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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Probabilities + The Complete Prose Works of Tupper, Volume 6 (of 6) + +Author: Martin Farquhar Tupper + +Release Date: October 13, 2005 [EBook #16857] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROBABILITIES *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Janet Blenkinship and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<h1>PROBABILITIES;<a name="Page_457" id="Page_457"></a></h1> + +<h4>AN AID TO FAITH.</h4> + + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h3>MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, A.M., F.R.S.</h3> + +<h4> THE AUTHOR OF "PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY."</h4> + + +<h4>"ALMOST THOU PERSUADEST ME TO BE A CHRISTIAN."</h4> + + +<h3>HARTFORD:</h3> + +<h4>PUBLISHED BY SILAS ANDRUS & SON.</h4> + +<h4>1851.</h4> + +<p><br /></p> + + +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="TABLE OF CONTENTS"> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#AN_AID_TO_FAITH">AN AID TO FAITH.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#A_GOD_AND_HIS_ATTRIBUTES">A GOD: AND HIS ATTRIBUTES.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_TRIUNITY">THE TRIUNITY.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_GODHEAD_VISIBLE">THE GODHEAD VISIBLE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_ORIGIN_OF_EVIL">THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#COSMOGONY">COSMOGONY.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ADAM">ADAM.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_FALL">THE FALL.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_FLOOD">THE FLOOD.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#NOAH">NOAH.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#BABEL">BABEL.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#JOB">JOB.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#JOSHUA">JOSHUA.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_INCARNATION">THE INCARNATION.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#MAHOMETANISM">MAHOMETANISM.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ROMANISM">ROMANISM.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_BIBLE">THE BIBLE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#HEAVEN_AND_HELL">HEAVEN AND HELL.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#AN_OFFER">AN OFFER.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CONCLUSION">CONCLUSION.</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458"></a></p><p><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459"></a></p> +<h2>PROBABILITIES.</h2> + +<p><br /></p> + + +<h3><a name="AN_AID_TO_FAITH" id="AN_AID_TO_FAITH"></a>AN AID TO FAITH.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> certainty of those things which most surely are believed among us, +is a matter quite distinct from their antecedent probability or +improbability. We know, and take for facts, that Cromwell and Napoleon +existed, and are persuaded that their characters and lives were such as +history reports them: but it is another thing, and one eminently +calculated to disturb any disbeliever of such history, if a man were +enabled to show, that, from the condition of social anarchy, there was +an antecedent likelihood for the use of military despots; that, from the +condition of a popular puritanism, or a popular infidelity, it was +previously to have been expected that such leaders should have the +several characteristics of a bigoted zeal for religion, or a craving +appetite for worldly glory; that, from the condition liable to +revolutions, it was probable to find such despots arising out of the +middle class; and that, from the condition of reaction incidental to all +human violences, there was a clear expectability that the power of such +military monarchs should not be continued to their natural heirs.</p> + +<p>Such a line of argument, although in no measure required for the +corroboration of facts, might have considerable power to persuade <i>à +priori</i> the man, who had not hitherto seen reason to credit such facts +from posterior evidence. It would have rolled away a great stone, which +to such a mind might otherwise have stood as a stumbling-block on the +very threshold of truth. It would have cleared off a heavy mist, which +might prevent him from discerning the real nature of the scene in which +he stood. It would have shown him that, what others know to be fact, is, +even to him who does not know it, become antecedently probable; and that +Reason is not only no enemy to Faith, but is ready and willing to +acknowledge its alliance.</p> + +<p>Take a second illustration, by way of preliminary. A woodman, cleaving +an oak, finds an iron ball in its centre; he sees the fact, and <a name="Page_460" id="Page_460"></a>of +course believes; some others believing on his testimony. But a certain +village-pundit, habitually sceptical of all marvels, is persuaded that +the wonder has been fabricated by our honest woodman; until the parson, +a good historian, coming round that way, proclaims it a most interesting +circumstance, because it was one naturally to have been expected; for +that, here was the spot where, two hundred years ago, a great battle had +been fought: and it was no improbability at all that a carbine-bullet +should have penetrated a sapling, nor that the tree should thereafter +have grown old with the iron at its heart. How unreasonable then would +appear the pundit's incredulity, if persisted in: how suddenly +enlightened the rational faith of the rustic: how seasonable would be +felt the useful learning of him, whose knowledge well applied can thus +unfetter truth from the bandages of ignorance.</p> + +<p>Illustrations, if apt, are so well adapted to persuade towards a +particular line of argument, that, at the risk of diffuseness, and +because minds being various are variously touched, one by one thought +and one by another, I think fit to add yet more of a similar tendency: +in the hope that, by a natural induction, such instances may smoothe our +way.</p> + +<p>When an eminent living geologist was prosecuting his researches at +Kirkdale cave, Yorkshire, he had calculated so nicely on the antecedent +probabilities, that his commands to the labourers were substantially +these: "Take your mattocks, and pick up that stone flooring; then take +your basket, and fill it—with the bones of hyænas and other creatures +which you will find there." We may fancy the ridicule wherewith +ignorance might have greeted science: but lo, the triumph of philosophy, +when its mandate soon assumed a bodily shape in—bushels of bones gnawed +as by wild beasts, and here and there a grinning skull that looked like +a hyæna's! Do we not see how this bears on our coming argument? Such a +deposit was very unlikely to be found there in the eyes of the +unenlightened: but very likely to the wise man's ken. The real +probabilities were in favour of a strange fact, though the seeming +probabilities were against it.</p> + +<p>Take another. We are all now convinced of the existence of America; and +so, some three or four hundred years back, was Christopher Columbus—but +nobody else. Alone, he proved that mighty continent so probable, from +geometrical measurements, and the balance of the world, and tides, and +trade-winds, and casual floatsams driven from some land beneath the +setting sun, that he was antecedently convinced of the fact: and it +would have been a shock to his reason, as well as to his faith, had <a name="Page_461" id="Page_461"></a>he +found himself able to sail due west from Lisbon to China, without having +struck against his huge probability. I purposely abstain from applying +every illustration, or showing its specific difference regarding our +theme. It is better to lead a mind to think for itself than to endeavour +to forestall every notion.</p> + +<p>Another. A Kissoor merchant in Timbuctoo is told of the existence of +water hard and cold as marble. All the experience of his nation is +against it. He disbelieves. However, after no long time, the testimony +of two native princes who have been <i>fêted</i> in England, and have seen +ice, shakes his once not unreasonable incredulity: and the additional +idea brought soon to his remembrance, that, as lead cools down from hot +fluidity to a solid lump, so, in the absence of solar heat, in all +probability would water—corroborates and makes acceptable by analogous +likelihood the doctrine simultaneously evidenced by credible witnesses.</p> + +<p>Yet one more illustration for the last. Few things in nature appear more +unlikely to the illiterate, than that a living toad should be found +prisoned in a block of limestone; nevertheless, evidence goes to prove +that such cases are not uncommon. Now, if, instead of limestone, which +is a water-product, the creature had been found embedded in granite, +which is a fire-product; although the fact might have been from +eye-sight equally unimpeachable, how much more unlikely such a +circumstance would have appeared in the judgment of science. To the +rustic, the limestone case is as stout a puzzle as the granite one; but +<i>à priori</i>, the philosopher—taking into account the aqueous fluidity of +such a matrix at a period when reptiles were abundant, the torpid +qualities of the toad itself, and the fact that time is scarcely an +element in the absence of air—arrives at an antecedent probability, +which comforts his acceptance of the fact. The granite would have +staggered his reason, even though his own experience or the testimony of +others were sufficient, nay, imperative, to assure his faith: but in the +case of limestone, Reason even helps Faith; nay, anticipates and leads +it in, by suggesting the wonder to be previously probable. How truly, +and how strongly this bears upon our theme, let any such philosophizing +mind consider.</p> + +<p>But enough of illustrations: although these, multipliable to any amount, +might bring, each in its own case, some specific tendency to throw light +upon the path we mean to tread: it is wiser perhaps, as implying more +confidence in the reader's intellectual powers, to leave other analogous +cases to the suggestion of his own mind; also, not to vex him in every +instance with the intrusive finger of an obvious application.<a name="Page_462" id="Page_462"></a> +Meanwhile, it is a just opportunity to clear the way at once of some +obstructions, by disposing of a few matters personal to the writer; and +by touching upon sundry other preliminary considerations.</p> + +<p>1. The line of thought proposed is intended to show it probable that +any thing which has been or is, might, viewed antecedently to its +existence, by an exercise of pure reason, have by possibility been +guessed: and on the hypothesis of sufficient keenness and experience, +that this idea may be carried even to the future. Any thing, meaning +every thing, is a word not used unadvisedly; for this is merely a +suggestive treatise, starting a rule capable of infinite application: +and, notwithstanding that we have here and now confined its elucidation +to some matters of religious moment only, as occupying a priority of +importance, and at all times deserving the lead; still, if knowledge +availed, and time and space permitted, I scarcely doubt that a vigorous +and illuminated intellect might so far enlarge on the idea, as to show +the antecedent probability of every event which has happened in the +kingdoms of nature, providence, and grace: nay, of directing his guess +at coming matters with no uncertain aim into the realms of the immediate +future. The perception of cause in operation enables him to calculate +the consequence, even perhaps better than the prophecy of cause could in +the prior case enable him to suspect the consequence. But, in this brief +life, and under its disturbing circumstances, there is little likelihood +of accomplishing in practice all that the swift mind sees it easy to +dream in theory: and if other and wiser pens are at all helped in the +good aim to justify the ways of God with man, and to clear the course of +truth, by some of the notions broadcast in this treatise, its errand +will be well fulfilled.</p> + +<p>2. Whether or not the leading idea, so propounded, is new, or is new +in its application as an auxiliary to Christian evidences, the writer is +unaware: to his own mind it has occurred quite spontaneously and on a +sudden; neither has he scrupled to place it before others with whatever +ill advantage of celerity, because it seemed to his own musings to shed +a flood of light upon deep truths, which may not prove unwelcome nor +unuseful to the doubting minds of many. It is true that in this, as in +most other human efforts, the realization of idea in concrete falls far +short of its abstract conception in the mind: there, all was clear, +quick, and easy; here, the necessity of words, and the constraints of an +unwilling perseverance, clog alike the wings of fancy and the feet of +sober argument: insomuch that the difference is felt to be quite +humiliating between the thoughts as they were thought, and the thoughts +as they are <a name="Page_463" id="Page_463"></a>written. Minerva, +springing from the head of Jove, is not more unlike the heavily-treading +Vulcan.</p> + +<p>3. Necessarily, that the argument be (so to speak) complete, and on the +wise principle that no fortresses be left untaken in the rear, it must +be the writer's fate to attempt a demonstration of the anterior +probability of truths, which a child of reason can not only now never +doubt as fact, but never could have thought improbable. Instance the +first effort, showing it to have been expectable that there should, in +any conceived beginning, have existed a Something, a Great Spirit, whom +we call God. To have to argue of the mighty Maker, that HE was an +antecedent probability, would appear a most needless attempt; if it did +not occur as the first link in a chain of arguments less open to +objection by the thoughtless. With our little light to try to prove <i>à +priori</i> the dazzling mystery of a Divine Tri-unity, might (unreasonably +viewed) be assailed as a presumptuous and harmful thing; but it is our +wise prerogative, if and when we can, to "Prove all things." Moreover, +we live in a world wherein Truth's greatest enemy is the man who shrinks +from endeavouring at least to clear away the mists and clouds that veil +her precious aspect; and at a time when it behooves the reverent +Christian to put on his panoply of faith and prayer, and meet in +argument, according to the grace and power given to him—not indeed the +blaspheming infidel, for such a foe is unreasonable and unworthy of an +answer, but—the often candid, anxious, and involuntary doubter; the +mind, which, righteously vexed with the thousand corruptions of truth, +and sorely disappointed at the conduct of its herd of false disciples, +from a generous misconception is embracing error: the mind, never enough +tenderly treated, but commonly taunted as a sceptic which yet with a +natural manliness asserts the just prerogative of thinking for itself: +fairly enough requiring, though rarely finding, evidence either to prop +the weakness of a merely educational faith, or to argue away the +objections to Christianity so rife in the clashing doctrines and unholy +lives of its pseudo-sectaries. One of our poets hath said, "He has no +hope who never had a fear:" it is quite as true (and take this saying +for thy comfort, any harassed misbelieving mind), He has no faith, who +never had a doubt. There is hope of a mind which doubts, because it +thinks; because it troubles itself to think about what the mass of +nominal Christians live threescore years and die of very mammonism, +without having had one earnest thought about one difficulty, or one +misgiving: there is hope of a man, who, not licentious nor scornful, +from simple misconception, misbelieves; there is just and <a name="Page_464" id="Page_464"></a>reasonable +hope that (the misconception once removed) his faith will shine forth +all the warmer for a temporary state of winter. To such do I address +myself: not presumptuously imagining that I can satisfy by my poor +thoughts all the doubts, cavils and objections of minds so keen and +curious; not affecting to sail well among the shoals of metaphysics, nor +to plumb unerringly the deeper gulphs of reason; but asking them for +awhile to bear with me and hear me to the end patiently; with me, +convinced of what (κατ' εξοχἡν) is Truth, by far surer and +stronger arguments than any of the less considerations here expounded as +auxiliary thereto; to bear with me, and prove for themselves at this +penning of my thoughts (if haply I am helped in such high enterprise), +whether indeed those doctrines and histories which the Christian world +admit, were antecedently improbable, that is, unreasonable: whether, on +the contrary, there did not exist, prior to any manifestation of such +facts and doctrines, an exceeding likelihood that they would be so and +so developed: and whether on the whole, led by reason to the threshold +of faith, it may be worth while to encounter other arguments, which have +rendered probabilities now certain.</p> + +<p>4. It is very material to keep in memory the only scope and object of +this essay. We do not pretend to add one jot of evidence, but only to +prepare the mind to receive evidence: we do not attempt to prove facts, +but only to accelerate their admission by the removal of prejudice. If a +bed-ridden meteorologist is told that it rains, he may or he may not +receive the fact from the force of testimony; but he will certainly be +more prëdisposed to receive it, if he finds that his weatherglass is +falling rather than rising. The fact remains the same, it rains; but the +mind—precluded by circumstances from positive personal assurance of +such fact, and able only to arrive at truth from exterior evidence—is +in a fitter state for belief of the fact from being already made aware +that it was probable. Let it not then be inferred, somewhat perversely, +that because antecedent probabilities are the staple of our present +argument, the theme itself, Religion, rests upon hypotheses so slender: +it rests not at all upon such straws as probabilities, but on posterior +evidence far more firm. What we now attempt is not to prop the ark, but +favourably to prëdispose the mind of any reckless Uzzah, who might +otherwise assail it; not to strengthen the weak places of religion, but +to annul such disinclination to receive Truth, as consists in prejudice +and misconception of its likelihood. The goodly ship is built upon the +stocks, the platforms are reared, and the cradle is ready; but mistaken +prëconceptions may scatter the <a name="Page_465" id="Page_465"></a>incline with gravel-stones rather than +with grease, and thus put a needless hindrance to the launching: whereas +a clear idea that the probabilities are in favour, rather than the +reverse, will make all smooth, lubricate, and easy. If, then, we fail in +this attempt, no disservice whatever is done to Truth itself; no breach +is made in the walls, no mine sprung, no battlement dismantled; all the +evidences remain as they were; we have taken nothing away. Even granting +matters seemed anteriorily improbable, still, if evidence proved them +true, such anterior unlikelihood would entirely be merged in the stoutly +proven facts. Moreover, if we be adjudged to have succeeded, we have +added nothing to Truth itself; no, nor to its outworks. That sacred +temple stands complete, firm and glorious from corner-stone to +top-stone. We do but sweep away the rubbish at its base; the drifting +desert sands that choke its portals. We only serve that cause (a most +high privilege), by enlisting a prëjudgment in its favour. We propose +herein an auxiliary to evidence, not evidence itself; a finger-post to +point the way to faith; a little light of reason on its path. The risk +is really nothing; but the advantage, under favour, may be much.</p> + +<p>5. It is impossible to elude the discussion of topics, which in their +direct tendencies, or remoter inferences, may, to the author at least, +prove dangerous or disputable ground. If a "great door and effectual" is +opened to him, doubtless he will raise or meet with many adversaries. +Besides mere haters of his creed, despisers of his arguments, and +protestors, loud and fierce against his errors; he may possibly fall +foul of divers unintended heresies; he may stumble unwittingly on the +relics of exploded schisms; he may exhume controversies in metaphysical +or scholastical polemics, long and worthily extinct. If this be so, he +can only plead, <i>Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa</i>. But it is +open to him also to protest against the common critical folly of making +an offender for a word: of driving analogies on all four feet, and +straining thoughts beyond their due proportions. Above all, never let a +reader stir one inch beyond, far less against, his own judgment: if +there seem to be sufficient reasons, well: if otherwise, let me walk +uncompanied. The first step especially is felt to be a very difficult +one; perhaps very debatable: for aught I know, it may be merely a vain +insect caught in the cobweb of metaphysics, soon to be destroyed, and +easily to be discussed at leisure by some Aranean logician. However, it +seemed to my midnight musings a probable mode of arriving at truth, +though somewhat unsatisfactorily told from poverty of thought and +language.<a name="Page_466" id="Page_466"></a> Moreover, it would have been, in such <i>à priori</i> argument, +ridiculous to have commenced by announcing a posterior conclusion: for +this cause did I do my humble best to work it out anew: and however +supererogatory it may seem at first sight to the majority of readers, +those keener minds whom I mainly address, and whose interests I wish to +serve, will recognise the attempt as at least consistent: and will be +ready to admit that if the arduous effort prove anteriorly a First Great +Cause, and His attributes, be futile (which, however, I do not admit), +it was an attempt unneeded on the score of its own merits; albeit, with +an obvious somewhat of justice, pure reason may desire to begin at the +beginning. No one, who thinks at all upon religion, however +misbelieving, can entertain any mental prejudice against the existence +of a Deity, or against the received character of His attributes. Such a +man would be merely in a savage state, irrational: whilst his own mind, +so speculating, would stand itself proof positive of an Intellectual +Father; either immediately, as in the first man's case, or mediately, as +in our own, it must have sprung out of that Being, who is emphatically +the Good One—God. But if, as is possible, a mind, capable of thinking, +and keen to think on other themes, from any cause, educational or moral, +has neglected this great track of mediation, has "forgotten God," and +"had him <i>not</i> in all his thoughts," such an one I invite to walk with +me; and, in spite of all incompleteness and insufficiency, uncaptious of +much that may haply be fanciful or false, briefly and in outline to test +with me sundry probabilities of the Christian scheme, considered +antecedently to its elucidation.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="A_GOD_AND_HIS_ATTRIBUTES" id="A_GOD_AND_HIS_ATTRIBUTES"></a>A GOD: AND HIS ATTRIBUTES.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">I will</span> commence with a noble, and, as I believe, an inspired sentence: +than which no truth uttered by philosophers ever was more clearly or +more sublimely expressed. "In the beginning was the Word: and the Word +was with God; and the Word was God." In its due course, we will consider +especially the difference between the Word and God; likewise the seeming +contradiction, but true concord, of being simultaneously God, and with +God. At present, and previously to the true commencement of our <i>à +priori</i> thoughts, let us, by a word or two, paraphrase that brief but +comprehensive sentence, "In the beginning was the Word." Eternity has no +beginning, as it has no end: the clock of Time is futile there: it +<a name="Page_467" id="Page_467"></a>might as well attempt to go in vacuo. Nevertheless, in respect to +finite intelligences like ourselves, seeing that eternity is an idea +totally inconceivable, it is wise, nay it is only possible, to be +presented to the mind piecemeal. Even our deepest mathematicians do not +scruple to speak of points "infinitely remote;" as if in that phrase +there existed no contradiction of terms. So, also, we pretend in our +emptiness to talk of eternity past, time present, and eternity to come; +the fact being that, muse as a man may, he can entertain no idea of an +existence which is not measurable by time: any more than he can conceive +of a colour unconnected with the rainbow, or of a musical note beyond +the seven sounds. The plain intention of the words is this: place the +starting-post of human thought as far back into eternity as you will, be +it what man counts a thousand ages, or ten thousand times ten thousand, +or be these myriads multiplied again by millions, still, in any such +Beginning, and in the beginning of all beginnings (for so must creatures +talk)—then was God. He Was: the scholar knows full well the force of +the original term, the philological distinctions between ειμι +and γιγνομαι: well pleased, he reads as of the Divinity +ἡν, He self-existed; and equally well pleased he reads of the humanity +ἑγεννἡθη, he was born. The thought and phrase ἡν +sympathizes, if it has not an identity, with the Hebrew's unutterable +Name. <span class="smcap">He</span> then, whose title, amongst all others likewise +denoting excellence supreme and glory underivative, is essentially "I +am;" <span class="smcap">He</span> who, relatively to us as to all creation else, has a +new name wisely chosen in "the Word,"—the great expression of the idea +of God; this mighty Intelligence is found in any such beginning +self-existent. That teaching is a mere fact, known posteriorly from the +proof of all things created, as well as by many wonderful signs, and the +clear voice of revelation. We do not attempt to prove it; that were easy +and obvious: but our more difficult endeavour at present is to show how +antecedently probable it was that God should be: and that so being, He +should be invested with the reasonable attributes, wherewithal we know +His glorious Nature to be clothed.</p> + +<p>Take then our beginning where we will, there must have existed in that +"originally" either Something, or Nothing. It is a clear matter to +prove, <i>à posteriori</i>, that Something did exist; because something +exists now: every matter and every derived spirit must have had a +Father; <i>ex nihilo nihil fit</i>, is not more a truth, than that creation +must have had a Creator. However, leaving this plain path (which I only +point at by the way for obvious mental uses), let us now try to get at +<a name="Page_468" id="Page_468"></a>the great antecedent probability that in the beginning Something should +have been, rather than Nothing.</p> + +<p>The term, Nothing, is a fallacious one: it does not denote an existence, +as Something does, but the end of an existence. It is in fact a +negation, which must prësuppose a matter once in being and possible to +be denied; it is an abstraction, which cannot happen unless there be +somewhat to be taken away; the idea of vacuity must be posterior to that +of fullness; the idea of no tree is incompetent to be conceived without +the previous idea of <i>a</i> tree; the idea of nonentity suggests, <i>ex vi +termini</i>, a pre-existent entity; the idea of Nothing, of necessity, +prësupposes Something. And a Something once having been, it would still +and for ever continue to be, unless sufficient cause be found for its +removal; that cause itself, you will observe, being a Something. The +chances are forcibly in favour of continuance, that is of perpetuity; +and the likelihoods proclaim loudly that there should be an Existence. +It was thus, then, antecedently more probable, than in any imaginable +beginning from which reason can start, Something should be found +existent, rather than Nothing. This is the first probability.</p> + +<p>Next; of what nature and extent is this Something, this Being, likely to +be?—There will be either one such being, or many: if many, the many +either sprang from the one, or the mass are all self-existent; in the +former case, there would be a creation and a God: in the latter, there +would be many Gods. Is the latter antecedently more probable?—let us +see. First, it is evident that if many are probable, few are more +probable, and one most probable of all. The more possible gods you take +away, the more do impediments diminish; until, that is to say, you +arrive at that One Being, whom we have already proved probable. +Moreover, many must be absolutely united as one; in which case the many +is a gratuitous difficulty, because they may as well be regarded for all +purposes of worship or argument as one God: or the many must have been +in essence more or less disunited; in which case, as a state of any +thing short of pure concord carries in itself the seeds of dissolution, +needs must that one or other of the many (long before any possible +beginnings, as we count beginnings, looking down the past vista of +eternity), would have taken opportunity by such disturbing causes to +become absolute monarch: whether by peaceful persuasion, or hostile +compulsion, or other mode of absorbing disunions, would be indifferent; +if they were not all improbable, as unworthy of the God. Perpetuity of +discord is a thing impossible; every thing short of unity tends to +<a name="Page_469" id="Page_469"></a>decomposition. Any how then, given the element of eternity to work in, +a one great Supreme Being was, in the created beginning, an <i>à priori</i> +probability. That all other assumptions than that of His true and +eternal Oneness are as false in themselves as they are derogatory to the +rational views of deity, we all now see and believe; but the direct +proofs of this are more strictly matters of revelation than of reason: +albeit reason too can discern their probabilities. Wise heathens, such +as Socrates and Cicero, who had not our light, arrived nevertheless at +some of this perception; and thus, through conscience and intelligence, +became a law unto themselves: because that, to them, as now to any one +of us who may not yet have seen the light, the anterior likelihood +existed for only one God, rather than more; a likelihood which prepares +the mind to take as a fundamental truth, "The Lord our God is one +Jehovah."</p> + +<p>Next; Self-existence combined with unity must include the probable +attribute, or character, Ubiquity; as I now proceed to show. On the same +principle as that by which we have seen Something to be likelier than +Nothing, we conclude that the same Something is more probable to be +every where, than the same Nothing (if the phrase were not absurd), to +be any where: we may, so to speak, divide infinity into spaces, and +prove the position in each instance: moreover, as that Something is +essentially—not a unit as of many, but—unity involving all, it follows +as most probable that this Whole Being should be ubiquitous; in other +parlance, that the one God should be every where at once: also, there +being no limit to what we call Space, nor any imaginable hostile power +to place a constraint upon the One Great Being, this Whole Being must be +ubiquitous to a degree strictly infinite: "<span class="smcap">he</span> is in every +place, beholding the evil and the good."</p> + +<p>Such a consideration (and it is a perfectly true one) renders necessary +the next point, to wit, that God is a Spirit. No possible substance can +be every where at once: essence may, but not substance. Corporeity in +any shape must be local; local is finite; and we have just proved the +anterior probability of a One great Existence being (notwithstanding +unity of essence) infinite. Illocal and infinite are convertible terms: +spirit is illocal; and, as God is infinite—that is, illocal—it is +clear that "God is a Spirit."</p> + +<p>We have thus (not attempting to build up faith by such slight tools, but +only using them to cut away prejudice) arrived at the high probability +of a God invested with His natural qualities or attributes; +Self-existence, Unity, the faculty of being every where at once and that +<a name="Page_470" id="Page_470"></a>every where Infinitude; and essentially of a Spiritual nature, not +material. His moral, or accidental attributes (so to speak), were, +antecedently to their expression, equally easy of being proved +probable. First, with respect to Power: given no disturbing cause—(we +shall soon consider the question of permitted evil, and its origin; but +this, however disturbing to creatures, will be found not only none to +God, but, as it were, only a ray of His glory suffered to be broken for +prismatic beauty's sake, a flash of the direction of His energies +suffered to be diverted for the superior triumph of good in that day +when it shall be shown that "God hath made all things for himself, yea, +even the wicked for the time of visitation")—with the <i>datum</i> then of +no disturbing cause obstructing or opposing, an infinite being must be +able to do all things within the sphere of such infinity: in other +phrase, He must be all-powerful. Just so, an impetus in vacuity suffers +no check, but ever sails along among the fleet of worlds; and the innate +Impulse of the Deity must expand and energize throughout that +infinitude, Himself. For a like reason of ubiquity, God must know all +things: it is impossible to escape from the strong likelihood that any +intelligent being must be conversant of what is going on under his very +eye. Again; in the case both of Power and Knowledge, alike with the +coming attributes of Goodness and Wisdom—(wisdom considered as morally +distinct from mere knowledge or awaredness; it being quite possible to +conceive a cold eye seeing all things heedlessly, and a clear mind +knowing all things heartlessly)—in the case, I say, of all these +accidental attributes, there recurs for argument, one analogous to that +by which we showed the anterior probability of a self-existence. Things +positive must precede things negative. Sight must have been, before +blindness is possible; and before we can arrive at a just idea of no +sight. Power must be precursor to an abstraction from power, or +weakness. The minor-existence of ignorance is an impossibility, unless +you prëallow the major-existence of wisdom; for it amounts to a debasing +or a diminution of wisdom. Sin is well defined to be, the transgression +of law; for without law, there can be no sin. So, also, without wisdom, +there can be no ignorance; without power, there can be no weakness; +without goodness, there can be no evil.</p> + +<p>Furthermore. An affirmative—such as wisdom, power, goodness—can exist +absolutely; it is in the nature of a Something: but a negative—such as +ignorance, weakness, evil—can only exist relatively; and it would, +indeed, be a Nothing, were it not for the previous and now <a name="Page_471" id="Page_471"></a>simultaneous +existence of its wiser, stronger, and better origin. Abstract evil is as +demonstrably an impossibility as abstract ignorance, or abstract +weakness. If evil could have self-existed, it would in the moment of its +eternal birth have demolished itself. Virtue's intrinsic concord tends +to perpetual being: vice's innate discord struggles always with a force +towards dissolution. Goodness, wisdom, power have existences, and have +had existences from all eternity, though gulphed within the Godhead; and +that, whether evidenced in act or not: but their corruptions have had no +such original existence, but are only the same entities perverted. Love +would be love still, though there were no existent object for its +exercise: Beauty would be beauty still, though there were no created +thing to illustrate its fairness: Power would be power still, though +there be no foe to combat, no difficulty to be overcome. Hatred, +ill-favour, weakness, are only perversions or diminutions of these. +Power exists independently of muscles or swords or screws or levers; +love, independently of kind thoughts, words, and actions; beauty, +independently of colours, shapes, and adaptations. Just so is Wisdom +philosophically spoken of by a truly royal and noble author:</p> + +<p>"I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and find out the knowledge of clever +inventions. Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom; I am understanding; I +have strength. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before +his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or +ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; +before the mountains were fixed, or the hills were made. When He +prepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass upon the face +of the depth; when he established the clouds above; when he strengthened +the foundations of the deep: Then was I by him, as one brought up with +him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; rejoicing +in the habitable parts of his earth; and my delights were with the sons +of men."</p> + +<p>King Solomon well knew of Whom he wrote thus nobly. Eternal wisdom, +power, and goodness, all prospectively thus yearning upon man, and +incorporate in One, whose name, among his many names, is Wisdom. Wisdom, +as a quality, existed with God; and, constituting full pervasion of his +essence, was God.</p> + +<p>But to return, and bind to a conclusion our ravelled thoughts. As, +originally, the self-existent being, unbounded, all-knowing, might take +up, so to speak, if He willed, these eternal affirmative excellences of +wisdom, power, and goodness; and as these, to every rational +appre<a name="Page_472" id="Page_472"></a>hension, are highly worthy of his choice, whereas their derivative +and inferior corruptions would have been most derogatory to any +reasonable estimate of His character; how much more likely was it that +He should prefer the higher rather than the lower, should take the +affirmative before the negative, should "choose the good, and refuse the +evil,"—than endure to be endowed with such garbled, demoralizing, +finite attributes as those wherewith the heathen painted the Pantheon. +What high antecedent probability was there, that if a God should be (and +this we have proved highly probable too)—He should be One, ubiquitous, +self-existent, spiritual: that He should be all-mighty, all-wise, and +all-good?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_TRIUNITY" id="THE_TRIUNITY"></a>THE TRIUNITY.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Another</span> deep and inscrutable topic is now to engage our thoughts—the +mystery of a probable Triunity. While we touch on such high themes, the +Christian's presumption ever is, that he himself approaches them with +reverence and prayer; and that, in the case of an unbeliever, any such +mind will be courteous enough to his friendly opponent, and wise enough +respecting his own interest and safety lest these things be true, to +enter upon all such subjects with the seriousness befitting their +importance, and with the restraining thought that in fact they may be +sacred.</p> + +<p>Let us then consider, antecedently to all experience, with what sort of +deity pure reason would have been satisfied. It has already arrived at +Unity, and the foregoing attributes. But what kind of Unity is probable? +Unity of Person, or unity of Essence? A sterile solitariness, easily +understandable, and presumably incommunicative? or an absolute oneness, +which yet relatively involves several mysterious phases of its own +expansive love? Will you think it a foregone conclusion, if I assert the +superior likelihoods of the latter, and not of the former? Let us come +then to a few of many reasons. First: it was by no means probable to be +supposed anteriorly, that the God should be clearly comprehensible: yet +he must be one: and oneness is the idea most easily apprehended of all +possible ideas. The meanest of intellectual creatures could comprehend +his Maker, and in so far top his heights, if God, being truly one in one +view, were yet only one in every view: if, that is to say, there existed +no mystery incidental to his nature: nay, if that <a name="Page_473" id="Page_473"></a>mystery did not +amount to the difficulty of a seeming contradiction. I judge it likely, +and with confidence, that Reason would prërequire for his God, a Being, +at once infinitely easy to be apprehended by the lowest of His spiritual +children, and infinitely difficult to be comprehended by the highest of +His seraphim. Now, there can be guessed only two ways of compassing such +a prërequirement: one, a moral way; such as inventing a deity who could +be at once just and unjust, every where and no where, good and evil, +powerful and weak; this is the heathen phase of Numen's character, and +is obviously most objectionable in every point of view: the other would +be a physical way; such as requiring a God who should be at once +material and immaterial, abstraction and concretion; or, for a still +more confounding paradox to Reason (considered as antagonist to Faith, +in lieu of being strictly its ally), an arithmetical contradiction, an +algebraic mystery, such as would be included in the idea of Composite +Unity; one involving many, and many collapsed into one. Some such enigma +was probable in Reason's guess at the nature of his God. It is the +Christian way; and one entirely unobjectionable: because it is the only +insuperable difficulty as to His Nature which does not debase the notion +of Divinity. But there are also other considerations.</p> + +<p>For, secondly. The self-existent One is endowed, as we found probable, +with abundant loving-kindness, goodness overflowing and perpetual. Is it +reasonable to conceive that such a character could for a moment be +satisfied with absolute solitariness? that infinite benevolence should, +in any possible beginning, be discovered existent in a sort of selfish +only-oneness? Such a supposition is, to the eye of even unenlightened +Reason, so clearly a <i>reductio ad absurdum</i>, that men in all countries +and ages have been driven to invent a plurality of Gods, for very +society sake: and I know not but that they are anteriorly wiser and more +rational than the man who believes in a Benevolent Existence eternally +one, and no otherwise than one. Let me not be mistaken to imply that +there was any likelihood of many cöexistent gods: that was a reasonable +improbability, as we have already seen, perhaps a spiritual +impossibility: but the anterior likelihood of which I speak goes to +show, that in One God there should be more than one cöexistence: each, +by arithmetical mystery, but not absurdity, pervading all, cöequals, +each being God, and yet not three Gods, but one God. That there should +be a rational difficulty here—or, rather, an irrational one—I have +shown to be Reason's prërequirement: and if such a one as I, or any +other crea<a name="Page_474" id="Page_474"></a>ture, could now and here (ay, or any when or any where, in +the heights of highest heaven, and the far-stretching distance of +eternity) solve such intrinsic difficulty, it would demonstrably be one +not worthy of its source, the wise design of God: it would prove that +riddle read, which uncreate omniscience propounded for the baffling of +the creature mind. No. It is far more reasonable, as well as far more +reverent, to acquiesce in Mystery, as another attribute inseparable from +the nature of the Godhead; than to quibble about numerical puzzles, and +indulge unwisely in objections which it is the happy state of nobler +intelligences than man on earth is, to look into with desire, and to +exercise withal their keen and lofty minds.</p> + +<p>But we have not yet done. Some further thoughts remain to be thrown out +in the third place, as to the prëconceivable fitness or propriety of +that Holy Union, which we call the trinity of Persons who constitute the +Self-existent One. If God, being one in one sense, is yet likely to +appear, humanly speaking, more than one in another sense; we have to +inquire anteriorly of the probable nature of such other intimate Being +or Beings: as also, whether such addition to essential oneness is likely +itself to be more than one or only one. As to the former of these +questions: if, according to the presumption of reason (and according +also to what we have since learned from revelation; but there may be +good policy in not dotting this book with chapter and verse)—if the +Deity thus loved to multiply Himself; then He, to whom there can exist +no beginning, must have so loved, so determined, and so done from all +eternity. Now, any conceivable creation, however originated, must have +had a beginning, place it as far back as you will. In any succession of +numbers, however infinitely they may stretch, the commencement at least +is a fixed point, one. But, this multiplication of Deity, this complex +simplicity, this intricate easiness, this obvious +paradox, this sub-division and con-addition of a One, must have taken +place, so soon as ever eternal benevolence found itself alone; that is, +in eternity, and not in any imaginable time. So then, the Being or +Beings would probably not have been creative, but of the essence of +Deity. Take also for an additional argument, that it is an idea which +detracts from every just estimate of the infinite and all-wise God to +suppose He should take creatures into his eternal counsels, or consort, +so to speak, familiarly with other than the united sub-divisions, +persons, and cöequals of Himself. It was reasonable to prëjudge that the +everlasting companions of Benevolent God, should also be God. And thus, +it appears antecedently <a name="Page_475" id="Page_475"></a>probable that (what from the poverty of +language we must call) the multiplication of the one God should not have +been created beings; that is, should have been divine; a term, which +includes, as of right, the attribution to each such Holy Person, of all +the wondrous characteristics of the Godhead.</p> + +<p>Again: as to the latter question; was it probable that such so-called +sub-divisions should be two, or three, or how many? I do not think it +will be wise to insist upon any such arithmetical curiosity as a perfect +number; nor on such a toy as an equilateral triangle and its properties; +nor on the peculiar aptitude for sub-division in every thing, to be +discerned in a beginning, a middle, and an end; nor in the consideration +that every fact had a cause, is a constancy, and produces a consequence: +neither, to draw any inferences from the social maxim that for counsel, +companionship, and conversation, the number three has some special +fitness. Some other similar fancies, not altogether valueless, might be +alluded to. It seems preferable, however, on so grand a theme, to +attempt a deeper dive, and a higher flight. We would then, reverently as +always, albeit equally as always with the free-born boldness of God's +intellectual children, attempt to prëjudge how many, and with what +distinctive marks, the holy beings into whom (ὡϛ ἑποϛ ειπἑιν) +God, for very Benevolence sake, pours out Essential Unity, were likely +to be.</p> + +<p>Let us consider what principles, as in the case of a forthcoming +creation, would probably be found in action, to influence such +creation's Author.</p> + +<p>First of all, there would be Will, a will energized by love, disposing +to create: a phase of Deity aptly and comprehensively typified to all +minds by the name of a universal Father: this would be the primary +impersonation of God. And is it not so?</p> + +<p>Secondly: there would be (with especial reference to that idea of +creation which doubtless at most remote beginnings occupied the Good +One's contemplation), there would be next, I repeat, in remarkable +adaptation to all such benevolent views, the great idea of principle, +Obedience; conforming to a Father's righteous laws, acquiescing in his +just will, and returning love for love: such a phase could not be better +shadowed out to creatures than by an Eternal Son; the dutiful yet +supreme, the subordinate yet cöequal, the amiable yet exalted Avatar of +our God. This was probable to have been the second impersonation of +Deity. And is it not so?</p> + +<p>Thirdly: Springing from the conjoint ideas of the Father and the<a name="Page_476" id="Page_476"></a> Son, +and with similar prospection to such instantly creative universe, there +would occur the grand idea of Generation; the mighty cöequal, pure, and +quickening Impulse: aptly announced to men and angels as the Holy +Spirit. This was to have been the third impersonation of Divinity. And +is it not so?</p> + +<p>Of all these—under illumination of the fore-known fact, I speak, in +their aspect of anterior probability. With respect to more possible +Persons, I at least cannot invent one. There is, to my reflection, +neither need nor fitness for a fourth, or any further Principle. If +another can, let him look well that he be not irrationally demolishing +an attribute and setting it up as a principle. Obedience is not an +attribute; nor Generation; nor Will: whilst the attribute of Love, +pervading all, sets these only possible three Principles going together +as One in a mysterious harmony. I would not be misunderstood; persons +are not principles; but principles may be illustrated and incorporative +in persons. Essential Love, working distinctively throughout the Three, +unites them instinctively as One: even as the attribute Wisdom designs, +and the attribute Power arranges all the scheme of Godhead.</p> + +<p>And now I ask Reason, whether, prësupposing keenness, he might not have +arrived by calculation of probabilities at the likelihood of these great +doctrines: that the nature of God would be an apparent contradiction: +that such contradiction should not be moral, but physical; or rather +verging towards the metaphysical, as immaterial and more profound: that +God, being One, should yet, in his great Love, marvellously have been +companioned from eternity by Himself: and that such Holy and United +Confraternity should be so wisely contrived as to serve for the bright +unapproachable exemplar of love, obedience, and generation to all the +future universe, such Triunity Itself existing uncreated.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_GODHEAD_VISIBLE" id="THE_GODHEAD_VISIBLE"></a>THE GODHEAD VISIBLE.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have hitherto mused on the Divinity, as on Spirit invested with +attributes: and this idea of His nature was enough for all requirements +antecedently to a creation. At whatever beginning we may suppose such +creation to have commenced, whether countless ages before our present +κὁσμοϛ, or only a sufficient time to have prepared the crust of +earth; and to whatever extent we may imagine creation to have spread, +whether in those remote periods originally to our system alone and at +after <a name="Page_477" id="Page_477"></a>eras to its accompanying stars and galaxies and firmaments; or at +one and the same moment to have poured material existence over space to +which our heavens are as nothing: whatever, and whenever, and wherever +creation took place, it would appear to be probable that some one person +of the Deity should, in a sort, become more or less concretely +manifested; that is, in a greater or a minor degree to such created +minds and senses visible. Moreover, for purposes at least of a +concentrated worship of such creatures, that He should occasionally, or +perhaps habitually, appear local. I mean, that the King of all spiritual +potentates and the subordinate Excellencies of brighter worlds than +ours, the Sovereign of those whom we call angels, should will to be +better known to and more aptly conceived by such His admiring creatures, +in some usual glorious form, and some wonted sacred place. Not that any +should see God, as purely God; but, as God relatively to them, in the +capacity of King, Creator, and the Object of all reasonable worship. It +seems anteriorly probable that one at least of the Persons in the +Godhead should for this purpose assume a visibility; and should hold His +court of adoration in some central world, such as now we call +indefinitely Heaven. That such probability did exist in the human +forecast, as concerns a heaven and the form of God, let the testimony of +all nations now be admitted to corroborate. Every shape from a cloud to +a crocodile, and every place from Æther to Tartarus, have been peopled +by man's not quite irrational device with their so-called gods. But we +must not lapse into the after-argument: previous likelihood is our +harder theme. Neither, in this section, will we attempt the +probabilities of the place of heaven: that will be found at a more +distant page. We have here to speak of the antecedent credibility that +there should be some visible phase of God; and of the shape wherein he +would be most likely, as soon as a creation was, to appear to such his +creatures. With respect, then, to the former. Creatures, being finite, +can only comprehend the infinite in his attribute of unity: the other +attributes being apprehended (or comprehended partially) in finite +phases. But, unity being a purely intellectual thought, one high and dry +beyond the moral feelings, involves none of the requisites of a +spiritual, that is an affectionate, worship; such worship as it was +likely that a beneficent Being would, for his creatures' own elevation +in happiness, command and inspire towards Himself. In order, therefore, +to such worship and such inspiration acting through reason, it would +appear fitting that the Deity should manifest Himself especially with +reference to that heavenly Ex<a name="Page_478" id="Page_478"></a>emplar, the Three Divine Persons of the +One Supreme Essence already shown to have been probable. And it seems +likeliest and discreetest to my thinking, that, with this view, the +secondary phase, loving Obedience, under the dictate of the primary +phase, a loving Will, and energized by the tertiary or conjoining phase +a loving Quickening Entity, should assume the visible type of Godhead, +and thus concentrate unto Himself the worship of all worlds. I can +conceive no scheme more simply profound, more admirably suited to its +complex purposes, than that He, in whom dwelt the fullness of the +Godhead, bodily, should take the form of God, in order that unto Him +every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and +things in regions under the earth. Was not all this reasonably to have +been looked for? and tested afterwards by Scripture, in its frequent +allusions to some visible phase of Deity, when the Lord God walked with +Adam, and Enoch, and Abraham, and Peter, and James, and John—I ask, is +it not the case?</p> + +<p>The latter point remaining to be thus briefly touched upon, respects the +probable shape to be assumed and worn, familiarly enough to be +recognised as His, by Deity thus vouchsafing Himself visible. And here +we must look down the forward stream of Time, and search among the +creatures whom thereafter God should make, to arrive at some good reason +for, some antecedent probability of, the form which he should thus +frequently inhabit. Fire, for example, a pure and spirit-like nature, +would not have been a guess unworthy of reason: but this, besides its +humbler economic uses, would endanger an idolatry of the natural emblem. +So also would light be no irrational thought. And it is true that God +might, and probably would, invest Himself in one or both of these pure +essences, so seemingly congenial to a nature higher than ours: but then +there would be some nucleus to the brilliancy and the burning; these +would be as a veil to the Divinity; we should have need, before He were +truly visible, that the veil were laid aside: we should have to shred +away to the nucleus, which (and not the fire or light) would be the form +of God. Similar objections, in themselves or in their idolatrizing +tendencies, would lie against any such shape as a cloud, or a rainbow, +or an angel (whatever such a being may resemble), or in fact any other +conceivable creature, whether good as the angelic case or indifferent as +that of the cloud, which the Deity, though assuming often, would +nevertheless in every instance assume in conjunction with such his +ordinary creature, and could not entirely monopolize. I mean; if God had +the shape of a cloud, or of a rainbow, common clouds and <a name="Page_479" id="Page_479"></a>rainbows would +come to be thought gods too. Reason would anticipate this objection to +such created and too-favoured shapes: more; in every case, but one, he +would be quite at a loss to look for some type, clearly apt and +probable. That one case he might discern to be this. Known unto God are +all things from the beginning to the end: and, in His fore-knowledge, +Reason might have been enlightened to prophesy (as we shall hereafter +see) that for certain wise and good ends one great family out of the +myriads who rejoice in being called God's children, would in a most +marked manner fall away from Him through disobedience; and should +thereby earn, if not the annihilation of their being, at least its +endless separation from the Blessed. Manifestly, the wisdom and +benevolence of God would be eager and swift to devise a plan for the +redemption of so lost a race. Why He should permit their fall at all +will be reverentially descanted on in its proper section; meanwhile, how +is it probable that God, first, by any theory consistently with truth +and justice, could, and next by power and contrivance actually would, +lift up again this sinful family from the pit of condemnation? Reason is +to search the question well: and after much thought, you will arrive at +the truth that there was but one way probable. Rebellion against the +Great and Self-existent Author of all things, must needfully involve +infinite punishment; if only because He is infinite, and his laws of an +eternal sanction. The problem then was, how to inflict the unbounded +punishment thus claimed by justice for a transgressional condition, and +yet at love's demand to set the prisoner free: how to be just, and +simultaneously justifier of the guilty. That was a question +magnificently solved by God alone: magnificently about to be solved, as +according to our argument seemed probable, by God Triune, in wondrous +self-involving council. The solution would be rationally this. Himself, +in his character of filial obedience, should pay the utter penalty to +Himself in his character of paternal authority, whilst Himself in the +character of quickening spirit, should restore the ransomed family from +death to life, from the power of evil unto good. Was not this a most +probable, a most reasonably probable scheme? was it not altogether wise +and philosophical, as well as entirely generous and kind to wretched +men?</p> + +<p>And (returning to our present topic), was it not antecedently to have +been expected that God the Son (so to put it) should, in the shape He +was thereafter to assume upon earth, appear upon the eternal throne of +heaven? In a shape, however glorified and etherealized, with glistening +countenance and raiment bright as the light, nevertheless resembling +<a name="Page_480" id="Page_480"></a>that more humble form, the Son of Man, who was afterwards thus by a +circle of probabilities to be made in the form of God; in a shape, not +liable, from its very sinfulness, to the deification either of other +worlds or of this [hero-worship is another and a lower thing altogether; +we speak here of true idolatries:]—was it unlikely, I say, that in such +a shape Deity should have deigned to become visible, and have blazed +Manifested God, the central Sun of Heaven?—This probability, prior to +our forth-flowing thoughts on the Incarnation, though in some measure +anticipating them, will receive further light from the views soon to be +set forth. I know not but that something is additionally due to the +suggestion following; namely: that, raise our swift imagination to what +height we may, and stretch our searching reason to the uttermost, we +cannot, despite of all inventive energies and powers of mind, conceive +any shape more beautiful, more noble, more worthy for a rational +intelligence to dwell in, more in one Homeric word Θεοειδἑϛ, +than the glorified and etherealized human form divine. Let this serve as +Reason's short reply to any charge of anthropomorphism in the doctrines +of his creed: it was probable that God should be revealed to His +creation; and as to the form of any such revealed essence in any such +infinite beginnings of His work, the most likely of all would appear to +be that one, wherein He, in the ages then to come, was well resolved to +earn the most glorious of all triumphs, the merciful reconciliation of +everlasting justice with everlasting love, the wise and wondrous scheme +of God forgiving sinners.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_ORIGIN_OF_EVIL" id="THE_ORIGIN_OF_EVIL"></a>THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> will now be opportune to attempt elucidation of one of the darkest +and deepest riddles ever propounded to the finite understanding; the <i>à +priori</i> likelihood of evil: not, mind, its eternal existence, which is a +false doctrine; but its probable procession from the earliest created +beings, which is a true one.</p> + +<p>At first sight, nothing could appear more improbable: nothing more +inconsistent with the recognised attributes of God, than that error, +pain, and sorrow should be mingled in His works. These, the spontaneous +offspring of His love, one might (not all wisely) argue, must always be +good and happy—because perfect as Himself. Because perfect?—<a name="Page_481" id="Page_481"></a>Therein +lies the fallacy, which reason will at once lay bare. Perfection is +attributable to no possible creature: perfection argues infinity, and +infinity is one of the prerogatives of God. However good, "very good," a +creation may be found, still it must, from essential finitude, fall +short of that Best, which is in effect the only state purely +unexceptionable. For instance, no creature can be imagined of a wisdom +undiminished from the single true standard, God's wisdom: in other +phrase, every creature must be more or less departed from wisdom, that +is, verging towards folly. Again; no creature can be presumed of a +purity so spotless as to rank in an equality with that of the Almighty: +in other words, neither man, nor angel, nor any other creature, can +exist who is not more or less—I will not say impure, positively, +but—unpure negatively. Thus, the birth-mark of creation must have been +an inclination towards folly, and from purity. The mere idea of +creatures would involve, as its great need-be, the qualifying clause +that these emanations from perfection be imperfect; and that these +children of purity be liable to grow unpure. They must either be thus +natured, or exist of the essence of God, that is, be other persons and +phases of the Deity: such a case was possible certainly; but, as we have +already shown, not probable. And it were possible, that, in consequence +of some redemption such as we have spoken of, creatures might by +ingraftation into God become so entirely part of Him—bone of bone, and +flesh of flesh, and spirit of spirit—that an exhortation to such blest +beings should reasonably run, "Be ye perfect." But this infinite +munificence of the Godhead in redemption was not to be found among His +bounties as Creator. It might indeed arise afterwards, as setting up +again the fallen creature in some safe niche of Deity: and we now know +it has arisen: "we are complete in Him."</p> + +<p>But this, though relevant, is a digression. Returning, and to produce +some further argument against all creature perfectness; let us consider +how rational it seems to prësuppose that the mighty Maker in his +boundless love should have willed to form a long chain of classes of +existence more and more subordinated each to the other, each good of its +kind and happy in its way, but yet all needfully more or less removed +from the high standard of uncreate Perfection. These descending links, +these graduations downwards, must involve a nearer or remoter approach +to evil. Now, we must bear in mind that Evil is not a principle, but a +perversion: it amounts merely to a denial, a limitation, a corruption of +good, not to the dignity of its abstract antagonism. Familiarly, but +<a name="Page_482" id="Page_482"></a>fallaciously, we talk of the evil principle, the contradictory to good: +we might as well talk of the nosologic principle, the contradictory to +health; or the darkness principle, the contradictory to light. They are +contraries, but not contradictories: they have no positive, but only a +relative existence. Good and evil are verily foes, but originally there +was one cemented friendship: slender beginnings consequent on a +creation, began to cause the breach: the civil war arose out of a state +of primitive peace: images betray us into errors, or I might add with a +protest against the risk of being misinterpreted, that like brothers +turned to a deadly hate, they nevertheless sprang not originally out of +two hostile and opposite hemispheres, but from one paternal hearth. Not, +however, in any sense that God is the author of evil; but that God's +workmanship, the finite creature, needfully perverted good.</p> + +<p>The origin of evil—that is, its birth—is a term true and clear: +original evil—that is, giving it no birth but an antedate to all +created things, suffering it to run parallel with God and good from all +eternity—this is a term false and misty. The probability that good +would be warped, and grow deteriorate; that wisdom would be dwindled +down into less and less wisdom, or foolishness; and power degenerated +more and more towards imbecility; must arise, directly a creature should +spring out of the Creator; and that, let astronomy or geology name any +date they will: Adam is a definite date; perhaps also the first +day's—or period's—work: but the Beginning of Creation is undated. It +would then, under this impression of the necessary defalcation of the +creature from the strict straight line, be rational to look for +deviations: it would be rational to prësuppose that God—just, and good, +and pure, and wise—should righteously be able to "charge his angels +with folly," should verily declare that "the heavens are not pure in his +sight."</p> + +<p>Further; it would be a possible chance (which considerations soon +succeeding would render even probable) that for a wise humiliation of +the reasoning creature, and a just exaltation of the only Source of life +and light and all things, one or more of such first created beings, or +angels, should be suffered to fall, possibly from the vastest height, +and at first by the slenderest beginnings, lower and lower into folly, +impurity, and all other derelictions from the excellence of God. The +lines, once unparalleled, would, without a check, go further apart for +all eternity; albeit, the primal deviation arose in time. The aerolite, +dropping slowly at first, increases in swiftness as it multiplies the +fathoms of descent: and if the abyss be really bottomless, how +impossible a check or a return.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483"></a>Some such terrible example would amount to a reasonable likelihood, if +only for a lesson and a warning: to all intelligent hierarchs, be not +high-minded, but fear; to all responsible beings, keep righteousness and +reverence, and tempt not God; to all the Virtues, Dominations, +Obediences, and due Subordinations of unknown glorious worlds, a loud +and living exhortation to exercise, and not to let grow dim their +spiritual energies, in efforts after goodness, wisdom, and purity. A +creature state, to be happy, must be a progressive state: the capability +of progression argues lack, or a tendency from good: and progression +itself needs a spur, lest indolence relapse towards evil.</p> + +<p>Additionally: we must remember that a creature's excellence before God +is the reasonable service which he freely renders: freedom, dangerous +prerogative, involves choice: and choice necessitates the possibility of +error. The command to a rational intelligence would be, do this, and +live; do it not, and die: if thou doest, it is well done, good and +faithful servant; thou hast mounted by thine own heaven-blest exertions +to a higher approach towards infinite perfection; enter thou into the +joy, not merely of a creature, but of thy Lord. But, if thou doest not, +it is wo to thee, unworthy hireling; thou hast broken the tie that bound +thee to thy Maker—obedience, the root of happiness; thou livest on +indeed, because the Former of all things cancelleth not nor endeth his +beginning; but henceforth thine existence is, as a river which +earthquakes have divorced from its bed, and instead of flowing on for +ever through the fair pastures of peace and among the mountain roots of +everlasting righteousness, thy downward course is shattery, headlong, +turbulent, and destructive; black-throated whirlpools here, miasmatic +marshes there, a cataract, a shoal, a rapid; until the remorseless +stream, lashing among rocks which its own riot rendered sterile, pours +its unresting waters into the thirsty sands of the Sahara.</p> + +<p>It was indeed probable (as since we know it to be true) that the +generous Giver of all things would in the vast majority of cases +minister such secret help to His weaker spiritual children, that, far +from failing of continuous obedience, they should find it so unceasingly +easier and happier that their very natures would soon come to be imbued +with that pervading habit: and that thus, the longer any creature stood +upright, the stronger should he rest in righteousness; until, at no very +distant period, it should become morally impossible for him to fall. +Such would soon be the condition of myriads, perhaps almost the whole, +of heaven's innumerable host: and with respect to any darker Unit in +<a name="Page_484" id="Page_484"></a>that multitude, for the good of all permitted to make early shipwreck +of himself, simply by leaving his intelligence to plume its wings into +presumptuous flight, and by allowing his pristine goodness or wisdom to +grow rusty from non-usage until that sacred panoply were eaten into +holes; with respect to any such unhappy one, and all others (if others +be) who should listen to his glozing, and make a common cause in his +rebellion, where, I ask, is any injustice, or even unkindness done to +him by Deity? Where is any moral improbability that such a traitor +should be; or any just inconsistency chargeable on the attributes of God +in consequence of such his being? Whom can he in reason accuse but +himself for what he is? And what misery can such a one complain of, +which is not the work of his own hands? And lest the Great Offender +should urge against his God, why didst thou make me thus?—Is not the +answer obvious, I made thee, but not thus. And on the rejoinder, Why +didst thou not keep me as thou madest me? Is not the reply just, I made +thee reasonable, I led thee to the starting place, I taught thee and set +thee going well in the beginning; thou art intelligent and free, and +hast capacities of Mine own giving: wherefore didst thou throw aside My +grace, and fly in the face of thy Creator?</p> + +<p>On the whole; consider that I speak only of probabilities. There is a +depth in this abyss of thought, which no human plummet is long enough to +sound; there is a maze in this labyrinth to be tracked by no mortal +clue. It involves the truth, How unsearchable are his judgments: Thou +hidest thy ways in the sea, and thy paths in the deep waters, and thy +footsteps are not known. The weak point of man's argument lies in the +suggested recollection, that doubtless the Deity could, if He would, +have upheld all the universe from falling by his gracious power; and +that the attribute of love concludes that so He would. However, these +three brief considerations further will go some way to solve the +difficulty, and to strengthen the weak point; first, there are other +attributes besides love to run concurrently with it, as truth, justice, +and unchangeableness:—Secondly, that grace is not grace, if manifested +indiscriminately to all: and thirdly, that to our understanding at least +there was no possible method of illustrating the amiabilities of +Goodness, and the contrivances of Wisdom, but by the infused permission +of some physical and moral evils: Mercy, benevolence, design, would in a +universe of best have nothing to do; that universe itself would grow +stagnant, as incapable of progress; and the principal record of God's +excellences, the book of redemption, would have been unwritten. Is <a name="Page_485" id="Page_485"></a>not +then the existence of evil justified in reason's calculation? and was +not such existence an antecedent probability?</p> + +<p>Of these matters, thus curtly: it is time, in a short recapitulation, to +reflect, that, from foregoing causes, mysteries were probable around the +throne of heaven: and, as I have attempted to show, the mystery of +imperfection, a concrete not an abstract, was likely to have sprung out +of any creature universe. Reason perceives that a Gordion knot was +likely to have become entangled; in the intricate complexities of +abounding good to be mingled needfully with its own deficiencies, +corruptions, and perversions: and this having been shown by Reason as +anteriorly probable, its difficult involvements are now since cut by the +sword of conquering Faith.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="COSMOGONY" id="COSMOGONY"></a>COSMOGONY.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">These</span> deep themes having been descanted on, however from their nature +unsatisfactorily and with whatever human weakness, let us now endeavour +mentally to transport ourselves to a period immediately antecedent to +our own world's birth. We should then have been made aware that a great +event was about to take place; whereat, from its foreseen consequences, +the hierarchies of heaven would be prompt to shout for joy, and the holy +ones of God to sing for gratitude. It was no common case of a creation; +no merely onemore orb, of third-rate unimportance, amongst the million +others of higher and more glorious praise: but it was a globe and a race +about to be unique in character and fate, and in the far-spread results +of their existence. On it and of its family was to be contrived the +scene, wherein, to the admiration of the universe, God himself in Person +was going visibly to make head against corruption in creation, and for +ever thus to quench that possibility again: wherein He was marvellously +to invent and demonstrate how Mercy and Truth should meet together, how +Righteousness and Peace should kiss each other. There, was going to be +set forth the wonderfully complicated battle-plan, by which, force +countervailing force, and design converging all things upon one fixed +point, Good, concrete in the creature, should overwhelm not without +strife and wounds Evil concrete in the creature, and all things, "even +the wicked," should be seen harmoniously blending in the glory of the +attributes of God. The mythologic<a name="Page_486" id="Page_486"></a> Pan, το πἁν the great +Universal All, was deeply interested in the struggle: for the seed of +the woman was to bruise the serpent's head; not merely as respected the +small orb about to be, but concerning heaven itself, the unbounded +"haysh hamaim," wherefrom dread Lucifer was thus to be ejected. On the +earth, a mere planet of humble lustre, which the prouder suns around +might well despise, was to be exhibited this noble and analogous result; +the triumph of a lower intelligence, such as man, over a higher +intelligence, such as angel: because, the former race, however frail, +however weak, were to find their nature taken into God, and should have +for their grand exemplar, leader and brother, the Very Lord of all +arrayed in human guise; while the latter, the angelic fallen mass, in +spite of all their pristine wisdom and excellency, were to set up as +their captain him, who may well and philosophically be termed their +Adversary.</p> + +<p>This dark being, probably the mightiest of all mere creatures as the +embodiment of corrupted good and perversion of an archangelic wisdom, +was about to be suffered to fall victim to his own overtopping +ambitions, and to drag with him a third part of the heavenly host—some +tributary monarchs of the stars: thus he, and those his colleagues, +should become a spectacle and a warning to all creatures else; to stand +for spirits' reading in letters of fire a deeply burnt-in record how +vast a gulf there is between the Maker and the made; how impassable a +barrier between the derived intelligence and its infinite Creator. Such +an unholy leader in rebellion against good—let us call him <i>A</i> or <i>B</i>, +or why not for very euphony's sake Lucifer and Satanas?—such a +corrupted excellence of heaven was to meet his final and inevitable +disgrace to all eternity on the forthcoming battle-field of earth. Would +it not be probable then that our world, soon to be fashioned and stocked +with its teeming reasonable millions, should concentrate to itself the +gaze of the universe, and, from the deeds to be done in it, should +arrogate towards man a deep and fixed attention: that "the morning stars +should sing together, and all the sons of God should shout for joy." Let +us too, according to the power given to us, partake of such attention +antecedently in some detail: albeit, as always, very little can be +tracked of the length and breadth of our theme.</p> + +<p>What would probably be the nature of such world and of such creatures, +in a physical point of view? and what, in a moral point of view? It is +not necessary to divide these questions: for the one so bears upon the +other, or rather the latter so directs and pervades the former, that we +may briefly treat of both as one.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487"></a>The first probability would be, that, as the creature Man so to be +abased and so to be exalted must be a responsible and reasonable being, +every thing—with miraculous exceptions just enough to prove the +rule—every thing around him should also be responsible and reasonable. +In other words, that, with such exceptions as before alluded to, the +whole texture of this world should bear to an inquisitive intellect the +stamp of cause and effect: whilst for the mass, such cause and effect +should be so little intrusive, that their easier religion might +recognise God in all things immediately, rather than mediately. For +instance: take the cases of stone, and of coal; the one so needful for +man's architecture, the other for his culinary warmth. Now, however +simple piety might well thank the Maker for having so stored earth with +these for necessary uses; they ought, to a more learned, though not less +pious ken, to seem not to have been created by an effort of the Great +Father <i>quâ stone</i>, or <i>quâ coal</i>. Such a view might satisfy the +ordinary mind: but thinkers would see no occasion for a miracle; when +Christ raises Lazarus from the dead, it would have been a philosophical +fault to have found the grave-clothes and swathing bandages ready +loosened also. Unassisted man can do that: and unhelped common causes +can generate stone and coal. The deposits of undated floods, the +periodical currents of lava, the still and stagnant lake, and the +furious up-bursting earthquake; all these would be called into play, and +not the unrequired, I had almost said unreasonable, energies, which we +call miracle. An agglutination of shells, once peopled with life; a +crystallized lump of segregate minerals, once in a molten state; a mass +of carbonated foliage and trunks of tropical trees, buried by long +changes under the soil, whereover they had once waved greenly luxuriant; +these, and no other, should have been man's stone and coal. This +instance affects the reasonableness of such material creation. Take +another, bearing upon its analogous responsibilities. As there was to be +warred in this world the contest between good and evil, it would be +expectable that the crust of man's earth, anteriorly to man's existence +on it, should be marked with some traces that the evil, though newly +born so far as might regard man's own disobedience, nevertheless had +existed antecedently. In other words: it was probable that there should +exist geological evidences of suffering and death: that the gigantic +ichthyosaurus should be found fixed in rock with his cruel jaws closed +upon his prey: that the fearful iguanodon should leave the tracks of +having desolated a whole region of its reptile tribes: that volcanoes +should have ravaged fair continents <a name="Page_488" id="Page_488"></a>prolific of animal and vegetable +life: that, in fine, though man's death came by man's sin, yet that +death and sin were none of man's creating: he was only to draw down upon +his head a prëexistent wo, an ante-toppling rock. Observe then, that +these geological phenomena are only illustrations of my meaning: and +whether such parables be true or false, the argument remains the same: +we never build upon the sand of simile, but only use it here and there +for strewing on the floor. Still, I will acknowledge that the +introduction of such fossil instances appears to me wisely thrown in as +affects their antecedent probability, because ignorant comments upon +scriptural cosmogony have raised the absurdest objections against the +truth of scriptural science. There is not a tittle of known geological +fact, which is not absolutely reconcilable with Genesis and Job. But +this is a word by the way: although aimed not without design against one +of the poor and paltry weak-holds of the infidel.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ADAM" id="ADAM"></a>ADAM.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Remembering</span>, then, that these are probabilities, and that the whole +treatise purports to be nothing but a sketch, and not a finished +picture, we have suggestively thus thrown out that the material world, +man's home as man, was likely to have been prepared, as we posteriorly +know it to be. Now, what of man's own person, circumstances, and +individuality? Was it likely that the world should be stocked at once +with many several races, or with one prolific seed? with a specimen of +every variety of the genus man, or with the one generic type capable of +forming those varieties?—Answer. One is by far the likelier in itself, +because one thing must needs be more probable than many things: +additionally; Wisdom and Power are always economical, and where one will +suit the purpose, superfluities are rejected. That this one seed, +covering with its product a various globe under all imaginable +differences of circumstance and climate, should, in the lapse of ages, +generate many species of the genus Man, was antecedently probable. For +example, morality, peace and obedience would exercise transforming +powers: their opposites the like in an opposite way. We can well fancy a +mild and gentle race, as the Hindoo, to spring from the former +educationals: and a family with flashing eyes and strongly-visaged +natures, as the Malay, from a state of hatred, war, and license. We can +well conceive <a name="Page_489" id="Page_489"></a>that a tropical sun should carbonize some of that tender +fabric the skin, adding also swift blood and fierce passions: while an +arctic climate would induce a sluggish, stunted race. And, when to these +considerations we add that of promiscuous unions, we arrive at the just +likelihood that the whole family of man, though springing from one root, +should, in the course of generations, be what now we see it.</p> + +<p>Further. How should this prolific original, the first man, be created? +and for a name let us call him Adam; a justly-chosen name enough, as +alluding to his medium colour, ruddiness. Should he have been cast upon +the ground an infant, utterly helpless, requiring miraculous aid and +guidance at every turn? Should he be originated in boyhood, that hot and +tumultuous time, when the creature is most rash, and least qualified for +self-government? or should he be first discerned as an adult, in his +prime, equal alike to obedience and rule, to moral control and moral +energy?</p> + +<p>Add also here; is it probable there would be any needless interval +placed to pröcreations? or rather, should not such original seed be able +immediately to fulfil the blank world call upon him, and as the +greatly-teeming human father be found fitted from his birth to propagate +his kind? The questions answer themselves.</p> + +<p>Again. Should this first man have been discovered originally surrounded +with all the appliances of an after-civilization, clad, and housed, and +rendered artificial? nor rather, in a noble and naturally royal aspect +appear on the stage of life as king of the natural creation, sole warder +of a garden of fruits, with all his food thus readily concocted, and an +eastern climate tempered to his nakedness?</p> + +<p>Now, as to the solitariness of this one seed. From what we have already +mused respecting God's benevolence, it would seem probable that the +Maker might not see it good that man should be alone. The seed, +originally one, proved (as was likely) to resemble its great parent, +God, and to be partitionable, or reducible into persons; though with +reasonable differences as between creature and Creator. Woman—Eve, the +living or life-giving—was likely to have sprung out of the composite +seed, Man, in order to companionship and fit society. Moreover, it were +expectable that in the pattern creature, composite man, there should be +involved some apt, mysterious typification of the same creature, after a +fore-known fall restored, as in its perfect state of rëunion with its +Maker. <i>A posteriori</i>, the figurative notion is, that the Redeemed +family, or mystical spouse, is incorporated in her husband, the +Redeemer:<a name="Page_490" id="Page_490"></a> not so much in the idea of marriage, as (taking election into +view) of a cöcreation; as it were rib of rib, and life woven into life, +not copulated or conjoined, but immingled in the being. This is a +mystery most worthy of deep searching; a mystery deserving philosophic +care, not less than the more unilluminate enjoyment of humble and +believing Christians. I speak concerning Christ and his church.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_FALL" id="THE_FALL"></a>THE FALL.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is a special fitness in the fact, long since known and now to be +perceived probable, that if mankind should fail in disobedience, it +should rather be through the woman than through the man. Because, the +man, <i>quâ man</i>, and the deputed head of all inferior creatures, was +nearer to his Creator, than the woman; who, <i>quâ woman</i>, proceeded out +of man. She was, so to speak, one step further from God, <i>ab origine</i>, +than man was; therefore, more liable to err and fall away. To my own +mind, I confess, it appears that nothing is more anteriorly probable +than the plain, scriptural story of Adam and Eve: so simple that the +child delights in it; so deep that the philosopher lingers there with an +equal, but more reasonable joy.</p> + +<p>For, let us now come to the probabilities of a temptation; and a fall; +and what temptation; and how ordered.</p> + +<p>The heavenly intelligences beheld the model-man and model-woman, +rational beings, and in all points "very good." The Adversary panted for +the fray, demanding some test of the obedience of this new, favourite +race. And the Lord God was willing that the great controversy, which he +fore-knew, and for wise purposes allowed, should immediately commence. +Where was the use of a delay? If you will reply, To give time to +strengthen Adam's moral powers: I rejoin, he was made with more than +enough of strength infused against any temptation not entering by the +portal of his will: and against the open door of will neither time nor +habits can avail. Moreover, the trial was to be exceedingly simple; no +difficult abstinence, for man might freely eat of every thing but one; +no natural passion tempted; no exertion of intelligence requisite. Adam +lived in a garden; and his Maker, for proof of reasonable obedience, +provides the most easy and obvious test of it—do not eat that apple. +Was it, in reality, an improbable test; an unsuita<a name="Page_491" id="Page_491"></a>ble one? Was it not, +rather, the likeliest in itself, and the fittest as addressed to the +new-born, rational animal, which imagination could invent, or an amiable +fore-knowledge of all things could desire? Had it been to climb some +arduous height without looking back, or on no account to gaze upon the +sun, how much less apt and easy of obedience! Thus much for the test.</p> + +<p>Now, as to the temptation and its ordering. A creature, to be tempted +fairly, must be tempted by another equal or lower creature; and through +the senses. If mere spirit strives with spirit, plus matter, the strife +is unequal: the latter is clogged; he has to fight in the net of +Retiarius. But if both are netted, if both are spirit plus matter, (that +is, material creatures,) there is no unfairness. Therefore, it would +seem reasonable that the Adversary in person should descend from his +mere spirituality into some tangible and humbled form. This could not +well be man's, nor the semblance of man's: for the first pair would well +know that they were all mankind: and, if the Lord God himself was +accustomed to be seen of them as in a glorified humanity, it would be +manifestly a moral incongruity to invest the devil in a similar form. It +must, then, be the shape of some other creature; as a lion, or a lamb, +or—why not a serpent? Is there any improbability here? and not rather +as apt an avatar of the sinuous and wily rebel, the dangerous, +fascinating foe, as poetry at least, nay, as any sterner contrivance +could invent? The plain fact is, that Reason—given keenness—might have +guessed this also antecedently a likelihood.</p> + +<p>A few words more on other details probable to the temptation. Wonderful +as it may seem to us with our present experience, in the case of the +first woman it would scarcely excite her astonishment to be accosted in +human phrase by one of the lower creatures; and in no other way could +the tempter reach her mind. Much as Milton puts it, Eve sees a beautiful +snake, eating, not improbably, of the forbidden apple. Attracted by a +natural curiosity, she would draw near, and in a soft sweet voice the +serpent, <i>i.e.</i> Lucifer in his guise, would whisper temptation. It was +likely to have been keenly managed. Is it possible, O fair and favoured +mistress of this beautiful garden, that your Maker has debarred you from +its very choicest fruit? Only see its potencies for good: I, a poor +reptile, am instantly thereby endued with knowledge and the privilege of +speech. Am I dead for the eating?—ye shall not surely die; but shall +become as gods yourselves; and this your Maker knoweth.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492"></a>The marvellous fruit, invested thus with mystery, and tinctured with +the secret charm of a thing unreasonably, nay, harmfully, forbidden, +would then be allowed silently to plead its own merits. It was good for +food: a young creature's first thought. It was pleasant to the eyes: +addressing a higher sense than mere bodily appetite, than mental +predilection for form and colour which marks fine breeding among men. It +was also to be desired to make one wise; here was the climax, the great +moral inducement which an innocent being might well be taken with; +irrespectively of the one qualification that this wisdom was to be +plucked in spite of God. Doubtless, it were probable, that had man not +fallen, the knowledge of good would never have been long withheld: but +he chose to reap the crop too soon, and reaped it mixed with tares, +good, and evil.</p> + +<p>I need not enlarge, in sermon form, upon the theme. It was probable that +the weaker creature, Woman, once entrapped, she would have charms enough +to snare her husband likewise: and the results thus perceived to have +been likely, we have long since known for fact. That a depraved +knowledge should immediately occasion some sort of clothing to be +instituted by the great moral Governor, was likely: and there would be +nothing near at hand, in fact nothing else suitable, but the skins of +beasts. There is also a high probability that some sort of slaying +should take place instantly on the fall, by way of reference to the +coming sacrifice for sin; and for a type of some imputed righteousness. +God covered Man's evil nakedness with the skins of innocent slain +animals: even so, Blessed is he whose unrighteousness is forgiven, and +whose sin is covered.</p> + +<p>With respect to restoration from any such fall. There seems a remarkable +prior probability for it, if we take into account the empty places in +heaven, the vacant starry thrones which sin had caused to be untenanted. +Just as, in after years, Israel entered into the cities and the gardens +of the Canaanite and other seven nations, so it was anteriorly likely, +would the ransomed race of Men come to be inheritors of the mansions +among heavenly places, which had been left unoccupied by the fallen host +of Lucifer. There was a gap to be filled: and probably there would be +some better race to fill it.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493"></a></p> +<h3><a name="THE_FLOOD" id="THE_FLOOD"></a>THE FLOOD.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Themes</span> like those past and others still to come, are so immense, that +each might fairly ask a volume for its separate elucidation. A few +seeds, pregnant with thought, are all that we have here space, or time, +or power to drop beside the world's highway. The grand outlines of our +race command our first attention: we cannot stop to think and speak of +every less detail. Therefore, now would I carry my companion across the +patriarchal times at once to the era of the Deluge. Let us speculate, as +hitherto, antecedently, throwing our minds as it were into some angelic +prior state.</p> + +<p>If, as we have seen probable, evil (a concretion always, not an +abstraction) made some perceptible ravages even in the unbounded sphere +of a heavenly creation, how much more rapid and overwhelming would its +avalanche (once ill-commenced) be seen, when the site of its infliction +was a poor band of men and women prisoned on a speck of earth. How +likely was it that, in the lapse of no long time, the whole world should +have been "corrupt before God, and filled with wickedness." How +probable, that taking into account the great duration of pristine human +life, the wicked family of man should speedily have festered up into an +intolerable guiltiness. And was this dread result of the primal curse +and disobedience to be regarded as the Adversary's triumph? Had this +Accuser—the Saxon word is Devil—had this Slanderer of God's attribute +then really beaten Good? or was not rather all this swarming sin an +awful vindication to the universe of the great need-be that God +unceasingly must hold his creature up lest he fall, and that out of Him +is neither strength nor wisdom? Was Deity, either in Adam's case or +this, baffled—nor rather justified? Was it an experiment which had +really failed; nor rather one which, by its very seeming failure, proved +the point in question, the misery of creatures when separate from God? +Yea, the evil one was being beaten down beneath his very trophies in sad +Tarpeian triumph: through conquest and his children's sins heightening +his own misery.</p> + +<p>Let us now advert to a few of the anterior probabilities affecting this +evil earth's catastrophe. It is not competent to us to trench upon such +ulterior views as are contained in the idea of types relatively to +anti-types. Neither will we take the fanciful or poetical aspect of +coming calamity, that earth, befouled with guilt, was likely to be +washed <a name="Page_494" id="Page_494"></a>clean by water. It is better to ask, as more relevant, in what +other way more benevolent than drowning could, short of miracle, the +race be made extinct? They were all to die in their sins, and swell in +another sphere the miserable hosts of Satan. There was no hope for them, +for there was no repentance. It was infinitely probable that God's +long-suffering had worn out every reasonable effort for their +restoration. They were then to die; but how?—in the least painful +manner possible. Intestine wars, fevers, famines, a general burning-up +of earth and all its millions, were any of these preferable sorts of +death to that caused by the gradual rise of water, with hope of life +accorded still even to the last gurgle? Assuredly, if "the tender +mercies of the wicked are cruel," the judgments of the Good one are +tempered well with mercy.</p> + +<p>Moreover, in the midst of this universal slaughter there was one good +seed to be preserved: and, as Heaven never works a miracle where common +cause will suit the present purpose, it would have been inconsistent to +have extirpated the wicked by any such means as must demonstrate the +good to have been saved only by super-human agency.</p> + +<p>The considerations of humanity, and of the divine less-intervention, add +that of the natural and easy agency of a long-commissioned comet. No +"<i>Deus e machinâ</i>" was needed for this effort: one of His ministers of +flaming fire was charged to call forth the services of water. This was +an easy and majestic interference. Ever since man fell—yea, ages before +it—the omniscient eye of God had foreseen all things that should +happen: and his ubiquity had, possibly from The Beginning, sped a comet +on its errant way, which at a calculated period was to serve to wash the +globe clean of its corruptions: was to strike the orbit of earth just in +the moment of its passage, and disturbing by attraction the fountains of +the great deep, was temporarily to raise their level. Was not this a +just, a sublime, and a likely plan? Was it not a merciful, a perfect, +and a worthy way? Who should else have buried the carcases on those +fierce battle-fields, or the mouldering heaps of pestilence and +famine?—But, when at Jehovah's summons, heaving to the comet's mass, +the pure and mighty sea rises indignant from its bed, by drowning to +cleanse the foul and mighty land—how easy an engulfing of the corpses; +how awful that universal burial; how apt their monumental epitaph +written in water, "The wicked are like the troubled sea that cannot +rest;" how dread the everlasting requiem chanted for the whelmed race by +the waves roaring above them: yea, roaring above <a name="Page_495" id="Page_495"></a>them still! for in +that chaotic hour it seems probable to reason that the land changed +place with ocean; thus giving the new family of man a fresh young world +to live upon.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="NOAH" id="NOAH"></a>NOAH.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">When</span> the world, about to grow so wicked, was likely thus to have been +cleansed, and so renewed, the great experiment of man's possible +righteousness was probable to be repeated in another form. We may fancy +some high angelic mind to have gone through some such line of thought as +this, respecting the battle and combatants. Were those champions, +Lucifer and Adam, really fit to be matched together? Was the tourney +just; were the weapons equal; was it, after all, a fair fight?—on one +side, the fallen spirit, mighty still, though fallen, subtlest, most +unscrupulous, most malicious, exerting every energy to rear a rebel +kingdom against God; on the other, a new-born, inexperienced, innocent, +and trustful creature, a poor man vexed with appetites, and as naked for +absolute knowledge in his mind as for garments on his body. Was it, in +this view of the case, an equal contest? were the weapons of that +warfare matched and measured fairly?</p> + +<p>Some such objection, we may suppose, might seem to have been admissible, +as having a show at least of reason: and, after the world was to have +been cleansed of all its creatures in the manner I have mentioned, a new +champion is armed for the conflict, totally different in every respect; +and to reason's view vastly superior.</p> + +<p>This time, the Adam of renewed earth is to be the best and wisest, nay, +the only good and wise one of the whole lost family: a man, with the +experience of full six hundred years upon his hoary brow, with the +unspeakable advantage of having walked with God all those long-drawn +centuries, a patriarch of twenty generations, recognised as the one +great and faithful witness, the only worshipper and friend of his +Creator. Could a finer sample be conceived? was not Noah the only spark +of spiritual "consolation" in the midst of earth's dark death? and was +not he the best imaginable champion to stand against the wiles of the +devil? Verily, reason might have guessed, that if Deity saw fit to renew +the fight at all, the representative of man should have been Noah.</p> + +<p>Before we touch upon the immediate fall of this new Adam also, at a time +when God and reason had deserted him, it will be more orderly to <a name="Page_496" id="Page_496"></a>allude +to the circumstances of his preservation in the flood. How, in such a +hurlyburly of the elements, should the chosen seed survive? No house, +nor hill-top, no ordinary ship would serve the purpose: still less the +unreasonable plan of any cavern hermetically sealed, or any aerial +chariot miraculously lifted up above the lower firmament. To use plain +and simple words, I can fancy no wiser method than a something between a +house and a diving-bell; a vessel, entirely storm-tight and water-tight, +which nevertheless for necessary air should have an open window at the +top: say, one a cubit square. This, properly hooded against deluging +rain, and supplied with such helps to ventilation as leathern pipes, air +tunnels and similar appliances, would not be an impracticable method. +However, instead of being under water as a diving-bell, the vessel would +be better made to float upon the rising flood, and thus continually +keeping its level, would be ready to strike land as the waters assuaged.</p> + +<p>Now, as to the size of this ark, this floating caravan, it must needs be +very large; and also take a great time in building. For, suffering cause +and effect to go on without a new creation, it was reasonable to suppose +that the man, so launching as for another world on the ocean of +existence, would take with him (especially if God's benevolence so +ordered it) all the known appliances of civilized life; as well as a +pair or two of every creature he could collect, to stock withal the +renewed earth according to their various excellences in their kinds. The +lengthy, arduous, and expensive preparation of this mighty ark—a vessel +which must include forests of timber and consume generations in +building; besides the world-be-known collection of all manner of strange +animals for the stranger fancy of a fanatical old man; not to mention +also the hoary Preacher's own century of exortations: with how great +moral force all this living warning would be calculated to act upon the +world of wickedness and doom! Here was the great ante-diluvian +potentate, Noah, a patriarch of ages, wealthy beyond our +calculations—(for how else without a needless succession of miracles +could he have built and stocked the ark?)—a man of enormous substance, +good report, and exalted station, here was he for a hundred and twenty +years engaged among crowds of unbelieving workmen, in constructing a +most extravagant ship, which, forsooth, filled with samples of all this +world's stores, was to sail with our only good family in search of a +better. Moreover, Noah here declares that our dear old mother-earth is +to be destroyed for her iniquities by rain and sea: and he exhorts us by +a solid evi<a name="Page_497" id="Page_497"></a>dence of his own faith at least, if by nothing else, to +repent, and turn to him, whom Abel, Seth, and Enoch, as well as this +good Noah, represent as our Maker. Would not such sneers and taunts be +probable: would they not amply vindicate the coming judgment? Was not +the "long-suffering of God" likely to have thus been tried "while the +ark was preparing?" and when the catastrophe should come, had not that +evil generation been duly warned against it? On the whole, it would have +been Reason's guess that Noah should be saved as he was; that the ark +should have been as we read of it in Genesis; and that the very +immensity of its construction should have served for a preaching to +mankind. As to any idea that the ark is an unreasonable (some have even +said ridiculous) incident to the deluge, it seems to me to have +furnished a clear case of antecedent probability.</p> + +<p>Lastly: Noah's fall was very likely to have happened: not merely in the +theological view of the matter, as an illustration of the truth that no +human being can stand fast in righteousness: but from the just +consideration that he imported with him the seeds of an impure state of +society, the remembered luxuries of that old world. For instance, among +the plants of earth which Noah would have preserved for future insertion +in the soil, he could not have well forgotten the generous, treacherous +Vine. That to a righteous man, little used to all unhallowed sources of +exhilaration, this should have been a stepping-stone to a defalcation +from God, was likely. It was probable in itself, and shows the honesty +as well as the verisimilitude of Scripture to read, that "Noah began to +be a husbandman, and planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and +was drunken." There was nothing here but what, taking all things into +consideration, Reason might have previously guessed. Why then withhold +the easier matter of an afterward belief?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BABEL" id="BABEL"></a>BABEL.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">This</span> book ought to be read, as mentally it is written, with at the end +of every sentence one of those <i>et ceteras</i>, which the genius of a Coke +interpreted so keenly of the genius of a Littleton: for, far more +remains on each subject to be said, than in any one has been attempted.</p> + +<p>Let us pass on to the story of Babel: I can conceive nothing more <i>à +priori</i> probable than the account we read in Scripture. Briefly consider +the matter. A multitude of men, possibly the then whole human <a name="Page_498" id="Page_498"></a>family, +once more a fallen race, emigrate towards the East, and come to a vast +plain in the region of Shinar, afterwards Chaldæa. Fertile, +well-watered, apt for every mundane purpose, it yet wanted one great +requisite. The degenerate race "put not their trust in God:" they did +not believe but that the world might some day be again destroyed by +water: and they required a point of refuge in the possible event of a +second deluge from the broken bounds of ocean and the windows of the +skies. They had come from the West; more strictly the North-west, a land +of mountains, as they deemed them, ready-made refuges: and their scheme, +a probable one enough, was to construct some such mountain artificially, +so that its top might reach the clouds, as did the summit of Ararat. +This would serve the twofold purpose of outwitting any further attempt +to drown them, and of making for themselves a proud name upon the earth. +So, the Lord God, in his etherealized human form (having taken counsel +with His own divine compeers), coming in the guise wherein He was wont +to walk with Adam and with Enoch and his other saints of men, "came down +and saw the tower:" truly, He needed not have come, for ubiquity was +his, and omniscience; but in the days when God and man were (so to +speak) less chronologically divided than as now, and while yet the +trial-family was young, it does not seem unlikely that He should. God +then, in his aspect of the Head of all mankind, took notice of that +dangerous and unholy combination: and He made within His Triune Mind the +wise resolve to break their bond of union. Omniscience had herein a view +to ulterior consequences benevolent to man, and He knew that it would be +a wise thing for the future world, as well as a discriminative check +upon the race then living, to confuse the universal language into many +discordant dialects. Was this in any sense an improbable or improper +method of making "the devices of the wicked to be of none effect, and of +laughing to scorn the counsels of the mighty?" Was it not to have been +expected that a fallen race should be disallowed the combinative force +necessary to a common language, but that such force should be dissipated +and diverted for moral usages into many tongues?—There they were, all +the chiefs of men congregated to accomplish a vast, ungodly scheme: and +interposing Heaven to crush such insane presumption—and withal +thereafter designing to bless by arranging through such means the future +interchange of commerce and the enterprise of nationalities—He, in his +Trinity, was not unlikely to have said, "Let us go down, and confound +their language." What better mode could have been <a name="Page_499" id="Page_499"></a>devised to scatter +mankind, and so to people the extremities of earth? In order that the +various dialects should crystallize apart, each in its discriminative +lump, the nucleus of a nation; that thereafter the world might be able +no longer to unite as one man against its Lord, but by conflicting +interests, the product of conflicting languages, might give to good a +better chance of not being altogether overwhelmed; that, though many "a +multitude might go to do evil," it should not thenceforward be the whole +consenting family of man; but that, here by one and there by one, the +remembrance of God should be kept extant, and evil no longer acquire an +accumulated force, by having all the world one nation.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="JOB" id="JOB"></a>JOB.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Every</span> scriptural incident and every scriptural worthy deserves its own +particular discussion: and might easily obtain it. For example; the +anterior probability that human life in patriarchal times should have +been very much prolonged, was obvious; from consideration of—1, the +benevolence of God; 2, the inexperience of man; and 3, the claim so +young a world would hold upon each of its inhabitants: whilst Holy Writ +itself has prepared an answer to the probable objection, that the years +were lunar years, or months; by recording that Arphaxad and Salah and +Eber and Peleg and Reu and Serug and Nahor, descendants of Shem, each +had children at the average age of two-and-thirty, and yet the lives of +all varied in duration from a hundred and fifty years to five hundred. +And many similar credibilities might be alluded to: what shall I say of +Abraham's sacrifice, of Moses and the burning bush, of Jonah also, and +Elisha, and of the prophets? for the time would fail me to tell how +probable and simple in each instance is its deep and marvellous history. +There is food for philosophic thought in every page of ancient Jewish +Scripture scarcely less than in those of primitive Christianity: here, +after our fashion, we have only touched upon a sample.</p> + +<p>The opening scene to the book of Job has vexed the faith of many very +needlessly: to my mind, nothing was more likely to have literally and +really happened. It is one of those few places where we get an insight +into what is going on elsewhere: it is a lifting off the curtain of +eternity for once, revealing the magnificent simplicities constantly +pre<a name="Page_500" id="Page_500"></a>sented in the halls of heaven. And I am moved to speak about it +here, because I think a plain statement of its sublime probabilities +will be acceptable to many: especially if they have been harassed by the +doubts of learned men respecting the authorship of that rare history. It +signifies nothing who recorded the circumstances and conversations, so +long as they were true, and really happened: given power, opportunity, +and honesty, a life of Dr. Johnson would be just as fair in fact, if +written by Smollett, as by Boswell, or himself. Whether then Job, the +wealthy prince of Uz, or Abraham, or Moses, or Elisha, or Eliphaz, or +whoever else, have placed the words on record, there they stand, true; +and the whole book in all its points was anteriorly likely to have been +decreed a component part of revelation. Without it, there would have +been wanting some evidence of a godly worship among men through the long +and dreary interval of several hundred years: there would never have +been given for man's help the example of a fortitude, and patience, and +trust in God most brilliant; of a faith in the resurrection and +redeemer, signal and definite beyond all other texts in Jewish +Scripture: as well as of a human knowledge of God in his works beyond +all modern instance. However, the excellences of that narrative are +scarcely our theme: we return to the starting-post of its probability, +especially with reference to its supernatural commencement. What we have +shown credible, many pages back, respecting good and evil and the +denizens of heaven, finds a remarkable after-proof in the two first +chapters of Job; and for some such reason, by reference, these two +chapters were themselves anteriorly to have been expected.</p> + +<p>Let us see what happened:</p> + +<p>"There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before +the Lord, and Satan came also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan, +whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going +to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. And the +Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is +none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that +feareth God and escheweth evil? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, +Doth Job fear God for naught? Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and +about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast +blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the +land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all he hath, and he will +curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that +he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put <a name="Page_501" id="Page_501"></a>not forth thine hand. So +Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord."—[Job 1. 6-13.]</p> + +<p>It is a most stately drama: any paraphrase would spoil its dignity, its +quiet truth, its unpretending, yet gigantic lineaments. Note: in +allusion to our views of evil, that Satan also comes among the sons of +God: note, the generous dependence placed by a generous Master on his +servant well-upheld by that Master's own free grace: note, Satan's +constant imputation against piety when blessed of God with worldly +wealth, Doth he serve for naught? I can discern no cause wherefore all +this scene should not have truly happened; not as in vision of some holy +man, but as in fact. Let us read on, before further comment:</p> + +<p>"Again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves +before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself +before the Lord. And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? And +Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, +and from walking up and down in it. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast +thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the +earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth +evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me +against him, to destroy him without cause. And Satan answered the Lord, +and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his +life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, +and he will curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, +Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life. So Satan went forth from +the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils, from the sole +of his foot unto his crown."</p> + +<p>Some such scene, displaying the devil's malice, slandering sneers, and +permitted power, recommends itself to my mind as antecedently to have +been looked for: in order that we might know from what quarter many of +life's evils come; with what aims and ends they are directed; what +limits are opposed to our foe; and Who is on our side. We needed some +such insight into the heavenly places; some such hint of what is +continually going on before the Lord's tribunal; we wanted this plain +and simple setting forth of good and evil in personal encounter, of +innocence awhile given up to malice for its chastening and its triumph. +Lo, all this so probable scene is here laid open to us, and many, +against reason, disbelieve it!</p> + +<p>Note, in allusion to our after-theme, the <i>locus</i> of heaven, that there +is some such usual place of periodical gathering. Note, the open +<a name="Page_502" id="Page_502"></a>unchiding loveliness dwelling in the Good One's words, as contrasted +with the subtle, slanderous hatred of the Evil. And then the vulgar +proverb, Skin for skin: this pious Job is so intensely selfish, that let +him lose what he may, he heeds it not; he cares for nothing out of his +own skin. And there are many more such notabilities.</p> + +<p>Why did I produce these passages at length? For their Doric simplicity; +for their plain and masculine features; for their obvious truthfulness; +for their manifest probability as to fact, and expectability previously +to it. Why on earth should they be doubted in their literal sense? and +were they not more likely to have happened than to have been invented? +We have no such geniuses now as this writer must have been, who by the +pure force of imagination could have created that tableau. Milton had +Job to go to. Simplicity is proof presumptive in favour of the plain +inspiration of such passages: for the plastic mind which could conceive +so just a sketch, would never have rested satisfied, without having +painted and adorned it picturesquely. Such rare flights of fancy are +always made the most of.</p> + +<p>One or two thoughts respecting Job's trial. That he should at last give +way, was only probable: he was, in short, another Adam, and had another +fall; albeit he wrestled nobly. Worthy was he to be named among God's +chosen three, "Noah, Daniel, and Job:" and worthy that the Lord should +bless his latter end. This word brings me to the point I wish to touch +on; the great compensation which God gave to Job.</p> + +<p>Children can never be regarded as other than individualities: and +notwithstanding Eastern feelings about increase in quantity, its quality +is, after all, the question for the heart. I mean that many children to +be born, is but an inadequate return for many children dying. If a +father loses a well-beloved son, it is small recompense of that aching +void that he gets another. For this reason of the affections, and +because I suppose that thinkers have sympathized with me in the +difficulty, I wish to say a word about Job's children, lost and found. +It will clear away what is to some minds a moral and affectionate +objection. Now, this is the state of the case.</p> + +<p>The patriarch is introduced to us as possessing so many camels, and +oxen, and so forth; and ten children. All these are represented to him +by witnesses, to all appearance credible, as dead; and he mourns for his +great loss accordingly. Would not a merchant feel to all intents and +purposes a ruined man, if he received a clear intelligence from +different parts of the world at once that all his ships and warehouses +<a name="Page_503" id="Page_503"></a>had been destroyed by hurricanes and fire? Faith given, patience +follows: and the trial is morally the same, whether the news be true or +false. Remarkably enough, after the calamitous time is past, when the +good man of Uz is discerned as rewarded by heaven for his patience by +the double of every thing once lost—his children remain the same in +number, ten. It seems to me quite possible that neither camels, &c., nor +children, really had been killed. Satan might have meant it so, and +schemed it; and the singly-coming messengers believed it all, as also +did the well-enduring Job. But the scriptural word does not go to say +that these things happened; but that certain emissaries said they +happened. I think the devil missed his mark: that the messengers were +scared by some abortive diabolic efforts; and that, (with a natural +increase of camels, &c., meanwhile,) the patriarch's paternal heart was +more than compensated at the last, by the restoration of his own dear +children. They were dead, and are alive again; they were lost, and are +found. Like Abraham returning from Mount Calvary with Isaac, it was the +Resurrection in a figure.</p> + +<p>If to this view objection is made, that, because the boils of Job were +real, therefore, similarly real must be all his other evils; I reply, +that in the one temptation, the suffering was to be mental; in the +other, bodily. In the latter case, positive, personal pain, was the gist +of the matter: in the former, the heart might be pierced, and the mind +be overwhelmed, without the necessity of any such incurable affliction +as children's deaths amount to. God's mercy may well have allowed the +evil one to overreach himself; and when the restoration came, how double +was the joy of Job over those ten dear children.</p> + +<p>Again, if any one will urge that, in the common view of the case, Job at +the last really has twice as many children as before, for that he has +ten old ones in heaven, and ten new ones on earth: I must, in answer, +think that explanation as unsatisfactory to us, as the verity of it +would have been to Job. Affection, human affection, is not so +numerically nor vicariously consoled: and it is, perhaps, worth while +here to have thrown out (what I suppose to be) a new view of the case, +if only to rescue such wealth as children from the infidel's sneer of +being confounded with such wealth as camels. Moreover, such a paternal +reward was anteriorly more probable.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504"></a></p> +<h3><a name="JOSHUA" id="JOSHUA"></a>JOSHUA.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">How</span> many of our superficial thinkers have been staggered at the great +miracle recorded of Joshua; and how few, even of the deeper sort, +comparatively, may have discerned its aptness, its science, and its +anterior likelihood: "Sun! stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, moon, +in the valley of Ajalon." Now, consider, for we hope to vindicate even +this stupendous event from the charge of improbability.</p> + +<p>Baal and Ashtaroth, chief idols of the Canaanites, were names for sun +and moon. It would manifestly be the object of God and His ambassador to +cast utter scorn on such idolatry. And what could be more apt than that +Joshua, commissioned to extirpate the corrupted race, should +miraculously be enabled, as it were, to bind their own gods to aid in +the destruction of such votaries?</p> + +<p>Again: what should Joshua want with the moon for daylight, to help him +to rout the foes of God more fiercely? Why not, according to the +astronomical ignorance of those days, let her sail away, unconsorted by +the sun, far beyond the valley of Ajalon? There was a reason, here, of +secret, unobtruded science: if the sun stopped, the moon must stop too; +that is to say, both apparently: the fact being that the earth must, for +the while, rest on its axis. This, I say, is a latent, scientific hint; +and so, likewise, is the accompanying mention as a fact, that the Lord +immediately "rained great stones out of heaven" upon the flying host. +For would it not be the case that, if the diurnal rotation of earth were +suddenly to stop, the impetus of motion would avail to raise high into +the air by centrifugal force, and fling down again by gravity, such +unanchored things as fragments of rock?</p> + +<p>Once more: our objector will here perhaps inquire, Why not then command +the earth to stop—and not the sun and moon? if thus probably Joshua or +his Inspirer knew better? Answer. Only let a reasonable man consider +what would have been the moral lesson both to Israelite and to +Canaanite, if the great successor of Moses had called out, +incomprehensibly to all, "Earth, stand thou still on thine axis;"—and +lo! as if in utter defiance of such presumption, and to vindicate openly +the heathen gods against the Jewish, the very sun and moon in heaven +stopped, and glared on the offender. I question whether such a noon-day +miracle might not have perverted to idolatry the whole believing host: +and almost reasonably too. The strictly philosophical terms <a name="Page_505" id="Page_505"></a>would have +entirely nullified the whole moral influence. God in his word never +suffers science to hinder the progress of truth: a worldly philosophy +does this almost in every instance, darkening knowledge with a cloud of +words: but the science of the Bible is usually concealed in some +neighbouring hint quite handy to the record of the phenomena expressed +in ordinary language. In fact, for all common purposes, no astronomer +finds fault with such phrases as the moon rising, or the sun setting: he +speaks according to the appearance, though he knows perfectly well that +the earth is the cause of it, and not the sun or moon. Carry this out in +Joshua's case.</p> + +<p>On the whole, the miracle was very plain, very comprehensible, and very +probable. It had good cause: for Canaan felt more confidence in the +protection of his great and glorious Baal, than stiff-necked Judah in +his barely-seen divinity: and surely it was wise to vindicate the true +but invisible God by the humiliation of the false and far-seen idol. +This would constitute to all nations the quickly-rumoured proof that +Jehovah of the Israelites was God in heaven above as well as on the +earth beneath. And, considering the peculiar idolatries of Canaan, it +seems to me that no miracle could have been better placed and better +timed—in other words, anteriorly more probable—than the command of +obedience to the sun and to the moon. I suppose that few persons who +read this book will be unaware, that the circumstance is alluded to as +well in that honest heathen, old Herodotus, as in the learned Jew +Josephus. The volumes are not near me for reference to quotations: but +such is fact: it will be found in Herodotus, about the middle of +Euterpe, connected with an allusion to the analogous case of Hezekiah.</p> + +<p>No miracles, on the whole (to take one after-view of the matter), could +have been better tested: for two armies (not to mention all surrounding +countries) must have seen it plainly and clearly: if then it had never +occurred, what a very needless exposure of the falsity of the Jewish +Scriptures! These were open, published writings, accessible to all: +Cyrus and Darius and Alexander read them, and Ethiopian eunuchs; +Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, with all other nations of the earth, had +free access to those records. Only imagine if some recent history of +England, Adolphus's, or Stebbing's, contained an account of a certain +day in George the Fourth's reign having had twenty-four hour's daylight +instead of the usual admixture; could the intolerable falsehood last a +minute? Such a placard would be torn away from the records of the land +the moment a rash hand had fixed it there. But, if <a name="Page_506" id="Page_506"></a>the matter were +fact, how could any historian neglect it?—In one sense, the very +improbability of such a marvel being recorded, argues the probability of +it having actually occurred.</p> + +<p>Much more might here be added: but our errand is accomplished, if any +stumbling-block had been thus easily removed from some erring thinker's +path. Surely, we have given him some reason for faith's due acceptance +of Joshua's miracle.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_INCARNATION" id="THE_INCARNATION"></a>THE INCARNATION.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> touching some of the probabilities of our blessed Lord's career, it +would be difficult to introduce and illustrate the subject better, than +by the following anecdote. Whence it is derived, has escaped my memory; +but I have a floating notion that it is told of Socrates in Xenophon or +Plato. At any rate, by way of giving fixity thereto and picturesqueness, +let us here report the story as of the Athenian Solomon:</p> + +<p>Surrounded by his pupils, the great heathen Reasoner was being +questioned and answering questions: in particular respecting the +probability that the universal God would be revealed to his creatures. +"What a glorious King would he appear!" said one, possibly the brilliant +Alcibiades: "What a form of surpassing beauty!" said another, not +unlikely the softer Crito. "Not so, my children," answered Socrates. +"Kings and the beautiful are few, and the God, if he came on earth as an +exemplar, would in shape and station be like the greater number." +"Indeed, Master? then how should he fail of being made a King of men, +for his goodness, and his majesty, and wisdom?" "Alas! my children," was +pure Reason's just rejoinder, "[Greek: oi pleiones kakoi], most men are +so wicked that they would hate his purity, despise his wisdom, and as +for his majesty, they could not truly see it. They might indeed admire +for a time, but thereafter (if the God allowed it), they would even hunt +and persecute and kill him." "Kill him!" exclaimed the eager group of +listeners; "kill Him? how should they, how could they, how dare they +kill God?" "I did not say, kill God," would have been wise Socrates's +reply, "for God existeth ever: but men in enmity and envy might even be +allowed to kill that human form wherein God walked for an ensample. That +they could, were God's humility: that they should, were their own +malice: that they dared, were their own grievous sin and peril of +destruction. Yea," went on the keen-eyed <a name="Page_507" id="Page_507"></a>sage, "men would slay him by +some disgraceful death, some lingering, open, and cruel death, even such +as the death of slaves!"—Now slaves, when convicted of capital crime, +were always crucified.</p> + +<p>Whatever be thought of the genuineness of the anecdote, its uses are the +same to us. Reason might have arrived at the salient points of Christ's +career, and at His crucifixion!</p> + +<p>I will add another topic: How should the God on earth arrive there? We +have shown that His form would probably be such as man's; but was he to +descend bodily from the atmosphere at the age of full-grown perfection, +or to rise up out of the ground with earthquakes and fire, or to appear +on a sudden in the midst of the market-place, or to come with legions of +his heavenly host to visit his Temple? There was a wiser way than these, +more reasonable, probable, and useful. Man required an exemplar for +every stage of his existence up to the perfection of his frame. The +infant, and the child, and the youth, would all desire the human-God to +understand their eras; they would all, if generous and such as he would +love, long to feel that He has sympathy with them in every early trial, +as in every later grief. Moreover, the God coming down with supernatural +glories or terrors would be a needless expense of ostentatious power. +He, whose advent is intended for the encouragement of men to exercise +their reason and their conscience; whose exhortation is "he that hath +ears to hear, let him hear;" that pure Being, who is the chief preacher +of Humility, and the great teacher of man's responsible +condition—surely, he would hardly come in any way astoundingly +miraculous, addressing his advent not to faith, but to sight, and +challenging the impossibility of unbelief by a galaxy of spiritual +wonders. Yet, if He is to come at all—and a word or two of this +hereafter—it must be either in some such strange way; or in the usual +human way; or in a just admixture of both. As the first is needlessly +overwhelming to the responsible state of man, so the second is +needlessly derogatory to the pure essence of God; and the third idea +would seem to be most probable. Let us guess it out. Why should not this +highest Object of faith and this lowest Subject of obedience be born, +seemingly by human means, but really by divine? Why should there not be +found some unspotted holy virgin, betrothed to a just man and soon to be +his wife, who, by the creative power of Divinity, should miraculously +conceive the shape divine, which God himself resolved to dwell in? Why +should she not come of a lineage and family which for centuries before +had held such expectation? Why should not the just man, her <a name="Page_508" id="Page_508"></a>affianced, +who had never known her yet, being warned of God in a dream of this +strange, immaculate conception, "fear not to take unto him Mary his +wife," lest the unbelieving world should breathe slander on her purity, +albeit he should really know her not until after the Holy Birth. There +is nothing unreasonable here; every step is previously credible: and +invention's self would be puzzled to devise a better scheme. The +Virgin-born would thus be a link between God and man, the great +Mediator: his natures would fulfil every condition required of their +double and their intimate conjunction. He would have arrived at humanity +without its gross beginnings, and have veiled his Godhead for a while in +a pure though mortal tenement. He would have participated in all the +tenderness of woman's nature, and thus have reached the keenest +sensibilities of men.</p> + +<p>Themes such as these are inexhaustible: and I am perpetually conscious +of so much left unsaid, that at every section I seem to have said next +to nothing. Nevertheless, let it go; the good seed yet shall germinate. +"Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou shall find it after many +days."</p> + +<p>It may to some minds be a desideratum, to allude to the anterior +probability that God should come in the flesh. Much of this has been +anticipated under the head of Visible Deity and elsewhere; as this +treatise is so short, one may reasonably expect every reader to take it +in regular course. For additional considerations: the Benevolent Maker +would hardly leave his creatures to perish, without one word of warning +or one gleam of knowledge. The question of the Bible is considered +further on: but exclusively of written rules and dogmas, it was likely +that Our Father should commission chosen servants of his own, orally to +teach and admonish; because it would be in accordance with man's +reasonable nature, that he should best and easiest learn from the +teaching his brethren. So then, after all lesser ambassadors had failed, +it was to be expected that He should send the highest one of all, +saying, "They will reverence my Son." We know that this really did occur +by innumerable proofs, and wonderful signs posterior: and now, after the +event, we discern it to have been anteriorly probable.</p> + +<p>It was also probable in another light. This world is a world of +incarnations; nothing has a real and potential existence, which is not +embodied in some form. A theory is nothing; if no personal philosopher, +no sect, or school of learners, takes it up. An opinion is mere air; +without the multitude to give it all the force of a mighty wind.<a name="Page_509" id="Page_509"></a> An +idea is mere spiritual light; if unclad in deeds, or in words written or +spoken. So, also, of the Godhead: He would be like all these. He would +pervade words spoken, as by prophets or preachers: He would include +words written, as in the Bible: He would influence crowds with +spirit-stirring sentiments: He would embody the theory of all things in +one simple, philosophic form. As this material world is constituted, God +could not reveal himself at all, excepting by the aid of matter. I mean; +even granting that He spiritually inspired a prophet, still the man was +necessary: he becomes an inspired man; not mere inspiration. So, also, +of a book; which is the written labour of inspired men. There is no +doing without the Humanity of God, so far as this world is concerned, +any more than His Deity can be dispensed with, regarding the worlds +beyond worlds, and the ages of ages, and the dread for ever and ever.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="MAHOMETANISM" id="MAHOMETANISM"></a>MAHOMETANISM.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> seems expedient that, in one or two instances, I should attempt the +illustration of this rule of probability in matters beyond the Bible. As +very fair ones, take Mahometanism and Romanism. And first of the former.</p> + +<p>At the commencement of the seventh century, or a little previously to +that era, we know that a fierce religion sprang up, promulgated by a +false prophet. I wish briefly to show that this was antecedently to have +been expected.</p> + +<p>In a moral point of view, the Christian world, torn by all manner of +schisms, and polluted by all sorts of heresies, had earned for the human +race, whether accepting the gospel or refusing it, some signal and +extensive punishment at the hands of Him, who is the Great Retributor as +well as the Munificent Rewarder. In a physical point of view, the +civilized kingdoms of the earth had become stagnant, arguing that +corrupt and poisonous calm which is the herald of a coming tempest. The +heat of a true religion had cooled down into lukewarm disputations about +nothings, scholastical and casuistic figments; whilst at the same time +the prevalence of peaceful doctrines had amalgamated all classes into a +luxurious indolence. Passionate Man is not to be so satisfied; and the +time was fully come for the rise of some fierce spirit, who <a name="Page_510" id="Page_510"></a>should +change the tinsel theology of the crucifix for the iron religion of the +sword: who should blow in the ears of the slumbering West the shrill +war-blast of Eastern fervencies; who should exchange the dull rewards of +canonization due to penance, or an after-life voluntary humiliation +under pseudo-saints and angels, for the human and comprehensible joys of +animal appetite and military glory: who should enlist under his banner +all the frantic zeal, all the pent-up licentiousness, all the +heart-burning hatreds of mankind, stifled either by a positive +barbarism, or the incense-laden cloud of a scarcely-masked idolatry.</p> + +<p>Thus, and then, was likely to arise a bold and self-confiding hero, +leaning on his own sword: a man of dark sentences, who, by judiciously +pilfering from this quarter and from that shreds of truth to jewel his +black vestments of error, and by openly proclaiming that Oneness of the +object of all worship which besotted Christendom had then, from undue +reverence to saints and martyrs, virgins and archangels, well nigh +forgotten; a man who, by pandering to human passions and setting wide as +virtue's avenue the flower-tricked gates of vice; should thus, like +Lucifer before him, in a comet-like career of victory, sweep the +startled firmament of earth, and drag to his erratic orbit the stars of +heaven from their courses.</p> + +<p>Mahomet; his humble beginnings; his iron perseverance under early +probable checks; his blind, yet not all unsublime, dependence on +fatality; his ruthless, yet not all undeserved, infliction of fire and +sword upon the cowering coward race that filled the western +world;—these, and all whatever else besides attended his train of +triumphs, and all whatever besides has lasted among Moors, and Arabs, +and Turks, and Asiatics, even to this our day—constitute to a thinking +mind (and it seems not without cause) another antecedent probability. +Let the scoffer about Mahomet's success, and the admirer of his hotchpot +Koran; let him to whom it is a stumbling-block that error (if indeed, +quoth he, it be more erroneous than what Christendom counts truth) +should have had such free course and been glorified, while so-called +Truth, <i>pede claudo</i>, has limped on even as now cautiously and +ingloriously through the well-suspicious world; let him who thinks he +sees in Mahomet's success an answer to the foolish argument of some, who +test the truth of Christianity by its Gentile triumphs; let him ponder +these things. Reason, the God of his idolatry, might, with an +archangel's ken, have prophesied some Mahomet's career: and, so far from +such being in the nature of any objection to Faith, the idea thus thrown +out, well-mused <a name="Page_511" id="Page_511"></a>upon, will be seen to lend Faith an aid in the way of +previous likelihood.</p> + +<p>"There is one God, and Mahomet is his prophet!" How admirably calculated +such a war-cry would be for the circumstances of the seventh century. +The simple sublimity of Oneness, as opposed to school-theology and +catholic demons: the glitter of barbaric pomp, instead of tame +observances: the flashing scimetar of ambition to supersede the cross: a +turban aigretted with jewels for the twisted wreath of thorns. As human +nature is, and especially in that time was, nothing was more expectable +(even if prophetic records had not taught it), than the rise and +progress of that great False Prophet, whose waving crescent even now +blights the third part of earth.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ROMANISM" id="ROMANISM"></a>ROMANISM.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">We</span> all know how easy it is to prophesy after the event: but it would be +uncandid and untrue to confound this remark with another, cousin-germane +to it; to wit: how easy it is to discern of any event, after it has +happened, whether or not it were antecedently likely. When the race is +over, and the best horse has won (or by clever jockey-management, the +worst), how obviously could any gentleman on the turf, now in possession +of particulars, have seen the event to have been so probable, that he +would have staked all upon its issue.</p> + +<p>Carry out this familiar idea; which, as human nature goes, is none the +weaker as to illustration, because it is built upon the rule "<i>parvis +componere magna</i>." Let us sketch a line or two of that great +fore-shadowing cartoon, the probabilities of Romanism.</p> + +<p>That our blessed Master, even in His state as man, beheld its evil +characteristics looming on the future, seems likely not alone from both +His human keenness and His divine omniscience, but from here and there a +hint dropped in his biography. Why should He, on several occasions, have +seemed, I will say with some apparent sharpness, to have rebuked His +virgin mother.—"Woman, what have I to do with thee?"—"Who are my +mother and my brethren?"—"Yea—More blessed than the womb which bare +me, and the paps that I have sucked, is the humblest of my true +disciples." Let no one misunderstand me: full well I know the just +explanations which palliate such passages; <a name="Page_512" id="Page_512"></a>and the love stronger than +death which beat in that Filial heart. But, take the phrases as they +stand; and do they not in reason constitute some warning and some +prophecy that men should idolize the mother? Nothing, in fact, was more +likely than that a just human reverence to the most favoured among women +should have increased into her admiring worship: until the humble and +holy Mary, with the sword of human anguish at her heart, should become +exaggerated and idealized into Mother of God—instead of Jesus's human +matrix, Queen of heaven, instead of a ransomed soul herself, the joy of +angels—in lieu of their lowly fellow-worshipper, and the Rapture of the +blessed—thus dethroning the Almighty.</p> + +<p>Take a second instance: why should Peter, the most loving, most +generous, most devoted of them all, have been singled out from among the +twelve—with a "Get thee behind me, Satan?"—it really had a harsh +appearance; if it were not that, prophetically speaking, and not +personally, he was set in the same category with Judas, the "one who was +a devil." I know the glosses, and the contexts, and the whole amount of +it. Folios have been written, and may be written again, to disprove the +text; but the more words, the less sense: it stands, a record graven in +the Rock; that same Petra, whereon, as firm and faithful found, our Lord +Jesus built his early Church: it stands, a mark indelibly burnt into +that hand, to whom were intrusted, not more specially than to any other +of the saintly sent, the keys of the kingdom of heaven: it stands, along +with the same Peter's deep and terrible apostacy, a living witness +against some future Church, who should set up this same Peter as the +Jupiter of their Pantheon: who should positively be idolizing now an +image christened Peter, which did duty two thousand years ago as a +statue of Libyan Jove! But even this glaring compromise was a matter +probable, with the data of human ambitions, and a rotten Christianity.</p> + +<p>Examples such as these might well be multiplied: bear with a word or two +more, remembering always that the half is not said which might be said +in proof; nor in answering the heap of frivolous objections.</p> + +<p>Why, unless relics and pseudo-sacred clothes were to be prophetically +humbled into their own mere dust and nothing-worthiness, why should the +rude Roman soldiery have been suffered to cast lots for that vestment, +which, if ever spiritual holiness could have been infused into mere +matter, must indeed have remained a relic worthy of undoubted worship? +It was warm with the Animal heat of the Man inhabited by God: it was +half worn out in the service of His humble travels, and had even, <a name="Page_513" id="Page_513"></a>on +many occasions, been the road by which virtue had gone out; not of it, +but of Him. What! was this wonderful robe to work no miracles? was it +not to be regarded as a sort of outpost of the being who was Human-God? +Had it no essential sacredness, no <i>noli-me-tangere</i> quality of shining +away the gambler's covetous glance, of withering his rude and venturous +hand, or of poisoning, like some Nessus' shirt, the lewd ruffian who +might soon thereafter wear it? Not in the least. This woven web, to +which a corrupted state of feeling on religion would have raised +cathedrals as its palaces, with singing men and singing women, and +singing eunuchs too, to celebrate its virtues; this coarse cloth of some +poor weaver's, working down by the sea of Galilee or in some lane of +Zion, was still to remain, and be a mere unglorified, economical, useful +garment. Far from testifying to its own internal mightiness, it probably +was soon sold by the fortunate Roman die-thrower to a second-hand shop +of the Jewish metropolis; and so descended from beggar to beggar till it +was clean worn out. We never hear that, however easy of access so +inestimable relic might then have been considered, any one of the +numerous disciples, in the fervour of their earliest zeal, threw away +one thought for its redemption. Is it not strange that no St. Helena was +at hand to conserve such a desirable invention? Why is there no St. +Vestment to keep in countenance a St. Sepulchre and a St. Cross? The +poor cloth, in primitive times, really was despised. We know well enough +what happened afterwards about handkerchiefs imbued with miraculous +properties from holy Paul's body for the nonce: but this is an inferior +question, and the matter was temporary; the superior case is proved, and +besides the rule <i>omne majus continet in se minus</i> there are differences +quite intelligible between the cases, whereabout our time would be less +profitably employed than in passing on and leaving them unquestioned. +Suffice it to say, that "God worked those special miracles," and not the +unconscious "handkerchiefs or aprons." "Te Deum laudamus!" is +Protestantism's cry; "Sudaria laudemus!" would swell the Papal choirs.</p> + +<p>Let such considerations as these then are in sample serve to show how +evidently one might prove from anterior circumstances, (and the canon of +Scripture is an anterior circumstance,) the probability of the rise and +progress of the Roman heresies. And if any one should ask, how was such +a system more likely to arise under a Gentile rather than a Jewish +theocracy? why was a St. Paul, or a St. Peter, or a St. Dunstan, or a +St. Gengulphus, more previously expectable than a St. Abra<a name="Page_514" id="Page_514"></a>ham, a St. +David, a St. Elisha, or a St. Gehazi? I answer, from the idea of +idolatry, so adapted to the Gentile mind, and so abhorrent from the +Jewish. Martyred Abel, however well respected, has never reached the +honours of a niche beside the altar. Jephtha's daughter, for all her +mourned virginity, was never paraded, (that I wot of,) for any other +than a much-to-be-lamented damsel. Who ever asked, in those old times, +the mediation of St. Enoch? Where were the offerings, in jewels or in +gold, to propitiate that undoubted man of God and denizen of heaven, St. +Moses? what prows, in wax, of vessels saved from shipwreck, hung about +the dripping fane of Jonah? and where was, in the olden time, that +wretched and insensate being, calling himself rational and godly, who +had ventured to solicit the good services of Isaiah as his intercessor, +or to plead the merits of St. Ezekiel as the make-weight for his sins?</p> + +<p>It was just this, and reasonably to have been expected; for when the Jew +brought in his religion, he demolished every false god, broke their +images, slew their priests, and burnt their groves with fire. But, when +a worldly Christianity came to be in vogue, when emperors adorned their +banners with the cross, and the poor fishermen of Galilee, (in their +portly representatives,) came to be encrusted with gems, and rustling +with seric silk; then was made that fatal compromise; then it was likely +to have been made, which has lasted even until now: a compromise which, +newly baptizing the damned idols of the heathen, keeps yet St. Bacchus +and St. Venus, St. Mars and St. Apollo, perched in sobered robes upon +the so-called Christian altar; which yet pays divine honours to an +ancyle or a rusty nail; to the black stones at Delphi, or the +gold-shrined bones at Aix; which yet sanctifies the chickens of the +capitol, or the cock that startled Peter; which yet lets a wealthy +sinner, by his gold, bribe the winking Pythoness, or buy dispensing +clauses from "the Lord our God, the Pope."</p> + +<p>There is yet a swarm of other notions pressing on the mind, which tend +to prove that Popery might have been anticipated. Take this view. The +religion of Christ is holy, self-denying; not of this world's praise, +and ending with the terrible sanction of eternity for good or evil: it +sets up God alone supreme, and cuts down creature-merit to a point +perpetually diminishing; for the longer he does well, the more he owes +to the grace which enabled him to do it.</p> + +<p>Now, man's nature is, as we know, diametrically opposite to all this: +and unable to escape from the conviction of Christian truth in some +sense, he would bend his shrewd invention to the attempt of warping +<a name="Page_515" id="Page_515"></a>that stern truth to shapes more consistent with his idiosyncrasies. A +religious plan might be expected, which, in lieu of a difficult, holy +spirituality, should exact easy, mere observances; to say a thousand +Paters with the tongue, instead of one "Our Father," from the heart; to +exact genuflections by the score, but not a single prostration of the +spirit; to write the cross in water on the forehead often-times, but +never once to bear its mystic weight upon the shoulder. In spite of +self-denial, cleverly kept in sight by means of eggs, and pulse, and +hair-cloth, to pamper the deluded flesh with many a carnal holiday; in +contravention of a kingdom not of this world, boldly to usurp the +temporal dominion of it all: instead of the overwhelming +incomprehensibility of an eternal doom, to comfort the worst with false +assurance of a purgatory longer or shorter; that after all, vice may be +burnt out; and who knows but that gold, buying up the prayers and +superfluous righteousness of others, may not make the fiery ordeal an +easy one? In lieu of a God brought near to his creatures, infinite +purity in contact with the grossest sin, as the good Physician loveth; +how sage it seemed to stock the immeasurable distance with intermediate +numia, cycle on epicycle, arc on arc, priest and bishop and pope, and +martyr, and virgin, and saint, and angel, all in their stations, at due +interval soliciting God to be (as if His blessed Majesty were not so of +Himself!) the sinner's friend. How comfortable this to man's sweet +estimation of his own petty penances; how glorifying to those "filthy +rags," his so-called righteousness: how apt to build up the hierarchist +power; how seemingly analogous with man's experience here, where clerks +lay the case before commissioners, and commissioners before the +government, and the government before the sovereign.</p> + +<p>All this was entirely expectable: and I can conceive that a deep +Reasoner among the first apostles, even without such supernal light as +"the Spirit speaking expressly," might have so calculated on the +probabilities to come, as to have written, long ago, words akin to +these: "In the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving +heed to seductive doctrines, and fanciful notions about intermediate +deities, (δαιμονἱων,) perverting truth by hypocritical +departures from it, searing conscience against its own cravings after +spiritual holiness, forbidding marriage, (to invent another virtue,) and +commanding abstinence from God's good gifts, as a means of building up a +creature-merit by voluntary humiliation." At the likelihood that such +"profane and old wives' fables" should thereafter have arisen, might +Paul without a miracle have possibly arrived.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516"></a>Yet again: take another view. The Religion of Christ, though intended +to be universal in some better era of this groaning earth, was, until +that era cometh, meant and contrived for any thing rather than a +Catholicity. True, the Church is so far Catholic that it numbers of its +blessed company men of every clime and every age, from righteous Abel +down to the last dear babe christened yester-morning; true, the +commission is "to all nations, teaching them:" but, what mean the +simultaneous and easily reconciled expressions—come out from among +them, little flock, gathered out of the Gentiles, a peculiar people, a +church militant, and not triumphant, here on earth? Thus shortly of a +word much misinterpreted: let us now see what the Romanist does, what, +(on human principles,) he would be probable to do, with this +discriminating religion. He, chiefly for temporal gains, would make it +as expansive as possible: there should be room at that table for every +guest, whether wedding-garmented or not; there would be sauces in that +poisonous feast, fitted to every palate. For the cold, ascetical mind, a +cell and a scourge, and a record kept of starving fancies as calling +them ecstatic visions vouchsafed by some old Stylite to bless his +favoured worshipper; for the painted demirep of fashionable life, there +would be a pretty pocket-idol, and the snug confessional well tenanted +by a not unsympathizing father; for the pure girl, blighted in her +heart's first love, the papist would afford that seemingly merciful +refuge, that calm and musical and gentle place, the irrevocable nunnery; +a place, for all its calmness, and its music, and its gentle +reputations, soon to be abhorred of that poor child as a living tomb, +the extinguisher of all life's aims, all its duties, uses and delights: +for the bandit, a tythe of the traveller's gold would avail to pay away +the murder, and earn for him a heap of merits kept within the cash-box: +the educated, high-born and finely-moulded mind might be well amused +with architecture, painting, carving, sweet odours, and the most +wondrous music that has ever cheated man, even while he offers up his +easy adorations, and departs, equally complacent at the choral remedies +as at the priestly absolution; while, for those good few, the truly +pious and enlightened children of Rome, who mourn the corruptions of +their church, and explain away, with trembling tongue, her obvious +errors and idolatries, for these the wily scheme, so probable, devised +an undoubted mass of truth to be left among the rubbish. True doctrines, +justly held by true martyrs and true saints, holy men of God who have +died in that communion; ordinances and an existence which creep up, +(heedless of corruption though,) step by <a name="Page_517" id="Page_517"></a>step, through past antiquity, +to the very feet of the Founder; keen casuists, competent to prove any +point of conscience or objection, and that indisputably, for they climax +all by the high authority of Popes and councils that cannot be deceived: +pious treatises and manuals, verily of flaming heat, for they mingle the +yearnings of a constrained celibacy with the fervencies of worship and +the cravings after God. Yes, there is meat here for every human mouth; +only that, alas for men! the meat is that which perisheth, and not +endureth unto everlasting life. Rome, thou wert sagely schemed; and if +Lucifer devised thee not for the various appetencies of poor, +deceivable, Catholic Man, verily it were pity, for thou art worthy of +his handiwork. All things to all men, in any sense but the right, +signifies nothing to anybody: in the sense of falsehoods, take the +former for thy motto; in that of single truth, in its intensity, the +latter.</p> + +<p>Let not then the accident—the probable accident—of the Italian +superstition place any hindrance in the way of one whose mind is all at +sea because of its existence. What, O man with a soul, is all the world +else to thee? Christianity, whatever be its broad way of pretences, is +but in reality a narrow path: be satisfied with the day of small things, +stagger not at the inconsistencies, conflicting words, and hateful +strifes of those who say they are Christians, but "are not, but are of +the synagogue of Satan." Judge truth, neither by her foes nor by her +friends but by herself. There was one who said (and I never heard that +any writer, from Julian to Hobbes, ever disputed his human truth or +wisdom) "Needs must that offences come; but wo be to that man by whom +the offence cometh. If they come, be not shaken in faith: lo, I have +told you before. And if others fall away, or do ought else than my +bidding, what is that to thee? follow thou ME."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_BIBLE" id="THE_BIBLE"></a>THE BIBLE.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Whilst</span> I attempt to show, as now I desire to do, that the Bible should +be just the book it is, from considerations of anterior probability, I +must expand the subject a little; dividing it, first, into the +likelihood of a revelation at all; and secondly, into that of its +expectable form and character.</p> + +<p>The first likelihood has its birth in the just Benevolence of our +heavenly Father, who without dispute never leaves his rational creatures +<a name="Page_518" id="Page_518"></a>unaided by some sort of guiding light, some manifestation of himself so +needful to their happiness, some sure word of consolation in sorrow, or +of brighter hope in persecution. That it must have been thus an <i>à +priori</i> probability, has been all along proved by the innumerable +pretences of the kind so constant up and down the world: no nation ever +existed in any age or country, whose seers and wise men of whatever name +have not been believed to hold commerce with the Godhead. We may judge +from this, how probable it must ever have been held. The Sages of old +Greece were sure of it from reason: and not less sure from accepted +superstition those who reverenced the Brahmin, or the priest of +Heliopolis, or the medicine-man among the Rocky Mountains, or the Llama +of old Mexico. I know that our ignorance of some among the most +brutalized species of mankind, as the Bushmen in Caffraria, and the +tribes of New South Wales, has failed to find among their rites any +thing akin to religion: but what may we not yet have to learn of good +even about such poor outcasts? how shall we prove this negative? For +aught we know, their superstitions at the heart may be as deep and as +deceitful as in others; and, even on the contrary side, the exception +proves the rule: the rule that every people concluded a revelation so +likely, that they have one and all contrived it for themselves.</p> + +<p>Thus shortly of the first: and now, secondly, how should God reveal +himself to men? In such times as those when the world was yet young, and +the Church concentrated in a family or an individual, it would probably +be by an immediate oral teaching; the Lord would speak with Adam; He +would walk with Enoch; He would, in some pure ethereal garb, talk with +Abraham, as friend to friend. And thereafter, as men grew, and +worshippers were multiplied, He would give some favoured servant a +commission to be His ambassador: He would say to an Ezekiel, "Go unto +the house of Israel, and speak my words to them:" He would bid a +Jeremiah "Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words +that I have spoken to thee:" He would give Daniel a deep vision, not to +be interpreted for ages, "Shut up the words, and seal the book even to +the time of the end:" He would make Moses grave His precepts in the +rock, and Job record his trials with a pen of iron. For a family, the +Beatic Vision was enough: for a congregated nation, as once at Sinai, +oral proclamations: for one generation or two around the world, the zeal +and eloquence of some great "multitude of preachers:" but, indubitably, +if God willed to bless the universal race, and drop the honey of his +words distilling down the hour-glass of Time from generation to +<a name="Page_519" id="Page_519"></a>generation even to the latter days, there was no plan more probable, +none more feasible, than the pen of a ready writer.</p> + +<p>Further: and which concerns our argument: what were likely to be the +characteristic marks of such a revelation? Exclusively of a pervading +holiness, and wisdom, and sublimity, which could not be dispensed with, +and in some sort should be worthy of the God; there would be, it was +probable, frequent evidences of man's infirmity, corrupting all he +toucheth. The Almighty works no miracles for little cause: one miracle +alone need be current throughout Scripture: to wit, that which preserves +it clean and safe from every perilous error. But, in the succession of a +thousand scribes each copying from the other, needs must that the tired +hand and misty eye would occasionally misplace a letter: this was no +nodus worthy of a God's descent to dissipate by miracle.</p> + +<p>Again: the original prophets themselves were men of various characters +and times and tribes. God addresses men through their reason; he bound +not down a seer "with bit and bridle, like the horse that has no +understanding"—but spoke as to a rational being—"What seest thou?" +"Hear my words;"—"Give ear unto my speech." Was it not then likely that +the previous mode of thought and providential education in each holy man +of God should mingle irresistibly with his inspired teaching? Should not +the herdsman of Tehoa plead in pastoral phrase, and the royal son of +Amoz denounce with strong authority? Should not David whilst a shepherd +praise God among his flocks, and when a king, cry "Give the King thy +judgments?" The Bible is full of this human individuality; and nothing +could be thought as humanly more probable: but we must, with this +diversity, connect the other probability also, that which should show +the work to be divine; which would prove (as is literally the case) +that, in spite of all such natural variety, all such unbiassed freedom +both of thought and speech, there pervades the whole mass a oneness, a +marvellous consistency, which would be likely to have been designed by +God, though little to have been dreamt by man.</p> + +<p>Once more on this full topic. Difficulties in Scripture were expectable +for many reasons; I can only touch a few. Man is rational as he is +responsible: God speaks to his mind and moral powers: and the mind +rejoices, and moralities grow strong in conquest of the difficult and +search for the mysterious. The muscles of the spiritual athlete pant for +such exertion; and without it, they would dwindle into trepid +imbecility. Curious man, courageous man, enterprising, shrewd, and +vigourous <a name="Page_520" id="Page_520"></a>man, yet has a constant enemy to dread in his own indolence: +now, a lion in the path will wake up Sloth himself: and the very +difficulties of religion engender perseverance.</p> + +<p>Additionally: I think there is somewhat in the consideration, that, if +all revealed truth had been utterly simple and easy, it would have +needed no human interpreter; no enlightened class of men, who, according +to the spirit of their times, and the occasions of their teaching, might +"in season and out of season preach the word, reprove, rebuke, exhort, +with all long-suffering and doctrine." I think there existed an anterior +probability that Scripture should be as it is, often-times difficult, +obscure, and requiring the aid of many wise to its elucidation; because, +without such characteristic, those many wise and good would never have +been called for. Suppose all truth revealed as clearly and indisputably +to the meanest intellect as a sum in addition is, where were the need or +use of that noble Christian company who are every where man's almoners +for charity, and God's ambassadors for peace?</p> + +<p>A word or two more, and I have done. The Bible would, as it seems to me +probable, be a sort of double book; for the righteous, and for the +wicked: to one class, a decoy, baited to allure all sorts of generous +dispositions: to the other, a trap, set to catch all kinds of evil +inclinations. In these two senses, it would address the whole family +man: and every one should find in it something to his liking. Purity +should there perceive green pastures and still waters, and a tender +Shepherd for its innocent steps: and carnal appetite should here and +there discover some darker spot, which the honesty of heaven had filled +with memories of its chiefest servants' sins; some record of adultery or +murder wherewith to feast his maw for condemnation. While the good man +should find in it meat divine for every earthly need, the sneerer should +proclaim it the very easiest manual for his jests and lewd profanities. +The unlettered should not lack humble, nay vulgar, images and words, to +keep himself in countenance: neither should the learned look in vain for +reasonings; the poet for sublimities; the curious mind for mystery; nor +the sorrowing heart for prayer. I do discern, in that great book, a +wondrous adaptability to minds of every calibre: and it is just what +might antecedently have been expected of a volume writ by many men at +many different eras, yet all superintended by one master mind; of a +volume meant for every age, and nation, and country, and tongue, and +people; of a volume which, as a two-edged sword, wounds the good man's +heart with deep conviction, and cuts down "the hoary head of him who +goeth on still in his wickedness."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521"></a>On the whole, respecting faults, or incongruities, or objectionable +parts in Scripture, however to have been expected, we must recollect +that the more they are viewed, the more the blemishes fade, and are +altered into beauties.</p> + +<p>A little child had picked up an old stone, defaced with time-stains: the +child said the stone was dirty, covered with blotches and all colours: +but his father brings a microscope, and shows to his astonished glance +that what the child thought dirt, is a forest of beautiful lichens, +fruited mosses, and strange lilliputian plants with shapely animalcules +hiding in the leaves, and rejoicing in their tiny shadow. Every blemish, +justly seen, had turned to be a beauty: and Nature's works are +vindicated good, even as the Word of Grace is wise.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="HEAVEN_AND_HELL" id="HEAVEN_AND_HELL"></a>HEAVEN AND HELL.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Probably</span> enough, the light which I expect to throw upon this important +subject will, upon a cursory criticism, be judged fanciful, erroneous, +and absurd; in parts, quite open to ridicule, and in all liable to the +objection of being wise, or foolish, beyond what is written. +Nevertheless, and as it seems to me of no small consequence to reach +something more definite on the subject than the Anywhere or Nowhere of +common apprehensions, I judge it not amiss to put out a few thoughts, +fancies, if you will, but not unreasonable fancies, on the localities +and other characteristics of what we call heaven and hell: in fact, I +wish to show their probable realities with somewhat approaching to +distinctness. It is manifest that these places must be somewhere; for, +more especially of the blest estate, whither did Enoch, and Elijah, and +our risen Lord ascend to? what became of these glorified humanities when +"the chariot of fire carried up Elijah by a whirlwind into heaven;" and +when "<span class="smcap">He</span> was taken up, and a cloud received him?" Those happy +mortals did not waste away to intangible spiritualities, as they rose +above the world; their bodies were not melted as they broke the bonds of +gravitation, and pierced earth's swathing atmosphere: they went up +somewhither; the question is where they went to. It is a question of +great interest to us; however, among those matters which are rather +curious than consequential; for in our own case, as we know, we that are +redeemed are to be caught up, together with other blessed creatures, "in +the clouds, to <a name="Page_522" id="Page_522"></a>meet our coming Saviour in the air, and thereafter to be +ever with the Lord." I wish to show this to be expected as in our case, +and expectable previously to it.</p> + +<p>We have, in the book of Job, a peep at some place of congregation: some +one, as it is likely, of the mighty globes in space, set apart as God's +especial temple. Why not? they all are worlds; and the likelihood being +in favour of overbalancing good, rather than of preponderating evil from +considerations that affect God's attributes and the happiness of his +creatures, it is probable that the great majority of these worlds are +unfallen mansions of the blessed. Perhaps each will be a kingdom for one +of earth's redeemed, and if so, there will at last be found fulfilled +that prevailing superstition of our race, that each man has his star: +without insisting upon this, we may reflect that there is no one +universal opinion which has not its foundation in truth. Tradition may +well have dropped the thought from Adam downwards, that the stars may +some day be our thrones. We know their several vastness, and can guess +their glory: verily a mighty meed for miserable services on earth, to +find a just ambition gladdened with the rule of spheres, to which Terra +is a point; while that same ambition is sanctified and legalized by +ruling as vicegerent of Jehovah.</p> + +<p>Is this unlikely, or unworthy of our high vocation, our immortality, and +nearness unto, nay communion with God? The idea is only suggested: let a +man muse at midnight, and look up at the heavens hanging over all; let +him see, with Rosse and Herschell, that, multiply power as you will, +unexhausted still and inexhaustible appear the myriads of worlds +unknown. Yea, there is space enow for infinite reward; yea, let every +grain of sand on every shore be gathered, and more innumerable yet +appear that galaxy of spheres. Let us think that night looks down upon +us here, with the million eyes of heaven. And for some focus of them +all, some spot where God himself enthroned receives the homage of all +crowns, and the worship of all creature service, what is there +unreasonable in suggesting for a place some such an one as is instanced +below?</p> + +<p>I have just cut the following paragraph out of a newspaper: Is this the +ridiculous tripping up the sublime? I think otherwise: it is honest to +use plain terms. I speak as unto wise men—judge ye what I say. With +respect to the fact of information, it may or it may not be true; but +even if untrue, the idea is substantially the same, and I cannot help +supposing that with angels and archangels and the whole company <a name="Page_523" id="Page_523"></a>of +heaven, such bodily saints as Enoch is, (and similar to him all risen, +holy men will be,) meet for happy sabbaths in some glorious orb akin or +superior to the following:</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">A central Sun.</span>—Dr. Madier, the Professor of Astronomy at +Dorpat, has published the results of the researches pursued by him +uninterruptedly during the last sixty years, upon the movements of the +so-called fixed stars. These more particularly relate to the star +Alcyone, (discovered by him,) the brightest of the seven bright stars of +the group of the Pleiades. This star he states to be the central sun of +all the systems of stars known to us. He gives its distance from the +boundaries of our system at thirty-four million times the distance of +the sun from our earth, a distance which it takes five hundred and +thirty-seven years for light to traverse. Our sun takes one hundred and +eighty-two million years to accomplish its course round this central +body, whose mass is one hundred and seventeen million times larger than +the sun."</p> + +<p>One hundred and seventeen million times larger than the Sun! itself, for +all its vastness, not more than half one million times bigger than this +earth. To some such globe we may let our fancies float, and anchor there +our yearnings after heaven. It is a glorious thought, such as +imagination loves; and a probable thought, that commends itself to +reason. Behold the great eye of all our guessed creation, the focus of +its brightness, and the fountain of its peace.</p> + +<p>A topic far less pleasant, but alike of interest to us poor men, is the +probable home of evil; and here I may be laughed at—laugh, but listen, +and if, listening, some reason meets thine ear, laugh at least no +longer.</p> + +<p>We know that, for spirit's misery as for spirit's happiness, there is no +need of place: "no matter where, for I am still the same," said one most +miserable being. More—in the case of mere spirits, there is no need for +any apparatus of torments, or fires, or other fearful things. But, when +spirit is married to matter, the case is altered; needs must a place to +prison the matter, and a corporal punishment to vex it.</p> + +<p>Nothing is unlikely here; excepting—will a man urge?—the dread +duration of such hell. This is a parenthesis; but it shall not be +avoided, for the import of that question is deep, and should be answered +clearly. A man, a body and soul inmixt, body risen incorruptible, and +soul rested from its deeds, must exist for ever. I touch not here the +proofs—assume it. Now, if he lives for ever, and deliberately chooses +evil, his will consenting as well as his infirmity, and conscience +seared by persisted disobedience, what course can such a wilful, +rational, responsible being <a name="Page_524" id="Page_524"></a>pursue than one perpetually erratic? How +should it not be that he gets worse and worse in morals, and more and +more miserable in fact? and when to this we add, that such wretched +creatures are to herd together, continually flying further away from the +only source of Happiness and Good; and to this, that they have earned by +sin, remorses and regrets, and positive inflictions; how probable seems +a hell, the sinner's doom eternal. The apt mathematical analogy of lines +thrown out of parallel, helps this for illustration: for ever and for +ever they are stretching more remote, and infinity itself cannot rëunite +their travel.</p> + +<p>This, then, as a passing word; a sad one. Honest thinker, do not scorn +it, for thine own soul's sake. "Now is the time of grace, now is the day +of salvation." To return. A place of punishment exists; to what quarter +shall we look for its anterior probability? I think there is a +likelihood very near us. There may be one, possibly, beneath us, in the +bowels of this fiery-bursting earth; whither went Korah and his company? +This idea is not without its arguments, just analogies, and scriptural +hints. But my judgment inclines towards another. This trial-world, we +know, is to be purified and restored, and made a new earth: it was even +to be expected that Redemption should do this, and I like not to imagine +it the crust and case of hell, but rather, as thus: At the birth of this +same world, there was struck off from its burning mass at a tangent, a +mournful satellite, to be the home of its immortal evil; the convict +shore for exiled sin and misery; a satellite of strange differences, as +guessed by Virgil in his musings upon Tartarus, where half the orb is, +from natural necessities, blistered up by constant heats, the other half +frozen by perennial cold. A land of caverns, and volcanoes, miles deep, +miles high; with no water, no perceptible air: imagine such a dreadful +world, with neither air nor water! incapable of feeding life like ours, +but competent to be a place where undying wretchedness may struggle for +ever. A melancholy orb, the queen of night, chief nucleus of all the +dark idolatries of earth; the Moon, Isis, Hecate, Ashtaroth, Diana of +the Ephesians!</p> + +<p>This expression of a thought by no means improbable, gives an easy +chance to shallow punsters; but ridicule is no weapon against reason. +Why should not the case be so? Why should not Earth's own satellite, +void, as yet, be on the resurrection of all flesh, the raft whereon to +float away Earth's evil? Read of it astronomically; think of it as +connected with idols; regard it as the ruler of earth's night; consider +that the place of a Gehenna must be somewhere; and what is there in my +fancy <a name="Page_525" id="Page_525"></a>quite improbable? I do not dogmatize as that the fact is so, but +only suggest a definite place at least as likely as any other hitherto +suggested. Think how that awful, melancholy eye looks down on deeds of +darkness how many midnight crimes, murders, thefts, adulteries, and +witchcrafts, that would have shrunk into nonentity from open, honest +day, have paled the conscious Moon! Add to all this, it is the only +world, besides our own, whereof astronomers can tell us, It is fallen.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="AN_OFFER" id="AN_OFFER"></a>AN OFFER.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Nothing</span> were easier than to have made this book a long one; but that was +not the writer's object: as well because of the musty Greek proverb +about long books; which in every time and country are sure never to be +read through by one in a thousand; as because it is always wiser to +suggest than to exhaust a topic; which may be as "a fruit-tree yielding +fruit after its kind whose seed is in itself." The writer then intended +only to touch upon a few salient points, and not to discuss every +question, however they might crowd upon his mind: time and space alike +with mental capabilities forbade an effort so gigantic: added to which, +such a course seemed to be unnecessary, as the rule of probability, thus +illustrated, might be applied by others in every similar instance. +Still, as the errand of this book is usefulness, and its author's hope +is, under Heaven, to do good, one personal hint shall here be thrown +upon the highway. Without arrogating to myself the wisdom or the +knowledge to solve one in twenty of the doubts possible to be +propounded; without also designing even to attempt such solutions, +unless well assured of the genuine anxiety of the doubter; and +preliminarizing the consideration, that a fitting diffidence in the +advocate's own powers is no reason why he should not make wide efforts +in his holy cause; that, such reasonable essays to do good have no sort +of brotherhood with a fanatical Spiritual Quixotism; and that, to my own +apprehensions, the doubts of a rationalizing mind are in the nature of +honourable foes, to be treated with delicacy, reverence, and kindness, +rather than with a cold distance and an ill-concealed contempt; +preliminarizing, lastly, the thought—"Who is sufficient for these +things?"—I nevertheless thus offer, according to the grace and power +given to me, my best but humble efforts so far to dissipate the doubts +of some respecting any scriptural <a name="Page_526" id="Page_526"></a>fact, as may lie within the province +of showing or attempting to show its previous credibility. This is not a +challenge to the curious casuist or the sneering infidel; but an +invitation to the honest mind harassed by unanswered queries: no +gauntlet thrown down, but a brother's hand stretched out. Such +questions, if put to the writer, through his publisher by letter, may +find their reply in a future edition: supposing, that is to say, that +they deserve an answer, whether as regards their own merits or the +temper of the mind who doubts; and supposing also that the writer has +the power and means to answer them discreetly. It is only a fair rule of +philanthropy (and that without arrogating any unusual "strength") to +"bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves:" and +nothing would to me give greater happiness than to be able, as I am +willing, to remove any difficulties lying in the track of Faith before a +generous mind. I hang out no glistening holly-bush a-flame with its +ostentatious berries as promising good wine; but rather over my portal +is the humbler and hospitable mistletoe, assuring every wearied pilgrim +in the way, that though scanty be the fare, he shall find a hearty +welcome.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CONCLUSION" id="CONCLUSION"></a>CONCLUSION.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">I have</span> thus endeavoured (with solicited help of Heaven) to place before +the world anew a few old truths: truths inestimably precious. Remember, +they cannot have lost by any such advocacy as is contained in the idea +of their being shown antecedently probable; for this idea affects not at +all the fact of their existence; the thing is; whether probable or not; +there is, in esse, an ornithorhyncus; its posse is drowned in esse: +there exists no doubt of it: evidence, whether of senses physical, or of +considerations moral, puts the circumstance beyond the sphere of +disputation. But such truths as we have spoken of do, nevertheless, gain +something as to—not their merits, these are all their own +substantially; nor their positive proofs, these are adjectives properly +attendant on them, but as to—their acceptability among the incredulous +of men; they gain, I say, even by such poor pleading as mine, from being +shown anteriorly probable. Take an illustration in the case of that +strange and anomalous creature mentioned just above. Its habitat is in a +land where plums grow with the stones outside, where aboriginal dogs +have <a name="Page_527" id="Page_527"></a>never been heard to bark, where birds are found covered with hair, +and where mammals jump about like frogs! If these are shown to be +literal facts, the mind is thereby well prepared for any animal +monstrosity: and it staggers not in unbelief (on evidence of honest +travellers) even when informed of a creature with a duck's bill and a +beaver's body: it really amounted in Australia to an antecedent +probability.</p> + +<p>Carry this out to matters not a quarter so incredible, ye thinkers, ye +free-thinkers; neither be abashed at being named as thinking freely: +were not those Bereans more noble in that they searched to see? For my +humble part, I do commend you for it: treacherous is the hand that roots +up the inalienable right of private judgment; the foundation-stone of +Protestantism, the great prerogative of reason, the key-note of +conscience, the sole vindex of a man's responsibility: evil and false is +the so-called reverential wisdom which lays down in place of the truth +that each man's conscience is a law unto himself, the tyranny of other +men's authority. Cheap and easy and perilled is the faith, which clings +to the skirt of others; which leans upon the broken staff of +priestcraft, until those poisoned splinters pierce the hand.</p> + +<p>Prove all things; holding fast that which is good: good to thine own +reasonable conscience, if unwarped by casuistries, and unblinded by +licentiousness. Prove all things, if you can, "from the egg to the +apple:" he is a poor builder of his creed, who takes one brick on +credit. Be able, as you can be, (if only you are willing so far to be +wisely inconsistent, as to bend the stubborn knee betimes, and though +with feeble glance to look to heaven, and though with stammering tongue +to pray for aid,) be able, as it is thy right, O man of God—to give a +Reason for the faith that is in thee.</p> + + +<h4>THE END.</h4> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Probabilities, by Martin Farquhar Tupper + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROBABILITIES *** + +***** This file should be named 16857-h.htm or 16857-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/8/5/16857/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Janet Blenkinship and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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