RAL.-IDEA OF GOD.]. This liability indeed implies some power antagonistic to good, i.e. to God, whether it be in the nature of matter, or in some spiritual principle of evil and herein lies the dark mystery of the Origin of Evil, the "great and perplexing question" for which no solution has yet been found.* Lord Brougham says: "The whole argument respecting evil must, from the nature of the question, resolve itself into either a proof of some absolute or mathematical necessity not to be removed by infinite power, or the showing that some such proof may be possible, although we have not yet discovered it.”+ That God should give a Revelation because the stubbornness of man's nature made his salvation otherwise impossible, is all the more a proof of the greatness of the Divine love towards him. ... III. "Why it was that the Most High thought fit to make a revelation to one people, and not at once to all the world, we cannot explain, and we must not presume to decide: nor yet why many nations, in various parts of the world, have been left, even to this day, in the darkness of idolatrous superstition; or, indeed, why any such thing as evil should exist at all. All this, we may conclude, would have been explained to us in Scripture, if it had been necessary for us to understand it. As it is, any attempt to explain these things is fruitless and presumptuous." IV. Though reason may satisfy itself with finding mere Power and Intelligence, an emotionless Lawgiver, in the Governor of the Universe, yet the heart will acknowledge its need of a Being capable of Love, which makes election, and is not bound by Law. A voice from the inner depths of man's nature will make itself heard, telling that a God, good and loving, cannot hold himself aloof from immediate personal communication with his creatures. A God apart from men, ruling only by fixed laws, is like the chilling Fate of heathen mythology, and not the God that the religious heart seeks after and feels with innate conviction to be the true object of its worship. "To the sceptic, no principle is so important as the uniformity of nature, the constancy of its laws. To me, there is a vastly higher truth, to which miracles bear witness, and to which I welcome their aid. What I wish chiefly to know is, that Mind is the supreme power in the universe; that matter is its instrument and slave; that there is a Will to which nature can offer no obstruction; that God is unshackled by the laws of the universe, and controls them at his pleasure. This absolute sovereignty of the Divine Mind over the universe, is the only foundation of hope for the triumph of the human mind over matter, over physical influences, over imperfection and death."$ See Archbishop Whately's Essays on some of the peculiarities of the Christian Religion. 5th Ed., 1846, pp. 68, 69. + Dissertations in Illustration of Paley's Natural Theology. 1839. Vol. ii., p. 78. Encyclopædia Britannica. 8th Ed. Whately's Third Preliminary Disserta tion, p. 468. See Butler's Analogy. Part ii., ch. vi. Channing's Works, p. 415. Evidences of Christianity. Part ii. AGAINST REVELA THAT IT CANNOT BE INFERRED, A PRIORI, FROM OUR EX V. Turning from consideration of the view of the Divine character as affected by Revelation, to observation of human nature, we find here also inherent objection against it. As it did not seem fitting for Deity to grant, so neither does it seem fitting for man to receive. We see that in all matters of worldly concern the Man learns best best knowledge he has is that gained by experience; by experience. that what he has found out for himself is of more value than all that is taught to him: and there is no natural reason why the attainment of religion should follow a different rule. On the contrary, it would seem especially that religion is a kind of learning that must grow out of the mind, and cannot be put into it; as we find that the higher is the knowledge we seek, the more it requires, even if not actually originated, but suggested by another, yet to be adopted and assimilated by spontaneous effort. A mere statement of facts, outwardly impressed upon a man, is nothing to him till his nature is internally stirred so as to be vitally acted upon by it, and all the powers of his mind have had their share in the examination and reception of it; and much more in what relates to morality, the learning of verbal precepts is nothing without the accompanying emotion of the heart and conscience. And the greater the authority with which outward instruction either of the heart or mind is given, the less is the internal and only real vital action regarding it. So that, most of all, instruction direct from God, would have the effect of stopping the action of our own minds, and would therefore be least really beneficial to us. VI. He should be supposed capable of learning all that is necessary for him. Paley and most defenders of Revelation, begin by assuming that it is good for man. But setting aside all theological prepossessions, the presumption is that the knowledge man is fitted to attain is all that is necessary for him. It is always some notion of the fallen state of man, and the Devil having spoilt the original work of God, that makes him supposed unable to do without it. On the simple ground of reason and experience it is to be inferred that the exertion of the powers with which he is furnished is sufficient to accomplish the end of his being. The prime doctrines that Revelation must be supposed to teach are, that there is a God, and a future life of retribution. But if these cannot be discovered by the natural faculties, the presumption is that they are not necessary to be known, or not until the faculties are so grown as to be able to discover them. And in fact the same faculties in kind though not in degree, are required to comprehend as to discover; so that, unless they already exist in the mind, waiting for growth and development, revelation is a nullity to it. We can see how much TION IN GENERAL: PERIENCE OF HUMAN NATURE, TO BE GOOD FOR MAN. V. Certainly learning by experience is the most effectual method in all worldly matters; and it engenders that independence of spirit and manly energy, which fit him to contend with the difficulties of life, and the rivalship and opposing interests of his fellow-men. It makes a man feel his own strength. But this very tendency shows that it is not adapted to religion, which requires a quite opposite frame of mind. A lowly submission, a humble waiting for the Divine teaching, is the proper condition of the soul when it looks towards God. "For what end has God ordained, as the chief means of human improvement, the communication of light from superior to inferior minds? It is rational to believe, that the Creator designs to bind his creatures to Himself as truly as to one another, and to awaken towards himself even stronger gratitude, confidence, and love; for these sentiments towards God are more happy and ennobling than towards any other being; and it is plain that revelation, or immediate divine teaching, serves as effectually to establish these ties between God and man, as human teaching to attach men to one another. We see, then, in revelation an end corresponding to what the Supreme Being adopts in his common providence. . . . There is plainly an expression of deeper concern, a more affectionate character, in this mode of instruction, than in teaching us by the fixed order of nature. Revelation is God speaking to us in our own language, in the accents which human friendship employs. It shows a love, breaking through the reserve and distance, which we all feel to belong to the method of teaching us by his works alone.... Instruction in regard to Futurity is the great means of improvement. That God should give us light as to a Future state, if he design it for us, is what we should expect from his solicitude. Nature thirsts for, and analogy almost promises, some illumination on the subject of human destiny.... There are in the human soul wants, deep wants, which are not met by the influences and teachings, which the ordinary course of things affords.... in proportion as these convictions and wants become distinct, they break out in desires of illumination and aids from God not found in nature."* "Within the circle of our own being, our search after that meet provision for the nourishment of man's religious powers and sensibilities which the general laws of the Divine economy warrant us in expecting, cannot terminate satisfactorily. To the intellect God has revealed himself through the medium of Nature.... But those works of his in the physical universe do not satisfy all the deep yearnings of our nature. Our moral constitution craves a moral manifestation of Deity,-to know him in his relation to conscience. And this want of ours is his handwriting on our nature, to the effect that such a revelation of himself may be looked for, and will be vouchsafed."+ Channing's Evidences of Christianity. Part I. pp. 401, 402. [REVELATION IN GENEmore healthful an exercise it is for the mind to ponder upon these subjects and work out its own results, and how much more genuine will be the faith which it thus attains, than if the doctrines were given as imperative dicta that admitted of nothing but a purely passive acceptation. VII. The tendency of Revelation is to check human Revealed truth requires a child-like mind for its reception, and the effect of Revelation is to keep mankind in the condition of childhood: preventing them from ever learning for themselves those things which most of all concern them, and making them always contented with a mere external knowledge, or rather a flattering pretence of knowledge. All miraculous action is external. improvement. It would appear, therefore, à priori, that Revelation must have a tendency to hinder the progress of human improvement : By checking the exercise of man's own faculties upon the most important points; By making him believe that he really knows what he merely echoes because it is told him; By making him think that what his own faculties acquire for him, is something inferior, and to be despised; And therefore by placing him in a false, unnatural state of mind, between the conflicting claims of what he is made to consider Divine, and what is merely human knowledge. VIII. Miracles are necessary as evidence, but their value changes with the state of science. AGAINST REVELA ON ACCOUNT OF THE DIF miraculous in its na- Revelation, which is essentially ture, must attest itself by miracle. natural communication with men, his direct presence must manifest itself by supernatural tokens. It would be strange and unaccountable if such were wanting. Accordingly we find that every religion has rested its claim upon signs and wonders; and the ruder the age, the more grossly physical have been the marvels by which it has been accompanied. Moses received the Law on tables of stone direct from heaven, inscribed by the finger of God himself; as the image of Pallas, which was the symbol of salvation to Greece, came down from Jupiter; and the very voice of God was heard at the baptism of Jesus, announcing his beloved Son. -But the weight which is attached to physical miracles changes with the state of science. Those marvels which were easily believed in times of ignorance, can be received upon no amount of evidence in an enlightened age; and on the other hand, what seemed stupendous wonders then, are now seen to be mere natural events. In barbarous times a gunpowder explosion would seem better proof of the presence of Deity, than that the sun should stand still. Miracles which awe one generation, are imitated by jugglers in another. Their value as evidence is fluctuating, and would base the faith of mankind upon a sliding scale. RAL-NOT GOOD FOR MAN.] VI. The generality of Christian writers maintain that man is unable by his own unaided powers to attain to the knowledge of God and of a future life; but all agree that these doctrines are essential elements of the education of the human race. Without a belief in these, man belongs only to this lower world. He wants those spiritual and elevating tendencies which only can raise him above temporal and material things; and to kindle these God has reserved to the immediate working of His own Spirit. By nature, man is fitted for earth; here he is endowed with sufficient faculties to serve him, and he is under the injunction to use and to improve them: but to learn of heavenly things he must have a heavenly instructor. By the natural man the infinite importance of belief in these and concomitant doctrines is not comprehended. He only considers their temporal effects, and summarily concludes that man can do very well without them, or wait for ages while generation after generation passes away till perchance they may be discovered! It is well for man, that the mercies of God are more speedy to help, than his creatures to feel their need! VII. To remain in a child-like frame towards the Heavenly Father, is the best possible condition for the spirit of man. No intellectual attainments, or growth of enlightenment, or even moral strength, can make up for the want of that temper most becoming to mortal men, a religious docility. TION IN GENERAL: FICULTY OF ATTESTING IT. VIII. This is generally assented to. Paley says: "Now in what way can a revelation be made, but by miracles? In none which we can conceive."+ The advocates of Christianity undertake to prove that the miracles recorded as such in the New Testament, were really "out of the ordinary course of nature, beyond the unassisted power of man." It is true that some wonderful actions, which seemed miraculous at the time, may be afterwards discovered to be capable of performance in a natural manner in an advanced age of science; but it still has claim to be considered a miracle, that the original actor, who did them in ignorance of science, should have forestalled the discovery of after times, and performed those wonders, not by happy accident, but with full assurance and deliberate, expressed intention, and in repeated instances; and that this power should be possessed not by one person only, but conveyed by him to many others. And the effect of such wonderful works, which are not properly part of the Revelation itself, but accompanying incidents, is to draw attention * See Part II. Evidences of Christianity. Preparatory Considerations. See Whately's Preliminary Dissertation, in En. Britt., p. 499. Whately's Introductory Lessons on Christian Evidences, Ed. 12, p. 31. |