■>:'.■ 
 
 EVIDENCES 
 
 • 
 
 OF THE GLORIES OF THB ONE 
 
 DIVINE INTELLIGENCE, 
 
 ■^■hiii::. » 
 
 AS SEEN IN 
 
 HIS WORKS. 
 
 ■ ■1' ' '^»» 
 
 
 REV. THOMAS HURLBURT, 
 
 WESLBYAN MINISTER, MOORBTOWN. 
 
 
 PRINTED BY SAMUEL ROSE, WE8LEYAN BOOK ROOM, 
 
 . ■ 80 KING STREET EAST. 
 
 1867. 
 
XX 
 
 % " 
 
 
 * \ 
 
 •+-> 
 
EVIDENCES 
 
 OF THE Gf.OUIES OP THE OUii 
 
 DIVINE INTELLIGENCE, 
 
 AS SEEN IN 
 
 HIS WOEKS. 
 
 UY 
 
 EEV. THOMAS HURLBUllT, 
 
 WBBLBYAM MINISTER, MOORETOWN, 
 
 ♦♦■ 
 
 S;0y0ttta: 
 
 PRINTED BY SAMUEL ROSE, WESLEYAN BOOK ROOM 
 
 80 KING STREET EAST. 
 1SG7. 
 
^?(f^ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 One of our junior Ministers having applied to mo for 
 some works to aid him in meeting infidel cavils, suggested 
 the idea of gathering the following facts and reflectionE, which 
 I have derived from various sources, and have put them 
 in the form of an Essay, thinking, perhaps, they might be 
 of some general use. 
 
 Thomas Hurlburt. 
 
 '.': ^ 
 
 ..'■--r 
 
UNITY AND GLORY OF GOD, AS SEEN IN HIS 
 
 WORKS. V .. 
 
 •' For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the 
 world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are 
 made, even His eternal power and Godhead : bo that they are 
 without excuse." Rom. i. 20. 
 
 We need not inquire whether Paul and the other inspired 
 writers comprehended the f'Ul import of the message the 
 Spirit intended to convey to the v/orld through them. In time 
 the church will find use for all these teachings, and the min- 
 isters of the word will be compelled to study these " things 
 that are made,'' in all their length and breadth. 
 
 That God has had a plan in redemption, formed before the 
 foundation of the world, we know; for we read of the Lamb 
 slain from the foundation of the world. We also read that 
 Christ was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world, 
 but was manifested in these last times for us. This we could 
 not know but by revelation. But that he has such a plan in 
 creation, we may learn from His works — a plan introduced in 
 the earliest dawn of time, and rigidly adhered to through all 
 ages. It was not necessary that revelation should teach us this, 
 for we have it before us in creation. Those who demand 
 revelation should teach us those things that lie within the 
 domain of nature, seem to forget that it is not consistent with 
 the character of God to reveal the same things twice over, or 
 to mingle in the same inspired message the eternal realities 
 of the Spirit with the things of a day. There are the best of 
 reasons why God in revealing the supernatural should not 
 mingle lower things with it, as the whole design of revelation 
 is a restoration of man'» spiritual nature, which lies above 
 and beyond the domain oi nature so called. 
 
UNITY OF THE GODHEAD SEEN IN THE UNITY 
 
 OF CREATION. 
 
 The task is imposed on science, in the interest of Christianity, 
 to reveal the evidences of the unity, wisdom, power, and good- 
 ness of God, as seen in his works ; these, when read arightj 
 roved an ever present, ever working, divine, personal, intelli- 
 gence. God is light, and light the first-born ot things after 
 the creation of the material worlds, shows this substance to be 
 the same in all worlds, and for all time. The faintest ray 
 forming a spectrum in Lord Koss' six foot reflector after its 
 weary journey, it may be, of twenty millions of years, shows 
 the same prismatic colors as the light of to-day from our own 
 Bun. These messengers fiora the remotest visible world is- 
 lands in the depths of space, though journeying so long and 
 so far, have maintained their identity, though every moment 
 crossing at all angles an infinite number of other rays, and 
 every moment lessening by diverging rays given oflf, still they 
 were never absorbed, diverted, or deflected from their course. 
 The God of the Bible alone can work like this. 
 
 Another universal law is found in the attraction of gravi- 
 tation. This binds all worlds, however remote, in such bonds 
 and harmonies as plainly bespeak the existence of one 
 supreme personal intelligence. 
 
 The forms, rotations, and revolutions of the mighty orbs 
 of the sky, proclaim the one living and true God. Those 
 erratic bodies, the aerolites that come to us from the depths 
 of planetary space, after untold uges of solitary wanderings, 
 show us no new substance, only difi'erently compounded from 
 those of earth. 
 
 If we come down from the general laws of the universe to 
 the materials of our own globe, we find equally all-pervading 
 laws; the diflercnt elementary substances combining, only in 
 definite proportions. This law obtains as well in the lowest 
 accessible rocky strata, as in the waters of the ocean, and all 
 other liquids, all gaseous substances, and the aerial envelope 
 
of the globe. We never obtain a view, bowever obscure or re- 
 mote, of any created things, not under the control of these all 
 pervading laws, which most distinctly point to the divine 
 intelligence as their author. - . ' -•.% — • v^ 
 
 The records of geology again bring us, as it were, face to face 
 with the Deity ; and while opening to us the methods through 
 which the forces of nature have accomplished His purposes — 
 while proving that there has been a plan, glorious in its 
 scheme, and perfect in system, progressing through unmeas- 
 ured ages, and looking ever towards Man, and a spiritual end, 
 it leads us to no other solution of the great problem of 
 creation, whether of kinds, of matter, or of species of life than 
 this — God has done it. 
 
 MAN APPEARS AT THE PROPER TIME AND 
 
 PLACE. - . 
 
 Asia has always been the continent of physical progress, and 
 soon far outstripped the other continents in the orders and variety 
 of organic life, especially America and Australia. There seems 
 to have been a hastening onward and upward in this part of 
 the world to prepare a habitation for man. Animal life was 
 of a higher type, and in much greater variety, Thus, the 
 Oriental continent had successively passed through the 
 Australian and American stages, and leaving the other conti- 
 nents behind, it stood in the forefront of progress. It is, 
 therefore, in accordance with all past analogies that man 
 should have originated on some part of the great Orient, and 
 no spot would seem to have been better for man's self-distribu- 
 tion and self-development than south-western Asia, the centre 
 from which the three grand continental divisions of Europe 
 Asia, and Africa radiate. 
 
 It is in this region Scripture locates the garden of Eden, 
 and God's finished work in the creation of man. Thus geology, 
 reason, and Scripture unite on this region. Both geology and 
 Scripture again unite in saying that since man's creation no evi- 
 
 
dence exists of a sinj^le new creation, either vegetable or ani- 
 mal. It is in BOUth-western Asia tiiat the best developed spe- 
 cimens of mankind are found. It is from this region men have 
 radiated to diff^irent parts of the world. Go in what direction 
 we may from this central region, we find in all the aboriginal 
 ^ races a marked degradation, that goes on increasing the far- 
 ther we get from this cradle of the human race, until, having 
 arrived at the extreme southern limits of the continents, the 
 human form divine assumes the extreme of ugliness and 
 degradation compatible with self-perpetuation. The investi- 
 gations of Darwin on the variations of species, and other 
 facts of like character, set aside objections to an origin from 
 one stock, arising from diversities of the races. How came 
 Moses such long ages in advance of the deductions of science 
 and the facts of history, but by being inspired by God ? 
 
 /■ A PLAN LAID DOWN AT THE BEGINNING. 
 
 In our investigations into the manifestations of organic life, 
 we find not only a beginning or genesis plainly revealed, but 
 a precise plan adopted, in accordance to which all organic life 
 must rigidly conform. This plan has been persistently 
 ^ adhered to in all ages, and has again re-appeared in the 
 organisms that have re-peopled the globe after every revolu- 
 tion, when animal life having many times become 
 nearly or quite extinct, to be replaced by otheifs, generally of 
 higher types. 
 
 For a long time scientific men, in their classifications, sup- 
 posed the systems they propounded were their own, not 
 imagining that God had a plan, or systematic order in creation. 
 At length it dawned on some minds to inquire if there were 
 any evidences of a systematic order or plan in creation, and 
 to their surprise they found there was such a plan, perfect, 
 and all comprehensive. The only difiiculty had been that 
 they had not been able heretofore to read this hand-writing 
 of Divinity. Cuvier was the first to show that all animal 
 
forms were built on four different plans — tlio Radiata the 
 Mollusk, the Articulate, and the Vertebrate. These all started 
 simultaneously in time, and have existed side by side ever 
 since. Each one of these four plana had been multiplied, and 
 modified many ten thousand times ; and although the multi- 
 plied species, orders, and genera, many times over, became 
 nearly or quite all extinct, and have as often been again re- 
 placed by other, and on the whole higher forms by direct 
 creative power, still no sign of a fifth class or plan has any 
 Trhere been found, nor has one ever been wanting. Such 
 persistency, with such flexibility of plan, can only be from 
 the resources of Deity. . ■- r 
 
 When God created the first Radiate animal, it was a mute 
 but prophetic assurance that he designed to create all the 
 variety of animal life, included potentially in this pattern. 
 The many tea thousand species, orders, and genera of this 
 class would seem to have exhausted all the possible variations 
 of this plan, and to have fulfilled the prophecy. Within the 
 range assigned to this class, both as to form and instinct, or 
 endowments, the whole space is filled up ; but in order to 
 make for himself a field sufficiently ample for this purpose, 
 he enlarged the domain of creation in the microscopic world of 
 organisms, to complete the whole within the appointed limits 
 of time and space. - • n; 
 
 The same representations will hold in regard to the Mol- 
 lusks and Artie ilates. Rutin regard to the Vsrtibrate, there 
 is a higher significance. The first form of this class that ap- 
 peared in the twilight of time, was a mute, but most important 
 prophecy that God would create all the animals that could be 
 made by variation of this plan of structure. In the three 
 lower classes, bulk was of no special importance, but not so 
 here. There are no microscopic vertibrates. All the possible 
 variations culminated in man, and science declares that any 
 modification or change of this highest species of the highest 
 
8 
 
 rfass would imply degradation. Creation ceased witli marr. 
 There is not the slightest hint in nature that any new species, 
 vegetable or animal, have had their origin since God beheld 
 bis finished work, and, " Behold it was all very good.'* 
 What an evidence have wo here again of the divinity of tho 
 Bible. r 
 
 NO DARWINIAN DEVELOPMENT IN 6REATI0N, 
 
 Is there any evidence of a development from the lower ta 
 the higher forms of life? If we mean by this that God com- 
 menced creation in the lower forms in the main, and as ages 
 rolled on, gradually introduced higher and still higher forms, 
 we say, ''Yes ;" but if it is meant that there is a genetic con- 
 nection between the lower and higher forms^ we say, '* No.' 
 The specimens preserved in the catacombs of Egypt, from the 
 earliest dawn of civilization, show not the slightest difference 
 from the living species in the same region. There is no evi- 
 dence that animals in a wild state ever undergo any but the 
 slightest changes in conformity with the circumstances of food 
 and climate, and none of the modifications in domesticated 
 animals are self-perpet dating, but revert back to the original 
 type as soon as the hand of man is taken ofi^. This theory, 
 then, gains no sarction from anything tliat has transpired 
 within the period of authentic history, but claims almost inter- 
 minal ages for a progress too slow to be perceived within a few 
 thousand years. We are then thrown back on the geologi- 
 cal records for evidence. 
 
 This theory of development supposes, according to some, 
 that nature spontaaeously produces organic life. Others ad- 
 mit the creation of a single or a few primordial forma of monad 
 Kfe, which have gone on diverging and multiplying to the 
 present time. As to the first theory, long and most thorough 
 tests have settled it in the negative. One of the secretaries 
 of the Academy of Sciences in France, the highest authority 
 behind which we can take refuge, says : " There is, then» no 
 
9 
 
 spontaneous generation. To doubt any longer is not to com- 
 prehend the question." Had a few life germs been created 
 at the beginning, and gone on multiplying to the present 
 time, we should look for a much greater diversity of animal 
 life now than in the past, and all of a higher type ; but 
 neither of these conditions is found to obtain. In various 
 places in Europe, contiguous to the Mediterranean, the Bal- 
 tic and German Oceans, quarries have disclosed as great a 
 variety of fossil fishes as those now living in the contiguous 
 waters. Agassiz says : " I have examined the fossil fishes of 
 the neighbourhood of Riga, on the Baltic, and they are more 
 numerous than the present living species of the Baltic and 
 German Oceans.'' All the living species are different from 
 the fossil ones. The geological survey of the State of New 
 York has disclosed in each of the successive beds within th© 
 area of the State, as numerous a variety of shells as the sum 
 total of all the species now living clang the whole Atlantic 
 coast of this continent. What better evidence do we want 
 that at all times the world has been inhabited by as great a 
 diversity of animals as now exist, and, that at each period, 
 they have been different from every other period. This is 
 a very important fact, because it is a most powerful blow at 
 that theory which would make us believe that all the animals 
 have been derived from a few original beings, which have 
 become diversified and varied in the course of time. Another 
 most powerful blow at this baseless theory is the fact that 
 animal life is found as low now as it ever has been. It is 
 entirely inexplicable on this theory how the forces of nature, 
 operating so powerfully and uniformly in all ages, would select 
 some of these original germs of life and carry them on to so 
 high a point, but be entirely powerless in regard to others; 
 or, are we to suppose nature's laws so partial that they fav- 
 ored some and neglected others of her offspring ? 
 
 To exclude the idea of a Divine personal intelligence, this 
 
 scheme, called the development theory, has been propounded, 
 
 Al 
 
10 
 
 claiming that there is a gradual rise in the animal world, from 
 the lowest in the early ages to the highest in the present. 
 There is not only this gradation on the whole as to animal 
 life, rising from the earliest to the present, but there is a 
 triple coincidence in the succession, gradation, and growth 
 of animals. Animal life, viewed as extendi ngj)ver the whole 
 period of the life of our globe, certainly shows a gradation 
 from the first to the last created. This same gradation exists 
 at the present time, and the difference is as great between the 
 lowest and the highest forms of life, now peopling the globe, 
 as between the first and last created. Again, this same idea 
 of gradation and growth is presented to us in the highest 
 forms of life, for as all animal life has its origin in an egg, 
 on about the same plane, man and the higher animals pass 
 through V- many and as great gradations from the germ until 
 fully grown, as all the gradations of animal life now existing, 
 or that have ever existed. A sparrow's egg has sparrow-life im- 
 pressed upon it: it is hatched and grows into a sparrow, with 
 sparrow instincts and nothing else ; and so of all the hundreds 
 of thousands forms of life, each and every "^ne has his par- 
 ticular line of development, and never fails to go straight to 
 and through its destined course. 
 
 NO TRANSITION FROM ONE CLASS OR ORDER 
 
 TO ANOTHER. 
 As there are four entirely distinct plans on which all ani- 
 mal organisms have been built, no uniform consecutive series 
 can be formed. As thev are all cotemporaries they cannot be 
 derived one from the other, though, on the whole, as classes, 
 they undoubtedly rise one above the other. The Radiates 
 being the lowest, still some Radiates rank higher than the low- 
 est Molluscan tribes. Some MoUusks rise above the lowest 
 Articulates. Some Articulates rise above the lowest Yerti- 
 brates. If the eflfort is made to pass from one class io the 
 other, no point of contiguity can be found to make the transition 
 
11 
 
 without doing more violence to their internal organic 
 structure than would be required to transforL. the swine to a 
 sheep, or a fowl to a dog in a few generations. The^e is liot 
 the slightest evidence in all the geological records of any sucli 
 intermediate or transitional species. 
 
 Vertebrates again divide themselves into four orders, the 
 fish, the reptile, the bird, and the mammal. As orders, they 
 stand one above the other, in the order mentioned. But the 
 higher species offish are above the lowest reptile, the highest 
 reptiles above the lowest birds, and the highest birds above 
 the lowest mammals. If the transition is awkward from the 
 highest articulate to the lowest vertebrate — for instance so as 
 to make the butterfly the father of a lamper-eel — it will be 
 equally awkward to establish a regular genetic connexion 
 between the difierent orders of the vertebrates. The transi- 
 tion from the fish to the reptile would not seem so great, but 
 if we attempt to make the transition from the highest reptile 
 to the lowest bird we immediately perceive the violence done 
 to nature. If we take the tortoise, the highest reptile, and 
 suppose it the parent of the penguin, or any other low aquatic 
 bird, we feel how awkward it is. Or, if we take the highest 
 bird — the parrot, for instance — and make it the parent of the 
 lowest mammal, which is the whale and its kindred species, 
 we find a gulf as great as that which separates between the 
 rich man and Lazarus. The whale is not a fish, for it has 
 a double circulation, warm blood, and brings forth its young 
 alive and suckles them. Extinct forms do nothing towards 
 bridging over this gulf; it is absolutely impassable except by 
 Divine power. Under any scheme of development of species 
 from species, the system of life after ages of progress, would 
 have become a blended mass, — the temple of nature fused 
 over its surface, and throughout its structure. The study of 
 the past has opened to view no such result. 
 
 To reason it appears necessary that apian should have been 
 pursued in order to exhibit the unity of author, purpose, and 
 
12 
 
 end, in creation. Accordingly we find this unity in far reach- 
 ing prophetic types, typical forms and special ends. Tho first 
 humble Tertebrate was a sure foreshadowing of man, as well 
 as all the intermediate forms of animal life. More than nh ety 
 per cent, of all the organs found in man are identical in the 
 bwest fish, It is not the unity of scientific nomenclature 
 that has given the same name to different structures for con- 
 venience sake, but it is the unity in nature that has rendered 
 necessciry the unity of scientific nomenclature. The arm of a 
 man, the fore-leg of a bear or dog, the wing of a bird, the pad- 
 dle of a whale, and the fin of a fish, are all formed on the 
 same plan, varied to suit the conditions of each. There was 
 seemingly no necessity for this rigid adherence to a plan once 
 adopted, only to show the working of mind — a divine intelli- 
 gence in creation. 
 
 However long the xges that intervened between the first 
 and last acts of creation, or between the different periods, the 
 work was resumed as though not yet complete; thus antici- 
 pating by untold ages the cavils of unbelievers in their vain 
 efforts to exclude him from his own creation, and relieve 
 themselves from a sense of moral accountability by their er- 
 roneous and perverse reading of his handiwork, so that they 
 are without excuse. God might have commenced his work a^ 
 the other extreme, and progressed downwards, finishing with 
 the lowest forces. Had he done this a pall dark as eternal 
 night would have rested on his works, defying all comprehen- 
 eion. When the edifice was complete, no other progress being 
 possible within the plan adopLod, he proclaims his work finish- 
 ed, and he places man on the very apex of this vast pyramid 
 of life. Now, giving him the two factors of form and color, as 
 an alphabet of two letters, he has produced the myriad 
 forms of human beings, so that no one shall be undistinguish- 
 able from every other one. 
 
13 
 
 CHAIN OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 
 
 "We are told of the uniform all-controlling laws that govern 
 our world through all ages, operating in the same manner, 
 but still developing higher and higher forms of life : that this 
 great adamantine chain binds all nature into one harmonious 
 whole. But we have never been told how many links it has. 
 "VVe are required to receive it as a fact on the mere assumption 
 of those who claim it in aid of their theories. "We ask them 
 to explain how it is that this great chain of cause and effect 
 took some only of the first forms of life and carried them up 
 to a certain point; but when nearly or quite all life became 
 extinct, at the close of the first period, again peopled the earth 
 with entirely new orders, genera, and species, but still rigidly 
 adhered to the four grand classes, and so on, many times over. 
 If nature has had the power to change all the orders, genera, 
 and species, for so many times, by what freak of nature shall 
 we account for the permanence of the types or classes : why 
 were not these changed as well as the others ? , 
 
 The physical causes are the same now as they were before. 
 Chemical agencies, physical agencies, act now as they have 
 acted from the beginning. We have the e\idence of this in 
 the identical character of the rocks of the older and more re- 
 cent formations, we have the evidence of it in the chemical 
 identity of the materials of which the celestial bodies are 
 formed. The physical world remains the samej the laws 
 which govern it remain the same, and from the beginning un- 
 til now, have acted in the same way. Are, then, the different 
 animals which have existed at different times, and which differ 
 in the most varied manner, the result of causes that do not 
 vary which ever act in the same manner? This is contrary 
 to all argument, contrary to any evidence we have. We can- 
 not ascribe diversified results to uniform causes. Chemists 
 know perfectly well what" electricity, what light, what magnet- 
 ism can produce. They know perfectly well that these vari- 
 
14 
 
 ous combinations, and these various causes are diflferent from 
 the causes whose eflfects we witness in the animal kingdom. 
 Uniformity of operation should have carried upward all organic 
 beings ; but some are as low now as the lowest in the gene- 
 sis of creation : and where such myriads of species have been 
 swept away and replaced by higher forms, we find a few 
 genera — not species — existing through all time. The little 
 shell lingula appeared on the scene in the early dawn of time, 
 and it still exists, and what is peculiar, has a shell of phospate, 
 not carbonate of lime — of bone, not of stone, like all other 
 shells. When uniform laws carried onward and upward near- 
 ly all other forms, how came this little shell to resist through 
 such unmeasured ages, the powers of all-controlling laws. 
 
 Again, it is claimed that the constantly-improved condi- 
 tions of the globe, by the force of natural law, enlarged the in- 
 stincts and endowments of all its tribes of animals. The 
 Christian theory is that God first prepared the field, and then 
 created animals to occupy the new-made conditions. Instead 
 of the instincts and endowments, pointing in the direction of 
 the proper sphere of action assigned every living creature, 
 this theory claims that the outward conditions, or objective 
 world, with its laws, first existed, and that these brought 
 up the animal instincts and endowments to their own level. 
 
 Let us see if they will accept the logical sequences of these 
 positions. The instincts, endowments, aspirations, longings, 
 hopes, and fears, are the product of nature's laws already ex- 
 isting, and acting for a sufiicient length of time to bring all 
 plastic forms into conformity with these laws, though they 
 have never told us by what law these laws change themselves, 
 so as to be ever evolving higher and still higher forma of life. 
 
 The vast majority vote of our race has been in favour of 
 the existence of the supernatural, and of a world of living 
 beings beyond this life : some in happiness, infinite and eter* 
 nal, and others in woe everlasting. This theory denies the 
 existence of any thing, even in- man himself, except what has 
 
16 
 
 been derived from the things, laws, and forces of the world 
 around him. They are then required to iSnd some alembic* in 
 nature, in which to distill such things or states, as sin, guilt, 
 shame, remorse; to distill man in his totality. They must 
 also find just cause for these states of being, and fearful fore- 
 bodings. They must also find another alembic in which to 
 distill repentance and faith, the raptures of pardon, and the 
 witness of the Spirit, a holy life, a triumphant death, and a 
 well-grounded hope of bliss everlasting. It will not avail to 
 charge these things or states to superstition ; for with them 
 nothing can exist except in accordance and on a plan with 
 the pre-existing laws of cause and eflPect. As no effect can 
 rise higher than its cause, they are compelled to admit that 
 the highest human intelligence and all the moral powers pre- 
 existed in nature and her forces and laws. Neither can we 
 be certain that these forces have as yet brought us up to a 
 level with themselves. It is unphilosophical to assume that 
 we have now reached the limit beyond which nature^s laws 
 cannot elevate us or other beings she may produce from her 
 vast laboratory. Why should creation or development end 
 just at this point, after progressing with such sure and certain 
 strides through all the unmeasured ages of the past ? 
 
 If this be so, all nature 13 but a living creature, not only 
 full of eyes and a wheel within a wheel, but full of intelli- 
 gence and instinct, with life ; in a word, something equal to 
 the Christian idea of God must be found to account for the 
 wonders of creation. They want less than this to relieve 
 themselves from the idea of accountability. If nature be 
 such a power that it may do all the Scriptures tell us God 
 will do, then where is the difference ? God has threatened 
 retribution, and nature acts retributively on all transgressors ; 
 and who can tell how far and hov/ long she may act retribu- 
 tively 1 ■ ■ - > 
 t Had a being of high intelligence, but without experience 
 in the wonders of creation, been present at that period re- 
 
ic 
 
 vealed in the geological records, when nought existed but 
 inorganic matter, with its wondrous laws : what more natural 
 than to infer nature could do no more f But if assured that 
 this same barren earth, without form and void, would soon 
 put on a dress of vegetable beauty and glory, all waving in 
 the breeze, laden with fruit, and fragrant with flowers, — what 
 more natural than to doubt the possibility of inorganic 
 chemistry performing such wonders? These wonders, how- 
 ever, have all been accomplished. If, at this point, again, he 
 had been told that land, water, and air would be filled with 
 all forms of a higher life than the vegetable, he might still 
 have doubted. If told^ again, that the lord of this lower 
 world would come and rule over all ; He whose coming had 
 been foretold by a thousand mute prophecies, as necessary to 
 the fulfilment of the perfect plan ; that in his organism so 
 linked with the orders below him as to be one with them in 
 many things; while, in the other part of his wondrous 
 endowments, he should be more akin to heaven than earth — 
 more akin to his God than to the beasts that perish ; how 
 might the faith of such an one be taxed by such a revelation ? 
 And yet this has been the course and progress of creation 
 up to this time. Now, we are told, not by nature, but by 
 revelation, that this being, so high and so wonderfully 
 endowed, is destined, if obedient to his God, to live in a 
 sphere where endless progression in all that is good and 
 glorious will be the law of his being. What more is there to 
 stagger our faith at this point in creation, than there would 
 have been at any previous period ? Rather, 'aving seen so 
 much, have we not far stronger reasons to expect much more^ 
 especially as no final end worthy the unbounded display of 
 all-powerful and all-wise resources has yet been attained ? » 
 
 Why must creation stop short at this point, like some vast 
 and most elaborately wrought monumental column, broken 
 short in the middle, left uncrowned with a statue, to become 
 an ioexplioable mystery to all beholders? ,'., •,.%:■ , ^ 
 
17 
 
 It is unpliilosopliical to claim that after progrossing ever 
 onward and upward for such unmeasured ages, we have now 
 reached the limits of all proj^ress, and can from our present 
 stand point look out on empty nothingness, where all is void 
 and blank ; that, at last we have seen one of the boundary 
 lines that confines nature's empire. The assumption is, that 
 toe have explored all space, all worlds, all laws, forces, and 
 powers ; and being possessed of all knowledge and wisdom, 
 we have found that at this point nature must rest for ever, 
 having exhausted all her powers in the production of the past 
 and present wonders of our globe. Where is the warrant 
 for such an assumption ? and where the final end worthy the 
 means employed ? Should all end here, will it not resemble 
 
 " Ocean into tempest tossed, 
 
 To waft a feather, or to drown a fly ?" ■'* '^ 
 
 Another mystery appears. Our unbelievers claim that now "/. 
 the Almighty or nature does nothing but keep agoing the 
 everlasting trundle of the vast machine. If so, how comes 
 it that such infinitely varied results are the product of uni- 
 form laws ? Nature has never repeated herself any more than 
 human events and human history. If this is all the product 
 of unvarying laws, the wonders of nature are a thousand fold 
 more wonderful than all we find in revelation. 
 
 Bat where is the evidence of a vast adamantine chain of 
 cause and effect, embracing all things, beings, and powers ? 
 We know that inorganic chemistry works wonders in the 
 laboratory of nature; but we ask for the evidence that all 
 things are bound up in this great chain. If inorganic chem- 
 istry, has produced the higher forces of organic chemistry, 
 it has evolved a power greater than itself: for organic chem- 
 istry dominates with ease over the inorganic ; dissolves, dis- 
 sipates, and overcomes all its laws, and builds up the materials 
 into an entirely new form, and far more glorious than it was 
 before. \ - - 
 
18 
 
 Again, there is such a power as vital cliemiatr}', which 
 dominates at will over both inorganic and organic cheuiij-try, 
 and treats them as subject provinces. Here are, at least, three 
 separate pieces of the supposed great chain, each higher 
 subordinating the lower ones. That cannot be an indissoluble 
 adamantine chain, binding all in inexorable laws, even 
 God himself, if a simple plant can dissolve and eat up a part 
 of it so easily as we see every day. This is by no means all 
 the absurdity involved in this assumption, for there have ap- 
 peared on the stage two ranges of powers entirely above and 
 outside of all we have mentioned. Man's intellectual and 
 moral powers find a most appropriate field of action in the 
 domain of nature proper. But intellectual and moral powers 
 do not belong to the domain of nature. They are not chem- 
 ically compounded, nor have they form or extension. These 
 powers, not things, have nothing in common with any of the 
 separate and independent pieces of the great chain of cause 
 and eflFect. 
 
 How can an endless chain be made up of such incongruous 
 materials as metals, gases, animal functions and instincts, 
 perception, will, reason, memory, and the like, with moral 
 qualities good and bad, and at irreconcilable and eternal war 
 with each other ? 
 
 This would be a wonderful chain, indeed 1 As well under- 
 take to make a ladder to the moon of carbon, oxygen, nitro- 
 gen, electricity, aurora borealis, sunlight, and moon beams. 
 As well call them all substances, and attempt to measure 
 them in a quart pot or with a yard measure ; as well attempt to 
 weigh the virtues of justice, mercy, and love of God with the 
 crimes of fraud, arson, drunkenness, and murder, on the same 
 scale, with a bale of merchandise. 
 
 We are told there is no such thing as a miracle, as it would 
 be a suspension or violation of the laws of nature ; it is un- 
 historical to admit the possibility of a miracle. We admit 
 
19 
 
 that most of the niiraclos recorded in Scripture were wrought 
 to restore nature to lier normal state. Others were wrouglit 
 to vindicate the moral government of God ; and what more 
 reasonable than this, if the whole of nature is but a field for 
 the action of moral beings and powers ? 
 
 Let us, however, inquire if sin does not suspend and vio- 
 late the laws of nature? A man drinks alcohol — a thing 
 nature never compounded. He disorders his system, brings 
 on disease, abuses his \?ifc nature taught him to love, beggars 
 his children, and instead of teaching them knowledge and 
 virtue, he perverts their morals, teaches them all crimes, violates 
 all the laws of nature, brings himself to a premature grave, 
 sends his children forth perverted and in a state of unnature to 
 perform an endless repetition of the bad miracles he origin- 
 ated. Nature never mrde gunpowder, a revolver, a dagger* 
 or pulled a trigger. With these the sinner suspends and over- 
 comes the laws of nature and the vital chemistry in his 
 fellows, and sends them to premature graves. Nature's laws 
 never made speech or conversed with bullets on the battle 
 field. While they are so fearful of admitting a miracle that 
 implies a violation or suspension of nature's laws, they them- 
 selves are performing miracles every day according to their 
 own definition of a miracle. When the Christian humbly ex- 
 presses his faith in miracles wrought on the other side in vin- 
 dication of the moral government of God, and to restore the 
 evil sin has wrought, they tell us, «* Hands oflf, if you please; 
 no interfering with the laws of nature." 
 
 These things may be called misdirections or diseases. Be 
 it so, then ; put it down as agreed, that sin is misdirection ; 
 and that, so far as there is a real something in it. Then 
 comes the question : Who is it, what is it, that misdirects ? 
 Is the misdirection of God? That will not be said. Will 
 it then be said that piracy, war, and the slave trade are the 
 misdirections only of disease, as when the hand of a lunatic 
 takes the life of a friend?* Theodore Parker says: "Dis- 
 
20 
 
 cor Jan t causes have produced eflfccts not harmonious." Is 
 the boasted systom, then, of nature a discordant, blunderinjij, 
 misdirecting system ? If so, it should not be wholly incredi- 
 ble that nature may sometimes blunder into a miracle. 
 
 The universal consciousness of man is that there is blame, 
 wrong, sin — not simply misdirection or disease. Men delij-iiht 
 in cauterizing and satirizing certain blameablo actions. Who 
 ever thought of satirizing a storm at sea, or a thunder storm, 
 or a ship on fire at sea, or a man with the consumption, or 
 one in the agonies of death 1 If sin were only misdirection 
 or a diseuse, why not satirize other things as well as it? 
 
 No age or nation has produced men without an innate 
 consciousness, or sense of right and wrong. All social and 
 civil laws, customs, and states, have been founded upon and 
 controlled by this universal consciousness. If this is the pro- 
 duct of nature, it is a part and parcel of her economy and our 
 interest, the same as food and clothing, sight and hearing ; 
 so that resolving all into the product of nature's laws will not 
 relieve us from the duties enjoined, or deliver us from tho 
 retribution threatened. 
 
 PROVIDENCE FAVORS ONLY A SUPERNATURAL 
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 Believers in revelation are reproached for their easy cred- 
 ulity in admitting a revelation with all its wonders and mir- 
 acles. We may well retort on them for the soft credulity 
 that can admit ten-fold greater marvels, which at the same 
 time involves them in such contradictions and absurdities, 
 that to escape one dilemma they leap into a greater. 
 
 Believers in revelation account for the wonders of creation 
 and providence by ascribing all to an infinitely wise and glo- 
 rious God, and so are perfectly consistent. Unbelievers have 
 to account for the same things without any adequate cause. 
 
 Many systems of religion have been devised for our world 
 supposed by their authors to be in accordance with man's na- 
 
21 
 
 turo and interest. Confucius, Zoroaster, Menu, Mahomed, 
 and other?, liavo devised systems of religious and civil polity 
 for man, but nature has repudiated them all, though they 
 claimed to he her oifsprinj;, and has lent all her vast resources 
 as an humble handmaid, in aid of a system that claims to bo 
 all supernatural and divine. " Wo turn ourselves to the courses 
 and grand events of human history, all that we include In tho 
 providential history of our world — tho wars, diplomacies, 
 immigrations, revolutions, persecutions, discoveries and scien- 
 tific developments of the world, and we are immediately met 
 by the appearance of some wonderful consent or understand- 
 ing between Christianity and the providential courses of 
 tilings. Christianity is, in form, the supernatural kingdom and 
 working of God in the earth. It begins with a supernatural 
 advent of divinity, and closes with a supernatural exit of 
 divinity ; and the divine visitant thus entered into the world, 
 and going out from it, is himself a divine miracle in his own 
 person ; his works are miracles, and his doctrines are miracles, 
 and the whole transactions taken as a movement on the world, 
 or in it, that is not of it, supposes, in fact, a new and superior 
 kind of administration, instituted by God Himself. Accord- 
 ingly, if it be true that God is in such a work, having all the 
 highest and last ends of existence rested in it, he ought to 
 govern the world as we have already said for it, and so as to 
 forward this as the main interest included in it." ** Why 
 now is it that time, and the world's government, conspire 
 so powerfully with Jesus, and not with such a great and deeply 
 cultured soul as Plato ? Why with Christianity, and not 
 with any proudest school of human opinion ? All the mere, 
 human teachers are much closer to nature, certainly, than 
 Jesus was; and if the world's government is wholly natural 
 or in the interest of nature, it would seem to be a very plain 
 inference that what belongs to nature will be most easily per- 
 petuated. Why should a government in the interest of na- 
 ture concur to enthrone and crown what is rcu'ly supernatural ? 
 
If there is no power above nature, whatever pretends to bo 
 supernatural ought to die soonest, and show greatest frailty. 
 When, therefore, we consider that Christianity goes directly 
 into a conflict with nature, calling nature death, and engaging 
 to combat the death by its regenerative power, and that still 
 after so many centuries, it holds on victorious, what shall wo 
 infer than that the government of the world is with it, in its 
 interests engaged to give it success ? These events are a kind 
 of providential procession, that we see marching on to the 
 accomplishment of the one given result : the universal and 
 final ascendency of Jesus Christ. They march, too, in the 
 beat of time, preserving their right order, and appearing each 
 just when it is wanted, not before or after. When has it ever 
 been seen that the government of the world was conspiring 
 in this large historic way, across the distance of remote ages, 
 with any merely natural man, his teachings, or plans, or 
 works ? Whatever else may be true, this at least is plain, 
 that between Christianity as a fabric all supernatural, concern- 
 ed for nothing but to do supernatural work, and the world as 
 mere nature, suffering nothing above nature to be, there ought 
 to be, and indeed never could be any such concurrence." 
 
 THE FINAL END. 
 
 As plainly appears, the affairs of our world are administered 
 in the interest of Christianity. The work then to be ac- 
 complished by this divine institution must be the final end 
 and consummation of the grand scheme. This end embraces 
 the moral discipline of the race. Prayer is to be made to 
 God the Father, through Christ, for grace and strength to 
 serve him with reverence and godly fear. We have seen how 
 the phantom of a great adamantine chain of cause and effect 
 has dissolved at the touch of reason. Prayer, instead of being 
 only a good dumb-bell exercise, as has been represented, is one 
 of the higher laws of our being. If a man can rescue his 
 fellow in answer to prayer, how much more can God do it ? 
 
23 
 
 If a man can answer the request of a fellow for food and 
 clothing, instruction and assistance, how much more can He 
 do it, and this without any violation of law more than in our 
 case? '■" ' ■ • ■'■''■' '■■■ ■ '•">'■ 
 
 We have faintly depicted some of the glorious handy- 
 works of Him who worketh all things after the council of His 
 own will. We have obtained a few faint glimpses of His in- 
 finite resources in unfolding His glory. Far back in the twi- 
 light of time he lays the corner-stone of the universe when 
 the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God 
 shouted for joy. Slowly, age after age, he builds up the 
 mighty fabric : a thousand years being to Him as one day. 
 If we conceive the inorganic world as the foundation on 
 which the building is to be reared, how grand will be the pro- 
 portion?, and how rich the materials of that edifice ! Gems and 
 gold are all at hand to erect a structure that shall bespeak the 
 glory of God. We search in vain in the inorganic world for a 
 final end worthy of God, and His finished work. We may 
 again explore all the wonders of the vegetable kingdom ; still 
 all have written on them in most legible characters, that they 
 are but means to an end still beyond. Vital forms fill the earth* 
 and at last man appears, lord of all in this lower world ; still we 
 find no final end answeiing to the sans employed. If this 
 is all, the high expectations raised by a study of the wonder- 
 ful march of the grandest events conceivable by man, must be 
 doomed to grievous disappointment. All the means and 
 agencies employed in the long and infinitely varied process 
 have produced ends corresponding in importance to the means 
 and processes employed. In every separate department of 
 creation we find a thousand conspiring causes all intelligently 
 uniting to produce a given result. From the remotest de- 
 partments of creation come materials and forces of all descrip- 
 tions, each with its quota of contributions to unite in the pro- 
 duction of a given end. These thousand minor ends are 
 again taken, and by combining and utilizing their materials 
 
24 
 
 and forces, a higlior end is gained ; but as yet no end has been 
 reached that is not manifestly a means to a higher end still 
 beyond. What then must be the grandeur and glory of tha* 
 final end where all those agencies shall at last meet, and show 
 all the infinitely wise and mighty processes to have been but 
 adequate to its production? We have the fpllest assurance 
 that there is some final aim where all these agencies will con- 
 verge, and exhaust their mighty forces in the production of 
 some result befitting them all, and the God that ordained 
 them. 
 
 Beyond the cultivation of man's moral and spiritual powers 
 we cannot go ; this is the last ascent to which we can rise in 
 our present state. We have seen the provinces of nature 
 rising one above the other, and each superior dominating 
 over the i':iferior, until, having passed beyond the domain of 
 things, we enter the confines of powers, or the supernatural. 
 Our first step in the domain of powers has revealed to us the 
 intellectual world. Passing onward another step, we enter 
 the department of the moral powers. If we ask ourselves the 
 question, which is superior, the intellectual or the moral 
 powers ? a moment's reflection will show that the intellectual 
 never subordinate and make use of the moral powers to ac- 
 complish purely intellectual purposes, but that the moral 
 powers subordinate the intellectual, and through them all the 
 things and forces in nature to accomplish moral purposes. It 
 is, then, in the domain of the moral and spiritual that all the 
 past must converge as in a final end. 
 
 The Christian alone, redeemed by grace and brought into 
 union and communion with his God, and who is by faith look- 
 ing for a city of habitation, who is looking for a newheavens and 
 new earth, a resurrection morn, and the New Jerusalem, with 
 his God reigning among his ancients gloriously, conceives a 
 final end befitting the scenes of creation, providence, and re- 
 demption—befitting himself and his God. 
 
'> . ■ »■'. 
 
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