterious facts than those found in the Bible.
The skeptic walks in a world of mystery. The incompre-
hensible surrounds him wherever he may go, and does- he
think any objection will hold good against revelation that is
equally valid against nature? Can he believe in one, and for
the same reason disbelieve the other? If the reason of the
skeptic will not reject the facts of nature on account of their
mystery, why does he presume upon the ground of the in-
comprehensible to reject the facts of revelation ?
But there is another difficulty that encounters the skeptic.
He cannot divorce the ethics of the Bible from its doctrines,
or its morality from its facts ; they stand or fall together. If
he receives the one, he must receive the other ; if he practices
the duties of the Bible, he must believe its facts ; or if from
the heart he believes the facts, he must practice the duties.
OF SKEPTICISM. 543
The reason is obvious. The duties of the Bible grow out of
the facts and are founded upon them. Repentance rests upon
the revealed fact of an atonement; love to God, upon his
personal existence and attributes ; faith, upon the character
of Christ; and all the virtues enjoined in the Bible, upon
motives that spring directly from the belief of the mind in
recorded facts. Thus the ethics and the facts of the Bible
are so intimately blended that the reason is compelled to
submit to both, if it is willing to submit to either. Another
difficulty of skepticism is, that it removes the best standard
of virtue and the highest incentive to moral excellence,
without affording any equivalent. What better standard of
virtue than the precepts of the Bible? What higher au-
thority than the word of God, or greater motives to a good
life than the sanctions of revelation ? What is the authority
of skepticism ?
The reply is, reason. But what one reason declares true
another reason declares false, and what one decides to be vir-
tuous another contends is vicious. Thus, the reason that
needs itself a standard to go by is compelled to invent one
without revelation, which satisfies neither itself nor any
other reason, l^or is the reason any better off in telling us
what we should practice ; having disowned the Bible, it is
driven to a fabrication of a code of morals without it. But
here it is at a perfect loss what to do. It certainly enjoins no
duties so good or so numerous. It cannot improve upon the
morals of revelation, nor recommend a single virtue not found
in the word of God. Thus the skeptic's code of morals is as
poor as Pharaoh's lean kine, and introduces a worse famine in
morality than ever visited the land of Egypt. But skepticism
in its duties has no sanctions. The duties of the Bible have
the authority of God and motives that embrace three worlds.
Here are sanctions that come with impressive weight to the
mind and address every susceptibility of our nature, — sanc-
tions wide as the universe, and binding in their obligation
upon every heart. But what sanctions has the skeptic's code
of morals? Discarding the facts and duties of the Bible,
where is the obli station to conform to the morals of the infi-
544 THE DIFFICULTIES
del? Where, with no revealed will of God, is the binding
power of the ethics of skepticism? Thus, when we ask of
the skeptic what we are to believe and what we are to do,
we find that our belief must be without certainty, and our
duty without obligation.
Finall}', skepticism has in it no unity of belief, no harmony
of sentiment, and no consistency of practice. Of the three
kinds of skepticism that are comprehended in atheism, pan-
theism, and deism, where is the unity of one sj^stem with
itself, or the harmony of all three united? Among the end-
less divisions and subdivisions of these systems, who does not
know that skeptics are as inconsistent in their theories as in
their practice, and that, having rejected the infallibility of the
Bible, they suffer as the consequence the endless fallibility
of themselves? The atheist believes in no God; the pan-
theist confounds God with his works, and calls nature and
law God ; while the deist believes in a personal God at the
same time that he denies the Bible as a revelation from
God. Thus the atheist is at war with the deist, and the
pantheist at war with both, and while all agree in doing away
with the Bible, they show the consistency of the brotherhood
in contending with each other. Every new school of skep-
tics is opposed to that which preceded it, and no sooner does
one kind of unbelief die out than another is found to take
its place. Thus does skepticism, assuming as many colors as
a rainbow, pass away to return again when there turns up
anything to favor its pretensions.
Reason, that submitting to revelation would become enno-
bled, and grow with the strength of an angel, and be the
handmaid of virtue, and roam over heaven's fields, and exer-
cise itself with a seraph's thoughts, and have the joy of God
and the peace of Christ, by the rejection of the Bible, flutters
like a Avounded bird in the air, or wanders as a homeless
Voyager over an unknown sea of doubt and delusion.
Thus, when we view every system of skepticism that dis-
cards revelation, we find that the skeptic, by attempting to
exalt reason above its sphere, in reality degrades it within its
sphere. The skeptic, possessing no unity of belief or con-
OF SKEPTICISM. 545
sistency of practice, can promise nothing better than the dis-
quietude of doubt or the blind submission of superstition.
Having no agreement in himself, and no harmony with
others, the skeptic carries an element in his heart of wretch-
edness, that will but increase in strength with every perver-
sion of reason and abuse of conscience.
If no other objection could be raised against skepticism
than its want of all unity and its perpetual disagreement, that
in itself should be enough for reason to renounce it. But
when,' with this, its danger, its fearful difficulties, and its in-
utility are taken into the account^ how much nrore powerful
the motive for a cordial rejection !
Well said Eousseau of his infidel brethren, " I have con-
sulted our philosophers; I have read their books; I have
examined their opinions. I find them all proud, positive,
and dogmatic, even in their pretended skepticism, — knowing
everything and proving nothing. If you count the number
of them, each one is reduced to himself; they unite but to
dispute."
35
CHAPTER XXII.
THE UNREASONABLENESS OF SKEPTICISM.
Man possesses a physical, an intellectual, and a moral na-
ture; but it is man's moral nature that peculiarly distinguishes
him from the brutes, and the elevation of which is the chief
end of the Bible. Consequently, our physical and intellectual
condition holds a vastly inferior position in the Bible to the
moral state of man. It is this which the Bible seeks chiefly
to benefit, since the highest ruin of sin lies in man's moral
nature. In what way, then, can man, as a moral being, be
most benefited by a revelation fi'om God ? Is it by a revela-
tion exclusively for the intellect, to gratify chiefly the curiosity
of the mind, or by a revelation that shall more intimately
adapt itself to the wants of our moral nature ? Evidently,
the latter. The Bible has a far higher end than simply to
gratify human curiosity. It exalts virtue above mind and
duty above knowledge. The chief excellence of the Scrip-
ture consists in its adaptation to man's moral nature. It
seeks, first of all, to elevate man in the noblest part of his
being, to make him a partaker of the purity of heaven and
an associate with holy angels. Such being the great end
of revelation, let the skeptic tell us what better end the
Bible could reveal, or what nobler method it could devise of
securing its end, than it has done. If the skeptic can im-
prove upon the Bible, let him tell us how he can thus do.
Would he consult more the interests of man's physical and
intellectual nature ? would he gratify more the curiosity of
man in respect to the mode or the reasons of the great facts
of revelation ? But could this be done unless at the expense
of our moral nature ? Could any wiser course be taken than
has been done, in respect to the bettering of man's moral
state ? What better rule of obligation, or more impressive
(546)
THE UNREASONABLENESS OF SKEPTICISM. 547
sanctions to enforce it, could the skeptic devise, if to him it
wfis left to invent a code of morals or. a law of dnt}'? The
skeptic must admit that man's moral nature is superior to his
intellectual, and. that if a revelation is given to benefit man
it must be chiefly directed to bettering his moral state or
making him more virtuous and good. Such being the case,
the intellect must hold an inferior position to the heart, and
to cultivate virtue rather than mind should be the great end
of a revelation from God to sinners; and thus we find it.
But the very thing which is the chief recommendation of the
Bible is that which the skeptic most stumbles at. The skeptic
treats with contempt the Bible because such a fact is difficult
to comprehend, or such a doctrine is hard to understand, or
the reasons for such a statement of truth are not given. In
one place the Bible is too puerile; in another, too abstruse.
Here its repetition is objected to, and there its conciseness.
In one part its simplicity is found fault witli ; in another, its
obscurity. The skeptic complains that his intellect is not
fully satisfied by the Bible ; that he cannot understand all
the doctrines or comprehend many of the facts of revelation.
Suppose this may all be true with the skeptic, what does it
amount to ? Is the Bible onl}- given for the intellect? Is it
to gratify simply the curiosity of man that God reveals his
word ? Is the superior part of man to be neglected in order
to gratify the mind? Is the intelligence to be worshiped at
the expense of virtue ? Is knowledge to be preferred to
duty ?
It is the glory of the Bible that while it satisfies all the
just demands of the mind, it yet does not sacrifice the moral
nature to the intellectual. The skeptic makes this his^hest
excellence of the Bible the reason for its rejection. He
comes to it alone as a book addressed to the mind; he reads
it as he would read a work upon science and mathematics,
or a treatise upon philosophy or history. It does not enter
his mind that, superior as may be its intellectual merit, its
chief excellence consists in the fact that it consults infinitely
more the moral state of man than his mental condition ; that
to renew the heart and life is vavstly more its object than to
548 THE UNREASONABLENESS
impart knowledge. Such being the end of revelation, how
unreasonable are the. objections of the skeptic! This is
more evident when we consider that the real difficulty lies
not in the mind of the skeptic, but in his heart. The Bible
reveals enough for all practical purposes, and is clear enough
for all duty.
There is nothing in the Bible that the reason can suitably
object to, and nothing that is unfriendly to the highest exer-
cise of the mind. It forbids no investigation, nor disapproves
of any proper exercise of the intellect. Why, then, does the
skeptic object to the Bible ? He cannot devise any better
remedy for sin, any nobler inducements to virtue, any higher
rewards for goodness ; he cannot show a safer road to heaven,
or a clearer path to happiness ; he cannot say that w^e ought
not to love God with our whole heart, or that we should not
obey his law, or believe upon Christ his Son, or repent of
sin, or perform every duty that conscience responds to in
revelation. Why, then, does the skeptic continue objecting
to the Bible ? Does the reason lie so much in the mind as
in the heart? In all moral duties what we dislike we uni-
formly misrepresent; and this is precisely the condition of
the skeptic. He misrepresents the i^xcts of the Bible because
he dislikes the duties of the Bible; he makes a stumbling-
block of his intellect because his heart is wrong. Can any-
thing be more unreasonable ? The Bible presents itself em-
bodying every duty needful for practice, and every fact
essential for belief. It demands a reception from motives
addressed to our highest interests for two worlds ; it comes
to secure for us our noblest welfare in all that relates to body
and soul. Its great end is to make us wnser, better, and
happier, to impart a salvation such as God alone can give and
alone can full}' comprehend.
Under such circumstances, does not the difficulty of the
skeptic rest rather upon a w'rong state of heart than of mind?
So long as his objections lead him to the rejection of the
Bible, can he practice its duties ? Can he obey the precepts of
the Bible while he disbelieves its doctrines ? Can he be a
'over of its morality while he is uninfluenced by its sanctions?
OF SKEPTICISM. 549
If he coDsiders the Bible unworthy the belief of the mind,
is it strange that he should deny it the love of the heart ?
The unreasonableness of the skeptic is also seen in that he
cannot prove false the great fiicts of the Bible, even were
they not made known in the Bible. Those facts may be
divided into two classes: truths to be believed in, and duties
to practice. Let us look at the first class of facts. Consider
the two states of future happiness and future misery. Can
the skeptic prove these facts untrue, even if not revealed in
the Bible? Can reason show them impossible, even if not a
word had been written in respect to those two states of exist-
ence? The Bible did not invent these separate states of
being. The Bible records them as facts, but it had nothing
to do with the making of them. Their existence would have
been equally as true had no information been imparted in
respect to their reality. The Bible acts the part of a chart
that reveals to the mariner the port of safety and the rocks
that endanger the vessel; but is that to be considered a defect
which with one hand points out our ruin, and the other our
security ?
Consider also the character of God, who is revealed as our
moral Governor, a Being of infinite perfection, immutable
in his purposes, alike omnipresent in his existence and om-
niscient in his knowledge. But the character of God was
the same before the Bible was written as since. His moral
government possessed, millions of ages ago, the same ele-
ments of durability, of certainty, of wisdom, of goodness,
and of strength, that they now have.
If, again, we consider the facts in respect to the threefold
existence of God, the divine atonement of Christ, and the
operations of the Eternal Spirit, we arrive at the same con-
clusion. The Bible makes known truths that would be
equally realities even if not recorded upon the inspired
page. Consider also the second class of truths that com-
prehend the duties of the Bible. The truths that are com-
prised in the great law of moral obligation, which the reason
and conscience declare as right and suitable for man, which
speak of human liberty and human responsibilit}-, which re-
550 THE UNREASONABLENESS
gard man as a moral and accountable being, wliicb point to
reward and punishment for human conduct, would not be
less true even if there was no revelation from God. Our
liberty and our responsibility commenced with our moral
agenc}'. The great law of obligation that binds us to the
service of God, that imposes upon us duties to our Creator
and to man, that treats us as endowed with conscience to
discriminate right from wrong, and with liberty to act as free
agents, did not owe its origin to the Bible. This is a fact
that revelation makes clearer, but can never create. It is
as indestructible as our own existence, as permanent as our
moral nature, and as certain as God himself.
In our iniidelity we may cheat ourselves into the belief that
man is compelled by necessity as absolute as that of a machine
to act always as he does act, — or we may, with the pantheist,
confound God with nature and make man a part of God, a
strict emanation of his essential being, and thus by a different
road arrive at the same negation of moral obligation as the
advocate of necessity, — or, with the mystic, we may contend
that we are only the passive recipients of influences which we
can neither avert nor control, — or, with the skeptic, we may
den}^ the certainty of all knowledge and attempt to destroy
the foundation of all human belief, and thus equally with the
advocate of necessity, the pantheist, and the mystic, aim to
make false or useless the law of obligation, and seek to absolve
man from his highest duty, — and yet the law of obligation
would still remain, the eternal principle of right and wrong
would be unaffected. God's government would be as immu-
table as before, and conscience, true to its high origin, would
give its verdict in favor of divine justice and the rightful
claim of God upon the obedience of the heart. Thus, let the
mind cover itself with sophistry, — let the reason try ever so
hard to prove false to itself, — let the heart, impatient of good
restraint, treat the Bible as a fable, and obey no other voice
than that of passion or of selfishness, — and yet, amid the
ever-changing' forms of error, or tossed ever so madly upon
the sea of delusion, there still would rest upon the soul the
same undeviating law of duty, and the same eternal account-
OF SKEPTICISM. 561
ability to God. Thus, Bible or no Bible, human responsi-
bility with human liberty would go together, and duty and
virtue would ever remain to bind man to his Maker and
his fellow-man. How unreasonable, then, to find fault with
the facts of revelation, which only reveal more clearly the
truths of nature !
The unreasonableness of skepticism is also seen in that
the most it can pretend to is that it is a system of doubt, and
not of evidence. The skeptic doubts the facts of the Bible, —
he doubts its truth, its divine origin, its harmony, its excel-
lence and proffered remedy for sin ; but he cannot give good
reasons for his doubts, — he cannot offer any proof to convince
the mind of the validity of his doubts, — he cannot show evi-
dence that he is right and that all who believe the Bible are
wrono-. The most he can do is to work his own mind into
error or plunge deeper into self-delusion ; he may consider
himself as an irresponsible being, or his soul as mortal as his
body, or his only dut}' to live in obedience to passion or
selfishness, — he may consider as visionary God's law, and
unreal the claims of his moral government, — he may look
upon Christianity as an imposture, and the atonement of
Christ as a delusion, — he may imagine himself absolved from
every duty of Christianity, — he may doubt the existence even
of God, or confound his personality with nature, — he may
acknowledge no higher law than his own pleasure, and deride
any idea of a judgment to come, — and yet his doubts are
doubts without proof, — doubts that conscience disowns, and
which reason, if true to itself, declares baseless, — doubts that
can bear no investigation, and which vanish as darkness before
the sunlight of truth. If the skeptic could only offer some-
thing better than doubt, — if his objections could be proved or
his infidelity shown reasonable, — the case would be different.
It would be another thing if he could give some substitute
for what he rejects, or make peaceful that heart whose faith
he has destroyed ; but when for confidence he gives distrust,
and for hope despair, — when he destroys the noblest security
of man, and brings midnight over his brightest prospects, — it
is then that skepticism is seen to be no less deplorable in its
delusion than miserable in its end.
552 THE UNBEASONABLENESS
The unreasonableness of the skeptic is seen in the war he
institutes with his conscience and moral nature. There is
that in man that calls loudly for a religious faith. There
is a perceived want in our nature that must have something
to satisfy it. Man restlessly turns awa}- from a chaos of
doubt. Doubt itself is a ceaseless source of trouble; it is
foreign to all peace of mind and all true happiness. The
doubter feels himself miserable ; he finds in his own heart
an unending source of disquietude. To be ever doubting
and never coming to the knowledge of the truth is the very
life "of skepticism. As such, it must be at war with con-
science and the moral nature. Both demand some foundation
to rest upon. They are not content to be at the mercy of
every idle wind of error or the sport of every shifting cur-
rent. With human liberty there awakens in the mind a
sense of accountability ever coextensive with the perception
of freedom. Conscience speaks of right and wrong, of duty
to God and man. No sophistry can stifle the war we wage
with our highest welfare for two worlds.
As right belief is intimately associated with right practice,
so we must believe the Bible, or we cannot practice its duties.
We must have faith in its doctrines, or we never will obey its
precepts. The skeptic who gives himself up to doubt must,
if the Bible is true, be at war with himself; he enters into a
controversy with his own nature, where his endless doubts
allow him neither stability nor safety.
If the skeptic realizes his situation, he must be unhappy ;
his nature demands some foundation for his doubts, and he
cannot show it; his reason demands some evidence of his
unbelief, and he is unable to give it ; his conscience impor-
tunes him to obey the truth, and he refuses to listen to its
voice. Thus does the skeptic raise in his own heart a strife
that must last as long as his doubts ; he carries about in his
own heart a judge that will, whenever interrogated, decide
against him. The evil of the skeptic is not that he doubts
because sufficient evidence is not given for the facts of the
Bible, but because all evidence is not given ; his unbelief
rests not upon reason, but upon the want of it.
OF SKEPTICISM. 553
Does the skeptic consider liow finite must be his mind,
how limited the range of his observation ? Does he consider
that every day he believes in what passes about him, upon
the slightest evidence, while he rejects the Bible upon the
greatest ? Does he think upon the limitation of his knowl-
edge and the infinitude of that universe that opens up to his
inspection ? Is the skeptic aware how wide the space that
exists between him and God, how measureless the distance
between the creature and the Creator ? Does he feel, as he
should feel, what interests he endangers by the rejection of
the Bible ? Can he realize the magnitude of his loss with
no faith ? Living, as he does, an unbeliver, does he think
where unbelief will land him ? When he thinks of death
and what lies beyond, is it a matter of indiiference how poor
may be the hopes and how uncertain the foundation where
rest the feet ?
Does the skeptic imagine his doubts can benefit him when
reason is shipwrecked and conscience abused ? Is he confi-
dent of safety while neglecting his Bible and throwing con-
tempt upon all its provisions of mercy? Does the skeptic
think his unbelief will not injure him, while it is at war with
reason and conscience and can live only by the rejection of
the Bible? If he feels himself accountable, should he not
fear for duty neglected, truth not believed in, God disre-
garded, Christ unsubmitted to, heaven uncared for, an im-
mortality of glory unsought, and the soul wandering reckless
over a sea of doubt and never coming to the knowledge of
the truth ?
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
(555)
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
The Theological Index, or References to Works in all Depart-
ments of Religious Literature, by Howard Malcom, D.D., LL.D., is
a most thorough and exhaustiv^e work, and will be found indis-
pensable to those who may wish to enter into an extended investiga-
tion of any of the subjects that come under the head of natural or
revealed theology.
The present index is exclusively taken from that of Dr. Malcom,
and is designed to assist those who may not be in possession of his
valuable work. Only a small proportion of the authors who have
written upgn the different subjects suggested under natural and
revealed theology are here referred to ; but my object has been, as
far as possible, to secure such a list as may be most desired by the
general reader and best adapted for the object aimed at in the
preparation of my book.
NATURAL THEOLOGY.
EFFICIENT CAUSATION AND FINAL CAUSATION.
American Biblical Eepository. 2d
Series. 2 : 381. 3 : 174. 4 : 217, 467.
Boyle's (Hon. Rob.) Works.
Brown's Philosophy of the Mind.
Buchanan's Modern Atheism.
Fraser's Magazine. 16 : 254. (Final
Causes.)
Hume's (David) Essays.
Irons's Doct. of Final Causes. (Admi-
Mill's Exam, of Sir W. Hamilton's
Philos.
Philosophy of Necessity.
Miller's Old Red Sandstone. (Final
Causes.)
Miiller's Christian Doct. of Sin.
Scott's Limits of Metaphysical Sci-
ence.
Travis (Henry) on Moral Freedom.
rable.) ] Whish on the First Cause.
' Woods (Dr.) on Cause and Effect.
GENERAL LAWS OF THE EARTH AND THE SUN.
Bridgewater Treatises. i Buchanan's (James) Lectures.
Cobb's Bampton Lectures. 1783. I Rawlinson's Bampton Lectures. 1839.
(557)
558
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
DEVELOPMENT THEORY.
Brongniart, Tableau des Genres de
Vegetaux, Fossiles, etc.
Lamarck, Hist, des Animaux sans
Vertebres.
Maillet, Philosophie.
Atkinson's (H. G.) Letters.
Darwin's Zoonomia.
Huxley's (Prof. T. H.) Works.
Spencer's (Herbert) Illustrations of
Universal Progress.
Agassiz's Study of Natural History.
Brodie's (Sir Benj.) Lectures.
Christian Examiner. NewSeries. 1:60.
Lubbock's Lectures on the Origin of
Man.
Lyell's Antiquity of Man.
Stillingfleet's Originos Sacrae.
Walker's (Jas. B.) Sacred Philoso-
phy-
LIFE AND INSTINCT.
Bingley's Animal Biography.
Brougham's (Lord) Dissertations.
Brown's Biog. Sketches of Quadru-
peds.
Buffon's Natural History.
Bushnan's Philosophy of Instinct.
Couch's Illustrations of Instinct.
French's True Nature of Instinct.
Good's (J. M.) Bo^k of Nature.
Hancock's Phys. and Moral Kelations
of Instinct.
Jarrold on Instinct and Keason.
Kemp (T. L ) on Instinct.
Kirby's Bridgewater Treatise (the
Ttli).
THE HUMAN BODY AND MIND, AND THE TESTIMONY OF HISTORY AND
SCIENCE UPON THE ORIGIN OF MAN.
Law (T.) on Instinctive Impulses.
Second Thoughts on do.
Morris's Kecords of Animal Saga-
city.
Mower on the Nature of Instinct.
Paine's (Dr.) Soul Distinct from Mat-
ter.
Paley's Natural Theology.
Kamsay (Sir Geo..) on Instinct and
Eeason.
Swainson's Habits of Animals.
Wakefield's Instinct Displayed.
Ware's Philosophy of Natural His-
tory.
Du Moulin, Hist des Eaces humaines.
Edward, Des Caracteres physiologiques
des Kaces humaines.
Lacepfede, Histoire naturelle de
I'Homme
Les Ages de la Nature.
Pauw, Qiluvres philosophiques.
Virey, Hist, naturelle du Genre hu-
maine.
Ainer. Biblical Kepos. 2d Series. 11:
274.
Brit. Quarterly Rev. 1 : 337.
Democratic Eev. 26:227. 27:41, 133.
Dunbar's History of Mankind in
Eude and in Cultivated Ages.
Eraser's Magazine. 30 : 537 ^44 : 6.51.
Guyot's Earth and Man. Tr. by Eel-
ton.
Home's (Lord Kames) Sketches.
Jones's Origin of Differences of Color,
etc.
Latham's Nat. Hist, of the Varieties
of Man.
— — Man and his Migrations.
Lawrence's Lectures. (Able.)
Littell's Living Age 24 : 490. 29 : 823.
Lond. Quart Eev. 1:328 86:1.
Methodist Quart. Eev. 4 : 2-55 10 : 531.
Mudie's (Eobt.) Works. Vol. 3.
Murray's (Jas.) Creation, and the De-
sign of the Mosaic History.
Princeton Eeview. 21:159. 22:608,
313.
Prichard's Physical History of Man-
kind (Modifying Inf. of Physical
and Moral Causes, etc. 1836. Greatly
improved in 1855 162 engravings.)
Schoolcraft's Notes on the Iroquois.
Smith's (Sam. S.) Causes of Difference
in Color.
Smith's (C. H.) Nat. Hist, of the Spe-
cies. (With an introduction, con-
taining the views of Blumenbach,
Prichard, Buchman, Agassiz, etc.)
Van Amrige's Natural History of
Man. (Eeviews Lawrence, Prich-
ard, and others.)
Ward's (S H.) Nat. History of Man.
(Plates.)
Westminster Eeview. 14: 17. 20: 186.
55 : 83.
Young (J E.) on Modern Skepticism.
1865. (Eeviews Lyell, Huxley, Co-
lenso, etc.)
INDEX TO AUTHOBS.
559
CHANCE AND FATE.
Buchanan's Modern Atheism. Chap. 6.
Bcntley's Boyle Lectures. 1693.
Clarke (Dr. Sam.) on the Laws of
Chance.
Hoyle's Essay on the Doctrine of
Chances.
Howe's (Charles) Meditations.
"Watt's Ontology.
Arpe, Theatro Fati.
Buchanan's Modern Atheism.
Comte's Positive Philosophy.
Positive Politics.
Positive Catechism.
Cudworth's Intellectual System. Ch.l.
Toplady on the "Fate" of the An-
cients.
See a great list of foreign writers in
Arpe, above named.
NATURAL THEOLOGY.
Bullet, Exist, de Dieu demontree.
Curcellii Opera. Lib. I. cap. 2.
Delalle, Theologie naturelle.
Doederleini Theologia.
Gerhardi Loci Theologici.
Lesser, Theologie des Insectes.
Nahmmacher de Nat. Theol.Ciceronis.
Sabunde, Theologia Naturalis.
Vitringffi Opuscula.
"Wild's Vernunftglaube.
Abbadie on the Christian Keligion.
Abernethy's (John) Sermons.
Allen's Oracles of Reason.
Anderson's Course of Creation.
Atkey's Being and Attributes of God.
Barker's Natural Theology.
Barrow's (Bp.) "Works.
Beavan's Elements of Natural The-
ology.
Bellamy's (Joseph) Sermons.
Bentley's Boyle Lectures. 1692.
Biblioth. Sacra. 8 : 241.
Berkeley's Minute Philosopher.
Boyle on Final Causes.
Bridgewater Treatises, viz.:
Bell's 3Iechanism of the Hand.
Buckland's Geology with Eeference
to Theology. (This author ex-
pended on the 90 plates the whole
of the thousand pounds received
from the Bridgewater fund.)
Chalmers on the Power, "Wisdom,
and Goodness of God, as seen in
the Adaptation of External Na-
ture to the Moral and Intellectual
Constitution of Man.
Kidd on the Adaptation of Nature
to the Phj'sical Condition of Man.
Kirby's "Wisdom of God, as seen in
the History, Habits, and Instincts
of Animals.
Prout's Chemistry, Meteorol., and
Digestion.
Roget's Animal and Vegetable
Phvsiologv.
"Whewell's Astronomy and General
Physics.
Brit. Quar. Review. 7:204.
Brougham's Natural Theology.
Brown's Existence of a Supreme Cre-
ator.
Burnett's (C. M.) Power, etc., as seen
in the Animal Creation. (Capital.)
Bushnan's Study of Nature.
Butler's Analogy of Religion and Na-
ture.
Charnock's "Works.
Christ. Exam. 30:273.6:389. 13:187.
Christian Quar. Spect. 8:177. 10:819.
Christian Review. 3 : 1.
Crabbe's (Geo.) System of Natural
Theology.
Crombie's Natural Theology.
Dick's Christian Philosopher.
Dryden (J.) on Natural Religion.
Durham's Boyle Lectures. 1711, 1712.
Astro-Theology.
Dublin Univ. Mag. 6 : 448. 7 : 597.
Eclectic Rev. 4th series. 5 : 609.
Edinb. Rev. 1:287. 64:141.
Fergus's Testimony of Nature.
Eraser's Mag. 12 : 375. 13 : 694.
Gisbourne's Test, of Nat. Theol. to
Religion.
Gosse's Life in its Manifestations.
Gretton's Review of the Argument
a priori for the Being of God.
Grew's (N.) Cosmologia Sacra.
Grinfield's Conn, of Nat. and Rev.
Theology.
Grove's (N.) "Wisdom of Deity.
Hall's (Robt.) Modern Infidelity.
Hamilton on the Supreme Being.
Hampden's Philos. Evid. of Christi-
anity.
Harris's (Robert) Sermons.
Hey 's (John) Lectures. Bk.l,ch.3&4.
Jones's Natural Evidences of Christi-
anity.
Laws's (E.) Theory of Religion.
560
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
Leibnitz's Theodice.
Leighton's (Abp.) Lectures.'*'
Lesser 's Insecto-Theology.
Leiiwenhoeck-'s "Works. Trans, by S.
Hoole.
Littell's Living Age. 19 : 289.
Lowman's Unity and Perfections of
God.
McCosli's Typical Forms and Special
Ends in Creation.
On Intuitions.
Divine Gov.,Pliysical and Moral.
McCulloclc's Proofs and Illustrations,
etc.
Miller's (Hugh) Works.
Milne on the State of the Old World.
Month. Eev. 88:82. 120:30.
"New Eng. Mag. 4 : 454.
New York Kev. 1 : 137, 298.
Nieuwentyt's Eeligious Philosopher.
North Am. Kev. 42 : 467. 54 : 102,
256.
OUvife on the Origin and Government
of the World.
Paley's Natural Theology.
Ragg's Creation's Testimony to its
God.
Ray's Physico-Theology.
Read's (H.) Palace of the Great King.
Rust's (Bp.) Use of Reason.
Seaton's Grounds of Religion.
Spalding (J. J.) on Religion.
Stebbing's Defence of Dr. Clark.
Steere's (Edw.) Exist, and Attributes
of God.
Sykes's Foundation of Religion.
Thompson's Christian Theism.
Towne's Actonian. (A prize essay.)
TuUock's Theism. (A prize essay.)
Tunstall's (James) Academica.
Turretin's (Francis) Dissertations.
Diss. 1.
Turton's Natural Theology, consid-
ered with reference to Lord Brou-
gham's discourse.
Westminster Review. 17 :413.
Wilson's (Professor) Chemical Final
Causes.
THE PROBLEM OF PHYSICAL AND MORAL EVIL.
Beausobre, Hist, de Manichaeisme. L
V. c. 1.
Bilfinger de Origine Mali praecipue
moralis.
Buddei Miscellan. Sacrorum. Pars
III.
Calvin de Peccato originale.
Cheneviere, du Peche originel.
Disputatio de Orig. Peccato inter
Flacium et Strigel. 1560.
Haberkornii (Pet.) Dissertationes.
Junii (Francisc.) Dissertationes.
Leibnitz, Essais de Theodicse.
Martinus de Causa Peccati.
Matth^eus de Origine Mali.
Scharfii Disputationes Apologeticse.
Strang! us de Voluntate Dei.
Thumii (Theod.) Dissertationes.
Tilene, de la Cause et de I'Origine du
Peche.
Am. Bibl. Repos. 2d series 8 : 314.
10:353.
Am. Quart. Register. 15: 113.
Balguy on Divine Rectitude.
Bayles's Origin of Evil.
Bays on Divine Benevolence.
Bellamy's (Joseph) Sermons.
Bennet on the Cause of Evil.
Biblioth. Sac. 7:254, 479.
Broughani's (Lord) Dissertations on
Natural Theology. Diss. 3.
Butter worth on Moral Government.
Casaubon's Origin of Temporal Evil.
Chalmers's Natural Theology. (On the
theory of Leibnitz.)
Christian Disciple. 1 : 300.
Christian Exam 33 : 169.
Christian Rev. 7 : 520. 8 : 7.
Christmas's Sin; its Causes and Con-
sequences.
Cud worth's Intellectual System of the
Universe.
Clarke's (John) Boyle Lectures.
1719, 1720.
D'Oyley's (George) Dissertations.
Diss. 1.
Duncan's (John) Philos. of Human
Nature.
Edwards (Pres.) on the Will. Part IV.
Dissertation on Liberty and Ne-
cessity.
Fenelon's Philosophical Works.
Ferguson's Principles of Moral Sci-
ence.
Fleming's Necessity not the Origin
of Evil.
Foster's (Dr. James) Sermons.
Gales's Court of the Gentiles. Part
IV. Bk. 3.
Gilbert's (Jos.) Reply to Bennet.
Glanvil's Lux Orientalis.
Grove on the Wisdom of God*.
Hussey's (Christopher) Sermons.
Jeffrey's (John) Sermons.
Jenvns's (Soame) Enq. into the Origin
of Evil.
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
561
Johnson's (Dr. S.) Rev. of S. J.'s En-
quiry.
King's" (Abp.) Origin of Evil.
Law (E.) on the Origin of Evil.
Lovett's Cause of Evil, Physical and
Moral.
Miiller's Christian Doctrine of Sin.
New Englander. 1 : 110.
Placette'^s Refutation of Bayle.
Priestley's Disquisitions.
Princeton Review. 14 : 529.
Shepherd's iSTature and Origin of Evil.
Smith's (John Pye) Sermons.
Squiers's Problem Solved. (Not
quite. )
Stillingfleet's Origines Sacraa. Bk. 3,
ch. 3.
Todd's (H. J.) Declarations of the Re-
formers.
Universalist Quarterly. 4 : 221.
West on Moral Agency.
Williams's Hypothesis Respecting,
etc.
Vindication of do.
Young's Evil not from God. (One of
the last and best. )
A good key to the controversy, on
this subject may be found in Chis-
sold's Connection of Theology, Psycho-
logy, and Physiology.
LIGHT OF NATURE.
Chauvin de Religione Naturali.
Creutzer de Leibnitii Doctrina.
Diogenes Laertius de Vitis Philoso-
phorum.
Grotius de Yeritate.
Hammii Scrutatio Principii primi.
Hansennii (Petr.) Meditationes.
Mori (Henr.) Demonstrationes.
Enchiridion Ethicum.
Pfhanner, Systema Theologia Gen-
tilis.
Platonis Opera. (De Rebus divinis,
etc.)
Plutarchi Moralia.
Poiretus de Deo.
Proclus de Theologia Platonica.
Puifendorf de Officiis Hominis et Ci-
vis.
Reimar's (H. S.) Naturalische Reli-
gion.
Simon (Jules) Religion naturelle.
Yelthusii de Cultu naturali.
YossiusdePhilosophia et Philos. Sec-
tis.
de Theologia Gentili.
Walch's (C. W^.F.) Natiirlichen Got-
tesgelehrtheit.
Wolfii Theologia Naturalis.
Abernethy's (John) Sermons.
Barr's Summary of Natural Religion.
Bates's (William) Works.
Baxter's (Andrew) Matho.
Blackwell's (Thos.) Sacred Scheme.
Bourn's (Samuel) Sermons.
Bovle Lectures for 1692, 1695, 1704,
1713, 1717, 1721, 1747, 1766, 1778,
1808,* 1847.
Boyle (Robt.) on the Yeneration due
to God.
Broughton's Christianity Distinct
from the Religion of Nature.
Brown's Natural and Revealed Reli-
gion. Bk. 1.
Bulkley (C.) on Natural Religion.
Bushnan's Introd. to the Study of
Nature.
Calamy on the Light of Nature.
Charnock (Stephen) on Providence.
Cheyne's Philos. Principles of Reli-
gion.
Christian Examiner. 52:117.
Christian Monthly Spectator. 4 : 249.
3 : 85.
Clarke's (S.) Boyle Lectures. 1704.
Conybeare's Defence of Revealed Re-
ligion.
Culverwell on the Light of Nature.
Cumberland's Laws of Nature.
Dick's Philosophy of Religion.
Dryden (J.) on Natural Religion.
Duncan's (J. S.) Botano-Theology.
Duncan's (H.) Sacred Philosophy.
Durham's Astro-Theology.
Physico-Theology.
Edwards on the Causes of Atheism.
Ellis on the Knowledge of Divine
Things.
Erbury's Confutation of Deism.
Fiddes's Theologia Speculativa.
Foster's (James) Discourses on Sociiil
Yirtue.
Gardner's (James) Sermons.
Gastrell on Natural Religion.
Gerard's Evidences of Nat. and Rev.
Religion.
Glover's (P.) Tracts.
Greenfield's Connection of Nat. and
Rev. Religion.
Hale's (Chief Justice) K lowledgo of
God.
Hallet's Future State n t proved by
the Light of Nature.
36
562
INDEX TO AUTHOBS.
Halyburton's Insufficiency of Natural
Keligion.
Harris's Eight Sermons on the Being
of God.
Hey's (Dr. John) Lectures.
Hume's Dialogues on Natural Eeli-
gion.
Jack's Mathematical Theology.
Karnes (Lord) on Natural Keligion.
Law's (W.) Theory of Eeligion.
Mackay's Progress of the Intellect.
Mole's Obligations of Natural Keli-
gion.
Morehead's Dialogues.
Nye on Natural and Revealed Eeli-
gion.
Orr's (J.) Theory of Eeligion.
Parker's Defence of Natural and Ee-
vealed Eeligion.
Peabody's (A. P.) Lowell Institute
Lectures. 1864.
Eamsaj^'s Principles of Eeligion.
Scott's Christian Life. Part II.
Sherlock on Providence.
Simon on Nat. Eeligion. Trans, by
Marsden.
Squiers's Natural and Eevealed Eeli-
gion.
Stanley's Lives of the Philosophers.
Stillingfleet's Orio-ines Sacraa.
Sturm's Keflections on the "Works of
God.
Stuynoe's Salvation by Christ Alone.
Sykes's Connection of Nat. and Eev.
Eeligion.
Taylor's (Jer.) Ductor Dubitantium.
Necessity of Faith in Christ.
Tenison against Hobbes.
Totham's Scale of Truth.
Tucker's Light of Nature Pursued.
(Profound and clear. First pub-
lished under the name of Edward
Search.)
Tunstall's Natural and Eevealed Eeli-
gion.
Twell's Vindic. of the Gospel of Mat-
thew.
Ty tier's Essays on Important Sub-
jects.
Watson's Popular Evidences of Nat.
Eeligion.
Watts's (Isaac) Berry Street Sermons.
Wayland's Elements of Moral Sci-
ence.
Wliiston's Astronomical Principles of
Eeligion.
Willatts on the Eeligion of Nature.
Wilson's (Jos.) Letters on Eeligion.
(A good introduction to Butler's
Analogy.)
LIMITATIONS OP HUMAN THOUGHT.
Abercrombie's Intellectual Powers.
Baker's Eeliections upon Learning.
Balguy's (John) Discourses.
Bourn's (Samuel) Sermons.
Boyle's Use of Eeason in Eeligion.
Brown's Pi-ocedure and Extent of the
Human Understanding.
[Calamy (Ed.)] Philologus's Use and
Abuse of Eeason.
Campbell (Abp.) on the Necessity of
Eevelation.
Clark's (John) Office of Reason in Ee-
ligion.
Croft's Bampton Lectures. 1786.
Curry's Confirmation of Faith.
Davies's (J.) Estimate of the Human
Mind.
Eclectic Eeview. 1859 : 225.
Ellis's Knowledge of Divine Things.
Ferguson's Interest of Eeason in Re-
ligion.
Gale's Court of the Gentiles. Part III.
Gilderdale on Natural Eeligion.
Glanvill's Vanity of Dogmatiz ng.
Holden's (Lawrence) Sermons.
Letters between Ant. Tuckey and B.
Whichcot.
Manning's (James) Sermons.
Manningham's Use of Speculative
Philosophy in Eeligion.
Mansel's Bampton Lectures. 1858.
Nelson's (G.) Use of Human Eeason.
Newton's (Bp.) Dissertations.
Norris's Mysteries of Christianity.
Princeton Eeview. 32 : 648.
Eust on the Use of Eeason.
Sharp's (Abp.) Sermons.
Smith's True Method of Obtaining
Divine Knowledge.'
Stephen's Human Nature Delineated.
Stone's (Edward) Sermons.
Tuckey's Letters.
Twinning's Eeason in Eegard to Eeve-
lation.
Van Mildort's Boyle Lectures. 1802.
Wardlaw's Christian Ethics.
Whately's (Bp.) Sermons.
Whichcot's Aphorisms in Eeligion.
AVhiston's Eeason and Philos. no
Enemies.
Witsius on the Abuse of Eeason.
Worseley's P. of Eeason in Eeligion,
deduced from the Sermon on the
Mount.
Young's Province of Eeason. (An
able criticism on Mansell.)
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
b\j^
ATHEISiM.
Adams on the Existence of God.
Alexander's (J.) Observations. (Ag.
Hobbes.)
Allen's Oracles of Eeason.
Allen's (Thomas) Modern Atheism.
Balguy's Sermons and Tracts.
Batchellor'a (H.) Logic of Atheism.
Bayle's Dictionary. (Under Diago-
ras, Theodoras, and Vaninus.)
Beecher's ^Lyman) Atheism, consid-
ered theologically and politically.
Bentley's (liichard) Sermons.
Berkeley's (Bp.) Works.
Boyle Lectures. (From 1692 to the
present.)
Boyle's Inquiry into Eeceived No-
tions.
Essay on Final Causes.
Buchanan's Modern Atheism : as ex-
hibited under the Forms of Panthe-
ism, Materialism, Secularism, and
Development. 1855.
Carleton's Darkness of Atheism.
Char nock's Works.
Cheyne's Philosophical Principles.
Christian Examiner. 50 : 309. 78 :
Clarendon's Keply to Hobbes.
Clarke on the Being and Attributes
of God.
Cudworth's Intellectual Sj'steni.
Abridged by Dr. Wise.
Cumberland's Law of Nature.
Delany's Revelation examined with
Candor.
Doddridge's Lectures. Part II.
Dix's (Morgan) Lectures on Panthe-
ism.
Durham's Demonstration.
Dwight's Discourses. Disc. 1, 2, and 3.
Eclectic Eeview. New series. 7:329.
Edwards on the Visible Structure of
the World.
Elliot's Folly of Atheism.
Foster (James) on Natural Religion.
Fotherby's Atheomastix.
Gardner's Doomsday Book.
Grant's (Brewin) Public Discussion
with G. J. Holyoake, in 1854.
Godwin's Lectures on the A. Contro-
versy.
Gregory's Modern Atheism.
Grew's Cosmologia Sacra.
Hale's (Sir Matthew) Origin of Man.
Hall's (Robt.) Modern Inlidelity.
Harris on Atheistical Objections.
Hattecliffe's God or Nothing.
Hill's Lectures and Reflections.
Howel's Spirit of Prophecy. (Agt.
Hobbes.)
Howe's (John) Works.
Hunt's Essay on Pantheism.
Lectures on Secularism, by Gregory,
Condor, Savage, and Mellor.
Lesser s Insecto-Theology.
Lewis's (Tayler) Plato against the
Atheists.
McAU's Logic of Atheism.
McLaurin's Essays.
McCuUock's (John) Sermons.
Mill on the Attempted Application
of Pantheistic Principles to the His-
toric Criticism of the Gospel.
Monthly Eeview. 54 : 163.
More's (Henry) Philosophical Works.
Part I.
Nelson's Cause and Cure of Infidelity.
Nieuwentyt's Religious Philosopher.
Nichol's Conference with a Theist.
Parker on God and Providence.
Pattison's Anti-Nazarenus.
Pilling on the Existence of God.
Pironett's Disquisitions. (Against
Hobbes.)
Phillips's Dis.Historico-Philosophica.
Ray's Phj'sico-Theology. (Great, and
most useful.)
Saisset's Modern Pantheism. 1863.
Seed's (Jeremiah) Sermons.
Sparks's Antidote of Atheism.
Talmot's (Bp.) Sermons.
Temple's Doctrine of Leviathan.
Tenison's (Abp.) Sermons. (Agt.
Hobbes.)
Thompson's (R. A.) Christian Theism.
Tower's Atheismus Vapulans.
Tullock's Tbeism. Burnett Prize Es-
say. 1854.
Vaughn's (J.) Lectures. Lcct. 4.
Vince's Laws and Constitutions of
the Heavenly Bodies. (Uses pro-
found astronomical knowledge in
the simplest language.)
Ward's (Bp.) Essay toward an Evic-
tion, etc.
Whish on the First Cause.
AVise's (Tho.) Reason and Philosophy
of A.
Wisheart's (William) Sermons.
Wharton (Francis) on Theism.
Woolsey's Unreasonableness of Athe-
ism.
The above are a very small speci-
men of the numerouswriters on this
subject.
56i
INDEX TO AUTHOBS.
REVEALED THEOLOGY.
NECESSITY OF DIVINE REVELATION.
Clemens Alex., Exhortatio ad
Gentes.
Justin Martyr, Apologia.
Cohortatio ad Gnecos.
Dialogus cum Tryphone.
Auberlen, die Gottliclie OfFenbarung.
Bretschneider's Systemat. Entwicke-
lung.
Campbell, de Vanitate Luminis Na-
turae.
Laget, Sermons sur divers Sujets.
Turretini (Jo. Alphonsi) Cogitationes.
Appleton's Works. Lects. 11, 12, 13.
Baker's (T.) Reflections on Learning.
Barrow's Necessity of Christianity.
Brown's System of Nat. and Revealed
Religion.
Bundy's (Richard) Sermons.
Chandler's Revelation and Society.
Charnock's (S.) Works.
Christian Review. 12 : 186.
Conybeare on Revealed Religion.
Delany's Revelation examined with
Candor.
Edgecombe's Reason an InsufScient
Guide.
Ellis's Knowledge of Divine Things
not from Reason.
Farrer's Mission of Christ.
Foster's (Dr. James) Discourses.
Fuller's (And.) Part of a Body of Di-
vinity.
Gale's Court of the Gentiles.
Gastrell's (F.) Boyle Lectures. 1793.
Glanvill's Vanity of Dogmatizing.
Halyburton's Natural Religion In-
sufficient.
Hamilton ( W. T.) on the Pentateuch.
Hey's Lectures. Bk. ]., ch. 12.
Jenkins on the Christian Religion.
Jones's Bampton Lectures. 1821.
Law's Considerations.
Leland's Advantage and Necessity of
Revelation.
Mant on the Gospel.
Miller's Division of Scripture.
Morehead's (R. ) Sermons.
Nares's Evidence versus Reason.
Norman on the Necessity of Revela-
tion.
Penrose's Bampton Lectures. 1808.
Taylor's Apology of Ben Mordecai.
Umfreville's Excellence and Neces-
sity, etc.
Vincent's (William) Sermons.
Warbnrton's Divine Legation of
Moses.
Watson's Tracts.
Watts's Strength and Weakness of
Human Reason.
West's Defence of the Christian Rev-
elation.
Whiteley's Essaj's. (Praised by Por-
teus.)
Witherspoon's (John) Works. Vol. 2.
Woodgate's Bampton Lectures. 1838.
CHRISTIANITY.
The Fathers here cited are arranged
in chronological order.
Hernias, Philosophi Philosophorum
Irrisio.
Justin Martyr, Parffinesis ad Grsecos.
Oratio ad Grsecos.
Apologia pro Christianis.
A])ol. secunda pro Christianis.
de Monarehia Dei.
Dialogus cum Tryphone.
Epistola ad Diognetum.
TertuUian, Apologeticus adversus
Gentes.
ad Nationes.
TertuUian, de Testimonio Animte.
ad Scapulam.
adversus JudsBOS.
Oratio ad Catechumenos.
Athenagoras, Legatio pro Christianis.
Atheniensis Apologia.
de Mortuorum Resurrectione.
Theophilus, contra Calumniatores.
Clemens (Alex.), Protrepticon ad
Gentes.
Minucius Felix, Octavius.
Origen, contra Celsum.
Cyprian, de Idololatrium Vanitate.
Testimonia ad Quirinum.
INDEX TO AUTHOBS.
bQl
Lactantius, de Mortibus Persecuto-
rum.
Athanasius, Oratio contra Gentes.
Cyril (Alex.), contra Julianum.
Eusebius, Preparatio Evangelica.
Demonstratio Evangelica.
Chrysostom, ad versus Judieos.
contra Gentiles.
Ambrose, Kesponsio Eelationi Sym-
machi.
Augustine, de Vera Eeligione.
cle Moribus Ecclesise Catholicse.
ad vers us JudiBOS.
de Givitate Dei.
adversus Paganos.
Arnobius, adversus Gentes
Arndtius, de Vero Christianismo.
Bergier, Preuves du Christianisme.
Bernard, de I'Excellence de la Rel.
cbret.
Boesnier, Preservatif contre I'lrre-
ligion.
Bretschneider's Systematiscbe Ent-
wickelung.
Buddei Miscellanea Sacrorum. Part I.
Cartwright, Certanien Roligioniim.
Chateaubriand, Genie du Cliri-f an-
isme.
Curcellii (Steph.) Opera.
Du Plessis de Veritate Relig. Chris-
tianas.
Edenius de Veritate Relig. Chris-
tiante.
Fabricius de Veritate Relig. Chris-
tianas.
Gotti de Veritate, etc. (Acta Erud.)
Grotius de Veritate Relig. Christ.
("Equally approved by Catholics
and Protestants." — C. Butler. A
fine edit., with English notes and
illustrations by Middleton. Printed
1855.)
Hornbeckii Summa Controversiarum
Relig.
Houtville, la Religion chretienne
prouve par les Faits. (Highly es-
teemed. It is preceded by an ace.
of the methods taken hy writers for
and against Christianity.)
Huetii Demonstratio Evangelica.
Kortholti Grundlichen Beweis, etc.
Lamy, Preuves evidentes de la Ve-
rite, etc.
Le Clerc, Bibliotheque ancienne et
moderne.
Limborch, de Veritate, etc.
Malebranche, Conversations chreti-
ennes.
Pascal, Pensees sur la Religion.
("Contains the germ of all that
can be said for or against the Chris-
tian religion " — Ventouillac.)
Picteti Dissertationes Theologicae.
Sagittarii Intro, in Hist. Ecclesiasticae.
Schuberti de Veritate, etc.
Stattleri Demonstratio Evangelica.
Tappen, Wahrheit der christlichen
Religion.
Tollner's Gottl. Eingeb. der heiligen
Schrift.
Turretini Dissertationes.
Abbadie's Truth of Christ. Trans.
by Booth.
Addison's Evidences, etc. (Many edi-
tions.)
Alexander's (W. L.) Christ and Chris-
tianity.
Alley's Vindiciie Christians. (Com-
parison of the Greek, Roman, Hin-
du, Mohammedan, and Christian
religions.)
Allix's Reflections on the Holy Scrip-
tures.
Apology of Ben Mordecai. (Power-
ful; with valuable notes by Henry
Taylor.)
Appleton's "Works. Lectures 18 to 25.
Apthorp's Obser. on Gibbon's Decl.
and Fall.
Arndt's True Christianity.
Bampton Lectures. (Particularly for
1780, '84, '86, '87, '88, '92, '<J4, '97,
'98, 1803, '08, '11, '12, '23, '25, '31.)
Bassett's Reasonableness of Revela-
tion.
Bates's (William) Works. Chap. 5.
Baxter's (Rich.) Reasons of the Chris-
tian Religion. (Dr. S.Johnson pro-
nounced it the best work on the
subject.)
Bean's Evidences, etc.
Beattie's Evidences, etc. (Popular.)
Nature and Immutabilitv of
Truth.
Benson's Hulsean Lectures. 1820.
Biscoe's Acts of the Apostles con-
firmed from other Authors.
Bolton's Evidences. (Prize Essay.
1852.)
Bonnet's Philosoph. and Critical In-
quiries. (Refutes modern French
philosophy.)
Bovle (Robt.) Lectures. (Commenced
1692.)
Broadley's Christianity a Divine Rev-
elation.
Brown's Essay on the Characteristics.
Burgess's (Bp.) Easter Catechism.
b6\j
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
Butler's Analogv of Kelig. and Nat.
Part IT.
Carey's (P. M.) Evid. and Corrup-
tions of C.
Chalmers's Evidences, etc.
Channing's (W. E.) Dudleian Lec-
ture.
Chelsum's Remarks on Gibbon's
Kome.
Chichester on Deism.
Chirke's (Dr. Sam.) Eefiections on
Amyntor.
Truth and Certainty of the Chr.
Eel.
Sermons.
Cook's Hi.?torical View of Chris-
tianity.
Croly's Three Cycles of Revelation.
(Argues the parallelism of the pa-
triarchal, Jewish, and Christian
dispensations.) ("More fanciful
than sound." — Brit. Critic.)
Crosskey's Defence of Religion.
Dalrymple on the Causes wiiich Gib-
bon assigns for the Progress of
Christianity.
Davies's Exam, of the Fifteenth and
Sixteenth Chapters of Gibbon.
Doddridge's (P.) Evid. (Many edi-
tions.)
Duchall's Presumptive Evidence, etc.
("Singular merit."— Kippis. )
Duguet's Principles of Relig. Tr. by
Lalby.
Durham's Christianity the Friend of
Man.
D wight's (Prest.) Discourses.
Edwards (Dr. John) on the Authority,
etc.
Fawcett's (James) Sermons.
Fell's (John) Lectures.
Foote's Leading Aspects of Chris-
tianity.
Fuller's Gospel its own "Witness.
Gastrell's Necessity and Certainty of
Religion.
Gisbourne's Survey of Relig. (Ad-
mired.)
Goddard on the Mental Condition
necessary to a Due Inquiry into
Religious Evidence.
Gray's (Robt.) Ten Discourses.
Green's (Robt.) Demonstration of the
Truth of Christianity.
Nine Discourses.
Norrisean Prize Essay. 1796.
Greenfield's Evid. by Inductive Phi-
losophy.
Gruw's Cosmoloii'ia Sacra.
Grotius on the Truth of the Ch. Re-
ligion.
Gurney's Evidences, etc.
Hale's Influence of Gibbon's Five
Causes.
Hammond's Reasonableness of the
Christian Religion.
Hampden's Essay on the Evidences,
etc. (A worthy companion to But-
ler's Analogy.)
Harness's Connection of C. and Hap-
piness.
Hey's Lectures on Divinity. Vol. I.
Hodge's Summary of Corroborative
Evid.
Hulsean Lectures. 1820, 1821, 1831,
1837.
Hunter's (Henry) Evidences, etc.
Inglis's Vindic. of the Christian
Faith.
Ireland's (J.) Chr. and Paganism
Compared.
Jenkins's Reasonableness and Cer-
tainty, etc.
Jortin's Truth of the Christian Re-
ligion.
Knox's (Vicesimus) Christian Phi-
losophy.
Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel
History.
Leslie's Short Method with the Jews.
Short Method with the Deists.
Truth of C. Demonstrated.
Less's (G.) Demonstration of the
Truth of the Christian Religion.
Littleton's Conversion of St. Paul.
Locke's Reasonableness of Chris-
tianity.
Mcllvaine's Evid. (A brief compihi-
tion.)
Maltby's Illustrations. (Eight good
dissertatious.)
Marsh's Evid. and Nature of the C.
Religion.
Middle ton's Miscellaneous Works.
Moore's (D.) Chr. Vindicirted. (Cam-
bridge prize essay.)
Nares's Evidences, etc. (Able and
original.)
Osterwald's Grounds and Principles,
etc.
Paley's Evidences, etc.
Hora3 Paulinse.
Parker's Demonstration of the Divine
Authority, etc.
Penrose's Evidences, etc., from its
Wisdom.
Porteus's Summary of the Evidences,
etc. (Good for young people.)
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
567
Price's (Kich.) Dissertations. Diss. 4.
Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical
Unbeliever.
Pioberts's Vindication, etc. (Reply to
Volney's Ruins.)
Robinson's (Tho.) Nature and Evi-
dence, etc.
Rosse's (Earl of) Proof of the C.
Religion.
Ryland's (John) Essays.
tSalsbury's Strictures on Gibbon's
Rome.
Scott's (Tho.) Works.
Seller's Reasonableness of Belief.
Sharp's (Gregory) Defence of C.
Sheppard's Divine Origin, etc. (De-
duced from evidences which are not
founded on the authenticity of
Scripture.)
Sherlock on the Resurrection of Christ.
Simmes's Nature and Reception of
Chr.
Smith's (J. Pye) Testimony to the
Messiah.
Sacrifice and Priesthood of Christ.
Sprague's Contrast between Christi-
anity and other Systems.
Steele's (J.'i Philosophy of the Evi-
dences.
Stephens's Comparison of Christianity
with other Systems.
Stillingfieet's Origines Sacr^e.
Sumner's (Bp.) Nature and Reception
of C.
Sykes's (A. A.) Truth of Christianity.
Thompson's Types, Prophecies, and
Miracles.
Tillotson's Sermons.
Tunstall's Acade.mica.
Lectures.
Warburton's Divine Legation of
Moses.
Watson's (Bp.) Apology. (Replv to
Gibbon.)
Tracts.
Well wood's Authority of the Nev/
Testament.
West's Defence of Revelation.
Whitby's Necessity, Usefulness, etc.
Wilson's (J.) Reasonableness of C.
(An able development of the princi-
ples of Butler's Analogy.)
Tho above are but a fraction of the
writers on this subject, but are abun-
dantly sufficient for the purpose of
this work. See a full list of writers
for and against Christianity, up to th:j
14th century, in Cave's Hist. Litc-
rai'ia.
MIRACLES.
Bragge on Our Saviour's Miracles.
Bulkley on the Miracles of Christ.
Campbell on Miracles. (Answer to
Hume.)
Chapman's M. the Proper Credentials,
etc.
Clarke's Boyle Lectures. 1705.
CoUj^er (W. B.) on Scripture Mira-
cles.
Cox's (R. C.) Lectures on Miracles.
Ditton on the Resurrection of Christ.
Douglass's Criterion of True Miracles.
Doyle's Answer to Woolston.
Encyclopaedia Britannica. Art. "Mir-
acles."
Entick's Evidences of Christianity.
Farmer's Dissertation on Miracles.
.(Great.)
Fleetwood's Essays on Miracles.
Hallett's Nature, Kind, and Number
of Christ's Miracles.
Hovey's (Alvah) The Miracles of
Christ.
Howarth's Hulsean Lectures. 1836.
Humphrey's (W.G.) Discourses on M.
Jameson's Analogy between the Mir-
acles and Doctrines of Scripture.
Jepton's Reality of our Saviour's
Miracles.
Jortin's Boyle Leetures. 1750.
Lawson (Cha.) on the Miracles of
Christ.
Le Bas (Cha. W.) on Miracles.
Locke on Miracles.
Mackenzie (M. J.) on Miracles.
Mant's (Bp.) Works.
Mai'sden's Hulsean Lectures. 1844.
Mayo on the Miracles of our Lord.
McGuire's Miracles of Christ.
Mozley's Bampton Lectures. 1800.
Myers's Mosaic, Historic, and Pro-
phetic M.
Osiilvie's Bampton Lectures. 1836.
Owen's (H.) Bovle Lectures. 1769,
1770, 1771.
Peabody's (A. P.) Lectures before the
Lowell Institute. Lect. 3.
Penrose's Use of Scripture M. (Verv
able.)
Ray's Vindication of Christ's Mira-
cles.
Reinhard on Miracles.
Rutherford's Credibility of Miracles.
(Much valued.)
568
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
Seaton's Compendious View of Mira-
cles.
Sherloclv's Trial of the Witnesses.
Smallbrooke on Miracles.
iStebbins's Defence of Scripture His-
tory.
Stevenson on the Miracles of Christ.
Sutton's Christ's Miracles no Alle-
gories.
Sykes's Credibility of Miracles.
Taylor's Apology of Ben Mordecai.
(Strong.)
Thompson's (Edw.) Bulwarks of
Christianity.
Trench (Francis) on the Miracles of
our Lord.
Van Mildert's Boyle Lectures. 1802-
1804.
Vince's Credibility of Scripture Mira-
cles. (Masterly reply to Hume.)
Wardlaw (Ralph) on Miracles.
West on the Resurrection.
Westcott's Characteristics of the Gos-
pel Miracles.
Weston on the Rejection of the Chris-
tian Miracles by the Heathen.
Westcott's Elements of the Gospel
Harmony.
Miracles of the first ages of the
Church :
Pro.
Augustine de Civitate Dei.
Justin Martjr, Apologia.
Dialog, cum Tryphone.
Irenseus, Opus eruditissimum. Ed.
Erobenii.
Minucius Felix, Octavius.
Origen, contra Celsum.
TertuUian, ad Scapulam.
Mosheim, de Rebus ante Constanti-
num.
Pfannerus, de Donis Miraculis.
Schulz's Geistesgaben der ersten
Christen.
Balmer's (Robt.) Academic Lectures.
Pulpit Discourses.
Barrington's (J. S. ) Miscellanea Sacra.
Boys 's Suppressed Evidence ; or, Proof
from the Records of the Fathers,
Waldenses, etc.
Brook's Exam, of Middleton's Free
Enquiry.
Burton's Eccles. Hist, of the 2d and 3d
Centuries.
Chapman on the Miraculous Powers,
etc.
Chapman's Jesuit Cabal Farther
Opened.
Church (Tho.) on the Miraculous
Powers, etc.
Appeal to the Unprejudiced.
Dodwell's Free Answer to Middle-
ton.
Douglas's Criterion. (Excellent. Ex-
poses Hume.)
Fleury's Eccles. Hist. (An essay at
the end.)
Heathcote's Animadversions on Mid-
dleton.
Jackson's Remarks on Middleton's
Inquiry.
Jenkins's (Tho.) Exam, of M.'s "In-
quiry."
Newman's (J. H.) Miracles of Eccl.
History.
Parker's Miraculous Powers of the
Early Fathers.
Rawlinson's Bampton Lectures. 1859.
Reeves's Apologies of Justin, Tertul-
lian, and Minucius.
Rutherford on Miracles.
Stebbins's Observations on Middle-
ton.
Sykes's Credibility of Miracles.
Two Questions impartially con-
sidered.
Walton's Miraculous Powers of the
Church.
Whiston on Demoniacs.
on the Exact Time when Mirac-
ulous Gifts ceased in the Church.
Con.
Jenkins's Examination of Dodwell's
reply to Middleton.
Middleton's Free Inquiry into the
Miraculous Powers supposed to have
existed in the Church.
Vindication. (Reply to Dodwell
and Church.)
Reply to Stebbins and Chapman.
Reply to Mr. Toll.
North British Rev. Vol. 4.
Tillotson's (Abp.) Sermons.
Toll's Defence of Middleton's Free
Inquiry.
Yates's Defence of Middleton's In-
quiry.
See a notice of this controversy in a
note, by Dr. Kippis, to Doddridge's
Lectures, Part VI. ; and in Joseph
Clarke's Theological Treatises.
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
569
PROPHECY.
Arnold on the Interpretation of Pro-
phecy.
Barker's P. concerning ^Messiah.
Bates's Use and Intent of Prophecy.
Bickersteth's Guide to tlie Prophecies.
Bouchier on Prophecy and its Ful-
filment.
Brooks's (J. W.) Elements of Pro-
phetical Interpretation. (A conven-
ient compend.)
Brown's (J.) Harmony of Prophecy.
Butler's (W. J.) Testimony of His-
tory.
Caulfleld's Fall of Babylon.
Chandler's Antiq. and Auth. of the P.
of Dan.
Chauncey (W. S.) on Unaccomplished
Prophecies.
Clarke's (S.) Connection of the Pro-
phecies.
Glaj'ton's Dissertation? on Prophecy.
Davidson's (D.) Test of Prophecy.
De Burgh's Early Prophecies of a
Kedeemer.
Dobb's Prophecies which have been
fulfilled.
Duflield (Geo.) on the Prophecies.
Durell's Parallel Proph. of Jacob and
Moses.
Elliott's Warburton Lectures. 1849
to 1853.
Ellis's (W. W.) Proph. relating to
Christ.
Faber's Calendar of the P. (Chiefly
those which relate to Antichrist.)
P. relating to the Jews.
Fairbairn on P. (Its nature, func-
■ tions, etc.)
Frazer's Key to the Unaccomplished
Prophecies.
Frere's Combined View of Esdras,
Daniel, and John.
Fry (John) on the Unfulfilled Pro-
phecies.
Fry's (T. ) Scripture Prophecies.
Greenhill's (Jos.) Proph. of the N.
Testament.
Habershon's Connection of the Pro-
phecies of the Apocalypse and
Daniel.
on the Chronological Prophecies.
Hardy's Prophecies of the Bible, par-
ticularly those of John.
Hengstenberg's Nature of the Prophe-
cies.
Holmes's (Robt.) Bampton Lectures.
1782.
Hoare's (W. H.) Harmony of the
Apocalypse with other Prophecies ;
with an Outline of the Various In-
terpretations.
Horsley's (Bp.) Sermons. Ser. 15-18.
Prophecies of Messiah dispersed
among the Heathen.
Hurd's Introduction to the Study of
the Prophecies. (Chiefly those re
lating to Popery.)
Jefl^'ries on the Perfection of Religion.
Jennings's Jewish Antiquities.
Jones's Key to Prophetical Language.
Jortin's Boyle Lectures. 1730.
Jurieu on the Accomplishment of
Prophecy. (A strong attack on
Popery.)
Keith's (A.) Signs of the Times. 1833.
Ketts's History the Interpreter of
Prophecy. (""Written with great
elegance and judgment." — Br.
TOMLINE.)
Kelly's (James) Lectures on Subjects
connected with Prophecy.
Lardner's Destruction of Jerusalem.
Leach's Lectures on Fulfilled Prophe-
cies.
Lyall's Propicdia Prophetica.
McCaul's "VVarburton Lectures. 1846.
(Prophecy as a Proof of Christian-
ity.)
McLaurin on the P. rel. to Messiah.
McLeod on the Principal Prophecies.
Maitland's Connected View of Pro-
phecy. (A valuable collection of
authorities from the Fathers down
to 1849.)
Marsh's Lectures. Lect. 20,-21.
Mead on the Prophecies.
Monthly London Lectures on Pro-
phecy. (Able sermons by Collier,
Bird^ Pye Smith, Fletcher, Orme,
etc.)
Newton (Bp.) on P. which have been
fulfilled.
Newton (Sir I.) on Daniel and thf-
Apocal.
Nolan 's(F.)'Warburton Lectures. 1837.
Philips (J. S.) on the Interpretation
of Prophecy.
Purves on Prophetic Time.
Randolph's Prophecies cited in the
N. Test, compared with the He-
brew Original.
Roberts's Manual of Prophecy. (Com-
pares the prophecies with the events
which fulfilled them.)
570
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
Kobiusun's Prophecies of the Mes-
siah.
Kule's Calculations of Time, etc.
Sharp (Granville) on Several Impor-
tant P.
Sherlock's Use and Intent of Pro-
phecy.
Simpson's Key to the P. (Many edi-
tions.)
Smith's (J. Pye) Dissertations.
Discourses.
Smith's (Dr. John) Summary View
of Prophecy. (A good abstract
from Lowth, Newcombe, Newton,
and Blaney.)
South wark Morning Lectures. (By
Baxter, Powler, Manton, Poole,
Owen, etc.)
Tavlor's Comp, of Kevelation with
Daniel.
Theol. and Lit. Journal. (Many ar-
ticles.)
Thompson (Ed.) on Prophecy and
Miracles.
Thurston's Eesearches on P.
Tower's Illustrations of Prophecy.
Turner's Origin, Character, and In-
terp. of P.
T well's Boyle Lectures. 1733.
Van Mildert's Boyle Lectures. 1802-
1804.
Vint's Dissertations on Prophecy.
Wangh's (J. S.) Diss, on the Prophe-
cies.
Ward's (Wra.) Declensions and Res-
torations of the Church.
Wc'Uwood on Prophecy.
Whiston's Boyle Lectures. 1707.
Whitaker's General and Connected
View.
White's Christianity and Moham-
medanism.
Whiteley's Scheme and Completion
of P.
Williams's Boyle Lectures. 1695.
Wilkins's Hist, of the Destruction of
Jerusalem as Connected with P.
Winchester on the Prophecies.
Zouch's Attempt to Illustrate some
of the Prophecies. (Learned and
cautious.)
A "Dictionary of Writers on the
Prophecies," with the titles, was
published in 1835, by the Editor of the
London Investigator.— M. Brooks.
PROPHECY AS A PROOF OF REVELATION.
Bates's Div. of the Christian lleli-
gion. Ch. 4.
Berriman's (W.) Sermons.
Bonnet's Inquiries.
Boyle on the Fulfilment of Script.
Prophecy.
Brown's Harmony of Scripture Pro-
phecies.
Chalmers's Evidences of Christianity.
Conybeare's (Bp.) Sermons.
Flemming's Fulfilling of Scripture.
Gordon's Christianity Supported by P.
Hey's Lectures. Chap. 1.
i Horsley's (Bp.) Sermons.
Jenkins's Eeasonableness of Chris-
tianity.
La Pluehes's Truth of the Gospel.
Paley's Evidences. Part II. ch. 1.
Powell's (Samuel) Sermons.
Skelton's (P.) Sermons.
Warburton Lectures, viz.:
Allwood, 1815. Apthorp, 1786. Ba-
got, 1780. Davidson, 1824. Hali-
fax, 1776. Hurd, 1772. Nares, 1805
Nolan, 1837. Pearson, 1811.
HARMONY OF REVELATION AND SCIENCE.
Bonar, Concordia Scientise cum Fide.
1665. (Curious.)
Bouterwick's Religion und Vernunft.
D'Aubigne, Foi et Science.
Erdman's Vorlesung. zu Glauben u.
AVissen.
Kulin's Glauben und Wissen.
Pauvert, Harmonic de la Religion, et
de I'Intelligence humaine.
Wiseman (Nic.)Sur le Rapport entre
la Science et la Religion.
American Eclectic Review. 2 : 186.
American Quarterly Observer. 2 : 24.
Bibliotheca Sacra. 13:80. 14:338,
461.
Blackwood's Magazine. 6 : 35.
Bridgewater Treatises.
Brougham's Advant. and Pleas, of
Science.
Buckland's Reliquiise DiluviansB.
Combes's Relation between Science
and Religion.
Dick's Christian Philosopher.
Dingle's Harm, of Revelation and
Science.
D'Oyly's (George) Sermons.
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
571
Exley on the First Chapter of Genesis.
Farrar's (Adam) Sermons at Oxford.
Forbes's Progress of Science.
Hampden's Philosoph. Evidence of
Christianity.
Harcourt's Doctrine of the Dehige.
Harris's Pre-Adamite Earth. (Popu-
hir.)
Hitchcock's Kelig. Truth illust. from
Science.
London Quarterly Eeview. 79 : 49.
Mailler's Philosophy of the Bible.
Melville's (Henry) Sermons.
Morell's History of Philosophy and
Science.
Nares's Bampton Lectures. 1805.
Nolan's Bampton Lectures. 1833.
North American Review. 89 : 293.
Pendleton's Science a Witness for the
Bible.
Pratt's Scrip, and Science not at Va-
riance.
Eagg's Creation's Testimonv to its
God.
Scott's (Ft. E.) Limits of Physical
Science.
Silliman's Consistency of the Discov-
eries of Modern Geology with Sa-
cred History.
[Taylor's] Nat. Hist, of Enthusiasm.
'Troup's (George) Art and Faith.
TuUidge's Triumphs of the Bible.
Walker's (James) Sermons.
Warburton's (Bp.) Sermons.
Wiseman's (Nic.) Connection between
Science and Religion.
Williams's (Cha.)" First Week of
Time.
Wood's Mosaic Creation illustrated
by Discoveries and Experiments in
the Present Age. 1811.
Worgan's Divine Week.
Wright's Creation and Geology.
UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE.
Pro.
De Salles, Hist, generale des Races hu-
maines.
Humboldt's Ansichtender Natur.
Agassiz's Origin of the Human Races.
(Maintains that all mankind are of
one species, but did not originate
from one pair.)
Amer. Biblical Repos. 2d series.
10 : 29.
Bachman's Doct. of the Unity, etc.
examined on the Principles of
Science.
Cabell's Testimony of Modern Sci-
ence to the Unity of Mankind.
Caldwell's Unity of the Race of Man.
Christian Examiner. 49:111.
Christian Quart Spect. 3 : 56.
Christian Review. 16 : 226.
Dawson's (J. W.) Archaia.
Democratic Review. 11 : 111.
Hamilton's Pentateuch and its Assail-
ants.
Johnes's Philological Proofs of the
Recent Origin of the Human Race.
(From a comparison of the lan-
guages of Europe, Asia, Africa,
and America.)
Kames's Origin and Diversity of
Mankind.
Knox's Races of Men.
Latham's Varieties of Mankind.
Man and his Migrations.
Lord's Theol. and Lit. Jour. 3:424.
Meade's (Bp.) The Bible and the
Classics.
Monthly Review. 119: 18.
North Amer. Rev. 73 : 163.
North British Review. 4:177.
Pickering on the Races of Men.
Presbyterian Quarterly Rev. 3:177.
Prichard's Physical History of Man-
kind.
Princeton Rev. 21:159. 22:313,603.
31 : 103.
Prot. Episc. Monthly Review. 3 : 68.
Quarterlj' Review.
Smith's (Sam. S.) Causes of the Di-
versity of Figure, Color, etc.
Strictures on Lord Kames.
Smyth's (Tho.) Unity of the Human
Race. (Reviews Agassiz.)
TuUidge's (Henry) Triumphs of th(^
Bible.
Van Arminge's Natural Historj- of
Man.
Wartz's Anthropology of the Uncivil-
ized Races.
C07l.
Gobineau's Moral and Intellectual
Diversity of Races. Tr. by Hotz ;
with notes.
Morton's (Dr. S. G.) Types of Man-
kind.
Archaeology of the Amer. In-
dians.
Hybridity in Men and Animals.
Crania ^gyptiaca.
Nott & Gliddon's Types of Man-
kind.
Indigenous Races of the Earth.
572
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
CANON OF SCRIPTURE.
Cochlteus de Canonica S. S.
Credner's Geschichte des Canons.
Fric'k de Cura Vet. Ece. circa Cano-
nem S. S.
Kortholtus de Canone.
]Millii Prolegomena ad Nov. Test.
Morus de Canone Scriptural.
Planck de Signif. Canonis in Ecc.
Antiq.
Reuss, Histoire du Canon, etc.
Schmidii Vindicatio Canonis V. et
N. T.
Stroscli, Hist, critica de Librorum N.
T.
Van Mastricht, Commentatio de Ca-
none, etc.
Weber's Gesch. des Neutestamentl.
Kanons.
Wolfius de Integritate Codicis sacri.
Alexander (A.) on the Canon of S. S.
Amer. Quart.Church Review. 17 : 583.
Blair (John) on the Canon of Scrip-
ture.
Bryant's (Jac.) Authent. of the Christ.
Relig.
Christian Quart. Spect. 10 : 69.
Cosin's Scholastic Hist, of the Canon.
Dupin's Complete Hist, of the Canon,
etc.
Findlay's Vindication.
Gaussen on the Canon of Scripture.
General Repository. 4:1.
Giles's (J. A.) Hebrew Records.
Jenkins's Reasonableness of Chris-
tianity.
Jones's (Jer.) Method of settling the
Canon. (Best short treatise.)
Kitto's Journal. 7 : 174.
Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel
Hist. ^ ^
Antiquities.
Nye on the Canon.
Owen's Introd. to Comment, on He-
brews.
Prldeaux's Connection of 0. and N.
Test.
Richardson's Vindication. (Reply to
Toland's Amyntor.)
Stuart's (Moses) Defence of the O. T.
Canon.
Townley's Illustrations of Biblical
Literature.
United States Literary Gazette. 5 :
327.
Westcott's Hist, of the Canon of the
N. T. during the First Four Centu-
ries.
Wads worth's Hulsean Lectures. 1847.
INSPIRATION.
Carpzovius de Divina In«piratione.
Credner de Librorum N. T. Inspira-
tione.
Dupin, Prolegomena.
Gaussen, Theopneustie.
Grotius de Veritate Relig. Christiame.
Henrici Lucubrationes.
Huetii Demonstratio Evangelica.
Potter, Prelectiones Theologicse.
Quenstedtius de Divina Inspiratione.
Sontagii de Inspiratione, ej usque
Ratio.
Waltheri (Mich.) Dissertations.
Appleton's (Pres.) Works. Lect. 26,
27.
Bailey's (Benj.) Essay on Inspira-
tion.
Bannorman on. Inspiration.
Bateman (Josiah) on the Inspiration,
etc.
Baylie's (J.) Authority and Inspira-
tion, etc.
Bennet's (Benj.) Sermons. (Fourteen
on this subj.)
Bibliotheca Sacra. 12:217. 15:29,314.
Bingham (W. A.) on the Insp. of
Scripture.
Bogue's (David) Essays.
Burgon's Bible and Modern Tliought.
Burnet on the Thirty-Nine Articles.
Art. 6.
Butler's Analogy of Relig. and Na-
ture. Part II.
Butler's (W.) Testimony of History.
Calamy's (Edmund) Sermons.
Calmet's Dissertations.
Campbell (Geo.) on the Four Gos-
pels.
Carlyle's Origin and Authority of the
. S. Scr.
Carson's (A.) Refutation of Hender-
son.
Review of Wilson, Smith, and
Dick.
Cellerier's Divine Origin of the Old
Testament.
Chalmers's Evidences of Christianity.
Christ. Examiner. 8:362. 32:119,
204. 85:340.
Christian Review. 9:1. 12 : 219.
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
573
Davidson's (Sam.) Text of O. T. con-
sidered.
Davies's (S.) Nature of the Divine
Agency as to Inspiration.
Diclv (John) on Inspiration.
Doddridge's Dissertations on the New
Test.
Dyer on the Inspiration of Sacred
Scripture.
Eclectic Review. 4th Series. 1:91.
11:365.
Emmons's (Nathaniel) Sermons.
Findlay's Vindic. of the Sacred Books
and Josephus. (Reply to Voltaire.)
Fuller's Part of a Body of Divinity.
Gasparin on Plenary Inspiration.
Gaussen's Theopneustia. Tr. by E.
N. Kirk.
Gerard's Institutes of Criticism.
Haldane (Robt.) on Inspiration.
Hawker's Evidence of Plenary Inspi-
ration.
Henderson (E.) on Divine Inspira-
tion.
Hervey's (A.) Five Sermons.
Hinds on the Inspiration and Autho-
rity, etc.
How'arth on Revealed Religion.
Jenkins's Reasonableness of Chris-
tianity.
Kelly's Exam, of Davidson's State-
ment.
Kitto's Journal. 5:437. 7:315.
La Mothe on Inspiration.
Le Clerc's Letters.
Lee's Nature and Proofs of Inspira-
tion.
Leslie's Easv Method with Deists.
Lond. Quart. Rev. 10 : 286.
Lowe's Insp. a Reality. (Reply to
Macnaught.)
Lowth's (S.) Insp. of the Holy Scrip-
tures.
Lowth's (W.) Authority and Insp.
of Sac. Scr.
McGaul's Testimonies to the Autho-
rity, etc.
Macleod"s View of Inspiration.
Macnaught on Inspiration.
Marston's Manual on the Inspiration,
etc.
Methodist Quart. Review. 5 : 594.
Michaelis's Introd. to the New Test.
Ch. 3.
Middleton's Miscellaneous Works.
Morell's Philosophv of Religion.
Morris's (A. G.) The Biblej^What is
it?
New Englander. 7:515.
Newton (Bp.) on the Prophecies.
Noble on Plenary Inspiration.
Paley's Evidences of Christianity.
Parry on the Insp. of the Apostles.
Powell's Nature and Extent of Inspi-
ration.
Prettyman's Elements of Christian
Theologv.
Princeton Review. 29 : 598, 660.
Redford's Holy Scriptures verified by
Science, History, and Human Con-
sciousness.
Scott's (Thomas) Essays.
Seeker's (Abp.) Sermons.
Seed's Sermons at the Mover Lecture.
1747.
Simpson's Plea for the Sacred Writ-
ings. (A masterly refutation of
Deism.)
Spirit of the Pilgrims. 1 : 402, 474, 624.
2 : 9, 70, 185, 237, 289. 3 : 369, 420.
Stennet's Authority and Use of Scrip-
ture.
Storr on the Historical Sense.
Stuart's (Moses) Critical History and
Defence of the Old Testament
Canon.
Taylor's (D.) Truth and Insp. of
Scripture.
Thomson's (Alex.) Lectures.
Tillotson's Sermons.
Tomline's Introd. to the Study of
Scripture.
Townscnd's (George) Works.
Van Mildert's (William) Sermons.
Vaughn's (J.) Lectures. Lect. 9.
Wardlaw's (Ralph) Discourses.
Watson's (Rich.) 'Theological Tracts.
Apology for the Bible.
Westcott's Elements of Gospel Har-
mony.
Wettenhall's Div. Authority of Sac.
Script.
Whitehead's (Robt.) Warrant of
Faith.
Whittington's Inspiration of the Old
Test.
Whitby's Preface to Commentary on
N. T.
Wilkinson's (T.) Inspiration of Scrip-
ture.
Williams's (Bp.) Boyle Lectures. 1695,
1696.
Wilson (Bp.) on Plenary Inspiration.
Wilson's (John) Essay on Enthusi-
asm.
Wood's (Leonard) Works.
Wordsworth's Five Lectures in West-
minster Abbey. 1861.
574
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
BIBLICAL HISTORY.
Alexandri Historia Eccles. Vet. Test.
Alliolis Biblischen Alterthumskunde.
Andilljr, Histoire de I'ancien Testa-
ment.
Basnage, Histoire du rieux Testa-
ment.
Bcrruyer, Histoire du People de Dieu.
Bndd:i?i Historia Ecclesiastica V. T.
Capelli Historia Sacra et Exotica.
Carpzovii Apparatus Historia; Criti-
cus.
Eusebii Chronicon.
Heideggeri Historia Patriarcharum.
Hornii Historia Ecclesiastica.
Joseph i Opera.
Kurtz's Biblische Geschichte.
Langii Historia Ecclesiastica Yet.
Test.
Leydecker, Historia Eccles. Yet. et N.
Test.
Nichol, Hist. Sacra. (Acta Erud.
1712.)
Robinson, Annales Mundi, sacri et
secularis.
Saurin, Discours historiques, cri-
tiques, etc.
Schmidii Compendium. (Acta Erud.
1708.) •
Selden de Diis Syriis.
Simon, Hist, critique du Yieux Test.
Spanheim, In trod, ad Hist, et Antiq.
Sac.
Spondanii Annalos Sacri a Creatione.
Vitringffi Hypotyposis.
Yossii Historia de Idolatria.
Witsii Miscellanea Sacra.
Basnage's History of the Jews.
Bedford's Scripture Chronology de-
monstrated by Astronomical Cal-
culation.
Bell's Mission of St. John.
Biscoe's Hist, of the Acts of the Apos-
tles confirmed from other Authors.
Blome's Hist, of the Old and JSTew
Test.
Calmet's History of the Old and New
Test.
Clarke's Bible History. (Malachi to
Christ.) '
Craddock's Hist, of the 0. Test, meth-
odized.
Craddock's Apostolical History meth-
odized.
Ellwood's Sacred Hist, of the 0. and
N. T.
Fleury's Hist, of the Israelites.
Gale's Court of the Gentiles.
Geneste's Parallel Histories of Judah
and Israel. (Yaluable matter.)
Gleig's (G. R.) History of the Bible.
(Maps.)
Hall's (Bp.) Contemplations.
Hawker's (Robt.) Extracts and Notes.
Hawkins's Objects and Uses of the
Historical Scriptures of the O. T.
Howard's Scripture History of the
Earth.
Howell's Hist, of the Bible. (Plates.)
Jamieson's Use of Sacred History.
Jones's (Jos.) Chronol. and Analysis
of Sc.
Kimpton's History of the Bible.
Kurtz's History of the Old Covenant.
Trans, by J. Martin.
Kurtz's (J. G.) Manual of Sacred
History. (Learned and interest-
ing.)
Palfrey's (J. G.) Academical Lec-
tures.
Parker's (S.) Old Test. Illustrated.
Shuckford's Connection of Sac. and
Prof. Hist.
Simon's Critical History of the Old
Test.
Smith's History of the Old Testament.
History of the New Testament.
Stackhouse's Hist, of the Bible. (Poor.)
Stillingfleet's Origines Sacrse.
Thompson's (And.) Scripture His-
tory.
Trimmer's Sacred History.
Watts 's (Isaac) Scripture History.
Wheeler's (J. S.) Analysis of N. Test.
Hist. (Yery valuable.)
Winder's History of Knowledge.
There exists a vast multitude of
Bible histories, but few are as lucid
and interesting as the Bible itself.
Some, however, are useful as school-
books, and some as works of general
reference.
DEISM.
Pro. I Bodini (Joann.) Colloquium.
Barthius (Jo. Henr.) de Yera Reli- Celsii Opera,
gione. I Chawin, de Naturali Religione.
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
575
Connor, Evangelium Medici.
Constant (B.), Keligion consideree
dans ses Sources, ses Formes, etc.
De la Serre, Examen de la Religion.
Diderot, Pensees philosophiques.
Gebhard, Cogitationes rationales.
Gunlingii Observationes Selects.
Herbert de Veritate. (The first to
make Deism a science. 1624.)
de Causis Errorum.
de Eeligione Gentilium.
Hobbesii Opera Philosophica.
Holbach, Christianisme devoile.
Langsdorf s Gott and die Natur.
Leibnitz, Opera Theologica.
Machiavellii Discursisin Livium.
Meyeri Philosophia.
Mirabaud, Systemede la Nature.
Muralt, sur la Religion essentielle.
Parizot, la Foi devoilee par la Raison.
Peyrerii Preadamitae.
Roell, de Religione Naturali.
ivousseau, Confessions, etc.
Emile.
Various other works.
Sue, Lettres sur la Religion.
Yanini Amphitheatruni.
Voltaire, Epitre a Urane.
Lettres philosophiques.
Various other Works.
Blount's Anima Musedi.
Life of ApoUonius Tyaneus.
Oracles of Reason.
Bolingbroke's Letters on History.
Philosophical Religion.
Various other works.
Browne's Religio Medici.
Chubb's Discourse on Miracles.
Foundation of the Christ. Reli-
gion.
Subjects of the Old Testament.
True Gospel of Christ asserted.
on Redemption.
Four Dissertations.
Collection of Tracts.
Previous Question.
Collins's Enquiry into Human Lib-
erty.
Ground of the Christian Reli-
gion.
on Free Thinking.
Scheme of Literal Prophecy.
Man's other Voices.
Vind. of the Divine Attributes.
Elwell on the Incarnation.
English's Grounds of Christianity
examined.
Evanson's Doctrine of the Trinity.
Dissonance of the Evangelists.
Evanson's Letter to Dr. Hurd.
Letter to Dr. Priestley.
Hartlej' on the Human Mind.
Hobbes's Historical Narration of Her-
esy.
Human Nature.
Letter on Liberty and Necessity.
Letter to the Duke of Newcastle.
Leviathan.
Hume's Essay on Miracles.
Treatise on Human Nature.
Dialogues.
Kames's (Lord) Essays.
Lyon's Infallibility of Human Judg-
ment.
Morgan's Moral Philosopher.
Deism fairly stated.
Conceptions of the Jews con-
sidered.
Defence of the Moral Philoso-
pher.
Physico-Theology.
Reply to Chandler.
Sacerdotism displaj^ed.
New Harmony Gazette. Pub. from
1825 to 1834, by R. Dale Owen.
Newman's (F. W.) Theism.
Paine 's Age of Reason. (Numerous
replies, viz., by Disney, Drew, Est-
lin, McNeille, Scott, Simpson, "Wat-
son, etc.)
Palmer's Principles of Nature.
Shaftesbury's Charac. of Men, Man-
ners, etc.
Syke's Innocency of Error.
Taylor's Translation of the Argu-
ments of Celsus, Porphyry, and Ju-
lian.
Tindall's Christianity as old as Crea-
tion.
Toland's Amyntor.
Pantheisticon.
Christianity not Mysterious.
Volney's Works.
Woolston's Discourses on Miracles.
Defence of do.
Moderator.
Supplement to Moderator.
Second Supplement to Moderator.
A multitude of other Deistical wri-
ters might be cited, especially in the
German language, but the arguments
are the same in all.
Con.
Origen, contra Celsus.
Abbadie, Verite de la Relig. chre-
tienne.
576
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
Baumgarten, Opera.
Bergier, Deisnie refute par lui-meme.
Bullet, Beponses critiques. (Befutes
many cavils of the infidels of the
18th century.)
Carpzovii Apparatus Historico-criti-
cus.
Crouzas, Examen du Pyrronisme,
ancienne et moderne.
Deylingii Observationes Sacrae.
Diecanni Schediasma de Naturalismo.
Fabrieii Delectus Argumentorum
Veritat. Beligionis Christ, versus
Atheos, Deistas, Judaeos, etc.
Grotius, de Veritate Belig. Christianse.
Houtteville, le Christianisme prouve
par les Faits.
Huetii Damonstratio.
Jacquelot, Defense de la Beligion.
Kortholtus de Tribus Impostoribus.
(Herbert, Hobbes, and Spinoza.)
Langii Causa Dei et Beligionis.
Le Clerc, de I'Incredulite.
Lemper, Vorbericht der Nachricht.
Less's Wahrheitder Christl. Beligion.
Limborch de Veritate Bel. Christ.
Loescheri Prenotiones Theologies.
Mersen, Impiete des Deistes.
Mussel (Jo.) Dissertatio. {^Contra
Herbert. )
Noesselt's Wahrheit und Gottlich-
keit, etc.
Olearii Synopsis Controversiarum.
Pfafl'ii (Chr.) Dissertationes.
Picteti (Benedict.) Dissertationes.
Placctte, Beponse a M. Bayle.
Bosemond, Defense de la Eel. chre-
tienne.
Stein's Apologetik der OfFenbarung.
Titius de Insutficientia Bel. naturalis.
Tribbechovii Historia Naturalismi.
Trin's Freydencker Lexicon.
Turretin de Veritate et Divinitate,
etc.
"Wolfli Manichneismus ante Mani-
chseos.
Wellii Oratio in Collinum.
Allix's Beflections on the Old Testa-
ment.
Applegarth on the Human Under-
standing.
Apthorp's (East) Prevalence of Chris-
tianity before its Civil Establish-
ment. (Gives a verj* useful account
of civil and ecclesiastical historians. )
Asgill's (J.) Beply to AVoolston on
Miracles.
Atkinson on Christianity. (Beplv to
Tindall.)
Atkinson's Bemarks on a Late Work.
(Beply to Morgan.)
Atkey's Examination of " Christi-
anity as old as Creation."
Ayscough on Gospel Obedience.
Balguy's Letters to a Deist.
Bates's Infidelity Scourged. (Beply
to Chubb.)
Beard's Christian Belig. defended
from the Assaults of Owenism.
Belknap's Dissertation. (Answer to
Paine.)
Benson's Answer to Morgan.
Bentley's Bemarks on a Late Dis-
course, etc. (A powerful answer to
Collins.) •
Bergier's Deism Self-confuted.
Berkeley's Minute Philosopher.
Berriman's Boyle Lectures. . 1730.
Bidlack's Bampton Lectures. 1811.
Bliss's Observations. (Beplv to
Chubb.)
Bolton's Hulsean Prize Essay. 1852.
Boyle Lectures. (Annual since 1692.)
Boyle on Things above Beason.
on the Besurrection.
Bradlev's Impartial View. (Ans. to
Blount.)
Branihall against Hobbes.
Broadley on the Evidences, Internal
and External, of the Beligion of
Moses.
Broughton's Answer to Tindall.
Brown (Bp.) on the Human Under-
standing.
Brown's Essay on the " Characteris-
tics."
Burnett's Scriptural Doctrine of Be-
demption. (Beply to Morgan.)
Butler's Analogy of Beligion and
Mature.
Calamy's Sermons.
Campbell on Miracles.
Cary's (S.) Beview of English's
" Grounds of Christianity."
Chalmers's Evidences of Christianity.
Chandler (Edw.) on the Prophecies of
the O. Test. (Beply to Collins.)
Chandler's (S.) Vind. of the Christ.
Beligion.
on the Conduct of Modern Deists.
Antiquity and Authority of the
Prophecies of Daniel.
Seasons for being a Christian.
on the History of the Old and
New Testaments. (Beply to Mor-
gan.)
Chichester's Deism and Christianity.
Chapman's Eusebiu^.
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
577
Chapman's Keply to Morgan and Tin-
dall.
Kemarks on the Prophecies of
Daniel. (Keply to Collins.)
Clark's (Dr.) Reflections on that part
of the book called Amyntor, which
relates to the Writings of the Primi-
tive Fathers.
Clayton's Vindication of Scripture.
(Keply to Bolingbroke.)
Collyer's Lectures.
Conj'beare's Defence of Keligion.
(Keply to Tindall. "The best-
reasoned book in the world." —
Warburton.)
Curtis's Folly and Danger of Infidelity
Dalrymple's Inquiry into the Second-
ary Causes which Mr. Gibbon as-
signs for the Kapid Progress of
Christianity.
Delany's Kevelation examined with
Candor.
Ditton on Christ's Resurrection.
Doddridge's Lectures. Part VI.
Answer to Chubb.
Dwight's Discourses. (Infidel Phi-
losophy.)
Earbury's Deism Refuted.
Eclectic Review. New Series. 3 : 253.
Edinburgh Review. 2 : 661.
Ellis on Hume's Essay on Miracles.
Entick's Evidences. ( Reply to
Woolston.)
Everett's (E.) Defence of Christi-
anity.
Fenton's Lady Moyer's Lectures.
1728.
Fleming's (Caleb) Truth and Deism
at Variance.
Forbes (D.) on Incredulity.
Foster's (James) Usefulness and Truth
of Christianitv. (Answer to Tin-
dall.)
Frothingham (N. L.) on Deism.
Fuller's Gospel its Own Witness.
Gassendi's Answer to Herbert's De
Veritate.
Gastrell's Certaint_y of Christianity.
Gibson's Pastoral Letters.
Gilderdale on Nat. and Rev. Religion.
Giles's (Rev. Dr.) Christian Records.
Girdlestone's Anatomy of Skepticism.
Graves's Lectures on the Pentateuch.
Evidences of Christ's Resurrec-
tion. (Reply to Woolston.)
Gurdon's Boyle Lectures. 1721 and
1722.
Gregory's (Olinthus) Evidences, etc.
Grove (H.) on Onrist's Resurrection.
Haldane (Robt.) on Divine Revela-
tion.
Hallet on Providence. (Powerful.)
Hall's (Robt.) Infidelity considered
with reference to its Influence on
Society.
Halyburton's Inquiry. (Reply to Her-
bert.)
Hamilton's Pentateuch and its A.ssail-
ants.
Harris's Reasonableness of Believing.
Home's (Geo.) Letters on Infidelity.
Home's (T. H.) D. Refuted. (Many
editions.)
Hulsean Lectures. Commenced 1820.
(The Lectures by Benson, 1820,
Franks, 1821, Wordsworth, 1848,
Curry, 1852, and others, are very
;ible, and are printed separately.)
Ibbot's (Benj.) Boyle Lectures. 1721,
1722.
Jackson's (J.) Examination. (Ans.
to Chubb.)
Plea for Reason. (Rep. to Tin-
dall.)
Address to Deists.
Jeftry's True Grounds and Reasons.
Jew's Letters to Voltaire. (By Guin-
nee.)
Johnston's Christ, older than Crea-
tion.
Jones on the Canon. (Reply to To-
land.)
Jortin's (J.) Discourses.
Kidder's Demonstration of the Mes-
.siah.
King's Origin of Evil.
La Ci'osse's Animad. on " Oracles of
Reason."
Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel
History.
— - — Circumstances of the Jews.
Lavington on the Types. (Reply to
Collins.)
Law's Case of Reason. (Reply to Tin-
dall.)
Lawson's Exam, of Hobbes's " Le-
viathan."
Le Clerc's Causes of Incredulitj*.
Leek's Interpretation of the Law and
Prophets. (Reply to Woolston.)
Leslie's Short Method with Deists.
Less's Authority, Preservation, and
Credibility, etc. (Trans, bj' King-
don.)
Lindsay (H.) on Infidelity.
Lobb's Defence of Relig. (Ans. to
Collins.)
London Quart. Review. 3:1.
37
578
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
Lowman's Hebrew Government.
— — on Prophecy. (Ans. to Collins.)
Lyttleton on the Conversion of St.
Paul. ("A treatise to which infi-
delity has never been able to fabri-
cate a specious answer." — Dr. John-
son.)
Maltby's (E.^ Illustrations.
Mangey's Reply to Toland's Naza-
renus.
Markland on Miracles. (Ans. to
Woolston.)
Marshall on the Seventy AVeeks,
(Ans. to Collins.)
McKnight's Truth of the Gospel His-
tory, j
Middleton's Case of Abraham de-
fended.
Moss (Bp.) on the Resurrection.
Movne on Miracles. (Replv to
Chubb.)
Nares's Bam]iton Lectures. 1805.
Nash's Standard of Truth. (Ans. to
Paine.)
Newcombe on the Character of the
Saviour.
Sure Word of Prophecj'.
Newton (Bp.) on the Prophecies.
Nichols's Conference with a Theist.
Nisbet's Triumphs of Christianity.
Norrison on Reason and Faith.
Ogilvie on the Cause of Skepticism.
(Remarks on Herbert, Shaftesbury,
Bolingbroke, Hume, and Gibbon.)
Paley's Evidences.
Horte PauliniB.
Patton's (Will.) Christianitv the True
Theology. (Reply to Paine.)
Pearson's (Geo.) Hulsean Lectures.
Porteus's Summary of Evidence.
Potter's Authority of the O. and N.
Testam.
Prideaux's Letter to Deists.
Pye's Moses and Bolingbroke.
Reynolds's Letter to a Deist.
Richardson's Hist, and Def. of the
Canon.
Riddle's Bampton Lectures. 1852.
Roberts's Christianity Vindicated.
(Reply to Volney.)
Robinson's Usefulness of Revelation.
Distinguishing Char, of the Gos-
pel.
Rogers's Reply to Collins.
Eight Sermons.
Ross's Reply to Hobbes's Leviathan.
Rotheram's Truth of Christianity.
Rust's Discourse on the Use of Reason.
Ryhuid (J. 'I on Infidelity. 1848.
Schmucker's Modern Infidelity.
Scott on Inspiration. (Reply to
Paine.)
Seaton's Compendious View. (Reply
to Woolston.)
Sherlock's Use of Prophecy. (Agt.
Collins.)
Shuttleworth's .Consistency of the
Scheme of Prov. with itself and
with Human Reason,
Skelton's Works. (Reviews all the
principal deistical writers.)
Smith's (Elisha) Cure of Deism.
Smith's (Sam. Stanhope) Lectures,
Squier's Christ, founded on Reason.
Stackhouse's State of the Controversy,
Staples's Polemic Theology.
Stebbins's Defence of Christian His-
tory.
Advantage of Revelation,
Boyle Lectures. 1747.
Charge to the Clergy.
Stephens (W.) on the Growth of De-
ism.
Stephenson on the Miracles of
Christ.
Stillingfleet's Letters to a Deist.
Sykes (Ashley) on the Christian Reli-
gion. (Answer to Collins.)
on Phlagon's Eclipse.
[Taylor's (H.)] Ben Mordecai's Apol-
ogy-
Taylor (Nath.) Preserv. against De-
ism.
Tenison's Creed of Hobbes exam-
ined.
Thompson's (H.) Infidelity confuted
on its own Grounds.
Tillotson's Sermons.
Toulmin's (J.) Dissertations.
Walpole's (R.) Misrepresentations, Ig-
norance, and Plagiarism of Infidel
Writers.
Warburton's View of Bolingbroke'.'*
Philos.
Divine Legation of Moses,
Waterland's Scripture Vindicated,
(Reply to Tindall.)
Watson's Apology for Christianity.
(Repljr to Gibbon.)
• Apology for the Bible. (Reply
to Paine.)
Webster on the Jewish Dispensation,
(Reply to Morgan.)
West on the Resurrection of Christ.
Whately's Historic Doubts ndative to
Napoleon Buonaparte.
Whiston's Account of Scripture Pro-
phecie.s.
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
579
Whiston's Examination of late Dis-
courses. (Keply to Collins.)
Reason and Philosophy no Ene-
mies.
Whitby's Necessity and Use of Eeve-
lation.
Wilson's (John) Dissertation on
Christianity. (A powerful work,
built on Butler's Analogy.)
Witherspoon's Works. (Lectures.
Lecture 8.)
Witty 's First Principles of Deism.
See large lists of writers tm the de-
istical controversy in Leland on
Deistical Writers, and Van Mil-
dert's Boyle Lectures.
INFIDELITY.
Callenbergii Comment, de Scepticis-
mo.
Frantz, Briefe an einen Zweifler.
Holwerda, de Veterum Scepticor. Sen-
tentia.
Meisneri Historia Doctrina? de vero
Deo.
Merault, lesApologistes involontaires.
(Christianity proved by the obser-
vations of Infidels.)
Seligmani Exeroitationes Academi-
C3e.
Voetii (Gisbert.) Dissertationes.
Vries, Exercitationes Ratit>nales.
Amer. Biblical Eepos. 10 : 89.
Anderson's Remonstrance. (Ag. Bo-
lingbroke.)
Auchincloss's Sophistries of Tho.
Paine.
Barnes's Certainty of the Christian
Religion.
Barrow's (Isaac) Sermons on the
Creed.
Baxter's Unreasonableness of Infi-
delity.
Beecher's (Ly.) Lectures on Skepti-
cism.
Berkeley's Principles of Human
Knowledge.
Bibliotheca Sacra. 1 5 : 693.
Bidlake's Bampton Lectures. 1811.
Birk's Difficulties of Belief in the
Creation and Fall. (Profound.)
Blake's Infidelity Inexcusable.
Bradford's (Sam.) Discourses.
Brough ton's Christianity Distinct
from the Religion of Nature.
Common Doctrine of the Soul.
Brown's System of Natural and Re-
vealed Religion.
Christian Disciple. 3 : 332.
Christian Examiner. 17 : 23, 332.
Christian Month. Spect. 6: 75.
Christian Observer. 12 : 215.
Christian Quart. Spect. 5 : 469.
Christian Review. 2:271. 3:134. G:
191.
Crichton's Converts from Infidelity.
Davies's Two Antichrists, Infidelity
and Romanism, viewed in their Rel-
ative Bearings. (As in 1856.)
Disney's (John) Sermons.
Dove's Logic of the Christian Faith.
Duncan's Libertine led to Reflection.
Dwight's (Tim.) Nature and Danger
of Infidelity.
Eclectic Rev. New Series. 6: 740.
Edinburgh Monthly Review. 3:60.
Estlin's (John P.) Senr.uns
Evans's (John) Sermons.
Evans's (J. H.) Checks to Infidelity.
Faber's Difficulties of Infidelity.
Farrer's Bampton Lectures. 1862.
Finch's Bampton Lectures. 1797.
Forbes (D. ) on the Snurces of Incre-
dulity.
Foster's (James) Sermons.
Gale's Anatomy of Infidelity.
Girdlestone"s Prot^ress of Skepticism
in England. 1863.
Grant's Foes of our Faith, and how to
defeat tliem.
Grisenthwaite's Refutation of Tho.
Paine.
Hallet's Consistent Christian.
Hennel's (Miss) Christianity and In-
fidelity.
Hodge's"(Cha.) Essays and Reviews.
Hooker's Popular Infidelity.
Law's Appeal to all who doubt the
Gospel.
Leng's Boyle Lectures. 1719.
Mansel's Limits of Religious Thought.
McBurnie's Errors of Infidetity.
("An armor}', hung all over with
keen weapons." — Evang. Mag.)
Michaelis's Introd. to the New Testa-
ment.
Moore's Christian System Vindicated.
Morgan's Christianity and 3Iodern I.
compared.
Neaie's (Erskine) Christianity and
Infidelity contrasted. (An account
of the deaths of many prominent
persons.)
Nelson's Cause and Cure of Infidelity.
580
INDEX TO AUTHORS.
New York Review. 2 : 483.
Nichols's Conference with a Theist.
North British Rev. 15: 18.
Ogilvie on the Causes of Infidelity.
Pearson's (Geo.) Character and Tend-
ency of Infidelity.
Post's Skeptical Era in Modern His-
tory.
Princeton Review. 12:31.
Quarterly Review. 28 : 493.
Ragg's Creation's Testimony to its
God.
Rennel's (Tho.) Remarks on Skepti-
cism. (An answer to Bichat, Mor-
gan, etc., on questions touching or-
ganization and life.)
Ripley's (Geo.) Latest Form of Infi-
delity. (Viz., German theology.)
Schmucker's (S. S.) Errors of Modern
Infidelity.
Seed's (Jeremiah) Sermons.
Simpson's (David) Plea for Religion.
Smith's (Sam. Stanhope) Sermons.
Smith's (Sydney) Sermons.
Smith (Cha. ) Shadow of Death.
(Prize essay.)
Spear's Creed of Despair. (Prize es-
say. )
Spirit of the Pilgrims. 6:204. 8:1,
447.
Stanhope's Truth of the Christian
Religion.
Stebbings's Christianity Justified.
Stillingfleet's (Bp.) Sermons.
Thompson's French Philosophy.
Tretfrey's Infidel's Own Book.
Turner's Boyle Lectures. 1709.
Valpy on the Course of Nature.
Van Mildert's Boyle Lectures. 1802.
(A historical review of the rise and
progress of infidelity, with able
reasonings.)
Wilberforce's Practical View of Chris-
tianity.
Young's (Edw.) Centaur not Fabu-
lous.
Young's (J. R.) Modern Skepticism
viewed in relation to Modern Sci-
ence. 1865. (Specially notices Co-
lenso, Huxley, Lyell, and Darwin.)
In Faber's Difficulties of Infidelity.,
New Y'ork edition, 1858, is given a
list of all the books known to have
been written on the evidence of re-
vealed religion.