CHRISTIAN TRUTH 
 
 MODERN OPINION". 
 
 SETES" SERMONS 
 
 rREACIIED IN NEW-YORK BV 
 
 CLERGYME^f OF THE PR0TESTA^7 EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 
 
 NEW-YORK 
 
 THOMAS ^WHITTAKKR, 
 
 2 Bible House. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, 
 
 By THOMAS WIIITTAKER, 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 The following Course of Sermons was given the 
 last winter, under the auspices of an association of 
 clergymen in the Episcopal Church. There will 
 be found such an order in the topics, and such es- 
 sential agreement in the line of Christian thought, 
 as to give them place in one volume ; yet each au- 
 thor has freely written his own convictions, and is 
 alone responsible for his sermon. It is hoped that 
 the publication may do somewhat toward that har- 
 mony of Christian faith with science, which is no 
 dream, but one of the most real aims of all scholars 
 in our one-sided time. 
 
 New- York, October 1st, 1874. 
 
GOISTTEI^TS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Christian Doctrine of Providence. By C. S. 
 Henry, D.D 9 
 
 The Christian Doctrine of Prayer. By Hugli Miller 
 Thompson, D.D 43 
 
 Moral Responsibility and Physical Law. By E. A. 
 Wasliburn, D.D G9 
 
 The REL.A.TI0N op Miracles to the Christian Faith. 
 By J. H. Rylance, D.D 101 
 
 The Oneness op Scripture. By "William R. Hunting- 
 ton, D.D 137 
 
 Immortality. By Rt. Rev. T. M. Clark, D.D., LL.D 163 
 
 Evolution and a Personal Creator. By Jolin Cotton 
 Smith, D.D 189 
 
THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN DOCTRmE OF PROYIDEJICE. 
 
 BY 
 
 C. S. IIENEY, D.D., 
 
 Delivered in Calvary Church, New-York. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 " The Lord liatli prepared His throne in tlie lieavens ; and 
 His kingdom ruletli over all." — Psalm 103 : 19. 
 
 My Beetheen : The Cliristian idea of Providence 
 has its gromid in the Christian idea of God as an in- 
 finite, self-existent, spiritual Being — j^ersonal, intel- 
 ligent, and free— distinct from Xature, before Na- 
 ture, and above jSTaturc. 
 
 There are three distinct conceptions of the Divine 
 Activity which rest in this ground — ^namely, God as 
 Creator, God as Upholder, and God as Orderer. 
 
 These three conceptions hold inwardly together ; 
 l)ut the latter is the special conception of Divine 
 Providence — God as Orderer. 
 
 The Christian idea is that the same power which 
 created and which upholds the universe is the ulti- 
 mate cause of all the changes, all the events that 
 come to pass in the universe ; that His supreme 
 will is eternally active in the ordering of every 
 thing ; that nothing comes by chance, nothing by 
 
10 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 any fatality or necessity outside of God ; that the 
 history of the universe is one great eternal drama, 
 of which God is at once the Poet and the Manager, 
 and which is for ever unfolding itself under His all- 
 seeing eye, His ever-watchful superintendence, and 
 His suj)reme control. 
 
 This is the Christian idea of God's Providence. 
 
 Atheism subverts this idea by denying its ground 
 in the being of God. If there be no God, there 
 can, of course, be no Providence. This every one 
 sees at once. But the converse of this — that if 
 there be no Providence, there can be no God in any 
 proper sense of the word — is not at once so clearly 
 seen. Yet it is equally true. 
 
 11. I do not propose to go into a confutation 
 of atheism. For the special purpose of this dis- 
 course, it would be a needless taking up of time. 
 I speak now only to such as, along with myself, 
 believe that there is a Living Personal God, the 
 Creator of the universe. I assume the existence 
 of such a God as the rational basis for the Chris- 
 tian doctrine of Providence. 
 
 And 1 say at the outset, that the notions of 
 those who admit the existence of such a God, and 
 yet deny the Christian representation of God's ever- 
 active superintendence, direction, and control of the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 11 
 
 M-liolc course of events in the universe, seem to me 
 quite as incompatible with any satisfactory rational 
 explanation of the universe as the naked atheism 
 which says there is no God at all, or the pantheistic 
 materialism which identities God with the universe 
 — making Him an impersonal, dead God-no-God. 
 In effect, what sort of a God is one that creates a 
 universe over which He does not exert a constant, 
 all-ordering control ? Is the idea of such a God 
 really any better than the old Stoic idea of Fate ? 
 Is the contemplation of such a God at all satisfac- 
 tory to the demands of the human reason, or to the 
 wants of the human heart ? This I am sure no one 
 can maintain. And I am ecpially sure that the con- 
 ception of a universe perpetually watched over, 
 cared for, and controlled by the infinite power, in- 
 telligence, wisdom, and love of a Living Personal 
 God, is the only one that completely satisfies the 
 needs of the human reason and of the human heart. 
 
 III. But it is objected that it is difficult and 
 even impossible to harmonize such a conception 
 with what is taken to be a pre-established course 
 of things, and particularly with what are called the 
 Laws of l^ature. 
 
 But laws can not establish themselves, can not 
 execute themselves. • 
 
12 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTKINE OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 What is Law ? Is it any thing that exists by it- 
 self — any thing that has its ground in itself alone 'i 
 'No. Law is a purely relative term. It relates to 
 the idea of Force. In its highest generic concep- 
 tion, Law is an established Hule for the working of 
 a Force. The laws of the universe are the rules ac- 
 cording to which the forces of the universe j)roduce 
 the phenomena of the universe. The primary rela- 
 tion of the laws is not to the phenomena, but to the 
 forces which produce the phenomena. 
 
 It is quite noticeable, by the way, how the phy- 
 sical science of our day runs out into the assump- 
 tion of forces. I do not object to this ; far other- 
 wise. It is a perfectly legitimate assumption, 
 only it is not the product of the Scientilic Method 
 — as that is commonly understood among scientific 
 men — but of Philosophic Tliought. It is the as- 
 sumption of something that lies outside the sphere 
 of Science, in the ordinary accejttation of the term 
 among scientific men. But, as I liold that there is 
 a sphere of truth beyond the reach of physical 
 science, I can have no quarrel with those physical 
 scientists for assuming the existence of something 
 which their science can not scientifically demon- 
 strate, only I confess myself amused when I see it 
 done by some scientific men, who at the same time 
 dismiss with a sneer or a jeer ©very thing wliich they 
 
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 18 
 
 call " metaphysical," as having no title to recogni- 
 tion among respectable thinkers ! Why ! the very 
 idea of force, which they assume and talk about, is 
 precisely one of the most purely metaphysical of all 
 possible conceptions ! What is force jper se — force 
 in itself \ Is it any thing phenomenal, any thing 
 that manifests itself by itself to our senses, any 
 thing demonstrable by scientific analysis ? Ko ; it 
 is purely ideal ; it is something, the recognition of 
 which is necessitated by the laws of thought. It 
 does not alter the case to call the forces they as- 
 sume mechanical, chemical, electrical, magnetic, vi- 
 tal, or the like. Those epithets denote only certain 
 phenomenal ingredients in a concrete conception, 
 and abstracted from those epithets, the force itself 
 remains a purely ideal conception. 
 
 I myself also assume that there are forces in the 
 universe — forces physical and forces spiritual. But 
 these forces did not create themselves, nor estab- 
 lish the laws of their action. Back of the phenom- 
 ena, of which the laws are the generalized expres- 
 sion, lie the forces that produce the phenomena, 
 and back of these forces lies the great First Cause 
 — the supreme Intelligence and Will which created 
 the forces, and prescribed their laws of action. 
 There is no other rational hypothesis to account 
 either for what science calls the '• Laws of Xature," 
 
14 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 or for those Laws of Miud which the philosophic 
 analysis of our consciousness reveals. 
 
 ] lY. But the special question is, in what rea- 
 sonably conceivable way to rej)resent to ourselves 
 the ever-active, all-ordering intervention and con- 
 trol of Divine Providence in the universe of Matter 
 and of Mind 1 The physical forces of the universe 
 seem to be determined in their action by fixed, in- 
 variable laws ; and its spiritual forces — its moral 
 agencies — are free, and can not be irresistibly de- 
 termined by any external power, natural or super- 
 natural. How then to frame a possible, reasonable 
 concej)tion of the way or method of Divine Provi- 
 dence ? 
 
 Let us try to see whatever we may be able to see. 
 Modestly and reverently, let us try to see. 
 
 (L) As to the Physical forces of the universe. 
 Some philosophers have said they are nothing 
 but the direct and immediate action of the Divine 
 Will, and so have made short work in solving the 
 question of Providence in the sphere of Nature: 
 God's will is the sole force. 
 
 I do not hold with such philosophers. I take the 
 forces of Nature to be creations of God ; distinct 
 from Him, and coeval with the creation of matter. 
 
 And as to the laws of these physical forces — 
 
TUE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. lo 
 
 •what Avc call the laws of Xatiire — we must reinein- 
 ber that our knowledge of them is empirical, the re- 
 sult of experience and experiment. They are, you 
 know, mere generalizations from an observation of 
 particulars which (however extensive, and constant- 
 ly enlarging with the progress of science) is neces- 
 sarily limited ; and their in variableness is a mere 
 assumption resting upon an induction which (how- 
 ever satisfactory) is necessarily imperfect. There 
 is no necessary contradiction in supposing that any 
 given phenomena may be the product of other 
 forces acting under other laws than those which we 
 now explain them by. And the progress of science 
 is every day replacing old explanations by new 
 ones. 
 
 The forces of Nature being then the product of 
 God's Creative "Will, and the Laws of Nature being 
 the expression of His Legislative Will, they are 
 under His perpetual, absolute control. 
 
 But it is not to be thought that these laws, so re- 
 plete in their myriads of special enactments with 
 such marks of infinite intelligence and wisdom, such 
 marvelous adaptations to purpose and function in 
 their million-fold manifestations — it is not to be 
 thought that such laws, established by such a Le- 
 gislator, are liable to be capriciously repealed, sus- 
 pended, or changed. 
 
16 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTKINE OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 I do not wonder that, among those who have most 
 profoundly studied the laws of Nature, there are 
 some who invest these laws with a sort of autocra- 
 tic, regal or vice-regal sovereignty, and make them 
 " immutable" in such sort that God's hands are 
 self-tied, so that lie can not or will not interfere in 
 the sphere of ^Nature by any special immediate ex- 
 ertion of supernatural power. 
 
 But this notion is untenable. All that has any rea- 
 sonable claim to be admitted is that God can not, will 
 not, and does not interfere capriciously with the estab- 
 lished course of Nature. It is not to be admitted 
 that He can not, will not, and does not interfere 
 with it in the way some men call a " violation" of 
 the laws of Nature, provided it seem good to Him 
 to do so, for reasons known to Himself, which 
 may or may not be known to us. It is absurd to 
 say He can not, and impossible to demonstrate 
 that He will not or does not act immediately 
 and supernaturally in, among, and v2)on the laws 
 of Nature to produce extraordinary and special 
 results. 
 
 And herein lies the sufficient rational basis for 
 the belief in a miracle-working God. 
 
 I do not now go into a particular discussion of 
 the subject of the Christian Miracles. I content 
 myself with signalizing its rational ground, and 
 
rilK CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF TROYIDKNCE. 17 
 
 have only further to observe that, in respect to 
 any and every special case of alleged miracle, the 
 question is purely a question of historical evidence. 
 The Duke of Argyll tells us that this ''seems now 
 to he admitted on all hands,-' and Prof essor Huxley 
 says, " denying the possibility of miracles seems to 
 me quite as unjustifiable as speculative atheism." 
 He means rationally "unjustifiable." 
 
 But what we have to consider more particularly 
 is the general or ordinary method of God's constant 
 intervention in Xature — controlling it, yet without 
 miracle. 
 
 And here it is to our purpose to observe that it is 
 absurd to say, and impossible to demonstrate, that 
 God can not, will not, and does not so act upon, 
 manage, and control the forces of ISTature as through 
 their agency, and without any "violation" of the 
 laws of jSTatm'e, to accomplish special effects in Ma- 
 ture which would otherwise not have been brought 
 about. 
 
 And not only is it absurd to say God can not, 
 and impossible to demonstrate that He does not 
 thus act, but that, in point of fact. He does thus 
 act is rendered crediljle by millions of facts of the 
 same kind in the sphere of human action. All over 
 the earth, in every age, every day and hour, human 
 
18 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 intelligence and liuman will have been at work in 
 controlling tlie forces and laws of Katnre in sub- 
 servience to human uses, combining, adjusting, and 
 managing them, so as through them to produce re- 
 sults which the forces of ISTature, left to themselves, 
 would never have produced. Men have achieved 
 these results, not by " violating " the laws of !Na- 
 ture, but by using them. And Avhat marvelous re- 
 sults in our day ! The most tremendous forces of 
 ^Nature have been made obedient servants to man's 
 Avill, and as easily controlled as the chiUrs little 
 go-cart. The steamers, that plow all waters and 
 connect all lands ; the railways, that bring all 
 places together ; the lightning-wires, that enable 
 men to whisper to each other across continents 
 and oceans ; and the thousand other engines and 
 machineries which the skill of man has set going 
 in factories and in fields — all these are the product 
 of man's will, working with and controlling the 
 forces of nature, according to their laws. 
 
 You see the bearing of this. If man, by his in- 
 telligence and will, can thus bend the forces of Ma- 
 ture to his uses, how foolish to doubt but God may 
 do the like, and to an infinitely greater extent, by 
 as much as His knowledge of the forces of Kature, 
 and His wisdom and skill and ability to manage and 
 control them, are infinitely superior to man's ! 
 
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 19 
 
 And this managing and controlling of the forces 
 of Xature, so as by and through them to work ont 
 the good purposes of His holy will, -without " violat- 
 ing" the laws of JSTature— this I take to be the 
 reasonably possible general way of God's ordinary 
 Providential agency in the Physical universe. And 
 you see v/hat a powerful support this theory derives 
 from the analogy of what man's intelligence and 
 will are perpetually accomplishing in N^ature. 
 
 (2.) But besides God's Providence in the Physi- 
 cal universe, we have to consider also His Provi- 
 dence in the Spiritual universe — in the sphere of 
 spiritual forces — that is to say, His action upon the 
 minds and wills of His rational creatures, and in 
 what way it may be reasonably conceived. 
 
 And it is enough to say here, that the free-will of 
 finite spiritual beings, though not subject to irre- 
 sistible control, like the forces of Mature, is yet 
 open to the influence of motives ; and that all the 
 resources of such influence are at the command of 
 the infinite intelligence and Avill of God. 
 
 As to human beings, whose nature is partly phy- 
 sical and partly spiritual, it is obvious that the free- 
 will of such beings is open to the combined influ- 
 ence both of physical and of moral motives ; and 
 God can so combine and order all external events 
 and circmiistances in the world of Nature as to 
 
20 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 make tlieiii fall in Avitli and promote, or restrain 
 and tlnvart men's ontward aims and efforts. And 
 lie can also speak persnasively to man's inmost 
 sj^irit — mind, heart, and will — botli indirectly 
 throngli natural or tlirongli human agencies, and 
 directly by immediate Divine suggestion and im- 
 pression ; and, finally, it is impossible for us to set 
 limits to the power lie can tlms exert over the wills 
 of His rational creatures without violating their es- 
 sential freedom. 
 
 Such, then, summarily, is the rationale, the rea- 
 sonable way of conceiving how Divine Providence 
 may act effectively, both in the Physical and in the 
 Spiritual sphere ; and it affords a sufficient reasona- 
 ble ground for the Christian representation of God's 
 supreme, ever-active, all-ordering government of 
 the universe of Matter and of Mind. 
 
 For myself, I do not doubt the truth of the 
 Christian doctrine. I accept it as a natural corol- 
 lary from the idea of God as the infinite Personal 
 Creator and Upholder of the imiverse ; and as a 
 doctrine which (as I said at the outset) satisfies not 
 only the needs of the human reason demanding 
 some ground to stand on, but also the deepest in- 
 most wants of the human heart ever crying out for 
 a living God and Father. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTKINE OF I'ROVIDEN-CE. 21 
 
 Y. In the statement of the Christian doctrine 
 on Providence which I laid down at the opening of 
 this disconrse, and in all that I have said in the 
 progress of it, the Providential government of God 
 has been represented as all-comprehending in its 
 
 scope. 
 
 Put I wish to call your attention a little more 
 particularly to this point : that God's Providence 
 embraces the universe not only as a great whole, 
 but in all its parts ; that it includes all the worlds 
 that roll through the immensity of space — not only 
 as an aggregate assemblage of countless systems 
 circling round a central Throne, but each system 
 and each separate world and all the dwellers in 
 them, not collectively only, but individually also. 
 
 " There's not tlie smallest star wliicli tliou bcliold'st, 
 But in his motion like an angel sings. 
 Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins." 
 
 In every smallest star there is a song which both 
 Nature and the Spirits there sing together in 
 unison — hymning to the Maker and Orderer of all : 
 " God hath prepared His seat in the heavens, and 
 Ilis kingdom ruleth over all." 
 
 Put there are those — and this is the reason why 
 I have called your special attention to the point I 
 have made — there are those Avho believe in a Divine 
 Providence, but say that it relates only to the im- 
 
22 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 mutable essence of things as God has made them ; 
 that it embraces the universe as a great whole, but 
 not all particular events ; that it includes humanity 
 as a race, or men as nations and states, but not in- 
 dividual men ; that to realize God as actually at- 
 tending to and regulating all single and daily 
 events, all transient phenomena and accidents, is to 
 degrade Him to the level of finite beings ; that sucli 
 representations are sheer Anthropomorphism — 
 childish and heatlienish, and are entirely incompa- 
 tible with the majesty and perfection of His nature. 
 
 Ilow, as to this " Anthropomorphism" — or mak- 
 ing God like men : it is a great scare-word in some 
 quarters. But I need only remind you that we 
 can not represent to ourselves God's activity except 
 in some approximate way, by figured conceptions 
 derived from the consciousness of our own causal 
 power. 
 
 And I deny that we thereby necessarily make 
 God to be merely such an one as we ourselves are : 
 on the contrary, I say that we sufiiciently arrest 
 ourselves from doing so by interposing the idea of 
 His infinitude. And that is enough to justify our 
 way of speaking of Him. It is not anthropomor- 
 phism in any objectionable, childish, or heathenisli 
 sense. 
 
 Moreover (and tliat shoukl be sufficient for us). 
 
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 23 
 
 Jesus Christ always used sueli anthropomorphic ex- 
 pressions. They run all through the record of His 
 teachings, as also of His apostles. 
 
 I deny too that the representation of God as regu- 
 lating particular events and the affairs of individuals 
 is incompatible with the majesty and perfection of 
 His natm'e. Those who say it is divest God of His 
 infinitude and subject Him to finite conditions 
 derived from their notions of an earthly sovereign 
 — which is precisely anthropomorphic in an ab- 
 surdly unjustifiable sense. 
 
 It does not follow that what does not comport 
 with the conditions or the majesty of an earthly 
 monarch must necessarily be incompatible with the 
 conditions or derogatory to the majesty of God. 
 It may be impossible for an earthly sovereign — who 
 has to conduct the administration of public affairs 
 in a large sphere and on great general views — to at- 
 tend personally to and regulate the private affairs 
 of all his subjects individually, and derogatory to 
 his dignity to attempt it. But what of that ? The 
 infinite Rider — precisely because He is infinite — 
 can at once govern the universe as a great whole, 
 and at the same time attend to the particular con- 
 cerns of every individual person. It costs Him 
 nothing. It derogates nothing from His majesty, 
 but enhances our conception of it. Moreover, for 
 
2-i THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 Him to do so is precisely wliat belongs to Ilim to 
 do as the infinite, Avise, and good Father. 
 
 Besides, Ave must remind those Avho object to the 
 idea of God as actually attending to and regulating 
 all single CA'ents, that this minute attention and re- 
 gulation may have an intimate relation to the great 
 plan of the Divine goA^ernment of the universe as a 
 Avhole. We have often seen Avhat Avide-reaching 
 consequences seemingly unimportant events may 
 have ; and Ave liaA^e read of ten thousand instances 
 of things as trivial as the spilling of a cup of tea on 
 a lady's silk dress affecting the destiny of states 
 and nations. And hoAV can aa'C tell, but the most 
 trivial CA^ent in our life (as it may seem to us) may 
 have a bearing on the A\diole future course of our 
 existence — here and hereafter — and also iq^on the 
 fortunes of humanity and of the universe ? There 
 is a passage in De Quincey's Avritings that illustrates 
 this truth in his grandly periodic style. Speaking 
 of memorable attempts at escape, and in particular 
 those of Charles I. and Louis XYI., he_ says : 
 
 " But alike the madness or the providential Avis- 
 dom of such attempts commands our profoundest 
 interest. These attempts belong to history. And 
 it is in that relation that they become philosophical- 
 ly so impressive. Generations through an infinite 
 series are contemplated by us as silently aAvaiting 
 
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 25 
 
 the turning of a sentinel round a corner, or tlic 
 casual echo of a footstep. Dynasties have treindat- 
 ed on tlie chance of a sudden cry of an infant car- 
 ried in a hasket ; and the safety of empires has 
 been suspended, like tlie descent of an avalanche, 
 upon the moment earlier or the moment later of a 
 cougli or a sneeze. And liigh above all ascends 
 solemnly the philosophic truth, tliat the least things 
 and the greatest are bound together as elements 
 equally essential in the mysterious universe." 
 
 Xo\v, tliis may not be equally true of all single 
 and seemingly trivial events. "We need not say or 
 admit that it is. But it may be true of some such 
 events. And ^vho but God can tell which to make 
 matters of special attention and regulation, and 
 M-hich to " leave to themselves," as we say ? 
 
 But what it chiefly concerns us to do is always to 
 think of God as at least as good as a wise and 
 loving earthly father, Avho cares for his children in- 
 dividually, and not merely in the lump. 
 
 Jesus Christ always spoke of God as "our 
 Father." Father! That is a Avord of the heart. 
 Our infinite Father! With a Father's heart of 
 love for all His spiritual children, "Who concerns 
 Himself with all our M'ants and needs in ways as 
 particular and minute as would be implied in the 
 
26 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 actual numbering of the hairs of our heads. Jesus 
 bids us pray to God for things temporal as well as 
 for things eternal, for material as well as for spirit- 
 ual blessings, saying, " Ask, and ye shall receive." 
 Whatsoever " good things" — things good for you — 
 ask, and ye shall receive. 
 
 VI. I abstain from going into a particular dis- 
 cussion of the Christian doctrine on Prayer — its 
 full and exact meaning and contents, and the 
 precise conditions under and within which it holds 
 true. 
 
 I will only remind you that the rationale of God's 
 Providential action and control in the universe of 
 Matter and of Mind, which I have given at some 
 length in this discourse, furnishes the sufficient and 
 abundant reasonable ground for the Christian faith 
 in a Prayer-answering God ; and that you see it is 
 both absurd to say God can not, and impossible to 
 demonstrate that He does not answer prayers for 
 physical as well as for spiritual blessings. 
 
 I may add, too, that it is indispensably necessary 
 to bear in mind that the question in regard to God's 
 answering prayers for physical blessings turns not 
 on the invariableness or immutability of the laws 
 of nature, but on the relation of the power of the 
 Divine Will to the forces of nature. And you will 
 
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 27 
 
 remember that I have already shown how, in ten 
 thousand cases, the power of man's will is per- 
 petually combining and managing the forces of 
 nature so as to change the order of events with- 
 out distm-bing the order of nature or violating its 
 laws, and how absurd it is to say that God can not 
 do the same. 
 
 A word or two here in reference to the pretension 
 made by some " men of science" (as they call them- 
 selves) to the right of subjecting the question re- 
 specting the efficacy of prayer for physical bless- 
 ings to a " scientific" determination. 
 
 I object, by the way, in limine, to the fashion in 
 which our modern physicists arrogate to tliemselves 
 exclusively or eminently the title of " men of 
 science," as if there were no science but physical 
 science. For myself, I believe there is another than 
 a merely physical science, and a higher one. There 
 is a metaphysical science as truly as there is a 
 physical science ; a science of the supernatural as 
 truly as of the natural ; of the non-phenomenal as 
 , truly as of the phenomenal ; of the infinite as well 
 as of the finite ; a science of God, as well as a science 
 of Xature. 
 
 But it is idle to make the matter a merely verbal 
 question — a question about the right use of the 
 word science. Let us — in respect to the point now 
 
28 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 before us — let us let these " men of science" (as 
 tliej are fond of calling themselves, with a superior 
 air), let us let them have the word in their own 
 sense. 
 
 Science, according to them, is only of the pheno- 
 menal, the physical world. It has to do only with 
 the laws of I^ature — laws that relate to j^hysical 
 forces — laws that are necessary and immutable. 
 
 But prayer relates to sjDiritual and supernatural 
 forces, to the finite free-will of man and to the in- 
 finite free-will of God. How then can their science 
 determine any thing about the action of such forces ? 
 Think of it. A physical determination of a meta- 
 physical relation ! Why, the pretension is absurd. 
 It proceeds upon a violation of the old logical 
 maxim and necessary law of human thought — liete- 
 Q'ogenea non sunt comjMi^anda — things generically 
 disparate can not be brought into comparison. 
 They -might as rationally attempt to tell us how 
 much the whiteness of snow is whiter than the 
 sweetness of sugar, or to determine the height of 
 a mountain by smelling at it with their noses, or to 
 weigh an imponderable essence in a pair of scales, 
 or to put a mathematical proposition into a crucible 
 and melt it, in order to demonstrate " scientifically" 
 that the angles of a triangle are equal to two right 
 angles. Prayer lies outside the sphere of science, 
 
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTllINE OF PROVIDENCE. 29 
 
 as these " men of science" count science. This is 
 the sufficient answer to their pretension. 
 
 I have now done with all the leading infidel oh> 
 jeetions to the Christian doctrine of God's supreme 
 all-ordering Providence in the universe of Matter 
 and of Mind. 
 
 YII. But besides infidelities of denial, there are^ 
 on the other hand, superstitions of belief. 
 
 In regard to these, I can only say that to belie vo 
 in the truth of God's all-ordering Providence, is one 
 thing ; to apply it to the interpretation of parti- 
 cular events, is another thing. Undoubtedly there 
 are many rash, fanciful, erroneous, absurd, and fa- 
 natical interpretations made. Nothing, for in- 
 stance, is more common than to construe special or 
 extraordinary calamities, in certain cases, as Divine 
 punishments. Thus, Job's friends explained the old 
 chieftain's extraordinary afflictions as tokens of Di- 
 vine retribution for secret sin. 
 
 But our Lord rebukes this sort of unauthorized 
 interpretation : " Think ye those eighteen, on whom 
 the tower of Siloam fell and slew them, were sin- 
 ners above all that dwelt at Jerusalem ? I tell you 
 nay." 
 
 Undoubtedly wc do right in saying the tower of 
 Siloam fell l)ecause it was badly built, or some na- 
 
30 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 tural cause had disturbed its gravity. It would, 
 doubtless, have fallen precisely at the moment it 
 fell, if there had been nobody beneath. Those 
 eighteen were there at the time, and they were 
 crushed in the fall. It was a remarkable coinci- 
 dence. God's all-foreseeing, all-disposing Provi- 
 dence ordered it. 'No doubt of that. But Jesus 
 says it was not because those men were enormous 
 sinners. Por aught that lie says to the contrary, 
 they may have been better men than the average of 
 Jerusalem sinners. And their sinfulness, be it great 
 or little, may have had nothing to do with their be- 
 ing under the tower at the moment it fell, and being 
 crushed to death by its fall. So far as being sin- 
 ful goes, all men would be obnoxious (as Jesus inti- 
 mates) to some similar catastrophe. In this case, 
 God ordered the event for good reasons, known to 
 Himself. He has a perfect right to cut short hu- 
 man life in any way He may please, and it is not to 
 be supposed as possible for Him to do injustice to 
 His creatures in ordering the time or manner of 
 their death. . 
 
 God's Providence is a Providence of equal love. 
 There is neither caprice, nor favoritism, nor ha- 
 tred, nor dislike of individuals in it. " He maketh 
 His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and send- 
 eth rain upon the just and the unjust." 
 
THE CIIRISriAN' DOCTllINE OF PROVIDENCE. 31 
 
 lie lets the good man accommodate the bad man 
 by exchanging passage-tickets M'itli him. The bad 
 man sails in the steamer of this week, and gets 
 safely home ; the good man sails in the next steam- 
 er, and is lost by the sinking of the ship. 
 
 The overturned railway-train crushes to death 
 the meek, unselfish Sister of Charity, bound on a 
 journey of mercy, Avliile the hardened villain sitting 
 close by, with his head full of schemes of crime, is 
 spa red - 
 
 AVhat is the special Divine meaning in cases like 
 this ? Who but God can tell ? We only know that 
 equal wisdom, equal love, orders all. 
 
 While, therefore, we can not believe too strong- 
 ly in God's all-ordering Providence, we can not 
 be too careful in interpreting His special design. 
 What we know not now, we shall know here- 
 after; at least, I thiidc we shall. Meantime, we 
 may rest assured that lie orders the destiny of 
 every one of His spiritual creatures, both in this 
 world and in the world bevond, for their hio-hest 
 good. 
 
 VIII. But let us pass now to a brief considera- 
 tion of God's Providential government in relation 
 to humanity as a race, and to the universe as a 
 whole — to the contemplation of God in history. 
 
32 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 As to liumau history, its whole course, from the 
 beginning, has been, is now, and ever will be, con- 
 ducted by the Most High. Human histoiy is not, 
 indeed, like the world of space, the mere product of 
 the Almighty w^ill, nor the mere product of human 
 activity alone. There is a human element in it, and 
 there is an element that is Divine. But the infinite 
 Ruler presides over the busy activities of human 
 freedom through generations and ages ; prepares the 
 scene ; calls the actors forth in their time and turn, 
 and, through their action, carries onward from age to 
 age the unfolding of some great Divine plan, which 
 embraces Humanity as a whole. There is, doubtless, a 
 Divine idea ever realizing itself in the historical life 
 of Humanity, as truly as in the life of Nature — in 
 the events of human history as in the phenomena of 
 the material world. The mind and hand of the Al- 
 mighty, as well as the mind and hand of man, have 
 been in all the fates and fortunes of the nations ; in 
 the rise and fall of empires, the revolutions of dy- 
 nasties, the wars and conquests, battles and sieges, 
 negotiations and treaties, with which the pages of 
 historical books are tilled. Invisibly in and behind 
 the visible procession of events, the Supreme Dis- 
 poser has presided with a great purpose of His 
 own. 
 
 "\Ve must, however, remember that humanity is 
 
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 33 
 
 destined to exist in a spliero beyond tliis world. The 
 earthly history of the human race is not a complete 
 drama in itself. It is one act only. When the 
 curtain drops at the end of the world, it drops but 
 to rise again for another act, on another and a 
 vaster stage. Christianity announces, and the 
 deepest instincts of the human reason and of the 
 human heart point to a destination beyond this 
 world. 
 
 The history of humanity, moreover, in its largest 
 view, both in this world and in the world beyond, 
 enters into another and more comprehensive history 
 still, the history of the universe. Human history is 
 but a part — it may be, must be, a small part — of that 
 grand Universe-drama which is to go on for ever 
 unfolding in the round of eternal ages. 
 
 Over this unfolding, the Infinite Mind presides. 
 Not without purpose does the Most High govern 
 the universe ; not for nothing ; not for the mere 
 sake of governing ; not for the sake of any vain- 
 glorious self-display, making Himself the grand 
 Self-Showman of the universe, as some men make 
 Him out to be ; but for some end worthy of an in- 
 finite, wise, and good God. 
 
 Doubt not, then, that the Universe-drama has its 
 plan. It does not roll at random. Its great action 
 is Divinely conducted in its eternal development. 
 
84 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 The Providence of God is tlie Genius of the His- 
 tory of the Universe. 
 
 IX. "What this all-comprehending Divine pur- 
 pose is, -we should not dare permit ourselves to 
 assert, nnless Divinely tanght. Still, reason would 
 reasonably suggest it to bo the subjugation and 
 final extinction of evil. 
 
 Evil exists in the nniverse of God. We shonld 
 have to take for granted the Divine wisdom and 
 goodness of its permission, even if we could con- 
 ceive no reasonable explanation of its origin. In ten 
 thousand things, the nndeniable rests npon the in- 
 scrutable, and whoever determines to hold nothing 
 for true that is inexplicable, or rests npon an inex- 
 plicable ground, will inevitably be driven to have 
 less than one article to his creed. Omnia exeunt in 
 mysteria — all things go out into mystery at last. 
 Human science, in its highest result, is always 
 brought face to face with something it can not an- 
 alyze. 
 
 Evil exists ; but good and evil are in necessary 
 opposition. And a great struggle between the 
 powers of Good and the powers of Evil, conducted 
 by the Most High Himself, we might not unreason- 
 ably assume to be the deepest inmost sense of the 
 history of the universe, and so of the history of hu- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTIlliSTE OF rROVIDENX'E. 35 
 
 manity. And Cliristianitj seems to represent the 
 "gathering together of all things" into a nniverse 
 of goodness, unity, and 2>eace, as the all-eonijjre- 
 liending end forAvhicli the Infinite Father presides 
 over the great drama of the nniverse. 
 
 Subordinate to'this, or ratlier inchided in it, we 
 miglit reasonably suppose, and are so instrnctcd, 
 that ilie special 2>urpose of the Divine intervention 
 in human history is the disciplinary education of the 
 human race, and its advancement toward that full 
 and perfect rational development which man's spir- 
 itual constitution makes possible, and after which 
 man's reason and conscience prompt him to strive. 
 
 But our little world has been the chosen theatre 
 for an intervention of Divine Providence, which, 
 among all possible interventions, is singular and 
 tninscendent — namel}^ the historical appearance of 
 Jesus Christ, announcijig Himself as sent by the 
 Infinite Father, to proclaim and to effect the re- 
 storation of fallen humanity, and to establish " the 
 kingdom of God " npon the earth. 
 
 AVe know not xchy this particular method of Di- 
 vine intervention was chosen, nor can we explain 
 the Iwiv of its efficacious connection with human re- 
 storation. "We know that God was bound — we say 
 it reverently, but we say it firmly — God was bound 
 to intervene in human behalf in some way ; and "\ve 
 
36 THE CHRISTIAN ]>OCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 can understand what Jesus Christ propounded as 
 jto the origin and object, the motive and end, of 
 this particular method : God's love the motive, hu- 
 man restoration the end. " So God loved the world, 
 that lie sent His Son, that the world through Him 
 might be saved." 
 
 The historical appearance of Christ is the central 
 fact in the world's history, containing in itself (we 
 know not how) the principle of the union of man 
 with God, by a Divine power, which, through the 
 Divine Spirit, wrought in the heart of humanity in 
 advance of Christ's actual coming, as it has wrought 
 in the ages that have followed. 
 
 And not only the principle of the unity of hu- 
 manity with God, but also of the whole rational 
 universe. Such, at least, may be the meaning of 
 the words of one of the apostles of Jesus — " that in 
 the dispensation of the fullness of time,'^ the Infi- 
 nite Father " might gather into one all things in 
 Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on 
 earth, even in Him." 
 
 So much, then, in fine, for the comprehensive 
 idea of God's Providence in the history of human- 
 ity and of the universe, and its all-embracing pur- 
 pose. 
 
 And now, is not this view of a universe thus 
 
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 37 
 
 watched over, cared for, guarded and guided to its 
 high rational end — is not tliis view a better one tlian 
 the dreary spectacle of a universe forced through 
 the ages hy fatal forces — it knows not wliitlier nor 
 why — and a passive, inactive, inexorable Looker-on 
 its only God ? 
 
 "Which of the two is tlio truer Philosophy of the 
 History of the Universe, I leave you to say, 
 
 X. It is a stupendous conception — God's uni- 
 versal, all-ordering Providence. Yet reason de- 
 mands and justifies it, and the lieart needs it. Let 
 us hold it fast in the simplicity of an undoubting 
 faith, even though it baffles and confounds the 
 imagination in tlie attempt to grasp and realize it. 
 
 I suppose the sight of tlie starry lieavens, more 
 commonly than any thing else, overwhelms the im- 
 agination, and makes the idea of God's particular 
 Providence seem ahnost too great, too Avonderf ul to 
 be believed. I presume we have all felt this many 
 times, more strongly indeed at some than at other 
 times. I remember the overwhelming impression 
 made upon myself tlie last time my attention was 
 arrested by the spectacle which a starlit night pre- 
 sents. 
 
 I had gone out of doors into the still air of a 
 cloudless, moonless sky. The air was as clear as 
 
38 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 clear could be, and not the smallest bit of cloud 
 flecked the sky. The pure blue vault was studded 
 thick with stars ; no space but seemed full of 
 them — ten thousand glittering lights. I thought 
 not merely of the wonderful beauty of the sight 
 my eyes took in, but of the more wonderfid mean- 
 ing which the sight revealed to my intelligence : 
 myriads of vast worlds, in tlie midst of which our 
 little globe is but a floating speck ! 
 
 And those myriads of 'worlds which I saw — I 
 thought how small a part they are of those I might 
 see if I should stay out all night, looking as the re- 
 volving earth brought new orbs to view, successive- 
 ly rising in the east. Then, too, I thought how the 
 sun hides by day as many stars as tlie night reveals. 
 Then, too, what myriads of other stars are visible to 
 dwellers in the Southern hemisphere, which I should 
 see if I could put myseK there now ! 
 
 But what are all the stars visible to the naked 
 human eye, compared with those beyond its reach ? 
 The telescope brings them to view — immense 
 worlds ; suns of other systems glittering in spots 
 where the naked eye sees nothing but the blue 
 void; and every improvement in the teleseoiDe 
 brings new orbs to sight. But be^^ond the reach of 
 my naked eye, or of any telescope man has made or 
 can make, what worlds upon worlds, and systems 
 
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 39 
 
 upon systems, doubtless, stretch outward througli 
 boundless space ! Eternity and infinitude give time 
 and room enough for the Great Maker to Avork in. 
 And what limits can we assign to His work ? 
 
 And all those worlds — have they their dwellers, 
 too ? Doubtless, yes. Do you suppose our little 
 globe, so filled with every form of life, even down 
 to organizations so minute that it takes the strongest 
 microscope to reveal them — do you suppose our lit- 
 tle globe is the only abode of organic and of rational 
 life? I do not believe it. 
 
 Thus looking and thus thinking, how overwhelm- 
 ing to the imagination becomes the conception of 
 God's all-ordering Providence, embracing all those 
 coimtless worlds, and all the dwellers in them ! 
 
 And even M'hen from our little globe we look up 
 to the starry sky, and think only of God's Provi- 
 dence over man, how the words of the poet David 
 spring to our minds, and more impressively to us 
 than they could to him : " When I consider the 
 heavens the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the 
 stars which Thou hast made. Lord, what is man 
 that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man 
 that Thon visitest him." 
 
 Yet Jesns Christ bids ns believe in God's fatherly 
 Providence over man. God is love. Ilis Provi- 
 dence over man is a Providence of Love. Love is 
 
40 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 the strongest power in the universe, and Jesus 
 Christ Himself, in His own person, is God's licart 
 of Human Love to man. He it is that bids us have 
 faith in God's infinite, fatherly tenderness. He it is 
 that bids us believe that the Father is ever leading 
 us by His own hand through the dark days and 
 bright days, the sorrows and tlie joys of our earthly 
 pilgrimage, making all things work together for our 
 good. 
 
 Let us, then, thankfully believe, firmly trust in, 
 and entirely submit ourselves to the all-ordering 
 Providence of the Living God, the Loving Father 
 of us all. 
 
THE 
 
 Christian Doctrine of Prayer. 
 
 HUGH MILLER THOMPSON, D.l)., 
 
 Rector or Cuhist Cuurch, New-York. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PRAYER. 
 
 " And it came to pass as lie was praying in a certain place, 
 ■when ho ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, 
 teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples." — Luke 
 11: 1. 
 
 TiiKKE arc a great many tilings to Avliicli men 
 object, as parts of Christianity, wliieli are not pecu- 
 liarly parts of it at all. It was not necessary that 
 Christianity should teach men to pray. Prayer is 
 a natural instinct. !Men have always prayed, and I 
 sujjpose always Avill. The question is : JIow and 
 to lohom shall they pray I 
 
 In any danger or distress of body or soul, men 
 have cried to some invisible power stronger than 
 themselves, stronger than any thing they knew 
 in the world, for deliverance. In famine, in 
 plague, on the approach of enemies whom they 
 were powerless to repel, nations have cried to the 
 invisible powers for safety. And men, as indivi- 
 duals, when pressed by sudden calamity, when sud- 
 den death has stared them in the face, upon the 
 midnight seas in wreck and storm, underneath any 
 
44 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PRAYER. 
 
 sudden stroke, or under conviction of overwhelm- 
 ing sin, wlien the voice of conscience, that never 
 can be silenced, spake out of the darkness and pro- 
 phesied woe ; have always knelt and cried to the 
 gods — the bad gods or the good gods, the gods 
 supernal or the gods infernal, but to some pow- 
 ers unseen. For the conviction that back of all 
 that was visible there lay something invisible, that 
 behind this material world, or beyond it, there lay 
 an awful world of power invisible, this conviction 
 has been in the heart of men from the beginning, 
 and Avill remain in the heart of men until the end. 
 We need have no fear of that. When men have 
 tried all things by their own power, visible or 
 material, then, in their despair, they have appealed 
 to the gods. " Give us this day our daily bread," 
 the Christian prays. An Indian corn dance is the 
 same prayer. It diJffers but in object. The Indian 
 corn dance, the sacrifice to Pan, were only human 
 nature's dumb instincts appealing to the unseen, 
 to the powers that hold humanity in the hollows 
 of their mighty hands, powers that could save or 
 could destroy — strangely, darkly, but still appeal- 
 ing. There is not, over all this fair earth, a land 
 that has not been dyed with the blood of sacrifice. 
 Men have gone to the gods dyed with the blood of 
 beasts, and asked to be saved ; dyed with the blood 
 
THE CHRISTIAN DOCrilIXE OF TKAYER. 45 
 
 of iiicn, and asked to be pardoned ; dyed with the 
 blood of their first-horn offered -to propitiate. 
 The dearest thing they had they offered as their 
 prayer to God, The dying groans of the victim, 
 the affonv of the dumb beast, tlie sliriek of shiujjh- 
 tered men, liave been man's prayers to the gods 
 above him. 
 
 So, Avhen Christ came, the word was not, " Shall 
 we pray?" but, "Lord, teach ns hoio to pray;" 
 " Teach ns Jioic to come to God ; " " Teach us how 
 to approach God, and Who God is." 
 
 The character of the God determines the charac- 
 ter of the prayer. That was in the mind of the 
 disciples and in the mind of the Lord when lie 
 taught them a prayer according to their request : 
 " Show us God ; tell us what His nature is, and 
 His name, and so shall we know how to approach 
 Him acceptably, and receive good gifts at His 
 hands." Prayer comes to us, therefore, as the natural 
 instinct of man displaying itself on every page of 
 his history ; men praying as individuals, or praying 
 as communities, or praying as nations, or praying 
 as churches, but still praying. There has gone 
 up from the earth a ceaseless cry of lamentation 
 and woe, or of thanksgiving and praise to the 
 heavens above. 
 
 In speaking to you, therefore, to-night, of the 
 
46 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PRAYER. 
 
 Christian Doctrine of Prayer, I must look to prayer 
 as it was taught hy the Lord Himself, and as prayer 
 comes to ns now, Christian men in a Christian land, 
 who have had a Revelation of the Invisible teach- 
 ing ns the natnre of God, iDroclaiming His Father- 
 hood and man's Sonship. 
 
 Of course, I am not to prove the existence of 
 God. I am not speaking to men wdio helieve in 
 the dirt philosophy ; I am not speaking, at least I 
 shall not speak, to those who suppose there is noth- 
 ing beyond what is visible, nothing beyond what 
 is tangible, who suppose there is no ear that can 
 hear, no voice that can answer, no heart that can 
 feel. I speak to those wdio believe in God, and 
 that God " Our Father," who has an ear to hear, a 
 hand to save, a heart to feel. 
 
 And from that point of view, I am met with this 
 objection : " God is unchangeable : how can our 
 prayers change the unchangeable ?" 
 
 Kow, the unchangeableness of God is of the very 
 essence of our faith. Christianity, first of all, re- 
 veals it. We must accept the responsibility of a 
 God that changes not ; that alters not nor wea- 
 ries. The Unchangeable for ever and for ever is 
 our God and Father. Now, how with such a God 
 shall we come to pray ? We bring our petitions 
 before Him ; we ask Him for pardon or ask Him 
 
THE CIIKISTIAN DOCTKINE OF J'KAYEK, 47 
 
 for bread. "\Ve ask Ilim for deliverance from some 
 "svoe ; M'e ask Iliin for salvation from some bodily, 
 mental, spiritual pain. God has brought it on us — 
 at least it has come by His law. He has at least 
 pemiitted it. Do we ask Him to change ? " How 
 can man's feeble words change God T' The answer 
 is : There is an entire mistake. Xo Christian man 
 prays, expecting to change God. Xo prayer that 
 was ever offered with the expectation that God 
 would either repent or change was a ChristiaTi 
 prayer. God is unchangeable. That is the very 
 iirst thought. H God be captious, if God be change- 
 able, if God be open to flattery, open to any pro- 
 pitiation, open to feel lovingly toward me to-day, 
 and open to hating me to-morrow, how can I pray 
 to a God that veers as the winds veer, that changes as 
 the tides change ? Xo. The very God we need to 
 pray to is a God unchangeable. For it is not that 
 I seek to change God by prayer ; but quite another 
 thing, my relation toward God ; and that change 
 is effected not by changing God, who is not change- 
 able, but by changing myself. God was in Christ 
 reconciling the world unto Himself ! 
 
 You stand some day on a plain, and there rises 
 in the distance a mountain — a single peak, let us 
 say, as you can sometimes see them on our own 
 broad plains in the West. You pass a day's jour- 
 
48 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PRAYER. 
 
 iiey with that mountain in your sight. At every 
 hour of your journey, your relation to the moun- 
 tain changes ; the mountain still stands just the 
 same. You approach it on the one side, and as 
 you look at it, it lifts to the blue above rugged 
 peaks, splintered by the lightnings, worn with the 
 storms, glittering underneath the sunlight, flash- 
 ing in the pallid moonbeams, daily and nightly. 
 The shadow falls on you as you stand if the sun 
 is beyond, and you are in the coolness. You 
 pass on and around, and on another side the hot 
 sun beats down upon you. You are footsore, dusty, 
 thirsty, weary. On that side, no brook comes down, 
 no springs flash out. It is a hard, barren waste. 
 You go on still to another slope. The forest grows 
 up, covering the shaggy sides with greenness, and 
 there in the shadow of the woods the rivulets steal 
 downward through the clefts to the brimming river in 
 the valley, and you stoop and drink, and are refresh- 
 ed. So, as you journey hour by hour, you may change 
 your relation to the mountain, and at no two points 
 that you occupy will the mountain be just the 
 same to you. You have seen it on different sides, 
 you have borne diiferent relations to it, you have 
 climbed its rocky sides, you have been cold upon 
 its snowy summit, you have rested in its cool sha- 
 dow, you have been protected from the storm by 
 
TIIK CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PRAYER. 49 
 
 its caves. But you changed — tlie rooted mountain 
 still remained the same. 
 
 Or, again, the snn above our heads, the best 
 image of the michangeable ^ve know, the chosen 
 type of the Lord Himself, sets and rises to theman. 
 It never sets and never rises to itself. You see it to- 
 day through the watery vapors of the winter-time ; 
 anotlier day, again, you see it blazing down from 
 the zenith in a liot August noon. You see it 
 sink slowly to its rest at evening ; at morning, 
 flaming in the eastern skies, now lurid through 
 mists, now blazing in the vaporless blue. "We 
 call these changes, changes in the sun, and yet the 
 great sun always, day and night, iu storm or calm, 
 at rising or at setting, has not changed. You 
 change, your atmosphere changes, your.little world 
 chancres, and the relation is changed ; but the sun 
 never. 
 
 Xow, to bring a change in relation between 
 God and man, one of the beings being changeless, 
 you must change the other. Man must alter the 
 relation by altering himself ; and that relation is 
 certainly one thing in prayer and another thing 
 without it. 
 
 You can reduce it, if you will, to a mathematical 
 formula. The relation between God and man, 
 minu.<i prayer, you can represent by what figure 
 
60 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PRAYER. 
 
 you please; but however you choose to represent 
 it, it will make no equation with the other state- 
 ment of the relation of God to man jpliis prayer, 
 God remaining still the unchanged quantity in 
 your calculation. God unalterable, the varying 
 man varies the relation. The man with prayer 
 must stand in one relation to God ; the man w'ltli- 
 out prayer in quite another. There is the difference. 
 You may shut yourself in a cellar in June, if you 
 will, and the bright sun above you shall send no 
 ray down to you. So you may roof yourself in 
 from God's grace, if you will ; but God's grace still 
 descends, just the same. You may cover your 
 garden-bed from the dews of night if jTni please ; 
 but the dews of night descend all the same. So, 
 again, you may cover yourself from the dews of 
 God's grace and blessing ; 3'ou may turn away from 
 His good gifts, shut your heart to God, and yet 
 God's grace goes over all the world, God's good 
 gifts are everywhere given, God's pity falls like 
 the sunlight, His mercy comes like the rain, His 
 blessino^s are showered on good and ill alike. God's 
 gifts fall on the unchristian, on the sinful, as the 
 Lord teaches us, on the just and the unjust alike. 
 The question is for the man himself. Shall he take 
 or shall he refuse ; shall he cover himself from 
 God's goodness, or shall he open his heart to it % 
 
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PRAYER. 51 
 
 So we pass that. It is an entire mistake to sup- 
 pose tliat we seek to change the unchangeable 
 God. 
 
 Prayer is changing man's relations to God. But 
 prayer is not only asking for what we need, which 
 is tlie heathen idea. It is far more than that. It 
 is a positive communion with God. You can not 
 describe Christian prayer, as has been attempted, 
 by any comparison with the cry of a dumb animal 
 when seized to his death. Christian prayer is not 
 the cry of wild distress, nor the last shriek from a 
 man's lips as he goes down in the darkness choked 
 by the foam ; nor the cry as he yields up his breath 
 in battle ; nor the groan for mercy as the sinner 
 tosses on abed of pain ; a prelude, as his conscience 
 prophesies, of a bed*of pain for ever. Christian 
 prayer is a changing of the relation, as I have de- 
 scribed l)y a man's putting himself in a certain posi- 
 tion toward God. It embraces communion, praise, 
 thanksgiving, as well as prayer. -It is standing 
 toward God, and looking to Ilim as a Father and 
 ' a Friend. It is coming to Ilim, and opening the 
 heart to Ilim, exposing all its feelings to Ilim, 
 speaking out every difficidty, laying it fairly before 
 Ilim, consulting Him upon it, taking Ilim into 
 one's confidence, as you could not take your best 
 friend. 
 
52 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PRAYER. 
 
 God represents Himself, as He is, all-powerful 
 and all-wise, Lord and Father, and His jJalace-doors 
 arc open day and niglit, and nsliers liave orders to 
 admit throngh all the shining hosts into the very pre- 
 sence-ehamber of the King, at any hour they may ^ 
 come, those children of His that seek Him, and 
 who shall find Him neither occupied with business 
 nor taken up with the government of the world. 
 They may come there and talk with God, as it Avere, 
 as one talks to his friend and benefactor. 
 
 That is Christian prayer. It calls out the intel- 
 lect ; it calls out the affections ; it calls out the 
 most strenuous exertions of the human Avill ; it 
 calls out every power that gives dignity to man. 
 
 You say, " AVe see all this, and we grant the sub- 
 jective use and value of ]5rayer. You will say 
 nothing more than is safe when you say that the 
 man that prays must be a man who lives on a loftier 
 plane than the man Avho does not pray ; that the 
 man who is in the habit of going to God in this 
 way, and communing with Him, talking with Him, 
 face to face, that he must be a nobler man, intellec- 
 tually and morally, than the man that does not ^^^^ ; 
 and it were worth while to keep uji prayer, and 
 ]3ublic worship, and private worship ; worth while 
 to encourage men to pray, if only for this result 
 in educatinor and elevatino; man." 
 
THE CHKISTIAN DOCTKIXE OF rilAYEIl. 53 
 
 " But is there any thing heyond that ? Is it, after 
 all, any thing- more than a subjective exercise, and 
 does it bring any thing more than a subjective, en- 
 nobling, aiul lifting up of the soul, raising it above 
 the chances and changes of life i Is it possible for 
 God really to give what a man asks ?" It is mani- 
 fest that on the answer to that question must turn, 
 after all, the whole value of prayer, because it is 
 impossil^le that for any long period of time, one 
 man, or any number of men, should keep up the 
 habit of praying, going through the form of pre- 
 senting petitions to a Being that can not answer. 
 It is the very conviction that God does answer that 
 makes the subjective effect of praj^er possible. 
 The elevation of the heart that comes from p'ray- 
 ing comes because men believe that God hears 
 prayer and answers prayer. If men did not believe 
 that, they woidd stop praying, and the subjective 
 benefit would go. ^Ve will not conceal, we ought 
 not to conceal, the fact that in our day, men have 
 found difficulty in believing that God hears and 
 answers prayer. "While they are ready to admit a 
 God and a just God and a merciful God, they also 
 have imagined that that God was so fettered that 
 He could not answer the prayers of His creatures ; 
 that, at least, one whole class of prayers are use- 
 less. "While we may ask Him for spiritual bless- 
 
54 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PRAYER. 
 
 ings, for forgiveness of our sins, foi strength to 
 resist temptation, yet when we go beyond that and 
 ask God for rain, for instance, we are asking some- 
 thing which God can not supply. 
 
 Let ns examine this. The ground of the objec- 
 tion is, the TJnchangeableness of Law. In our day, 
 in the discoveries that we liave made, the convic- 
 tion has come, beyond what it was in any previous 
 age, that the entire reahn of nature is subfect to no 
 caprice, to no chance, subject really to no change, 
 but subject only to the strong arm of laio. "\Ve 
 have examined the paths far enough to know, and 
 to feel safe in saying, that those which we have not 
 examined yet, the outlying realms of Nature, being 
 a part of ^Nature, are as much under law as are those 
 we have examined ; that there is not a dew-drop 
 formed and falling, not a rain-drop that descends 
 upon a thirsty field, that does not come by law ; 
 not a cloud, not a hazy vapor that drifts across the, 
 sky, but moves by law ; not a single change in tem- 
 perature, in the atmosphere about us, but comes 
 by law. If Ave have not found the laws yet, if we 
 have not been able to tabulate and formulate and • 
 systematize, yet, nevertheless, the law is there. 
 The objection is that when we ask God for certain 
 blessings of body, for rain, for instance, or for the 
 gift of health, or for a prosperous voyage at sea, or 
 
THE CIIlllSTIAX UOCTllIXE OF TKAYKK. 5j 
 
 for deliverance from plague or storm, we are as7t:ing 
 God to change Jits law. 
 
 KoAV, as a Christian accepts the unchaugeableness 
 of God as one basis for Prayer, so, also, must he 
 accept tlie nnchangeableness of Law as another 
 basis for Prayer. If yon give him a Avorld of 
 chance, a ■world where things go by caprices, then 
 he can no more pray with any hope of being 
 answered than ho can pray to a capricious God. 
 lie must have a basis of lixed law to stand npon, 
 or he can not pray. 
 
 This other objection turns itself, as we shall lind 
 when we examine it, into one of the very grounds 
 on whicli prayer stands. For what is Law? A 
 very few moments' careful thouglit will show any 
 man that law is not a power, it is merely the 
 formula by which we express the action of a pow- 
 er. We see certain causes produce certain effects 
 uniformly ; we say it is the law that the cause 
 should be followed by the effect. We put down 
 the law, we formulate it ; but the law is not the 
 poM'er. There is no poiver that we know of at all 
 in i^Taturc ; but when there is L'nity of Law (and 
 our Science is teaching us that very fact), that pre- 
 supposes and takes for granted Unity also of Power. 
 This power that acts, and acts in these Avays, acts 
 in a method which wc tabulate and formulate, and 
 
50 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PRAYER. 
 
 call law, is wind ? Well, Science does not know ! 
 It deals with ^p/<e«c»me?trt, and can deal with nothing 
 else. It deals with what you can see and handle 
 and analyze. Powers escape it, and escape it 
 utterly. There is no knowledge except of the 
 things we see. Appearances, plienoinena are all 
 that Science deals with, and our hest wisdom in 
 Science has been in our modern days, to know that 
 fact and accept it. In the old days, men sought to 
 break through the Avails of the material and get out 
 into the broad ocean beyond; and instead of search- 
 ing what they could, examining what was in their 
 hands, and discovering Avhat was near, they went 
 far reaches to discover the undiscoverable, to com- 
 prehend the incomprehensible, to find what can 
 not be found. So, their science was limited, their 
 advance was checked. I^Tot until 
 
 " Tlie broad-browed Verulam, 
 The first of those who know,'' 
 
 taught men to be content witli their own small- 
 ness, content to sit down inside their own walls as 
 humble interpreters of Nature, have we been 
 able to advance in real Science, and make progress 
 in genuine knowledge. That progress has been 
 made by the acceptance of the fact that 2>h<^nomena> 
 are all we can know ; the jpower lies behind. It 
 
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTKIXE OF PRAYER. 57 
 
 was to that power the heathen cried. It is to that 
 power, men always instinctively cry in tlieir last 
 distress. The Christian names that power, God — 
 God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, 
 the power that moves and rules ; and when we talk 
 of law, we mean simply God's orderly working, 
 that is all : the way in which God rules His great 
 household, the regular order lie has established for 
 His worlds. The father in his house may to-day 
 establish a certain set of rules : at such an hour there 
 will be the morning, at such an liour the mid-day, 
 at such an hour the evening meal, at such an hour 
 the child shall go to bed, at such an hour he shall 
 rise, at sueli an liour lie sliall take his bath, at such 
 an hour he shall have his lessons. The father may 
 arrange all that, and that is the Law. But the 
 child would make a mistake — a mistake made some- 
 times by men called philosophers — should he im- 
 agine that those laws were laws for the father, 
 binding the father as well as binding him; if he 
 mistake the order by which the father governs his 
 household for a power outside the father. Law 
 sits enthroned in the bosom of God. There is her 
 eternal home, and she expresses herself throughout 
 all nature, the voice of God. The j)lanets move 
 in their mighty courses by law ; the green grass- 
 blades spring up in the spring days by law ; the 
 
58 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PRAYER 
 
 tide sweeps inward from the sea and thunders up 
 the quaking sands by law. By law the constella- 
 tions flame and burn ; the little firefly dances in the 
 summer evening and emits his gleaming spark by 
 law. Law rules everywhere, man's body and man's 
 soul, and in the iraghty arms of law, man rests 
 secure. Wjq do not depreciate law ; Ave do not seek 
 to make it at all uncertain ; we only declare it to be 
 the expression of God's will — not superior to God, 
 but the handmaid of God. 
 
 Of that law, we see only a part ; we can not see 
 how its enactments modify and arrange themselves. 
 But even we can bring down a higher law and sus- 
 pend a lower. 
 
 There are, for instance, the laws of chemistry 
 and the laws of natality — one evidently a law of a 
 higher nature, and the other of a lower. N'ow, 
 whenever the tAvo touch, the laws of vitality will 
 invariably modify and sometimes suspend the laws 
 of chemistry. You may, for instance, subject a 
 living body to a heat which will actually destroy 
 the texture of a dead body. A man may sit in an 
 atmosphere raised to a point which will boil dead 
 flesh, and may do it as a means of health ; it is 
 done daily. Again, man by his will suspends the 
 laws, as we call them, of mere matter. I never lift 
 my hand without suspending the law of gravitation. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PRAYER. 59 
 
 I annihilate for the time l)eing the laAv as far as n»y 
 hand is concerned. 
 
 AVe nmst recognize this fact, that there are these 
 grades of hi-w, and that the higlier huv when it 
 impinges npon the lower either changes it by modi- 
 fication, or suspends it for the time being entirely. 
 When, therefore, one says God can not answer 
 prayer, because He will break His oM'n law in a 
 particular case, he is speaking too shallow a thought. 
 Take, for instance, the very matter of rain, <if which 
 I have spoken. It has been said that if God should 
 send a shower at the request of a particular neigh- 
 borhood. He could not do it without deranging the 
 balance of the world, and, in consequence, the 
 balance of the Universe. Well, suppose not. What 
 of it ? Is it not in God's power to suspend a lower 
 law, since I can do it ? I can not build a house ; I 
 can not put a brick in its place in the wall ; I can 
 not lift a stone into a tower ; I can not build or 
 launch a ship ; I can not fell a tree ; I can not 
 drain a marsh; I can not dig a canal; I can not 
 grade a railroad ; I can not take a stone and cast it 
 into the sea, without changing the vjhole balance of 
 the Universe. We are doing it every day ; men are 
 all the time doing it, and have been since the world 
 was created. Displace one particle of matter, and 
 you change the balance — not perceptibly, indeed, 
 
60 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF I'KAYER. 
 
 l)ut science Avill tell you cleurly you do. Cast a 
 stone into the air, and the stone attracts the earth, 
 and the earth attracts the stone ; the earth is jarred 
 from its orbit by the act of casting that stone into 
 the atmosphere. Boys do it at play, and it nev'er 
 occurs to them that they are in any danger whatever 
 of disarranging the Universe. The very water 
 that we are supplied with in this city is supplied 
 by a breach of the law of fluids. Wo have deli- 
 berately set to work and suspended a law as far as 
 the Croton supply is concerned; we have lifted the 
 Avater up and beyond where it belongs. 
 
 In other words, AVill itself is a law ; personal 
 ^s'ill is a fact that you can not leave out of account. 
 God can not send showers in answer to prayer, one 
 says, and yet they tell us that we can bring out 
 cannon and ]3owder, and burn ])owder enough in 
 our cannon to produce a shower anywhere. After 
 every great battle of modern days, where there has 
 been sufficient artillery discharged, there is always 
 a shower, they say. If man can bring a shower, or a 
 storm of wind and lightning and thunder and rain 
 to any spot, it surely is a strange notion of God's 
 sovereignty over His universe to suppose that He 
 can not do as much as we can without endangering 
 His universe. 
 
 But wc will leave that and take up another ob- 
 
TJIK ClIlilSTIAX DOCTRINE OF riiAYEK. 01 
 
 jectioii. It lias been said that God could not 
 answer t)nc man's prayer without interfering with 
 another man's good. For instance, two nations are 
 at war ; l)oth of them are praying for victory; God 
 can not give to one a victory without denying it to 
 the other ; therefore it is best to suppose that 
 God answers neither, but lets the case be decided 
 by the most powerful artillery and the strongest 
 battalions. 
 
 IS'ow, is there any real difficulty in 4his case ? It 
 only comes, the supposed difficulty, from a misap- 
 prehension of what prayer really is. Xot the ask- 
 ing or demanding of something for one's self with- 
 out terms, but the asking of it subject always to 
 the will of the Moral Governor of the Universe — 
 that is prayer. "What man asks, he asks always 
 uiuler a broad law, and that broad law of God's is 
 the good of all men and of all creation. "When I 
 ask for rain on my land, I ask it on the express 
 condition that God shall give it if it seems to Ilim 
 best and wisest. When a nation asks God for 
 victory, it asks for that victory on condition that 
 its cause be good, that its aims 1)0 just, that the 
 preservation and safety and victory of that land 
 and its armies be for the glory of God, for the 
 bringing forth of His Kingdom, for the benefit of 
 His Creatures, for the good of all the World. This 
 
62 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PRAYER. 
 
 is the law of prayer, as the Lord expressed it in 
 Gethsemane, kneeling in his agony, and praying that 
 the cnp might pass from Ilim, " and yet not my 
 will, bnt thine he done." 
 
 Another objection is, and that has been put in 
 familiar shape, that there is no tangible result to 
 prayer, that there never has been, and there never 
 can be ; that, as a factor, producing results in the 
 world, we must leave it out of the account. Tyn- 
 dall's Prayer Test you will remember. lie propos- 
 ed to try prayer scientifically, to put two sets of sick 
 people in two different wards of a hospital, and for 
 one of them prescribe calomel and quinine, or what- 
 soever might be necessary in the way of drugs, and 
 prayer, to be taken regularly. In the other ward to 
 prescribe calomel, (piinine, and other things, and 
 leave out prayer. In the end, to look over the pa- 
 tients, and see whether the omission of prayer from 
 the medical prescription had any effect at all on the 
 cure. That is what it practically amounted to. I 
 would take just here, also, the very baldest ground, 
 and do that also on a scientific basis. I say that 
 since the world began, men have prayed ; I say that 
 is a fact, just as much a fact as that men have 
 eaten or clothed themselves. From all quarters of 
 this world have gone up appeals to Heaven. The 
 
THE CnmSTIAX DOCTRINE OF PRAYER. 63 
 
 cry is to God ; the prayer is for deliverance or safe- 
 ty, from the creation initil to-night. 
 
 Now, am I, as a scientific man, to leave all that 
 out, to leave out uf my account and calculation one 
 iixed phenomenon uf human life ? ^^^hy, on the 
 barest Positive Philosophy, I must take facts as they 
 are ; and prayer is a fact, a fact of life, a persistent 
 fact, a universal fact, a steady fact, always there. 
 Shall I find no place for this fact ? Shall I say that 
 the world has had no residts from that, that to-day 
 the M'orld would have been what it is, had there 
 been no prayer 1 Is that scientific, to ride out this 
 great phenomenon of life, and say the result would 
 have been just the same without it ? Why, on the 
 baldest, barest, and merest materialism, on a cold 
 scientific treatment of the subject, it woidd be un- 
 philosophical in me to take any such ground as that. 
 The world of the nineteenth century is the result of 
 powers that have worked in the world since the 
 first — powers that have disappeared sometimes, and 
 phenomena that have ruled and gone ; but we must 
 take them all into account to explain the world as it 
 is, and Ave must take this. Just see how impossible 
 it would be otherwise. Take the case of the sick 
 people. How is it possible to take twenty sick peo- 
 ple, and shut them up in the ward of a hospital out- 
 side of prayer ? You may build a roof over them 
 
64 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PRAYER. 
 
 to shelter tliem from the sun or the rain, but you 
 can not roof them in from prayer. Why, I pray 
 for the sick every day these Lent days ; we are 
 j)raying in all our churches for the sick all the world 
 over. Can we put in a ^parenthesis and say that we 
 omit from our prayer those sick people on whom 
 Dr. Thomson and Prof. Tyndall are trying their ex- 
 j^eriments ? All we know is, that prayer is a factor 
 of human life itself, as eating, drinking, thinking, 
 reading, and working arc factors of human life, and 
 a imiversal factor, from which no man can be ex- 
 cluded, from whose effects you can shut in no 
 man. 
 
 But as to God's giving us blessings material in 
 answer to prayer, there is this further thought to a 
 man who believes in law : when he looks philoso- 
 j^hically at the phenomenon of prayer, the universal 
 exercise of prayer, and then sees God's blessings 
 come, and how they come, sees sudden deliverances, 
 sees unex]3ected good, sees health restored where 
 all science prophesied death, sees life given when 
 the feet were already on the crumbling brink of the 
 grave, sees strange " chances," as we call them, 
 come to men, sees wonderful deliverances wrought, 
 what is ]iis thought ? That this phenomenon of 
 prayer is a part of the imiversal law ; that God takes 
 that into account as all the rest ; that God is a God 
 
THE CURISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PRAYER. 65 
 
 that will be entreated ; that lie has planted the in- 
 stinct in the heart of man to go back to the same 
 source from which he came ; that He Himself made 
 prayer, when man was made, a part of man's na- 
 ture and law. 
 
 And so, looking over the world, we can not 
 tell, Is it prayer that produced this, or is it not ? 
 This power is like all other powers — invisible. 
 " All things," the old School-men said, " go out into 
 mystery." So goes prayer. You can not gauge it ; 
 you can not measure it ; it belongs to the unseen 
 forces. 
 
 The results produced by prayer, that they exist, 
 that they are strange, that they are wonderful, I 
 have the jjliilosophic right to assume. All the ex- 
 pressions of power in the world seen are expressions 
 of a power that lies behind, unknown, and as yet, to 
 us, unapproachable, except through prayer. 
 
 "We trace to its ends the manifestation of Power, 
 to the last particle or atom the manifestation of 
 Force, There it escapes us, and we are lost. 
 
 We take, then, the Christian philosophy of exist- 
 ence, that the material clothes the innnaterial ; that 
 the world visible is the expression only of the world 
 invisible ; that the body is simply the clothing of 
 the soul. As we believe in free men, we believe in 
 a free God. Let us take our Lord's own words : 
 
66 THE CHRISTIAIS' DOCTRINE OF PRAYER. 
 
 " If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to 
 your cliildren, liow much more shall your Father 
 which is in heaven give good gifts to them that ask 
 him." 
 
 Science confesses itself ignorant of all, save phe- 
 nomena. The great deeps of Life and Power lie 
 unsounded. Knowledge deals with shows, Faith 
 with substances and realities. Where Science stops, 
 Kevelation takes us up. A Will, a Person, a Heart 
 lie hehhv^ phenomena. Out of the roar of thetem- 
 j^est, out of the crowding evil, out of the iron clasp 
 of pitiless and senseless matter, and its apparent 
 power, we appeal to AVisdom, Will, and Goodness, 
 and^^nr?/, exercising " the right of petition," which 
 belongs to Humanity in the way the Lord taught 
 
 ' ' For what are men better tlian sheep or goats, 
 Which nourish a blind life within the brain, 
 If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer, 
 Both for themselves, and those wlio call them friend. 
 For so, the whole round earth is, every way, 
 Bound by gold chains about the feet of God." 
 
MOEAL RESPOi^SIBILITY 
 
 PHYSICAL LAW. 
 
 BY 
 
 The Rev. E. A. WASHBURN, D.D., 
 
 KscTOB OF Calvary Chubcii, New-York. 
 
^ 
 
MORAL RESPONSIBILITY AND PHYSICAL LAW. 
 
 " Let no man say, when he is tempted, I am tempted of God ; 
 for God can not be tempted, neither temptetli he any man ; 
 bat every man is tempted when he is draAvn away of his own 
 lust and enticed."— St. James 3 : 13, 14. 
 
 It is the reasonable faith of Christian men, my 
 friends, that while the world of nature and mind 
 is open to our searching, there are truths essential to 
 our duty, which are planted by our Maker in the con- 
 science of all, and can not be shaken by the specu- 
 lative strifes of the time. Science may pry into its 
 nebulous fields, but the fixed stars give their nn- 
 chanrnng light. In that conviction, I have chosen 
 this old question of moral responsibility, as it bears 
 on certain theories of natural law, which are to-day 
 put forth as the newest fruit of our research. I 
 honor science, so long as it is what the master of ex- 
 perimental philosophy claimed, the interpreter of 
 nature, and I gladly accept all it has revealed of the 
 secrets of life ; but when it so treads beyond its o^vn 
 sphere as to deny any reality above nature, and to 
 
TO MORAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 change man into the slave of physical forces, it is 
 wise for us to learn a nobler knowledge than can 
 be gained by the dissecting-knife or the microscope. 
 If there be any whom I can thus help toward the 
 study of their own consciences, and that Christian 
 faith which is linked most closely with this moral 
 truth, I shall be glad indeed. 
 
 In this view, I offer you a sentence from the epis- 
 tle of James, which gives us the guiding line of all 
 Christian teaching on this subject. These words may 
 have been written for Jewish converts, who clung 
 to the Pharisaic dogma that suffering was the pen- 
 alty of inherited sin ; or as a rebuke to some who 
 excused their apostasy on the plea of irresistible 
 temptation. But our apostle answers with plain 
 logic that to call sin fatality is to call God its author, 
 and to belie our own self-knowledge. Here, then, 
 we have set before us the oue only method in which 
 we can study aright the problem of moral evil. 
 It is in the fact of responsibility as revealed in our 
 own consciences. And it is, when any class of 
 thinkers has lost sight of this personal truth, and 
 reasoned from purely theoretical views of the na- 
 ture of God or of human life, that the system of ne- 
 cessity has arisen. There are two results, to one of 
 which such a theory has always led. The theolog- 
 
AND PHYSICAL LAM'. 71 
 
 ical view has traced the ground of evil to the eter- 
 nal decrees of God, and has made man its necessary 
 inheritor, while it has contradicted itself by calling 
 liini responsible. The philosophic school, from the 
 same starting-point, has more logically affirmed 
 that there is no moral evil at all. That falsehood 
 has appeared sometimes in an ideal pantheism like 
 that of Spinoza ; sometimes in ^lie guise of physical 
 law. I do not linger on the more abstract systems. 
 It is enough if I show you their connnon ground. 
 Let men lose the moral fact of accountability, and 
 whatever their religious faith, they mnst end in one 
 shape or another of fatalism. ISTor do I hesitate to 
 say that the revolting doctrine so often taught from 
 Christian pulpits has gone far toward the growth of 
 the modern materialism. It was the saying of Plu- 
 tarch, the devoutest of heathen, that he would rath- 
 er believe in no God than in a Saturn, who ate his 
 own children ; and it is not strange, when men have 
 been called the victims of a hopeless and helpless 
 destiny, that they should deny any responsibility at 
 all. Yet as we are in little danger to-day of that 
 harsh creed, and much more of the plausible fatal- 
 ism which wears the name of science, I shall turn 
 directly to the field of modern incj^uiry. 
 
 I state, then, at once the line of our argument. 
 It is my purpose to show from experience that 
 
72 MORAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 our responsibility for our actions is an acknowl- 
 edged fact ; and that in this fact there is given 
 us the assurance of a moral law, and of our power 
 of choice. We meet here, at the threshold, our 
 champions of necessity. They claim that through- 
 out the universe, in every form of inorganic or 
 organic life, in crystal or plant, in the instinct of 
 the brute, or the mechanism of our own bodies, 
 there is a sure, irresistible law ; and thus in the 
 soul of man, if we may use so old-fashioned and 
 unscientific a word, is found the same miA'arying 
 order. Our nunds are but a function of the gray 
 matter of the brain ; " without phosj^horus no 
 thought," in the phrase of a modern sage; and 
 what our shallow morality has dreamed of as Avill 
 is nothing but a j^assive obedience to our desires. 
 Such is the claim I would examine by the clearest 
 test. Our positive science is wont to boast that 
 it rests on fact, and turns away with impatient 
 scorn from speculative reasoning. I do not doubt 
 that the rebuke is sometimes just; and if there be a 
 truth I wish most to urge, it is that we are not to 
 spin cobwebs here out of the bowels of theology, but 
 to deal with realities. I accept the challenge, and 
 shall leave it to you to judge whether the Christian 
 moralist or these practical sages are the theorists. 
 What, tlieu, is the character of these facts which 
 
AND rilVSICAL LAW. Y3 
 
 "\ve arc to examine ? I Leg your special atten- 
 tion to tlii.s point, for it involves the "wliolc in- 
 quiry. ]t is the method of our champions of 
 physical necessity to reason from the cases oi 
 natural W'eakness, or of social disorder, M-hcre the 
 question of responsihility becomes obscure, to the 
 conclusion that there is no freedom. Yet that 
 is to take for granted the "whole question. Here- 
 after, M-e are to consider these darker sides of the 
 subject ; but at the outset, "\ve arc not talking of 
 idiots, or insane, or diseased, or undeveloi)ed minds, 
 but of a knowledge within the reach of every intel- 
 ligent man. "We turn, then, to this evidence of the 
 social conscience. There are certain laws of ac- 
 tion, not notions of your mind or mine, but re- 
 cognized by all in daily life. We nse the words 
 merit, demerit, apjDrobation, shame, remorse, in onr 
 common speech, and they stand for a reality as 
 clear, as undoubted, as when we speak of a metal 
 or an earth. It is by these we judge of the char- 
 acter of men, and are judged in turn. Take any 
 out of a thousand examples. What is merit ? A 
 man has risked his life for the protection of a fel- 
 low-man in the midst of a plague, while thousands 
 sought their own safety ; and the "verdict of all pro- 
 nounces it an act of unselfish nobleness. You have 
 sacrificed vour cliances of wealth or office in the 
 
74: '. MORAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 discharge of an honorable duty. Your own con- 
 science witnesses to the character of the deed, that 
 it is not like a pleasure of the palate, or even of in- 
 tellectual effort ; but purer, sweeter, higher than all ; 
 the happiness of f uliilling the law of right. What is 
 demerit ? You have wronged an innocent man in 
 a moment of selfish passion ; you have shrunk from 
 the defense of a just cause through fear of losing 
 your reputation. The verdict of the common con- 
 science condemns you ; and when you awaken from 
 your self-delusion, you feel a shame at your own 
 act. Analyze now these judgments of tlie moral 
 faculty. Each witnesses an obligation, and with 
 it a responsibility. There could be no merit or 
 demerit if there were no choice. A stone feels no 
 remorse when it crushes a man ; a brute feels no 
 remorse Avhen he tears his victim. AVe feel regret, 
 but no remorse, when we have done an injury with- 
 out design. If we were creatures who must obey a 
 reigning desire, Avhere coul 1 be the difference be- 
 tween duty and impulse, virtue and lust ? All these 
 would be empty names. I shall be met here by the 
 old cavil, that this standard of right and wrong va- 
 ries with different times and races, and therefore all 
 these are notions of our education. But I reply 
 that the variation does not disprove the principle. 
 It is allowed by thqse who deny any innate ideas 
 
AND PHYSICAL LAW. iD 
 
 of morality, that education leads always to agree- 
 ment in regard to the laws of moral action ; and 
 this is to admit all we seek. There are thousands 
 who will lie, or steal, or kill, and there is sophistry 
 enough as to the decision of special cases ; but ly- 
 ing, theft, and murder are wrongs in every code. 
 Education develops conscience, but it can not create 
 it. The child can not judge of distance save by 
 experience ; but the faculty of eyesight is the gift 
 of nature. It is enough that I rest the evidence 
 there. But if there be, beyond such moralists who 
 differ from us only in words, any who really claim 
 that there can be no higher law than that of our 
 sensual desires, I do not reason with them ; I leave 
 them to their brutishness, and content myself with 
 the decision of the social conscience. 
 
 In this witness of our real experience, we reach 
 the knowledge of what we mean by moral law. 
 This priiiciplo of responsibility reveals to us that 
 there is an order higher than that of the physical 
 world. And thus we lay the axe at the roat of that 
 pretended science of nature which denies our free- 
 dom, on the ground that wq are subjects of the same 
 omnipotent power, whether it act more coarsely in 
 the crystal, or more cunningly in the nervous fila- 
 ments of the brain ; that our ^vill is only the seem- 
 ing choice of a creature, who can not act without 
 
76 MORAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 motive, and that motive always tlie strongest pas- 
 sion. It is from an ntter denial of tlie moral facts 
 we have studied that the error springs. We admit 
 that no creatnre is independent on law ; but we 
 affirm that, of the very cliaracter of moral law, 
 it is not a compulsory power as in nature ; it is 
 a power that pervades, influences, warns, yet is 
 and must be determined by our personal choice. 
 Let us turn to a few examples, which will prove 
 more than all general reasoning. I will take my 
 illustration, first, from the striking law of the 
 magnetic needle. You know the marvelous power 
 by which the bit of steel within the box j)oints the 
 seaman through the darkness to the unchanging 
 pole ; and some of you may have studied the princi- 
 ple of its variations, so puzzling to the mariner in 
 former days, as ho steered through unknown seas, 
 and found his faithful guide seemingly untrue ; 
 yet now the Aariations are known to be only a part 
 of the same law. Compare the physical fact with 
 the moral. We often use this illustration of the 
 power of conscience, as it points to the polestar of 
 duty ; but we must not in the image forget the 
 greater contrast. I will take the example of a man 
 of sincere moral feeling, yet in whom a self-indulgent 
 habit has at times weakened the might of conscience ; 
 I will suppose him in one of those critical hours 
 
AND niYSICAL LAW. 77 
 
 such as come to most of us in lialf-formed youth, 
 tempted l)y tlie love of pleasure or by evil asso- 
 ciates to sensual crime ; it is a fearful struggle, 
 for he knows the right, he recognizes the dan- 
 ger, the motives of true action, hut tlie allure- 
 ment is strong ; he wavers, he pauses, hut at last 
 with one mighty effort and a prayer for divine 
 help, he says, " I will not yield to sin." Analyze 
 now this act of the will. Was the force that shook 
 his better desire like that which sways the nee- 
 dle I AVas the motion that at last conquered, a 
 compulsion ? Was the law of duty ^-ariable under 
 certain conditions, as the oscillation of the magnet 
 is determined by the pole ? To ask this is to show 
 you the difference between physical and moral 
 power. 
 
 But consider another case, where you perceive a 
 more subtle natural force — that of chemical affinity. 
 Ton shall take two cups of hydrochloric and nitric 
 acid, in which some gold has been immersed ; each re- 
 mains inert ; but mix them, and the gold combines 
 at once with the chlorine. What is this force ? 
 Has the chlorine any moral choice of the metal ? 
 Turn now to another case of affinity for gold. 
 A man has grown in the selfish lust of gain for 
 years, yet thus far he has done no act of dishonesty ; 
 his moral capacity has remained partly inert, as the 
 
78 MOEAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 acids before the mixture ; Ivat by and by some cup 
 of business cliances is suddenly thrown into his 
 grasping life ; a grand fortune is offered to his covet- 
 ous heart, if he will only take the risk of a fraud ; 
 he may have some slight twinges of conscience, 
 but they vanish before the bait. What, now^, is 
 the motive that decides his act ? Is the affinity for 
 the gold an irresistible law,' like that of the acid ? 
 Surely I need not say that to talk of necessity here 
 is absurd. His lust is the product of his own self- 
 nourished habit, and he is responsible for the guilt. 
 Such illustrations can be multiplied without end. 
 Each of us has known in his experience these 
 battles of the selfish passions with the law of con- 
 science ; and it is useless to reason them away by any 
 bewildering talk of natural disease or vicious educa- 
 tion. We fix our thought on these plain facts of 
 our daily life, and we ask. What do they prove ? 
 They prove that the whole argument by which the 
 necessitarian claims that we are subject to moral as 
 to physical law is based on an utter misconception. 
 Natural force and moral force are essentially unlike. 
 ISTatural force acts wdthout choice ; moral force in 
 and with it. ]^atm'al force compels ; moral force 
 persuades, l^atural force never fails under given 
 conditions ; moral force always depends on the per- 
 sonal man. It does not matterwhether the theology 
 
AND PHYSICAL LAW, 79 
 
 of Edwards or the psjcliology of Bain afliriii that, 
 because we can not act without motives, our will 
 must obey the motive. There is no such thing as a 
 necessary motive. You may as well talk of a square 
 circle. "Appetite," in the words of Hooker, "is 
 the mind's solicitor, the will is the mind's controller." 
 If then, my friends, I have so made the truth 
 clear by these illustrations, that you can see the root 
 of all sophistry on this subject, I may sum it in a 
 word. This is the law of responsibility. This, and 
 this alone, gives you your nobleness above all lower 
 creatures, as capable of moral growth. If there be 
 no such responsibility, there is no real difference 
 between sensual lust and purity, between self-indul- 
 gence and self-sacrifice, no motive for duty, no \mr- 
 posein education, no standard of character, no room 
 for love, or honor, or justice, or goodness, and no^ 
 social law save force. But if this power be in us, 
 then we have in our freedom a law as mighty as that 
 which sways the tides of the sea, yet far nobler, be- 
 cause it acts from within, and is seated in the perso- 
 nality of the man. We rise here to the sacred truth 
 which the religion of Christ declares. It is in God 
 we see the law, that is perfect freedom. He is 
 bound by the necessity of His holiness ; He can 
 never deny Himself; yet in the fullest meaning 
 of that word, He is a law unto Himself, unfet- 
 
So JIOKAL IIESPOXSIBILITY 
 
 tei'od ill Ilis moral clioicc. And thus, altliongli, 
 as sinful beings, Ave can not claim that freedom, 
 yet, as Augustine has said in his stately treatise on 
 the will, even in our sin Ave recognize this moral 
 capacity ; our sin is not om* nature, hut the de- 
 fect of our nature ; Ave are made for the Avillino* 
 choice of holiness, and as avc live in obedience to 
 His laAV, Ave groAV toA\'ard the state Avhere our 
 liberty becomes an iuAvard, abiding character. 
 
 Pardon ]ue, my friends, if I haA^e dAvelt too long 
 on this more abstract AacAV, for it Avas essential to lix 
 the truth hrndy at the outset. AYe have studied 
 the cA'idence of conscience ; Ave are noAV to study 
 it in the experience of real life. We are born 
 Avith this mental and moral constitution into a 
 Avorld Avlierc Ave Und certain conditions of our 
 growth. "\Ye inherit, first of all, a nature derived, 
 in body and mind, through the long line of our 
 j^arentage, and so affected by its influence, that the 
 seeds of genius or of mental Aveakness, tlie inflnite 
 shades of our disposition, are an inevitable birth- 
 right. IN^ot only the book of revelation, but even 
 that science which scouts Christian truth, confirms 
 in the fresh light of its researches tlie doctrine of 
 original sin, the great race-fact of the mental, mo- 
 ral, and physical disease that taints the body of hu- 
 manity. Let me indeed be clearly understood. I 
 
AND riiYSlCAL LAW. 81 
 
 do not confoiiiul ■\vitli such a truth tliat notion of to- 
 tal depravity, a nature without a single unselfish 
 affection, a single capacity of good, in which a false 
 theology and the fatalism we now examine agree. 
 Ko, I maintain the view whicli conscience as well 
 as Scripture witnesses, that evil is not our nature, 
 hut only the disease of oiu* true nature, through 
 Avhich we are to pass l)y the purifying power of God 
 into our nobler condition. ]3ut, again, it is not only 
 by this inheritance of hirth we are affected; we are 
 to a vast degree shaped, in the whole process of our 
 life, hy the law of social circumstance. Climate, 
 soil, education, have their influence on the man, and 
 none can escape these conditions. To one, his ex- 
 istence from ijifancy is in the luxury of a palace, 
 to another a battle with poverty ; one is a savage 
 in his wilds, another is nursed in the arts of refined 
 civilization ; one has the pure training of a Christian 
 home, another has grown up in the dens of vice. 
 
 What bearing have these facts, then, on our moral 
 responsibility ? Xone is so absurd as to doubt that 
 they have much to do with the formation of the 
 man. But this is not the fpiestion. Do they anni- 
 liilate moral freedom ? This is the position of the 
 fatalist. Is it true ? To suppose it, is to deny our 
 experience, as he has already denied conscience. 
 Each of uSj whatever the elements that have gone 
 
82 MORAL KESPONSIBILITY 
 
 into liis being, is an individual person. His person- 
 ality is seated in his will, and life is the condition of 
 his activity. Tliis is the very constitution of a mo- 
 ral creature, that he should he placed in a state 
 where lie can find tlie growth he needs ; and none 
 can conceive of growth without it. We may imag- 
 ine an ideal world, where there arc no diseases to 
 blight the body and no temptations to vex the peace 
 of its sinless dwellers ; but this earth, with its min- 
 gled sunshine and storm, its tropic bloom, yet its 
 rocky soil that provokes labor, its gold and iron that 
 must be digged from the bowels of the mine — this 
 is the home of Imman creatures. IS^one of us fails 
 to recognize this fact in material or mental activity. 
 The brute can never pass beyond the limits of cli- 
 mate and zone that define his place in nature. But 
 the highest achievements of man are earned in the 
 battle with natural forces. "What gives the hardy 
 farmer of New-England his manhood above the 
 Cingalese who eats his bread-fruit, and lies in the 
 sun, but this need of struggle? Who have won 
 such triumphs in the sphere of intellectual toil as 
 the men who have wrestled with the stern hin- 
 drances of early years ? What is the life of man 
 from birth to death but this resistance of the vital 
 unit ao-ainst the elements, that always tend to de- 
 compose it ? But it is surely a nobler example of 
 
AND PHYSICAL LAW. 83 
 
 tlie same law \vc ret'ogiiize in our moral proj^ress. 
 That axiom of the master of science, " Nature is 
 conquered by obeying it,"' only reaches its highest 
 meaning in the sphere of our spiritual struggle. 
 Sin has entered into the world l)y the condition of 
 our freedom, and its manifold, accumulated forms 
 have left their curse on the history of the race. 
 Yet there is no fatality in this. It is the best 
 proof that a divine Providence, not fate, orders the 
 life of man, since l)y the same constitution -which 
 entails disease, insanity, vicious dispositions, we in- 
 herit also the germs of intellect and moral power. 
 We do not charge on God or nature what is the 
 product of our own self-will ; nay, we rejoice that 
 in His goodness the diseases and hindrances of na- 
 ture become the conditions of our holiness. Our 
 lot does not infringe on the fact of personal respon- 
 sibility ; it quickens, it strengthens it; it teaches 
 Avhat human life is meant to teach, that we are 
 pl.i^cd in a state where, if we strive with faith and 
 energy, we work with Him who brings good out of 
 all evil. Am I not speaking here of facts all recog- 
 nize ? Is there a single virtue that has not been 
 the fruit of such struggle ? Is there a single na- 
 tural infirmity that has not been changed into a no- 
 ble quality ? Are not the highest examples of pu- 
 rity, of courage, of self-sacritice among those who 
 
84 MORAL KESPONSIBILITY 
 
 have wrestled with their own passions and the evil 
 world ? If it he not so, then our life is a riddle, 
 and holiness a dream. 
 
 In this light, we reach the fullness of the tnith 
 which the Gospel of Christ reveals of the nature of 
 our obligation and the promise of a divine grace. 
 We are free, but such is our constitution that our 
 freedom must pass bj degrees, according to our use 
 or our al)use, into a settled state of the character. 
 We are free ; but we are not left alone in our life of 
 stmggle. There is a Holy Spirit, the source of all 
 wisdom and strength, in whom we live and have our 
 being ; and if we act in obedience to His laws, M'e 
 are in harmony with His co-working grace, as the 
 single wave moves with the tides of the ocean. 
 This is the promise on Avhich we rest, Christian 
 believers ! This is the sacred truth that we hold 
 when we adore God, our Father, our Redeemer, our 
 Sanctifier ! But it is a truth alike for our warning. 
 If we surrender to the temptation of our selUsh 
 passions and of the world around us, we pass at 
 length into the slavery of nature; our desires be- 
 come our masters, our evil habits become fastened 
 on us ; and as we quench the spirit who waits on 
 every conscience, Ave lose the power of recovery. 
 No arbitrary act of God hardens the heart ; but it 
 is left, if we persist in sin, to its own hardening. 
 
AND PHYSICAL LAW. 85 
 
 Read liere that law of moral physiology, so fear- 
 fully portrayed by the apostle, deeper and worthier 
 of our study than the structure of these bodies ; 
 that personal law which every man must know in 
 the growth of his own character, which vindicates 
 for ever the love of God, and leaves us alone in 
 the consciousness of our responsibility ; that law 
 in whose light we trace, step by step, the whole 
 long process of wrong, as the naturalist traces the 
 embryo of the reptile through its wondrous changes. 
 " Lust when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin, 
 and sin, when it is finished " — fearful word, that re- 
 veals the meaning of a future life, as no arbitrary 
 allotment, but the ripening of the seed sown here 
 and now within ns ! — " when it is finished, bringeth 
 forth death." 
 
 Such, my friends, is the truth I have endeavored 
 to make clear by the witness both of conscience and 
 experience. And now, with this full light, we may 
 turn, in conclusion, to those mysteries of life which 
 darken so many minds. I have hitherto postponed 
 such cases, because I believe that all error on this 
 subject comes from the science that gropes in the 
 penumbra of social history until it loses its moral 
 eyesight. It is from what is called an induction from 
 two classes of facts — those of constitutional disease 
 and vicious education — that our modern fatalism is 
 
86 MOIJAL llESPONSIBILETY 
 
 drawn. We must look fairly at all such facts, nor need 
 we soften a single sliade in tlie picture. There can 
 be no question that with each generation of civilized 
 life there have grown more complex forms of men- 
 tal and moral malady ; and that our riper inquiry 
 has discovered much beyond the knowledge of the 
 past. Here, then, the naturalist finds room for his 
 plausible theory. According to the view of one 
 popular school, which has been largely accepted, 
 the mental and moral powers have their determina- 
 tion in the structure of the skull. A murderer is 
 born with the organ of combativeness, and a thief 
 with acquisitiveness in such excess, coupled with the 
 small development of reverence or social affection, 
 that there could be no escape from crime. It has 
 been affirmed, again, by eminent physiologists, that 
 the germs of every vice arc to be found in some 
 native deranojement of the functions ; and the lines 
 severing the physical from the moral are in most 
 cases so blurred as to make any clear distinction im- 
 possible. All crime is monomania, and all are in a 
 degree monomaniacs. One kleptomaniac, to use 
 the scientific name which lias taken the place of the 
 vulgar word thief, filches rings or old shoes, and 
 another the gold in the bank- vault. One poisons a 
 family, and another butchers his own children. 
 We have the conclusion in the savins' of a master 
 
AND PHYSICAL LAW. 87 
 
 of the same school, that Avlieu our legishition lias 
 become true science, it will treat all criinimils as 
 iiinoeont victims of physical defect. 
 
 "What, then, shall wo think of such ojiinions as 
 these? Thcj have been advanced on the authority 
 of men of professed learnin^% and we should will- 
 ingly extract whatever kernel of truth may be in 
 them. AVe do not doubt the fact and the variety 
 of such disease. VTc rejoice that many cases of 
 physical infirmity, once treated Avith cruelty, are 
 now submitted to the milder discipline of the hos- 
 j)ital. Our knowledge of sanitary laws has improv- 
 ed our criminal jurisprudence ; nor do I doubt 
 that it has cpiickened our faith in the principles 
 of Christian reform rather than the religion of 
 the jail and the gibbet. But it is one thing to 
 admit all such cases in their utmost extent, and 
 (juite another to infer that the bulk of man- 
 kind is irresponsible. We do not punish the 
 idiot or the insane ; but we knoAv that the social 
 community is not made up of idiots or insane. 
 "Wc are all aware of the influence of our physical 
 state on our mental and moral action; we know 
 that a dyspepsia may give us gloomy views of life, 
 and a fit of the gout may make us less good-natured 
 Christians than our wont ; nay, -vve may even find 
 some truth in the theory of ;ui '"'"^onio;! •■ liiiiii(.i'i.st, 
 
00 MORAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 that it may depend on the biliary duct whether 
 we are inclined to a Calvinistic theology or a more 
 genial tone of religion. But none of ns is so ab- 
 T snrd as to deny, Avhatever our morbid humors, that 
 w^e are, in all essential relations of life, capable of 
 moral knowledge and choice. "What strange power 
 this habit of dealing with gases and earths and post- 
 inortem dissections has to make some men of learning 
 the veriest children in their knowledge of the first 
 princij^les of human character or moral law ! , If I 
 should pretend to give an essay on the structure of 
 the lungs, and should say nothing of its normal func- 
 tion, but note all possible cases of tubercular disease, 
 and then conclude that this w^as the nature of the 
 lungs, I should follow the exact method of such rea- 
 soners. To rear a theory of physical necessity out 
 of such exceptional cases is to stultify all know- 
 ledge. It makes no difference between the inherit- 
 ed tendency and the grow^th of evil habits. It 
 offers no hope for struggle against natural weak- 
 ness. It educates our infirmities into full-grown 
 vices. It destroys the Avhole moral basis on whicli 
 society rests. Legislation Avould not become more 
 scientific, but simply incapable of any decision, and 
 at last anarchy. Admirable world ! where each mur- 
 derer could claim his inherited passions as a person- 
 al privilege, each thief urge his irresistible lust ; and 
 
AND rilYSICAL J.XW. 89 
 
 the great robber whom Ave have lately sent to prison 
 could plead that he obeyed the oiiinipotent 
 law of nature, which created him like the shark to 
 prey on the lesser fry of the social waters. Xo ; we 
 may thank God there remain moral sense and com- 
 mon-sense enough to refute sucli sophistry. There 
 are thousands who need the discipline of justice ; 
 and the pretended humanity that forgets it is no 
 mercy, but cruelty to the larger number, who are 
 so unhappy as to have conunitted no crime to 
 entitle them to the interest of our men of science. 
 Xor woidd such science only palsy justice, but it 
 would destroy the motive power of all benevolence. 
 It is idle to talk of any social cure if we deny the 
 fact of moral responsibility. He who has no capa- 
 city to know right from wrong can never learn it ; 
 and if there be no evil save physical infirmity, 
 there is nothing to be learned, for the remedy is 
 as hopeless as the disease. 
 
 But I j^ass to the second of those mysteries 
 so perplexing to many minds — I mean that of 
 ignorance or vicious education. As wc see the 
 growing curse of our civilization, the hideous sta- 
 tistics of the great city, where thousands are bred 
 in the sunless dens of vice, and seemingly doomed 
 to moral death, it is a proldem that at times might 
 tempt us to the merciless doctrine of Darwin, as if 
 
90 JIORAL KESPONSIBILITY 
 
 tlic same law of tlie destruction of the Aveak juany 
 for the survival of the few were as true of the 
 human race as of beast and reptile. But we thank 
 God there is in the evil the ground of a nobler 
 activity. We must not shut our eyes to the Ijear- 
 ing of such facts on a Christian education. Do 
 we accept the religion that would condemn these 
 unhappy thousands hy the same rule we apply to 
 more favored classes ? God forbid such an affront 
 to the Gospel of Christ ! Nor is it to be forgotten 
 that we must begin with the cure of the outward 
 evils, before we can do nmch for the training of 
 the moral or religious character ; that the study of 
 the laws of health, the better adjustment of social 
 labor, the opening of new channels of iiulustry, arc 
 noble features of our reform to-day. P)Ut surely 
 we can admit all that a practical wisdom asks, 
 without concluding that the vices of mankind are 
 wholly the residt of physical law. Yet this is the 
 doctrine taught by a large class of our wise men, 
 in essays on reform, and theories of social science. 
 It is useless to indulge in any speculative fancies of 
 religious or moral improvement. The only aim of 
 jjhilanthropy is to rear this selfish animal man as 
 we rear a breed of Alderneys or a better variety 
 of fowls. Indeed, I knovv^ no book more disheart- 
 ening to every lover of hmnan good than one often 
 
AND rilYSICAL LAW. 91 
 
 quoted as an oracle of tliis modern school ; I mean 
 Buckle's History of Civilization. The principle of 
 l>liysical necessity is his key to all social growth. 
 The moral character of 2)eople or age is as mere a 
 result of outward laws as a record of the weather; 
 and if we know the race, the climate, the conditions 
 uf development, we may reckon the exact propor- 
 tion of thieves, suicides, ninrderers. History, in 
 his vioM', has been altogether falsely written on the 
 theory of human freedom. Its ages, its great men, 
 its progress in art, letters, social polities, all are 
 facts of nature, as the question of the crops and the 
 best ]node3 of drainage. And what, then, does this 
 historic arithmetic prove? It proves no necessity 
 at all. The reckoning of moral probabilities is not 
 like a law of nature. We may learn much from 
 such statistics for the wise method of our philan- 
 throj-jy ; but to infer hence that there is no power 
 of moral action, is a inonstrous folly. What is a 
 sociology that proposes to educate a being without 
 any moral capacity ? Where shall we find in liis- 
 tory, if it be only this product of outward causes, 
 the highest truth that explains the past, or gives 
 hope for the future ? Wonderful philosophy of 
 progress ! It opens a new view of the historic cha- 
 racters of all time. A Domitian is as innocent in 
 the amusement of killing Christians as in catching 
 
92 MORAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 flies. A Borgia is as blameless a hero of his time 
 as a St. Louis. The saints and the sages are as pure 
 a growth of nature as the bread-fruit or the orange. 
 The contests of civil or religious liberty are, as Mil- 
 ton said of the heptarchy, " the battle of kites and 
 crows." 
 
 Is this the law of civilization ? A grub might on 
 the same theory write the rise and fall of his in- 
 sect dynasties. We read law indeed in history ; 
 we know the social inliuences that combine in 
 the growth of its great ages ; l)ut it is the moral 
 power of man, as he struggles Avith the forces 
 of nature and human life, that makes its grandeur. 
 Even in the domain of physical science, methinks 
 a scholar should read the contradiction of such a 
 theory. When I recount the marvels which a 
 gifted countryman of our own in his book on Man 
 and IsTature has gathered with a wealth of learn- 
 ing as rare as is its Christian spirit ; Avhen I 
 remember how the weakest of creatures in bod- 
 ily might has changed our rude planet dming his 
 few thousand years as wondrously as in any of 
 the prehistoric ages ; how, through his toil, there 
 has been a new distribution of plant and animal ; 
 how climates have grown soft as he opened the 
 forests to the sunshine ; lands have heen won from 
 the waters ; his dikes have defied the seas ; rivers 
 
AND niYSICAL LAW. 03 
 
 liavc been guided into fresh channels ; torrid zone 
 and polar ice have yielded their secrets ; I know 
 liiin to he more than the growth and slave of na- 
 ture ; I know the power his Maker gave him 
 to subdue the earth. Yet this is hut the lowest 
 side of his capacity. His history reveals a higher 
 conquest than in the physical M'orld. In that Chris- 
 tianity which our profound sage banishes from his 
 view of civilization as rpiite beneath his interest ; 
 those crowded centm'ies of progress from the 
 hordes of !N^orthern Europe to the world of to-day ; 
 that faith glowing even in the shade of supersti- 
 tion ; those heroes who died at the stake for what 
 our modern wisdom calls a faded legend ; the colos- 
 sal person of a Luther, a Galileo, who led on the 
 new order — in these I see what vindicates the moi;al 
 rank of man, and at the same time shows the liv- 
 ing guidance of God. History is nothing if it be 
 not the biography of such leaders of the race. 
 Take out of civilization this personality, and it is a 
 page as void of human interest as the story of the 
 ichthyosaurus and mammoths. You may call it 
 progress ; I know nothing so cheerless and hopeless 
 as such materialism. Xo ; it is the very opposite 
 that a Christian science teaches. Its triumphs have 
 been the fruit of faith in the cpiickening power of 
 goodness upon the moral nature. It is because, in 
 
9-i MORAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 tlio most depraved of luiman beings, there is some 
 fountain of conscience, like the f resli springs under 
 the salt sea, some striving after purity, some feel-, 
 ing of obligation, that vre have hope in the re- 
 demption of the man or of the race. 
 
 I trust, Christian friends, that this law of re- 
 sponsibility has been made clear to your reason and 
 conscience. I have sought fairly to accept every 
 lisrht which a wise science can cast on the evils of 
 human life ; but I have not disguised my view of a 
 theory as false to science as it is to the spirit of 
 Christianity. Is this the boasted result of modern 
 knowledge; this philosophy that can affront the 
 most sacred convictions of the soul, and dissect 
 the moral nature with as little heed of the hu- 
 man beings around us as of the writhings of a 
 frog under a galvanic battery ? ]N"o ! let such no- 
 tions become, as they may be in an age of curious 
 opinion, the creed of many half-thinking minds ; 
 let the belief in the reality of moral law be shaken, 
 and not only our hold of Christianity, but the life 
 of social virtue will be palsied at the heart. We 
 can not overrate the importance of this one truth. 
 Our faith in the being of God, in the personal Pro- 
 vidence that guides the world, and in a future exist- 
 ence, is bound up with it. I thank God, indeed, 
 that we need have no lasting fear of the triumph 
 
AXD PHYSICAL LAW. 95 
 
 of such error. Science itself will refute the crude 
 theories tliat abuse its name. I look forward witli 
 a hearty faith to the day when its discoveries shall 
 lead the mind of our time to a surer knowledge of 
 that gospel which slieds the only perfect light on 
 tlie darkness of human history and the mystery of 
 evil ; and if the shifting clouds of modern opinion 
 leave us sometimes in shadow, I keep my eyes fixed 
 on the eternal sun. 
 
 And thus, in closing, I would urge on you, my 
 friends, for your own personal belief and action, to 
 prize the sacred iidieritance which God has given 
 you in this moral truth. Let no subtleties of a 
 Christian or an unchristian speculation obscure it. 
 AYliatever the mvsteries of life, whatever the strus- 
 gles of our own personal experience, hold fast the 
 belief that there is a Providence, that duty and ho- 
 liness are realities, that we are not the slaves of 
 destiny, l)ut the children of God. Study that fact 
 of your spiritual being in the history of mankind. 
 Read there the commentary witnessed in every evil 
 life, from the monarchs of crime, who have said, 
 " Evil, be thou my good," to the thousands of lesser 
 wrong-doers; the profligate who has passed from 
 lust to utter nncleanness ; the dishonest who has 
 nursed his greed to open fraud ; the murderer who 
 Ijas plunged from michecked passion into the abyss 
 
96 MORAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 of death. Study it in the biography of all the 
 good who have wrestled with the infirmities of na- 
 ture, and by the grace of God have won the bat- 
 tle ; the scholars, the saints, the heroes, who have 
 left us their lives, next to that of the perfect Mas- 
 ter, to teach us the victory of faith. Study it in 
 your own consciences ; for this knowledge concerns 
 us above all others. "We know that there rests on 
 each of us this law of our responsibility ; and while 
 we can not choose our lot, we can choose to make it 
 the condition of triumj^h or of defeat. "We rejoice 
 in such a gift, but we rejoice with fear. "We rejoice 
 that we are made in the image of God ; we fear 
 that W' e may be the bond-slaves of an evil w^ill : 
 we rejoice that we have the renewing grace of the 
 Holy Spirit; we fear that we may quench it by our 
 own neglect : we rejoice that we may win the life 
 eternal ; we fear while we hold in our slight grasp 
 the issue of life or death. That truth speaks to 
 every honest mind. It speaks for our warning and 
 for our comfort in the mingled record of our past 
 years ; the struggles of passion with duty, the sins, 
 the trials, yet the rewards for which we can thank 
 the Author and Giver of grace. Yes, blessed be 
 God ! this is the witness of a Christian conscience to 
 the truth cJf His Gospel ; and as we close the book 
 of our own hearts and of history, it is with no philo- 
 
AND PHYSICAL LAW 97 
 
 Eopliy of despair, but with a deeper reverence for 
 those laws which He has implanted in our nature, 
 and an unshaken faith in the divine Love that 
 speaks to-day over the body of our humanity, " It 
 is not dead, but sleepeth." 
 
THE RELATIO]^ OF MIRACLES 
 
 TO THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN FAITH. 
 
 REV. J. H. RYLANCE, D.D. 
 
 BKCTOK OF 6T. MARK'S CUUKCH, NEW-YORK. 
 
THE RELATION OF MIRACLES TO THE CHRISTIAN 
 FAITH. 
 
 " If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But 
 if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works." — John 
 10 : 37, 38. 
 
 No unfair reflection "was meant to Lc implied, I 
 take it, in the antithesis between '" Christian Truth 
 and modern Ojnniayi^^ ■svhich Ave find in the gene- 
 ral title of this current course of religious lectures. 
 We are to sec in such superscription no more than 
 a simple, candid recognition of the fact, that be- 
 tween what is commonly regarded as " Christian 
 Truth," on the one hand, and certain "Opinions," 
 theories, or hypotheses, on the other, there exist 
 yarious occasions of dissension and controversy, to- 
 ward an adjustment of which these apologetic dis- 
 courses are meant to he an honest and a substantial 
 contribution. 
 
 How far they will serve to this end will depend, 
 in the main, perhaj^s, upon the intellectual and 
 scholarly competency of those appointed to discuss 
 the several subjects. But something Avill depend. 
 
102 THE RELATION OF MIRACLES 
 
 also, upon the temper or spirit in which such dis- 
 cussions are conducted and accepted. "We are sup- 
 jjosed to enter the arena of debate free from every 
 feeling ^prejudicial to Truth ; with no disposition to 
 dogmatize or dictate ; nor to accept dogmatism, on 
 the one side or on the other. The largest latitude 
 must he allowed to investigation, and the severest 
 exercise to the critical faculty must be freely con- 
 ceded to all, or we had better retire from the strife, 
 and betake ourselves for safety to recognized and 
 accepted authorities. 
 
 The want of such an open-minded and impartial 
 tolerance is an imputation very commonly alleged 
 against the Christian apologist, and the reproach 
 must be acknowledged as sometimes well-deserved. 
 But the charge may be fairly retorted, alas ! upon 
 some who seem to assume that the judicial temper 
 is never disturbed in men of science, nor the line of 
 a rigorous logic ever forcibly bent to sustain a fa- 
 vorite hypothesis. Such a suspicion seldom fairly 
 lies, perhaps, against acknowledged leaders* of sci- 
 entific thought ; but in the ranks of their followers, 
 there are many, it may be feared, who strain the 
 doctrines of their masters, or make inferential ap- 
 plications of them, which betray what we may 
 mildly term an unscientific animus. Men of this 
 order constitute in our day a sort of lay-priesthood. 
 
TO THP: CIIllISTIAN FAITH. 103 
 
 as narrow, and intolerant, and tyrannous in temper 
 as the priesthood of the Churcli ever Avas in the 
 days of its darkest supremacy. And this temper 
 we encounter in its most arrogant mood specially 
 in the field assigned me for discussion this evening. 
 Inspired and fortified by tlie predominant tenden- 
 cies and teachings of modern Materialism, scientific 
 skepticism has waxed bold and defiant of late, and 
 the spirit of this type of infidelity to-day is not so 
 much one of doubt, as of scorn, of all supernatural 
 claims and pretensions. The leading adversaries of 
 historical Christianity, in this school, disdainfully 
 refuse to consider any evidence whatever submitted 
 in favor of any special intervention u])oii the estalj- 
 lislied order of Nature, but start with the assump- 
 tion as a postulate, that a miracle is impossible. 
 
 The extravagance of such a position must be ob- 
 vious, however, to every candid thinker. Such a 
 sweeping negative is incapable of being proved, ex- 
 cept by an exhaustive induction, not only of all the 
 facts of Nature as we know it now, but of all its 
 past transitions and stages of development, and of 
 all the possibilities which the future may have in re- 
 serve. The ])ossibilitii of miracles, indeed, cannot 
 be consistently denied, except on the ground of 
 sheer Atheism. But the existence of a supernatu- 
 ral Being is necessarily assumed in the very terms 
 
104 THE RELATION OF MIRACLES 
 
 of the controversy between Faitli and Unbelief. If 
 sueli a preliminary claim be denied, cadit qucestio : 
 there is an end, of course, to all argument upon the 
 matter. The system of Nature can not arrest or in 
 any way interfere with its own order and functions. 
 In other words, Nature can not be ,swj96?'-natural.* 
 
 The abstract possibility of miracles must there- 
 fore be conceded before advance can be made in 
 any direction in the conduct of the discussion. The 
 question of the moral or contingent possibility of 
 such phenomena remains, and such possibility may 
 be legitimately denied. But the denial cannot be 
 allowed to rest upon a merely partial induction of 
 facts, or upon evidence derived only from one 
 sphere of thought or research. For the problem is 
 mixed, and its solution can not be left to any one 
 professional school. Let the Materialist, or the Po- 
 sitivist, or the representatives of any of our various 
 types of naturalistic science, submit their facts and 
 arguments in disproof of the claim that Almighty 
 God has ever intervened, or that lie does intervene, 
 or that He ever will intervene, in a supernatural 
 way, with the order or functions of Nature, and the 
 evidence must be received with the respect due to 
 
 * " The possibility of a miracle is iavolved in the recogai- 
 tion of a Divine will."— Prof. Plcmptre. 
 
TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 105 
 
 its intrinsic force. But Moral and Spiritual Pliilo- 
 sophyand Historical Criticism will claim to be heard 
 at the same bar, not merely in mitigation of the 
 evidence supplied by Physical Science, but in rever- 
 sal of some of its characteristic conclusions. For 
 tliough Physical Science may be competent to affirm 
 what is, within the limits of its own observation 
 and experiment, it is not competent, ^wort^ Science, 
 to say what has or has 7iot been in the past, or what 
 mai/ or may 7wt be in the future, except as a pre- 
 sumption from tlic present order of tilings ; or to 
 say what the cause or causes are, or are not, to which 
 Science is compelled, in the last analysis, to assign 
 all the varied phenomena which crowd the field tif 
 its investigation. 
 
 The student of a merely phenomenal science Ije- 
 comcs intrusive and impertinent, therefore, when 
 he presumes to prescribe limits to the possibilities 
 of the mysterious Energy which works beneath and 
 through phenomena, or to the Intelligence which 
 seems to direct its operations and issues ; but he be- 
 comes positively offensive and ludicrously illogical 
 when he propounds his universal negative as a bar 
 to all farther investigation or debate, which nega- 
 tive he can only sustain, if he condescend to defend 
 his position at all, by u very limited induction of so- 
 called facts, many of which may be still open to re- 
 
106 THE RELATION OF MIRACLES 
 
 view, wliile some may be doomed to final rejection. 
 Let him say that lie finds no trace of miraculous in- 
 trusion upon the order and sequences of Nature 
 within the widest scope of his inspection or experi- 
 ment, and we assent. No one claims any such dis- 
 covery. But let him confess, too, if lie would be 
 consistent with the wise reserve of the best minds 
 of his own school, and with the essential limits of 
 its special sphere, that a merely phenomenal science 
 can never be made to yield a particle of evidence 
 against iha jyossihility of miracles. 
 
 I shall hold myself justified, therefore, in assum- 
 ing a Tlieistic basis for the argument I am liere to 
 submit, while I may be allowed to premise, also, 
 that the range of the discussion will be confined to 
 the miracles ascribed to Christ and His apostles, 
 deeming it enough to authenticate the principle, 
 without attempting to define the extent of its ap- 
 plication. The substantial truth of the Gospel his- 
 tories will be assumed, for it is not worth while to 
 discuss the meaning or the value of the words or 
 works of One the reality of whose life and character 
 is denied ; not meaning to cover by such assump- 
 tion, of cQurse, the question in debate, but availing 
 myself of such materials only as the most destruc- 
 tive school of criticism concedes. 
 
 In venturing to advance, tlierefore, let it be 
 
TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 107 
 
 frankly admitted that tliere arc antecedent, instinc- 
 tive, necessary presumptions aii^ainst the credibility 
 of any event reputed to be miraculous ; Avhich pre- 
 sumptions arc inspired by the nniformity of Na- 
 ture, and conlirmed by the practical trust -vve arc 
 compelled to repose in her invariable and stead- 
 fast order, and by the beneiicent results of obedi- 
 ence to her equal, inflexible laws. And this instinc- 
 tive feeling or faith has been immensely fortified 
 l)y the progress of scientiiic discovery, very notably 
 \yitliin recent years. From the time of Thales, 
 such progress has largely consisted in " the elimi- 
 nation of supposed Divine interferences, and in the 
 disclosure of an established order. One department 
 of Xaturc after another has been brought within 
 the circle of ascertained law. Plienomena, seem- 
 ingly capricious, luTvc been found to recur with ar 
 regularity not less unvarying than the succession of 
 day and night."* A comet was once looked upon 
 as a sort of firebrand, wdiich the Almighty had 
 thrown into space to startle and to terrify the occu- 
 pants of our globe, and its career was watched in 
 amazement and fear, lest haply it might strike this 
 unruly orb, and light it up as a great funeral-pyre, 
 a spectacle and a warning to the outlying sisterhood 
 
 * Prof. Fisher. 
 
108 THE RELATION OF MIRACLES 
 
 of worlds. But to-day, we track its brilliant mardi 
 through the heavens with as much composure as we 
 trace the silvery pathway of the quiet moon. Pes- 
 tilence was once the arbitrary infliction of Divine 
 vengeance upon the sins and depravities of peoples. 
 Now, we have theoretically and practically come to 
 account for it as a consequence of the breach of san- 
 itary laws. The earthquake was once esteemed no- 
 thing less than the immediate voice of God, and it 
 was the direct hand of Omnipotence which tore the 
 hills from their foundations, and rent the bars of 
 the solid eartli, burying cities and populations in a 
 common grave. Now, it is merely the unequally 
 distril^uted forces of Xature flnding an outlet for 
 themselves in this somewhat rude and disorderly 
 way. Thus scientific research and achievement 
 have combined with the popular instinct to create 
 not merely an antipathy, but what passes among 
 some for a well-grounded conviction, against all ar- 
 guments in favor of the super-natural. Yet the 
 feeling is nothing better than an imposing preju- 
 dice, while, logically regarded, the conclusion has 
 been reached by a sort of Icaji in the dark ; for 
 though the induction has been carried far beyond 
 the limit to which our forefathers had applied tlie 
 process, it is confessedly very far from complete 
 still, viewed in regard to either Space or Time. 
 
TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 109 
 
 And since Science is forward to tell us that she 
 knows nothing of causes or of final ends, that she 
 simply seeks to know what is, and not the whence, 
 or w/ii/, or whither of things, there may be, be- 
 yond the penetration of her finest instruments, or 
 the detection of her subtlest analysis, or the discov- 
 ery of her Ijoldest explorations, a supernatural In- 
 telligence and Power, evidence of whose s})eeial 
 operation may be possibly found in other spheres, 
 which Physical Science has failed to find in her 
 own. It is at least premature, therefore, if not im- 
 pertinent, to tell us that the evidence is all in, and 
 the verdict recorded, while the evidence is avowedly 
 defective, and the verdict ex imrte. 
 
 The fashionable but pitifully inadequate concej)- 
 tion of Nature, in the world of modern Material- 
 ism, is that Nature is a purely physical organism, 
 whose causes are i)i and whose effects are wholly 
 from itself ; a huge automatic machine, Avhich has 
 in it, either by original endowment or from an in- 
 herent necessity, the powers of self-movement, 
 self-renewal, self -propagation. The great Artificer, 
 when lie built it (if, in mere courtesy, Science Avill 
 still allow that Kature ever had a Maker at all), left 
 it to run on without intervention or inspection from 
 Ilim ; left it to grind out results in a blind, releiit- 
 less way, which it were wise if men would look 
 
110 THE DELATION OF ]\[IKACLES 
 
 upon as stern necessities merely, and enjoy tliem or 
 endure tlieni in tliankless, dumb submission. Xa- 
 ture lias thus been deified l)y tlie disciples of our 
 latest infidelity ; lier laws are adequate to account 
 for all phenomena, to satisfy all necessities. A Di- 
 vine Providence was the amiable conceit of our in- 
 tellectual infancy. Men arc wiser now. Nature is 
 the all and in all. She has the springs of a pei'pe- 
 tnal movement and progress in herself. Xo intelli- 
 gence guides her course ; no almighty hand con- 
 trols her functions. She is a scheme of rigid and 
 relentless necessity ; the incarnation of fate ; an end- 
 less round of cause and effect ; a huge mill, in which 
 ]nan is doomed to tread the ever-circling wheel till 
 he drop into the oblivion beneath. But cries or en- 
 treaties can not help him ; so, like the wiser brute, 
 let him step j^atiently to time, or the great wheel 
 may grind him to powder. 
 
 This is the Gospel of modern Materialism, and 
 the deus e.e machina Avhich Avorlcs all the mighty 
 wonders which we group imder this souicM'hat 
 vague term Xaturc, 's Law, to the loose or merely 
 rhetorical use of which word we may trace many of 
 the impotent conclusions Avhich some of our best 
 minds seem to have reached in their attempts to 
 discredit the accepted faith of Christendom. Com- 
 mon peojile are filled with :i muto reverence as they 
 
TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. Ill 
 
 sit at tlic feet of our scientilic authorities, wlio talk 
 so imposingly of tlic onuiipotencc and immutability 
 of law ; which law, tliey tell us, is adequate to ac- 
 count for all the phenomena of the universe, with 
 no indebtedness to a Supreme Power. We are im- 
 posed upon by words, maxims, formula; ; for, strict- 
 ly sj)eakin<^, a law is nothing but a generalization of 
 the mind, an intellectual abstraction, and has no 
 concrete or potential existence at all. The mind 
 perceives, through observation or by experiment, 
 that phenomena come into being or transpire uni- 
 formly mider certain conditions, and then we are 
 said to have discovered the law of their being or 
 operation ; but in truth, we have simply discovered 
 and formulated the conditions or coincidences of 
 their l)eing and action. " A scientific law is not an 
 ordinance, but a record." There is something; be- 
 neath or l^ehind the phenomena which produced 
 them, but what that somethiiig is we must learn 
 clseAvhere than in llic school of Phj'sical Science. 
 " The mere ticketing and orderly assortment of ex- 
 ternal facts," observes tlie Duke of Argyll, " is con- 
 tinually spoken of as if it were in the nature of ex- 
 planation, and as if no higher truth in respect to 
 natural phenomena were to be attained or desired ;" 
 and we are left to infer that there is no call foraiiy 
 power al)u\c or l)eyond laAV, either to originate or 
 
112 THE RELATION OF MIKACLES 
 
 direct its movements. This would seem to be the 
 faith of the fashionable philosophj iu our day, 
 which is seldom formally and fully affirmed, liow- 
 ' ever, but which is rather implied or insinuated in a 
 vague, grandiloquent style of talk. But by the in- 
 jection of a logical solvent, we may detect the most 
 extravagant absurdities in such wide-sweeping as- 
 sumptions. " The universe is ordered and ruled by 
 law " — that is the favorite formula. But it covers 
 an enormous fallacy. Ordered and ruled by law ! 
 Why, then, order is the Orderer ! the rule is the 
 Ttuler ! wliicli claim involves an absurdity, since or- 
 der is a resultant of some anterior cause or causes ; 
 and we are thus detected in confounding sequences 
 witli antecedents, and are fairly chargeable with 
 talking nonsense. 
 
 " No," it might be said, " not law as a mere gener- 
 alization, as an observed uniformity of processes or 
 results only ; that is not Avhat is meant. But law as 
 the expression oi force, Avliich operates and reveals 
 itself through fixed laws." Yes, force ! It is 
 manifest that we have needed that conception all 
 along to complete our conception of Nature. Co- 
 existences, resemblances, and successions are not 
 enough. Laws are more than " an observed order of 
 facts." They are the grooves, so to speak, through 
 which some sort of insj}iration, injlue?ic€, j)owcr. 
 
TO THE CHKISTIAN FAITH. 113 
 
 flows, llnding expression fur itself in manifold and 
 ever-varying phenomena. Force is thus admitted 
 by all to 1)0 an indispensable postulate in the inter- 
 pretation of Nature, of ■which a large, free use is 
 made in current speculation, especially in the vari- 
 ous schools of materialistic philosophy, in which the 
 conception is made to fill the A'acancy created by 
 the denial of a personal God. Force is thus the 
 latest name given to the " unknown god " of Sci- 
 ence ; a convenient designation of that animat- 
 ing, energizing, wonder-working Power which ever 
 escapes detection ; that subtle, mysterious Some- 
 thing which penetrates and vitalizes e\cry atom 
 in the universe ; which 
 
 " Warms iu tlie suu, refreslies in the breeze, 
 (•lows iu tlie stars, and blossoms in the trees ;" 
 
 but of Avhich Ave learn no more as to its origin or 
 essence when we trace it to " protoplasm " with 
 Mr. Huxley, or call it " animal spirits " with Des 
 Cartes. We cover the mystery with a name, and 
 fondly assume we have explained it ; but we are no 
 nearer to a solution of the great problem tlian be- 
 fore. 
 
 But we have made an immense advance toward 
 a sounder philosophy of Nature, and toward a 
 worthier conception of something beyond and 
 
114 THE KELATION OF MIRACLES 
 
 above Nature, since we liavc had done Avith bar- 
 ren talk about some sort of self-executive me- 
 elianism as the best account to be given of the 
 present econonij of things ; more especially since 
 we have learned to speak, not of forces, but of 
 Force. " The tendency of Natural Science, in its 
 earlier stages, is to establish a plurality of forces. 
 Nature is conceived to have in stock as inany pow- 
 ers as she has kinds of ])roduct to display," But 
 since it has been shown that " all the forces com- 
 prised mider the term ' physical ' are so ' corre- 
 lated ' as to be no sooner exj^ended in one form 
 than they reappear in another — in fact, to be con- 
 ^■ertible inter se — a dynamic identity, masked by 
 transmigration," lias been established ; which doc- 
 trine has been carried up and applied to Yital and 
 Mental forces — tlie conclusion, now universally ac- 
 cepted, being, that " the plurality of forces is an il- 
 lusion ; tliat, in reality, and behind the variegated 
 veil of phenomena, tliere is but one force, the soli- 
 tary fountain of the Avhole infinitude of change."* 
 
 Strangely enough, then, through avenues that we 
 never expected to conduct us thither, we have come 
 upon an underlying central Unity, of which all out- 
 ward forms and functions are but the necessary in- 
 
 * Hev. James Martiueau. 
 
TO THE CUIUSTIAN FAITH. 115 
 
 struuicuts or results. The multitude of yods with 
 which the older sciences had peopled space have all 
 vanished, and in their stead Ave have one grand, 
 awful, onniipresent Power! It is surely to be count- 
 ed a solid gain to those who have all along held 
 that Nature, manifold and devious in form and 
 movement, is nevertheless a witness to the unity of 
 something deeper than Xature, and which they, in 
 their innocence or fanaticism, have been content to 
 call (ron. 
 
 But wc liavc come upon something more wonder- 
 ful still, even upon that which Philosopliy claims, 
 with the assent of Science, to call Spiritxiality ; not 
 in its full theological sense, perhaps, but as an ad- 
 missible designation of an attribute which we are 
 compelled to regard as hyperphysical or immateri- 
 al. " If," says the writer just quoted, '* we are to 
 reduce the numerical variety of forces to one, which 
 member of the series is to remain as the type of all? 
 Shall we more rightly presume that the lowest term, 
 the mechanical, passes upward and reappears in the 
 form of mind? or that the highest descends, divest- 
 ing itself of ju'crogative cpialities at each step, and 
 appearing at last with (piantitative identity alone ? 
 For answer to these (piestions, we nnist turn from 
 the physical to the metaphysical scrutiny of the 
 main conception Cast your eye, then, along 
 
IIG THE RELATIOX OF MIllACLES 
 
 tlie series enumerated by Grove and Carpenter, and 
 ask yourself in which of these forms the djTiamic 
 idea originally necessitates itself. Is it that you 
 have to supply it on seeing an external body change 
 its place? or on Avitnessing some chemical phenom- 
 enon, as an acid stain of red on a blue cloth ? or on 
 noticing the needle quiver to the North ? It will be 
 admitted that, if we ourselves were purely j)assive, 
 all these changes might cross oiu* visual field with 
 only the eifect of a time-succession — first one move- 
 ment and then another ; Avhile, conversely, if, with- 
 out any of these phenomena exhibiting themselves 
 before us, wo ourselves were in tlie active exercise 
 of Volition more or less difficult, the idea of Force 
 would be provided for. It follows that Will is the 
 true type of the conception." " The sense of ef- 
 fort," Dr. Carpenter affirms, is the ground of all 
 our " causal thought," " the form of Force which 
 may be taken as the type of all the rest," declaring 
 that our consciousness of Force is really as direct as 
 is that of our own mental states ; and concluding 
 that " Force must be regarded as tlie direct expres- 
 sion or manifestation of that mental state which we 
 call Will."* 
 
 Do Ave realize the grandeur and scoj^e of this doc- 
 
 ■" " Mutual Relations of the Vital and Physical Forces." 
 
TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 117 
 
 trine? a doctrine Avliich finds its ultimate anthority 
 in consciousness and its sanction in the council- 
 chamber of Science — know we what it means ? It 
 means, in the language of an acknowledged author- 
 ity in the world of experimental philosophy,* 
 " that the laws of Nature are but the modes of ope- 
 ration of the Divine Intelligence, that the forces of 
 Nature arc but the omnipresent energizing Divine 
 "Will, that even the objects of Nature arc but the 
 embodiments of Divine thoughts." It means that 
 all the forms and functions of Nature are the ex- 
 pressions, mediate or immediate, of an immanent 
 Mind, of an omniscient and omnipotent God, " from 
 whom, and by whom, and to whom are all things, 
 to whom be glory and dominion for ever !" 
 
 In the conduct of the discussion thus far, I have 
 been chietly aiming to secure a fulcrum on which to 
 rest the lever of a positive argument. Is it too 
 much to claim that the task is accomplished ? Na- 
 ture is not a Totality nor a Finality ; but a passive 
 and an obedient instrument in the hands of Intelli- 
 gence and Power, which direct the complex Organ- 
 ism toward the attainment of other and higher ends 
 than its own being and necessities. A new class of 
 terms, therefore, have successfully asserted their 
 
 * Prof. Le Conte. 
 
118 THE RELATION OF MIRACLES 
 
 claim to admission into the vocabulary of Science — 
 Intelligence, Will, Purpose — which can never again 
 be remitted to the region of pure abstractions, or be 
 counted as among the mere "fictions of metaphy- 
 sics." They are recognized positive factors or postu- 
 lates in the latest conception or scheme of the uni- 
 verse, which Physical Science has effectively contri- 
 buted to construct. As we track our way along the 
 ever-ascending line in pursuit of "the great secret," 
 the process here culminates in man ; and in the liber- 
 ty, intelligence, and will of man, we have the essen- 
 tial lineaments of an image of God. What I have 
 hitherto argued for as a possibility^ in this higher 
 sphere, is fact. Man is not a thing., but a jpoiver^ 
 " working all things," within the limited area allot- 
 ted him, " after the counsel of his own will ;" tak- 
 ing hold of the raw material of things, and, recom- 
 bining its forms and relations and forces, getting 
 at results which J^ature alone never could have 
 attained, the conception and realization of which 
 are due to the intervention and controlling supre- 
 macy of Mind, which thus asserts its supernatural 
 character and prerogative by crossing, suspending, 
 or invigorating the functions and j)i'Ocesses of 
 ^Nature, in the accomplishment of purposes above 
 Nature ; in meeting necessities of which ITature 
 knows nothing, breaking through the environment 
 
TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 110 
 
 of economic restrictions, or bending them to tlie 
 furtherance of thought, affection, aspiration ; mould- 
 ing the crude clay of things into marvelous forms 
 of beauty, or directing it to liigli and beneficent 
 uses ; seeking, through all combinations, processes, 
 scrutinies, to read the riddle of moral being, to find 
 some prophecy of a higher destiny, to catch some 
 echo of a voice which may lead us through " this 
 dim obscure," into the light and joy of an eternal 
 home! Has any such A'oice been heard in our 
 world? AVe arc in quest of an answer to that 
 inquiry. 
 
 A footing for the argument is conceded then. 
 If man is a wonder-worker, we may possibly dis- 
 cover groimd for faith in a 7mracle-^vovker. AVlien 
 we have climbed to the plane of man's inferior lord- 
 ship of Nature, the ascent is continuous still, and wc 
 climb up through hint and inference, tlu'ough ana- 
 logy, intuition, revelation, to the uppermost con- 
 ceivable plane of an infinite Intelligence and Power. 
 The human will is the acknowledged spring of a 
 spontaneous energy. Somewhere there must be a 
 Fountain-head of that energy which streams through 
 all the avenues and conduits of creation. By the 
 causal intervention of man upon the order and se- 
 quences of Nature, results are reached confessedly 
 praeter-natural. It cannot be deemed a shocking 
 
120 THE KELATION OF MIRACLES 
 
 impiety therefore, or a merely conventional super- 
 stition, to conceive of Almighty God other than as 
 an idle spectator of the automatic movements of a 
 manifold organism. Christianity is a bold and per- 
 sistent affirmation of the fact, that God not only • 
 constructed the organism, but that lie directs its 
 movements, and that at certain epochs of its history, 
 imder special groups of conditions. He has come 
 down upon its ordinary workings in what we are 
 Avont to call a miraculous way. What is the char- 
 acter and value of the evidence upon which such a 
 claim or pretension rests ? 
 
 The case may be broadly stated thus. Jesus Christ 
 and His Apostles profess to have wrought, or it is 
 claimed that they wrought, many wonderful works, 
 under the immediate authority and by the special 
 power of God. I do not add, be it observed, as 
 " signs" or authenticating notes of a Divine commis- 
 sion ; for that were an unnecessary and unjust limita- 
 tion of the facts in many cases. All of Christ's mir- 
 acles may have been signs or attestations of His di- 
 vine mission hi effect, but not all of them were such 
 by immediate and express design. Many of the won- 
 ders wrought by Jesus must be regarded as the re- 
 sults of a spontaneous effluence of wisdom and good- 
 ■ ness, in connection with which it is gratuitous to 
 find any evidential design whatever. These wonders 
 
TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 121 
 
 or signs, it may be added, moreover, are so wrought 
 up into tlie texture of the story of Christ's life, that 
 it is simply impossible to eliminate the ordinary 
 from the exceptional elements of its contents. The 
 New Testament records these events in a plain, 
 straiglitforward, imambiguous style, as historically 
 true. They cannot be fairly regarded as mere ap- 
 pendages to the life and work of Christ, whicli we 
 can reject without damage to the substantial integ- 
 rity of the record, or to the coherence and unity of 
 the character and mission of Jesus ; fur when we 
 liave discarded the praeter-natural facts of the 
 Christian Scrii)tures, it will be found that we have 
 a very meagre and fragmentary residuum left, in the 
 shape of ethical and practical precepts. The Incar- 
 nation and the Hesurrection of Christ, at least, must 
 be held to be integral factors of the Gospel, or the 
 story of Evangelists and Apostles l)ecomes " another 
 Gospel," of which Clu-istendoni: lias known nothing, 
 I am not saying that tlic case Avas actually so, which 
 would Ijc to ])reclude all further argument on the 
 subject ; but that so runs the record. The issue 
 is plain, therefore, and cannot be evaded. If the 
 miracles of Christ are incredible, the New Testa- 
 ment is incredible ; Christianity is incredible ; for 
 as a distinctive system, it manifestly rests on the 
 miraculous advent and work of One who said, " If 
 
122 THPJ RELATION OF MIRACLES 
 
 I do not tlie works of my Futlier, believe me not ; 
 but if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the 
 works." 
 
 This broad statement requires to be limited, how- 
 ever, by sundry qualifications, through Avhich the 
 precision and force of the argument may come into 
 fuller view. We arc to keep the mind free of all 
 suspicion, iu the first place, that Christ's miracles 
 were, in any true sense, merely arbitrary infrac- 
 tions upon the domain of a Divine order. We are 
 to claim for them rather that they were beneficent 
 reassertions and vindications of such order ; repara- 
 tions of defective or diseased parts of the great 
 Ivosmos, as when He healed the leper or gave sight 
 to the blind. Such phenomena require us to con- 
 cede no more than an orderly subordination of 
 secondary to primary causes. We are familiar witli 
 such subordination in tlie sphere of hitman enter- 
 prise and achievement. Is it only when a Divine 
 power comes down upon the chain of causation, dis- 
 pensing with intennediate processes, that such inter- 
 ference is to be deemed a lawless intrusion ? The 
 doctrine of the late Mr. Baden Powell, of " a series 
 of eternally impressed consequences," is sometimes 
 assumed by our scientific schools to afford a key to 
 the true interpretation of Nature. Ficlite, as cited 
 by the late Dean Mansel, gives us a very picturesque 
 
TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 123 
 
 Btatement of the doctrine. " Let us imagine," says 
 he, '• this grain of sand lying some few feet further 
 inland than it actually does. Then must the storm- 
 
 ■ wind that drove it in from the seasliore have been 
 stronger than it actually was. Then must the pre- 
 ceding state of the atmosphere by which this wind 
 was occasioned, and its degree of strength deter- 
 mined, have been different from what it was, and 
 the previous changes which gave rise to this parti- 
 cular weather; and all to carry tliis particular grain 
 of sand a few feet farther than the point where it 
 actually lies !'' All perfectly pertinent and just, 
 U23on the one assumption that there is nothing in 
 God's creation but automatic mechanism, or blind, 
 determinate forces. But there is, unless the con- 
 sciousness and experience of the world are illusions 
 or lies. The human Will is a fountain of free force, 
 which suspends or modifies the action of the mighti- 
 est and most inexorable laws of Xature, as when 1 
 lift a hand or move a foot, 1 arrest or limit the law 
 of gravitation ; and yet no one dreams of shock or 
 
 'disturbance of any sort to the normal order of 
 things from such interference with its ordinary 
 antecedents and seqiiences. Only let the same 
 freedom and prerogative be conceded to the Divine 
 "Will, on a higher and wider plane of operation, and 
 what becomes of the charrce that a miracle means 
 
124 THE EELATION OF MIRACLES 
 
 anarchy and ruin to " the constitntion and course of 
 Nature "? And yet it is by sncli sophistical plead- 
 ing that men seek to justify the horror they affect 
 to feel whenever we speak of the miracles of Christ ! 
 while the advocates of Christian Truth have some- 
 times incautionsly lent support to such an antipathy, 
 in speaking of a miracle as a 'violation of natural 
 law ; which is to be regarded as a merely A-erbal in- 
 discretion, perhaps, in most instances, but Avhich 
 allows of mischievous inferences and applications, 
 of which their adversaries have not been slow to 
 take advantage. It is unfortunate that the phrase 
 ever gained currency, since it seems to imply some 
 sort of conflict in the Divine jjlan and government 
 of the world. "Whereas it must .follow, from the 
 conception of the Supreme Ruler as inflnitely wise 
 and powerful, that there can never have arisen any 
 occasion of contradiction or collision in the economy 
 which He iirst ordained and continues to administer. 
 He could never have been taken by surprise by any 
 emergency not before- provided for, nor can there 
 possibly have ensiiccl any sort of failure in the 
 accomplishment of His purposes calling for any 
 special intervention of wisdom or power, which we 
 could reasonably regard as special to the Divine 
 Mind, at least, though possibly appearing special 
 to finite Intelligences. AVe are to concei\'e of a 
 
TO THE CHRISriAN FAITH. 125 
 
 miracle, therefore, not as a violent irruption of 
 power npon the normal tirder and action of things, 
 but as a subordination of ordinary to extraordinary 
 ., causes, ]>rovided for in the original scheme and con- 
 stitution of the universe. And thus we mav vin- 
 dicate the place and function Avhich arc claimed for 
 miracles, without resorting to assumptions which do 
 violence to our necessary conceptions of the Divine 
 government as a government under fixed and har- 
 monious laws. 
 
 We are to guard, in the next place, against the 
 conception or the application of the Christian mir- 
 acles as C07nj>leto in tliemselves / as destitute of all 
 moral value, and void of all moral aim. T-'c arc to 
 regard them rather as the legitimate effects of 
 causes which embraced in the sco2)c of their opera- 
 tion and aim such phenomena as mere incidents in 
 their wider working ; as links in a chain which runs 
 along all the steps and stages of that sublime evolu- 
 tion of the Divine counsels of which history is a 
 fragmentary record, and au installment of the jfinal 
 intei-pretation. Thus viewed, miracles were the 
 natural consequences, so to speak, of the advent and 
 ministry of a Divine Messenger, which occasion not 
 only justified, but demanded such special displays 
 of goodness and power in the furtherance of its 
 mighty jjurposes, in meeting the exigencies of the 
 
126 THE KELATION OF MIKACLES 
 
 great moral epochs of history ; exigencies which 
 existed not in Nature^ but in Man^ in that he had 
 become blinded and liardened by sin, and needed 
 some higlier manifestation of the presence and 
 power of God. If we can only rise to a just and ade- 
 quate conception of Christ's mission among men, 
 it Avill be easy to conceive of miracles as tlie fit 
 and, shall I say, necessary accompaniments of such 
 a ministry. In the .prosecution of His sublime 
 enterprise, the Divine Son of Man resorted to un- 
 wonted exercises of wisdom and power, very much 
 as a missionary to lieathen peoples {magna compo- 
 nere ixirvii) may avail liimself of the deeper re- 
 sources of Nature which Science has revealed, from 
 an instinctive benevolence, or to carry conviction of 
 liis authority to the minds of those to whom he is 
 sent, the effect of which may not only seeiii^ but in 
 some sense may actually Jd, miraculous to the be- 
 nighted intellects of those around him. By recom- 
 bining the elements and forces of Kature — as in the 
 cure of certain diseases, for instance — he might work 
 what to such barbarians would be super-human 
 Avorks. A deeper and completer knowledge would 
 regard such achievements as natural, of course, as 
 coming within the scope of Nature, or as resulting 
 from qualities and energies potentially in Nature ; 
 but they would be j^/w^er-natural to the savage. I 
 
TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 127 
 
 know the slippery place on which I ain supposed to 
 stand while indnl^ini^ in such speculations ; and I 
 am prepared to hear the reply : " That is just the ex- 
 planation of the M'onders you call miracles in the 
 case of Christ." We may at least be thankful to the 
 progress of Science for rendering such an answer, 
 nut only impertinent, luit irrational, in the sense 
 intended by our adversaries. Every theory pro- 
 posed to account for the miracles of the New Testa- 
 ment as "wrought by any sort of legerdemain, or by 
 the occult knowledge and use of merely natural im- 
 plements and resources as then or now known to 
 men, has been discredited, and is now abandoned 
 by all. What I have been just aiming to suggest is, 
 such a conception of the miracles of Jesus as may 
 reconcile us to the habit of regarding them, not as 
 i/^i-natural, still less as anti-natural ; but simply as 
 being heyond Kature as we Tcnoio it, but not as be- 
 yond Nature an God knows it; by extending the 
 term into the upper realm of Divine Providence, 
 for which I may claim the indorsement of Joseph 
 Butler." 
 
 And, finally, in the way of qualification : let us 
 aim to get an intelligent grasp upon the function 
 and jJurpose of miracles in their relation to the 
 
 * Analogy, p. ii. cliap. ii. 
 
128 THE RELATION OF MIRACLES 
 
 Christian Faith. Most men of discernment have 
 been broiiglit to acknowledge tliat the place com- 
 monly assigned to miracles in the Evidences of 
 Christianity Avas once too high and exclusive ; while 
 they are sometimes disparaged in our day as not 
 only worthless, hut as an incumbrance to the Chris- 
 tian apologist. " Miracles," it has been said, " in- 
 stead of affording satisfactory proof of any thing, are 
 now usually found in the dock, instead of the w^it- 
 ness-box, of the court of criticisni." And in ac- 
 knowledgment of the partial justice of this caveat, 
 Christian scholars are found discussing the credl- 
 hility of miracles, and seeking to determine the ques- 
 tion whether the doctrine proves the miracle^ or the 
 miracle the doctrine. Such an attitude of mind be- 
 trays confusion or perversion of intellect. No such 
 sharp line can be run between the various kinds of 
 evidence which may be brought in proof of the 
 truth of the Christian religion ; no absolute and in- 
 variable precedence can be established in behalf of 
 any one line of evidence over others. Justl}^ re- 
 garded, they arc not merely mutually sustaining, 
 but constituent parts of a complex whole. From 
 one point of view, or in regard to one condition of 
 the moral nature, the Avords of Jesus may be final 
 and sufficient, " If any man will do his will, he 
 shall know of the doctrine that it is of God ;" while 
 
TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 129 
 
 to men of another temper and complexion of clia- 
 raeter, lie may say, " Go, and tell what things ye 
 hear and see." From the one point of view or 
 tone of mind, we may say with IVIr. Coleridge, 
 " The evidences of Christanity are — Christianity ;" 
 while from another, we may say with John Foster, 
 '' Miracles tolled the great bell of the Universe, and 
 Christianity was the sermon that followed."' The 
 two lines of light converge to the same point. The 
 supernatnral spiritual power within, flowed forth, as 
 occasion called, in supernatural expressions of love 
 or wisdom or might without. The life was one ; all 
 its effluences were from the same source, all its pur- 
 poses had the same end. "We forget this, and go 
 astray sometimes in the use of technical distinctions, 
 or in attempting to distribute the phenomena into 
 independent groups. Some of the manifestations 
 of Christ's character we look upon as exceptional, 
 and we call them miraculous ; but only to our lower 
 and limited apprehension were they such ; not as 
 involving any incoherence, or want of unity of any 
 sort, in the character itself. Miracles are nothing 
 but stupendous marvels when A'iewed alone. They 
 prove nothing ; they mean nothing ; they are em- 
 barrassments in the way of Faith. But viewed as 
 part of a system of things having the same origin 
 and inspiration and end, in the line of a continuous 
 
130 THE RELATION OF MIRACLES 
 
 evolution of moral and spiritual teaching, as steps 
 toward the great consummation which Christ came 
 to accomplish, miracles take their j)lace in the 
 evolving order, as at once authenticating and au- 
 thenticated " signs" of a mission which is essen- 
 tially supernatural in its "whole conception, execu- 
 tion, and aim. We must look at the whole of the 
 case, in forming an estimate of the function and 
 purpose of miracle ; at the preliminary dispensa- 
 tions of God's wisdom and grace ; at the exigencies 
 of time, and place, and moral condition, when and 
 in which the signs and wonders are alleged to have 
 been wrought ; trying, above all, to take in some- 
 thing like an adequate conception of the person and 
 office of Christ ; of tlie breadth and elevation and 
 simplicity and beauty of His character ; of the mani- 
 festly exceptional place He fills in the moral econo- 
 my of the world, and in the unfolding of the plan 
 of God, and of the solemn and everlasting issues of 
 His life and death. Take all into accoimt, and what 
 appeared to be incidental discrepancies, perhaps, 
 before will resolve themselves into order and har- 
 mony ; seemingly discordant facts will be found 
 mutually sustaining ; while devious lines of evi- 
 dence will be seen to blend into one mighty and 
 transcendent testimony to the truth of historical 
 Christianity. - 
 
TO THE CURISTIAN FAITH. 131 
 
 In the statement of tliese prccantions, I liavc in- 
 dicated, and to some extent delined, "what I hokl to 
 be the just " Rehition of Miracles to tlie Chris- 
 tian Faith." By the Faith, I understand the great 
 facts and doctrines of tlie New Testament. It is 
 no part of my task to state tlic grounds upon which 
 these are supposed to rest. They are such, at least, 
 as cannot be fairly passed by as if in contempt by 
 the apostles of the prevalent unl)elief. Yet this is 
 the style in which the evidence brought to sustain 
 the credibility of the Christian miracles is common- 
 ly treated in our day. Those who claim to speak in 
 disj)roof of such credibility, in the name of modern 
 Science, presume to ignore generally the data de- 
 rived from other spheres of thought and investiga- 
 tion, and the question is therefore discussed and 
 hastily decided according to the canons and postu- 
 lates of physical philosophy merely. It is assumed 
 that the witness of Nature, or of professed interpre- 
 tations of Nature which we call Science, is exhaus- 
 tive and final, which to the intelligent Christian 
 apologist betrays a willful perverseness. It is sure- 
 ly open to us to demand tliat the case shall not be 
 closed against us in this arbitrary and offensive way. 
 If any evidence of a counter or even qualifying 
 character and tendency can establish a presumptive 
 right to be heard, it can not be fairly refused on the 
 
132 THE RELATION OF MIRACLES 
 
 assumption of the exclusive validity of the criteria 
 of Physical Science. For not only may those criteria 
 be made to do good service in support of other and 
 opposite conclusions, hut the question is one in 
 which Spiritual Philosophy and Historical Criticism 
 are profoundly interested, and to the just determi- 
 nation of which they profess their ability to bring 
 indispensable testimony. AVe simply say, let it be 
 received, and let it be well and honestly weighed, 
 and Christian Faith will abide the issue. 
 
 I am not recpiired, in the prosecution of my pre- 
 sent purpose, to attempt even a hasty survey of all 
 tlie varied evidences which conspire to demonstrate 
 the supernatural claims of Christianity. I assumed 
 the substantial truth of tlie Gospel histories as a 
 postulate in the debate, and this is guaranteed by 
 evidence as valid and conclusive for its own ends 
 as the evidence upon which the conclusions of Sci- 
 ence repose. Criticism may require us to dispense 
 with some things in the received Kecord, but they 
 are of insignificant value. " The foundation stand- 
 cth sure," om* adversaries being witness. The nm- 
 tually exclusive or destructive attempts of Paulus, 
 Strauss, Schleiermacher, and Eenan to divest the 
 Christ of the Gospels of all supernatural attributes 
 may suffice to prove that the great problem can not 
 be thus solved ; that we can not consistently retain 
 
TO TUE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 133 
 
 faith in the transcendent excellence and heauty of 
 tlie character of Jesus as a man, and dismiss all 
 higher claims as " cunningly devised fables." We 
 are compelled to admit a su])eriiatural element to 
 explain the natural ; the human facts in the life 
 and character of Jesus can only be rendered con- 
 sistent by the admission of claims that arc essen- 
 tially Divine. The Gospels are reduced to a mass 
 of fragmentary incongruities when we have elimi- 
 nated all the elements which an infidel rationalism 
 rejects. '' Stubbornly and obstinately the narra- 
 tives refuse to be so dealt with." A\^xi cannot thus 
 undo the subtle interpenetrations of admitted fact 
 and alleged fiction in the fourfold Biography. The 
 two are so organically and vitally blended that they 
 can never be fairly disentangled. We may cut the 
 knot ; it can never be untied by the most relentless 
 criticism. The admission of fiction discredits essen- 
 tial facts ; while if the claim be once allowed that 
 Christ was at least "a teacher sent from God," or 
 such a teacher as the Evangelists portray, all the 
 marvelous words and works ascribed to Ilim in their 
 writings gather round the image of His person in a 
 vital coherence and harmonious order. An interior 
 imity reveals itself in the records of His life, which 
 can never be accounted for by the coarse imputa- 
 tion of fraudj nor by ascribing it to the invention 
 
134 MIRACLES AND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 
 
 of a wonder-loving fanaticism. The character of 
 Christ, with only the lineaments allowed by a hos- 
 tile criticism, is the one standing miracle which au- 
 thenticates or Avliich renders credible all the signs 
 and wonders of the Gospels, while the signal revo- 
 lution which Christianity wrought in the moral 
 world within a generation of its birth confirms the 
 sublime claim, to which eighteen centuries have 
 added an unbroken testimony, and of which living 
 Christendom is the visible and stupendous monu- 
 ment. 
 
THE ONEiNESS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM II. HUNTINGTON, D.D., 
 
 Rector of Ali. Saikts' C'ultrcu, Worcester, Mass. 
 
THE ONENESS OF SCRIl'TUllE. 
 
 «... the Scripture can not be broken."-JonN 10 : 35. 
 That wliicli Christ here says can not be done, a 
 thousand forces in onr day are laboring to accom- 
 plish. To break the Scripture, to dismember the 
 body of revelation, to tear into a multitude of 
 unconnected parts a volume which the common in-^ 
 stinctof Christians has hitherto affirmed to be one 
 book, is the present endeavor of those who think 
 it high time for intelligent men to be startmg m 
 search of a new religion. 
 
 The line of attack is well chosen. To the casual 
 eye appearances more or less favor the opinion that 
 theBible is simply the classic literatm-e of a people 
 ^hose line of thinking lay in the direction of reli- 
 
 ^' How can oneness, it is urged, be attributed to 
 a collection of historical, poetical, and epistola-^ 
 ry writings, which confessedly range, as to their 
 date of composition, over a period of many centu- 
 ries, and which are known to have come from the 
 
138 THE ONENESS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 hands of at least forty or fifty different contribu- 
 tors? 
 
 With many minds, the mere statement of the 
 proposition is the refutal of it. The thesis strikes 
 tliem as involving absurdity in its very terms. And 
 yet, in the face of this incredulous and, as it would 
 seem, reasonably incredulous spirit, Christians have 
 the boldness to maintain that, notwithstanding its 
 wide s\veep of dialects and styles and topics, the 
 Bible does possess unity in the very most complete 
 and thorough sense the word can bear. 
 
 Before undertaking to investigate the grounds of 
 this conviction entertained by Christians, let us first 
 •attempt to form a clear notion of what we mean 
 when we claim for any book the characteristic of 
 unity. That a certain number of printed pages are 
 contained between two covers may justify a libra- 
 rian in saying, " This is a book ;" but it would not 
 justify a reader in saying, " This is one book." 
 
 Take a collection of pamphlets, on various dis- 
 connected topics, which somebody, for convenience' 
 sake, perhaps because the pages were of the same 
 length and breadth, has had bound up into a single 
 volume — shall we say of these, that they are one 
 *'book ? l^ot if we wish to use language accurately. 
 The only unity the pamphlets have acquired by be- 
 ing stitched together is of a purely external and ma- 
 
THE ONENESS OF SCRIPTURE. 139 
 
 terial sort. They have been made into one volume, 
 but not into one book. 
 
 Suppose, now, another case. A writer, who has 
 contributed essays on various subjects to literary 
 periodicals, makes up his mind to collect and pub- 
 lish them. lie does so. What shall we say of the 
 result ? Is it one book ? Yes ; in a certain sense, 
 it may fairly be called so. It has one important 
 element of unity — unity of authorship. A single 
 mind has conceived and wrought out all that the 
 volume contains. This was not true of the bound 
 pamphlets. 
 
 Take still another case. Here are various wri- 
 ters, who have a common interest in some j)articular 
 subject. "We will suppose it to be a very large 
 subject — so large that a single mind would scarcely 
 be able to grasp all the details of it. These asso- 
 ciates, therefore, join forces, and divide the work 
 among them. How shall Ave characterize the pro- 
 duct of their combined efforts ? Is it one book ? I 
 answer as before — yes, in a partial sense, it is. The 
 book has this one important element of unity — 
 oneness of subject. The various authors have all 
 concentrated their attention, by common consent, 
 upon a single field. 
 
 Sufier me one more instance. Suppose the case 
 of a man who has made up his mind to write a work 
 
140 THE ONENESS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 upon some topic wliicli lie lias long studied and 
 thoroughly mastered. lie arranges his materials. 
 He lays out his plan. He determines how much 
 space he will assign to this branch of his subject, 
 how much to that. He is as careful as a painter 
 would be about his lights and shades, determined 
 that his work shall be symmetrical, well balanced, 
 evenly done ; he sees the end from the begin- 
 ning, and, while carefully elaborating each separate 
 feature and limb, never allows himself to forget for 
 a moment the desired effect of the perfect whole. 
 Now, what shall wc say of this book? Certainly 
 we call say no less of it than that it possesses the 
 very j^erfection of literary unity. The l)Ound 
 "jiamphlets had only a material oneness. The book 
 of miscellaneous essays conld claim "unity of a better 
 sort — that of authorship. The encyclopaedia, com- 
 piled by various hands, possessed another, but still 
 partial, kind of unity — the unity of su])ject. In the 
 case last supposed, and only in that, do we iiiid 
 unity complete. This is, in very deed and truth, 
 not only one volume, but one book. 
 
 The Christian believer, as I have said, claims for 
 the Scriptures this perfection of unity. They have, 
 he declares, one author and one subject — their au- 
 thor, God ; their subject, God's revelation of Him- 
 self in Jesus Christ. 
 
THE ONENESS OF SCRIPTURE. 141 
 
 The names commonly given to the Scriptures are 
 indicative of this confidence in their unity. We 
 call them the " Word of God," thus signifying our 
 faith in their common origin. AYc call them " the 
 Bible," because, although this M'ord might mean, 
 and in early English did mean, any book, we count 
 the Word of God pre-eminently worthy to be call- 
 ed, of all books, the book. Such is the Christian's 
 claim. Can it be substantiated ? For the handling 
 of this question, we are here to-night. Let us take 
 up the inquiry in earnest, and prosecute it without 
 
 fear. 
 
 I remark, then, in the first place, that the Chris- 
 tian's faith in the unity of the Bible rests on the ba- 
 sis of a conviction that lies deeper still — namely, on 
 the belief that human history has unity, and that a 
 never-failing Providence ordereth all things, both 
 in heaven and earth. Only with those who are 
 willing to concede this postulate will any argument 
 for the oneness of the Scriptures carry much 
 weight. 
 
 Three views of history are possible, and only 
 three. The first is the purely atheistic view. We 
 may look at the events of the far-reaching past in 
 the same mood in which we watch the motion of the 
 tangled burden of branches, roots, and drift-wood 
 under which a swollen river, in a spring freshet, 
 
142 THE ONENESS OF SCllIPTUEE. 
 
 hurries to the sea. History is a mere chaos of facts, 
 linked to each other in no definite relationship. 
 Monarchs have succeeded monarchs ; dynasties have 
 risen, flourished, and sunk into decay ; lands have 
 been invaded ; institutions overthrown ; cities build- 
 ed and destroyed ; but in it all there has been no 
 progress ; no evolution of a creative thought ; no 
 carrying out of an original purpose. According 
 to this view, the chronicle is the only legitimate 
 form of history. Man may keep his diary, but 
 must not dream of writing his autobiography. 
 He may accumulate his facts, but woe be to him if 
 he ventures upon an interpretation of them. 
 
 A step, and only a step, in advance of the simply 
 godless historians stand those who are willing to ad- 
 mit, nay, who are forward to claim that there is an 
 order observable in human events, but who argue 
 that the order is of such a sort as can only be under- 
 stood in the light of census reports and geographi- 
 cal statistics. 
 
 The historical philosophers of this school discern 
 not only " a tide in the affairs of men," but a law of 
 tides ; and for the chronicle substitute the almanac. 
 But when we ask them who ordained the laws of 
 sociology, whose are the thoughts which political 
 economy strives to formulate, they fall back on the 
 ancient dogma, " There is no God." 
 
THE ONENESS OF SCIUPTURE. 143 
 
 Again, tliere are those who base their view of 
 history upon a dogma the opposite of that just 
 quoted. They start with the persuasion, " Doubt- 
 less there is a God that judgcth the earth." Set- 
 ting out in this spirit, they iind it easy to disco- 
 ver that lie whose existence is the first article of 
 their creed has not left Himself without witness in 
 the world. "Way -marks are abundant to tell them 
 where this Living God has passed. And gradually, 
 so strong does this persuasion of the presence of that 
 Hand in history become that, even when faith is 
 tried and confidence shaken, the same instinct that 
 prompts the astronomer to believe in the universal 
 prevalence of IS^ewton's law, in the face of some 
 phenomena that seem to make against it, the same 
 sort of instinct assures the devout student, 
 
 " That God is on the field when He 
 Is most invisible." 
 
 Well then, among the facts that confront the 
 theist — I do not say the Christian, for I am aiming 
 to put forward an argument that shall have weight 
 with all who confess any faith in a personal, self- 
 conscious God — among the facts that confront the 
 theist, be he Christian or non-Christian, and clamor 
 for an interpretation, are conspicuously two. 
 
 The first of these is the existence, in ancient 
 
144 THE ONENESS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 times, of a single nation devoted to the worship 
 and service of a God to whom were attributed unity, 
 conscious personality, omnipresence, and holiness. 
 The modern mind rather begrudges the Hebrew 
 race its title of " the chosen people." There 
 is a growing indisposition to allow that He who 
 made of one blood all nations of men can possibly 
 have cared for any particular race more favorably 
 than for another. But if there be, as there un- 
 doubtedly is, some law of selection ruling in natural 
 history, why is it unreasonable to hold that God 
 has followed an analogous principle of election in 
 spiritual history? Be that as it may, modern 
 thought professes, and rightly, a profound regard 
 for facts. ITow, it is, I believe, an acknowledged 
 historical fact, account for it as we may, that of the 
 various peoplea. of antiquity, the Hebrew was the 
 only one whose tradition of God guarded with 
 equal and impartial jealousy the four central attri- 
 butes I just now named — unity, conscious per- 
 sonality, omnipresence, and holiness. Of the na- 
 tions around, there were many that believed in the 
 onmipresence of Deity ; but they either sacrificed 
 the divine unity by multiplying gods, or they lost 
 their hold upon the divine personality by wor- 
 shiping the all-soul diffused through nature; or 
 they robbed the Eternal of His attribute of holi- 
 
THE OXENESS OF SCRIPTURE. 145 
 
 nes?, by l»lotting the distinction between the pure 
 and the impure, the clean and the nnclean. 
 
 To the Hebrew only was it given to knoM^ Jeho- 
 vah as the One Lord, present in nature* while yet 
 throned above all Avorlds ; glorious in holiness, fear- 
 ful in praises, doing wonders. Well might the hea- 
 then sorcerer exclaim, as he stood on the mountain- 
 top, gazing with reluctant admiration at the ordered 
 encampment of the pilgrim host, " How goodly are 
 thy tents, O Jacob ! and thy tabernacles, O Israel ! 
 Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he 
 that curseth thee." 
 
 The consistency with which this stern, uncom- 
 promising theism is clung to, throughout the Old 
 Testament, has something very striking about it. 
 Xo doubt there is an abundance of wickedness re- 
 corded there ; apostasy from the pure faith is fre- 
 quent ; treason against the unseen King continually 
 repeats itself ; but every now and then the voices of 
 the men of God, like the chorus in the Greek tra- 
 gedy, utter their comment, and the goodly fellow- 
 ship of the prophets make themselves heard, as the 
 spokesmen of the Lord Jehovah. 
 
 And this consistency of tone and spirit, pervad- 
 ing so many seemingly disconnected writings, is the 
 more remarkable when we observe that not only in 
 what they say, but also in what they are oarefulnot 
 
1-iG THE ONENESS OF SCltlPTURE. 
 
 to saj, do tlieso writers harmonize with one another. 
 "The silence of Scripturo," as has been well re- 
 marked, is sometimes as- eloquent as its speech. A 
 single reference mnst sufHce. 
 
 The belief in the realltj of magic was almost 
 universal anion": the Eastern nations durino; the 
 whole period covered by the Old Testament. !Now, 
 if the notion that the various books of the Bible 
 embody the opinions that Avere generally prevalent 
 at the times when they were written were true, or 
 if Coleridge's dictum, borrowed from Germany, 
 that the Old Testament canon is simply the remains 
 of the Hebrew Clialdaic literature, prior to the time 
 of Ezra"" — if either of these assumptions Avere cor- 
 rect, then we should expect to find in these writings 
 what we do find in the Talmud and the Koran — 
 plentiful allusions to the peril of magical influences. 
 " But," says Mr, Beginald Poole, one of the most 
 eminent of living authorities, " it is a distinctive 
 characteristic of the Bible that, from first to last, it 
 Avarrants no such trust or dread. In the Psalms, 
 the most personal of all the books of Scripture, 
 there is no prayer to be protected against magical 
 influences. The believer prays to be delivered from 
 every kind of evil that could hurt the body or the 
 
 *" Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit." Works (Sliedd^s 
 Edition), vol, v., p. 013. 
 
THE ONENESS OF SCRIPTURE. 147 
 
 soul, but he says nothing of the niacliinations of sor- 
 cerers. Here, as else\vhere, magic is passed by, or 
 is mentioned only to be condemned. Let those," 
 jlie adds, '" who aihrm that tlicy st'o in the Psalms 
 only human i)iety, and in Job and Eoclesiastes 
 merely human philosophy, explain the absence in 
 them and throughout the Scriptures of the expres- 
 sion of superstitious feelings that are inherent in the 
 Shemite mind."" 
 
 This, then, is the Urst fact to be accounted for in 
 framing our philosophy of history — the existence in 
 remote anti^piity of a separate people, who held un- 
 flinchingly to a conception of the nature of the God- 
 head which has stood the test of theological criti- 
 cism through all subsequent time. 
 
 The second fact is the phenomenon we call mo- 
 dern civilization. Great efforts have been made of 
 late to depreciate the share Christianity lias liad in 
 moulding society into its present shape. AVe are 
 cautioned against allowing our sense of indebtedness 
 to Judea to blind us to the claims of Greece and 
 Eome and Egypt on our gratitude. f 
 
 *Dr. Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible." Art., Magic. Am. 
 Ed., vol. ii.,p. 1742. 
 
 ■j- Jolin Stuart Mill "On Liberty." Am. Ed., ]). 05. See also 
 in a similar strain Leckey's "History of European Morals," vol. 
 ii., p. 149. 
 
1:1:8 THE ONENESS OF SCRIPTUEE. 
 
 Yet, when we come to study the marvelous ad- 
 vances in ahnost every department of knowledge 
 and art by which our times are distinguished, it is 
 impossible not to notice the fact that the progress in 
 question has been almost exclusively confined to 
 what are known as the " Christian " nations. 
 
 The Arabic achievements furnish no real excep- 
 tion to this statement, for, as has been acutely ob- 
 served, Islam has more the nature of a heresy than 
 of a false reliofion. Of the twelve hundred million 
 inhabitants of the globe, only about one fourth part 
 are nominally Christian, but among this fourth 
 part, this fraction of the race, is to be found almost 
 if not quite exclusively that spirit of progress 
 which is our modern boast. Asia and Africa, with 
 their eight hundred millions, stand still, as they 
 have stood still for centuries. Europe and America, 
 Christian and enlightened, press forward with a 
 restless energy and steadfast purpose, before which 
 the gates of seemingly unconquerable difficulty fall 
 down. Explain it as we will, this is the simple, 
 bare, statistical fact. The Christian nations are on 
 the mal'ch, the heathen nations are at the halt. 
 Christendom is hopeful, buoyant, aggressive ; hea- 
 thendom, despondent, stationary, dead. 
 
 "With our eyes fresh from their momentary glance 
 at these two prominent facts in the world's hisfory, 
 
THE ONENESS OF SCRIPTURE. 140 
 
 Ave turn now to the question immediately before us 
 — the unity of the Scripture. What is the Bible? 
 What does it profess to be ? Let us open it and as- 
 certain. We find two principal divisions, called 
 Testaments, Old and New. They used once to be 
 knoM'n as '' Instruments,'' and perhaps it wuuhl 
 have been well if they could have kept the name 
 till now, for it is one that seems to make the two 
 hemispheres of revelation explain themselves as 
 God's modes of handling His M'orld. Lord Bacon 
 entitled the work which was destined to revolution- 
 ize the scientific methods oi his day, jS'ovuni 
 Orgamim, but none would have been more for- 
 ward than that great thinker to confess that his 
 new instrument could not have been forged but 
 for the old instrument that had preceded it. It 
 was from the vantage-ground of the ancient learn- 
 ing that the modern took its departure. And so, 
 as we shall see in the case of these two instruments 
 in the one Bible, there is no real breaking of the 
 Scripture — tlie Old is simply parent of the !New. 
 For look at it ! These Testaments taken together 
 give us what no other existing volume undertakes to 
 give — namely, an interpretation of those tAvo com- 
 manding facts to which I have referred as towering 
 np, head and shoulders, above all the other pheno- 
 mena of historv. The Old Testament tells us how 
 
150 THE ONENESS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 and for M'liat purpose the tradition of the I10I3' God 
 was kept alive. The Kew Testament tells ns how 
 and for what purpose the foundations of Christen- 
 dom wei-c laid. Discard these two Scriptures, and 
 you lose your chief materials for moulding a phi- ' 
 losophy of history. Deny their connection, and 
 straightway you make them unintelligible. 
 
 We touch here the pivot-point of our inquiry, for 
 we find ourselves in the j)resence of the test f[ues- 
 tion, which, sooner or later, in every full discussion 
 of social and religious problems, forces itself to the 
 front : What think ye of Christ ? We see Ilini to 
 be plainly the one and only subject of the later Scrip- 
 ture ; is lie also, what lie resolutely and steadfastly 
 claimed to be, the one and only subject of the elder 
 Scripture too? Does that despised and rejected 
 One really hold in His hand the key to the secret of 
 the ages ? Is the angel of the Apocalypse in the 
 right when he declares that " the testimony of Jesus 
 is the spirit of prophecy "? The answer we give to 
 these cpiestions depends wholly upon our willing- 
 ness or unwilUngness to concede to Jesus Christ 
 the right to speak on spiritual matters " as one 
 having authority." If we have made up our minds 
 to regard the Son of Mary as nothing more than a 
 heavenly-minded, high-souled man, a teacher of 
 purer morals than were generally accepted in His 
 
THE OXEXKSS OF SCRIl'TUKK. 151 
 
 day, a leader of religious thought among His fellow- 
 fountrvineu, tliough of such coniiaanding stature 
 that llis iiiliueuce lias extended itself to men of 
 countries other tlian His own — if this he the rate at 
 whii-h Ave hold Uiiu, then nothing will seem to us 
 more irrational and ahsurd than to suppose that 
 we are to look for supernatural references to Ilim 
 in a collection of old l.)ooks written centuries before 
 Ilis birth, by men who had no concert of action, and 
 who were manifestly Itent on speaking out what 
 they had to say to the people of their own times. 
 But if, on tlie other lumd, one has become persuaded 
 that such a view of the matter is as shallow as it 
 is intelligible ; if one has l^ecome persuaded that 
 Christianity must be something more than a happy 
 accident to have accomplished wdiat it has accom- 
 plished in the world ; if one has become persuaded 
 that Jesus Christ was not so much the founder of a 
 new religion as lie was and is tlie centre and heart 
 of all religion thnt is true, then it will not be diffi- 
 cult, but, rather, very easy to believe that for the 
 coming of this Ilevealer into an untaught world 
 a careful preparation was required, and that for an 
 adequate and faithful record of this educating pro- 
 cess, provision should have been made. 
 
 This willingness to risk every thing that is essen- 
 tial to Christianity, the integrity of its Scriptures, 
 
152 THE ONENESS OF SCKIPTUKE. 
 
 the autliority of its creeds, the perpetuity of its 
 very structure, upon the simple word of Christ 
 speaking to us out of the Gospels, used to be depre- 
 cated by cautious people as a too hazardous venture 
 of faith. But sooner or later, "Wisdom is justified 
 of all her children." In a recent Avork on Systema- 
 tic Theology, which probably embodies the most 
 conservative thought of our times, it is significant 
 to find these words : " After all, Christ is the 
 great object of the Christian's faith. Wc believe 
 Ilim, and we believe every thing else on His 
 authority."''^ 
 
 We have been dwelling thus far upon tlie Bible's 
 unity of subject. Fewer words will suffice in treat- 
 ing of its unity of authorship. You see how the 
 one conclusion hinges upon and is necessitated by 
 the other. From the unity of subject, we can reason 
 backward with safety to the unity of authorship ; 
 for when we have once satisfied ourselves that " the 
 Scripture cannot be broken," that to snap its inter- 
 lacing threads of connection would be like cutting 
 the nerves, tendons, and cartilage that knit the joints 
 of a living body, we find it impossible to account 
 for so startling a fact save by supposing that from 
 the beginning, one mind planned and one eye fore- 
 saw the whole. 
 
 *Dr. Hodge, " Systematic Tlieology " -vol. i., p. 167. 
 
THE ONENESS OF SCKIPTUHE. 153 
 
 You see also the great subsidiary advantages of 
 tliis method, for it has enabled ns to steer wholly 
 clear of the petty entanglements with which the 
 (juestion of the Bible's authority has been needlessly 
 but too often cneunibercd. Let a man pin his faith 
 to some special philosophy of inspiration, and he is 
 at the mercy of the lirst unfriendly critic, who can 
 prove to him beyond a doubt that tlicre are errors 
 in the chronology of the Pentateuch, or discrepan- 
 cies in the Gospel narratives. But he who grounds 
 liis confidence in the Bible as the word of God on 
 the simple faith that there is a God, and that lie 
 lias spoken to us through Jesus Christ, will stand 
 in no dread of the microscopic fault-finder with his 
 arithmetic and slate. The roots of that man's re- 
 verence for the Bible strike down too deep into the 
 soil for the tree to be disturbed by every adverse 
 wind of doctrine. The trifling inaccuracies charged 
 against the Scriptures, should they be proved, 
 will no more shake such a believer's trust in their 
 divine authorship than the detection of a blemish 
 here and there in the stone-work of St. Paul's 
 Cathedral would convince him that Sir Christo- 
 pher Wren did not design the building. 
 
 We ought as churchmen to thank God for 
 the large wisdom which guided the Anglican re- 
 formers in their treatment of this subject. They 
 
154 THE ONENESS OF SCRIPTURE, 
 
 were content to receive and to lianci on Holy 
 Scripture as containing " all tilings necessary to 
 salvation."* 
 
 It was reserved for later and lesser theologians 
 to frame those artificial distinctions between kinds 
 and degrees of inspiration from which men's intel- 
 ligence has recoiled. 
 
 The view that has been now presented may be 
 called the providential theory of the growth and 
 completion of the Scriptures. 
 
 That it presupposes in the inquirer antecedent 
 convictions as a groundwork ought to be no argu- 
 ment against it, for the subject is one to which of 
 necessity every student will bring prepossessions of 
 some sort. It would be hard indeed to frame a 
 plea for the Bible that would convince an atheist. 
 Moreover, it is to be questioned whether those who 
 demand absolute demonstration as the condition of 
 their accepting a religious faith will ever reach the 
 object of their search in this world of uncertainties 
 and probabilities. 
 
 But if I were to choose our Lord's method of il- 
 lustrating truth by parables — a mode of teaching too 
 much depreciated in our times, f although never 
 
 * Article VI. 
 
 f What Mr. Gladstone lately said of Bisliop Butler, in con- 
 nection with his doctrine of probable evidence, might with 
 
THE OXEXESS OF SCKIPTL'KE. 155 
 
 Avcrc the aids to it more abundant — were I seek- 
 ing to enforce my thought l)y an analogy, I would 
 ask you to consider so common an object as a piece 
 of branching coral. Here it is in your hands. It 
 lias been broken off and brought home by some 
 sailor from the Pacilic. Look at it ; observe the 
 curious and symmetrical arrangement of its jiarts. 
 It is not a clumsy, ill-shaped thing at all. You get 
 from it the same impression of beauty of form that 
 the limbs of a tree, or a stag's antlers, or a group of 
 rock crystals convey. But consider by what sort 
 of a process of growth this marvelous result lias 
 been attained. In reality, there is a wide difference 
 betM-een this and the branches of the tree or the 
 antlers of the stag. They grow by a continuous 
 process and under the impulse of a single law of 
 life.* But how did this spray of coral come to be 
 what it is ? Ten thousand times ten thousand and 
 thousands of thousands of little insects lived and 
 died there, each in its separate and appointed place, 
 each heedless of every thing save the cool sea-water 
 moving in and out, and yet there was not one of 
 them which did not serve a far-off purpose. 
 
 equal truth be said of liim as tlie great advocate of analogical 
 reasoning in tlieology : " Oh ! that this age knew the treasure 
 it possesses in him and neglects !' (Letter to Mr. James 
 Knowles, Nov. 9, 1873.) 
 
156 THE ONENESS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 All the while a divine law of unity was govern- 
 ing and using for its own ends the lower law of in- 
 dividual life, and making each tiny polyp minister, 
 without knowing it, to the perfection of the last 
 result. And so in this matter of the unity of the 
 Scrij^tures, the many writers were but the under- 
 workmen, carrying out with more or less of conscious 
 co-operation the purpose of the great Designer. 
 Give all the credit to the coral insects they deserve. 
 They did their patient work, and did it well ; but 
 not to them does the meed of authorship belong. 
 That rests with God. He planned, He guided. He 
 made perfect. 
 
 To prove to you, beyond the possibility of a doubt, 
 the unity of the Bible, I have acknowledged to be 
 impossible. But let me add that I did not under- 
 take this task. My Avhole ambition and ain\ to- 
 night has been to show how every man must prove 
 it for himself. I do not believe that any thought- 
 ful person whose doubts have been once awakened 
 will ever acknowledge that the Scripture can not be 
 broken, unless he has first become persuaded that the 
 claim of Jesus Christ to be the Saviour of the world 
 is true. I do believe that when a man has hon- 
 estly and from the heart confessed this faith, it is 
 then easy for him to see how the various parts of 
 Scripture group themselves about one common cen- 
 
THE ONENESS OF SCRIPTUllE. 157 
 
 tre. Such, a believer will not be content with 
 merely groping about tlie pages of the Old Testa- 
 ment to see if here or there he can pick np some 
 sentence that may be construed into a prediction 
 of the Messiah ; rather he will be led to see how the 
 whole experience of the people of God, from be- 
 ginning to end, their bondage, their exodus, their 
 wilderness life, their ritual worship, their strug- 
 gles, their dissensions, their captivities, all had a 
 part in the grand work of preparation by which 
 God was drawing on " the fullness of time." But 
 to see all this is to discern that the Bible has unity 
 of subject, and to discern the Bible's unity of sub- 
 ject is to concede its unity of authorship ; for it can- 
 not be by a coincidence that such a multitude of 
 voices join in one harmonious song ; there must be 
 a controlling voice behind on which they lean. 
 
 Again, I remind you of the crucial question, 
 « Whom say ye that I am ? " 
 
 If we rei)ly with that disciple whose confession 
 won for him the proud title of the Rock, " Thou 
 art the Christ, the Son of the living God," then 
 nothing will be easier that to accept the Bible as 
 the biography of tliis God-man, the true hero of 
 earth's story. But if to that solemn question we 
 make answer thus, " We know thee not who 
 thou art, uor do we greatly care to know," then 
 
158 THE ONENESS OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 nothing will be more natnral than to see in the 
 Bible only the relics of a religion that has spent its 
 force and is drawing to its death, a praiseworthy 
 but obsolete effort of the oriental mind to tind its 
 God. Seeing then what tremendous issues hang 
 upon the question, " What think ye of Christ V shall 
 any one venture to treat it as a matter of no conse- 
 quence? ]^ay, my deUr friends, if that question 
 be still lying nnsettled in your mind, grapple it, 
 wrestle with it, pray over it, until, by God's grace, 
 you find an answer, and an answer by which you 
 are willing to abide. So shall you solve not only 
 this problem of the Bible's unity, but many another 
 problem also ; and depend upon it, the solution thus 
 reached through the pathway of a heart-experience 
 will be worth more to you than any you could pos- 
 sibly find made ready to your hand. 
 
 ISToTE, — Since this sermon was preached, I have 
 seen for the first time the following paragraph at 
 the close of Canon "Westcott's JSlMe in the 
 Church.^ I append it here partly for the sake of 
 bringing it under the eye of readers who might not 
 otherwise fall in with it, and partly because of the 
 pleasure it has given me to iind my own convic- 
 
 * The Bible in the Church, p. 296. 
 
THE ONENESS OF SCKIPTUliE. 159 
 
 tions, as expressed in the sermon, coincident \vitli 
 those of a man "whose judgment and authority in 
 such a question are worth vastly more than my own: 
 " In a word, the liistory of the Bible is an epi- 
 tome of the history of the Church. Both came to 
 their full form, slowly, silently, surely, hy the com- 
 bination of manifold elements. Both grew by the 
 action of an informing power, and were not con- 
 structed from without by any foreign force. Both 
 include treasures new and old, of which now this, 
 now that is needed for the instruction of men. 
 Both liave been overlaid by superstitious additions, 
 both have been injured by an idolatrous reverence ; 
 but in both there is a life which makes itself felt, 
 and refuses to be bound in one shape. The Bible, 
 no less than the Church, is Holy, Catholic, and 
 Apostolic : Holy, for they who wrote it were 
 moved by the Holy Spirit ; Catholic, for it em- 
 braces in essence every type of Christian truth 
 which has gained entrance among men ; Apostolic, 
 for its limits are not extended beyond that iirst gene- 
 ration to which was committed the charge of preach- 
 ing the Gospel in the fullness of its original power." 
 
IMMORTALITY. 
 
 KIGHT REV. THOMAS MARCH CLARK, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 BlSUOr OV liUOUE ISLAND. 
 
IMMOKTALITY. 
 
 This mortiU must i>ut on iiniuortality. — 1 CoK. l.j : 53. 
 
 Ik it is difficult for a man to believe in lii.s own per- 
 sonal innnortality, it is equally so to conceive of a 
 final cessation of heiui;-. The idea of absolute an- 
 nihilation is not only abhorrent to the feelings, but 
 it is also contradictory to our instincts and intui- 
 tions. And if all life is bounded by a span, v>'c caii 
 not help asking, how did this notion of an immor- 
 tal existence ever come to us ? If it is a mere de- 
 lusion, it is the only lie that has been incoi*i)orated 
 into the texture of our humanity. Every other in- 
 stinct and intuition has something objective which 
 corresponds to it. The body iinds food some- 
 where for the gratification of all its appetites ; the 
 ear Avas made for hearing, and the air is full of mu- 
 sic ; the eye was made to see, and form and color 
 meet it at every glance ; the heart was made, to feel, 
 and it is continually touched by experiences, which 
 fill it with sorrow or with joy ; the brain was made 
 to be the instrument of thought, and the material 
 
16 J: IMMORTALITY. 
 
 upon which it exercises itself is as varied as it is 
 abundant ; the S23irit of man seems to have been 
 made for immortality ; it craves after an unending 
 existence ; and if it could be proved beyond a doubt 
 that it must perish witli the destruction of the tab- 
 ernacle wliich it inhabits, there ■would go up from 
 every tribe and nation one miiversal burst of exe- 
 cration against the ]jeing who created the soul. 
 
 " But," we are told, "■ the soul was never created 
 at all — it is only the development of one of the 
 higher species of force, and the result of a peculiar 
 organization. Apart from that ])hysical organiza- 
 tion, we can not conceive of man's existence ; and 
 as the spiritual part of our being originates with the 
 physical, and is subject to all its contingencies, so 
 the actual dissolution of the one must be accom- 
 panied with the destruction of the other." 
 
 But then we lind in man this essential difference 
 which distinguishes him from all otlier organized 
 beings — there is in hhn a free, automatic, intelli- 
 gent power, by which he can control his own move- 
 ments and regulate his own development. In all 
 other forms of earthly being, the organism is su- 
 preme ; but man's noblest triumphs are achieved in 
 defiance of his physical organization. And when 
 all his nerves are tingling with fiery passion, and his 
 heart throbbing with strong desire, and his blood 
 
DIMORTALITV. 165 
 
 com-sing ^vitll liglitiiiiig speed tlirougli liis veins, 
 and his acliing brain impelling hiin to yield, and in 
 the majesty of his manhood ho rises np, and says, 
 ''I will not yield!" then he comes to the con- 
 sciousness of his immortality, for he feels that 
 there is something in him which can defy and sub- 
 due the body, and is not subject to all the miserable 
 contingencies by which it is controlled. 
 
 " That may sound somewhat grand," is the reply ; 
 '' l)ut after all, this notion of immortality must be a 
 delusion, because we can form no actnat conception 
 of the fnture life ; a disembodied so\d,as it is some- 
 times called, is a simple nonentity. It has no f nnc- 
 tions, no capacities, no organs, and of course no lo- 
 cality. Men talk as if they had some idea of a spir- 
 itual existence, but they have no definite thoughts 
 about the matter. The forms and analogies of the 
 natural world are merely transferred to a domain 
 where they cease to have any significance." 
 
 This is not an argument, but only an appeal to 
 the imagination. What conception has an infant of 
 the experiences that arc awaiting him in his matu- 
 rity? It might be worse than useless for us to 
 know any thing very definite as to the outward 
 conditions of our future life, and I think it is very 
 doubtful whether there are any terms in the lan- 
 guage that we now use capable of conveying to the 
 
166 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 mind a distinct idea of tliose conditions. Even after 
 wo liave entered the next stage of being, it is veiy 
 probable that we shall reqnire the same gradual 
 training and experience, in order to comprehend the 
 new modes of existence Avhich await ns there, that 
 are needed in the process of our education here. 
 When the boundary line has been passed, and we 
 find ourselves standing in the presence of eternal 
 realities, the veil may be lifted very slowly, and the 
 glories of our inunortality revealed to us, only as 
 we have strength of vision to endure their bright- 
 ness. 
 
 " But," adds the objector, " if man is immortal, 
 would there not have been such palpable, unrpies- 
 tionable proof of the fact, that ]io possible room 
 would have been left for a doubt 'i Why is it that 
 so many who are really anxious to believe, and even 
 crave after an immortality, are left in such wretched 
 suspense, and lind nothing to satisfy them ? If there 
 is another world, where Ave arc to dwell hereafter, 
 and Avherc those are now living avIio once went in 
 and out with us over the same threshold, why docs 
 it seem so far off, so imjmlpable, so unreal ?" 
 
 There may be good reasons for keeping the future 
 life, to a certain degree, remote from us and inac- 
 cessible, inasmuch as this removes the temptation 
 that might otherwise beset us to busy ourselves v\'itli 
 
IMMORTALITY. 167 
 
 cnrious speculations about the spiritual world, in- 
 stead of giving our minas to the faithful discharge 
 of the duties that pertain to our present life. Our 
 work is here, our responsibilities all centre here, and 
 the best preparation we can make for our future life 
 is to be had in doing the work well which God as- 
 signs to us here on earth. And no one who is not 
 thus fitting himself for ininiprtality, deserves or can 
 expect to be delivered from anxiety and doubt. 
 Gloom and fear must liaunt the man who always 
 dwells amid the clouds and mists of the valley, 
 breathing the thick, contaminated atmosphere of 
 earth ; but only let him climb to the mountain-top, 
 where the heavens arc clear, and the air is pure, 
 then all his anxieties and doubts will vanish. He 
 will see the bright towers of the Xew Jerusalem, 
 and hear the echo of its silver bells. He who lives 
 by faith in the Son of God, and obeys His holy law, 
 can not doubt that his Saviour will admit him into 
 an everlasting habitation, when his work here is 
 finished. 
 
 " This is life eternal — to know Thee, the only 
 true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." 
 " Faith is the substance,'' the basis, " of things 
 hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." It is 
 evidence, because, with the believer, the eternal life 
 
1(33 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 lias already Legnn. lie enters njjon liis immortal- 
 ity when lie becomes identified Avith Christ. 
 
 " But," it is again asked, " if the proof of an eter- 
 nal life rests primarily npon divine revelation, how 
 are we to account for the fact that, in the earlier 
 dispensations, as, for instance, in the case of the 
 Mosaic economy, there is no distinct and definite 
 doctrine of immortality disclosed to man ? Why 
 was not this fact incorporated into the law, as it 
 was then revealed ?" 
 
 In the first jjlacc, that was a civil code, intended 
 for the regulation of national as well as of private 
 affairs, and there would have been an obvious im- 
 propriety in appealing to future rewards and pun- 
 ishments as the sanction of a civil law. 
 
 Again, this was not needed. The doctrine of a 
 future life had never been questioned, and was an 
 element in the popular traditional belief. The pa- 
 triarchs supposed themselves to have occasional in- 
 tercourse with spiritual beings and angelic inhabi- 
 tants of other worlds, and believed that, when they 
 died, they would rejoin those who had gone before 
 them. 
 
 There was another reason for the silence of Moses 
 on this subject, growing out of the fact that the 
 doctrine of immortality among the Egyptians had as- 
 sumed such prominence that it interfered with the 
 
IMMORTALITY. IGO 
 
 "welfare and progress of society, made men indiffer- 
 ent to the discharge of their secuhir duties, Avhile it 
 exerted no sahitary influence upon their character. 
 The building of costly tonibs absorbed the ■wealth 
 that might have been devoted to the service of 
 the living, and tlie material which should have been 
 used to clothe the poor was expended in wrap- 
 pings for the nmmmied dead. AVith them, the im- 
 mortal life was regarded only as a continuation of 
 earthly enjoyments and pursuits ; and when, at 
 their feasts, they placed a skeleton at the table, it was 
 not as a solemn reminder of the A'anity of all earth- 
 ly things, but as a guest from the other world, with 
 whom they expected to sit down hereafter to a more 
 sumptuous repast. The doctrine of immortality 
 with which the Israelites had become familiar in 
 Egj-pt possessed no high moral or religious ele- 
 ment, and at tlie time of the exodus they were 
 probably not in a condition to accept any loftier 
 view. 
 
 Passing on to another form of objection, our op- 
 ponent says, " If you base the immortality of man 
 upon the teachings of the Xcw Testament, then it 
 becomes identified with a doctrine of resurrection, 
 which is equivalent to the reconstruction of our 
 present bodies at some future period — the recom- 
 pounding of their existing elementary atoms, after 
 
170 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 tliej liavc l)cen blown liitlier and thither by the 
 winds, and been resolved into their primitive gases, 
 entering in this form into the composition of vari- 
 ons kinds of vegetable life, perhaps into the sub- 
 stance of a thousand different human bodies." 
 
 This is not the Christian idea of the resurrection, 
 and St. Paul calls the man a fool who holds such a 
 doctrine as that. In reply to those who ask, " With 
 what body do they come ?" he says expressly, 
 " Thou sowest not that body that sliall be" — that 
 is, it is not the organic structure which is laid in 
 the earth that appears again. But ho always teach- 
 es that the soul is to have some sort of investiture 
 in the spiritual world ; it is " not to be unclothed." 
 We know nothing as to the specific nature of 
 what he calls " the spiritual body," but then we 
 know just as little of the actual substance of which 
 the natural or animal body is composed. Matter 
 is revealed to us by its outward properties, and 
 spirit by its manifestations, so that we apprehend 
 the existence of both by the same process. That 
 the spiritual body is somewhere and somehow en- 
 wrapped within the folds of the material form, as 
 the oak is latent in the acorn, and will hereafter 
 rise out of — which is what the word resurrection 
 means — the natural body, is scriptural and rational. 
 
 That there will also be an analo2:v between the 
 
IMMOKTALiry. 171 
 
 natural and the spiritual body, as M'ell as some sort 
 of identity in the two forms of existence, I do not 
 doubt, (lod "• gives to every seed liis own body." 
 While the substance, or under-lying essence, of the 
 one must be uidike that of the other, there may 
 still be a resemblance in their a])pearancc, and, to 
 some extent, in their functions ; not an actual iden- 
 tity, for, in its glorified state, all defects and impur- 
 ities must be removed: "that Avhich is sown in 
 weakness will be raised in ])ower," the blinded eye 
 opened to discern all the beauties of the celestial 
 firmament, the deafened ear unstopped to hear the 
 melody of angelic anthems, the enfeebled arm made 
 strong, and the crippled feet swift and iirm. 
 
 It is a significant fact that whenever spiritual be- 
 ings arc spoken of in Scripture as revealing them- 
 selves to the sight, they appear in bodily forms, and 
 are s])okcn of indiscriminately as angels and men. 
 The Saviour ascended into the heavens in a human 
 form Avhich the Articles of the Church teach us lie 
 still retains. 
 
 ! " When you speak of form,^^ continues our sci- 
 entific skeptic, " if your words have any real mean- 
 ing, the term must be intended to signify some- 
 thing which is caj^able of being bounded in space, 
 and which, therefore, must have an outline or figure ; 
 and if this is in any sense a hochjs it must be com- 
 
172 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 j)eteTit to exercise certain functions, such as changing 
 its place, receiving and imparting knowledge, and 
 doing Avliatever may be demanded Ijv the exigen- 
 cies of its condition," 
 
 We are perfectly willing to accept this statement, 
 and if yon say that all this reqnires tlie existence of 
 some sort of physical organization, that there can 
 be no action Avithont limbs, and no sight withont 
 an eye, and no comnmnication of thonght withont a 
 tongne, and inasmnch as snch organs are incompati- 
 ble with the idea of spiritual being, therefore it is 
 nnscientific to believe in any such being — allow 
 me to ask one or two questions. 
 
 If, a hundred years ago, some wild visionary had 
 said that the time would soon come when, in look- 
 ing with a magnifier at what appears to the eye as a 
 little dot of the pen, yon would be able to read in 
 that dark speck every word of the Lord's Prayer, 
 distinctly engraved, or see there a perfect copy of 
 your friend's face ; and then shonld be further told 
 that this wonderful delineation had been wu'ought 
 without the nse of any instrument whatever, even 
 without the touch of a human hand — would not such 
 men as yon have been almost certain to pronounce 
 such a prediction imscientific, and therefore ab- 
 snrd ? Suppose he had then gone on to say that, 
 at the same period, merchants in Kew-York would 
 
IMMORTALITY. 173 
 
 liold coniniunicatiun witli tlieir correspondents in 
 London almost as readily as if they were sitting in 
 the same connting-rooni, I imagine tliat the skeptic 
 Avonld insist npon knowing something of the pro- 
 cess by Avliich such a result Avas to be obtained, be- 
 fore he would consent to listen patiently to so pre- 
 posterous a statement. 
 
 Suppose then, for his enlightenment and satis- 
 faction, lie should be told that the men of dif- 
 ferent continents conversed together by sending 
 connnunication^ along the bed of the ocean, how 
 far would this tend to reduce his skepticism ? Sup- 
 pose, then, he should be further informed that the 
 principle involved in this mode of intercourse con- 
 sisted in producing a sinniltaneous vibration on the 
 coast of America and the coast of Europe, this vibra- 
 tion shaping itself into words and sentences; would 
 this explanation satisfy him any better ? And if, 
 after all this, he should be told that the agent or 
 power by means of which this would be done is 
 something which the eye of man never saw — some- 
 thing which could never be Aveighed in the most de- 
 licate scales, something so nearly analogous to spirit 
 that the same terms by which one is described are 
 equally applicable to the other ; if he had never be- 
 lieved in the existence of spirit before, I do not 
 
174 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 think tliat sucli a story as this "would be likely to 
 convert liini. 
 
 I liave cited these illustrations to show that it is 
 absurd and iniscientilic to deny the existence of 
 spiritual beings, endowed with spiritual bodies, and 
 • capable of exercising all the functions which per- 
 tain to the liighest condition of being, merely on 
 the ground that Ave do not know how they are con- 
 stituted, and by what modes they act. When you 
 can tell by what process mind acts upon body, and 
 body upon mind, in our present form of exist- 
 ence — how it is that a thought can gave an impulse 
 to the flow of the blood, and the stagnation of the 
 blood arrest the action of thought, then you may 
 deny, with some better show of reason, the fact of 
 your own immortality, because you are not able to 
 comprehend the mysteries of that immortality. 
 
 "But," adds the objector, "this is not the only 
 ground upon which I am led to question what I un- 
 derstand to be the Christian doctrine of a future 
 life. There arc certain moral reasons which have 
 more weight in inducing my skepticism than any 
 which are derived from science. Death, as a phy- 
 sical process, is merely the return of the elements 
 which have been drawii from the atmosphere and 
 the earth, in order to form the fnime-work of a 
 body, to their original condition. Xow, if this de- 
 
IMMOr.TALITY. 1*^^ 
 
 stnu-tion of the material l.uikling liberates tlic spir- 
 itual l>eini,^ the man, Avho uccupicMl it, ami transfers 
 lu,u to a uew plane of existence, it may be presumed 
 that his spiritual or moral identity is n..t substanti- 
 .^ly aftec-ted bv the c-hange ; otherwise, it is nut 
 the same man ^vho moves away fnnu the old habi- 
 tation that once lived there. And yet I am told 
 that instantly upon their entering into the spiritual 
 state all persons are at once transformed, cither into 
 .potless an-els, ineapaldc of an error or a fault, or 
 into infernal demons, incapable of a virtue, or even 
 of that exercise of AviU npon which virtue depends. 
 Xow, wherever we draw the line which may be 
 considered as separating the bad from the good in 
 this world, on the border territory we find many - 
 persons whose position it is difficult to deterinme, 
 and there is hardly an appreciable difference be- 
 tween the lowest man on one side and the highest 
 on the other ; and yet I am told that death at once 
 remits all who stand on one side to a state of per- 
 fect happiness and holiness, and all others to the re- 
 gions of irremediable woe. The difficulty in recon- 
 ciling this doctrine with any intelligible idea of the 
 justice of God," continues our skeptical objector, 
 "is not relieved by removing the matter of salva- 
 tion from amoral ground, and making it depend 
 npon the reception of a rite, or the exercise of a 
 
176 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 particular faith, because tliis seems to make the line 
 of division altogetlier arbitrary, and takes away tlie 
 idea of recompense and retribution, as based upon 
 personal character. Still further, according to the 
 popular theology, tliis world is the only place of 
 probation, and the eternal destiny of every human 
 being is determined at the moment of his death ; 
 but there arc millions upon millions passing away 
 every year, who have had no opportunities of moral 
 discipline, and no enlightenment as it respects the 
 true character of God, and their duties to Him. 
 Now, dreadful as is the thought of annihilation, it 
 is harder still to believe in an immortality which 
 carries with it such doctrines as these." 
 
 "\Ve have tried to give the ol)jector fair play, and 
 to state his case precisely as we supple he would 
 put it ; for, in these days, it is not worth while to 
 blink the real difhculties which trouble even good 
 people's minds. 
 
 There are three ways in which such objections 
 as those which have just been stated may be dis- 
 posed of. The first is by resolving the whole mat- 
 ter of probation and our final destiny into a sover- 
 eign decree of the Almighty, and denying man the 
 competency to form an intelligible judgment as to 
 what constitutes justice in the dealings of God with 
 man. The reasous for decliniug to accept this so- 
 
IMMORTALITY. 177 
 
 lution of tlic difficulty arc so inanifcst that I 
 need only to allude to tlicni. Ituiukcs religion only 
 iin arbitrary matter, leaves no room for the exer- 
 cise of personal responsibility, and destroys all those 
 fundamental conceptions of justice which lie at the 
 foundation of character and morality. I do not say 
 that this has ahvays been the practical result ; for 
 many of the best men that ever lived held and still 
 hold this theological opinion ; because there arc 
 other elements in their creed ■which qualify, if they 
 do not destroy, the falsities which it contains. 
 
 The second mode of meeting the difficulty is by 
 endeavoring to reconcile the elements which it em- 
 bodies with our natural sense of justice. I con- 
 fess that I am not competent to do this, and 
 therefore I am obliged to seek for some other solu- 
 tion. And the only way in which relief can be ob- 
 tained is by denying that the Christian doctrine of 
 innnortality is embarrassed by any such dogmas as 
 have been urged to its discredit. If there is any 
 one principle fundamental in religion, as well as in 
 morals, it is that our conception of justice, as ajv 
 plied to God's dealings with man, must be the same 
 as that which regulates our dealings with each 
 other ; otherwise, we really have no idea of justice 
 whatever. If there is any one principle fundamen- 
 tal in the Christian religion, it is that destiny must 
 
178 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 be according to character. All the teachings of 
 Christ, and of His disciples, are based npon this. 
 Men are indeed called upon to believe, in order to 
 be saved ; but the definition of saving faith is that 
 " which works by love, purifying the heart." Its 
 value is in its moral quality, not in any thing arbi- 
 trary or artificial. And while the doctrine of fu- 
 ture reward and punishment is thoroughly inter- 
 woven with that of immortality, it is also certain 
 that God Avill never inflict upon any creature that 
 he has made, a worse doom than he deserves. This 
 of course involves the principle that every individ- 
 ual must take his place in the next stage of being, 
 not in accordance with any arbitrary classification, 
 but in exact conformity to his individual deserts. 
 Ko moral agent, who has lived as we have all 
 lived, can ever claim a reward on the ground of his 
 personal merit ; for the balance of demerit turns 
 against us all, and therefore we must all throw our- 
 selves in faith upon the mercy of God in Jesus 
 Christ ; and still it is true that destiny will be ap- 
 portioned in strict accordance with personal charac- 
 ter. There can l)e no world in which all muII stand 
 on the same level ; and, in the general apportion- 
 ment of human destiny, and in determining the 
 question of onr salvation, God is to draw the line 
 between the righteous and the wicked, and not 
 
IMMORTALITY. 179 
 
 man ; and probably lie ^vill do tliis upon principles 
 very nulike tliosc "wliieli Mould determine our judg- 
 ments. 
 
 The only difficulty Avliich rcmain^^ unconsidered 
 in the present connection is that M-hich relates to 
 the linal condition of those vast multitudes, both in 
 Christian and in lieathen lands, who have had no 
 opportunities of real moral discipline here on 
 earth, and therefore no actual probation. As this 
 is not a practical question, the Scrijjtures throw 
 but little light upon it, simply affirming that 
 those who have not been enlightened bv rev^elation 
 will be judged by the law written on their hearts, 
 or in accordance with the light which nature fur- 
 nishes. I will not insult the intelligence of this 
 congregation by citing the familiar 2)assage from the 
 book of Ecclesiastes, '•' In the place where the tree 
 falleth, there it shall be," in the present connec- 
 tion. It has nothing to do with the subject, and if 
 it had, standing where it does, it would carry no 
 authority ; for other passages might be quoted from 
 the same writer, which, separated from tlieir con- 
 nection, and used as mere proof-texts, would be 
 made to teach the doctrine of man's annihilation. 
 It is enough for us to know that " the Judge of all 
 the earth will do right," and we may safely and 
 contideutly leave the adjustment of matters, with 
 
180 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 which we have no practical concern, to be disposed 
 of by Ilim. 
 
 There is one thing further whicli stands in the 
 way of a belief in our immortality, or at any rate 
 makes belief so shadowy and unsatisfactory that it 
 takes ho positive hold upon the popuhir mind, and 
 excites but little real interest. And here, again, 
 I would prefer that the objector should state his 
 own case. 
 
 " I find myself," he says, " endowed with a great 
 A'ariety of tastes and capacities. If there is a God, 
 and I am made in His image, all those gifts must 
 have come from Ilim, and therefore they are the tran- 
 script and reflection of corresponding qualities per- 
 taining to His own being. I love music and art ; I 
 And my liappiness in exploring the wonders of sci- 
 ence ; I delight in genial society, and tlic brisk flow 
 of elevated humor ; I like to study nien in the his- 
 tories of the past, as well as in the conduct of the 
 day. At times, I find myself absorbed in the great 
 mysteries of ]>hilosophy, in trying to open the secret 
 chambers of thought ; and while I acknowledge that 
 a sound moral nature and a profound sentiment of 
 reverence are essential to a well-balanced character, 
 I do not think that a man can fill up the full mea- 
 sure of his being if he is notliing more than what is 
 ordinarily understood to be a pious person. And 
 
IMMORTALITY. 181 
 
 any condition of existence would therefore seem to 
 me imperfect and unsatisfactory, in -which all the 
 nobler elements of my nature did 7iot iind room for 
 development and expansion. 
 
 " But, in the view that is ordinarily presented of 
 the future world, I lind no recognition of any such 
 opportunities, or of any varieties, either of character 
 or employment. Heaven is a place, 
 
 ' Where congregations ne'er break up, 
 And Sabbaths never cud ; ' 
 
 as if mere rest from lahor and attendance upon 
 religious services filled up the whole measure of 
 one's desires and capacities." 
 
 What shall we say, in reply to all this I Many 
 highly respectahle Christians would respond to the 
 effect that such vain talk only indicated the want 
 of true spirituality and the dominion of a carnal 
 mind ; and then go home to the enjoyment of their 
 books and pictures and pleasant gardens, perhaps to 
 resume the discnssion of the matter around a table 
 loaded with luxuries and sparkling M-ith costly 
 wines. 
 
 Is it not better to acknowledge that God is hon- 
 ored and served by the consecrated use of all the 
 powers and faculties with which lie has endowed 
 us, and that our immortal life must provide for the 
 
182 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 culture and exercise of every lofty gift which per- 
 tains to our nature ? I believe that, as the redeem- 
 ed will be employed hereafter in ministries of love 
 and mercy, so there will be ministries of art and 
 ministries of science ; researches into the ffreat facts 
 of the universe, which have been prematurely ar- 
 rested here by the hand of death, will be taken 
 up ap^ain, and prosecuted to the end hereafter. In 
 this 2:)rimary stage of our being, we just read a 
 chapter or two in the great book of knowledge 
 which God has given us, when it drops from om* 
 hand, and the mortal v^ision closes forever. We have 
 only had time to get some faint, imperfect notion 
 of the marvels of creation, the mysteries of the hu- 
 man soul, the strange anomalies of life, the pro- 
 found depths of the divine economy. Does the 
 study end there ? 
 
 With an eternity before us, which must be occu- 
 pied with something ; with faculties immeasurably 
 cpickened and expanded by the new sphere of ex- 
 istence upon wliich we have entered ; with a field 
 of observation opened to our view, wliich knows no 
 boundary or limit ; Avith no servile work to do, no 
 clothing to weave, no food to earn, no houses to build, 
 no investments to watch — have you any doubt that 
 there will be such noble and varied employments 
 for the mind and the heart as will test to the full 
 
IMMORTALITY. 183 
 
 every capacity of our being, and reveal to lis, one 
 by one, such intinite Avonders, that the song will 
 spring spontaneously and perpetually from our lips, 
 "Benedicite, onniia opera Domini!" With angels 
 and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, 
 the redeemed will laud and magnify God's glorious 
 name in one unceasing anthem ; but its chords and 
 Iiarmonies will be as varied and multitudinous as 
 the stars. Every song that is sung there will be 
 set to the same grand key-note: "Worthy is the 
 Lamb !" will be the one absorbing theme ; l)ut, as 
 the rainbow, which arches the great Avhite throne, 
 flashes with every color and tint of earth and sky, 
 so that voice of praise M'ill be as the voice of many 
 waters; the voice of great thunders mingling with 
 the soft harping of harps ; all tongues and lan- 
 guages joining in praise and honor and glory and 
 blessing to Ilim tliat was slain. Whatever else may 
 occupy us, we sliall never tire of that theme. 
 Wherever our studies and researches may take us, 
 we shall always rejoice to return and listen to His 
 teacliings, who hath redeemed us with His precious 
 blood. There is one name that Avill forever be to 
 us above every other name. And when eternity 
 lias grown old, we shall still feel that we have not 
 begun to fathom the depths of the Saviour's love. 
 Some of you may be surprised ami disappointed, 
 
184 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 because wc liave attempted no elaborate and direct 
 proof of the doctrine of man's immortality, but 
 have merely addressed onrselves to the removal of 
 I certain jjopnlar objections. To ask your assent to 
 this doctrine, on the ground of Scripture evidence, 
 Avould be simply to change our base, and enter upon 
 a more general subject ; for no one Avho receives 
 the ]!^ew Testament as a revelation from God, can 
 have any doubts in regard to liis immortality. I 
 have rested the general argument upon the simple 
 ground that man is able to conceive of his own im- 
 mortality, and, if this conception is a delusion, all 
 faith in God becomes extinct. For, if any thing 
 that pertains to our nature comes from Him, this 
 instinct or intuition or consciousness must have been 
 implanted in our souls by His hand. To believe 
 that He has deceived us is the most horrible thought 
 that can enter the mind of man. Then I do not 
 know or care whether any thing is true, and I would 
 jDrefer to belie^^i that there is no God. 
 
 But, let it be observed that this general conscious- 
 ness of immortality is never disturbed, until some 
 subtle man begins to m-ge objections, and it is for 
 this reason that I have contined myself to the con- 
 sideration of those cavils, and tried to embody them 
 all in one brief sketch, and dispose of them. H I 
 have failed to do this satisfactorily, you nnist not 
 
IMMORTALriY. 185 
 
 conclude tliat they can nut bo removed, but attri- 
 bute the faihire to my inability to cope with the 
 subject. I am sure that I have not sought to evade 
 the cavils of the unbeliever, or to meet thcni with 
 ambiguous and uncertain replies. I have much 
 more sympathy with those earnest but doubting 
 souls, who are crying out of the darkness, and 
 looking in vain for some gleam of light to illumine 
 the patlnvay of the eternal future, but still looking 
 with anxious hope, and trying to live as the}' think 
 God would have them live, whether they are to die 
 as the beast dieth or not, than I have with that 
 great multitude mIio passively accept the fact that 
 they are to live somewhere forever, and then go 
 about their work and their play, as if nothing con- 
 cerned them l)eyond the gains and the amusements 
 of the day. Better to doubt honestly than to believe 
 stupidly. 
 
 It is one thing to accept the fact of innnortality 
 as a part of one's creed, and another tiling to re- 
 ceive it into the soul as a living power, so that we 
 actually enter into our eternal life this side of the 
 grave. " Heaven begun is the living proof that 
 makes the heaven to come credible. Christ in you 
 is the hope of glory. He alone can l)elieve in im- 
 mortality who feels the resurrection in him." The 
 remedy for doubt is experience. When one can 
 
186 IMMOKTALITY. 
 
 say, with the apostle, " I know whom 1 have be- 
 lieved, and am persuaded that Uq is ahle to keep 
 that which I have committed unto him against that 
 day," death is abolished, and life and immortality 
 arc bronght to light. They are now seen, and not 
 merely believed in. They have the power of a pre- 
 sent fact, and so they regulate our thoughts and 
 condnct, just as they are affected by the things 
 which stand right before us, and address themselves 
 to our senses. A holy life is the surest protection 
 against doubt and unbelief. 
 
EVOLUTION 
 
 AND A 
 
 PERSONAL CHEATOR. 
 
 JOHN COTTON SMITH, D.D., 
 
 Kectok of the Church of the AscE.\sio>f, New-Yokk. 
 
EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 
 
 The subject assigned to me in this Course of 
 Lectures, is " Evolution and a Personal Creator." 
 It presents perhaps the most important aspect of 
 the great controversy which is carried on, in this 
 age, between Science and Keligion. The conflict 
 which, in former years, was waged upon the battle- 
 fields of Astronomy and Geology, now waxes most 
 fierce upon the long lines of vegetable and animal 
 development. On the one side are those who claim 
 to be the discoverers of certain facts and laws, in 
 nature, as to the history of life on our globe, and 
 the circiunstances under which its various species 
 have appeared. On the other arc the advocates of a 
 fundamental religious truth which they claim is 
 seriously compromised by these alleged facts and 
 laws. 
 
 It will be my purpose, in this Lecture, to take 
 into consideration the present aspect of the contro- 
 versy, so as to ascertain, if possible, what is likely 
 to be its result in regard to the interests of Reli- 
 o-ion, both natural and revealed. 
 
190 EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 
 
 I cannot claim to come to the consideration of 
 this subject without bias, or in fact without posi- 
 tive convictions. It is a profound saying of Goethe, 
 " I can promise to be upriglit, but not to be without 
 bias." It wouhl be impossible for me to put my- 
 self in the attitude of indifference in regard to 
 any question involving the existence of a Personal 
 God. But I think I can claim to be earnestly de- 
 sirous to consider dispassionately and candidly what- 
 ever theory may be urged as to natural phenomena, 
 and the laws by which they are governed. I can 
 certainly claim to have large sympathy with scien- 
 tiiic investigation, and with the spirit, on the whole, 
 in which it is prosecuted. In regard to the as])ect 
 of the general subject now Ijefore us, I would say, 
 at the outset, that it is no part of my purpose to 
 attempt to refute the theory of Evolution. I wish 
 to hold, for the present, the position which Mr. 
 Gladstone has recently assumed in regard to it, 
 that of a suspense of judgment. I would say, 
 however, that the direction of scientific disco- 
 very, for the last few years, seems to me to ren- 
 der it not improbable that, before this generation 
 has passed away, some theory of Evolution will be 
 generally accepted as the most rational explanation 
 of the phenomena of nature. "With this conviction 
 I shall make it my special object to show that, even 
 
EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 191 
 
 if some theory of Evolution slioukl come to he es- 
 tablished as a scientific truth, it -would not militate 
 against any interest peculiar to Christianity, or in 
 any way compromise the fundamental principle of 
 religion — the personality of God. 
 
 It will 1)0 necessary, as our tirst step, to define 
 the terms in M-hich our subject is stated. This can 
 be done only generally, and with approximate cor- 
 rectness ; for fuller definitions would shut us up to 
 some one of the various forms in which, on the one 
 hand, the theory of Evolution, or, on the other, the 
 truth of the personality of God, is held. 
 
 To begin with Evolution. Some idea of the 
 difficulty of an accurate definition of Evolution may 
 be derived from the fact that Mr. Herbert Spencer, 
 a writer not usually Avanting in clearness of state- 
 ment, defines it as follows : " Evolution is an inte- 
 gration of matter and concomitant dissipation of 
 motion j during which the matter passes from an 
 indefinite^ incoherent homogeneity^ to a definite^ co- 
 herent heterogeneity y and during which the retained 
 motion undergoes a parallel transformatimiy Sci- 
 entific as such a definition is, it is evidently unfit 
 for popular use. AVe must seek for some other, 
 which, while it will liave less of scientific accuracy 
 and completeness, will better answer the purpose 
 we have in view. When we speak in this discus- 
 
192 EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CllEATOK. 
 
 sion of Evolution, we mean the theory according to 
 which all life on our globe is derived in a continu- 
 ous and unbroken series, by natural generation, from 
 original organisms. In extending the theory to its 
 most general form, it embraces all phenomena, inor- 
 ganic as well as organic, and affirms that all phe- 
 nomena are linked with and proceed from preced- 
 ing phenomena, by a process of development, in ac- 
 cordance with universal laws, from the most simple 
 to the most complex forms. 
 
 The doctrine of a Personal Creator affirms the 
 existence of a Being from whom all the phenomena 
 of the Universe proceed, and by whom the laws, by 
 which they are governed, were established. This 
 Being, the doctrine also affirms, is self-conscious, 
 and has those attributes without which personality 
 is unknown to us, reason, affections, and will. 
 
 The idea of the absolute continuity of this pro- 
 cess of Evolution necessarily excludes the idea of 
 the exercise, since the beginning of the process, 
 of what has usually been understood as creative 
 power. Here is one point where the theory is 
 thought to militate against the idea of a Personal 
 Creator. It seems, according to this objection, 
 to diminish the need of a Creator. Then it is 
 generally held by ilie advocates of this theory, 
 that back of this development, or previous to 
 
EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CUEATOIl. 193 
 
 tliis beginning, if it had a beginning, lies tlie 
 nnknowable, and the conchision drawn is that 
 if there is a Personal Creator it is to us as if 
 lie Avere not, lor Ave cannot know Ilini. Besides 
 this, whatever discredits that which has been ac- 
 cepted as a Revelation of a Personal Creator tends 
 to diminish our sense of His Being, and since the 
 theory of Evolution seems to conflict with the 
 account given in the Scriptures of the Origin of 
 Man, it has been thought that, in this Avay also, it 
 not only compromises interests peculiar to Christi- 
 anity, but tends to undermine our faith in the exis- 
 tence of a Persojial Creator. 
 
 In entering upon the argument required by this 
 supposed antagonism between the theory of Evolu- 
 tion and the truth of the existence of a Per- 
 sonal Creator, it seems to me desirable to And some 
 ffround which can be held in common bv the Evo- 
 lutionist, even if he is not a Theist, and the Theist 
 even if he is not an Evolutionist. 
 
 Or in other words, I should be glad to conduct 
 this inquiry upon the basis of an agreement between 
 Theists, who are ojjen to whatever considerations 
 may be m*ged in favor of the theory of Evolution, 
 and Evolutionists who, while their primary object 
 is the investigation of nature upon scientific princi- 
 ples, are ready to consider candidly the arguments 
 
194: EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 
 
 which maj be urged in behalf of the presence and 
 agency of a Personal God in JS'ature. 
 
 In order to accomplish this, let it be remembered 
 that the Evolutionist holds that there has been a 
 period in the history of being, when whatever ex- 
 isted phenomenally was homogeneous, that is, all 
 alike. What that was which then existed as matter, 
 that is, as capable of affecting us as what we call mat- 
 ter now does, the Evolutionist will not undertake to 
 determine. It may have been of inconceivable ten- 
 nity, or it may have been, though having all the attri- 
 butes of what we call matter, only co-existent, im- 
 measurably diffused force-centres. Some such con- 
 dition the Evolutionist must believe to have at one 
 time existed. 
 
 There is no difficulty whatever for the Theist in 
 this view. Indeed, he most readily represents to 
 himself, in tliis way, the phenomenal result of the 
 original creative act. We have then here a com- 
 mon ground upon which both can stand. It is the 
 critical point too in the whole controversy. The 
 waves of this boundless ether, pulsating with its all- 
 pervading forces, are perfectly representable in 
 thought. Let us see if we, Theists or Evolution- 
 ists, can venture back together into the mysterious 
 depths which preceded the phenomenal condition, 
 in the presence of which we are now supposed to 
 
EVOLUTION" AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 195 
 
 stand ; and tlicn, turning our faces to the future, fol- 
 low on togethtT, in thought, through the vast cycles 
 of time, the stupendous developments of the Uni- 
 verse. 
 
 If the Evolutionist should say here that it is true 
 that such a condition of things must have existed, 
 but that it is impossible to conceive of any preced- 
 ing period ■when the phenomenal did not exist, 
 this is true indeed, but it will not prevent our 
 standing on connnon ground, nor impede the pro- 
 gress of our argument. It is impossible indeed to 
 conceive of a beginning of phenomena, but it is also 
 impossible to conceive of phenomena not having 
 a beginning ; and if the Evolutionist urges the one, 
 the Theist can balance it l)y urging the other. So 
 far then there is nothing gained or lost upon either 
 side. Let the Theist waive the point of what pre- 
 cedes phenomena, and put the inrpiiry in this form : 
 what is that which underlies phenomena and the 
 forces which in phenomena are disclosed ? The 
 Evolutionist cannot stand upon the ground of utter 
 nescience. lie is compelled to admit, and he does 
 admit. Absolute Being. He may say that we can- 
 not know Absolute Being, but he is obliged to say 
 that we know that Absolute Being exists. Mr. Her- 
 bert Spencer himself says, " By the 'very conditions 
 of thought ice are j)revenied from hnowing any 
 
196 EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 
 
 thing hut relative })eing / yet hy these very condi- 
 tions of thought, an indefinite conscious7iess of Abso- 
 lute Being is necessitated.'''' " The axiomatic truths 
 of physical scierice tmavoiddbly postulate Ahsolute 
 Being as their common basis.'''' ^^ Both Jieligion 
 and Science are obliged by the demonstrated tmte- 
 nahility of their supposed cognitions, to confess 
 that the 'idtimate reality is incognizable, and yet 
 both are obliged to assert the existence of an JJlti- 
 rnate lieality. Without this. Religion has no sid)- 
 ject matter y and without this, Science, subjective 
 and objective, lacks its indisp)ensable datum. We 
 cannot construct a theory of internal phenomena 
 without postidat'ing Absolute Being • and unless 
 we postulate Absolute Being, or being which per- 
 sists, we cannot construct a theory of external phe- 
 nomena.'''' (First Principles, p. 190.) 
 
 It is impossible to overestimate the importance, 
 in onr argument, of this admission of Mr. Spencer. 
 The Theist and Evolutionist alike have thus tran- 
 scended phenomena and all the laws of their succes- 
 sion, and recognized an Ultimate Reality and Ab- 
 solute Being. It matters not now what we know of 
 this Being. We shall have occasion hereafter to 
 consider that. Our point now is that Theists and 
 Evolutionists have together drawn aside the pheno- 
 menal veil which hides the arcana of nature, and 
 
EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 197 
 
 recognized the Al)Solutc Ijcing within the sanctuary 
 of the Universe. 
 
 But as we stand, Theists and Evohitionists, in 
 imagination, in the presence of this boundless ocean 
 of force-centres or nit i mate atoms of matter, and 
 recognize beyond and beneath it an Ultimate lieali- 
 t_v and Absolute Being, the inquiry inevitably sug- 
 gests itself. What is the relation of the Phenomenal 
 Universe to the Absolute Being ? It may be said, 
 that it is impossible for us to have any knowledge 
 in regard to any such relation, and that the whole 
 subject is necessarily shrouded in impenetrable ob- 
 scurity. But it may be replied that if the whole 
 matter is thus beyond the sphere of human know- 
 ledge, then it is of course as unwarrantable to deny 
 the relation as to affirm it. The Evolutionist would 
 not hesitate to admit this. It would follow, then, 
 upon this admission, that it is at least as reasonable 
 to affirm this relation as to deny it. The Evolu- 
 tionist might very probably agree that it is more 
 reasonable to suppose that there is some relation 
 between Absolute Being and the Phenomenal Uni- 
 verse. It is allowable for us at least to make the 
 supposition, that there is some relation, and still 
 further to make some supposition as to what the 
 relation is. These allowable suppositions we can 
 use as working hypotheses. Without stopping now 
 
198 EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 
 
 to examine the question as to whether we are en- 
 tirely ignorant of Absokite Being and of its relation 
 to the Phenomenal Universe, we will go only so far 
 as the Evolutionist will permit us to go, without 
 denying the validity of our position. He will not 
 object to our hypotheses, since in regard to a mat- 
 ter of which, as he holds, we are entirely ignorant, 
 any hypothesis is just as likely to be true as false. 
 Postponing then any effort to show the validity of 
 our hypotheses, I would suppose that a relation ex- 
 ists between Absolute Being and the Phenomenal 
 Universe, that Absolute Being is Personal Being 
 with Peason, Affections, and Will, that the Ab- 
 solute Being is immanent in the Phenomenal 
 Universe, and that the forces and laws of the Phe- 
 nomenal Universe are merely expressions of the 
 agency and will of the Absolute Being. 
 
 It is important to notice here that if the Evolu- 
 tionist, while he cannot deny but that these hypothe- 
 ses may be true, does not admit the validity of the 
 evidence in behalf of their truth, it is not in conse- 
 quence of holding the theory of Evolution. The 
 theory of Evolution does not touch these hypotheses 
 at any conceivable point. A man may hold that 
 theory to its fullest extent, and in its most extreme 
 form, and yet, in entire consistency, affirm every one 
 of these hypotheses to be true. The only question 
 
EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 199 
 
 tliiis far in regard to which there is a difference of 
 opinion, is a metaphysical one as to the possibility 
 of our knowledge of the Absolute. Whether tlie 
 theory of Evohitiou is true or false, this question 
 remains unaffected. 
 
 Taking up, then, these hypotheses, reserving the 
 evidence of their truth for a while, and contemplat- 
 ing, in imagination, this primitive condition of the 
 Universe, we find ourselves in the presence of the 
 original hyU (as the Greeks called it), or matter, in 
 whicli are certain all-pervading forces and laws, 
 which, npon our present supposition, are expressions 
 of the agency and will of the Absolute Being. 
 
 It devolves upon ns at this point to inquire what 
 is the character of these forces, and what are the 
 laws by which their operation in the Universe is 
 governed ? It is impossible of course to do more, 
 at this time, than to state some of the principal 
 forces and laws, and those upon which the Evolu- 
 tionist relies as the methods by which the develop- 
 ments of the Universe are evolved. With the ad- 
 vantao-e of the magTiificent discoveries of Science, 
 we know something of those forces and laws, and 
 we can see what would l)e the method and the re- 
 sults of their operation in the liomogeneous mass we 
 have supposed to be before us. There are certain pri- 
 mary truths through which tliese forces and laws are 
 
200 EVOLUTION" AXD A PERSONAL CREATOR. 
 
 disclosed to iis. Such are the Persistence of Force, 
 the Continuity of Motion, and the Indestructibility 
 of Matter. The last two are necessarily derived 
 from the iirst ; for " our experiences of matter and 
 motion are resolvable into experiences of forced I 
 am following Mr. Herbert Spencer in this enumera- 
 tion of primary truths, as I shall follow him also in 
 his application of them to tlie process of Evolution, 
 because I wish to sliow that the theory of Evo- 
 lution, as stated by its most renowned advocates, is 
 not inconsistent with the belief in a Personal Crea- 
 tor. 
 
 And liere let it be noticed that whatever else 
 may be the result of a process of evolution, these 
 laws are not. They precede and underlie all phe- 
 nomena. They are eternal principles. They inevi- 
 tably suggest an eternal mind, of which they are 
 eternal ideas. And we seek in vain for a subject in 
 which these eternal principles can inhere, if not in 
 tlie Ultimate Reality, the Absolute Being, the exis- 
 tence of which, according to Mr. Spencer, we are 
 compelled to acknowledge. 
 
 I have referred to force, in the general, as includ- 
 ing all forces, and under the general law of its per- 
 sistence, other numerous laws will group them- 
 selves. The most prominent result at iirst of the 
 operation of these forces, in accordance with these 
 
EVOLUTION AND A PEUSONAL CREATOR. 201 
 
 laws, upon the homogeneous mass by which space is 
 supposed to be tilled, is to transform its homogene- 
 ous into a heterogeneous character. Lines of force 
 striking a homogeneous mass, at different angles, 
 and the motion of its particles necessarily following 
 the direction of least resistance, will constitute 
 a process of differentiation. We see the amazing 
 and endless varict}^ of the Universe begin. The 
 play of these forces integrates enormous masses of 
 matter. The process of integration is accompanied 
 by that of segregation and equilibration. Groups, in 
 a wonderful order, with vast intervals, move with 
 inconceivable velocity through the abysses of space. 
 Measureless periods of time roll away, and we be- 
 hold the Stellar Universe, that Universe beneath 
 the contemplation of which man trembles with the 
 sense of his own nothingness, as he is overwhelmed 
 with the splendor and majesty of this stupendous 
 theatre for the development of life. As we stand 
 at this point in the marvellous process, what shall 
 M'e think of Absolute Being, the existence of which 
 we are compelled to acknowledge ? Are we any less 
 sure of the agency of this Being, any less certain 
 that there are Reason and Will behind all pheno- 
 mena, than we should be if we had seen shaping 
 hands come forth from the darkness, and Ijuild up 
 the stately constellations i IS'ay, are we not more 
 
202 EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 
 
 profoundly impressed by the invisible and silent, 
 and immensely protracted and infinitely patient 
 agency by wliicli phenomena seem to come into 
 being ! And as the Evolutionist recognizes the 
 Absolute Being and its relationship to the pheno- 
 menal universe, and is iilled with wonder and awe 
 at the mystery of this rational development an- 
 swering to, but infinitely surpassing, a reason of 
 which he is conscious in himself, does not an al- 
 most irresistible impulse move him to a recognition 
 of a Personal Being, and could any more reason- 
 able utterance rise to his lips than this : " Thou, 
 Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of 
 the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thine 
 hands" ! 
 
 Thus far we have witnessed but the mere prelude 
 of that development which the Evolutionist claims 
 has proceeded uninterruptedly in nature to the pre- 
 sent time. We have seen that, up to this point, 
 there is nothing in the theory, or the facts which 
 support it, which conflicts with the idea of a Per 
 sonal Being, from whom all this development pro 
 ceeds, and by whom it is carried on. The only 
 suggestion of difficulty, which is our alleged igno- 
 i-ance of the Absolute, is, as has already been said, a 
 -metaphysical difficulty, and is in no way the result 
 of the theory of Evolution. 
 
EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CllEATOU. 203 
 
 AVonld it. conflict at all with the idea of a Per- 
 soiial Creator, if it shoukl be supposed that the pro- 
 cess, having reached this point, is still continuous, 
 and moves up into a hii;her sphere, presenting an 
 entirely new class of phenomena? If a Personal 
 God ciiooses that the works of His hands shall he 
 evolved step by step, each link joined to the preced- 
 ino- in an endless chain, instead of breaking up the 
 continuity from time to time and beginning anew, 
 does He thereby obscure to us the fact of His exist- 
 ence ? Does not the continuous process, which is, 
 in effect, one uninterrupted series of acts of crea- 
 tion, testify more clearly than a mere mechanical 
 process, interrupted from time to time by special 
 acts of creation, could possibly do to an infinite 
 "Reason, which sees the end from the beginning ? 
 
 Supposing this to be so, and that there would be 
 rather gain than loss for the Theistic argument, 
 should it appear that the process of evolution is 
 still continuous front inorganic to organic nature, 
 we arc prepared to consider the evidence to be of- 
 fered that this is the case. 
 
 Suppose we still stand in imagination at the 
 point we have already reached in the process of 
 evolution. We presently behold a new phenomenon 
 —that of life. It does not burst upon us suddenly 
 in highly advanced organisms ; we liud it in the 
 
204 EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 
 
 simplest possible forms. In bringing the process 
 before oiir minds, we can of course avail ourselves 
 only of the facts which are made knoMai to ns of 
 that early period in the stratified history of our 
 globe. These facts are few ; the record is exceed- 
 ingly imperfect ; but in connection with other facts 
 now accessible to ns, they seem to indicate that the 
 first appearance of life, supposing we had been wit- 
 nesses of it, would not have seemed to us any inter- 
 ruption of a continuous order of development. 
 One who sees crystalline formation, with its deli- 
 cate shoots branching out on either side from a cen- 
 tral axis, would not be conscious of any disturbance 
 of an established order in the appearance of j^lants, 
 in the midst of what had hitherto been inorganic 
 nature. In animal life, also, we reach a point where 
 the transition from the inorganic would be almost 
 imperceptible. In the 2>^'otogenes of Haeckel we 
 have, according to Mr. Spencer, " a type distinguish- 
 able from a fragment of albumen only by its finely 
 granular character." There are certain remarkable 
 facts also in this connection, recognized by scientific 
 men, and appealed to by the Evolutionist in support 
 of his theory. For instance, the matter constituting 
 the living world is identical with that which forms 
 the inorganic world. And what is still more remark- 
 able is, that all the forces exerted in the living 
 
EVOLUTIOX AND A 1>EUS0XA[. CREATOR. 205 
 
 world are probably cither identical with the forces 
 of the inorganic world, or are convertible into them. 
 Besides, organic nature is all the time built up out 
 of inorganic nature, and returns into inorganic na- 
 ture again. It may be said, indeed, by those who 
 O2>pose this theory, that organic nature is inorganic 
 nature plus life, and that the addition of life to na- 
 ture is a new creation. But since we are supposing 
 a divine act in every change of phenomena, how 
 does it detract from the creative agency of God, if 
 we affirm that through a certain arrangement of 
 molecules life is developed, and plants or animals 
 take their place in the boundless fields of nature ? 
 This i^rocess of evolution, throui>-h inconceivably 
 complex conditions and incalculable periods of time, 
 has resulted, at last, according to the Evolutionist, 
 in the flora and fauna of the vegetable and animal 
 kingdoms of the present time. 
 
 We liave thus passed in our survey of the history 
 of phenomena from inorganic to organic being. 
 Certainly no point has been reached where Theist 
 and Evolutionist, whom we have thus placed in a 
 temporary antithesis, need to separate. If life has 
 at last appeared upon the stage of being by a pro- 
 cess of fine gradations, instead of by a sudden irrup- 
 tion of a new order of things, is there any reason 
 why the Theist should be disturbed 'i Is there any 
 
206 EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 
 
 reason wliy lie should liesitate, in the supposed in- 
 terest of theology, to accept this as the truth in re- 
 gard to the first appearance of life upon our globe ? 
 lie can recognize the All-powerful One behind 
 this process just as well as he could, if he had seen 
 a full-sized tree or animal start suddenly and with- 
 out any phenomenal antecedents into being. And 
 the Evolutionist, still haunted by the presence of 
 the inscrutable Power which lies back of all phe- 
 nomena, and which he recognizes, waits to hear 
 whether a knowledge of this power is accessible to 
 other than the mere scientific faculties of the mind, 
 and is as far as possible from the affirmation of the 
 fool who '• has said in his heart, there is no God." 
 
 It is a part of my object, as I have already inti- 
 mated, to present as fairly and strongly as I may be 
 able to do, in the limits permitted me, the grounds 
 upon which the doctrine of evolution rests and 
 claims the acceptance of thinking men. It becomes 
 desirable, therefore, at this point, to consider some 
 of the laws and facts which exist in the animal 
 world, upon which the process of evolution is al- 
 leged to rest. 
 
 It is then, in the first place, a well-known law in 
 nature, that animal life constantly encroaches upon 
 the means of subsistence, or, as stated scientifically, 
 that animal life increases in a geometrical progres- 
 
EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 207 
 
 sion, wliilc the ineaiis of subsistence increase only 
 in an aritlimetical progression. Tlie inevitable con- 
 sequence is, tliat a struggle for existence ensues, in 
 which the more hardy and vigorous prevail, or in 
 the language generally used in this connection, 
 there is a " survival of the littest." Then conies in 
 the law of Heredity, or the likeness of offspring to 
 their parents, by which there is a tendency to the 
 extension and perpetuation of the stronger and 
 better qualities. Then there is the tendency to vari- 
 ation, inidcr the influence of special surroundings 
 and acquired habits. These variations are almost 
 always in the line of advantage to the animal, and 
 becoming stamped, as it were, upon the organism, 
 are themselves transmissible by inheritance. There 
 is, therefore, a constant uplifting of life, a move- 
 ment from the simple to the complex, from the 
 unit to the manifold. 
 
 There are, however, certain objections in regard 
 to this theory, which we are bound at this point to 
 consider, candidly weighing the replies which the 
 evolutionist has made. 
 
 The theory of evolution supposes that life has 
 been undergoing ceaseless variation from tlie very 
 first period of its existence, yet some of its ear- 
 liest forms survive to the present day, and it is 
 duuljtful whether there have been any specific 
 
208 EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR, 
 
 changes within the periods of histoiy. This is a dif- 
 ficulty which besets the theory in respect both to 
 animal and vegetable life, and it may be well to con- 
 jsider it here for a moment in regard to both. The 
 evolutionist meets it by the assertion of what he calls 
 " persistence of type" in nature. With a tendency 
 in organisms to indefinite variation, under the influ- 
 ence of external causes, there is also a tendency to 
 adhere to the original type, and this tendency, 
 under favorable circumstances, is able to persist 
 through immense periods of time;- It may be, also, 
 the evolutionist can plausibly urge, that the whole 
 period embraced in history is too short for percep- 
 tible changes in species of vegetable or animal life. 
 Still further, it may be urged, there may be laws 
 which restrain evolution in certain directions while 
 permitting it in others. And last of all, the evo- 
 lutionist may say to us that the more highly organ- 
 ized life is, the more stable it becomes, and that it 
 now requires immensely more protracted periods to 
 accomplish Avliat we should call specific changes 
 than was the case when organisms were generally 
 less complex. 
 
 Another objection which has been urged against 
 the theory of evolution is, that there is an absence 
 in the geologic record of life of those fine grada- 
 tions between what we call species, which might 
 
EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 209 
 
 be expected to exist if all life had proceeded by 
 development from one or a few primordial germs. 
 But the cvolntionist might reply that the theory 
 of evolution does not necessarily suppose this de- 
 velopment to have proceeded from one or a few 
 original germs. The development may have pro^ 
 ceeded from a vast number of original germs, and 
 upon a vast nmnber of parallel lines. This would 
 account for the absence of line gradations between 
 different species of animal life. But besides this, 
 the record of life on our globe is very imperfect. 
 The smallest proportion possible of the life which 
 has existed has left any trace behind. There are 
 gaps and chasms everywhere in the record. The 
 entire contents of strata of immense depth have 
 been utterly destroyed. Now, if we suppose that 
 no such destruction of organic remains had taken 
 place, who can say but that these gaps and chasms 
 would be found to be tilled up, and that we should 
 behold a record of all the various forms of animal 
 life, blending by imperceptible gradations into 
 each other ? But while such a development of life 
 has been everywhere and at all times interrupted 
 and arrested, there are preserved, here and there, 
 traces of the links by which various species were 
 united. The fossiliferous strata present not a few 
 of what are called intercalary forms tilling up the 
 
210 EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 
 
 gaps between different species, and suggesting to 
 the thoughtful mind the missing characters which 
 have disappeared from the record. 
 
 It has also been urged against the theory, that no 
 instance has ever been known of one species pass- 
 ing into another, and that therefore the doctrine of 
 the transmutation of species, which is involved in 
 this theory, is destitute of foundation. The an- 
 swer which is made to this objection is that the 
 evolution is not supposed to be lateral, that is, from 
 what we call one species to another already exist- 
 ing species, but that it is uniforndy in the line of 
 the gradual improvement of species. Thus, even 
 within the historical period, in which the time for 
 such developments has been so brief, m'c find such 
 an advance as to constitute, on any accepted prin- 
 ciple of classification, a new species. The order 
 columbcB is, as is well known, a notable instance of 
 this. There is nothing better understood by natu- 
 ralists than the ease with which variations are es- 
 tablished and transmitted in the pigeon tribe. 
 With such an indication of a tendency in nature to 
 permanent and rapidly increasing variation, it is 
 difficult to resist the conclusion that sufiicientiy 
 protracted periods of time, with the inevitable 
 struggle for existence, and the fact of the trans- 
 
EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 211 
 
 mission of acquired peculiarities, may be sufficient 
 to account for all the varied development of life. 
 
 There is a remarkable passage in Coleridge's 
 Aids to liejicctLon^ in which that profound phi- 
 losopher anticipates, by a sort of insight into nature, 
 the discoveries of the last few years, as to the as- 
 cending evolution of life. lie says, " Every rank 
 of creatures, as it ascends in the scale of creation, 
 leaves death behind it or under it. The metal, at 
 its height of being, seems a mute prophecy of the 
 coming vegetation, into a mimic semblance of which 
 it crystallizes. The blossom and flower, the acme 
 of vegetable life, divides into correspondent organs 
 with reciprocal functions, and by instinctive mo- 
 tions and approximations seems impatient of that 
 lixure by which it is differenced in kind from the 
 flower-shaped Psyche that flutters with free wing 
 above it. And wonderfully, in the insect realm, 
 doth the irritability, the proj^er seat of instinct, 
 while yet the nascent sensibility is subordinated 
 thereto — most wonderfully, I say, doth the muscu- 
 lar life in the insect, and the musco-arterial in the 
 bird, imitate and typically rehearse the adaptive 
 understanding, yea, and the moral affections and 
 charities of man. Let us carry ourselves back, in 
 spirit, to the mysterious week, the teeming work- 
 days of the Creator, as they rose in vision before 
 
213 EVOLUTioisr and a personal creator. 
 
 the eye of the inspired historian, of the generations 
 of the heavens and of the earth, in the day that the 
 Lord God made the earth and the heavens. And 
 Avho tliat liath watched their ways Avith an under- 
 standing lieart could, as tlie A-ision evolving still 
 advanced toward him, contemplate the filial and 
 loyal Bee ; the home-huilding, Avedded and divorce- 
 less Swallow ; and above all, the manifoldly intelli- 
 gent Ant tribes, with their commonwealths and 
 confederacies, their warriors and miners, the hus- 
 band folk, that fold in their tiny flocks on the 
 honeyed leaf, and the virgin sisters, Avitli the holy 
 instincts of maternal love, detached, and in selfless 
 purity — and not say to himself, Behold the shadow 
 of approaching humanity ; the sun rising from be- 
 hind, in the kindling morn of creatiou. Thus all 
 lower natures find their highest good in semblances 
 and seekings of that wliicli is higher and better. 
 All things strive to ascend, and ascend in their 
 striving." 
 
 When we thus contemplate nature, the very fact 
 of its wonderful order, and its universal subordina- 
 tion to law, only makes it seem to us all the more 
 instinct Vv'ith a divine life. The evolutionist, in the 
 presence of this rational development, can utter no 
 reasonable protest, if we exclaim — 
 
EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 213 
 
 " (Joel of the Granito and tlie Rose ! 
 
 Soul of the bparrow and the Bee ! 
 The mighty tide of Being flows 
 
 Through countless channels, Lord, from Thee. 
 It leaps to life in grass and flowers, 
 
 Through every grade of being runs ; 
 While from Creation's radiant towers. 
 
 Its glory flames in Stars and Suns." 
 
 The difficulty culminates, however, as we reach 
 that point in the process where man appears. I 
 wish to speak here with the utmost care, lest I 
 sliould 1)0 misunderstood. The theory which in- 
 volves man in this process of evolution, whether as 
 regards his body alone, or both the body and the 
 sold, is inconsistent with the interpretation of the 
 scriptural account of the origin of man, Mhich I, in 
 common with other believers in Christianity, have 
 received. I confess to very great reluctance to hav- 
 ing that interpretation revised. I am by no means 
 prepared to admit that a process of evolution, in- 
 cluding man, is as yet so thoroughly established as 
 to^ render it certain that this interpretation must be 
 modified. But I remember that previous interpre- 
 tations of the same class of subjects have been mo- 
 dified, and even abandoned, and yet the great his- 
 torical faith of the Church has survived unimpaired. 
 I recognize the fact, so plainly disclosed in history, 
 
214: EVOLUTION" AXD A PERSONAL CREATOR. 
 
 that true interpretation of the Scriptures has been 
 largely dependent upon scientific progress. I be- 
 lieve the investigation of nature to be one of the 
 means by which the Holy Spirit leads us into all 
 truth. I do not dare, therefore, to affirm that my 
 interpretation of the Scriptures on this point is a 
 iinalit}^, connected as it is only indirectly by a logi- 
 cal process Avith any article of the faith. I can not 
 venture to subject the faith itself to the stress and 
 strain which should be borne by my fallible inter- 
 pretation alone. I must be open, therefore, to any 
 truth which God may teach in nature, in response 
 to human inrpiiry ; and faith should be strong 
 enough for a fidl assurance that all such truth will 
 lead to 2nore glorious views of God, and of that 
 salvation which lie has provided for mankind. 
 
 It is not necessarily involved in my subject to 
 consider the possible reconciliation of the scriptu- 
 ral account of the origin of man with the theory of 
 evolution. But the possibility of such a reconcilia- 
 tion, should the theory be established, is so impor- 
 tant, and so closely connected with the purpose 
 which I have in view, that I will not evade the dif- 
 ficulty, nor shun the delicate task of its considera- 
 tion. 
 
 It will be well for us then to remember, lest our 
 apprehensions should be unduly excited, that the 
 
EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 215 
 
 interpretation in question has never had tlie sanc- 
 tion of tlie Church, nor of the entire body of Chris- 
 tian teachers. St. George Mivart has shown con- 
 clusively that a theory of evolution was held by 
 some of the most distinguished of the Christian 
 philosophers of the period of the schoolmen. In 
 fact, it is not at all certain but that the interpreta- 
 tion in question is itself the result of the imperfect 
 science of earlier periods, and that the mischief, in 
 this respect, which science has done, science is now 
 to repair. 
 
 Let us understand clearly the difficulty we are to 
 meet here. It is not the question of the existence 
 of a Personal God. That question is not involv- 
 ed, in any sjiccial sense, in the origin of man. It is 
 not the question of the freedom of the Avill and 
 moral accountability. There is nothing in the the- 
 ory of a process of evolution inconsistent with the 
 arrival of being, at some point, to all that which is 
 involved in the moral attributes of man. The ques- 
 tion is not mainly whether the scriptural account 
 of this matter is to be understood literally, or is an 
 account cast in a poetic form. The account itself, 
 in the indiscriminate use in it of Hebrew words 
 signifying to create and to make, as well as in other 
 respects, affords indications that it was not intend- 
 ed to be cast in a mould of rigid scientific accuracy. 
 
216 EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 
 
 Neither Christianity nor the claims of God's word 
 would be compromised, even if the Mosaic account 
 should be proved to be an Oriental allegory, teach- 
 ing important truth nnder poetical forms. The 
 real difficulty here encountered is in regard to the 
 fall of man, which is a fundamental fact in histori- 
 cal Christianity. At hrst view, it seems entirely 
 inconsistent with the theory of evolution. That 
 presents to us, apparently, an uninterrupted pro- 
 gress towards a higher and better condition. What 
 place is there, then, in the process, for such a fact 
 as the Fall ? 
 
 In answering this question, we are led to the con- 
 sideration of a peculiarity, in this j^rocess, which has 
 attracted the attention of scientific men. This pe- 
 culiarity has been described as an occasional blun- 
 dering or blind groping of nature. There seem to 
 be tentative movements in nature. There are fail- 
 ures and positive degenerations. There is a ten- 
 dency to variation, not only in the direction of ad- 
 vantage and progress, but of arrested development 
 and deterioration. This fact, about Avliich there is 
 no dispute, has been thought by some to furnish an 
 argument against design in nature. There is a suf- 
 ficient reply to that suggestion, but its considera- 
 tion does not come now within our province. The 
 use which I wish now to make of it is as an indica- 
 
EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 217 
 
 tion in tlic lower physical order of what takes place 
 in the higher moral realm of nature. 
 
 There is then a tendency to degeneration, as well 
 as to progress, in nature. If the theory of Evolu- 
 tion is true, the same law will manifest itself in the 
 moral order. And Avhat is the Fall of Man but 
 that fact in the moral order, of which we have a 
 prophecy in the deteriorations of the physical 
 world ! 
 
 It will be wise in us to watch carefully the pro- 
 o-ress of investigation in this respect. The results 
 already reached are certainly not of a character to 
 be set lightly aside. The indications, in embryolo- 
 ev, of the links between man and the lower orders of 
 animal life ; the foreshadowing of human sentiment 
 and emotion in the passions of the brute creation ; 
 the startling suggestion which obtrudes itself, as we 
 study nature, that certain habits in man may be the 
 transmitted results of habits acquired all along that 
 line of organic development, through which huma- 
 nity has been built up from the dust of the earth ; 
 the wonderful fact that the book of Genesis itself 
 groups man with the lower orders of animal life in 
 the last period of creation ; all these considerations 
 should be thoughtfully and candidly weighed. I am 
 perfectly aware of tlie strength of the arguments 
 which are urged against these considerations on 
 
218 EVOLUTIOX AXD A PERSOXAL CREATOE. 
 
 strictly scientific grounds. One eminent man has 
 not long since passed away, who, Avith the highest 
 scientific reputation, was a conspicuous opponent of 
 these views. I need not dwell iipon the position, 
 in this respect, of Professor Agassiz. This com- 
 munity will have the opportunity within the next 
 fortnight of listening to a full exposition of this 
 subject, from one of our most distinguished scho- 
 lars and divines, the Rev. Dr. Osgood. But it is a 
 significant fact that Professor Agassiz leaves scarce- 
 ly any successor, in the higher walks of science, to 
 his opinions upon the subject of evolution. The 
 apparent inevitableness of the drift of scientific opi- 
 nion in the direction of this theory can hardly be 
 appreciated by any one who is not familiar with the 
 l^rinciples of scientific investigation. A discovery, 
 which, to men generally, would have little signifi- 
 cance, is, to the intellect trained in scientific meth- 
 ods, full of suggestiveness as to the plan of nature. 
 The unanimity among scientific men, with which 
 these discoveries are regarded as pointing in one 
 general direction, and demanding an interpretation 
 of nature upon the hypothesis of Evolution, is some- 
 thing very remarkable, and should receive the seri- 
 ous consideration of at least every educated Chris- 
 tian man. It is the solemn duty of the Christian 
 world, in view of what may ere long be universally 
 
EVOLUTION AND A TERSONAL CREATOR. 219 
 
 accepted scientific opinions, to give its Lest thought 
 to the discrimination which may be made between 
 intei'pretations of certain portions of the Scriptures 
 and tlie essential facts and truths of the Christian 
 faith. 
 
 Professor Agassiz, while opposing the theory of 
 evolution, planted himself firmly, in one respect, 
 upon a foundation, from which it was impossible 
 for him, by any scientific conclusions, to be remov- 
 ed, lie claimed to recognize everywhere in nature 
 the thought of God. Science, Avitliin the self-ap- 
 pointed limits of tlic investigation of phenomena, 
 and the laws of their sequence, can never disturl) 
 tliis position ; for it lies outside of phenomena, and 
 is afhrmed by faculties higher tlian the mere scien- 
 tific faculties of the mind. The evohitionist, wlio 
 does not recognize any thing outside of ])lienomena 
 as constituting a part of his philosophical system, 
 can take no exception to this, any more than to 
 the other hypotlieses which we liave made. We, 
 as theists, have gone with the evolutionist nil along 
 through the history of phenomenal being. AYe do 
 not venture to say but that all he claims as to the 
 order and method of the development of nature 
 may be true. We hold him, also, at this point, to 
 these admissions ; that there is Absolute Being 
 back of all phenomena, and that, in the absence of 
 
220 EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 
 
 any possible knowledge of this Being, the hypo- 
 thesis that it is a personal Being, who has construct- 
 ed nature upon a rational plan, the features of 
 which we can trace in the phenomenal Universe, is, 
 at least, as reasonable. as any other. 
 
 But w^e are now prepared to go further. "VV"e 
 have kept common ground, so far. ISTow we affirm 
 that the position of nescience, in regard to Abso- 
 lute Being, is untenable, and that there are satis- 
 factory and conclusive considerations which should 
 carry the mere scientific investigator Avith us, when 
 w^e affirm the truth of the hypotheses wdiich we 
 have made. It is in vain to claim that we know 
 nothing of Absolute Being. We assert for our- 
 selves some knowledge of it w'hen we affirm that it 
 exists. If, then, personality is denied to it, that is 
 a still further claim to knowledge ; for on wdiat pos- 
 sible ground can the absence of personality be af- 
 firmed of a Being, of whom nothing is known ? It 
 is, however, no more than fair to notice the fact 
 that there are certain grounds upon wdiich the per- 
 sonality of Absolute Being is denied. But it must 
 be remembered that the whole discussion is now 
 transferred to the realm of metaphysics, and the 
 man of science [\bandons here the peculiar prestige 
 which belongs to him in the scientific field. From 
 the moment that he penetrates beyond the mole- 
 
EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 221 
 
 eulc, where matter vanishes from any test to Avhicli 
 lie can subject it, all through the supposed atom- 
 ic constitution of matter, back to Absolute Being, 
 he is traveling in the realm of metaphysics. In the 
 realm, then, of metaphysics, we would meet this 
 affirmation of nescience, in regard to Absolute Be- 
 ing, and this consequent scepticism as to its person- 
 ality. 
 
 Since there is nothing in mere personality, that is, 
 in the conscious possession of intellect and will, which 
 is inconsistent with Absolute Being, the grounds for 
 its denial must be sought indirectly and outside of 
 the mere existence of Absolute Being. It is accor- 
 dingly affirmed that the idea of Absolute Being ex- 
 cludes all relation, and that therefore we can not 
 conceive of the Absolute Being as cause and the 
 Universe as effect, or of any idea of Absolute Be- 
 ing, and a phenomenal Universe, except the pan- 
 theistic idea — which makes God to be all things 
 and all things to be God. This position overlooks 
 the distinction, which evidently should be made, 
 between an Absolute Being, which can not hold any 
 ^elation to a phenomenal Universe and an Absolute 
 Being, which, while no such relation necessarily ex- 
 ists, can hold it at its will. 
 
 It is conceivable then, that' Absolute and Uncon- 
 ditioned Being may hold relations at its will. It 
 
222 EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. • 
 
 can conceivably project an object of whicli it is the 
 subject. It can make itself the Canse of which the 
 Universe is the Effect. Is there, then, a Personal 
 Being back of all the phenomena of l^ature ? I 
 reply, that an affirmative is at least as reason- ■ 
 able, by the admission of all, as a negative answer, 
 and that since a voluntary relativity is conceivable 
 in Absolute Being, there are such indications of 
 reason and will in nature, as to make it violently 
 unreasonable to deny that the rationality of the 
 Universe is owing to the will of a rational and con- 
 sequently personal Absolute Being. 
 
 A question comes up at this point in the discus- 
 sion, which it is important for us to consider. Ab- 
 solute Being back of all phenomena is admitted in 
 this controversy ; but although much is affirmed on 
 one side as well as the other, in regard to it, it is 
 claimed that " it is something which lies outside of 
 the range of our knowledge." This necessarily sug- 
 gests the question, what knowledge is possible to us ; 
 whether, in other words, it is possible for us to know 
 any thing otherwise than by the faculties employed 
 in scientific investigation. I can not, of course, en- ^ 
 ter here upon the discussion of so great a subject. 
 I can only indicate the sure and safe ground which 
 the Christian philosopher can take. We need to 
 take our stand upon the higher spiritual philosoj^hy, 
 
EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 223 
 
 that of Plato, and Leibnitz, and Kant, and Cole- 
 ridge ; affirming the distinction between the reason 
 and the imderstandinc:, and claimino- an intuitional 
 poAvcr in reason as the basis of our higher know- 
 ledge. I am not insensible to the dangers of the 
 transcendental philosophy, but I can not express too 
 strongly my sense of the importance of familiarity, 
 on the part, especially of Christian ministers, Avith 
 the general principles of the ])hilosophy of the 
 great world-teachers to whom I have referred. 
 Blaise Pascal has given the highest expression of 
 this philosophy, in a wonderful passage, in Avhicli 
 he says, " Divine things are infinitely above na- 
 ture, and God only can place them in the soul. He 
 has designed that they should pass, not from the 
 head into the heart, but from the heart into the head. 
 And so, as it is necessary to know human things in 
 order to love them, it is necessary to love divine 
 things in order to know them." The great Dante 
 also has beautifully and profoundly stated the atti- 
 tude of this philosophy in regard to the knowledge 
 
 of God. 
 
 " Lumc e lassu die visibile face 
 
 Lo creatore a quella creatura — 
 
 Clie solo in lui vedere lia la sua pace." 
 
 " There is above a light which makes visible the 
 Creator to that creature who finds his peace only in 
 the vision of Him." 
 
22i EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 
 
 Before closing what I liave to say, there are one 
 or two points to which I wish for a moment to refer. 
 I have, in this lecture, placed those who hold the 
 doctrine of Evolution, in the position of those who 
 are not prepared to take distinctively Theistic 
 ground. This I have done, as must have been per- 
 ceived, only for the temporary purposes of my ar- 
 gument. But having done this, I feel that they 
 ought in all fairness to be allowed to speak for 
 themselves on this point, and I therefore cpiote a 
 passage from the works of Mr. Darwin, one of the 
 most distinguished representatives of this school : 
 
 " There is a grandeur in this view of life, with 
 its several powers, having Ijeen originally breathed 
 by the Creator into a few forms or into one ; and 
 that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on, accord- 
 ing to the iixed law of gravity, from so simple a 
 beginning, endless forms, most beautiful and most 
 wonderful, have been and are being evolved." 
 
 Another point to which I would refer is the 
 charge of materialism, which is made very general- 
 ly against men of science at the present day. That 
 there aro some, especially in Germany, who are just- 
 ly chargeable with materialism, in the worst sense 
 of the term, I have no doubt. There are some 
 l^robably in England wlio are liable to the same 
 charge, but I should not include among them the 
 
EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 
 
 t>25 
 
 recognized leaders of scientific tliought. The scien- 
 tific investigations of the last few years have modi- 
 fied the character of materialistic philosophy. All 
 scientific men at the present day believe in the ato- 
 mic constitution of Avliat we call matter ; hut so far 
 as they know— and the leaders among them unhesi- 
 tatiuo-ly admit it— the ultimate atoms of matter 
 may be only force-centres, and therefore what we 
 understand as spiritual entities. I am not insensible 
 to the dangerous character of prevalent materialis- 
 tic views as to the freedom of the will and other 
 closely related subjects ; but I do not hesitate to say 
 that the materialism of which I have just spoken, 
 that which indissolubly associates life and force 
 with what we call matter, and which is as ready to 
 express the facts of nature in terms of spirit as of 
 matter, is not a dangerous materialism,.-and is, just 
 as much as the idealism of Bishop Berkeley, consis- 
 tent with the Christian faith. 
 
 I wish also to say that in whatever concessions I 
 may have made to the theory of evolution, I am not 
 to be understood as an advocate of any view which 
 separates God, at any moment, from the phenome- 
 nal universe. The idea of the exercise of creative 
 power, at the initiation of each species of life, does 
 exclude God, to some degree certainly, from the 
 intermediate periods. ^ly view recognizes God as 
 
226 EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 
 
 tlie First Great Cause, and beholds His working 
 and immediate agency in every minutest change in 
 the phenomenal universe. What is true of man 
 is true of all existence : " In Him we live and 
 move and have our being.'' 
 
 There is one more point to be considered. If 
 there is such a process of evolution, what may we 
 anticipate as its end ? Is it to go on until there 
 are beings as far above man as he is above the 
 lower orders of animal life ? In answering these 
 questions, we shall be aided by what is a scientific 
 conception, and that is, that if the phenomenal 
 universe has proceeded from Absolute Being, to 
 Absolute Being it will return. But this is just 
 what is presented to us in the fundamental facts 
 and principles of the Christian faith. The tide 
 of being wldch has flowed from God and cul- 
 minated at last in man, must return to God. 
 This it does in the Incarnation, by which man is 
 united to God, and God to man. The circle from 
 Absolute Being back to Absolute Being is complete. 
 Those who are familiar with nature, and see how 
 one thino; answers to another, and all thinsjs seek 
 harmony, and symmetry, and completeness, will re- 
 cognize the presence of a universal law in this link- 
 ing together of man, as the final result of develop- 
 ment, with God, in Christ. Christ then stands as 
 
EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CREATOR. 227 
 
 the highest aud final expression of this evolution, 
 evolved from the bosom of humanity and yet com- 
 ing forth also from the being of God. He is tlie 
 highest expression of which the process is capable. 
 It ends with Christ, in God. 
 
 I have now completed the manif estl}'^ difficult and 
 delicate task assigned me. Every word which I have 
 spoken, has been inspired by an earnest desire to 
 do what I could to allay apprehensions which 
 have been excited by the supposed attitude of Sci- 
 ence toward natural and revealed religion. If the 
 doctrine of successive and intermitted acts of crea- 
 tion should finally be abandoned, it will be replac- 
 ed by a far higher conception of God, according to 
 which every phenomenal change depends upon 
 what is virtually a creative act, and the inconceiv- 
 ably vast development of ISTature springs forth at 
 every point of space and every moment of time, 
 from God. The last thing in regard to which any 
 fear need be entertained, is the future of the histo- 
 rical faith of the Christian Church. 
 
 A poet of our time has rej^resented Christianity 
 in the likeness of a majestic angel, with helmet and 
 sword, vainly attempting, in the presence of the 
 Sphinx, to answer the pro])lem of human destiny. 
 The helmet falls from her head, and the sword from 
 her hand, aud she stands mute and powerless. The 
 
228 EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CEEATOR. 
 
 future, we may rest assured, will reverse the repre- 
 sentation. Tlie helmet will rest upon the calm and 
 serene brow of the angel ; the sword will be held 
 in her invincible hand, and the answer will be given 
 which solves the mystery of our being. Science 
 has reached a point in its investigations, where it 
 will become more reverent. The Absolute Being 
 which it already recognizes will be seen to be the 
 personal Creator and Governor of the Universe. 
 The interpretation of ^Nature will be more tho- 
 rough and clear, and the testimony to the Infinite 
 Being, the Moral Governor of the World, will be 
 so overwhelming and decisive that there will be a 
 universal acknowledgment that — 
 
 "Eartli with lier tliousand voices praises God." 
 
 The foregoing Lecture was, for the most part, un- 
 written at the time of its delivery, and it Was sug- 
 gested to me by some of my friends, for whose opin- 
 ions I have the highest regard, that in Avriting out 
 the Lecture for publication, I might have the oppor- 
 tunity of modifying certain positions which I had 
 assumed, or statements I had made. After very ma- 
 ture consideration, I have not felt at liberty to do 
 60. It seems to me right that I should reproduce 
 
EVOLUTION AND A PERSONAL CKEATOK. 229 
 
 the Lecture, as far as possible, from phonographic 
 reports taken at the time. I am the more content 
 to do so, in view of the fact that I can not consci- 
 entiously modify any of the views whieli I liavc 
 expressed. I humbly trust that they may be use- 
 ful to the great cause which I have most of all at 
 heart. If I am mistaken in any of the grounds 
 which I have taken, I am most anxious that it 
 should be made clear, at whatever cost to myself, 
 and since it is possible that I may have erred in the 
 concessions which have seemed to me to be due to 
 the scientific conclusions of the present age, I would 
 ask, in all humility, if this should be the case, the 
 forgiveness of the Great Being, for whose glory I 
 have earnestly prayed each word might be spoken. 
 
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 Puritan and Prelate were entenng upon those unhappy struggles which under- 
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 avoids assuming a party position, and deplores the .sad extremes into which both 
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