{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_16857/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_16857","id":"gutenberg_16857","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16857","summary":null,"tags":["Apologetics","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Janet Blenkinship and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPROBABILITIES;\n\n\n\n\nAN AID TO FAITH.\n\n\n\n\nBY\n\nMartin Farquhar Tupper, A.M., F.R.S.\n\nTHE AUTHOR OF\n\n\"PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY.\"\n\n\n\"ALMOST THOU PERSUADEST ME TO BE A CHRISTIAN.\"\n\n\n\n\nHARTFORD:\n\nPUBLISHED BY SILAS ANDRUS & SON.\n\n1851.\n\n\n\n\n\nPROBABILITIES.\n\n\n\n\nAN AID TO FAITH.\n\n\nThe certainty of those things which most surely are believed among us,\nis a matter quite distinct from their antecedent probability or\nimprobability. We know, and take for facts, that Cromwell and Napoleon\nexisted, and are persuaded that their characters and lives were such as\nhistory reports them: but it is another thing, and one eminently\ncalculated to disturb any disbeliever of such history, if a man were\nenabled to show, that, from the condition of social anarchy, there was\nan antecedent likelihood for the use of military despots; that, from the\ncondition of a popular puritanism, or a popular infidelity, it was\npreviously to have been expected that such leaders should have the\nseveral characteristics of a bigoted zeal for religion, or a craving\nappetite for worldly glory; that, from the condition liable to\nrevolutions, it was probable to find such despots arising out of the\nmiddle class; and that, from the condition of reaction incidental to all\nhuman violences, there was a clear expectability that the power of such\nmilitary monarchs should not be continued to their natural heirs.\n\nSuch a line of argument, although in no measure required for the\ncorroboration of facts, might have considerable power to persuade _a\npriori_ the man, who had not hitherto seen reason to credit such facts\nfrom posterior evidence. It would have rolled away a great stone, which\nto such a mind might otherwise have stood as a stumbling-block on the\nvery threshold of truth. It would have cleared off a heavy mist, which\nmight prevent him from discerning the real nature of the scene in which\nhe stood. It would have shown him that, what others know to be fact, is,\neven to him who does not know it, become antecedently probable; and that\nReason is not only no enemy to Faith, but is ready and willing to\nacknowledge its alliance.\n\nTake a second illustration, by way of preliminary. A woodman, cleaving\nan oak, finds an iron ball in its centre; he sees the fact, and of\ncourse believes; some others believing on his testimony. But a certain\nvillage-pundit, habitually sceptical of all marvels, is persuaded that\nthe wonder has been fabricated by our honest woodman; until the parson,\na good historian, coming round that way, proclaims it a most interesting\ncircumstance, because it was one naturally to have been expected; for\nthat, here was the spot where, two hundred years ago, a great battle had\nbeen fought: and it was no improbability at all that a carbine-bullet\nshould have penetrated a sapling, nor that the tree should thereafter\nhave grown old with the iron at its heart. How unreasonable then would\nappear the pundit's incredulity, if persisted in: how suddenly\nenlightened the rational faith of the rustic: how seasonable would be\nfelt the useful learning of him, whose knowledge well applied can thus\nunfetter truth from the bandages of ignorance.\n\nIllustrations, if apt, are so well adapted to persuade towards a\nparticular line of argument, that, at the risk of diffuseness, and\nbecause minds being various are variously touched, one by one thought\nand one by another, I think fit to add yet more of a similar tendency:\nin the hope that, by a natural induction, such instances may smoothe our\nway.\n\nWhen an eminent living geologist was prosecuting his researches at\nKirkdale cave, Yorkshire, he had calculated so nicely on the antecedent\nprobabilities, that his commands to the labourers were substantially\nthese: \"Take your mattocks, and pick up that stone flooring; then take\nyour basket, and fill it--with the bones of hyaenas and other creatures\nwhich you will find there.\" We may fancy the ridicule wherewith\nignorance might have greeted science: but lo, the triumph of philosophy,\nwhen its mandate soon assumed a bodily shape in--bushels of bones gnawed\nas by wild beasts, and here and there a grinning skull that looked like\na hyaena's! Do we not see how this bears on our coming argument? Such a\ndeposit was very unlikely to be found there in the eyes of the\nunenlightened: but very likely to the wise man's ken. The real\nprobabilities were in favour of a strange fact, though the seeming\nprobabilities were against it.\n\nTake another. We are all now convinced of the existence of America; and\nso, some three or four hundred years back, was Christopher Columbus--but\nnobody else. Alone, he proved that mighty continent so probable, from\ngeometrical measurements, and the balance of the world, and tides, and\ntrade-winds, and casual floatsams driven from some land beneath the\nsetting sun, that he was antecedently convinced of the fact: and it\nwould have been a shock to his reason, as well as to his faith, had he\nfound himself able to sail due west from Lisbon to China, without having\nstruck against his huge probability. I purposely abstain from applying\nevery illustration, or showing its specific difference regarding our\ntheme. It is better to lead a mind to think for itself than to endeavour\nto forestall every notion.\n\nAnother. A Kissoor merchant in Timbuctoo is told of the existence of\nwater hard and cold as marble. All the experience of his nation is\nagainst it. He disbelieves. However, after no long time, the testimony\nof two native princes who have been _feted_ in England, and have seen\nice, shakes his once not unreasonable incredulity: and the additional\nidea brought soon to his remembrance, that, as lead cools down from hot\nfluidity to a solid lump, so, in the absence of solar heat, in all\nprobability would water--corroborates and makes acceptable by analogous\nlikelihood the doctrine simultaneously evidenced by credible witnesses.\n\nYet one more illustration for the last. Few things in nature appear more\nunlikely to the illiterate, than that a living toad should be found\nprisoned in a block of limestone; nevertheless, evidence goes to prove\nthat such cases are not uncommon. Now, if, instead of limestone, which\nis a water-product, the creature had been found embedded in granite,\nwhich is a fire-product; although the fact might have been from\neye-sight equally unimpeachable, how much more unlikely such a\ncircumstance would have appeared in the judgment of science. To the\nrustic, the limestone case is as stout a puzzle as the granite one; but\n_a priori_, the philosopher--taking into account the aqueous fluidity of\nsuch a matrix at a period when reptiles were abundant, the torpid\nqualities of the toad itself, and the fact that time is scarcely an\nelement in the absence of air--arrives at an antecedent probability,\nwhich comforts his acceptance of the fact. The granite would have\nstaggered his reason, even though his own experience or the testimony of\nothers were sufficient, nay, imperative, to assure his faith: but in the\ncase of limestone, Reason even helps Faith; nay, anticipates and leads\nit in, by suggesting the wonder to be previously probable. How truly,\nand how strongly this bears upon our theme, let any such philosophizing\nmind consider.\n\nBut enough of illustrations: although these, multipliable to any amount,\nmight bring, each in its own case, some specific tendency to throw light\nupon the path we mean to tread: it is wiser perhaps, as implying more\nconfidence in the reader's intellectual powers, to leave other analogous\ncases to the suggestion of his own mind; also, not to vex him in every\ninstance with the intrusive finger of an obvious application.\nMeanwhile, it is a just opportunity to clear the way at once of some\nobstructions, by disposing of a few matters personal to the writer; and\nby touching upon sundry other preliminary considerations.\n\n1. The line of thought proposed is intended to show it probable that any\nthing which has been or is, might, viewed antecedently to its existence,\nby an exercise of pure reason, have by possibility been guessed: and on\nthe hypothesis of sufficient keenness and experience, that this idea may\nbe carried even to the future. Any thing, meaning every thing, is a word\nnot used unadvisedly; for this is merely a suggestive treatise, starting\na rule capable of infinite application: and, notwithstanding that we\nhave here and now confined its elucidation to some matters of religious\nmoment only, as occupying a priority of importance, and at all times\ndeserving the lead; still, if knowledge availed, and time and space\npermitted, I scarcely doubt that a vigorous and illuminated intellect\nmight so far enlarge on the idea, as to show the antecedent probability\nof every event which has happened in the kingdoms of nature, providence,\nand grace: nay, of directing his guess at coming matters with no\nuncertain aim into the realms of the immediate future. The perception of\ncause in operation enables him to calculate the consequence, even\nperhaps better than the prophecy of cause could in the prior case enable\nhim to suspect the consequence. But, in this brief life, and under its\ndisturbing circumstances, there is little likelihood of accomplishing in\npractice all that the swift mind sees it easy to dream in theory: and if\nother and wiser pens are at all helped in the good aim to justify the\nways of God with man, and to clear the course of truth, by some of the\nnotions broadcast in this treatise, its errand will be well fulfilled.\n\n2. Whether or not the leading idea, so propounded, is new, or is new in\nits application as an auxiliary to Christian evidences, the writer is\nunaware: to his own mind it has occurred quite spontaneously and on a\nsudden; neither has he scrupled to place it before others with whatever\nill advantage of celerity, because it seemed to his own musings to shed\na flood of light upon deep truths, which may not prove unwelcome nor\nunuseful to the doubting minds of many. It is true that in this, as in\nmost other human efforts, the realization of idea in concrete falls far\nshort of its abstract conception in the mind: there, all was clear,\nquick, and easy; here, the necessity of words, and the constraints of an\nunwilling perseverance, clog alike the wings of fancy and the feet of\nsober argument: insomuch that the difference is felt to be quite\nhumiliating between the thoughts as they were thought, and the thoughts\nas they are written. Minerva, springing from the head of Jove, is not\nmore unlike the heavily-treading Vulcan.\n\n3. Necessarily, that the argument be (so to speak) complete, and on the\nwise principle that no fortresses be left untaken in the rear, it must\nbe the writer's fate to attempt a demonstration of the anterior\nprobability of truths, which a child of reason can not only now never\ndoubt as fact, but never could have thought improbable. Instance the\nfirst effort, showing it to have been expectable that there should, in\nany conceived beginning, have existed a Something, a Great Spirit, whom\nwe call God. To have to argue of the mighty Maker, that HE was an\nantecedent probability, would appear a most needless attempt; if it did\nnot occur as the first link in a chain of arguments less open to\nobjection by the thoughtless. With our little light to try to prove _a\npriori_ the dazzling mystery of a Divine Tri-unity, might (unreasonably\nviewed) be assailed as a presumptuous and harmful thing; but it is our\nwise prerogative, if and when we can, to \"Prove all things.\" Moreover,\nwe live in a world wherein Truth's greatest enemy is the man who shrinks\nfrom endeavouring at least to clear away the mists and clouds that veil\nher precious aspect; and at a time when it behooves the reverent\nChristian to put on his panoply of faith and prayer, and meet in\nargument, according to the grace and power given to him--not indeed the\nblaspheming infidel, for such a foe is unreasonable and unworthy of an\nanswer, but--the often candid, anxious, and involuntary doubter; the\nmind, which, righteously vexed with the thousand corruptions of truth,\nand sorely disappointed at the conduct of its herd of false disciples,\nfrom a generous misconception is embracing error: the mind, never enough\ntenderly treated, but commonly taunted as a sceptic which yet with a\nnatural manliness asserts the just prerogative of thinking for itself:\nfairly enough requiring, though rarely finding, evidence either to prop\nthe weakness of a merely educational faith, or to argue away the\nobjections to Christianity so rife in the clashing doctrines and unholy\nlives of its pseudo-sectaries. One of our poets hath said, \"He has no\nhope who never had a fear:\" it is quite as true (and take this saying\nfor thy comfort, any harassed misbelieving mind), He has no faith, who\nnever had a doubt. There is hope of a mind which doubts, because it\nthinks; because it troubles itself to think about what the mass of\nnominal Christians live threescore years and die of very mammonism,\nwithout having had one earnest thought about one difficulty, or one\nmisgiving: there is hope of a man, who, not licentious nor scornful,\nfrom simple misconception, misbelieves; there is just and reasonable\nhope that (the misconception once removed) his faith will shine forth\nall the warmer for a temporary state of winter. To such do I address\nmyself: not presumptuously imagining that I can satisfy by my poor\nthoughts all the doubts, cavils and objections of minds so keen and\ncurious; not affecting to sail well among the shoals of metaphysics, nor\nto plumb unerringly the deeper gulphs of reason; but asking them for\nawhile to bear with me and hear me to the end patiently; with me,\nconvinced of what ([Greek: kat' exochen]) is Truth, by far surer and\nstronger arguments than any of the less considerations here expounded as\nauxiliary thereto; to bear with me, and prove for themselves at this\npenning of my thoughts (if haply I am helped in such high enterprise),\nwhether indeed those doctrines and histories which the Christian world\nadmit, were antecedently improbable, that is, unreasonable: whether, on\nthe contrary, there did not exist, prior to any manifestation of such\nfacts and doctrines, an exceeding likelihood that they would be so and\nso developed: and whether on the whole, led by reason to the threshold\nof faith, it may be worth while to encounter other arguments, which have\nrendered probabilities now certain.\n\n4. It is very material to keep in memory the only scope and object of\nthis essay. We do not pretend to add one jot of evidence, but only to\nprepare the mind to receive evidence: we do not attempt to prove facts,\nbut only to accelerate their admission by the removal of prejudice. If a\nbed-ridden meteorologist is told that it rains, he may or he may not\nreceive the fact from the force of testimony; but he will certainly be\nmore predisposed to receive it, if he finds that his weatherglass is\nfalling rather than rising. The fact remains the same, it rains; but the\nmind--precluded by circumstances from positive personal assurance of\nsuch fact, and able only to arrive at truth from exterior evidence--is\nin a fitter state for belief of the fact from being already made aware\nthat it was probable. Let it not then be inferred, somewhat perversely,\nthat because antecedent probabilities are the staple of our present\nargument, the theme itself, Religion, rests upon hypotheses so slender:\nit rests not at all upon such straws as probabilities, but on posterior\nevidence far more firm. What we now attempt is not to prop the ark, but\nfavourably to predispose the mind of any reckless Uzzah, who might\notherwise assail it; not to strengthen the weak places of religion, but\nto annul such disinclination to receive Truth, as consists in prejudice\nand misconception of its likelihood. The goodly ship is built upon the\nstocks, the platforms are reared, and the cradle is ready; but mistaken\npreconceptions may scatter the incline with gravel-stones rather than\nwith grease, and thus put a needless hindrance to the launching: whereas\na clear idea that the probabilities are in favour, rather than the\nreverse, will make all smooth, lubricate, and easy. If, then, we fail in\nthis attempt, no disservice whatever is done to Truth itself; no breach\nis made in the walls, no mine sprung, no battlement dismantled; all the\nevidences remain as they were; we have taken nothing away. Even granting\nmatters seemed anteriorily improbable, still, if evidence proved them\ntrue, such anterior unlikelihood would entirely be merged in the stoutly\nproven facts. Moreover, if we be adjudged to have succeeded, we have\nadded nothing to Truth itself; no, nor to its outworks. That sacred\ntemple stands complete, firm and glorious from corner-stone to\ntop-stone. We do but sweep away the rubbish at its base; the drifting\ndesert sands that choke its portals. We only serve that cause (a most\nhigh privilege), by enlisting a prejudgment in its favour. We propose\nherein an auxiliary to evidence, not evidence itself; a finger-post to\npoint the way to faith; a little light of reason on its path. The risk\nis really nothing; but the advantage, under favour, may be much.\n\n5. It is impossible to elude the discussion of topics, which in their\ndirect tendencies, or remoter inferences, may, to the author at least,\nprove dangerous or disputable ground. If a \"great door and effectual\" is\nopened to him, doubtless he will raise or meet with many adversaries.\nBesides mere haters of his creed, despisers of his arguments, and\nprotestors, loud and fierce against his errors; he may possibly fall\nfoul of divers unintended heresies; he may stumble unwittingly on the\nrelics of exploded schisms; he may exhume controversies in metaphysical\nor scholastical polemics, long and worthily extinct. If this be so, he\ncan only plead, _Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_. But it is\nopen to him also to protest against the common critical folly of making\nan offender for a word: of driving analogies on all four feet, and\nstraining thoughts beyond their due proportions. Above all, never let a\nreader stir one inch beyond, far less against, his own judgment: if\nthere seem to be sufficient reasons, well: if otherwise, let me walk\nuncompanied. The first step especially is felt to be a very difficult\none; perhaps very debatable: for aught I know, it may be merely a vain\ninsect caught in the cobweb of metaphysics, soon to be destroyed, and\neasily to be discussed at leisure by some Aranean logician. However, it\nseemed to my midnight musings a probable mode of arriving at truth,\nthough somewhat unsatisfactorily told from poverty of thought and\nlanguage. Moreover, it would have been, in such _a priori_ argument,\nridiculous to have commenced by announcing a posterior conclusion: for\nthis cause did I do my humble best to work it out anew: and however\nsupererogatory it may seem at first sight to the majority of readers,\nthose keener minds whom I mainly address, and whose interests I wish to\nserve, will recognise the attempt as at least consistent: and will be\nready to admit that if the arduous effort prove anteriorly a First Great\nCause, and His attributes, be futile (which, however, I do not admit),\nit was an attempt unneeded on the score of its own merits; albeit, with\nan obvious somewhat of justice, pure reason may desire to begin at the\nbeginning. No one, who thinks at all upon religion, however\nmisbelieving, can entertain any mental prejudice against the existence\nof a Deity, or against the received character of His attributes. Such a\nman would be merely in a savage state, irrational: whilst his own mind,\nso speculating, would stand itself proof positive of an Intellectual\nFather; either immediately, as in the first man's case, or mediately, as\nin our own, it must have sprung out of that Being, who is emphatically\nthe Good One--God. But if, as is possible, a mind, capable of thinking,\nand keen to think on other themes, from any cause, educational or moral,\nhas neglected this great track of mediation, has \"forgotten God,\" and\n\"had him _not_ in all his thoughts,\" such an one I invite to walk with\nme; and, in spite of all incompleteness and insufficiency, uncaptious of\nmuch that may haply be fanciful or false, briefly and in outline to test\nwith me sundry probabilities of the Christian scheme, considered\nantecedently to its elucidation.\n\n\n\n\nA GOD: AND HIS ATTRIBUTES.\n\n\nI will commence with a noble, and, as I believe, an inspired sentence:\nthan which no truth uttered by philosophers ever was more clearly or\nmore sublimely expressed. \"In the beginning was the Word: and the Word\nwas with God; and the Word was God.\" In its due course, we will consider\nespecially the difference between the Word and God; likewise the seeming\ncontradiction, but true concord, of being simultaneously God, and with\nGod. At present, and previously to the true commencement of our _a\npriori_ thoughts, let us, by a word or two, paraphrase that brief but\ncomprehensive sentence, \"In the beginning was the Word.\" Eternity has no\nbeginning, as it has no end: the clock of Time is futile there: it\nmight as well attempt to go in vacuo. Nevertheless, in respect to\nfinite intelligences like ourselves, seeing that eternity is an idea\ntotally inconceivable, it is wise, nay it is only possible, to be\npresented to the mind piecemeal. Even our deepest mathematicians do not\nscruple to speak of points \"infinitely remote;\" as if in that phrase\nthere existed no contradiction of terms. So, also, we pretend in our\nemptiness to talk of eternity past, time present, and eternity to come;\nthe fact being that, muse as a man may, he can entertain no idea of an\nexistence which is not measurable by time: any more than he can conceive\nof a colour unconnected with the rainbow, or of a musical note beyond\nthe seven sounds. The plain intention of the words is this: place the\nstarting-post of human thought as far back into eternity as you will, be\nit what man counts a thousand ages, or ten thousand times ten thousand,\nor be these myriads multiplied again by millions, still, in any such\nBeginning, and in the beginning of all beginnings (for so must creatures\ntalk)--then was God. He Was: the scholar knows full well the force of\nthe original term, the philological distinctions between [Greek: eimi]\nand [Greek: gignomai]: well pleased, he reads as of the Divinity [Greek:\nen], He self-existed; and equally well pleased he reads of the humanity\n[Greek: egennethe], he was born. The thought and phrase [Greek: en]\nsympathizes, if it has not an identity, with the Hebrew's unutterable\nName. HE then, whose title, amongst all others likewise denoting\nexcellence supreme and glory underivative, is essentially \"I am;\" HE\nwho, relatively to us as to all creation else, has a new name wisely\nchosen in \"the Word,\"--the great expression of the idea of God; this\nmighty Intelligence is found in any such beginning self-existent. That\nteaching is a mere fact, known posteriorly from the proof of all things\ncreated, as well as by many wonderful signs, and the clear voice of\nrevelation. We do not attempt to prove it; that were easy and obvious:\nbut our more difficult endeavour at present is to show how antecedently\nprobable it was that God should be: and that so being, He should be\ninvested with the reasonable attributes, wherewithal we know His\nglorious Nature to be clothed.\n\nTake then our beginning where we will, there must have existed in that\n\"originally\" either Something, or Nothing. It is a clear matter to\nprove, _a posteriori_, that Something did exist; because something\nexists now: every matter and every derived spirit must have had a\nFather; _ex nihilo nihil fit_, is not more a truth, than that creation\nmust have had a Creator. However, leaving this plain path (which I only\npoint at by the way for obvious mental uses), let us now try to get at\nthe great antecedent probability that in the beginning Something should\nhave been, rather than Nothing.\n\nThe term, Nothing, is a fallacious one: it does not denote an existence,\nas Something does, but the end of an existence. It is in fact a\nnegation, which must presuppose a matter once in being and possible to\nbe denied; it is an abstraction, which cannot happen unless there be\nsomewhat to be taken away; the idea of vacuity must be posterior to that\nof fullness; the idea of no tree is incompetent to be conceived without\nthe previous idea of _a_ tree; the idea of nonentity suggests, _ex vi\ntermini_, a pre-existent entity; the idea of Nothing, of necessity,\npresupposes Something. And a Something once having been, it would still\nand for ever continue to be, unless sufficient cause be found for its\nremoval; that cause itself, you will observe, being a Something. The\nchances are forcibly in favour of continuance, that is of perpetuity;\nand the likelihoods proclaim loudly that there should be an Existence.\nIt was thus, then, antecedently more probable, than in any imaginable\nbeginning from which reason can start, Something should be found\nexistent, rather than Nothing. This is the first probability.\n\nNext; of what nature and extent is this Something, this Being, likely to\nbe?--There will be either one such being, or many: if many, the many\neither sprang from the one, or the mass are all self-existent; in the\nformer case, there would be a creation and a God: in the latter, there\nwould be many Gods. Is the latter antecedently more probable?--let us\nsee. First, it is evident that if many are probable, few are more\nprobable, and one most probable of all. The more possible gods you take\naway, the more do impediments diminish; until, that is to say, you\narrive at that One Being, whom we have already proved probable.\nMoreover, many must be absolutely united as one; in which case the many\nis a gratuitous difficulty, because they may as well be regarded for all\npurposes of worship or argument as one God: or the many must have been\nin essence more or less disunited; in which case, as a state of any\nthing short of pure concord carries in itself the seeds of dissolution,\nneeds must that one or other of the many (long before any possible\nbeginnings, as we count beginnings, looking down the past vista of\neternity), would have taken opportunity by such disturbing causes to\nbecome absolute monarch: whether by peaceful persuasion, or hostile\ncompulsion, or other mode of absorbing disunions, would be indifferent;\nif they were not all improbable, as unworthy of the God. Perpetuity of\ndiscord is a thing impossible; every thing short of unity tends to\ndecomposition. Any how then, given the element of eternity to work in,\na one great Supreme Being was, in the created beginning, an _a priori_\nprobability. That all other assumptions than that of His true and\neternal Oneness are as false in themselves as they are derogatory to the\nrational views of deity, we all now see and believe; but the direct\nproofs of this are more strictly matters of revelation than of reason:\nalbeit reason too can discern their probabilities. Wise heathens, such\nas Socrates and Cicero, who had not our light, arrived nevertheless at\nsome of this perception; and thus, through conscience and intelligence,\nbecame a law unto themselves: because that, to them, as now to any one\nof us who may not yet have seen the light, the anterior likelihood\nexisted for only one God, rather than more; a likelihood which prepares\nthe mind to take as a fundamental truth, \"The Lord our God is one\nJehovah.\"\n\nNext; Self-existence combined with unity must include the probable\nattribute, or character, Ubiquity; as I now proceed to show. On the same\nprinciple as that by which we have seen Something to be likelier than\nNothing, we conclude that the same Something is more probable to be\nevery where, than the same Nothing (if the phrase were not absurd), to\nbe any where: we may, so to speak, divide infinity into spaces, and\nprove the position in each instance: moreover, as that Something is\nessentially--not a unit as of many, but--unity involving all, it follows\nas most probable that this Whole Being should be ubiquitous; in other\nparlance, that the one God should be every where at once: also, there\nbeing no limit to what we call Space, nor any imaginable hostile power\nto place a constraint upon the One Great Being, this Whole Being must be\nubiquitous to a degree strictly infinite: \"HE is in every place,\nbeholding the evil and the good.\"\n\nSuch a consideration (and it is a perfectly true one) renders necessary\nthe next point, to wit, that God is a Spirit. No possible substance can\nbe every where at once: essence may, but not substance. Corporeity in\nany shape must be local; local is finite; and we have just proved the\nanterior probability of a One great Existence being (notwithstanding\nunity of essence) infinite. Illocal and infinite are convertible terms:\nspirit is illocal; and, as God is infinite--that is, illocal--it is\nclear that \"God is a Spirit.\"\n\nWe have thus (not attempting to build up faith by such slight tools, but\nonly using them to cut away prejudice) arrived at the high probability\nof a God invested with His natural qualities or attributes;\nSelf-existence, Unity, the faculty of being every where at once and that\nevery where Infinitude; and essentially of a Spiritual nature, not\nmaterial. His moral, or accidental attributes (so to speak), were,\nantecedently to their expression, equally easy of being proved\nprobable. First, with respect to Power: given no disturbing cause--(we\nshall soon consider the question of permitted evil, and its origin; but\nthis, however disturbing to creatures, will be found not only none to\nGod, but, as it were, only a ray of His glory suffered to be broken for\nprismatic beauty's sake, a flash of the direction of His energies\nsuffered to be diverted for the superior triumph of good in that day\nwhen it shall be shown that \"God hath made all things for himself, yea,\neven the wicked for the time of visitation\")--with the _datum_ then of\nno disturbing cause obstructing or opposing, an infinite being must be\nable to do all things within the sphere of such infinity: in other\nphrase, He must be all-powerful. Just so, an impetus in vacuity suffers\nno check, but ever sails along among the fleet of worlds; and the innate\nImpulse of the Deity must expand and energize throughout that\ninfinitude, Himself. For a like reason of ubiquity, God must know all\nthings: it is impossible to escape from the strong likelihood that any\nintelligent being must be conversant of what is going on under his very\neye. Again; in the case both of Power and Knowledge, alike with the\ncoming attributes of Goodness and Wisdom--(wisdom considered as morally\ndistinct from mere knowledge or awaredness; it being quite possible to\nconceive a cold eye seeing all things heedlessly, and a clear mind\nknowing all things heartlessly)--in the case, I say, of all these\naccidental attributes, there recurs for argument, one analogous to that\nby which we showed the anterior probability of a self-existence. Things\npositive must precede things negative. Sight must have been, before\nblindness is possible; and before we can arrive at a just idea of no\nsight. Power must be precursor to an abstraction from power, or\nweakness. The minor-existence of ignorance is an impossibility, unless\nyou preallow the major-existence of wisdom; for it amounts to a debasing\nor a diminution of wisdom. Sin is well defined to be, the transgression\nof law; for without law, there can be no sin. So, also, without wisdom,\nthere can be no ignorance; without power, there can be no weakness;\nwithout goodness, there can be no evil.\n\nFurthermore. An affirmative--such as wisdom, power, goodness--can exist\nabsolutely; it is in the nature of a Something: but a negative--such as\nignorance, weakness, evil--can only exist relatively; and it would,\nindeed, be a Nothing, were it not for the previous and now simultaneous\nexistence of its wiser, stronger, and better origin. Abstract evil is as\ndemonstrably an impossibility as abstract ignorance, or abstract\nweakness. If evil could have self-existed, it would in the moment of its\neternal birth have demolished itself. Virtue's intrinsic concord tends\nto perpetual being: vice's innate discord struggles always with a force\ntowards dissolution. Goodness, wisdom, power have existences, and have\nhad existences from all eternity, though gulphed within the Godhead; and\nthat, whether evidenced in act or not: but their corruptions have had no\nsuch original existence, but are only the same entities perverted. Love\nwould be love still, though there were no existent object for its\nexercise: Beauty would be beauty still, though there were no created\nthing to illustrate its fairness: Power would be power still, though\nthere be no foe to combat, no difficulty to be overcome. Hatred,\nill-favour, weakness, are only perversions or diminutions of these.\nPower exists independently of muscles or swords or screws or levers;\nlove, independently of kind thoughts, words, and actions; beauty,\nindependently of colours, shapes, and adaptations. Just so is Wisdom\nphilosophically spoken of by a truly royal and noble author:\n\n\"I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and find out the knowledge of clever\ninventions. Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom; I am understanding; I\nhave strength. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before\nhis works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or\never the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth;\nbefore the mountains were fixed, or the hills were made. When He\nprepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass upon the face\nof the depth; when he established the clouds above; when he strengthened\nthe foundations of the deep: Then was I by him, as one brought up with\nhim: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; rejoicing\nin the habitable parts of his earth; and my delights were with the sons\nof men.\"\n\nKing Solomon well knew of Whom he wrote thus nobly. Eternal wisdom,\npower, and goodness, all prospectively thus yearning upon man, and\nincorporate in One, whose name, among his many names, is Wisdom. Wisdom,\nas a quality, existed with God; and, constituting full pervasion of his\nessence, was God.\n\nBut to return, and bind to a conclusion our ravelled thoughts. As,\noriginally, the self-existent being, unbounded, all-knowing, might take\nup, so to speak, if He willed, these eternal affirmative excellences of\nwisdom, power, and goodness; and as these, to every rational\napprehension, are highly worthy of his choice, whereas their derivative\nand inferior corruptions would have been most derogatory to any\nreasonable estimate of His character; how much more likely was it that\nHe should prefer the higher rather than the lower, should take the\naffirmative before the negative, should \"choose the good, and refuse the\nevil,\"--than endure to be endowed with such garbled, demoralizing,\nfinite attributes as those wherewith the heathen painted the Pantheon.\nWhat high antecedent probability was there, that if a God should be (and\nthis we have proved highly probable too)--He should be One, ubiquitous,\nself-existent, spiritual: that He should be all-mighty, all-wise, and\nall-good?\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRIUNITY.\n\n\nAnother deep and inscrutable topic is now to engage our thoughts--the\nmystery of a probable Triunity. While we touch on such high themes, the\nChristian's presumption ever is, that he himself approaches them with\nreverence and prayer; and that, in the case of an unbeliever, any such\nmind will be courteous enough to his friendly opponent, and wise enough\nrespecting his own interest and safety lest these things be true, to\nenter upon all such subjects with the seriousness befitting their\nimportance, and with the restraining thought that in fact they may be\nsacred.\n\nLet us then consider, antecedently to all experience, with what sort of\ndeity pure reason would have been satisfied. It has already arrived at\nUnity, and the foregoing attributes. But what kind of Unity is probable?\nUnity of Person, or unity of Essence? A sterile solitariness, easily\nunderstandable, and presumably incommunicative? or an absolute oneness,\nwhich yet relatively involves several mysterious phases of its own\nexpansive love? Will you think it a foregone conclusion, if I assert the\nsuperior likelihoods of the latter, and not of the former? Let us come\nthen to a few of many reasons. First: it was by no means probable to be\nsupposed anteriorly, that the God should be clearly comprehensible: yet\nhe must be one: and oneness is the idea most easily apprehended of all\npossible ideas. The meanest of intellectual creatures could comprehend\nhis Maker, and in so far top his heights, if God, being truly one in one\nview, were yet only one in every view: if, that is to say, there existed\nno mystery incidental to his nature: nay, if that mystery did not\namount to the difficulty of a seeming contradiction. I judge it likely,\nand with confidence, that Reason would prerequire for his God, a Being,\nat once infinitely easy to be apprehended by the lowest of His spiritual\nchildren, and infinitely difficult to be comprehended by the highest of\nHis seraphim. Now, there can be guessed only two ways of compassing such\na prerequirement: one, a moral way; such as inventing a deity who could\nbe at once just and unjust, every where and no where, good and evil,\npowerful and weak; this is the heathen phase of Numen's character, and\nis obviously most objectionable in every point of view: the other would\nbe a physical way; such as requiring a God who should be at once\nmaterial and immaterial, abstraction and concretion; or, for a still\nmore confounding paradox to Reason (considered as antagonist to Faith,\nin lieu of being strictly its ally), an arithmetical contradiction, an\nalgebraic mystery, such as would be included in the idea of Composite\nUnity; one involving many, and many collapsed into one. Some such enigma\nwas probable in Reason's guess at the nature of his God. It is the\nChristian way; and one entirely unobjectionable: because it is the only\ninsuperable difficulty as to His Nature which does not debase the notion\nof Divinity. But there are also other considerations.\n\nFor, secondly. The self-existent One is endowed, as we found probable,\nwith abundant loving-kindness, goodness overflowing and perpetual. Is it\nreasonable to conceive that such a character could for a moment be\nsatisfied with absolute solitariness? that infinite benevolence should,\nin any possible beginning, be discovered existent in a sort of selfish\nonly-oneness? Such a supposition is, to the eye of even unenlightened\nReason, so clearly a _reductio ad absurdum_, that men in all countries\nand ages have been driven to invent a plurality of Gods, for very\nsociety sake: and I know not but that they are anteriorly wiser and more\nrational than the man who believes in a Benevolent Existence eternally\none, and no otherwise than one. Let me not be mistaken to imply that\nthere was any likelihood of many coeexistent gods: that was a reasonable\nimprobability, as we have already seen, perhaps a spiritual\nimpossibility: but the anterior likelihood of which I speak goes to\nshow, that in One God there should be more than one coeexistence: each,\nby arithmetical mystery, but not absurdity, pervading all, coeequals,\neach being God, and yet not three Gods, but one God. That there should\nbe a rational difficulty here--or, rather, an irrational one--I have\nshown to be Reason's prerequirement: and if such a one as I, or any\nother creature, could now and here (ay, or any when or any where, in\nthe heights of highest heaven, and the far-stretching distance of\neternity) solve such intrinsic difficulty, it would demonstrably be one\nnot worthy of its source, the wise design of God: it would prove that\nriddle read, which uncreate omniscience propounded for the baffling of\nthe creature mind. No. It is far more reasonable, as well as far more\nreverent, to acquiesce in Mystery, as another attribute inseparable from\nthe nature of the Godhead; than to quibble about numerical puzzles, and\nindulge unwisely in objections which it is the happy state of nobler\nintelligences than man on earth is, to look into with desire, and to\nexercise withal their keen and lofty minds.\n\nBut we have not yet done. Some further thoughts remain to be thrown out\nin the third place, as to the preconceivable fitness or propriety of\nthat Holy Union, which we call the trinity of Persons who constitute the\nSelf-existent One. If God, being one in one sense, is yet likely to\nappear, humanly speaking, more than one in another sense; we have to\ninquire anteriorly of the probable nature of such other intimate Being\nor Beings: as also, whether such addition to essential oneness is likely\nitself to be more than one or only one. As to the former of these\nquestions: if, according to the presumption of reason (and according\nalso to what we have since learned from revelation; but there may be\ngood policy in not dotting this book with chapter and verse)--if the\nDeity thus loved to multiply Himself; then He, to whom there can exist\nno beginning, must have so loved, so determined, and so done from all\neternity. Now, any conceivable creation, however originated, must have\nhad a beginning, place it as far back as you will. In any succession of\nnumbers, however infinitely they may stretch, the commencement at least\nis a fixed point, one. But, this multiplication of Deity, this complex\nsimplicity, this intricate easiness, this obvious paradox, this\nsub-division and con-addition of a One, must have taken place, so soon\nas ever eternal benevolence found itself alone; that is, in eternity,\nand not in any imaginable time. So then, the Being or Beings would\nprobably not have been creative, but of the essence of Deity. Take also\nfor an additional argument, that it is an idea which detracts from every\njust estimate of the infinite and all-wise God to suppose He should take\ncreatures into his eternal counsels, or consort, so to speak, familiarly\nwith other than the united sub-divisions, persons, and coeequals of\nHimself. It was reasonable to prejudge that the everlasting companions\nof Benevolent God, should also be God. And thus, it appears antecedently\nprobable that (what from the poverty of language we must call) the\nmultiplication of the one God should not have been created beings; that\nis, should have been divine; a term, which includes, as of right, the\nattribution to each such Holy Person, of all the wondrous\ncharacteristics of the Godhead.\n\nAgain: as to the latter question; was it probable that such so-called\nsub-divisions should be two, or three, or how many? I do not think it\nwill be wise to insist upon any such arithmetical curiosity as a perfect\nnumber; nor on such a toy as an equilateral triangle and its properties;\nnor on the peculiar aptitude for sub-division in every thing, to be\ndiscerned in a beginning, a middle, and an end; nor in the consideration\nthat every fact had a cause, is a constancy, and produces a consequence:\nneither, to draw any inferences from the social maxim that for counsel,\ncompanionship, and conversation, the number three has some special\nfitness. Some other similar fancies, not altogether valueless, might be\nalluded to. It seems preferable, however, on so grand a theme, to\nattempt a deeper dive, and a higher flight. We would then, reverently as\nalways, albeit equally as always with the free-born boldness of God's\nintellectual children, attempt to prejudge how many, and with what\ndistinctive marks, the holy beings into whom (Greek: ost epos eipein)\nGod, for very Benevolence sake, pours out Essential Unity, were likely\nto be.\n\nLet us consider what principles, as in the case of a forthcoming\ncreation, would probably be found in action, to influence such\ncreation's Author.\n\nFirst of all, there would be Will, a will energized by love, disposing\nto create: a phase of Deity aptly and comprehensively typified to all\nminds by the name of a universal Father: this would be the primary\nimpersonation of God. And is it not so?\n\nSecondly: there would be (with especial reference to that idea of\ncreation which doubtless at most remote beginnings occupied the Good\nOne's contemplation), there would be next, I repeat, in remarkable\nadaptation to all such benevolent views, the great idea of principle,\nObedience; conforming to a Father's righteous laws, acquiescing in his\njust will, and returning love for love: such a phase could not be better\nshadowed out to creatures than by an Eternal Son; the dutiful yet\nsupreme, the subordinate yet coeequal, the amiable yet exalted Avatar of\nour God. This was probable to have been the second impersonation of\nDeity. And is it not so?\n\nThirdly: Springing from the conjoint ideas of the Father and the Son,\nand with similar prospection to such instantly creative universe, there\nwould occur the grand idea of Generation; the mighty coeequal, pure, and\nquickening Impulse: aptly announced to men and angels as the Holy\nSpirit. This was to have been the third impersonation of Divinity. And\nis it not so?\n\nOf all these--under illumination of the fore-known fact, I speak, in\ntheir aspect of anterior probability. With respect to more possible\nPersons, I at least cannot invent one. There is, to my reflection,\nneither need nor fitness for a fourth, or any further Principle. If\nanother can, let him look well that he be not irrationally demolishing\nan attribute and setting it up as a principle. Obedience is not an\nattribute; nor Generation; nor Will: whilst the attribute of Love,\npervading all, sets these only possible three Principles going together\nas One in a mysterious harmony. I would not be misunderstood; persons\nare not principles; but principles may be illustrated and incorporative\nin persons. Essential Love, working distinctively throughout the Three,\nunites them instinctively as One: even as the attribute Wisdom designs,\nand the attribute Power arranges all the scheme of Godhead.\n\nAnd now I ask Reason, whether, presupposing keenness, he might not have\narrived by calculation of probabilities at the likelihood of these great\ndoctrines: that the nature of God would be an apparent contradiction:\nthat such contradiction should not be moral, but physical; or rather\nverging towards the metaphysical, as immaterial and more profound: that\nGod, being One, should yet, in his great Love, marvellously have been\ncompanioned from eternity by Himself: and that such Holy and United\nConfraternity should be so wisely contrived as to serve for the bright\nunapproachable exemplar of love, obedience, and generation to all the\nfuture universe, such Triunity Itself existing uncreated.\n\n\n\n\nTHE GODHEAD VISIBLE.\n\n\nWe have hitherto mused on the Divinity, as on Spirit invested with\nattributes: and this idea of His nature was enough for all requirements\nantecedently to a creation. At whatever beginning we may suppose such\ncreation to have commenced, whether countless ages before our present\n[Greek: kosmos], or only a sufficient time to have prepared the crust of\nearth; and to whatever extent we may imagine creation to have spread,\nwhether in those remote periods originally to our system alone and at\nafter eras to its accompanying stars and galaxies and firmaments; or at\none and the same moment to have poured material existence over space to\nwhich our heavens are as nothing: whatever, and whenever, and wherever\ncreation took place, it would appear to be probable that some one person\nof the Deity should, in a sort, become more or less concretely\nmanifested; that is, in a greater or a minor degree to such created\nminds and senses visible. Moreover, for purposes at least of a\nconcentrated worship of such creatures, that He should occasionally, or\nperhaps habitually, appear local. I mean, that the King of all spiritual\npotentates and the subordinate Excellencies of brighter worlds than\nours, the Sovereign of those whom we call angels, should will to be\nbetter known to and more aptly conceived by such His admiring creatures,\nin some usual glorious form, and some wonted sacred place. Not that any\nshould see God, as purely God; but, as God relatively to them, in the\ncapacity of King, Creator, and the Object of all reasonable worship. It\nseems anteriorly probable that one at least of the Persons in the\nGodhead should for this purpose assume a visibility; and should hold His\ncourt of adoration in some central world, such as now we call\nindefinitely Heaven. That such probability did exist in the human\nforecast, as concerns a heaven and the form of God, let the testimony of\nall nations now be admitted to corroborate. Every shape from a cloud to\na crocodile, and every place from AEther to Tartarus, have been peopled\nby man's not quite irrational device with their so-called gods. But we\nmust not lapse into the after-argument: previous likelihood is our\nharder theme. Neither, in this section, will we attempt the\nprobabilities of the place of heaven: that will be found at a more\ndistant page. We have here to speak of the antecedent credibility that\nthere should be some visible phase of God; and of the shape wherein he\nwould be most likely, as soon as a creation was, to appear to such his\ncreatures. With respect, then, to the former. Creatures, being finite,\ncan only comprehend the infinite in his attribute of unity: the other\nattributes being apprehended (or comprehended partially) in finite\nphases. But, unity being a purely intellectual thought, one high and dry\nbeyond the moral feelings, involves none of the requisites of a\nspiritual, that is an affectionate, worship; such worship as it was\nlikely that a beneficent Being would, for his creatures' own elevation\nin happiness, command and inspire towards Himself. In order, therefore,\nto such worship and such inspiration acting through reason, it would\nappear fitting that the Deity should manifest Himself especially with\nreference to that heavenly Exemplar, the Three Divine Persons of the\nOne Supreme Essence already shown to have been probable. And it seems\nlikeliest and discreetest to my thinking, that, with this view, the\nsecondary phase, loving Obedience, under the dictate of the primary\nphase, a loving Will, and energized by the tertiary or conjoining phase\na loving Quickening Entity, should assume the visible type of Godhead,\nand thus concentrate unto Himself the worship of all worlds. I can\nconceive no scheme more simply profound, more admirably suited to its\ncomplex purposes, than that He, in whom dwelt the fullness of the\nGodhead, bodily, should take the form of God, in order that unto Him\nevery knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and\nthings in regions under the earth. Was not all this reasonably to have\nbeen looked for? and tested afterwards by Scripture, in its frequent\nallusions to some visible phase of Deity, when the Lord God walked with\nAdam, and Enoch, and Abraham, and Peter, and James, and John--I ask, is\nit not the case?\n\nThe latter point remaining to be thus briefly touched upon, respects the\nprobable shape to be assumed and worn, familiarly enough to be\nrecognised as His, by Deity thus vouchsafing Himself visible. And here\nwe must look down the forward stream of Time, and search among the\ncreatures whom thereafter God should make, to arrive at some good reason\nfor, some antecedent probability of, the form which he should thus\nfrequently inhabit. Fire, for example, a pure and spirit-like nature,\nwould not have been a guess unworthy of reason: but this, besides its\nhumbler economic uses, would endanger an idolatry of the natural emblem.\nSo also would light be no irrational thought. And it is true that God\nmight, and probably would, invest Himself in one or both of these pure\nessences, so seemingly congenial to a nature higher than ours: but then\nthere would be some nucleus to the brilliancy and the burning; these\nwould be as a veil to the Divinity; we should have need, before He were\ntruly visible, that the veil were laid aside: we should have to shred\naway to the nucleus, which (and not the fire or light) would be the form\nof God. Similar objections, in themselves or in their idolatrizing\ntendencies, would lie against any such shape as a cloud, or a rainbow,\nor an angel (whatever such a being may resemble), or in fact any other\nconceivable creature, whether good as the angelic case or indifferent as\nthat of the cloud, which the Deity, though assuming often, would\nnevertheless in every instance assume in conjunction with such his\nordinary creature, and could not entirely monopolize. I mean; if God had\nthe shape of a cloud, or of a rainbow, common clouds and rainbows would\ncome to be thought gods too. Reason would anticipate this objection to\nsuch created and too-favoured shapes: more; in every case, but one, he\nwould be quite at a loss to look for some type, clearly apt and\nprobable. That one case he might discern to be this. Known unto God are\nall things from the beginning to the end: and, in His fore-knowledge,\nReason might have been enlightened to prophesy (as we shall hereafter\nsee) that for certain wise and good ends one great family out of the\nmyriads who rejoice in being called God's children, would in a most\nmarked manner fall away from Him through disobedience; and should\nthereby earn, if not the annihilation of their being, at least its\nendless separation from the Blessed. Manifestly, the wisdom and\nbenevolence of God would be eager and swift to devise a plan for the\nredemption of so lost a race. Why He should permit their fall at all\nwill be reverentially descanted on in its proper section; meanwhile, how\nis it probable that God, first, by any theory consistently with truth\nand justice, could, and next by power and contrivance actually would,\nlift up again this sinful family from the pit of condemnation? Reason is\nto search the question well: and after much thought, you will arrive at\nthe truth that there was but one way probable. Rebellion against the\nGreat and Self-existent Author of all things, must needfully involve\ninfinite punishment; if only because He is infinite, and his laws of an\neternal sanction. The problem then was, how to inflict the unbounded\npunishment thus claimed by justice for a transgressional condition, and\nyet at love's demand to set the prisoner free: how to be just, and\nsimultaneously justifier of the guilty. That was a question\nmagnificently solved by God alone: magnificently about to be solved, as\naccording to our argument seemed probable, by God Triune, in wondrous\nself-involving council. The solution would be rationally this. Himself,\nin his character of filial obedience, should pay the utter penalty to\nHimself in his character of paternal authority, whilst Himself in the\ncharacter of quickening spirit, should restore the ransomed family from\ndeath to life, from the power of evil unto good. Was not this a most\nprobable, a most reasonably probable scheme? was it not altogether wise\nand philosophical, as well as entirely generous and kind to wretched\nmen?\n\nAnd (returning to our present topic), was it not antecedently to have\nbeen expected that God the Son (so to put it) should, in the shape He\nwas thereafter to assume upon earth, appear upon the eternal throne of\nheaven? In a shape, however glorified and etherealized, with glistening\ncountenance and raiment bright as the light, nevertheless resembling\nthat more humble form, the Son of Man, who was afterwards thus by a\ncircle of probabilities to be made in the form of God; in a shape, not\nliable, from its very sinfulness, to the deification either of other\nworlds or of this [hero-worship is another and a lower thing altogether;\nwe speak here of true idolatries:]--was it unlikely, I say, that in such\na shape Deity should have deigned to become visible, and have blazed\nManifested God, the central Sun of Heaven?--This probability, prior to\nour forth-flowing thoughts on the Incarnation, though in some measure\nanticipating them, will receive further light from the views soon to be\nset forth. I know not but that something is additionally due to the\nsuggestion following; namely: that, raise our swift imagination to what\nheight we may, and stretch our searching reason to the uttermost, we\ncannot, despite of all inventive energies and powers of mind, conceive\nany shape more beautiful, more noble, more worthy for a rational\nintelligence to dwell in, more in one Homeric word [Greek: theoeides],\nthan the glorified and etherealized human form divine. Let this serve as\nReason's short reply to any charge of anthropomorphism in the doctrines\nof his creed: it was probable that God should be revealed to His\ncreation; and as to the form of any such revealed essence in any such\ninfinite beginnings of His work, the most likely of all would appear to\nbe that one, wherein He, in the ages then to come, was well resolved to\nearn the most glorious of all triumphs, the merciful reconciliation of\neverlasting justice with everlasting love, the wise and wondrous scheme\nof God forgiving sinners.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ORIGIN OF EVIL.\n\n\nIt will now be opportune to attempt elucidation of one of the darkest\nand deepest riddles ever propounded to the finite understanding; the _a\npriori_ likelihood of evil: not, mind, its eternal existence, which is a\nfalse doctrine; but its probable procession from the earliest created\nbeings, which is a true one.\n\nAt first sight, nothing could appear more improbable: nothing more\ninconsistent with the recognised attributes of God, than that error,\npain, and sorrow should be mingled in His works. These, the spontaneous\noffspring of His love, one might (not all wisely) argue, must always be\ngood and happy--because perfect as Himself. Because perfect?--Therein\nlies the fallacy, which reason will at once lay bare. Perfection is\nattributable to no possible creature: perfection argues infinity, and\ninfinity is one of the prerogatives of God. However good, \"very good,\" a\ncreation may be found, still it must, from essential finitude, fall\nshort of that Best, which is in effect the only state purely\nunexceptionable. For instance, no creature can be imagined of a wisdom\nundiminished from the single true standard, God's wisdom: in other\nphrase, every creature must be more or less departed from wisdom, that\nis, verging towards folly. Again; no creature can be presumed of a\npurity so spotless as to rank in an equality with that of the Almighty:\nin other words, neither man, nor angel, nor any other creature, can\nexist who is not more or less--I will not say impure, positively,\nbut--unpure negatively. Thus, the birth-mark of creation must have been\nan inclination towards folly, and from purity. The mere idea of\ncreatures would involve, as its great need-be, the qualifying clause\nthat these emanations from perfection be imperfect; and that these\nchildren of purity be liable to grow unpure. They must either be thus\nnatured, or exist of the essence of God, that is, be other persons and\nphases of the Deity: such a case was possible certainly; but, as we have\nalready shown, not probable. And it were possible, that, in consequence\nof some redemption such as we have spoken of, creatures might by\ningraftation into God become so entirely part of Him--bone of bone, and\nflesh of flesh, and spirit of spirit--that an exhortation to such blest\nbeings should reasonably run, \"Be ye perfect.\" But this infinite\nmunificence of the Godhead in redemption was not to be found among His\nbounties as Creator. It might indeed arise afterwards, as setting up\nagain the fallen creature in some safe niche of Deity: and we now know\nit has arisen: \"we are complete in Him.\"\n\nBut this, though relevant, is a digression. Returning, and to produce\nsome further argument against all creature perfectness; let us consider\nhow rational it seems to presuppose that the mighty Maker in his\nboundless love should have willed to form a long chain of classes of\nexistence more and more subordinated each to the other, each good of its\nkind and happy in its way, but yet all needfully more or less removed\nfrom the high standard of uncreate Perfection. These descending links,\nthese graduations downwards, must involve a nearer or remoter approach\nto evil. Now, we must bear in mind that Evil is not a principle, but a\nperversion: it amounts merely to a denial, a limitation, a corruption of\ngood, not to the dignity of its abstract antagonism. Familiarly, but\nfallaciously, we talk of the evil principle, the contradictory to good:\nwe might as well talk of the nosologic principle, the contradictory to\nhealth; or the darkness principle, the contradictory to light. They are\ncontraries, but not contradictories: they have no positive, but only a\nrelative existence. Good and evil are verily foes, but originally there\nwas one cemented friendship: slender beginnings consequent on a\ncreation, began to cause the breach: the civil war arose out of a state\nof primitive peace: images betray us into errors, or I might add with a\nprotest against the risk of being misinterpreted, that like brothers\nturned to a deadly hate, they nevertheless sprang not originally out of\ntwo hostile and opposite hemispheres, but from one paternal hearth. Not,\nhowever, in any sense that God is the author of evil; but that God's\nworkmanship, the finite creature, needfully perverted good.\n\nThe origin of evil--that is, its birth--is a term true and clear:\noriginal evil--that is, giving it no birth but an antedate to all\ncreated things, suffering it to run parallel with God and good from all\neternity--this is a term false and misty. The probability that good\nwould be warped, and grow deteriorate; that wisdom would be dwindled\ndown into less and less wisdom, or foolishness; and power degenerated\nmore and more towards imbecility; must arise, directly a creature should\nspring out of the Creator; and that, let astronomy or geology name any\ndate they will: Adam is a definite date; perhaps also the first\nday's--or period's--work: but the Beginning of Creation is undated. It\nwould then, under this impression of the necessary defalcation of the\ncreature from the strict straight line, be rational to look for\ndeviations: it would be rational to presuppose that God--just, and good,\nand pure, and wise--should righteously be able to \"charge his angels\nwith folly,\" should verily declare that \"the heavens are not pure in his\nsight.\"\n\nFurther; it would be a possible chance (which considerations soon\nsucceeding would render even probable) that for a wise humiliation of\nthe reasoning creature, and a just exaltation of the only Source of life\nand light and all things, one or more of such first created beings, or\nangels, should be suffered to fall, possibly from the vastest height,\nand at first by the slenderest beginnings, lower and lower into folly,\nimpurity, and all other derelictions from the excellence of God. The\nlines, once unparalleled, would, without a check, go further apart for\nall eternity; albeit, the primal deviation arose in time. The aerolite,\ndropping slowly at first, increases in swiftness as it multiplies the\nfathoms of descent: and if the abyss be really bottomless, how\nimpossible a check or a return.\n\nSome such terrible example would amount to a reasonable likelihood, if\nonly for a lesson and a warning: to all intelligent hierarchs, be not\nhigh-minded, but fear; to all responsible beings, keep righteousness and\nreverence, and tempt not God; to all the Virtues, Dominations,\nObediences, and due Subordinations of unknown glorious worlds, a loud\nand living exhortation to exercise, and not to let grow dim their\nspiritual energies, in efforts after goodness, wisdom, and purity. A\ncreature state, to be happy, must be a progressive state: the capability\nof progression argues lack, or a tendency from good: and progression\nitself needs a spur, lest indolence relapse towards evil.\n\nAdditionally: we must remember that a creature's excellence before God\nis the reasonable service which he freely renders: freedom, dangerous\nprerogative, involves choice: and choice necessitates the possibility of\nerror. The command to a rational intelligence would be, do this, and\nlive; do it not, and die: if thou doest, it is well done, good and\nfaithful servant; thou hast mounted by thine own heaven-blest exertions\nto a higher approach towards infinite perfection; enter thou into the\njoy, not merely of a creature, but of thy Lord. But, if thou doest not,\nit is wo to thee, unworthy hireling; thou hast broken the tie that bound\nthee to thy Maker--obedience, the root of happiness; thou livest on\nindeed, because the Former of all things cancelleth not nor endeth his\nbeginning; but henceforth thine existence is, as a river which\nearthquakes have divorced from its bed, and instead of flowing on for\never through the fair pastures of peace and among the mountain roots of\neverlasting righteousness, thy downward course is shattery, headlong,\nturbulent, and destructive; black-throated whirlpools here, miasmatic\nmarshes there, a cataract, a shoal, a rapid; until the remorseless\nstream, lashing among rocks which its own riot rendered sterile, pours\nits unresting waters into the thirsty sands of the Sahara.\n\nIt was indeed probable (as since we know it to be true) that the\ngenerous Giver of all things would in the vast majority of cases\nminister such secret help to His weaker spiritual children, that, far\nfrom failing of continuous obedience, they should find it so unceasingly\neasier and happier that their very natures would soon come to be imbued\nwith that pervading habit: and that thus, the longer any creature stood\nupright, the stronger should he rest in righteousness; until, at no very\ndistant period, it should become morally impossible for him to fall.\nSuch would soon be the condition of myriads, perhaps almost the whole,\nof heaven's innumerable host: and with respect to any darker Unit in\nthat multitude, for the good of all permitted to make early shipwreck\nof himself, simply by leaving his intelligence to plume its wings into\npresumptuous flight, and by allowing his pristine goodness or wisdom to\ngrow rusty from non-usage until that sacred panoply were eaten into\nholes; with respect to any such unhappy one, and all others (if others\nbe) who should listen to his glozing, and make a common cause in his\nrebellion, where, I ask, is any injustice, or even unkindness done to\nhim by Deity? Where is any moral improbability that such a traitor\nshould be; or any just inconsistency chargeable on the attributes of God\nin consequence of such his being? Whom can he in reason accuse but\nhimself for what he is? And what misery can such a one complain of,\nwhich is not the work of his own hands? And lest the Great Offender\nshould urge against his God, why didst thou make me thus?--Is not the\nanswer obvious, I made thee, but not thus. And on the rejoinder, Why\ndidst thou not keep me as thou madest me? Is not the reply just, I made\nthee reasonable, I led thee to the starting place, I taught thee and set\nthee going well in the beginning; thou art intelligent and free, and\nhast capacities of Mine own giving: wherefore didst thou throw aside My\ngrace, and fly in the face of thy Creator?\n\nOn the whole; consider that I speak only of probabilities. There is a\ndepth in this abyss of thought, which no human plummet is long enough to\nsound; there is a maze in this labyrinth to be tracked by no mortal\nclue. It involves the truth, How unsearchable are his judgments: Thou\nhidest thy ways in the sea, and thy paths in the deep waters, and thy\nfootsteps are not known. The weak point of man's argument lies in the\nsuggested recollection, that doubtless the Deity could, if He would,\nhave upheld all the universe from falling by his gracious power; and\nthat the attribute of love concludes that so He would. However, these\nthree brief considerations further will go some way to solve the\ndifficulty, and to strengthen the weak point; first, there are other\nattributes besides love to run concurrently with it, as truth, justice,\nand unchangeableness:--Secondly, that grace is not grace, if manifested\nindiscriminately to all: and thirdly, that to our understanding at least\nthere was no possible method of illustrating the amiabilities of\nGoodness, and the contrivances of Wisdom, but by the infused permission\nof some physical and moral evils: Mercy, benevolence, design, would in a\nuniverse of best have nothing to do; that universe itself would grow\nstagnant, as incapable of progress; and the principal record of God's\nexcellences, the book of redemption, would have been unwritten. Is not\nthen the existence of evil justified in reason's calculation? and was\nnot such existence an antecedent probability?\n\nOf these matters, thus curtly: it is time, in a short recapitulation, to\nreflect, that, from foregoing causes, mysteries were probable around the\nthrone of heaven: and, as I have attempted to show, the mystery of\nimperfection, a concrete not an abstract, was likely to have sprung out\nof any creature universe. Reason perceives that a Gordion knot was\nlikely to have become entangled; in the intricate complexities of\nabounding good to be mingled needfully with its own deficiencies,\ncorruptions, and perversions: and this having been shown by Reason as\nanteriorly probable, its difficult involvements are now since cut by the\nsword of conquering Faith.\n\n\n\n\nCOSMOGONY.\n\n\nThese deep themes having been descanted on, however from their nature\nunsatisfactorily and with whatever human weakness, let us now endeavour\nmentally to transport ourselves to a period immediately antecedent to\nour own world's birth. We should then have been made aware that a great\nevent was about to take place; whereat, from its foreseen consequences,\nthe hierarchies of heaven would be prompt to shout for joy, and the holy\nones of God to sing for gratitude. It was no common case of a creation;\nno merely onemore orb, of third-rate unimportance, amongst the million\nothers of higher and more glorious praise: but it was a globe and a race\nabout to be unique in character and fate, and in the far-spread results\nof their existence. On it and of its family was to be contrived the\nscene, wherein, to the admiration of the universe, God himself in Person\nwas going visibly to make head against corruption in creation, and for\never thus to quench that possibility again: wherein He was marvellously\nto invent and demonstrate how Mercy and Truth should meet together, how\nRighteousness and Peace should kiss each other. There, was going to be\nset forth the wonderfully complicated battle-plan, by which, force\ncountervailing force, and design converging all things upon one fixed\npoint, Good, concrete in the creature, should overwhelm not without\nstrife and wounds Evil concrete in the creature, and all things, \"even\nthe wicked,\" should be seen harmoniously blending in the glory of the\nattributes of God. The mythologic Pan, [Greek: to pan] the great\nUniversal All, was deeply interested in the struggle: for the seed of\nthe woman was to bruise the serpent's head; not merely as respected the\nsmall orb about to be, but concerning heaven itself, the unbounded\n\"haysh hamaim,\" wherefrom dread Lucifer was thus to be ejected. On the\nearth, a mere planet of humble lustre, which the prouder suns around\nmight well despise, was to be exhibited this noble and analogous result;\nthe triumph of a lower intelligence, such as man, over a higher\nintelligence, such as angel: because, the former race, however frail,\nhowever weak, were to find their nature taken into God, and should have\nfor their grand exemplar, leader and brother, the Very Lord of all\narrayed in human guise; while the latter, the angelic fallen mass, in\nspite of all their pristine wisdom and excellency, were to set up as\ntheir captain him, who may well and philosophically be termed their\nAdversary.\n\nThis dark being, probably the mightiest of all mere creatures as the\nembodiment of corrupted good and perversion of an archangelic wisdom,\nwas about to be suffered to fall victim to his own overtopping\nambitions, and to drag with him a third part of the heavenly host--some\ntributary monarchs of the stars: thus he, and those his colleagues,\nshould become a spectacle and a warning to all creatures else; to stand\nfor spirits' reading in letters of fire a deeply burnt-in record how\nvast a gulf there is between the Maker and the made; how impassable a\nbarrier between the derived intelligence and its infinite Creator. Such\nan unholy leader in rebellion against good--let us call him _A_ or _B_,\nor why not for very euphony's sake Lucifer and Satanas?--such a\ncorrupted excellence of heaven was to meet his final and inevitable\ndisgrace to all eternity on the forthcoming battle-field of earth. Would\nit not be probable then that our world, soon to be fashioned and stocked\nwith its teeming reasonable millions, should concentrate to itself the\ngaze of the universe, and, from the deeds to be done in it, should\narrogate towards man a deep and fixed attention: that \"the morning stars\nshould sing together, and all the sons of God should shout for joy.\" Let\nus too, according to the power given to us, partake of such attention\nantecedently in some detail: albeit, as always, very little can be\ntracked of the length and breadth of our theme.\n\nWhat would probably be the nature of such world and of such creatures,\nin a physical point of view? and what, in a moral point of view? It is\nnot necessary to divide these questions: for the one so bears upon the\nother, or rather the latter so directs and pervades the former, that we\nmay briefly treat of both as one.\n\nThe first probability would be, that, as the creature Man so to be\nabased and so to be exalted must be a responsible and reasonable being,\nevery thing--with miraculous exceptions just enough to prove the\nrule--every thing around him should also be responsible and reasonable.\nIn other words, that, with such exceptions as before alluded to, the\nwhole texture of this world should bear to an inquisitive intellect the\nstamp of cause and effect: whilst for the mass, such cause and effect\nshould be so little intrusive, that their easier religion might\nrecognise God in all things immediately, rather than mediately. For\ninstance: take the cases of stone, and of coal; the one so needful for\nman's architecture, the other for his culinary warmth. Now, however\nsimple piety might well thank the Maker for having so stored earth with\nthese for necessary uses; they ought, to a more learned, though not less\npious ken, to seem not to have been created by an effort of the Great\nFather _qua stone_, or _qua coal_. Such a view might satisfy the\nordinary mind: but thinkers would see no occasion for a miracle; when\nChrist raises Lazarus from the dead, it would have been a philosophical\nfault to have found the grave-clothes and swathing bandages ready\nloosened also. Unassisted man can do that: and unhelped common causes\ncan generate stone and coal. The deposits of undated floods, the\nperiodical currents of lava, the still and stagnant lake, and the\nfurious up-bursting earthquake; all these would be called into play, and\nnot the unrequired, I had almost said unreasonable, energies, which we\ncall miracle. An agglutination of shells, once peopled with life; a\ncrystallized lump of segregate minerals, once in a molten state; a mass\nof carbonated foliage and trunks of tropical trees, buried by long\nchanges under the soil, whereover they had once waved greenly luxuriant;\nthese, and no other, should have been man's stone and coal. This\ninstance affects the reasonableness of such material creation. Take\nanother, bearing upon its analogous responsibilities. As there was to be\nwarred in this world the contest between good and evil, it would be\nexpectable that the crust of man's earth, anteriorly to man's existence\non it, should be marked with some traces that the evil, though newly\nborn so far as might regard man's own disobedience, nevertheless had\nexisted antecedently. In other words: it was probable that there should\nexist geological evidences of suffering and death: that the gigantic\nichthyosaurus should be found fixed in rock with his cruel jaws closed\nupon his prey: that the fearful iguanodon should leave the tracks of\nhaving desolated a whole region of its reptile tribes: that volcanoes\nshould have ravaged fair continents prolific of animal and vegetable\nlife: that, in fine, though man's death came by man's sin, yet that\ndeath and sin were none of man's creating: he was only to draw down upon\nhis head a preexistent wo, an ante-toppling rock. Observe then, that\nthese geological phenomena are only illustrations of my meaning: and\nwhether such parables be true or false, the argument remains the same:\nwe never build upon the sand of simile, but only use it here and there\nfor strewing on the floor. Still, I will acknowledge that the\nintroduction of such fossil instances appears to me wisely thrown in as\naffects their antecedent probability, because ignorant comments upon\nscriptural cosmogony have raised the absurdest objections against the\ntruth of scriptural science. There is not a tittle of known geological\nfact, which is not absolutely reconcilable with Genesis and Job. But\nthis is a word by the way: although aimed not without design against one\nof the poor and paltry weak-holds of the infidel.\n\n\n\n\nADAM.\n\n\nRemembering, then, that these are probabilities, and that the whole\ntreatise purports to be nothing but a sketch, and not a finished\npicture, we have suggestively thus thrown out that the material world,\nman's home as man, was likely to have been prepared, as we posteriorly\nknow it to be. Now, what of man's own person, circumstances, and\nindividuality? Was it likely that the world should be stocked at once\nwith many several races, or with one prolific seed? with a specimen of\nevery variety of the genus man, or with the one generic type capable of\nforming those varieties?--Answer. One is by far the likelier in itself,\nbecause one thing must needs be more probable than many things:\nadditionally; Wisdom and Power are always economical, and where one will\nsuit the purpose, superfluities are rejected. That this one seed,\ncovering with its product a various globe under all imaginable\ndifferences of circumstance and climate, should, in the lapse of ages,\ngenerate many species of the genus Man, was antecedently probable. For\nexample, morality, peace and obedience would exercise transforming\npowers: their opposites the like in an opposite way. We can well fancy a\nmild and gentle race, as the Hindoo, to spring from the former\neducationals: and a family with flashing eyes and strongly-visaged\nnatures, as the Malay, from a state of hatred, war, and license. We can\nwell conceive that a tropical sun should carbonize some of that tender\nfabric the skin, adding also swift blood and fierce passions: while an\narctic climate would induce a sluggish, stunted race. And, when to these\nconsiderations we add that of promiscuous unions, we arrive at the just\nlikelihood that the whole family of man, though springing from one root,\nshould, in the course of generations, be what now we see it.\n\nFurther. How should this prolific original, the first man, be created?\nand for a name let us call him Adam; a justly-chosen name enough, as\nalluding to his medium colour, ruddiness. Should he have been cast upon\nthe ground an infant, utterly helpless, requiring miraculous aid and\nguidance at every turn? Should he be originated in boyhood, that hot and\ntumultuous time, when the creature is most rash, and least qualified for\nself-government? or should he be first discerned as an adult, in his\nprime, equal alike to obedience and rule, to moral control and moral\nenergy?\n\nAdd also here; is it probable there would be any needless interval\nplaced to proecreations? or rather, should not such original seed be able\nimmediately to fulfil the blank world call upon him, and as the\ngreatly-teeming human father be found fitted from his birth to propagate\nhis kind? The questions answer themselves.\n\nAgain. Should this first man have been discovered originally surrounded\nwith all the appliances of an after-civilization, clad, and housed, and\nrendered artificial? nor rather, in a noble and naturally royal aspect\nappear on the stage of life as king of the natural creation, sole warder\nof a garden of fruits, with all his food thus readily concocted, and an\neastern climate tempered to his nakedness?\n\nNow, as to the solitariness of this one seed. From what we have already\nmused respecting God's benevolence, it would seem probable that the\nMaker might not see it good that man should be alone. The seed,\noriginally one, proved (as was likely) to resemble its great parent,\nGod, and to be partitionable, or reducible into persons; though with\nreasonable differences as between creature and Creator. Woman--Eve, the\nliving or life-giving--was likely to have sprung out of the composite\nseed, Man, in order to companionship and fit society. Moreover, it were\nexpectable that in the pattern creature, composite man, there should be\ninvolved some apt, mysterious typification of the same creature, after a\nfore-known fall restored, as in its perfect state of reunion with its\nMaker. _A posteriori_, the figurative notion is, that the Redeemed\nfamily, or mystical spouse, is incorporated in her husband, the\nRedeemer: not so much in the idea of marriage, as (taking election into\nview) of a coecreation; as it were rib of rib, and life woven into life,\nnot copulated or conjoined, but immingled in the being. This is a\nmystery most worthy of deep searching; a mystery deserving philosophic\ncare, not less than the more unilluminate enjoyment of humble and\nbelieving Christians. I speak concerning Christ and his church.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FALL.\n\n\nThere is a special fitness in the fact, long since known and now to be\nperceived probable, that if mankind should fail in disobedience, it\nshould rather be through the woman than through the man. Because, the\nman, _qua man_, and the deputed head of all inferior creatures, was\nnearer to his Creator, than the woman; who, _qua woman_, proceeded out\nof man. She was, so to speak, one step further from God, _ab origine_,\nthan man was; therefore, more liable to err and fall away. To my own\nmind, I confess, it appears that nothing is more anteriorly probable\nthan the plain, scriptural story of Adam and Eve: so simple that the\nchild delights in it; so deep that the philosopher lingers there with an\nequal, but more reasonable joy.\n\nFor, let us now come to the probabilities of a temptation; and a fall;\nand what temptation; and how ordered.\n\nThe heavenly intelligences beheld the model-man and model-woman,\nrational beings, and in all points \"very good.\" The Adversary panted for\nthe fray, demanding some test of the obedience of this new, favourite\nrace. And the Lord God was willing that the great controversy, which he\nfore-knew, and for wise purposes allowed, should immediately commence.\nWhere was the use of a delay? If you will reply, To give time to\nstrengthen Adam's moral powers: I rejoin, he was made with more than\nenough of strength infused against any temptation not entering by the\nportal of his will: and against the open door of will neither time nor\nhabits can avail. Moreover, the trial was to be exceedingly simple; no\ndifficult abstinence, for man might freely eat of every thing but one;\nno natural passion tempted; no exertion of intelligence requisite. Adam\nlived in a garden; and his Maker, for proof of reasonable obedience,\nprovides the most easy and obvious test of it--do not eat that apple.\nWas it, in reality, an improbable test; an unsuitable one? Was it not,\nrather, the likeliest in itself, and the fittest as addressed to the\nnew-born, rational animal, which imagination could invent, or an amiable\nfore-knowledge of all things could desire? Had it been to climb some\narduous height without looking back, or on no account to gaze upon the\nsun, how much less apt and easy of obedience! Thus much for the test.\n\nNow, as to the temptation and its ordering. A creature, to be tempted\nfairly, must be tempted by another equal or lower creature; and through\nthe senses. If mere spirit strives with spirit, plus matter, the strife\nis unequal: the latter is clogged; he has to fight in the net of\nRetiarius. But if both are netted, if both are spirit plus matter, (that\nis, material creatures,) there is no unfairness. Therefore, it would\nseem reasonable that the Adversary in person should descend from his\nmere spirituality into some tangible and humbled form. This could not\nwell be man's, nor the semblance of man's: for the first pair would well\nknow that they were all mankind: and, if the Lord God himself was\naccustomed to be seen of them as in a glorified humanity, it would be\nmanifestly a moral incongruity to invest the devil in a similar form. It\nmust, then, be the shape of some other creature; as a lion, or a lamb,\nor--why not a serpent? Is there any improbability here? and not rather\nas apt an avatar of the sinuous and wily rebel, the dangerous,\nfascinating foe, as poetry at least, nay, as any sterner contrivance\ncould invent? The plain fact is, that Reason--given keenness--might have\nguessed this also antecedently a likelihood.\n\nA few words more on other details probable to the temptation. Wonderful\nas it may seem to us with our present experience, in the case of the\nfirst woman it would scarcely excite her astonishment to be accosted in\nhuman phrase by one of the lower creatures; and in no other way could\nthe tempter reach her mind. Much as Milton puts it, Eve sees a beautiful\nsnake, eating, not improbably, of the forbidden apple. Attracted by a\nnatural curiosity, she would draw near, and in a soft sweet voice the\nserpent, _i.e._ Lucifer in his guise, would whisper temptation. It was\nlikely to have been keenly managed. Is it possible, O fair and favoured\nmistress of this beautiful garden, that your Maker has debarred you from\nits very choicest fruit? Only see its potencies for good: I, a poor\nreptile, am instantly thereby endued with knowledge and the privilege of\nspeech. Am I dead for the eating?--ye shall not surely die; but shall\nbecome as gods yourselves; and this your Maker knoweth.\n\nThe marvellous fruit, invested thus with mystery, and tinctured with\nthe secret charm of a thing unreasonably, nay, harmfully, forbidden,\nwould then be allowed silently to plead its own merits. It was good for\nfood: a young creature's first thought. It was pleasant to the eyes:\naddressing a higher sense than mere bodily appetite, than mental\npredilection for form and colour which marks fine breeding among men. It\nwas also to be desired to make one wise; here was the climax, the great\nmoral inducement which an innocent being might well be taken with;\nirrespectively of the one qualification that this wisdom was to be\nplucked in spite of God. Doubtless, it were probable, that had man not\nfallen, the knowledge of good would never have been long withheld: but\nhe chose to reap the crop too soon, and reaped it mixed with tares,\ngood, and evil.\n\nI need not enlarge, in sermon form, upon the theme. It was probable that\nthe weaker creature, Woman, once entrapped, she would have charms enough\nto snare her husband likewise: and the results thus perceived to have\nbeen likely, we have long since known for fact. That a depraved\nknowledge should immediately occasion some sort of clothing to be\ninstituted by the great moral Governor, was likely: and there would be\nnothing near at hand, in fact nothing else suitable, but the skins of\nbeasts. There is also a high probability that some sort of slaying\nshould take place instantly on the fall, by way of reference to the\ncoming sacrifice for sin; and for a type of some imputed righteousness.\nGod covered Man's evil nakedness with the skins of innocent slain\nanimals: even so, Blessed is he whose unrighteousness is forgiven, and\nwhose sin is covered.\n\nWith respect to restoration from any such fall. There seems a remarkable\nprior probability for it, if we take into account the empty places in\nheaven, the vacant starry thrones which sin had caused to be untenanted.\nJust as, in after years, Israel entered into the cities and the gardens\nof the Canaanite and other seven nations, so it was anteriorly likely,\nwould the ransomed race of Men come to be inheritors of the mansions\namong heavenly places, which had been left unoccupied by the fallen host\nof Lucifer. There was a gap to be filled: and probably there would be\nsome better race to fill it.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FLOOD.\n\n\nThemes like those past and others still to come, are so immense, that\neach might fairly ask a volume for its separate elucidation. A few\nseeds, pregnant with thought, are all that we have here space, or time,\nor power to drop beside the world's highway. The grand outlines of our\nrace command our first attention: we cannot stop to think and speak of\nevery less detail. Therefore, now would I carry my companion across the\npatriarchal times at once to the era of the Deluge. Let us speculate, as\nhitherto, antecedently, throwing our minds as it were into some angelic\nprior state.\n\nIf, as we have seen probable, evil (a concretion always, not an\nabstraction) made some perceptible ravages even in the unbounded sphere\nof a heavenly creation, how much more rapid and overwhelming would its\navalanche (once ill-commenced) be seen, when the site of its infliction\nwas a poor band of men and women prisoned on a speck of earth. How\nlikely was it that, in the lapse of no long time, the whole world should\nhave been \"corrupt before God, and filled with wickedness.\" How\nprobable, that taking into account the great duration of pristine human\nlife, the wicked family of man should speedily have festered up into an\nintolerable guiltiness. And was this dread result of the primal curse\nand disobedience to be regarded as the Adversary's triumph? Had this\nAccuser--the Saxon word is Devil--had this Slanderer of God's attribute\nthen really beaten Good? or was not rather all this swarming sin an\nawful vindication to the universe of the great need-be that God\nunceasingly must hold his creature up lest he fall, and that out of Him\nis neither strength nor wisdom? Was Deity, either in Adam's case or\nthis, baffled--nor rather justified? Was it an experiment which had\nreally failed; nor rather one which, by its very seeming failure, proved\nthe point in question, the misery of creatures when separate from God?\nYea, the evil one was being beaten down beneath his very trophies in sad\nTarpeian triumph: through conquest and his children's sins heightening\nhis own misery.\n\nLet us now advert to a few of the anterior probabilities affecting this\nevil earth's catastrophe. It is not competent to us to trench upon such\nulterior views as are contained in the idea of types relatively to\nanti-types. Neither will we take the fanciful or poetical aspect of\ncoming calamity, that earth, befouled with guilt, was likely to be\nwashed clean by water. It is better to ask, as more relevant, in what\nother way more benevolent than drowning could, short of miracle, the\nrace be made extinct? They were all to die in their sins, and swell in\nanother sphere the miserable hosts of Satan. There was no hope for them,\nfor there was no repentance. It was infinitely probable that God's\nlong-suffering had worn out every reasonable effort for their\nrestoration. They were then to die; but how?--in the least painful\nmanner possible. Intestine wars, fevers, famines, a general burning-up\nof earth and all its millions, were any of these preferable sorts of\ndeath to that caused by the gradual rise of water, with hope of life\naccorded still even to the last gurgle? Assuredly, if \"the tender\nmercies of the wicked are cruel,\" the judgments of the Good one are\ntempered well with mercy.\n\nMoreover, in the midst of this universal slaughter there was one good\nseed to be preserved: and, as Heaven never works a miracle where common\ncause will suit the present purpose, it would have been inconsistent to\nhave extirpated the wicked by any such means as must demonstrate the\ngood to have been saved only by super-human agency.\n\nThe considerations of humanity, and of the divine less-intervention, add\nthat of the natural and easy agency of a long-commissioned comet. No\n\"_Deus e machina_\" was needed for this effort: one of His ministers of\nflaming fire was charged to call forth the services of water. This was\nan easy and majestic interference. Ever since man fell--yea, ages before\nit--the omniscient eye of God had foreseen all things that should\nhappen: and his ubiquity had, possibly from The Beginning, sped a comet\non its errant way, which at a calculated period was to serve to wash the\nglobe clean of its corruptions: was to strike the orbit of earth just in\nthe moment of its passage, and disturbing by attraction the fountains of\nthe great deep, was temporarily to raise their level. Was not this a\njust, a sublime, and a likely plan? Was it not a merciful, a perfect,\nand a worthy way? Who should else have buried the carcases on those\nfierce battle-fields, or the mouldering heaps of pestilence and\nfamine?--But, when at Jehovah's summons, heaving to the comet's mass,\nthe pure and mighty sea rises indignant from its bed, by drowning to\ncleanse the foul and mighty land--how easy an engulfing of the corpses;\nhow awful that universal burial; how apt their monumental epitaph\nwritten in water, \"The wicked are like the troubled sea that cannot\nrest;\" how dread the everlasting requiem chanted for the whelmed race by\nthe waves roaring above them: yea, roaring above them still! for in\nthat chaotic hour it seems probable to reason that the land changed\nplace with ocean; thus giving the new family of man a fresh young world\nto live upon.\n\n\n\n\nNOAH.\n\n\nWhen the world, about to grow so wicked, was likely thus to have been\ncleansed, and so renewed, the great experiment of man's possible\nrighteousness was probable to be repeated in another form. We may fancy\nsome high angelic mind to have gone through some such line of thought as\nthis, respecting the battle and combatants. Were those champions,\nLucifer and Adam, really fit to be matched together? Was the tourney\njust; were the weapons equal; was it, after all, a fair fight?--on one\nside, the fallen spirit, mighty still, though fallen, subtlest, most\nunscrupulous, most malicious, exerting every energy to rear a rebel\nkingdom against God; on the other, a new-born, inexperienced, innocent,\nand trustful creature, a poor man vexed with appetites, and as naked for\nabsolute knowledge in his mind as for garments on his body. Was it, in\nthis view of the case, an equal contest? were the weapons of that\nwarfare matched and measured fairly?\n\nSome such objection, we may suppose, might seem to have been admissible,\nas having a show at least of reason: and, after the world was to have\nbeen cleansed of all its creatures in the manner I have mentioned, a new\nchampion is armed for the conflict, totally different in every respect;\nand to reason's view vastly superior.\n\nThis time, the Adam of renewed earth is to be the best and wisest, nay,\nthe only good and wise one of the whole lost family: a man, with the\nexperience of full six hundred years upon his hoary brow, with the\nunspeakable advantage of having walked with God all those long-drawn\ncenturies, a patriarch of twenty generations, recognised as the one\ngreat and faithful witness, the only worshipper and friend of his\nCreator. Could a finer sample be conceived? was not Noah the only spark\nof spiritual \"consolation\" in the midst of earth's dark death? and was\nnot he the best imaginable champion to stand against the wiles of the\ndevil? Verily, reason might have guessed, that if Deity saw fit to renew\nthe fight at all, the representative of man should have been Noah.\n\nBefore we touch upon the immediate fall of this new Adam also, at a time\nwhen God and reason had deserted him, it will be more orderly to allude\nto the circumstances of his preservation in the flood. How, in such a\nhurlyburly of the elements, should the chosen seed survive? No house,\nnor hill-top, no ordinary ship would serve the purpose: still less the\nunreasonable plan of any cavern hermetically sealed, or any aerial\nchariot miraculously lifted up above the lower firmament. To use plain\nand simple words, I can fancy no wiser method than a something between a\nhouse and a diving-bell; a vessel, entirely storm-tight and water-tight,\nwhich nevertheless for necessary air should have an open window at the\ntop: say, one a cubit square. This, properly hooded against deluging\nrain, and supplied with such helps to ventilation as leathern pipes, air\ntunnels and similar appliances, would not be an impracticable method.\nHowever, instead of being under water as a diving-bell, the vessel would\nbe better made to float upon the rising flood, and thus continually\nkeeping its level, would be ready to strike land as the waters assuaged.\n\nNow, as to the size of this ark, this floating caravan, it must needs be\nvery large; and also take a great time in building. For, suffering cause\nand effect to go on without a new creation, it was reasonable to suppose\nthat the man, so launching as for another world on the ocean of\nexistence, would take with him (especially if God's benevolence so\nordered it) all the known appliances of civilized life; as well as a\npair or two of every creature he could collect, to stock withal the\nrenewed earth according to their various excellences in their kinds. The\nlengthy, arduous, and expensive preparation of this mighty ark--a vessel\nwhich must include forests of timber and consume generations in\nbuilding; besides the world-be-known collection of all manner of strange\nanimals for the stranger fancy of a fanatical old man; not to mention\nalso the hoary Preacher's own century of exortations: with how great\nmoral force all this living warning would be calculated to act upon the\nworld of wickedness and doom! Here was the great ante-diluvian\npotentate, Noah, a patriarch of ages, wealthy beyond our\ncalculations--(for how else without a needless succession of miracles\ncould he have built and stocked the ark?)--a man of enormous substance,\ngood report, and exalted station, here was he for a hundred and twenty\nyears engaged among crowds of unbelieving workmen, in constructing a\nmost extravagant ship, which, forsooth, filled with samples of all this\nworld's stores, was to sail with our only good family in search of a\nbetter. Moreover, Noah here declares that our dear old mother-earth is\nto be destroyed for her iniquities by rain and sea: and he exhorts us by\na solid evidence of his own faith at least, if by nothing else, to\nrepent, and turn to him, whom Abel, Seth, and Enoch, as well as this\ngood Noah, represent as our Maker. Would not such sneers and taunts be\nprobable: would they not amply vindicate the coming judgment? Was not\nthe \"long-suffering of God\" likely to have thus been tried \"while the\nark was preparing?\" and when the catastrophe should come, had not that\nevil generation been duly warned against it? On the whole, it would have\nbeen Reason's guess that Noah should be saved as he was; that the ark\nshould have been as we read of it in Genesis; and that the very\nimmensity of its construction should have served for a preaching to\nmankind. As to any idea that the ark is an unreasonable (some have even\nsaid ridiculous) incident to the deluge, it seems to me to have\nfurnished a clear case of antecedent probability.\n\nLastly: Noah's fall was very likely to have happened: not merely in the\ntheological view of the matter, as an illustration of the truth that no\nhuman being can stand fast in righteousness: but from the just\nconsideration that he imported with him the seeds of an impure state of\nsociety, the remembered luxuries of that old world. For instance, among\nthe plants of earth which Noah would have preserved for future insertion\nin the soil, he could not have well forgotten the generous, treacherous\nVine. That to a righteous man, little used to all unhallowed sources of\nexhilaration, this should have been a stepping-stone to a defalcation\nfrom God, was likely. It was probable in itself, and shows the honesty\nas well as the verisimilitude of Scripture to read, that \"Noah began to\nbe a husbandman, and planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and\nwas drunken.\" There was nothing here but what, taking all things into\nconsideration, Reason might have previously guessed. Why then withhold\nthe easier matter of an afterward belief?\n\n\n\n\nBABEL.\n\n\nThis book ought to be read, as mentally it is written, with at the end\nof every sentence one of those _et ceteras_, which the genius of a Coke\ninterpreted so keenly of the genius of a Littleton: for, far more\nremains on each subject to be said, than in any one has been attempted.\n\nLet us pass on to the story of Babel: I can conceive nothing more _a\npriori_ probable than the account we read in Scripture. Briefly consider\nthe matter. A multitude of men, possibly the then whole human family,\nonce more a fallen race, emigrate towards the East, and come to a vast\nplain in the region of Shinar, afterwards Chaldaea. Fertile,\nwell-watered, apt for every mundane purpose, it yet wanted one great\nrequisite. The degenerate race \"put not their trust in God:\" they did\nnot believe but that the world might some day be again destroyed by\nwater: and they required a point of refuge in the possible event of a\nsecond deluge from the broken bounds of ocean and the windows of the\nskies. They had come from the West; more strictly the North-west, a land\nof mountains, as they deemed them, ready-made refuges: and their scheme,\na probable one enough, was to construct some such mountain artificially,\nso that its top might reach the clouds, as did the summit of Ararat.\nThis would serve the twofold purpose of outwitting any further attempt\nto drown them, and of making for themselves a proud name upon the earth.\nSo, the Lord God, in his etherealized human form (having taken counsel\nwith His own divine compeers), coming in the guise wherein He was wont\nto walk with Adam and with Enoch and his other saints of men, \"came down\nand saw the tower:\" truly, He needed not have come, for ubiquity was\nhis, and omniscience; but in the days when God and man were (so to\nspeak) less chronologically divided than as now, and while yet the\ntrial-family was young, it does not seem unlikely that He should. God\nthen, in his aspect of the Head of all mankind, took notice of that\ndangerous and unholy combination: and He made within His Triune Mind the\nwise resolve to break their bond of union. Omniscience had herein a view\nto ulterior consequences benevolent to man, and He knew that it would be\na wise thing for the future world, as well as a discriminative check\nupon the race then living, to confuse the universal language into many\ndiscordant dialects. Was this in any sense an improbable or improper\nmethod of making \"the devices of the wicked to be of none effect, and of\nlaughing to scorn the counsels of the mighty?\" Was it not to have been\nexpected that a fallen race should be disallowed the combinative force\nnecessary to a common language, but that such force should be dissipated\nand diverted for moral usages into many tongues?--There they were, all\nthe chiefs of men congregated to accomplish a vast, ungodly scheme: and\ninterposing Heaven to crush such insane presumption--and withal\nthereafter designing to bless by arranging through such means the future\ninterchange of commerce and the enterprise of nationalities--He, in his\nTrinity, was not unlikely to have said, \"Let us go down, and confound\ntheir language.\" What better mode could have been devised to scatter\nmankind, and so to people the extremities of earth? In order that the\nvarious dialects should crystallize apart, each in its discriminative\nlump, the nucleus of a nation; that thereafter the world might be able\nno longer to unite as one man against its Lord, but by conflicting\ninterests, the product of conflicting languages, might give to good a\nbetter chance of not being altogether overwhelmed; that, though many \"a\nmultitude might go to do evil,\" it should not thenceforward be the whole\nconsenting family of man; but that, here by one and there by one, the\nremembrance of God should be kept extant, and evil no longer acquire an\naccumulated force, by having all the world one nation.\n\n\n\n\nJOB.\n\n\nEvery scriptural incident and every scriptural worthy deserves its own\nparticular discussion: and might easily obtain it. For example; the\nanterior probability that human life in patriarchal times should have\nbeen very much prolonged, was obvious; from consideration of--1, the\nbenevolence of God; 2, the inexperience of man; and 3, the claim so\nyoung a world would hold upon each of its inhabitants: whilst Holy Writ\nitself has prepared an answer to the probable objection, that the years\nwere lunar years, or months; by recording that Arphaxad and Salah and\nEber and Peleg and Reu and Serug and Nahor, descendants of Shem, each\nhad children at the average age of two-and-thirty, and yet the lives of\nall varied in duration from a hundred and fifty years to five hundred.\nAnd many similar credibilities might be alluded to: what shall I say of\nAbraham's sacrifice, of Moses and the burning bush, of Jonah also, and\nElisha, and of the prophets? for the time would fail me to tell how\nprobable and simple in each instance is its deep and marvellous history.\nThere is food for philosophic thought in every page of ancient Jewish\nScripture scarcely less than in those of primitive Christianity: here,\nafter our fashion, we have only touched upon a sample.\n\nThe opening scene to the book of Job has vexed the faith of many very\nneedlessly: to my mind, nothing was more likely to have literally and\nreally happened. It is one of those few places where we get an insight\ninto what is going on elsewhere: it is a lifting off the curtain of\neternity for once, revealing the magnificent simplicities constantly\npresented in the halls of heaven. And I am moved to speak about it\nhere, because I think a plain statement of its sublime probabilities\nwill be acceptable to many: especially if they have been harassed by the\ndoubts of learned men respecting the authorship of that rare history. It\nsignifies nothing who recorded the circumstances and conversations, so\nlong as they were true, and really happened: given power, opportunity,\nand honesty, a life of Dr. Johnson would be just as fair in fact, if\nwritten by Smollett, as by Boswell, or himself. Whether then Job, the\nwealthy prince of Uz, or Abraham, or Moses, or Elisha, or Eliphaz, or\nwhoever else, have placed the words on record, there they stand, true;\nand the whole book in all its points was anteriorly likely to have been\ndecreed a component part of revelation. Without it, there would have\nbeen wanting some evidence of a godly worship among men through the long\nand dreary interval of several hundred years: there would never have\nbeen given for man's help the example of a fortitude, and patience, and\ntrust in God most brilliant; of a faith in the resurrection and\nredeemer, signal and definite beyond all other texts in Jewish\nScripture: as well as of a human knowledge of God in his works beyond\nall modern instance. However, the excellences of that narrative are\nscarcely our theme: we return to the starting-post of its probability,\nespecially with reference to its supernatural commencement. What we have\nshown credible, many pages back, respecting good and evil and the\ndenizens of heaven, finds a remarkable after-proof in the two first\nchapters of Job; and for some such reason, by reference, these two\nchapters were themselves anteriorly to have been expected.\n\nLet us see what happened:\n\n\"There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before\nthe Lord, and Satan came also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan,\nwhence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going\nto and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. And the\nLord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is\nnone like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that\nfeareth God and escheweth evil? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said,\nDoth Job fear God for naught? Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and\nabout his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast\nblessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the\nland. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all he hath, and he will\ncurse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that\nhe hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So\nSatan went forth from the presence of the Lord.\"--[Job 1. 6-13.]\n\nIt is a most stately drama: any paraphrase would spoil its dignity, its\nquiet truth, its unpretending, yet gigantic lineaments. Note: in\nallusion to our views of evil, that Satan also comes among the sons of\nGod: note, the generous dependence placed by a generous Master on his\nservant well-upheld by that Master's own free grace: note, Satan's\nconstant imputation against piety when blessed of God with worldly\nwealth, Doth he serve for naught? I can discern no cause wherefore all\nthis scene should not have truly happened; not as in vision of some holy\nman, but as in fact. Let us read on, before further comment:\n\n\"Again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves\nbefore the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself\nbefore the Lord. And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? And\nSatan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth,\nand from walking up and down in it. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast\nthou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the\nearth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth\nevil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me\nagainst him, to destroy him without cause. And Satan answered the Lord,\nand said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his\nlife. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh,\nand he will curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan,\nBehold, he is in thine hand; but save his life. So Satan went forth from\nthe presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils, from the sole\nof his foot unto his crown.\"\n\nSome such scene, displaying the devil's malice, slandering sneers, and\npermitted power, recommends itself to my mind as antecedently to have\nbeen looked for: in order that we might know from what quarter many of\nlife's evils come; with what aims and ends they are directed; what\nlimits are opposed to our foe; and Who is on our side. We needed some\nsuch insight into the heavenly places; some such hint of what is\ncontinually going on before the Lord's tribunal; we wanted this plain\nand simple setting forth of good and evil in personal encounter, of\ninnocence awhile given up to malice for its chastening and its triumph.\nLo, all this so probable scene is here laid open to us, and many,\nagainst reason, disbelieve it!\n\nNote, in allusion to our after-theme, the _locus_ of heaven, that there\nis some such usual place of periodical gathering. Note, the open\nunchiding loveliness dwelling in the Good One's words, as contrasted\nwith the subtle, slanderous hatred of the Evil. And then the vulgar\nproverb, Skin for skin: this pious Job is so intensely selfish, that let\nhim lose what he may, he heeds it not; he cares for nothing out of his\nown skin. And there are many more such notabilities.\n\nWhy did I produce these passages at length? For their Doric simplicity;\nfor their plain and masculine features; for their obvious truthfulness;\nfor their manifest probability as to fact, and expectability previously\nto it. Why on earth should they be doubted in their literal sense? and\nwere they not more likely to have happened than to have been invented?\nWe have no such geniuses now as this writer must have been, who by the\npure force of imagination could have created that tableau. Milton had\nJob to go to. Simplicity is proof presumptive in favour of the plain\ninspiration of such passages: for the plastic mind which could conceive\nso just a sketch, would never have rested satisfied, without having\npainted and adorned it picturesquely. Such rare flights of fancy are\nalways made the most of.\n\nOne or two thoughts respecting Job's trial. That he should at last give\nway, was only probable: he was, in short, another Adam, and had another\nfall; albeit he wrestled nobly. Worthy was he to be named among God's\nchosen three, \"Noah, Daniel, and Job:\" and worthy that the Lord should\nbless his latter end. This word brings me to the point I wish to touch\non; the great compensation which God gave to Job.\n\nChildren can never be regarded as other than individualities: and\nnotwithstanding Eastern feelings about increase in quantity, its quality\nis, after all, the question for the heart. I mean that many children to\nbe born, is but an inadequate return for many children dying. If a\nfather loses a well-beloved son, it is small recompense of that aching\nvoid that he gets another. For this reason of the affections, and\nbecause I suppose that thinkers have sympathized with me in the\ndifficulty, I wish to say a word about Job's children, lost and found.\nIt will clear away what is to some minds a moral and affectionate\nobjection. Now, this is the state of the case.\n\nThe patriarch is introduced to us as possessing so many camels, and\noxen, and so forth; and ten children. All these are represented to him\nby witnesses, to all appearance credible, as dead; and he mourns for his\ngreat loss accordingly. Would not a merchant feel to all intents and\npurposes a ruined man, if he received a clear intelligence from\ndifferent parts of the world at once that all his ships and warehouses\nhad been destroyed by hurricanes and fire? Faith given, patience\nfollows: and the trial is morally the same, whether the news be true or\nfalse. Remarkably enough, after the calamitous time is past, when the\ngood man of Uz is discerned as rewarded by heaven for his patience by\nthe double of every thing once lost--his children remain the same in\nnumber, ten. It seems to me quite possible that neither camels, &c., nor\nchildren, really had been killed. Satan might have meant it so, and\nschemed it; and the singly-coming messengers believed it all, as also\ndid the well-enduring Job. But the scriptural word does not go to say\nthat these things happened; but that certain emissaries said they\nhappened. I think the devil missed his mark: that the messengers were\nscared by some abortive diabolic efforts; and that, (with a natural\nincrease of camels, &c., meanwhile,) the patriarch's paternal heart was\nmore than compensated at the last, by the restoration of his own dear\nchildren. They were dead, and are alive again; they were lost, and are\nfound. Like Abraham returning from Mount Calvary with Isaac, it was the\nResurrection in a figure.\n\nIf to this view objection is made, that, because the boils of Job were\nreal, therefore, similarly real must be all his other evils; I reply,\nthat in the one temptation, the suffering was to be mental; in the\nother, bodily. In the latter case, positive, personal pain, was the gist\nof the matter: in the former, the heart might be pierced, and the mind\nbe overwhelmed, without the necessity of any such incurable affliction\nas children's deaths amount to. God's mercy may well have allowed the\nevil one to overreach himself; and when the restoration came, how double\nwas the joy of Job over those ten dear children.\n\nAgain, if any one will urge that, in the common view of the case, Job at\nthe last really has twice as many children as before, for that he has\nten old ones in heaven, and ten new ones on earth: I must, in answer,\nthink that explanation as unsatisfactory to us, as the verity of it\nwould have been to Job. Affection, human affection, is not so\nnumerically nor vicariously consoled: and it is, perhaps, worth while\nhere to have thrown out (what I suppose to be) a new view of the case,\nif only to rescue such wealth as children from the infidel's sneer of\nbeing confounded with such wealth as camels. Moreover, such a paternal\nreward was anteriorly more probable.\n\n\n\n\nJOSHUA.\n\n\nHow many of our superficial thinkers have been staggered at the great\nmiracle recorded of Joshua; and how few, even of the deeper sort,\ncomparatively, may have discerned its aptness, its science, and its\nanterior likelihood: \"Sun! stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, moon,\nin the valley of Ajalon.\" Now, consider, for we hope to vindicate even\nthis stupendous event from the charge of improbability.\n\nBaal and Ashtaroth, chief idols of the Canaanites, were names for sun\nand moon. It would manifestly be the object of God and His ambassador to\ncast utter scorn on such idolatry. And what could be more apt than that\nJoshua, commissioned to extirpate the corrupted race, should\nmiraculously be enabled, as it were, to bind their own gods to aid in\nthe destruction of such votaries?\n\nAgain: what should Joshua want with the moon for daylight, to help him\nto rout the foes of God more fiercely? Why not, according to the\nastronomical ignorance of those days, let her sail away, unconsorted by\nthe sun, far beyond the valley of Ajalon? There was a reason, here, of\nsecret, unobtruded science: if the sun stopped, the moon must stop too;\nthat is to say, both apparently: the fact being that the earth must, for\nthe while, rest on its axis. This, I say, is a latent, scientific hint;\nand so, likewise, is the accompanying mention as a fact, that the Lord\nimmediately \"rained great stones out of heaven\" upon the flying host.\nFor would it not be the case that, if the diurnal rotation of earth were\nsuddenly to stop, the impetus of motion would avail to raise high into\nthe air by centrifugal force, and fling down again by gravity, such\nunanchored things as fragments of rock?\n\nOnce more: our objector will here perhaps inquire, Why not then command\nthe earth to stop--and not the sun and moon? if thus probably Joshua or\nhis Inspirer knew better? Answer. Only let a reasonable man consider\nwhat would have been the moral lesson both to Israelite and to\nCanaanite, if the great successor of Moses had called out,\nincomprehensibly to all, \"Earth, stand thou still on thine axis;\"--and\nlo! as if in utter defiance of such presumption, and to vindicate openly\nthe heathen gods against the Jewish, the very sun and moon in heaven\nstopped, and glared on the offender. I question whether such a noon-day\nmiracle might not have perverted to idolatry the whole believing host:\nand almost reasonably too. The strictly philosophical terms would have\nentirely nullified the whole moral influence. God in his word never\nsuffers science to hinder the progress of truth: a worldly philosophy\ndoes this almost in every instance, darkening knowledge with a cloud of\nwords: but the science of the Bible is usually concealed in some\nneighbouring hint quite handy to the record of the phenomena expressed\nin ordinary language. In fact, for all common purposes, no astronomer\nfinds fault with such phrases as the moon rising, or the sun setting: he\nspeaks according to the appearance, though he knows perfectly well that\nthe earth is the cause of it, and not the sun or moon. Carry this out in\nJoshua's case.\n\nOn the whole, the miracle was very plain, very comprehensible, and very\nprobable. It had good cause: for Canaan felt more confidence in the\nprotection of his great and glorious Baal, than stiff-necked Judah in\nhis barely-seen divinity: and surely it was wise to vindicate the true\nbut invisible God by the humiliation of the false and far-seen idol.\nThis would constitute to all nations the quickly-rumoured proof that\nJehovah of the Israelites was God in heaven above as well as on the\nearth beneath. And, considering the peculiar idolatries of Canaan, it\nseems to me that no miracle could have been better placed and better\ntimed--in other words, anteriorly more probable--than the command of\nobedience to the sun and to the moon. I suppose that few persons who\nread this book will be unaware, that the circumstance is alluded to as\nwell in that honest heathen, old Herodotus, as in the learned Jew\nJosephus. The volumes are not near me for reference to quotations: but\nsuch is fact: it will be found in Herodotus, about the middle of\nEuterpe, connected with an allusion to the analogous case of Hezekiah.\n\nNo miracles, on the whole (to take one after-view of the matter), could\nhave been better tested: for two armies (not to mention all surrounding\ncountries) must have seen it plainly and clearly: if then it had never\noccurred, what a very needless exposure of the falsity of the Jewish\nScriptures! These were open, published writings, accessible to all:\nCyrus and Darius and Alexander read them, and Ethiopian eunuchs;\nParthians, Medes, and Elamites, with all other nations of the earth, had\nfree access to those records. Only imagine if some recent history of\nEngland, Adolphus's, or Stebbing's, contained an account of a certain\nday in George the Fourth's reign having had twenty-four hour's daylight\ninstead of the usual admixture; could the intolerable falsehood last a\nminute? Such a placard would be torn away from the records of the land\nthe moment a rash hand had fixed it there. But, if the matter were\nfact, how could any historian neglect it?--In one sense, the very\nimprobability of such a marvel being recorded, argues the probability of\nit having actually occurred.\n\nMuch more might here be added: but our errand is accomplished, if any\nstumbling-block had been thus easily removed from some erring thinker's\npath. Surely, we have given him some reason for faith's due acceptance\nof Joshua's miracle.\n\n\n\n\nTHE INCARNATION.\n\n\nIn touching some of the probabilities of our blessed Lord's career, it\nwould be difficult to introduce and illustrate the subject better, than\nby the following anecdote. Whence it is derived, has escaped my memory;\nbut I have a floating notion that it is told of Socrates in Xenophon or\nPlato. At any rate, by way of giving fixity thereto and picturesqueness,\nlet us here report the story as of the Athenian Solomon:\n\nSurrounded by his pupils, the great heathen Reasoner was being\nquestioned and answering questions: in particular respecting the\nprobability that the universal God would be revealed to his creatures.\n\"What a glorious King would he appear!\" said one, possibly the brilliant\nAlcibiades: \"What a form of surpassing beauty!\" said another, not\nunlikely the softer Crito. \"Not so, my children,\" answered Socrates.\n\"Kings and the beautiful are few, and the God, if he came on earth as an\nexemplar, would in shape and station be like the greater number.\"\n\"Indeed, Master? then how should he fail of being made a King of men,\nfor his goodness, and his majesty, and wisdom?\" \"Alas! my children,\" was\npure Reason's just rejoinder, \"[Greek: oi pleiones kakoi], most men are\nso wicked that they would hate his purity, despise his wisdom, and as\nfor his majesty, they could not truly see it. They might indeed admire\nfor a time, but thereafter (if the God allowed it), they would even hunt\nand persecute and kill him.\" \"Kill him!\" exclaimed the eager group of\nlisteners; \"kill Him? how should they, how could they, how dare they\nkill God?\" \"I did not say, kill God,\" would have been wise Socrates's\nreply, \"for God existeth ever: but men in enmity and envy might even be\nallowed to kill that human form wherein God walked for an ensample. That\nthey could, were God's humility: that they should, were their own\nmalice: that they dared, were their own grievous sin and peril of\ndestruction. Yea,\" went on the keen-eyed sage, \"men would slay him by\nsome disgraceful death, some lingering, open, and cruel death, even such\nas the death of slaves!\"--Now slaves, when convicted of capital crime,\nwere always crucified.\n\nWhatever be thought of the genuineness of the anecdote, its uses are the\nsame to us. Reason might have arrived at the salient points of Christ's\ncareer, and at His crucifixion!\n\nI will add another topic: How should the God on earth arrive there? We\nhave shown that His form would probably be such as man's; but was he to\ndescend bodily from the atmosphere at the age of full-grown perfection,\nor to rise up out of the ground with earthquakes and fire, or to appear\non a sudden in the midst of the market-place, or to come with legions of\nhis heavenly host to visit his Temple? There was a wiser way than these,\nmore reasonable, probable, and useful. Man required an exemplar for\nevery stage of his existence up to the perfection of his frame. The\ninfant, and the child, and the youth, would all desire the human-God to\nunderstand their eras; they would all, if generous and such as he would\nlove, long to feel that He has sympathy with them in every early trial,\nas in every later grief. Moreover, the God coming down with supernatural\nglories or terrors would be a needless expense of ostentatious power.\nHe, whose advent is intended for the encouragement of men to exercise\ntheir reason and their conscience; whose exhortation is \"he that hath\nears to hear, let him hear;\" that pure Being, who is the chief preacher\nof Humility, and the great teacher of man's responsible\ncondition--surely, he would hardly come in any way astoundingly\nmiraculous, addressing his advent not to faith, but to sight, and\nchallenging the impossibility of unbelief by a galaxy of spiritual\nwonders. Yet, if He is to come at all--and a word or two of this\nhereafter--it must be either in some such strange way; or in the usual\nhuman way; or in a just admixture of both. As the first is needlessly\noverwhelming to the responsible state of man, so the second is\nneedlessly derogatory to the pure essence of God; and the third idea\nwould seem to be most probable. Let us guess it out. Why should not this\nhighest Object of faith and this lowest Subject of obedience be born,\nseemingly by human means, but really by divine? Why should there not be\nfound some unspotted holy virgin, betrothed to a just man and soon to be\nhis wife, who, by the creative power of Divinity, should miraculously\nconceive the shape divine, which God himself resolved to dwell in? Why\nshould she not come of a lineage and family which for centuries before\nhad held such expectation? Why should not the just man, her affianced,\nwho had never known her yet, being warned of God in a dream of this\nstrange, immaculate conception, \"fear not to take unto him Mary his\nwife,\" lest the unbelieving world should breathe slander on her purity,\nalbeit he should really know her not until after the Holy Birth. There\nis nothing unreasonable here; every step is previously credible: and\ninvention's self would be puzzled to devise a better scheme. The\nVirgin-born would thus be a link between God and man, the great\nMediator: his natures would fulfil every condition required of their\ndouble and their intimate conjunction. He would have arrived at humanity\nwithout its gross beginnings, and have veiled his Godhead for a while in\na pure though mortal tenement. He would have participated in all the\ntenderness of woman's nature, and thus have reached the keenest\nsensibilities of men.\n\nThemes such as these are inexhaustible: and I am perpetually conscious\nof so much left unsaid, that at every section I seem to have said next\nto nothing. Nevertheless, let it go; the good seed yet shall germinate.\n\"Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou shall find it after many\ndays.\"\n\nIt may to some minds be a desideratum, to allude to the anterior\nprobability that God should come in the flesh. Much of this has been\nanticipated under the head of Visible Deity and elsewhere; as this\ntreatise is so short, one may reasonably expect every reader to take it\nin regular course. For additional considerations: the Benevolent Maker\nwould hardly leave his creatures to perish, without one word of warning\nor one gleam of knowledge. The question of the Bible is considered\nfurther on: but exclusively of written rules and dogmas, it was likely\nthat Our Father should commission chosen servants of his own, orally to\nteach and admonish; because it would be in accordance with man's\nreasonable nature, that he should best and easiest learn from the\nteaching his brethren. So then, after all lesser ambassadors had failed,\nit was to be expected that He should send the highest one of all,\nsaying, \"They will reverence my Son.\" We know that this really did occur\nby innumerable proofs, and wonderful signs posterior: and now, after the\nevent, we discern it to have been anteriorly probable.\n\nIt was also probable in another light. This world is a world of\nincarnations; nothing has a real and potential existence, which is not\nembodied in some form. A theory is nothing; if no personal philosopher,\nno sect, or school of learners, takes it up. An opinion is mere air;\nwithout the multitude to give it all the force of a mighty wind. An\nidea is mere spiritual light; if unclad in deeds, or in words written or\nspoken. So, also, of the Godhead: He would be like all these. He would\npervade words spoken, as by prophets or preachers: He would include\nwords written, as in the Bible: He would influence crowds with\nspirit-stirring sentiments: He would embody the theory of all things in\none simple, philosophic form. As this material world is constituted, God\ncould not reveal himself at all, excepting by the aid of matter. I mean;\neven granting that He spiritually inspired a prophet, still the man was\nnecessary: he becomes an inspired man; not mere inspiration. So, also,\nof a book; which is the written labour of inspired men. There is no\ndoing without the Humanity of God, so far as this world is concerned,\nany more than His Deity can be dispensed with, regarding the worlds\nbeyond worlds, and the ages of ages, and the dread for ever and ever.\n\n\n\n\nMAHOMETANISM.\n\n\nIt seems expedient that, in one or two instances, I should attempt the\nillustration of this rule of probability in matters beyond the Bible. As\nvery fair ones, take Mahometanism and Romanism. And first of the former.\n\nAt the commencement of the seventh century, or a little previously to\nthat era, we know that a fierce religion sprang up, promulgated by a\nfalse prophet. I wish briefly to show that this was antecedently to have\nbeen expected.\n\nIn a moral point of view, the Christian world, torn by all manner of\nschisms, and polluted by all sorts of heresies, had earned for the human\nrace, whether accepting the gospel or refusing it, some signal and\nextensive punishment at the hands of Him, who is the Great Retributor as\nwell as the Munificent Rewarder. In a physical point of view, the\ncivilized kingdoms of the earth had become stagnant, arguing that\ncorrupt and poisonous calm which is the herald of a coming tempest. The\nheat of a true religion had cooled down into lukewarm disputations about\nnothings, scholastical and casuistic figments; whilst at the same time\nthe prevalence of peaceful doctrines had amalgamated all classes into a\nluxurious indolence. Passionate Man is not to be so satisfied; and the\ntime was fully come for the rise of some fierce spirit, who should\nchange the tinsel theology of the crucifix for the iron religion of the\nsword: who should blow in the ears of the slumbering West the shrill\nwar-blast of Eastern fervencies; who should exchange the dull rewards of\ncanonization due to penance, or an after-life voluntary humiliation\nunder pseudo-saints and angels, for the human and comprehensible joys of\nanimal appetite and military glory: who should enlist under his banner\nall the frantic zeal, all the pent-up licentiousness, all the\nheart-burning hatreds of mankind, stifled either by a positive\nbarbarism, or the incense-laden cloud of a scarcely-masked idolatry.\n\nThus, and then, was likely to arise a bold and self-confiding hero,\nleaning on his own sword: a man of dark sentences, who, by judiciously\npilfering from this quarter and from that shreds of truth to jewel his\nblack vestments of error, and by openly proclaiming that Oneness of the\nobject of all worship which besotted Christendom had then, from undue\nreverence to saints and martyrs, virgins and archangels, well nigh\nforgotten; a man who, by pandering to human passions and setting wide as\nvirtue's avenue the flower-tricked gates of vice; should thus, like\nLucifer before him, in a comet-like career of victory, sweep the\nstartled firmament of earth, and drag to his erratic orbit the stars of\nheaven from their courses.\n\nMahomet; his humble beginnings; his iron perseverance under early\nprobable checks; his blind, yet not all unsublime, dependence on\nfatality; his ruthless, yet not all undeserved, infliction of fire and\nsword upon the cowering coward race that filled the western\nworld;--these, and all whatever else besides attended his train of\ntriumphs, and all whatever besides has lasted among Moors, and Arabs,\nand Turks, and Asiatics, even to this our day--constitute to a thinking\nmind (and it seems not without cause) another antecedent probability.\nLet the scoffer about Mahomet's success, and the admirer of his hotchpot\nKoran; let him to whom it is a stumbling-block that error (if indeed,\nquoth he, it be more erroneous than what Christendom counts truth)\nshould have had such free course and been glorified, while so-called\nTruth, _pede claudo_, has limped on even as now cautiously and\ningloriously through the well-suspicious world; let him who thinks he\nsees in Mahomet's success an answer to the foolish argument of some, who\ntest the truth of Christianity by its Gentile triumphs; let him ponder\nthese things. Reason, the God of his idolatry, might, with an\narchangel's ken, have prophesied some Mahomet's career: and, so far from\nsuch being in the nature of any objection to Faith, the idea thus thrown\nout, well-mused upon, will be seen to lend Faith an aid in the way of\nprevious likelihood.\n\n\"There is one God, and Mahomet is his prophet!\" How admirably calculated\nsuch a war-cry would be for the circumstances of the seventh century.\nThe simple sublimity of Oneness, as opposed to school-theology and\ncatholic demons: the glitter of barbaric pomp, instead of tame\nobservances: the flashing scimetar of ambition to supersede the cross: a\nturban aigretted with jewels for the twisted wreath of thorns. As human\nnature is, and especially in that time was, nothing was more expectable\n(even if prophetic records had not taught it), than the rise and\nprogress of that great False Prophet, whose waving crescent even now\nblights the third part of earth.\n\n\n\n\nROMANISM.\n\n\nWe all know how easy it is to prophesy after the event: but it would be\nuncandid and untrue to confound this remark with another, cousin-germane\nto it; to wit: how easy it is to discern of any event, after it has\nhappened, whether or not it were antecedently likely. When the race is\nover, and the best horse has won (or by clever jockey-management, the\nworst), how obviously could any gentleman on the turf, now in possession\nof particulars, have seen the event to have been so probable, that he\nwould have staked all upon its issue.\n\nCarry out this familiar idea; which, as human nature goes, is none the\nweaker as to illustration, because it is built upon the rule \"_parvis\ncomponere magna_.\" Let us sketch a line or two of that great\nfore-shadowing cartoon, the probabilities of Romanism.\n\nThat our blessed Master, even in His state as man, beheld its evil\ncharacteristics looming on the future, seems likely not alone from both\nHis human keenness and His divine omniscience, but from here and there a\nhint dropped in his biography. Why should He, on several occasions, have\nseemed, I will say with some apparent sharpness, to have rebuked His\nvirgin mother.--\"Woman, what have I to do with thee?\"--\"Who are my\nmother and my brethren?\"--\"Yea--More blessed than the womb which bare\nme, and the paps that I have sucked, is the humblest of my true\ndisciples.\" Let no one misunderstand me: full well I know the just\nexplanations which palliate such passages; and the love stronger than\ndeath which beat in that Filial heart. But, take the phrases as they\nstand; and do they not in reason constitute some warning and some\nprophecy that men should idolize the mother? Nothing, in fact, was more\nlikely than that a just human reverence to the most favoured among women\nshould have increased into her admiring worship: until the humble and\nholy Mary, with the sword of human anguish at her heart, should become\nexaggerated and idealized into Mother of God--instead of Jesus's human\nmatrix, Queen of heaven, instead of a ransomed soul herself, the joy of\nangels--in lieu of their lowly fellow-worshipper, and the Rapture of the\nblessed--thus dethroning the Almighty.\n\nTake a second instance: why should Peter, the most loving, most\ngenerous, most devoted of them all, have been singled out from among the\ntwelve--with a \"Get thee behind me, Satan?\"--it really had a harsh\nappearance; if it were not that, prophetically speaking, and not\npersonally, he was set in the same category with Judas, the \"one who was\na devil.\" I know the glosses, and the contexts, and the whole amount of\nit. Folios have been written, and may be written again, to disprove the\ntext; but the more words, the less sense: it stands, a record graven in\nthe Rock; that same Petra, whereon, as firm and faithful found, our Lord\nJesus built his early Church: it stands, a mark indelibly burnt into\nthat hand, to whom were intrusted, not more specially than to any other\nof the saintly sent, the keys of the kingdom of heaven: it stands, along\nwith the same Peter's deep and terrible apostacy, a living witness\nagainst some future Church, who should set up this same Peter as the\nJupiter of their Pantheon: who should positively be idolizing now an\nimage christened Peter, which did duty two thousand years ago as a\nstatue of Libyan Jove! But even this glaring compromise was a matter\nprobable, with the data of human ambitions, and a rotten Christianity.\n\nExamples such as these might well be multiplied: bear with a word or two\nmore, remembering always that the half is not said which might be said\nin proof; nor in answering the heap of frivolous objections.\n\nWhy, unless relics and pseudo-sacred clothes were to be prophetically\nhumbled into their own mere dust and nothing-worthiness, why should the\nrude Roman soldiery have been suffered to cast lots for that vestment,\nwhich, if ever spiritual holiness could have been infused into mere\nmatter, must indeed have remained a relic worthy of undoubted worship?\nIt was warm with the Animal heat of the Man inhabited by God: it was\nhalf worn out in the service of His humble travels, and had even, on\nmany occasions, been the road by which virtue had gone out; not of it,\nbut of Him. What! was this wonderful robe to work no miracles? was it\nnot to be regarded as a sort of outpost of the being who was Human-God?\nHad it no essential sacredness, no _noli-me-tangere_ quality of shining\naway the gambler's covetous glance, of withering his rude and venturous\nhand, or of poisoning, like some Nessus' shirt, the lewd ruffian who\nmight soon thereafter wear it? Not in the least. This woven web, to\nwhich a corrupted state of feeling on religion would have raised\ncathedrals as its palaces, with singing men and singing women, and\nsinging eunuchs too, to celebrate its virtues; this coarse cloth of some\npoor weaver's, working down by the sea of Galilee or in some lane of\nZion, was still to remain, and be a mere unglorified, economical, useful\ngarment. Far from testifying to its own internal mightiness, it probably\nwas soon sold by the fortunate Roman die-thrower to a second-hand shop\nof the Jewish metropolis; and so descended from beggar to beggar till it\nwas clean worn out. We never hear that, however easy of access so\ninestimable relic might then have been considered, any one of the\nnumerous disciples, in the fervour of their earliest zeal, threw away\none thought for its redemption. Is it not strange that no St. Helena was\nat hand to conserve such a desirable invention? Why is there no St.\nVestment to keep in countenance a St. Sepulchre and a St. Cross? The\npoor cloth, in primitive times, really was despised. We know well enough\nwhat happened afterwards about handkerchiefs imbued with miraculous\nproperties from holy Paul's body for the nonce: but this is an inferior\nquestion, and the matter was temporary; the superior case is proved, and\nbesides the rule _omne majus continet in se minus_ there are differences\nquite intelligible between the cases, whereabout our time would be less\nprofitably employed than in passing on and leaving them unquestioned.\nSuffice it to say, that \"God worked those special miracles,\" and not the\nunconscious \"handkerchiefs or aprons.\" \"Te Deum laudamus!\" is\nProtestantism's cry; \"Sudaria laudemus!\" would swell the Papal choirs.\n\nLet such considerations as these then are in sample serve to show how\nevidently one might prove from anterior circumstances, (and the canon of\nScripture is an anterior circumstance,) the probability of the rise and\nprogress of the Roman heresies. And if any one should ask, how was such\na system more likely to arise under a Gentile rather than a Jewish\ntheocracy? why was a St. Paul, or a St. Peter, or a St. Dunstan, or a\nSt. Gengulphus, more previously expectable than a St. Abraham, a St.\nDavid, a St. Elisha, or a St. Gehazi? I answer, from the idea of\nidolatry, so adapted to the Gentile mind, and so abhorrent from the\nJewish. Martyred Abel, however well respected, has never reached the\nhonours of a niche beside the altar. Jephtha's daughter, for all her\nmourned virginity, was never paraded, (that I wot of,) for any other\nthan a much-to-be-lamented damsel. Who ever asked, in those old times,\nthe mediation of St. Enoch? Where were the offerings, in jewels or in\ngold, to propitiate that undoubted man of God and denizen of heaven, St.\nMoses? what prows, in wax, of vessels saved from shipwreck, hung about\nthe dripping fane of Jonah? and where was, in the olden time, that\nwretched and insensate being, calling himself rational and godly, who\nhad ventured to solicit the good services of Isaiah as his intercessor,\nor to plead the merits of St. Ezekiel as the make-weight for his sins?\n\nIt was just this, and reasonably to have been expected; for when the Jew\nbrought in his religion, he demolished every false god, broke their\nimages, slew their priests, and burnt their groves with fire. But, when\na worldly Christianity came to be in vogue, when emperors adorned their\nbanners with the cross, and the poor fishermen of Galilee, (in their\nportly representatives,) came to be encrusted with gems, and rustling\nwith seric silk; then was made that fatal compromise; then it was likely\nto have been made, which has lasted even until now: a compromise which,\nnewly baptizing the damned idols of the heathen, keeps yet St. Bacchus\nand St. Venus, St. Mars and St. Apollo, perched in sobered robes upon\nthe so-called Christian altar; which yet pays divine honours to an\nancyle or a rusty nail; to the black stones at Delphi, or the\ngold-shrined bones at Aix; which yet sanctifies the chickens of the\ncapitol, or the cock that startled Peter; which yet lets a wealthy\nsinner, by his gold, bribe the winking Pythoness, or buy dispensing\nclauses from \"the Lord our God, the Pope.\"\n\nThere is yet a swarm of other notions pressing on the mind, which tend\nto prove that Popery might have been anticipated. Take this view. The\nreligion of Christ is holy, self-denying; not of this world's praise,\nand ending with the terrible sanction of eternity for good or evil: it\nsets up God alone supreme, and cuts down creature-merit to a point\nperpetually diminishing; for the longer he does well, the more he owes\nto the grace which enabled him to do it.\n\nNow, man's nature is, as we know, diametrically opposite to all this:\nand unable to escape from the conviction of Christian truth in some\nsense, he would bend his shrewd invention to the attempt of warping\nthat stern truth to shapes more consistent with his idiosyncrasies. A\nreligious plan might be expected, which, in lieu of a difficult, holy\nspirituality, should exact easy, mere observances; to say a thousand\nPaters with the tongue, instead of one \"Our Father,\" from the heart; to\nexact genuflections by the score, but not a single prostration of the\nspirit; to write the cross in water on the forehead often-times, but\nnever once to bear its mystic weight upon the shoulder. In spite of\nself-denial, cleverly kept in sight by means of eggs, and pulse, and\nhair-cloth, to pamper the deluded flesh with many a carnal holiday; in\ncontravention of a kingdom not of this world, boldly to usurp the\ntemporal dominion of it all: instead of the overwhelming\nincomprehensibility of an eternal doom, to comfort the worst with false\nassurance of a purgatory longer or shorter; that after all, vice may be\nburnt out; and who knows but that gold, buying up the prayers and\nsuperfluous righteousness of others, may not make the fiery ordeal an\neasy one? In lieu of a God brought near to his creatures, infinite\npurity in contact with the grossest sin, as the good Physician loveth;\nhow sage it seemed to stock the immeasurable distance with intermediate\nnumia, cycle on epicycle, arc on arc, priest and bishop and pope, and\nmartyr, and virgin, and saint, and angel, all in their stations, at due\ninterval soliciting God to be (as if His blessed Majesty were not so of\nHimself!) the sinner's friend. How comfortable this to man's sweet\nestimation of his own petty penances; how glorifying to those \"filthy\nrags,\" his so-called righteousness: how apt to build up the hierarchist\npower; how seemingly analogous with man's experience here, where clerks\nlay the case before commissioners, and commissioners before the\ngovernment, and the government before the sovereign.\n\nAll this was entirely expectable: and I can conceive that a deep\nReasoner among the first apostles, even without such supernal light as\n\"the Spirit speaking expressly,\" might have so calculated on the\nprobabilities to come, as to have written, long ago, words akin to\nthese: \"In the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving\nheed to seductive doctrines, and fanciful notions about intermediate\ndeities, ([Greek: daimonion],) perverting truth by hypocritical\ndepartures from it, searing conscience against its own cravings after\nspiritual holiness, forbidding marriage, (to invent another virtue,) and\ncommanding abstinence from God's good gifts, as a means of building up a\ncreature-merit by voluntary humiliation.\" At the likelihood that such\n\"profane and old wives' fables\" should thereafter have arisen, might\nPaul without a miracle have possibly arrived.\n\nYet again: take another view. The Religion of Christ, though intended\nto be universal in some better era of this groaning earth, was, until\nthat era cometh, meant and contrived for any thing rather than a\nCatholicity. True, the Church is so far Catholic that it numbers of its\nblessed company men of every clime and every age, from righteous Abel\ndown to the last dear babe christened yester-morning; true, the\ncommission is \"to all nations, teaching them:\" but, what mean the\nsimultaneous and easily reconciled expressions--come out from among\nthem, little flock, gathered out of the Gentiles, a peculiar people, a\nchurch militant, and not triumphant, here on earth? Thus shortly of a\nword much misinterpreted: let us now see what the Romanist does, what,\n(on human principles,) he would be probable to do, with this\ndiscriminating religion. He, chiefly for temporal gains, would make it\nas expansive as possible: there should be room at that table for every\nguest, whether wedding-garmented or not; there would be sauces in that\npoisonous feast, fitted to every palate. For the cold, ascetical mind, a\ncell and a scourge, and a record kept of starving fancies as calling\nthem ecstatic visions vouchsafed by some old Stylite to bless his\nfavoured worshipper; for the painted demirep of fashionable life, there\nwould be a pretty pocket-idol, and the snug confessional well tenanted\nby a not unsympathizing father; for the pure girl, blighted in her\nheart's first love, the papist would afford that seemingly merciful\nrefuge, that calm and musical and gentle place, the irrevocable nunnery;\na place, for all its calmness, and its music, and its gentle\nreputations, soon to be abhorred of that poor child as a living tomb,\nthe extinguisher of all life's aims, all its duties, uses and delights:\nfor the bandit, a tythe of the traveller's gold would avail to pay away\nthe murder, and earn for him a heap of merits kept within the cash-box:\nthe educated, high-born and finely-moulded mind might be well amused\nwith architecture, painting, carving, sweet odours, and the most\nwondrous music that has ever cheated man, even while he offers up his\neasy adorations, and departs, equally complacent at the choral remedies\nas at the priestly absolution; while, for those good few, the truly\npious and enlightened children of Rome, who mourn the corruptions of\ntheir church, and explain away, with trembling tongue, her obvious\nerrors and idolatries, for these the wily scheme, so probable, devised\nan undoubted mass of truth to be left among the rubbish. True doctrines,\njustly held by true martyrs and true saints, holy men of God who have\ndied in that communion; ordinances and an existence which creep up,\n(heedless of corruption though,) step by step, through past antiquity,\nto the very feet of the Founder; keen casuists, competent to prove any\npoint of conscience or objection, and that indisputably, for they climax\nall by the high authority of Popes and councils that cannot be deceived:\npious treatises and manuals, verily of flaming heat, for they mingle the\nyearnings of a constrained celibacy with the fervencies of worship and\nthe cravings after God. Yes, there is meat here for every human mouth;\nonly that, alas for men! the meat is that which perisheth, and not\nendureth unto everlasting life. Rome, thou wert sagely schemed; and if\nLucifer devised thee not for the various appetencies of poor,\ndeceivable, Catholic Man, verily it were pity, for thou art worthy of\nhis handiwork. All things to all men, in any sense but the right,\nsignifies nothing to anybody: in the sense of falsehoods, take the\nformer for thy motto; in that of single truth, in its intensity, the\nlatter.\n\nLet not then the accident--the probable accident--of the Italian\nsuperstition place any hindrance in the way of one whose mind is all at\nsea because of its existence. What, O man with a soul, is all the world\nelse to thee? Christianity, whatever be its broad way of pretences, is\nbut in reality a narrow path: be satisfied with the day of small things,\nstagger not at the inconsistencies, conflicting words, and hateful\nstrifes of those who say they are Christians, but \"are not, but are of\nthe synagogue of Satan.\" Judge truth, neither by her foes nor by her\nfriends but by herself. There was one who said (and I never heard that\nany writer, from Julian to Hobbes, ever disputed his human truth or\nwisdom) \"Needs must that offences come; but wo be to that man by whom\nthe offence cometh. If they come, be not shaken in faith: lo, I have\ntold you before. And if others fall away, or do ought else than my\nbidding, what is that to thee? follow thou ME.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE BIBLE.\n\n\nWhilst I attempt to show, as now I desire to do, that the Bible should\nbe just the book it is, from considerations of anterior probability, I\nmust expand the subject a little; dividing it, first, into the\nlikelihood of a revelation at all; and secondly, into that of its\nexpectable form and character.\n\nThe first likelihood has its birth in the just Benevolence of our\nheavenly Father, who without dispute never leaves his rational creatures\nunaided by some sort of guiding light, some manifestation of himself so\nneedful to their happiness, some sure word of consolation in sorrow, or\nof brighter hope in persecution. That it must have been thus an _a\npriori_ probability, has been all along proved by the innumerable\npretences of the kind so constant up and down the world: no nation ever\nexisted in any age or country, whose seers and wise men of whatever name\nhave not been believed to hold commerce with the Godhead. We may judge\nfrom this, how probable it must ever have been held. The Sages of old\nGreece were sure of it from reason: and not less sure from accepted\nsuperstition those who reverenced the Brahmin, or the priest of\nHeliopolis, or the medicine-man among the Rocky Mountains, or the Llama\nof old Mexico. I know that our ignorance of some among the most\nbrutalized species of mankind, as the Bushmen in Caffraria, and the\ntribes of New South Wales, has failed to find among their rites any\nthing akin to religion: but what may we not yet have to learn of good\neven about such poor outcasts? how shall we prove this negative? For\naught we know, their superstitions at the heart may be as deep and as\ndeceitful as in others; and, even on the contrary side, the exception\nproves the rule: the rule that every people concluded a revelation so\nlikely, that they have one and all contrived it for themselves.\n\nThus shortly of the first: and now, secondly, how should God reveal\nhimself to men? In such times as those when the world was yet young, and\nthe Church concentrated in a family or an individual, it would probably\nbe by an immediate oral teaching; the Lord would speak with Adam; He\nwould walk with Enoch; He would, in some pure ethereal garb, talk with\nAbraham, as friend to friend. And thereafter, as men grew, and\nworshippers were multiplied, He would give some favoured servant a\ncommission to be His ambassador: He would say to an Ezekiel, \"Go unto\nthe house of Israel, and speak my words to them:\" He would bid a\nJeremiah \"Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words\nthat I have spoken to thee:\" He would give Daniel a deep vision, not to\nbe interpreted for ages, \"Shut up the words, and seal the book even to\nthe time of the end:\" He would make Moses grave His precepts in the\nrock, and Job record his trials with a pen of iron. For a family, the\nBeatic Vision was enough: for a congregated nation, as once at Sinai,\noral proclamations: for one generation or two around the world, the zeal\nand eloquence of some great \"multitude of preachers:\" but, indubitably,\nif God willed to bless the universal race, and drop the honey of his\nwords distilling down the hour-glass of Time from generation to\ngeneration even to the latter days, there was no plan more probable,\nnone more feasible, than the pen of a ready writer.\n\nFurther: and which concerns our argument: what were likely to be the\ncharacteristic marks of such a revelation? Exclusively of a pervading\nholiness, and wisdom, and sublimity, which could not be dispensed with,\nand in some sort should be worthy of the God; there would be, it was\nprobable, frequent evidences of man's infirmity, corrupting all he\ntoucheth. The Almighty works no miracles for little cause: one miracle\nalone need be current throughout Scripture: to wit, that which preserves\nit clean and safe from every perilous error. But, in the succession of a\nthousand scribes each copying from the other, needs must that the tired\nhand and misty eye would occasionally misplace a letter: this was no\nnodus worthy of a God's descent to dissipate by miracle.\n\nAgain: the original prophets themselves were men of various characters\nand times and tribes. God addresses men through their reason; he bound\nnot down a seer \"with bit and bridle, like the horse that has no\nunderstanding\"--but spoke as to a rational being--\"What seest thou?\"\n\"Hear my words;\"--\"Give ear unto my speech.\" Was it not then likely that\nthe previous mode of thought and providential education in each holy man\nof God should mingle irresistibly with his inspired teaching? Should not\nthe herdsman of Tehoa plead in pastoral phrase, and the royal son of\nAmoz denounce with strong authority? Should not David whilst a shepherd\npraise God among his flocks, and when a king, cry \"Give the King thy\njudgments?\" The Bible is full of this human individuality; and nothing\ncould be thought as humanly more probable: but we must, with this\ndiversity, connect the other probability also, that which should show\nthe work to be divine; which would prove (as is literally the case)\nthat, in spite of all such natural variety, all such unbiassed freedom\nboth of thought and speech, there pervades the whole mass a oneness, a\nmarvellous consistency, which would be likely to have been designed by\nGod, though little to have been dreamt by man.\n\nOnce more on this full topic. Difficulties in Scripture were expectable\nfor many reasons; I can only touch a few. Man is rational as he is\nresponsible: God speaks to his mind and moral powers: and the mind\nrejoices, and moralities grow strong in conquest of the difficult and\nsearch for the mysterious. The muscles of the spiritual athlete pant for\nsuch exertion; and without it, they would dwindle into trepid\nimbecility. Curious man, courageous man, enterprising, shrewd, and\nvigourous man, yet has a constant enemy to dread in his own indolence:\nnow, a lion in the path will wake up Sloth himself: and the very\ndifficulties of religion engender perseverance.\n\nAdditionally: I think there is somewhat in the consideration, that, if\nall revealed truth had been utterly simple and easy, it would have\nneeded no human interpreter; no enlightened class of men, who, according\nto the spirit of their times, and the occasions of their teaching, might\n\"in season and out of season preach the word, reprove, rebuke, exhort,\nwith all long-suffering and doctrine.\" I think there existed an anterior\nprobability that Scripture should be as it is, often-times difficult,\nobscure, and requiring the aid of many wise to its elucidation; because,\nwithout such characteristic, those many wise and good would never have\nbeen called for. Suppose all truth revealed as clearly and indisputably\nto the meanest intellect as a sum in addition is, where were the need or\nuse of that noble Christian company who are every where man's almoners\nfor charity, and God's ambassadors for peace?\n\nA word or two more, and I have done. The Bible would, as it seems to me\nprobable, be a sort of double book; for the righteous, and for the\nwicked: to one class, a decoy, baited to allure all sorts of generous\ndispositions: to the other, a trap, set to catch all kinds of evil\ninclinations. In these two senses, it would address the whole family\nman: and every one should find in it something to his liking. Purity\nshould there perceive green pastures and still waters, and a tender\nShepherd for its innocent steps: and carnal appetite should here and\nthere discover some darker spot, which the honesty of heaven had filled\nwith memories of its chiefest servants' sins; some record of adultery or\nmurder wherewith to feast his maw for condemnation. While the good man\nshould find in it meat divine for every earthly need, the sneerer should\nproclaim it the very easiest manual for his jests and lewd profanities.\nThe unlettered should not lack humble, nay vulgar, images and words, to\nkeep himself in countenance: neither should the learned look in vain for\nreasonings; the poet for sublimities; the curious mind for mystery; nor\nthe sorrowing heart for prayer. I do discern, in that great book, a\nwondrous adaptability to minds of every calibre: and it is just what\nmight antecedently have been expected of a volume writ by many men at\nmany different eras, yet all superintended by one master mind; of a\nvolume meant for every age, and nation, and country, and tongue, and\npeople; of a volume which, as a two-edged sword, wounds the good man's\nheart with deep conviction, and cuts down \"the hoary head of him who\ngoeth on still in his wickedness.\"\n\nOn the whole, respecting faults, or incongruities, or objectionable\nparts in Scripture, however to have been expected, we must recollect\nthat the more they are viewed, the more the blemishes fade, and are\naltered into beauties.\n\nA little child had picked up an old stone, defaced with time-stains: the\nchild said the stone was dirty, covered with blotches and all colours:\nbut his father brings a microscope, and shows to his astonished glance\nthat what the child thought dirt, is a forest of beautiful lichens,\nfruited mosses, and strange lilliputian plants with shapely animalcules\nhiding in the leaves, and rejoicing in their tiny shadow. Every blemish,\njustly seen, had turned to be a beauty: and Nature's works are\nvindicated good, even as the Word of Grace is wise.\n\n\n\n\nHEAVEN AND HELL.\n\n\nProbably enough, the light which I expect to throw upon this important\nsubject will, upon a cursory criticism, be judged fanciful, erroneous,\nand absurd; in parts, quite open to ridicule, and in all liable to the\nobjection of being wise, or foolish, beyond what is written.\nNevertheless, and as it seems to me of no small consequence to reach\nsomething more definite on the subject than the Anywhere or Nowhere of\ncommon apprehensions, I judge it not amiss to put out a few thoughts,\nfancies, if you will, but not unreasonable fancies, on the localities\nand other characteristics of what we call heaven and hell: in fact, I\nwish to show their probable realities with somewhat approaching to\ndistinctness. It is manifest that these places must be somewhere; for,\nmore especially of the blest estate, whither did Enoch, and Elijah, and\nour risen Lord ascend to? what became of these glorified humanities when\n\"the chariot of fire carried up Elijah by a whirlwind into heaven;\" and\nwhen \"HE was taken up, and a cloud received him?\" Those happy mortals\ndid not waste away to intangible spiritualities, as they rose above the\nworld; their bodies were not melted as they broke the bonds of\ngravitation, and pierced earth's swathing atmosphere: they went up\nsomewhither; the question is where they went to. It is a question of\ngreat interest to us; however, among those matters which are rather\ncurious than consequential; for in our own case, as we know, we that are\nredeemed are to be caught up, together with other blessed creatures, \"in\nthe clouds, to meet our coming Saviour in the air, and thereafter to be\never with the Lord.\" I wish to show this to be expected as in our case,\nand expectable previously to it.\n\nWe have, in the book of Job, a peep at some place of congregation: some\none, as it is likely, of the mighty globes in space, set apart as God's\nespecial temple. Why not? they all are worlds; and the likelihood being\nin favour of overbalancing good, rather than of preponderating evil from\nconsiderations that affect God's attributes and the happiness of his\ncreatures, it is probable that the great majority of these worlds are\nunfallen mansions of the blessed. Perhaps each will be a kingdom for one\nof earth's redeemed, and if so, there will at last be found fulfilled\nthat prevailing superstition of our race, that each man has his star:\nwithout insisting upon this, we may reflect that there is no one\nuniversal opinion which has not its foundation in truth. Tradition may\nwell have dropped the thought from Adam downwards, that the stars may\nsome day be our thrones. We know their several vastness, and can guess\ntheir glory: verily a mighty meed for miserable services on earth, to\nfind a just ambition gladdened with the rule of spheres, to which Terra\nis a point; while that same ambition is sanctified and legalized by\nruling as vicegerent of Jehovah.\n\nIs this unlikely, or unworthy of our high vocation, our immortality, and\nnearness unto, nay communion with God? The idea is only suggested: let a\nman muse at midnight, and look up at the heavens hanging over all; let\nhim see, with Rosse and Herschell, that, multiply power as you will,\nunexhausted still and inexhaustible appear the myriads of worlds\nunknown. Yea, there is space enow for infinite reward; yea, let every\ngrain of sand on every shore be gathered, and more innumerable yet\nappear that galaxy of spheres. Let us think that night looks down upon\nus here, with the million eyes of heaven. And for some focus of them\nall, some spot where God himself enthroned receives the homage of all\ncrowns, and the worship of all creature service, what is there\nunreasonable in suggesting for a place some such an one as is instanced\nbelow?\n\nI have just cut the following paragraph out of a newspaper: Is this the\nridiculous tripping up the sublime? I think otherwise: it is honest to\nuse plain terms. I speak as unto wise men--judge ye what I say. With\nrespect to the fact of information, it may or it may not be true; but\neven if untrue, the idea is substantially the same, and I cannot help\nsupposing that with angels and archangels and the whole company of\nheaven, such bodily saints as Enoch is, (and similar to him all risen,\nholy men will be,) meet for happy sabbaths in some glorious orb akin or\nsuperior to the following:\n\n\"A CENTRAL SUN.--Dr. Madier, the Professor of Astronomy at Dorpat, has\npublished the results of the researches pursued by him uninterruptedly\nduring the last sixty years, upon the movements of the so-called fixed\nstars. These more particularly relate to the star Alcyone, (discovered\nby him,) the brightest of the seven bright stars of the group of the\nPleiades. This star he states to be the central sun of all the systems\nof stars known to us. He gives its distance from the boundaries of our\nsystem at thirty-four million times the distance of the sun from our\nearth, a distance which it takes five hundred and thirty-seven years for\nlight to traverse. Our sun takes one hundred and eighty-two million\nyears to accomplish its course round this central body, whose mass is\none hundred and seventeen million times larger than the sun.\"\n\nOne hundred and seventeen million times larger than the Sun! itself, for\nall its vastness, not more than half one million times bigger than this\nearth. To some such globe we may let our fancies float, and anchor there\nour yearnings after heaven. It is a glorious thought, such as\nimagination loves; and a probable thought, that commends itself to\nreason. Behold the great eye of all our guessed creation, the focus of\nits brightness, and the fountain of its peace.\n\nA topic far less pleasant, but alike of interest to us poor men, is the\nprobable home of evil; and here I may be laughed at--laugh, but listen,\nand if, listening, some reason meets thine ear, laugh at least no\nlonger.\n\nWe know that, for spirit's misery as for spirit's happiness, there is no\nneed of place: \"no matter where, for I am still the same,\" said one most\nmiserable being. More--in the case of mere spirits, there is no need for\nany apparatus of torments, or fires, or other fearful things. But, when\nspirit is married to matter, the case is altered; needs must a place to\nprison the matter, and a corporal punishment to vex it.\n\nNothing is unlikely here; excepting--will a man urge?--the dread\nduration of such hell. This is a parenthesis; but it shall not be\navoided, for the import of that question is deep, and should be answered\nclearly. A man, a body and soul inmixt, body risen incorruptible, and\nsoul rested from its deeds, must exist for ever. I touch not here the\nproofs--assume it. Now, if he lives for ever, and deliberately chooses\nevil, his will consenting as well as his infirmity, and conscience\nseared by persisted disobedience, what course can such a wilful,\nrational, responsible being pursue than one perpetually erratic? How\nshould it not be that he gets worse and worse in morals, and more and\nmore miserable in fact? and when to this we add, that such wretched\ncreatures are to herd together, continually flying further away from the\nonly source of Happiness and Good; and to this, that they have earned by\nsin, remorses and regrets, and positive inflictions; how probable seems\na hell, the sinner's doom eternal. The apt mathematical analogy of lines\nthrown out of parallel, helps this for illustration: for ever and for\never they are stretching more remote, and infinity itself cannot reunite\ntheir travel.\n\nThis, then, as a passing word; a sad one. Honest thinker, do not scorn\nit, for thine own soul's sake. \"Now is the time of grace, now is the day\nof salvation.\" To return. A place of punishment exists; to what quarter\nshall we look for its anterior probability? I think there is a\nlikelihood very near us. There may be one, possibly, beneath us, in the\nbowels of this fiery-bursting earth; whither went Korah and his company?\nThis idea is not without its arguments, just analogies, and scriptural\nhints. But my judgment inclines towards another. This trial-world, we\nknow, is to be purified and restored, and made a new earth: it was even\nto be expected that Redemption should do this, and I like not to imagine\nit the crust and case of hell, but rather, as thus: At the birth of this\nsame world, there was struck off from its burning mass at a tangent, a\nmournful satellite, to be the home of its immortal evil; the convict\nshore for exiled sin and misery; a satellite of strange differences, as\nguessed by Virgil in his musings upon Tartarus, where half the orb is,\nfrom natural necessities, blistered up by constant heats, the other half\nfrozen by perennial cold. A land of caverns, and volcanoes, miles deep,\nmiles high; with no water, no perceptible air: imagine such a dreadful\nworld, with neither air nor water! incapable of feeding life like ours,\nbut competent to be a place where undying wretchedness may struggle for\never. A melancholy orb, the queen of night, chief nucleus of all the\ndark idolatries of earth; the Moon, Isis, Hecate, Ashtaroth, Diana of\nthe Ephesians!\n\nThis expression of a thought by no means improbable, gives an easy\nchance to shallow punsters; but ridicule is no weapon against reason.\nWhy should not the case be so? Why should not Earth's own satellite,\nvoid, as yet, be on the resurrection of all flesh, the raft whereon to\nfloat away Earth's evil? Read of it astronomically; think of it as\nconnected with idols; regard it as the ruler of earth's night; consider\nthat the place of a Gehenna must be somewhere; and what is there in my\nfancy quite improbable? I do not dogmatize as that the fact is so, but\nonly suggest a definite place at least as likely as any other hitherto\nsuggested. Think how that awful, melancholy eye looks down on deeds of\ndarkness how many midnight crimes, murders, thefts, adulteries, and\nwitchcrafts, that would have shrunk into nonentity from open, honest\nday, have paled the conscious Moon! Add to all this, it is the only\nworld, besides our own, whereof astronomers can tell us, It is fallen.\n\n\n\n\nAN OFFER.\n\n\nNothing were easier than to have made this book a long one; but that was\nnot the writer's object: as well because of the musty Greek proverb\nabout long books; which in every time and country are sure never to be\nread through by one in a thousand; as because it is always wiser to\nsuggest than to exhaust a topic; which may be as \"a fruit-tree yielding\nfruit after its kind whose seed is in itself.\" The writer then intended\nonly to touch upon a few salient points, and not to discuss every\nquestion, however they might crowd upon his mind: time and space alike\nwith mental capabilities forbade an effort so gigantic: added to which,\nsuch a course seemed to be unnecessary, as the rule of probability, thus\nillustrated, might be applied by others in every similar instance.\nStill, as the errand of this book is usefulness, and its author's hope\nis, under Heaven, to do good, one personal hint shall here be thrown\nupon the highway. Without arrogating to myself the wisdom or the\nknowledge to solve one in twenty of the doubts possible to be\npropounded; without also designing even to attempt such solutions,\nunless well assured of the genuine anxiety of the doubter; and\npreliminarizing the consideration, that a fitting diffidence in the\nadvocate's own powers is no reason why he should not make wide efforts\nin his holy cause; that, such reasonable essays to do good have no sort\nof brotherhood with a fanatical Spiritual Quixotism; and that, to my own\napprehensions, the doubts of a rationalizing mind are in the nature of\nhonourable foes, to be treated with delicacy, reverence, and kindness,\nrather than with a cold distance and an ill-concealed contempt;\npreliminarizing, lastly, the thought--\"Who is sufficient for these\nthings?\"--I nevertheless thus offer, according to the grace and power\ngiven to me, my best but humble efforts so far to dissipate the doubts\nof some respecting any scriptural fact, as may lie within the province\nof showing or attempting to show its previous credibility. This is not a\nchallenge to the curious casuist or the sneering infidel; but an\ninvitation to the honest mind harassed by unanswered queries: no\ngauntlet thrown down, but a brother's hand stretched out. Such\nquestions, if put to the writer, through his publisher by letter, may\nfind their reply in a future edition: supposing, that is to say, that\nthey deserve an answer, whether as regards their own merits or the\ntemper of the mind who doubts; and supposing also that the writer has\nthe power and means to answer them discreetly. It is only a fair rule of\nphilanthropy (and that without arrogating any unusual \"strength\") to\n\"bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves:\" and\nnothing would to me give greater happiness than to be able, as I am\nwilling, to remove any difficulties lying in the track of Faith before a\ngenerous mind. I hang out no glistening holly-bush a-flame with its\nostentatious berries as promising good wine; but rather over my portal\nis the humbler and hospitable mistletoe, assuring every wearied pilgrim\nin the way, that though scanty be the fare, he shall find a hearty\nwelcome.\n\n\n\n\nCONCLUSION.\n\n\nI have thus endeavoured (with solicited help of Heaven) to place before\nthe world anew a few old truths: truths inestimably precious. Remember,\nthey cannot have lost by any such advocacy as is contained in the idea\nof their being shown antecedently probable; for this idea affects not at\nall the fact of their existence; the thing is; whether probable or not;\nthere is, in esse, an ornithorhyncus; its posse is drowned in esse:\nthere exists no doubt of it: evidence, whether of senses physical, or of\nconsiderations moral, puts the circumstance beyond the sphere of\ndisputation. But such truths as we have spoken of do, nevertheless, gain\nsomething as to--not their merits, these are all their own\nsubstantially; nor their positive proofs, these are adjectives properly\nattendant on them, but as to--their acceptability among the incredulous\nof men; they gain, I say, even by such poor pleading as mine, from being\nshown anteriorly probable. Take an illustration in the case of that\nstrange and anomalous creature mentioned just above. Its habitat is in a\nland where plums grow with the stones outside, where aboriginal dogs\nhave never been heard to bark, where birds are found covered with hair,\nand where mammals jump about like frogs! If these are shown to be\nliteral facts, the mind is thereby well prepared for any animal\nmonstrosity: and it staggers not in unbelief (on evidence of honest\ntravellers) even when informed of a creature with a duck's bill and a\nbeaver's body: it really amounted in Australia to an antecedent\nprobability.\n\nCarry this out to matters not a quarter so incredible, ye thinkers, ye\nfree-thinkers; neither be abashed at being named as thinking freely:\nwere not those Bereans more noble in that they searched to see? For my\nhumble part, I do commend you for it: treacherous is the hand that roots\nup the inalienable right of private judgment; the foundation-stone of\nProtestantism, the great prerogative of reason, the key-note of\nconscience, the sole vindex of a man's responsibility: evil and false is\nthe so-called reverential wisdom which lays down in place of the truth\nthat each man's conscience is a law unto himself, the tyranny of other\nmen's authority. Cheap and easy and perilled is the faith, which clings\nto the skirt of others; which leans upon the broken staff of\npriestcraft, until those poisoned splinters pierce the hand.\n\nProve all things; holding fast that which is good: good to thine own\nreasonable conscience, if unwarped by casuistries, and unblinded by\nlicentiousness. Prove all things, if you can, \"from the egg to the\napple:\" he is a poor builder of his creed, who takes one brick on\ncredit. Be able, as you can be, (if only you are willing so far to be\nwisely inconsistent, as to bend the stubborn knee betimes, and though\nwith feeble glance to look to heaven, and though with stammering tongue\nto pray for aid,) be able, as it is thy right, O man of God--to give a\nReason for the faith that is in thee.\n\n\n                             THE END.","title":"Probabilities : An aid to Faith","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":30222}