Vegetable physiology furnishes another fact, which seems to me to look still more favorable to this law hypothesis than the preceding, although it has not been noticed, so far as I know, by the advocates of that hypothesis. Speaking of the matter of which certain flowerless plants are composed, Dr. Lindlay says, “It is even uncertain whether this matter will produce its like, and whether it is not a mere representation of the vital principle of vegetation, capable of being called into action, either as a fungus, or algæ, or lichen, according to the particular conditions of heat, light, and moisture, and the medium in which it is placed; producing fungi upon dead or putrid organic beings, lichens upon living vegetables, earth, or stones, and algæ where water is the medium in which it is developed.” Again, in speaking of that green slime which often covers the soil, rocks, walls, and glass in damp places, he says, “The slime resembles a layer of albumen, spread with a brush; it exfoliates in drying, and finally becomes visible by the manner in which it colors green or deep brown. One might call it a provisional creation, waiting to be organized, and then assuming different forms according to the nature of the corpuscles which penetrate it, or develop among it. It may further be said to be the origin of two very distinct existences, the one certainly animal, the other purely vegetable.”—Natural System, pp. 326, 328, 334.
Now, admitting all the facts that have been detailed respecting the production of infusoria, entozoa, acari, and cryptogamian plants to be true, although most of them are far from being proved, it seems to me that they do not show us howvitality is produced by mere law, without the special agency of the Deity. Writers on the subject seem to overlook the distinction between organization and life. The first may be present in its highest perfection without the latter, as it is in animals and plants recently killed. The organization is merely a preparation to receive the mysterious principles which we calllifeandintellect. Light, heat, and electricity may be the essential agents in producing the organization, but they do not explain the nature, or account for the presence, of life. That must, so far as we know, come from some other and a higher source. Galvanism may bring gelatinous matter into the form of an insect, or infusoria, or entozoa; but there is no evidence that it can impart life, however exquisite the organization. It may be, and we have reason to suppose it is, the divine will to bestow life whenever a certain organization exists; but this does not show that his special agency is not concerned in it. He may will that the peculiar life of a lichen shall be given to the same elementary matter which, in another situation, he constitutes an alga, or a fungus, or even an animal. But this would not prove that natural law alone could produce life. There is nowhere any evidence that sensibility, contractility, and especially intellect and volition, are the result of any natural operations. In their properties they are so entirely diverse from all known physical effects, that we must impute them to some other than a natural cause. We must call in the power of a supreme intelligent Being. The laws of affinity, light, heat, and electricity, of endosmose and exosmose, may prepare the organization, but their power ends there; and hence true philosophy requires us to impute the phenomena of life and intellect to an extraneous and infinitely higher cause.
The case, then, stands thus: In ninety-nine cases out of ahundred, we are certain that organization requires the previous existence and agency of a being similarly organized, which we call the parent. But suppose that, in a very few cases, the laws of nature can produce the organization. It still demands another and a higher power—not a blind impulse, but an intelligent cause—to bestow life and intellect. To prove the existence of a natural cause for the arrangement of the atoms into an organic structure, does by no means prove the same for those higher and mysterious principles that make that structure a living, thinking being.
Such, however, are the strongest arguments by which the advocates of the law hypothesis sustain their views of the origin of organism, life, and intellect. The next step in their reasoning is to show how animals and plants may be transmuted from one species, or genus, or family, to another; so that the existing vast variety can be traced to a few original germs. They maintain that these developments of the more from the less perfect have proceeded along certain parallel lines; one series of developments, for instance, taking the line of the fishes, another of the reptiles, another of the birds, another of quadrupeds, and so on.
To prove these developments or transmutations, they appeal first to the physiological history of the mammalian embryo. In its earliest stages, it can hardly be distinguished, except in size, from the unborn polygastric infusoria. The brain of a human embryo appears at first like that of an invertebrate animal; next like that of a fish; then successively like that of a reptile, a bird, a rodent mammal, a ruminant, and a monkey. So the heart, at an early stage, looks like that of an insect; then it has two chambers, like that of a fish; then it becomes three chambered, like that of a reptile; and finally, four chambered, as in the mammalia. Theinference which these theorists would draw from such facts is, that man actually begins his existence as an animalcule, and passes successively through the mould or condition of other animals, before he reaches the highest. And the reasons why he does become a man, rather than an echinoderm, or a fish, or a monkey, is only some slightly modifying circumstance, as, for instance, a longer gestation. It appears to me, however, that the inferences sound philosophy should derive from such facts are, first, that, while there is a seeming resemblance between the human embryo and that of lower animals, there is, in fact, a real and a wide diversity; so that the one infallibly becomes an inferior animal, and the other a man. Could a single example be produced in which a human embryo stopped at and became an insect, or a fish, or a monkey, there might be some plausibility in the supposition. But it is as certain to become a man as the sun is to rise and set; and, therefore, the human condition results from laws as fixed as those that regulate the movements of the heavenly bodies. That is a very superficial philosophy which infers identity of nature from mere external resemblance.
The phenomena of hybridity furnish another ground of argument in favor of the transmutation of species, and of course in favor of the law hypothesis; for that hybrids are sometimes the result of the union of different species will not be denied. There is, however, a natural repugnance to union between different species; and in a state of nature this can very rarely be overcome. But domestication changes and almost obliterates many natural instincts, and hence hybridity is far more common among domesticated animals and plants. As a general fact, also, the hybrid offspring is incapable of propagating its own race, without union with one of theoriginal species by which it was produced; and this inability to continue this mixed race has been generally regarded among naturalists as the best characteristic of species. Some, however, attempt to show that some hybrid races do continue from generation to generation to propagate their kind. But in most cases the hybrid race ere long runs out, and there is always a strong tendency to revert to the original stock; and were it not for the influence of man, probably such a thing as hybridity would scarcely ever have been heard of. Nature seems to have established strong barriers around species, so that an identity should be preserved; and even if we admit the possibility of their coalescence in some cases, yet we have evidence that almost always they are preserved distinct from century to century; and the same is true even of the more prominent varieties, for we find not only the same species, but the same varieties of animals and plants, preserved some three thousand years in the Egyptian catacombs, that are now alive in the same country. How idle, then, to suppose that the laws of hybridity will account for such radical and entire transmutations as this hypothesis supposes! To accomplish this, it would need as strong a tendency in nature to a union of species, genera, and families, as now exists against it.
But a special appeal has been made on this subject to geology. The history of organic remains, it is thought, corresponds to what we might expect, if the hypothesis of development is true. In the oldest rocks we find chiefly the more simple invertebrate animals, and the vertebrated tribes appear at first in the form of fish, then of reptiles, then of birds, then of mammals, and last of all of man. What better confirmation could we wish than this gradually expanding series? True, all the great classes of organic beings, vegetable and animal, are found nearly at the earliest epoch, and continuethrough the entire series of rocks. But we have only to suppose a distinct stirps for each of the classes, and that the developments took place along parallel lines, in order to harmonize the facts with the hypothesis.
Such a general view of the subject of organic remains seems to give plausibility to the hypothesis of organic development. But the tables are turned when we descend to particulars. The idea of a distinct stirps or germ for each great class of animals and plants seems to me to destroy an essential feature of the hypothesis. It supposes that law produces at once a vertebral animal and a flowering plant; for the first, certainly, we find in the very lowest of the fossiliferous rocks. “The lower silurian,” says Sir Roderick Murchison, in 1847, “is no longer to be viewed as an invertebrate period, for the onchus (a genus of fish) has been found in the Llandeilo Flags, and in the lower silurian rocks of Bala.”
It is also a most important fact, that this fish of the oldest rock was not, as the development scheme would require, of a low organization, but quite high on the scale of fishes. The same is true of all the earliest species of this class. “All our most ancient fossil fishes,” says Professor Sedgwick, “belong to a high organic type; and the very oldest species that are well determined fall naturally into an order of fishes which Owen and Müller place, not at the bottom, but at the top of the whole class.”—Discourse on the Studies of the University, &c. 5th edit. p. lxiv. pref.
This point has been fully and ably discussed by Hugh Miller, Esq., in his late work, “The Footprints of the Creator, or the Asterolepis of Stromness.” The asterolepis was one of these fishes found in the old red sandstone, sometimes over twenty feet long; yet, says Mr. Miller, “instead of being, as the development hypothesis would require, a fish low in itsorganization, it seems to have ranged on the level of the highest ichthyic-reptilian families ever called into existence.”
Another point which Mr. Miller has labored hard to establish, and of which there seems to be no reasonable doubt, is, that in many families of animals, not only were the first species that appeared of high organization, but there was a gradual degradation among those that were created afterwards. Of the fishes generally, he says, that “the progress of the race, as a whole, though it still retains not a few of the higher forms, has been a progress, not of development from the low to the high, but of degradation from the high to the low.” Again he says, “We know, as geologists, that the dynasty of the fish was succeeded by that of the reptile; that the dynasty of the reptile was succeeded by that of the mammiferous quadruped; and that the dynasty of the mammiferous quadruped was succeeded by that of man, as man now exists—a creature of a mixed character, and subject, in all conditions, to wide alternations of enjoyment and suffering. We know further,—so far, at least, as we have succeeded in deciphering the record,—that the several dynasties were introduced, not in their lower, but in their higher forms; that, in short, in the imposing programme of creation, it was arranged as a general rule, that in each of the great divisions of the procession the magnates should walk first. We recognize yet further the fact of degradation specially exemplified in the fish and the reptile.” “Among these degraded races, that of the footless serpent, whichgoeth upon its belly, has long been noted by the theologian as a race typical, in its condition and nature, of an order of hopelessly degraded beings, borne down to the dust by a clinging curse; and curiously enough, when the first comparative anatomists in the world givetheirreadiest and most prominent instance of degradation among thedivisions of the natural world, it is this very order of footless reptiles that they select.”
Among the invertebrate animals are numerous examples of the deterioration of a race. M. Alcide D’Orbigny, one of the most accomplished of living paleontologists, in hisCours Elementaire de Paleontologie et de Geologie, speaks as follows of the cephalopods found in the oldest rocks: “See, then, the result; the cephalopods, the most perfect of the mollusks, which lived in the early period of the world, show a progress of degradation in their generic forms. We insist on this fact relative to the cephalopods, which we shall hereafter compare with the less perfect classes of mollusks, since it must lead to the conclusion that the mollusks, as to their classes, have certainly retrograded from the compound to the simple, or from the more to the less perfect.”
Such facts as these are absolutely fatal to the hypothesis of development; and geology abounds with them. Indeed, through all her archives, we search in vain for facts that show any thing like a passage of one species, genus, or family, into another. Certain distinct types characterize the different formations up to a certain period, when there is a sudden change; and in the subsequent strata we find animals and plants entirely different from those that have disappeared. The new races are, indeed, often of a higher grade than those that preceded them, but could not have sprung from them.
The true theory of animal and vegetable existence on our globe appears to be this: Such natures were placed upon the earth as were adapted to its varying condition. When the earliest group was created, such were the climate, the atmosphere, the waters, and the means of subsistence, that the lower tribes were best adapted to the condition of things. That group occupied the earth till such changes had occurred as tomake it unsuited to their natures, and consequently they died out, and new races were brought in; not by mere law, but by divine benevolence, power, and wisdom. These tribes also passed away, when the condition of things was so changed as to be uncongenial to their natures, to give place to a third group, and these again to a fourth, and so on to the present races, which, in their turn, perhaps, are destined to become extinct. From the first, however, the changes which the earth has undergone, as to temperature, soil, and climate, have been an improvement of its condition; so that each successive group of animals and plants could be more and more complicated and perfect; and therefore we find an increase and development of flowering plants and vertebral animals. And yet, from the beginning, all the great classes seem to have existed, so that the changes have been only in the proportion of the more and less perfect at different periods. In short, we have only to suppose that the Creator exactly adapted organic natures to the several geological periods, and we perfectly explain the phenomena of organic remains. But the doctrine of development by law corresponds only in a loose and general way to the facts, and cannot be reconciled to the details. If that hypothesis cannot get a better foothold somewhere else, it will soon find its way into the limbo of things abortive and forgotten.
I have now noticed, I believe, the principal sources of evidence in which the law hypothesis rests; and at the best, we find only a possibility, but rarely, if ever, a probability, that such a power exists in nature. I turn now, for a few moments, to the arguments on the other side; that is, against the hypothesis.
And first, it cannot explain the wonderful adaptation of animals and plants to their condition and to one another.
There is not a more striking thing in nature than that adaptation; and geology shows us that it has always been so. Now, if any thing requires the exercise of infinite wisdom and power, it is this feature of creation. But according to this hypothesis, the laws of nature may be so arranged as to create every animal and plant just at the right time, and place them in the right spot, and adjust every thing around them to their nature and wants. In other words, it supposes law capable of doing what only infinite wisdom and power can do. What is this but ascribing infinite perfection to law, and imputing to it effects which only an infinite intelligence could bring about? In other words, it is making a Deity of the laws which he ordains. Theoretically it may be of little importance by what name men call the Deity; but practically to impute natural effects to law, as an independent power, is to put a blind, unintelligent agency in the place of Jehovah.
In the second place, where one fact in nature looks favorable to this hypothesis, a thousand facts teach the contrary.
Take for example the reproduction of animals. Out of every thousand individuals we have certain evidence that nine hundred and ninety-nine are brought into existence by the ordinary modes of generation; that is, they depend upon progenitors. Still, if in the thousandth case the animal’s existence was clearly casual, if we could see an elephant, or an ox, start into life without parental agency, that single case would prove the hypothesis. But never do its advocates pretend that any of the larger animals are produced in this way. Nor is it till they get among the smaller and obscure animals, whose habits are very difficult to trace out, that we find any examples where a suspicion even can exist of the communication of vitality irrespective of parental agency. Is not a strong presumption hence produced that further and morescrutinizing observation will show the few excepted cases not to be real exceptions? Does not sound philosophy demand that the proof of the casual production of the thousandth case shall be as decided as that of the normal generation of the nine hundred and ninety-nine? But no one, it seems to me, will pretend that any thing like such certainty exists in a single example throughout all nature. The presumption, then, is really more than a thousand to one against the hypothesis.
Take an example from hybridity. While a thousand species retain from age to age their individuality, not more than one coalesces with its neighbor, and loses its identity. And even here, all admit that there is a constant tendency in the hybrid race to revert to the original stock; and there is strong reason to believe that this will sooner or later take place, and that it would speedily occur in every case, were it not for the influence of domestication. Such facts make the presumption very strong, that species are permanent, and any extensive metamorphosis impossible. Hybridity appears to be in a measure unnatural; and the old proverb true in respect to it—
“Si furca naturam expellas,Usque recurret.”
By the hypothesis under consideration, we ought to expect at least a few examples of the formation of new organs in animals, in the efforts of nature to advance towards a more perfect state. It has usually been said that the time since animals were first described is too short for such development. But we have examples, from the catacombs of Egypt, of animals and plants that lived in that country three thousand years ago; and yet, according to Cuvier,—and who is a better judge?—they are precisely like the living species. Strange that this great length of time should not have produced evenone new organ, or the marks of a conatus to produce one. We are, indeed, pointed to the different varieties of the human species, as examples of this progress. But these diversities, also, can be shown to be the same now as at the earliest date of historical records; and where, then, is the evidence that they ever have undergone, or ever will undergo, any change of importance? There may indeed be examples of amalgamation, but under favorable circumstances the original varieties are again developed.
In the third place, geology contradicts this hypothesis.
We have seen that it offers no satisfactory explanation of the gradual increase of the more perfect animals and plants, as we rise higher in the rocks. That fact is most perfectly explained by supposing that divine wisdom and benevolence adapted the new species, which from time to time were created, to the changing and improving condition of the earth. A multitude of species have been dug from the rocks; but not one exhibits evidence of the development of new organs in the manner described by this hypothesis. New species often appear, but they differ as decidedly from the previous ones as species now do; and at the beginning of each formation there is often a very decided advance in the organic beings from those found in the top of the subjacent formation. How can this hypothesis explain such sudden changes, when its essential principle is, that the progress of the development is uniform? Nothing can explain them surely but special creating interposition.
Geology also shows us that for a vast period the world existed without inhabitants. Now, what was it that gave the laws of nature power, after so long an operation unproductive of vitality, to produce organic natures? Who can conceive of any inherent force that should thus enable them, all atonce, to do what true philosophy shows to have demanded infinite skill?
In short, of all the sciences, geology most clearly shows special divine interference to explain its phenomena. It presents us with such stupendous changes, after long periods of repose, such sudden exhibitions of life, springing forth from the bosom of universal death, that nothing but divine, special, miraculous agency can explain the results. And of all the vast domains of nature, it seems to me no part is so barren of facts to sustain this hypothesis as the rocks; nor so full of facts for its refutation. These, however, have been so fully detailed in a previous part of this lecture that they need not be here repeated.
In the fourth place, the prodigious increase of the power and the means of reproduction, which we find among the lower tribes of animals, affords a strong presumption against this hypothesis.
The animals highest on the scale, and most perfect in their organization, have only one mode of reproduction, viz., the viviparous. Descending a little lower, we come to the oviparous and ovoviviparous tribes. Passing to the invertebrate animals, we meet with two other modes of reproduction, the gemmiparous and fissiparous. In the first mode, the animal is propagated by buds, like some plants, as the tiger lily; by the second mode, a spontaneous division of the animal takes place.
Now, in some of the lowest of the invertebrate tribes, we find most of the modes of propagation that have been enumerated in operation; so that the same individual in one set of circumstances is oviparous, in another gemmiparous or fissiparous. The consequence is, a power of multiplication inconceivably great. Mr. Owen calculates that theascarislumbricoides, the most common intestinal worm, is capable of producing sixty-four millions of young; and Ehrenberg asserts that thehydatina senta, one of the infusoria, increased in twelve days to sixteen millions, and another species, in four days, to one hundred and seventy billions.
Why, now, are these astonishing powers of reproduction given to these minute animals, if it be true that they can also be produced without parentage, and by mere law? This latter mode would supersede the necessity of the former; and therefore, the care taken by Providence to provide the former is a strong presumption that the latter does not exist.
In the fifth place, it is an instructive fact on this subject that, as instruments have been improved, and observations have become more searching, the supposed cases of spontaneous generation have diminished, until it is not pretended now that it takes place except in a very few tribes, and those the most obscure and difficult to observe of all living things. A hundred years ago, naturalists, and especially other men, might easily have been made to believe that many of the smaller insects had a casual origin. But long since, save in the matter of the acari, the entomological field has been abandoned by the advocates of the law hypothesis, and they have been driven from one tribe after another, till at length some of the obscure hiding-places of the entozoa and infusoria are now the only spots where the light is not too strong for the large-pupiled eyes of this hypothesis. Is not the presumption hence arising very strong that it will need only a little further improvement in instruments and care in observation to carry daylight into these recesses, and demonstrate the parentage and normal development of all organic beings?
Finally. The gross materialism inseparable from this hypothesis is a strong argument against it.
I am not aware that any one, except Oken, perhaps, has ever attempted to show that mind, as a spiritual essence, distinct from matter, has been created by natural laws; in other words, that there is in nature a power to produce mind. All such maintain that intellect is material, or, rather, the result of organization, the mere function of the brain, as are also life and instinct. Generally, also, they contend—and, indeed, consistency seems to require it—that the moral powers depend chiefly upon different developments of the brain; so that a disposition to do wrong results more from organization than from punishable mental obliquity; indeed, the worst of criminals are often, on this account, more to be pitied than blamed, and the physician is of more importance than the moralist and the divine for their reformation.
Now, if this system of materialism is true, we ought to embrace it, without any fear of ultimate bad effects. But a philosopher will hesitate long before he adopts a system which thus seems to degrade man from his lofty standing as a spiritual, accountable, and immortal being, and makes his intellectual and moral powers dependent upon the structure of the brain, and, therefore, destined to perish with the material organization, with no hope of future existence, unless God chooses to recreate the man. Nay, if there be no distinct spirit in man, what evidence have we that there is one in Jehovah? A true philosopher, I say, will demand very strong evidence before he adopts any hypothesis that leads a logical mind to such conclusions; and I see not how the one under consideration can terminate in any thing else.
Such are the reasons that lead me to reject the hypothesis of creation by law. I have endeavored to treat the subject in a candid and philosophical manner, not charging atheism upon its advocates when they declare themselves Theists andChristians. Neither have I called in the aid of ridicule, as might easily be done, and as, in fact, has been done by almost every opponent of the system who has written upon it. I have endeavored to show that the hypothesis, tried in the balances of sound philosophy, is found wanting; because, in the first place, the facts adduced to sustain it are insufficient; and secondly, because, where one fact seems to favor it, a thousand testify against it. Is not the conclusion a fair one, that the hypothesis has no solid foundation? Is not the evidence against it overwhelming? Yet it has many advocates, and I must think—I hope not uncharitably—that these are the reasons: First, because men do not like the idea of a personal, present, overruling Deity; and secondly, because there is very little profound and thorough knowledge of natural history in the community. It is just such an hypothesis as chimes in with the taste of that part of the world who have a smattering of science, and who do not wish to live without some form of religion, but who still desire to free themselves from the inspection of a holy God, and from the responsibility which his existence and presence would impose. Depend upon it, gentlemen, you will meet these delusions not unfrequently among the cultivated classes of society, where they have already done immense mischief. You will, indeed, find all the eminent comparative anatomists and physiologists, such as Cuvier and Owen; such chemists as Liebig; such zoölogists as Agassiz and Edward Forbes; such botanists as Hooker, Henslow, Lindley, Torrey, and Gray; and such geologists as De la Beche, Lyell, Murchison, Sedgwick, D’Orbigny, Buckland, and Miller, decided in their rejection of these views. But when even educated men obtain only a smattering of natural science, they find something very fascinating in this hypothesis; and this is just the religion, or,rather, the irreligion, that suits the superficial, selfish, and pleasure-seeking exquisites of fashionable drawing-rooms, theatres, and watering-places. You will find, therefore, the need of thoroughly studying this subject, or you will not be able, as you would wish, to vindicate the cause of true science and true religion.
I cannot terminate this discussion without referring to an ingenious analogy, suggested by Hugh Miller, in his “Footprints of the Creator,” and drawn from the facts he had stated respecting the degradation of species. No one who has thoroughly studied Bishop Butler’s Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion to the Course of Nature will venture to say that Mr. Miller’s suggestions are mere fancy. As the ideas are entirely original with him, I give them in his own words.
Having spoken of the several dynasties of animals that have succeeded one another on the globe, in a passage which we have already quoted, he says, “Passing on to the revealed record, we learn that the dynasty of man in the mixed state and character is not the final one; but that there is to be yet another creation, or, more properly, re-creation, known theologically as the resurrection, which shall be connected in its physical components, by bonds of mysterious paternity, with the dynasty which now reigns, and be bound to it mentally by the chain of identity, conscious and actual; but which, in all that constitutes superiority, shall be as vastly its superior as the dynasty of responsible man is superior to even the lowest of the preliminary dynasties. We are further taught that, at the commencement of this last of the dynasties, there will be a re-creation of not only elevated, but also of degraded beings—a re-creation of the lost. We are taught yet further that, though the present dynasty be that of a lapsed race, which at their first introduction were placed on higher groundthan that on which they now stand, and sank by their own act, it was yet part of the original design, from the beginning of all things, that they should occupy the existing platform; and that redemption is thus no afterthought, rendered necessary by the fall, but, on the contrary, part of a general scheme, for which provision had been made from the beginning; so that the divine Man, through whom the work of restoration has been effected, was in reality, in reference to the purposes of the Eternal, what he is designated in the remarkable text,the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Slain from the foundation of the world! Could the assertors of the stony science ask for language more express? By piecing the two records together,—that revealed in Scripture and that revealed in the rocks,—records which, however widely geologists may mistake the one, or commentators misunderstand the other, have emanated from the same great Author,—we learn that in slow and solemn majesty has period succeeded period, each in succession, ushering in a higher and yet higher scene of existence; that fish, reptiles, mammiferous quadrupeds, have reigned in turn; that responsible man, ‘made in the image of God,’ and with dominion over all creatures, ultimately entered into a world ripened for his reception; but, further, that this passing scene, in which he forms the prominent figure, is not the final one in the long series, but merely the last of thepreliminaryscenes; and that that period to which the by-gone ages, incalculable in amount, with all their well-proportioned gradations of being, form the imposing vestibule, shall have perfection for its occupant and eternity for its duration. I know not how it may appear to others, but for my own part I cannot avoid thinking that there would be a lack of proportion in the series of being, were the period of perfect and glorified humanity abruptlyconnected, without the introduction of an intermediate creation ofresponsibleimperfection with that of the dying, irresponsible brute. That scene of things in which God became man, and suffered,seems, as it no doubtis, a necessary link in the chain.”
A single concluding thought forces itself upon my mind. It is this: How ingenious and persevering men are in deluding themselves on the subject of religion! Since the time of Christ, what countless devices have they framed to escape from the lofty truths and spiritual piety of his gospel! Nor are they satisfied with this; for the gospel has shed so much light upon the religion of nature, that even this is more than men like; and, therefore, every science is ransacked for facts to neutralize all religion. Men’s consciences do not permit them to throw off all the forms of religion; and, therefore, they are satisfied if they can only tear out its heart. They like to preserve and to embalm its external covering, as the naturalist does the skin of an animal for his cabinet. And as the latter fills his specimen with straw and arsenic, and fits glass eyes into it, so do men fill up their religious specimen with error and vain speculation, and fit into its head the eyes of false philosophy, and then claim for it intellectual worship. It is the business of educated men to show that such caricatures are neither science nor religion. May you, gentlemen, have your full share in this most useful and noble work.[19]
SPECIAL AND MIRACULOUS PROVIDENCE.
Next in importance to the question whether the Deity exists, is the inquiry whether he exerts any direct agency in upholding the universe and in controlling its events. This point has been discussed in all ages in which there have been philosophers or theologians, and the current of opinion has fallen principally into three channels.
In the first place, some have removed the Deity entirely from his works into a fancied extra-mundane sphere, where in solitude he might enjoy the blessedness of his own infinite nature, without the trouble of directing the events of the universe, or watching over the works of his hand. Forgetful of the great principle, that the intellectual powers produce happiness only when called into exercise, they have fancied that the care of the universe must be a burden to its Creator, and that it would derogate from his dignity. It is supposed, therefore, that the world has been given up to the rule of fate or chance.
In the second place, a more numerous class have maintained that the Supreme Being, after creating the world, committed its preservation and government either to a subordinate agent, or to the laws which he impressed upon matter and mind, which possess an inherent power to execute themselves; so that, in fact, God exercises no direct and immediate agency in natural operations. The learned and usually profoundCudworth adopted the hypothesis of aplastic nature, as he terms it, by which he means a vital, spiritual, and unintelligent, yet subordinate agent, by whose agency the world is governed and its operations carried on. At first view, this hypothesis would seem to lead inevitably to atheism; but such was not the intention of its author. Still, it is obviously so clumsy, that had it not been the product of a great mind, it never would have received so much notice, or called forth such mighty efforts for its refutation, as have been bestowed upon it.
Two varieties of opinion exist among those who believe the world governed and sustained by natural laws, established by the Deity. Some maintain that these laws are general, not particular; not extending to minor events, but only the more important; not providing for species, but only for families. Hence they suppose that these general cases may interfere with one another, and produce results apparently repugnant to the intention of their Author. Others, shocked at the absurdity of such conclusions, believe the laws of nature to extend to every event, and never to interfere with one another, and always to act in accordance with the divine will and appointment, but without any direct agency exerted by the Deity. They suppose these laws—in other words, secondary agencies—to have the power of producing all natural phenomena.
In the third place, there are others who believe that a law can have no efficiency without the presence and agency of the lawgiver. They, therefore, suppose every event in the natural world to be the result of the direct and immediate agency of God. What we call laws are only the uniform mode of his operation. They agree with the advocates of the last-named theory in supposing the laws of nature toextend to every event, and to be in accordance with the ordination of the Deity; but they differ in maintaining that the presence and direct efficiency of a lawgiver are essential to the operation of natural laws.
I should then define a Special Providence to be an event brought about apparently by natural laws, yet, in fact, the result of a special agency, on the part of the Deity, to meet a particular exigency, either by an original arrangement of natural laws, or by a modification of second causes, out of sight at the time.
The doctrine, which supposes the Deity to exercise a superintendence and direction over all the affairs of the universe, in any of the modes that have been mentioned, whether by a subordinate agent, or by laws, general or particular, with inherent self-executing power, or by the direct efficiency of the divine will, is called the doctrine of divine providence. If the superintendence extend only to general laws, it is called a general providence. If those laws reach every possible case, it is called a particular or universal providence.
By aMiraculous Providenceis meant a superintendence over the world that interferes, when desirable, with the regular operations of nature, and brings about events, either in opposition to natural laws, or by giving them a less or greater power than usual. In either of these cases, the events cannot be explained by natural laws; they are above, or contrary to, nature, and, therefore, are called miracles, or prodigies.
There may be, and, as I believe, there is, another class of occurrences, intermediate between miracles and events strictly natural. These take place in perfect accordance with the natural laws within human view, and appear to us to be perfectly accounted for by those laws; and yet, in some wayor other, we learn that they required some special exercise of divine power, out of human view, for their production. Thus, according to the views of most Christian denominations, conversion takes place in the human heart in perfect accordance with the laws of mind, and could be philosophically explained by them; yet revelation assures that itis not of blood,[natural descent,]nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Divine power, therefore, is essential to the change, although we see only the operation of natural causes. So a storm may appear to us to be perfectly accounted for by natural laws; and yet divine efficiency might have produced a change in some of those laws out of our sight, and thus meet a particular exigency. Such events I callspecial providence; and I maintain that we cannot tell how frequently they may occur.
It is chiefly the bearings of science, especially of geology, upon the doctrine of miraculous and special providence, which I wish to consider. But it may form a useful introduction, to state the evidence, which goes to show that the agency of the Deity, in the ordinary operations of nature, is a direct efficiency; or, in other words, that the laws of nature are only the modes in which divine agency operates.
In the first place, if we suppose ever so many secondary causes to be concerned in natural events, the efficiency must, after all, be referred to God.
What is a secondary cause? or, in other words, what is a law of nature considered as a cause? It is simply a uniform mode of operation. We find that heavy bodies uniformly tend towards the earth’s centre, and that we call the law of gravity; but if those bodies sometimes ascended, and sometimes moved horizontally, under the same circumstances, we could not infer the existence of such a law.
Now, there must be some cause for uniformity of operation in nature. There must be some foreign power, which gives the uniformity, since it is certain that the law itself can possess no efficiency. We may, indeed, find one law dependent upon a second law, and this upon a third, and so on. But the inquiry still arises, What gives the efficiency to this second and third law? and still the answer must be, Something out of itself. So that if we run back on the chain of causes ever so far, we must still resort to the power of the Deity to find any efficiency that will produce the final result. In most cases, we can trace back only one or two links on the chain. For instance, we account for the falling of all bodies by the law of gravity. But philosophers have wearied themselves in vain to find any cause for gravity, except in the will of God. The failure of every other hypothesis, though invented by such men as Newton and Le Sage, has been signal. Sound philosophy, then, requires us to infer that gravity owes its efficiency to the direct exertion of divine power. And so in all cases, when we can no longer discover second causes for any phenomenon, why should we imagine their existence, rather than refer it to the agency of God? For go back as far as we may, and discover a thousand intervening causes, the efficiency resides alone in God. We have no evidence that even infinite power can communicate that efficiency to the laws of nature, so that they can act without the presence and agency of God. The common idea, which endows those laws with independent power, will not bear examination.
In the second place, if natural operations do not depend upon the exercise of divine power, no other efficient cause can be assigned for their production.
We have seen that in the laws of nature, independently of the Deity, there is no efficiency; and I know not where elsewe can resort for any agency to carry forward the operations of nature, except to the same infinite Being. The fate and chance of the ancients, the plastic nature of Cudworth, the delegated nature of Lamarck, are indeed names invented by men to designate a certain imaginary efficiency residing somewhere, independent of the Deity, by which the phenomena of nature have been supposed to be produced. But the moment they are described, they are found to be mere imaginary agencies, meaning nothing more than the course of nature, or the laws of nature, which we have seen possess no independent efficiency. To a divine agency, therefore, we must resort, or be left without any adequate cause for the complicated and wonderful processes of nature.
In the third place, this view of the subject is strongly confirmed by the Christian Scriptures.
How universal is the divine agency represented in the well-known passage—for of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. Equally vivid is Paul’s statement on Mars Hill—In him we live, and move, and have our being.How graphic a description is the 147th Psalm of God’s agency in the natural world! Not only is all good ascribed to God, but evil also. By the mouth of Isaiah he says,I form light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil; I the Lord do all these things.In short, no event in the material or spiritual world is by the sacred writers ascribed to chance, or to nature, or the laws of nature, as it is among men; but to the direct efficiency of God. Nor is there any difference in this respect between miracles and common events. The one class is represented as originating in the agency of God, just as much as the other.
Finally. It will hardly be thought strange, in view of the preceding considerations, that a large proportion of the mostacute and philosophical minds in modern times have preferred this view of divine providence to any other.
Sir Isaac Newton declares that the various parts of the world, organic and inorganic, “can be the effect of nothing else than the wisdom and skill of a powerful, ever-living Agent, who, being in all places, is more able by his will to move the bodies within his boundless, uniformsensorium, thereby to form and reform the parts of the universe, than we are by our will to move the parts of our own bodies.”
Says Dr. Clarke, the friend and disciple of Newton, “All things which we commonly say are the effects of the natural powers of matter, and laws of motion, are, indeed, if we will speak strictly and properly, the effects of God’s action upon matter continually, and at every moment, either immediately by himself, or mediately by some created, intelligent being. Consequently there is no such thing as the course of nature, or the power of nature, independent of the effects produced by the will of God.”
In speaking of the principle of vegetable life, Sir James Edward Smith, the eminent botanist, says, “I humbly conceive that, if the human understanding can in any case flatter itself with obtaining, in the natural world, a glimpse of theimmediate agencyof the Deity, it is in the contemplation of thisvital principle, which seems independent of material organization, and an impulse, of his own divine energy.”—Introduction to Botany, p. 26, (Boston edition.)
“We would no way be understood,” says Sir John Herschel, “to deny the constant exercise of this [God’s] direct power in maintaining the system of nature, or the ultimate emanation of every energy, which material agents exert, from his immediate will, acting in conformity with his own laws.”—Discourse on Nat. Philosophy.
“A law,” says Professor Whewell, “supposes an agent and a power; for it is the mode according to which the agent proceeds, the order according to which the power acts. Without the presence of such an agent, of such a power, conscious of the relations on which the law depends, producing the effects which the law prescribes, the law can have no efficiency, no existence. Hence we infer that the intelligence by which the law is ordained, the power by which it is put in action, must be present at all times and in all places where the effects of the law occur; that thus the knowledge and the agency of the divine Being pervades every portion of the universe, producing all action and passion, all permanence and change. The laws of nature are the laws which He, in his wisdom, prescribes to his own acts; his universal presence is the necessary condition of any course of events; his universal agency the only origin of any efficient force.”—Bridgewater Treatise, p. 270.
“The student in natural philosophy,” observes the Bishop of London, “will find rest from all those perplexities, which are occasioned by the obscurity of causation, in the proposition which, although it was discredited by the patronage of Malebranche and the Cartesians, has been adopted by Clarke and Dugald Stewart, and which is by far the most simple and sublime account of the matter—that all events which are continually taking place in the different parts of the material universe are theimmediateeffects of the divine agency.”—Whewell’s Bridgewater Treatise, p. 273.
“Jonathan Edwards,” says M’Cosh in his Method of the Divine Government, “somewhere illustrates the manner in which God upholds the universe, by the way in which an image is upheld in a mirror. That image is maintained by a continual flow of rays of light, each succeeding pencil ofwhich does not differ from that by which the image was first produced. He conceives that the universe is, in every part of it, supported in a similar way by a continual succession of acts of the divine will, and these not differing from that which at first caused the world to spring into existence. Now, it may be safely said of this theory that it cannot be disproved. Several considerations may be urged in support of it.”
Which of the views respecting divine providence that have been stated has the best practical tendency, seems hardly to admit of doubt. If we believe that God has submitted the direction and government of this world to a subordinate agent, a plastic nature; or if we suppose he has impressed matter and mind with certain general laws, which have the power of executing themselves without his agency, and especially if in their operation they do sometimes actually clash with one another, or even if those laws extend to every movement of matter and mind,—still, if they do not require divine efficiency, men cannot but feel that God is removed from his works, and that the laws of nature, and not his agency, are their security. But if they believe that every movement of matter or mind requires a direct exercise of divine power or efficiency, just as much as if every event was a miracle, it cannot but bring God near to us, and make us realize his presence.
If we obtain a timepiece from London or Paris, which contains all the springs and wheels requisite to keep it in operation, by occasionally winding it up, how little do we think of the artist who constructed it, except, perhaps, occasionally to admire his ingenuity! But if it had been necessary for that artist to accompany the chronometer, and actually to put forth the strength of his own arm every moment to keep it inmotion, how much more should we think of him and realize his presence! The same effect, in a greater or less degree, will attend the belief that God must be not only virtually, but substantially, present every where, and be constantly exercising his power to keep in operation the vast machine of the universe. It cannot but deeply impress the heart, and exert a most salutary influence upon the affections, to realize that every event around us is brought about by the immediate agency of the supreme Being.
But notwithstanding the salutary influence of this view of Providence upon our moral feelings, and though philosophy pronounces it decidedly the most reasonable, still it meets with strong opposition. I need not stop to notice the objections, that it makes God the author of evil as well as good, and that it represents man as a mere machine in the hands of the Deity, and therefore takes away human responsibility. I say I need not stop to answer such objections, because they lie equally strong against any system which makes God the original author of the universe. But a more plausible objection is, that it makes all events miraculous. This objection is based on the supposition that every event which takes place through the direct and immediate agency of God is a miracle. But is this the true meaning of a miracle? Is the term ever applied to any but extraordinary events? It may or it may not imply a contravention of the laws of nature. But it does always imply something which the laws of nature cannot produce, and which, of course, they cannot explain. It is always the result of some new force coming in to the aid of the laws of nature, or in the place of them, or even sometimes, perhaps, in opposition to them; as when thesun stood still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon. Hence an event may take place through the direct andimmediate agency of God, and yet not be a miracle. If it be neither above, nor independent of, nor in opposition to the laws of nature, then it forms a part of the ordinary providence of God; it is a part of the usual, the fixed and uniform course of nature, and can be explained by known and unalterable laws. The nature of the event is not affected at all by the question whether it is produced by the direct efficiency of God, or by a power inherent in those laws. We, who believe that the direct efficiency of God is necessary to the operation, and even to the existence, of the laws of nature, are just as firm believers in the constancy of those laws as he who supposes them possessed of inherent powers. When that constancy is interrupted in any way, we call it a miracle. Hence it appears that our views of the nature of a miracle are the same as his, viz., an event which takes place out of the ordinary course of nature; and, therefore, our system is no more liable to the objection that all events are made miracles than his system.
The way is now prepared for inquiring what geology teaches respecting the ordinary and extraordinary providence of God over this world.
The evidences of ordinary providence, which are common to geology and other sources of proof, I shall pass by; both because they are familiar to all, and because I have, in a former lecture, shown the existence and operation of the present laws of nature in all past ages. But there is one feature of the past condition of the world taught by geology to which I would call your attention, as exhibiting a more impressive view of the wisdom and skill of ordinary providence than almost any other department of nature presents. When the heavenly bodies are once put under the control of the two great forces that guide them, viz., the centrifugal andcentripetal, we see no reason why they may not move on forever in their accustomed paths. But the two great agents of geological change, fire and water, have an aspect of great irregularity and violence, and are apparently less under the control of mathematical laws. In the mighty intensity of their action in early times, we can hardly see how there could have been much of security or permanence in the state of the globe, without the constant restraining energy of Jehovah. We feel as if the earth’s crust must have been constantly liable to be torn in pieces by volcanic fires, or drenched by sweeping deluges. And yet the various economies of life on the globe, that have preceded the present, have all been seasons of profound repose and uniformity. The truth is, these mighty agencies have been just as much under the divine control as those which regulate the heavenly bodies; and I doubt not but the laws that regulate their action are as fixed and mathematical as those which guide the sun, moon, and planets. Still, it must have required infinite wisdom and power so to arrange the agencies of nature that the desolating action of fire and water should take place only at those epochs when every thing was in readiness for the ruin of an old economy and the introduction of a new one. Geological agencies differ from astronomical in this—that the former must be allowed an irregular action within certain limits; whereas the latter act with unvarying uniformity in all circumstances. If the former had not some room for irregular action, they would not act at all; but if allowed too much liberty, they will destroy what they were intended to preserve. And God does restrain, and always has restrained them, just at the point where desolation would be the result of their more powerful operation. I do not, indeed, contend that it requires more power or wisdom to bind those mightyagencies within proper limits than to control the heavenly bodies. But to our limited faculties it certainly seems a more difficult work; and, therefore, the geological history of the globe gives us a more impressive idea of the ordinary providence of God than we see in the calm and uniform movements of nature around us.
In the second place, geology furnishes us with some very striking examples of miraculous providence.
In disproving the eternity of the organic world, in a former lecture, I adduced and illustrated these examples so fully, that I shall do little more in this place than give a recapitulation of that argument.
If we suppose the earth originally to have been merely a diffused mass of vapor, like comets, or nebulæ, I can conceive how, by the operation of such natural laws as now exist, it might have been condensed into a solid globe; into a melted state, indeed, from the amount of heat extricated in the condensation. Those same laws might subsequently form over the molten mass a solid crust, which, at length, might be ridged and furrowed by the action of internal heat, so as to form the basis of continents and the beds of oceans. In due time, the vapors might condense, so as to fill those basins with water; and, by the mutual and alternate action of the waters above and the heat beneath, the rocks might be comminuted, so as to form the basis of soils. So far might the arrangements of the world have proceeded by natural laws; in other words, by the ordinary providence of God. But at this point we must bring in an extraordinary agency of the Deity, or the world would have remained, in the expressive language of revelation,without form and void; that is, invisible and unfurnished. You have, indeed, the framework of a world, but the most difficult and complicated part of the work,the creation of plants and animals, remains yet to be performed. Here, then, is the precise point where you must call in the miraculous agency of the Deity, or the earth would forever remain an uninhabited waste. For if it does not require miraculous agency to bring into existence animals and plants, I know not what can require it, or prove its operation. I can almost as easily conceive how matter might spring from nothing fortuitously, certainly I can as easily conceive of its eternity, as that organism and life can result from the ordinary laws of nature.
It may be, however, that I shall here be met by the statement, that some distinguished geologists maintain the probable existence of organized beings on the globe at an indefinitely earlier period than that in which their remains first appear in the rocks. They contend that the extreme heat which has melted the older rocks has obliterated all traces of organic existence below a certain line. Now, in order to meet this difficulty, it is not necessary to show this opinion to be erroneous. We have only to advance another step in our general argument, which brings us upon ground admitted to be good by the geologists above alluded to. They all of them believe that many new animals and plants have from time to time appeared on the globe; that, in fact, there have been several almost entire changes in its inhabitants. Most of them suppose these new races to have been introduced in large numbers at particular epochs, though some prefer the theory which supposes the new species to have been introduced one by one, as the old ones became extinct. But even this supposition does not essentially affect my argument; because they all allow that these successive species were really new, and could not have been the result of any metamorphosis of the old species. And it is the fact that new organic beingshave, from time to time, been created, that is alone essential to my argument. Whether they were created by groups or singly, is an interesting geological question; but, in either case, miraculous power must have been put forth as really and as efficiently to call into existence a single new species of animalcula, or sea-weed, as to introduce an entirely new race. The successive economies of organic life that have existed on the earth, and passed from it, do most unequivocally demonstrate the extraordinary or miraculous providence of God.
But we might abandon even this strong ground of our argument, and still geology would afford us a most unequivocal example of the creative agency of the Deity. That science shows, beyond all question, that man, and most of his contemporary races of animals and plants, have not always occupied this globe; and, indeed, that they were not placed upon it till nearly every form buried in the rocks had passed away. And since those races which now inhabit the globe have among them a larger proportion of highly organized and more complicated species than have ever before been contemporaries,—especially since man is among them, confessedly the most perfect in organization and in intellect of all the beings that ever occupied this planet,—we can here point to the highest exercise of creative power ever exhibited in this lower world, as a certain memento of God’s extraordinary or miraculous providence. Indeed, who, that has any adequate idea of the wonders of man’s intellectual, moral, and immortal nature, and of the strange extremes that meet and harmonize in his physical and intellectual constitution, will believe that any loftier miracle has ever been exhibited on this globe than his creation?
But I have already dwelt so long upon this whole argumentin a former lecture, that I will add no more in this place. If the facts which I have stated do not prove the miraculous agency of the Deity in past ages, I know not how it can be proved. But assuming this position to be established, and several inferences of importance will follow.
In the first place, this subject removes all philosophical presumption against a special revelation from heaven.
If we can prove that the Deity has often so interfered with the course of nature as to introduce new species, nay, whole races of animals and plants upon the globe,—if, in a comparatively recent period, he has created a moral and immortal being, endowed with all the powers of a free and an accountable agent,—it would surely be no more wonderful if he should communicate to that being his will by a written revelation. Indeed, the benevolence of the Deity, as we learn it from nature, would create a presumption that such a revelation would be given, if it appear, as we know it does, that no sufficient knowledge is inherent in his nature to guide him in the path of duty; since such a revelation would be no greater miracle than to people the world, originally destitute of life, and then to repeople it again and again, with so vast a variety of organic natures. Philosophy has sometimes been disinclined to admit the claims of revelation, because it implies a supernatural agency of the Deity; and, until recently, revelation seemed to be a solitary example of special interference on the part of Jehovah. But geology adds other examples, long anterior to revelation—examples registered, like the laws of Sinai, on tables of stone. And the admission of the geological evidence of special interference with the regular sequence of nature’s operations ought to predispose the mind for listening to the appropriate proofs of a moral communication to ignorant and erring man.
In the second place, the subject shows us how groundless is the famous objection to the miracles recorded in Scripture, founded on the position that they are contrary to experience.
“It is,” says Mr. Hume, “a maxim worthy of our attention, that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish.” Hence he asserts, that “the evidence of testimony, when applied to a miracle, carries falsehood on the very face of it, and is more properly a subject of derision than of argument,” and that “whoever believes the Christian religion is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.”
At the time when Mr. Hume wrote, and with his great skill in weaving together metaphysical subtilties, such an argument might deceive superficial minds; for then a miracle was supposed to be contrary to all experience. But geology has disclosed many new chapters in the world’s history, and shown the existence of miracles earlier than chronological dates. Even Mr. Hume would hardly deny that the creation of whole series of animals and plants was miraculous; and yet, in proof of that creation, we need not depend upon testimony; for we can read it with our own eyes upon the solid rocks. Such proof appeals directly to our common sense; nor can any ingenious quibble, concerning the nature of human testimony, weaken its influence in producing conviction.
And if God has wrought stupendous miracles of creation in order to people the world, who does not see that it is still more probable he would perform other miracles when they were needed to substantiate a revelation of his will to those moraland accountable beings, who needed its special teachings to make them acquainted with their God, their duty, and their destiny?
Finally. The subject removes all presumption against the exercise of a special and miraculous providence in the divine government of the world.
In all ages of the world, philosophers, and even many theologians, have been strenuous opposers of special and miraculous providence. If they have admitted, as most of the latter class have done, that some miracles were performed in ancient times, they have strenuously maintained that the doctrine of special providence in these days is absurd, and that God cannot, without a miracle, bestow any special favors upon the virtuous in answer to their prayers, or inflict any special punishments upon the wicked; and that it is fanaticism to expect any other retributions than such as the ordinary and unmodified course of nature brings along with it.
The unvarying constancy of nature, in consequence of being governed by fixed laws, is the grand argument which they adduce in opposition to any supposed special providence.Since the fathers fell asleep, say they,all things continue as they were from the beginning.God has subjected the world to the government of laws, and he will not interfere with, counteract, set aside, or give a supernatural force to those laws, to meet particular exigencies. For the adjustment of all apparent inequalities of good and evil, suffering and enjoyment here, we must wait for the disclosure of eternity, when strict retributive Justice will hold her even scales. When natural evils come upon us, therefore, it is idle to expect their removal, except so far as they may be mitigated or overcome by natural means; and hence it is useless to pray for their removal, or to expect God will deliver us from them in anyother way. When the heavens over us become brass, and the earth under our feet iron, and the rain of our land is powder and dust, and want, and famine, as the consequence, stalk forth among the inhabitants, of what use to pray to God for rain, since to give it would require a miracle, and the age of miracles has passed? When the pestilence is scouring through the land, and our neighbors and nearest friends are within its grasp, and we may next become its victims,—nay, when we, too, are on the borders of the grave,—why should we expect relief by prayer, since sickness is the result of natural causes, and God will not interpose to save us from the effects of natural evils, because that would be contrary to a fixed rule of his government? When dangers cluster around the good man in the discharge of trying duties, it would be enthusiasm in him to expect any special protection against his enemies, though he pray ever so fervently, and trust in divine deliverance with ever so much confidence. He must look to another world for his reward, if called to suffer here. Nor has the daringly wicked man any reason to fear that God will punish his violations of the divine law by any unusual display of his power; not in any way, indeed, but by the evils which naturally flow from a wicked life. In short, it will be useless to pray for any blessing that requires the least interference with natural laws, or for the removal of any evil which depends upon those laws. And since our minds are controlled as much by laws as the functions of our bodies, we are not to expect any blessings in our souls, which require the least infringement of intellectual laws. In fine, the effect of prayer is limited almost entirely to its influence upon our own hearts, in preparing them to receive with a proper spirit natural blessings, and to bear aright natural evils; to stimulate us to usewith more diligence the means of avoiding or removing the latter, and securing the former.
Not a few philosophers of distinction, and some theologians, have adopted these views. Even Dr. Thomas Brown uses the following language: “It is quite evident that even Omnipotence, which cannot do what is contradictory, cannot combine both advantages—the advantage of regular order in the sequences of nature, and the advantages of a uniform adaptation of the particular circumstances of the individual. We may take our choice, but we cannot think of a combination of both; and if, as is very obvious, the greater advantage be that of uniformity of operation, we must not complain of the evils to which that very uniformity which we cannot fail to prefer—if the option had been allowed us—has been the very circumstance that gave rise.”—Lecture 94.
“Science,” says George Combe, “has banished from the minds of profound thinkers belief in the exercise by the Deity, in our day, of special acts of supernatural power, as a means of influencing human affairs; and it has presented a systematic order of nature, which man may study, comprehend, and follow, as a guide to his practical conduct. Many educated laymen, and also a number of the clergy, have declined to recognize fasts, humiliations, and prayers, as means adapted, according to their views, to avert the recurrence of the evil, [the potato blight.] Indeed, these observances, inasmuch as they mislead the public mind with respect to its causes, are regarded by such persons as positive evils.”
“The most irreligious of all religious notions, as it seems to us,” says the North American Review, “is a belief in special providences; for if the doctrine has any weight at all, it is gained at the expense of a general providence. To assume todetect God as nearer to us on some occasions is to put him farther off from us on other occasions. To have him in special incidents is to forget him in the common tenor of events. The doctrine of special providences evidently has no other foundation than this, that menthink they can detectGod’s purpose and presence more signally in some incidents than in others; so that the doctrine, after all, is only a compliment to man’s power of detection, instead of an acknowledgment of God’s special presence.”
Such views and reasonings seem, upon a superficial examination, to be very plausible. But when we look into the Bible, we cannot but see that the main drift of it is directly opposed to such notions. That book does encourage man to pray to God for the removal of evils of every kind; evils as much dependent upon natural laws as the daily course of the sun through the heavens. It does teach us to look to God in every trying situation for deliverance, if it is best for us to be delivered. It does represent the wicked man as in danger of special punishment. It exhibits a multitude of examples, in which God has thus delivered those who trusted in him, and punished those who violated his laws.
In every age, too, the most devotedly pious men have testified, that they have found deliverance and support in circumstances in which mere natural laws could afford them no relief. Moreover, when men are brought into great peril or suffering of any kind, they involuntarily cry to God for help. When the vessel founders in the fury of the storm, the hardened sailor employs that breath in ardent prayer which just before had been poured out in blasphemies. And when the widowed mother hears the tempest howling around her dwelling at night, she cannot but pray for the protection of her child upon the treacherous sea. When violent disease racksthe frame, and we feel ourselves rapidly sinking into the grave, it is scarcely in human nature to omit crying to God with a feeling that he can save us. In short, it is a dictate of nature to call upon God in times of trouble. Our reasoning about the constancy of nature, which appears to us while in safety so clearly to show prayer for the removal of natural evils to be useless, loses its power, and the feelings of the heart triumph. It now becomes, therefore, an important practical question, which of these views of the providence of God is correct. Is it those which our reasoning derives from the constancy of nature, or those inspired by piety and the Bible? I have already said, that the subject of this lecture removes all presumption against the latter view; and I now proceed to show how God can exercise a special providence over the world, so as to meet the case of every individual, whether for blessing or punishment, and that, too, without miracles.