Wht %^m^ 01 H U i THE REIGN OF LAW r\ ^ PRINCETON, N. J. ^^ Presented by Dt. FL.FqVVoti, BL 240 .B32 1878 Bacon, Thomas Scott, 1825- 1904. The reign of God, not "The •ro-i rtn of 1 ^w" '^ THE REIGN OF GOD NOT ^ "THE REIGN OF LAW." A NEW WAY {AND YET VERY OLD) TO DECIDE THE DEBATE BETWEEN "-SCIENCE'' AND RELIGIOUS FAITH. \ hily( 6 1914 Thomas Scott e-AGtus*:.^— ' THINE IS THE KINGDOM. BALTIMORE: TURNBULL BROTHERS. 1878. PREFACE f I iHE author having hatl this work in hand for -*- three years, and having given to it all the time that could be spared from other and important em- ployments, has found certain convictions growing stronger with him all that time. The first is, that what is here presented is the true answer to the question pending between Christian Faith and Modern Science. The second is, that no modern* writer brings forward this truth and applies it to the facts. The third is, that religious doubt is wider spread and more threatening with every day. The last is, that the matter as here treated so as to antici- pate and remove all such misconceptions as would obscure the truth, is so vast as to draw into a mighty vortex all the other great problems of thought. He raust therefore quite relinquish the hope of any such complete discussion now — must but imperfectly notice several of these topics, and rather remit them ♦And yet, as will be seen, it has appeared under some of the greatest names of old, but not in this application. IV PREFACE. to such further discussion as may arise upon criticism of the present writing. Yet, no such matter has been knowingly passed over, nor anything which has been or could be used in argument against the writer's conclusions been left without what has seemed to him a sufficient answer. He has carefully avoided " technical ' words of philosophy or theology. His hope has been to use such plain and simple English, that all sensible persons could follow his meaning, and at the same time not to evade the deepest matters of truth which belong to the question. That question is so deep as to require much thought; but it is none the less practical and urgent for every man, woman and child in Christendom. The writer is confident that even if he can be proved in error, he will by that VQvj process give his critics the opportunity of making the truth more clear and useful than it is now. In any case, as his labor has been one of simple love to Him who is ^' the Light of the world," his only wish is that it may fare as shall please and glorify Him. T. S. B. TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAP. I. — Some Serious Facts and Questions. . 1 Doubt prevailing in our Day more serious than in the Eighteenth or any former Century. Causes of this. The Arguments for Religion not religious, not posi- tive and aggressive ; in different language from that of Holy Scripture ; most of all, concede the false Notion of a "Reign of Law." The Reign of God as opposed to this. The " usual Order" of God's Works not the same as a "Reign of Law." Illustration of the Neighbors ; of a young Child. Effect of the latter Notion upon Prayer. Not a Question of Words. The essential Meaning of Law. The "Reign of Law " tends to Pantheism. CHAP. II.— The Two "Reigns" Contrasted. . 19 The three Alternative? possible. The Reign of God does not deny the usual Order ; has no Difficulties for Faith. The " Reign of Law " has ; is a mere As- sumption. Christian Anthropomorphism. Extract from Melville's Sermons. CHAP. III.— Is THIS A Scientific or a Religious Question? 25 Scien 'c knows nothing of History. "Book of Na- ture." Can Men collect the Facts for such a Con- clusion or reason well to it ? It is not self-evident. How only we can know what God did in the begin- ning. The Question tried again from other Aspects. Vi TABLEOFCONTENTS. CHA.P. IV.— Should it he Tried by Natural Theology ? 36 What is Natural Theolojjy ? — Tested by our own Memory and present Thought; by the Word of God. True Meaning of "Word of God." "Comparative Eeligiou." Beginning of religious Thought among Maniiind. Continuance ever since. Growth of false Religion. Original Truth never quite perishes. Ar- gument for Natural Theology from Romans i. 19, 20. Other Objections to it. How invented and continued. Forbidden in God's Word. Latest Error of Detail. General ill Results and no good Effect. CHAP. V. — Comparative Certainty op Knowledge BY "Science" or by a "Word of God." . . 57 Two general Sources of Knowledge. Compared as to their Subjects, Importance and Certainty. What- ever can be said of the Imperfection of Language more true of Science than of God's Word. Moral and spiritual Welfare the most important. God's Word only certain as to the spiritual, and fallible as to the natural? Science incomplete. God's Word complete. Erroneous Positions of " F. D. H." and others. "Make Room for all the Facts." CHAP. VI.— Examination of Holy Scripture — Old Testament 77 Method. A Suggestion of Numbers. Prof. Jowett's Rules. The Divine Story of Creation. Objections made to it. No Mention of a " Reign of Law." The Promise of Secd-Time and Harvest, &c. The " Row in the Cloud." The Patriarchs. Moses and Joshua. Rest of Old Testament History. Book of Job. " A Decree for the Rain," «fec. Psalms. "A Decree which shall not pass," &c. Proverbs, &c. " The Lord by Wisdom," &c, How the Early Christians understood this. Teaches intellectual HurnUity instead of Pride. The Prophets. " Ordinances of the Moon," &c , and "My Covenant of the Day," &c. Such Passages flgurativc; many more literally declare immediate Divine Will and Power. CHAP. VII.— Examination of Holy Scripture — New Testament 106 Hero, if anywhere, wo shall find the " Reign of Law." TABLEOFCONTENTS. Vll Supernatural Wonders of the Nativity. The Temp- tation. Teachings of Our Lord. Lord's Prayer. Miracles of the Gospels. The Acts. St. Paul at Athens. The Epistles. "The Counsel of His Own Will." ** God giveth it a Body," &c. "Where is the Promise of His Coming?" The entire and consist- ent Tenor of Holy Writ. Two opposite Ideas of Man's Life. "Nature." No Notice, but actual De- nial of the " Reign of Law " in New Testament. Passages of Old Testament usually cited do not teach it. Value of fixed Institutions of Religion. CHAP. VIII.— History OF the Notion of a "Reign OF Law." 127 Difi'erent Accounts of its Origin. Plato. First Men- tion of "Nature" and its "Laws." Aristotle. Lucre- tius. The Advent of Our Lord. Christian Stiidy of Plato. St. Paul's Notice of this so^La. CHAP. IX.— History Continued 146 Greek Philosophy again studied and admired by Christians. Justin Martyr. Clement of Alexandria. Origen. Others protesting. Augustine. Chrysostom. Jerome. The Dark Ages. Saracen Philosophers. Al Ghazel. Greek Philosophy again in Europe. Rise of Natural Philosophy. The Reformation. Bacon. Des Cartes. Later Misrepresentation of him. Spin- oza. Hooker. His Mistake as to " the Counsel of His Own Will." Per contra, other Words of Ms which are noble and beautiful. Leibnitz. The Eight- eenth Century in England. " Christianity." Nine- teenth Century so far. Opposing Influence of the Church. The Book entitled the " Reign of Law." Necessary Tendencies of this Notion. Virtual Admis- sion of this by Christlieb. CHAP. X.— The Question as Touching the Free Will op Man 170 Free Will a great Mystery to be received by Faith. A "Reign of Law" forbids this Faith. The Free Will of Man would destroy a " Reign of Law." The Writer of "The Reign of Law" claims to maintain the Freedom of Man, but really denies it. God spoken of by him as " Mind " and " Will." The Am- bassadors for God. Viii TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAP. XL— The Same as Related to the Will AND Love of God 180 The Will of God is the sole Power and Purpose of all Things. It is profane and foolish to object to this as '-Arbitrary.'' He is essentially One in Will, Love, Work. Some Writers approach to this great Truth, but fail at last to apprehend it. " Correlation of Forces." Illustration of a Railway Train. The " Ileigu of Law " makes of God only an immense Man. CHAP. XIL — Effect of the Notion op a '* Reign OF Law" upon the Intkiipketation of Holy Scripture. 192 The Theory of a remote and brutish origin of Man. True Account in Holy Scripture. Is that to be ad- justed to the New Science? The Word of God be- longs to the Church of God. That does not teach "Science," but does teach Facts. Its Purpose is Faith in God. The New Method undermines Faith. CHAP. XIII.— This Actual Interpretation by Our Present Astronomy and Geology. . . 205 We ought even to go back and re-examine what has been conceded as to Creation. Principles which should govern in such Inquiry. Unwise Concession of Bishop Butler as to "Natural Religion." "Cos- mogonies." Does our Age know too much for the Old Faith y CHAP. XIV.— The Persecution of Galileo. Is the Notion of a "Reign of Law" Necessary to Scientific Investigation? .... 213 That a contest between two scientific Parties. The Present between "Science" and obedient Faith. Some scientific Advance was made without the pres- ent Notion of "Law." One can explore the Cosmos as well with the Idea of the immediate Will of God, as of a " Reign of Law." Even if not, religious Truth more valuable than scientific Discovery. CHAP. XV.— Moral and Spiritual Effect. . . 221 That the true Theory of the Universe which most TABLE OF CONTENTS ix promotes our spiritual Good. The " Reign of God " makea men think of His Person and Love. The "Eeign of Law" hinders such Thought. The Love of God the great Solution of all these Questions. The one Idea encourages, the other discourages Frayer and Praise, and Belief of Miracles. Spiri- tual Grace. "Interposition." "Immutability." CHAP. XVI. — " Special Providences." What does this mean? What God says of it. "'■Can we believe it?" Illustration of a Eailway Accident. 236 CHAP. XVII.— Law .243 This not a mere Question of Words. Primary Mean- ing of Laiv. God is the Person. New Meanings. Effect of these upon the Obedience of the true Law in Religion; in Morals. "Law of"—. "Duty." "Personal Government." CHAP. XVIIL— Results Collected 259 CHAP. XIX. — Suggestions and Remonstrances. . 267 1st. To Plain People :— That they must not be dis- turbed in their Faith by what is said of " Laws of Nature," «fec., nor pray to God and thank Him any the less. 2dly. To those with whom Argument from Holy Writ has no Force :— We have Sympathy as Seekers of Truth. Either dismiss the Assumption of a " Reign of Law," or prove it. For Truth's Sak* examine anew if the Christian Gospel be not Truth. Is It not worth while to study first why we exist? Without this all Life unmeaning. "Authority." 3dly. To my scientific Fellow Christians : —The "Ascertained Verity" that Our Lord is coming to judge the World. We must do all Things in our "Capacity '' as Christians. The Lord's Prayer. Appendix A.— Effect of Metaphysics upon Christian Doctrine 282 Appendix B.— The Method of Examining Holy Scrip- ture pursued in this Book.' 300 Appendix C. — Critical Discussion of Ep. to Romans I. 18.— II. 16, and Cor. I. and II. . . . 306 X TABLE OF CONTENTS. Appendix D. — Detailed Review of the '* Reign of Law " by the Duke of Argyll 317 Appendix E. — Detailed Review of the '* Law of Love, and Love as a Law," by Mark Hopkins, D. D., LL. D., &c. . 348 Appendix F. — Reflections upon the Misuse and Mis- chief of Abstract Terms 364 Appendix G. — A Meditation upon the Eternity and Self-Existence of God, and the Modern Theory of "Conscience." . .... 373 THE REIGN OE GOD NOT "The Retg-TL of Lcuw,'' CHAPTER I. SOME SERIOUS FACTS AND QUESTIONS. ALL people in the Christendom of this age who read newspapers and new books, are thinking and arguing about one of the greatest of possible questions, viz. Avhether men can now rationally believe the Articles of the Christian faith, in what has at least until now seemed their plain sense. And since more people do now read and argue than ever before, and this number continually increases, and even now virtually includes all the people, the controversy never before was of such practical im- portance. There is yet another fact which increases the seriousness of the occasion. In any former like period, as for example the days of Hume or of Paine, the discussion was not only more than now a contest 1 2 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." between a few literary persons, but it was scarcely known to any but the men that there was any such contest. A little of this did indeed leak out frono. them among women and younger people ; but the greater seclusion of these, the continuing traditions of a somewhat religious education for children, the character of all books in their hands, whether for learning or amusement (even a lingering " reverence for youth "), kept them in almost total ignorance oi what was said against Christian belief. It is altogether different now. The new freedom of manners, especially among the great and busy English-speaking people, and yet more especially those of America, and the restless tendency of modern public education to remove religion from schools, combine with the wonderful multitudinous- ness of printing and reading in our days to remove all these barriers. Our school-boys and school-girls devour as indiscriminately as their elders the news- papers, magazines and entertaining books of the day ; and these are all alive with that great question of faith or doubt. Therefore, let none of us too easily quiet our wise anxiety about such questions with thinking that just such threatenings of danger to faith have occurred before, and have passed away without justifying the alarms of the devout. Nothin<^ can be more stran^-e boj'ond ])rcccdent and more portentous than an unbelieving intelligence of the young. The very gateway of faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ and eternal life throuc^h Him is in being as a little child. SOME SERIOUS FACTS AND QUESTIONS. So, if in fact a generation is before our eyes passing from the best time of faith into the peculiar dangers as well as the special strength of active life, in blind- ness to that truth which is nobler and more necessary than all else, what can we hope for their hard and worldly later years ? And soon we shall all be gone, and they will be the teachers and examples of those to come after. The facts are as stated, whatever our account of them or feeling about them. The writer has taken special notice of them, and he finds the same impres- sion made upon other thoughtful observers. But lately, the custodian of the chief libraiy in one ot our great cities said that he was anxious that in this debate the side of faith should be better maintained against its opposers. "For," said he, "doubt is increasing, especially among j^ounger people ; I have occasion to see it here." He noticed what books were most called for and read with most eagerness and satisfaction. All our popular " periodi- cals " in the same way strongly reflect as well as powerfully affect general opinion. So, with the young, with those who pass for having the most " culture," and even with our plainer i^eople, grows the notion that this age knows too much to be as religious as some men used to be. . As one of the thousand indications of this among the powerful people whose is the English language (for in these days nations are such rather by their common language and ideas than by governments — as the German-speaking and the English-speaking 4 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." nations), observe this fact. It is now eighteen years since the celebrated " Essays and Reviews" of certain Oxford scholars appeared. This book was less notable for any force of its own, than as a symptom of a forcible organized effort within the Church of England to promote opinions as Christian, which would once have found no advocates among Chris- tians. It brought forth protests, replies and refuta- tions quite sufficient to counteract its arguments ; yet its spirit and credit are stronger this day than ever. . Certainly, if there be any recent change, " science" is more alien to Christian faith and more contemptu- ous towards it than ever before among the English race. Even the Christian writers of science seem more scientific than Christian ; and the others move on with an assured air of triumph which is itself half a victory over general opinion.* Why is this, when far the greater advantages for such a conflict are on the Christian side, namely, real truth and the favor of God ? Some of these later advocates of faith are honest, acute, and eloquent; though it must be admitted, that for simple clearness of style and accuracy of language, and for that earnest and lively elegance in serious writing of which Plato is the great example, some of the promoters of unbelief in our age are the superiors. This is in no small degree the cause of their success. Yet, what a trifling matter that is when men are deciding what they will receive as true about the great God and their immortal destiny ! * H. Spencer ; Fiske's Cosmical Philosophy, «S;c.,2?«mw. SOME CURIOUS FACTS AND QUESTIONS. We have reason, therefore, for saying that the right side of this question must have been wrongly handled. To say this as it were at the onset of the conflict — before the truth as so presented has had a reasonable time to have effect, would be unfair. But we need not and do not pass our judgment hastily. We should also allow much in the apparent result for something in the will of God beyond our judg- ment : His purpose that sometimes these things shall turn out as we cannot account for them. Yet, the matter being so great and so threatening, let us all pause and ask if it may not be our duty to find out why this is so ; and what more, if anything, we ought to do. Is there not something wrong in the usual, not to say universal method in which faith is now defended? The present writer thinks that there are several points in which that method needs severely plain criticism. He does not mean this for a spark- ling diatribe, nor for a smart and captious " review." He wishes to observe a modest deference for honor- able names; to keep in mind that it is of no advantage to truth, and but alow ambition, to arraign valuable writers, expressing dissatisfaction with all they say, and holding them to a strict account for it if they have not altogether " put to flight the armies of the aliens." Such a mean, unjust and barren purpose is not his, as will appear more fully as he proceeds. He would both search for and tell plainly what mistakes have been made in this sacred work ; and he would also 6 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." propose something positive which he thus offers to the same severe criticism. The truth of God con- cerning the supreme welfare of man is greater than any man's or all men's names or sensibilities. So surely will all Christian thinkers agree, if now, even from some obscure source, should come any suggestion that will help in the vindication and triumph of faith. Of such mistakes he thinks he observes the follow- ing : 1st. While the argument is about religion, it is not religious. For instance, the name of God is perhaps used frequently ; but nothing indicates the thought of who He really is.* I^ow, reverence is not merely the absence of irreverence. Love divine is not a cold word to be tossed out like a counter in the game of debate. Language used upon these themes cannot be " scientific" in the sense of excluding that sentiment, without being false. Whatever maj^ be true in other investigation about '' dry light " or " white light," obtained by banishing all feeling, does not apply to this. Light and warmth, truth and love, are not separable here. You may separate the elements of vital air, then experiment upon and explain either one of them, and finally recombine them as air. But if you attempt the same process with the man who lives by breathing that air, and get soul and body apart so that you may investigate the latter, you no longer have the man at all, but some inert matter, and you never can make that again part of the living man. Thus, if the love of *That is a profoand principle of the Third Commandment, of its not specifyiui? bhisphcray, bu the " taking His name in vain "—uttering that sacred word without a true though of its meaning and of His person. SOME CURIOUS FACTS AND QUESTIONS. God is excluded from thought, we shall find no light of truth upon these transcendent things. All our reasoning is mere illusion ; and while the words occupy us, the heavenly " things they signify " are to us unreal. This intellectual folly of the Christian " men of this generation," would indeed produce more imme- diate fatal effects, but by the mercy of God there is an actual inconsistency between it and their real life. They think and write and read about God as if in the use of reason they must keep out of sight of His love (which is in tendency and in inevitable ultimate result as if there were " no God ") ; yet, they are in fact still under the light and warmth- giving rays of knowledge of that love as it shines in the Church and in the divine Word. And yet, if there is anything which is, as distinguished from " accident," of the essence of the conception of Him on the one hand, and of our life on the other, it is the love of God. "Then the mind of him who has no belief in this Divine love is inaccessible to us in arguing for faith in God?" That is not so certain;* and if it were true, it would be much the less of the evils to choose between. '' But this will not allow us to be logical with the reasoner who questions this faith, and ought to be answered and convinced." Then let us be true, even if we must cease being logical. We have here only one of the instances of the incapacity of * For while we have uo right ever to omit this/«c^ from our argnment, even the unloving heart feels unconsciously some of its force, and its presence takes none of their force from other reasons addressed to the mere intellect. THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW.' our reasoning f\iculty to deal with the highest truth * If it be true that in some former age, and in a lower form, religious faith could exist without the idea of Divine love, because then ignorance and superstition protected it from intellectual doubts which are the weakness (not strength) of our age, the true correc- tive of these doubts now is, not more intellectual effort, but the vision of that Love by faith. That there is no such ignorant narrowing of thought, when we refuse to separate the love of God from the search of truth about Him or His works, may be seen for one instance in the example of him who is justly regarded as, more than any other one man, the founder of modern science. f Let any one read attentively the treatise on " The Interpretation of Nature," or the opening of that on " The Advancement of Learning," and he can but see that not only the language and mode of thinking of the writer, but his express rules for these studies, are opposed in this respect to the scientific method of our time,J of Christian writers as well as non- Christian, while they accord with my suggestion. The case is indeed very much stronger when the very subject of argument is, as it is not usually in Bacon's philosophy, though all so religious in spirit — truth in religion. (2) Our Christian " apologists " seem too literally apologists in the modern sense. They contend for * I may use here to bettor purpose, Dr. Newman's motto from St. Ambrose : " Non in dialectlca complacuif. Deo, sahuni facere pojmlum suum.'"— ''It hath not pleased God to save His people by lojjiic." t And who is the author of this very distinction of lumen siccum. X Perhaps this is one reason why Mr. Huxley is so jealously unfriendly to the greutname of Bacou as a philosopher. SOME CURIOUS FACTS AND QUESTIONS. the faith in defence, as the poor Jews in Persia were allowed to " stand for their life " against Haman's party ; instead of moi;m^ against all opposing opinion^ in the name of God. Their utmost courage seems exhausted in insisting that religion is independent and equal within its domain to science within its. They exult in proving to their own satisftiction that it is not irrational to believe as a Christian. The Word of God never speaks in that tone. It assumes immeasurably higher authority over all else that men think they know. It assumes such superi- ority both of certainty and importance. So far from asking toleration, it will not tolerate any pretended equality with itself. How can it but suggest un- reality and doubt to readers of modern defences of that faith, when they hear only this cold, negative and hesitating voice, instead of that imperative and victorious tone in which the Gospel speaks for itself? We, indeed, are not prophets and apostles, but we are the heralds (preachers*) of the same Divine proclamation, and have no right to declare it to others as of less than the absolute authority that it claims. So by example for us did its first heralds proclaim it alike to the most intellectual Platonist Greeks or the plainest rustic in Galatia. "But what if the only effect you have upon the scientific doubter is to make him smile at what seems to him the conceited positiveness of the ignorant ? " It is sorrowful to think that this is only so much the worse for him. The same truth *K>;pvxfs'. 10 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "TEE REIGN OF LAW." was once to just such men "foolishness"; but none the less did St. Paul hold it up to all men alike as "the wisdom of God and the power of God." (3) It is a great defect of these writers, that not only in this, but in other respects, their language is very different from that of Holy Scripture. This in part includes the faults before mentioned, and also that which is to follow. It is also in part their effect. The incongruity, however caused, and whether observed or not, sends a chill of doubt over the reader. The faith and truth of God's Word are felt (if not seen) to be in a false position. And so the arguments for them, however ingenious, are in the main sterile. (4) But that which is most mischievous of all I have reserved for the last mention here, and it is the main subject of this enquiry. By the curious reciprocal relations and influences of what seem different things, and yet are only different aspects of the same thing — this is partly cause, partly sign, and partly effect of the others, and they of it. It is the assumption in all books of science and general literature of our day, and especially in all writings either for or against Christian faith, of something called " the reign of law." This is the hinge of the whole present controversy. It is the very chosen ground upon which the forces of unbelief form their line of battle, and upon which the soldiers of faith have descended to construct their defensive positions- and make what resistance ihQj can to the onset. It is the purpose of the following discussion to- SOME CURIOUS FACTS AND QUESTIONS. 11 show that this is a fatal error: that the "reign of law" is a mere gratuitous assumption, unproved and impossible of proof, indeed, contrary to our best reason, and to absolute and certain truth as God has uttered it directly to men. It is one of the signs of how far- we have all drifted from older and wiser ways of thinking, that one of the latest and most generally accepted defences of Christian faith against doubt, bears this very title, " The Eeign of Law." As the danger of such false notions often lies in their concealment under ambiguous terms, it is fortunate that a well-meaning opposer of unbelief, whoso position makes his example a very conspicuous one, has thus exposed so plainly the real character of the popular error, and given us the occasion to contrast it with the Divine truth in this title : " The Eeign of God 7iot ' The Eeign of Law.' " Upon fair and patient study of the whole matter, we shall find that this imagined truth, which is assumed to be the highest achievement of man's thought as well as the guide and bond of all further acquirement, is a delusion — a murky cloud of falsehood, hiding from mankind in proportion as it prevails, all the bright heavens and the vision of the Divine; blinding faith, checking prayer and chilling love. Then until this is removed, we need go no further to find why our arguments do not stop the advance of unbelief Yet the notion is so strongly intrenched in all the language of our age, allowed on all hands, and perhaps until now disputed by no one within our knowledge, that we must agree to sit in trial upon it patiently as well as courageously. 13 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW. It is indeed most true that God in His love towards mankind does all things around us in a usual order, and gives us an instinct of confidence in this ; so that we may exercise forethought about our present life, and lay up from generation to generation, in- creasing stores of knowledge about the material creation. That is one thing ; but it is very far from the same as that notion of a " reign of law " which I condemn. The former no way confines the abso- lute will of God, or our apprehension of it in faith, prayer or grateful love. The latter of necessity does. If I had a poor neighbor who needed every night to pass a dark and dangerous place near me, and I, knowing this, always placed my house-lights so that they would show him past the danger, and also informed him of this arrangement, that would be no sort of obligation of laio to me, but none the less useful to him. It would not abridge my freedom in my own afi'airs, nor my right to change this custom for other purposes or in any emergency ; nor Xjay liberty, at my neighbor's request, to remove the light for special occasions, when that would be more for his advantage. It would not check his coming to make this request of me, especially if I had in- vited him to knock at my door at any time upon such errands and promised him a favorable hearing. (There can be no question that this would more promote affectionate feeling between the two parties than if the light on the poor man's way was pro- vided by law.) The theory of a reign of law is entirely different SOME CURIOUS PACTS AND QUESTIONS. IB This orderly movement is no longer the immediate will of One who is love, but the revolution of a vast and complicated machine, which must not be inter- fered with. It suggests doubt of anything which is proposed to our religious faith as having occurred, or yet to be, but which is contraiy to this invariable order. The Holy Scriptures speak to us of prayer and miracles without proposing or acknowledging any such element of doubt. It is with them as when a young child, who admires his father for all that is noble in a man, and regards him with happy love, asks him for something. The only question in his mind of obtaining his re- quest is, whether his father has it to give ; or, if that be so, whether he will think it really good for him. There is no notion of some other restraint upon the giver's good will, which checks the impulse of asking, or the hope of obtaining when he does ask. So, and far more so, it would seem that a devout Christian would always pray to a Father in heaven for what he wanted, with simple readiness and confi- dence. So in the Holy Scriptures good men are always represented as doing. So, in fact now some religious people do, especially if their reading is only religious. But it has somehow come to pass that for other persons than these, there seems interposed between the suppliants on earth and the ever blessed Grod in heaven, something beside His gracious will and power. (This is not as when a sublime poetical prophet has said,* " Your iniquities * Isaiah lix. 2. 14 TUE KKIQN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." have separated between you and your Grod." That hiding of His face from us is, we know as Christians, removed by pardon, when we pray with repentance and faith in our Lord.) It is conceived of as some- thing outside of our spiritual condition, and outside of the immediate will of God for the occasion. It seems to require of Him in granting our requests, something more than simple will to do what we ask : that He must first set aside what would otherwise occur — must "interpose" in movements otherwise taking place without His special notice. Now, whether or not we suppose this notion a new truth gained by our intelligence, when it comes into the simple religion existing before and held forth in the Hol^^ Scriptures, its effect is of necessity very great. It is as would be the addition to our atmosphere of any new clement, however attenuated or imperceptible to ordinary sense, in interrupting the solar heat and light upon which all terrestrial life depends. This new element of the soul's atmo- sphere in our day is the notion of *' laws of Nature " or a "reign of law." It is such an interposing medium, not only as to prayer, but as to all faith in things spiritual; as to quiet confidence in God's care and merc}^, notwithstanding what would otherwise make us anxious and afraid ; as to gratitude Avhen we escape dangers or receive blessings ; as to faith in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ into this world to save mankind, as " approved by signs and wonders"; as to all such marvellous things related in our Holy Book, and so witnessing that it is God's SOME CURIOUS FACTS AND QUESTIONS Word ; and as to any knowledge of God and all the heavenly things, with glory and joy in them by hope. Let us consider well that this effect is produced not merely upon the readers of scientific books. It flows out into the "light reading" of the many, and into the atmosphere of general opinion ; and it reaches almost every man, woman and child. It thus not only helps to deaden the spiritual sensi- bility of all, but also creates a general impression that when battle is joined between the admired leaders of " modern thought " and those who present themselves as champions of Christ's religion, these latter do not get the best of it. And what if their failure is not in being " unscientific," but in trying to be scientific ? Any way, this mischief is immeasurable. What advantage gained can be imagined to compensate this? It keeps men unhappy in spite of the ver}^ grace of God. It tends to reduce the Christian lands to worse than heathenism — to an irreligion in which the divine and spiritual has no acknowledg- ment; which would be a frightful degradation, spite of all the books, and arts and sciences left. Liter- ally it casts off fear of the good God, and restrains prayer to Him, It defrauds our Lord the King of Glory of His salvation of mankind. Fellow-Christians, would it not be good if we could dismiss from all belief an opinion so baleful in result? Even if you are so constituted or so envi- roned by other influences that you are not affected by it in that fatal way, would you not be glad for 16 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." the sake of these others, if it could be given up with- out sacrifice of truth? Well, it was once unknown. Many generations of thoughtful men lived and died without it, and this includes all the Apostolic Chris- tians. Let US then carefully examine its claims to belief. [The just force of this argument will fail to reach my reader's mind if he conceives of it as a mere " question of words." For instance, if he assumes that a "reign of law^' may be and really is in the effect of its use the same as the reign of God, which all Christians in terms maintain. I must therefore here by anticipation give warning against this mis- take, and state briefly about this what I shall more fully show in its best place, later in this enquiry. 1st. God having chosen, or rather created this word law to tell man of his duty and obedience — if we appropriate it to some other use, we confuse our apprehension of that spiritual truth which is the knowledge most necessary for us and most divinely certain. Beyond question it is more important for each of us to ha\^ a strong and true sense of law as what we are to do in obeying God, than as to what passes around us in the world of matter and force. Now the first (and as we shall yet see the only true) sense of that word implies two ivills, one commanding and one obeying. Thus one who has that right to command says, " Thou shalt love (Me) the Lord thy God with all thy heart." This is the commanding will. I apprehend this and love Him. That is the SOME CURIOUS FACTS AND QUESTIONS. 17 obeying will. Or I disobey, and so far as I do am. guilty. Yet, without freedom for this guilty disobe- dience there is no real laic. The same applies to human law, and therefore and because all such rightful law is really by His authority, He allows us this, and only this, secondary use of the word law. To employ it in the account of mere cause and effect in things which have no will or choice, is a figure of speech which, as long as it is understood to be merely such (as is such use of it in Holy Scripture), is good. But when it becomes " philosophy," and is treated as if it were the highest literal truth to which we must adjust our religious thought, it will only weaken the primary and necessary force of the term as to our obedience of God. 2d. This enquiry is not useless as being only a *' question of words" in the sense that a "reign of law " is precisely " the reign of God." Man is dread- . fully astray for all his real life and destiny, except as our Lord in His Gospel rescues him. This de- pravity consists in separation from God, and aversion to the true thought, and so from the love of Him. Instead of this glorious life of love in which his greatest joy is that God talks with him, when now he hears His voice he hides himself in the trees of the garden. Even after he is by Christ's salvation set in the right way, he is continually tempted from it to false thoughts of God as well as to false ways of willful disobedience. Once and everywhere on the earth this temptation was in the notion of *«gods many." Now and in Christendom it is in words which pretend religion without its reality. 18 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." This flatters human vanity, by persuading us that we have come to think so profoundly and vigorously that we have got beyond the common idea of God as a person. Sometimes it is in fancying that we have discovered, not that God is all, but that All is God. As one aspect of the Divine is greatness, we gratify the pleasure of thought about this by contemplating the vastness of creation, and then persuade ourselves that this is adoring the Creator — that the total ot what God has made is God ; which is really one way of saying that there is no Creator and no God. Or, short of this false dogma, we may give our attention only to this "Nature," and say that "the heavens declare its (or lief) glory "; and by such personifying and deifying of "Nature," refuse to behold the only living and true Person. Or we may make a like false use of any abstraction or adjective, and talk only of "Mind," "Will," "the True," "the Eight," " the Good," and so get rid of real religion. It is of precisely the same effect to attribute power and government to any abstract word, as to say that ^' Law " reigns, instead of that God reigns. If we mean the latter, why do we not say it and not the other, which promotes atheism in those who are inclined that way, and obscures the light of this glorious truth to the religious. No, it is not an idle question of words which is involved in this proposition, " The reign op God not the reign of law." The other great spiritual consequences which help to prove the truth of what is here maintained, also enhance its importance, as will appear later in the discussion.] THE TWO "reigns" CONTRASTED. 19 CHAPTER II. THE TWO "reigns" CONTRASTED. WE are making this enquiry now as Christian believers. (How we might argue about it with others is another thing, and will receive brief notice in the final suggestions). As such, we know that God is absolute, eternal and almighty, and that of His will only He made all else that exists, to begin that existence. We can suppose of the Creator after this act of creation, one of these three things : either (1) that all continuance of being and . all movement is the actual direct power of God, just as was the creation ; or (2) that with the creation He gave a self-existence to what He had made, and established a force or forces, as a man adjusts the spring of a watch, which would then of itself work all the life and movement we see, either forever, or for any time He limited. We may then declare that these movements are "laws of nature," as imperative as laws of moral conduct and religion given to men, and even more fixed, necessary and invariable. But to this we may add that God has reserved to Himself the power to suspend or act contrary to these laws at rare intervals, by miracles, for His own special purposes ; or (3) we may say that we know only that all things were created by God and exist accord- ing to His will, but that He has told us no more, and it would be presumptuous folly for us to think that 20 THE KEIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LA.W." we could by any " searching find out God" in so great a matter. This last of the three alternatives amounts practically to the first, and may appear in the course of this enquiry to involve it of necessity. The real question then lies between the first and second. As the latter assumes the notion of the "reign of law," so we may distinguish the idea of the former as the reign of God. As has been already suggested, it would be a great mistake to suppose that this involves a denial of that usual order of events upon which all our calculation and science are based. When God has planted in my soul the in- stinctive faith, and confirmed it with His own gracious promise, that these things shall follow one another in the order I observe in them now, (except upon some extraordinary occasions which the same gracious love will find for doing us more good in another way), have I any reason for distrusting this because He does each of these things in person^ instead of by a huge machine set in motion 6000 or 60,000 years ago, or because I do not (and cannot) suppose that He ever manacled His most blessed and glorious omnipotent will by some "laws " to that effect? Is not divine love and truth security enough for man's calculations ? If not, what *' laws " or forces could ever give me rational confidence ? This idea of " the reign of God " has no difficulties for faith, either as regards prayer or miracle. That God usually sustains all things and does me good in a regular succession of acts which I can calculate upon, does not hinder His doing any other thing THE TWO "reigns" CONTRASTED. 31 which I pray for, or any " great wonder " to give witness to His word. Nor does it impair my power to believe in these things, or to expect them accord- ing to His promise. His giving what I ask may fall within this regular working (whether within the view of ray calculating forethought or beyond it), or it may not. The one is as easy for Him as the other, and as possible for me rationally to believe. The only thing for me in either case, is to be pleased and grateful whatever answer He makes to my prayer. And so if He presents a miracle to my faith, I can at once recognize it by its spiritual as well as its sensible signs, and simply believe. It is entirely different with the notion of a " reign of law." To grant my prayer or perform a miracle > requires then, at least in my thought, that a vast, immensely complicated mechanism shall be deranged, or that even this mechanism shall be immensely more complicated (which is the favorite device of our modern writers to " reconcile " prayer and miracle with mechanical " law " in all things). In this last case it is still the machine working, and not God graciously willing. The true spiritual idea of prayer, or of the immediate power of God in a miracle, is thus made very difficult, if not impossible to be conceived.* It is true that those who speak of '' laws of nature " do not agree in what they mean by the term ; and some of them say that they do not mean this mechan- *I shall consider later and at length, the reply which may be made to this, that as all events and actions are really always present to the Absolute One, it is as easy for Him to arrange His " laws of nature for all the apparent interferences, as without them. 22 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE llEIGN OF LAW." ism. But we must deal with the actual notion it conveys to most people, with its meaning as the pojDular authors wu'ite* and people read, and with the necessary tendency of thought in the words used. There is such a tendency in this use of " law " which no explanation can stay and no warning neutralize. It is a most remarkable instance of how some " words are things." It makes us think of God as limited in His power and love. Upon what proof then is this " reign of law ^^ believed? None whatever. It is a mere assumption. One may look in vain in the writers who reason upon it, either for or against religious faith, for any such proof.f They say " it is plain," or " it is admitted," &c. They seem to suppose that no thoughtful person could ever think otherwise. Whereas, some of the wisest men that ever lived have held to the " reign of God " in incessant immediate power, as I now maintain it. One writer says that this true and glorious idea would " deny the immutability of God," and give up the universe to chaotic chance.J Others say that it is treating divine will as " capricious," and without intelligence. All this is mere begging of the question. It really proceeds from a wrong notion, that we can argue and decide about what God must do, from human nature. ♦For example, " The Keij^n of Law." + What comes nearest to such argument will be examined later. The ''Reign of Law," pp. G3-f54, appears to set out upon the proof, but soon abandons it. The eloquent rhapsodies of Hooker and JNIontesquieu are not reasoningB, yet they are fairly examined in Chapter IX. $This astonishing position is taken by one of the writers in the Christ. Ev. Society's series. What is the writer's idea of " immuta- bility"? As immovability, or mere mechanism? THE TWO "reigns" CONTRASTED. 23 It is Strange that Christians will commit this folly, when not only does our best reason expose it, but His own voice speaking from heaven says, " My ways are not your ways." Even unbelievers some- times see this and object to the " anthropomorphism " of Christians.* From this proceed also two other notions, which may be now in the minds of my readers, obstructing their correct judgment in the argument which is to follow, viz. that at the crea- tion, God must have set up this mechanical " reign of law," first, because it would be an economy of force ; and secondly, because a foreseeing " mind " would naturallj" provide for its plans in that way. We forget that this, which is true enough of our poor little forethought, will and power, has no sort of application to one with whom all is independence and eternity. For since He, and He alone, is literally infinite^ without bounds in any direction, His power is not merely inexhaustible, but is not lessened by any action or all actions. So his knowledge, attention, and love (let us not forget that) are no more tasked (and need no more spare themselves) by the instant creation of all things in each successive moment of time, than they were six thousand years ago, nor than if they were allowed sixty thousand j^ears for the process. Language indeed fails before this ineffable contemplation. So also let our reasoning keep silence when it sets out to say Avhat G-od must have done. Therefore, so far as we have proceeded, it is plain that we may take up this enquiry unprejudiced by * See Lewes' Aristotle, p. 80. Fiske'a Cosmical Philos. pp. 393, 423. Oil that they were as wise otherwise ! 24 THE KEIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." any presumption in favor of a "reign of law." We will do well also to understand that what I maintain now is far from being a new notion, set against the belief of all the past. There have been many just such protests in substance, against the ideas of " laws of nature" and their "reign," made by wise and devout men in past ages. I only place here some sentences from the noble sermon of Henry Melville upon " the continual agency of the Father and the Son."* " But is not our philosophy as defective as our theology, so long as we thus give energy to matter and make a deity of nature? * * * * I do not believe it the result of properties which, once im- parted, operate of themselves, that vegetation goes forward and verdure mantles the earth. I rather believe that Deity is busy with every seed that is cast into the ground, and that it is through its immediate agency that every leaf opens and every flower blooms. I count it not the consequence of a physical organi- zation — the effect of a curious mechanism which, once set in motion, continues to work — that pulse succeeds to pulse and breath follows breath : I rather regard it as literally true that in God 'we live and move and have our being,' that each pulse is but the throb, each breath the inspiration of the ever present, all actuating Divinity. Away with the idolatry of nature ! Nature is but a verbal fiction invented to keep out of sight the unwearied acting of the Great First Cause." * Melville'a Sermons, vol. I, p. 287 : Philadelphia. IS THIS A SCIENTIFIC OR A RELIGIOUS QUESTION? 25 CHAPTER III. . IS THIS A SCIENTIFIC OR A RELIGIOUS QUESTION ? MY fellow-Christiaiis, Bome who disclaim that title say that we Christians do not love truth, but in all these discussions only follow our prejudices. And some who shave the honor of that name with us, insist that we cannot be honest and candid seekers of God's truth unless we concede certain postulates of those others. These postulates are that there are " laws of nature"; and that we must adjust our faith in the Holy Scriptures, in the miracles related by them, and in the duties and results of prayer to Grod, to this " reign of law," (z. e. in effect the reign of such " laws " as our present science claims to have proved) or give up that faith. We will therefore first seek the truth about this claim, and find out whether there are any such laws which have any sort of relation to our faith. It is generally agreed among Christian believers, whether scientific or not, that some truth is religious and some natural ; and that religion does not teach the latter, nor science the former. Accepting this as substantially true,* in which of these divisions of knowledge shall Ave look for the truth about the * If any object to the term " natural " thus used, they are welcome to substitute any other which will define what so many are ready enough to insist that religion has no business with. 3 26 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW. supposed " reign of law " ? — in other words, is it a scientific or a religious question? Is it something about God? Is it something about what He willed and did before there was a man to observe any of His works? Undoubtedly it is. Then just so un- doubtedly it is a question of religious knowledge. But on the other hand, suppose it be suggested that as this question relates to what we know by our senses, and what comes under our observation and reasonings, it therefore belongs also (for this is the utmost that could be claimed) to our science. Even this is disproved by reflection. For science, as its greatest proficients insist, knows nothing of history :* that is, of a free will, if there be such a thing, and its actions ; of what any person (and surely least of all, what the Great One) has done in the measureless past. It knows only phenomena, things actually occurring in a usual order since men began to observe them. God's creation of all things from nothing, or His making any fixed regulation for existence since, or imposing laws upon Himself for its mode of con- tinuance, or for what He should will to do in it or with it, whatever of this may be thought true, is alike outside of the scientific knowledge. To tell about a "Book of ligature" delivered to men by God, as much as His book of Holy Scripture, and in which, as well as in that Scripture, He informs them of Himself, is of no force in this argument. So * Its modern votaries are iu fact attempting history in their geology, astronomy and studies of animal and vegetable life; but this is their "unscientific" folly. IS THIS A SCIENTIFIC OR A RELIGIOUS QUESTION ? 27 far as this language is not the imagination of some good men to express in a lively way their gratitude for the pleasure such studies give them, and as illustrating how a soul (if already devout) will behold His power, glory and love in all His wonderful works of ordinary nature — the notion of a "Book of Nature " teaching us all about God as His real Word does, is dangerous nonsense. In many lamentable instances, the most scientific of men have studied the " Book of Nature " only to disobey the blessed Gospel of our Lord, and even become atheists. By what reasoning from present science can men know how God made, and continues this incalculable multitude of existences and processes which we call " nature " ? Allow human investigation the largest possible present achievement, and it does not yet know the thousandth part of the facts for such a conclusion. And if it had all the facts, it is most probable that human intelligence is incapable of the necessary generalization. Let me calmly reflect upon what a single "day brings forth": upon the aniount and variety of movement on this earth alone between one sunrise and another; the vast total of visible life, from mosses to men ; the amazing multitude of creatures invisible to our ordinary sight; the flowing of water-currents and tossings of oceans; the atmo- spheric movements — vapors, storms and currents; the solar and planetary influences upon our globe ; and all this penetrated and affected by the free wills of a thousand millions of men. Consider how all these act upon one another in countless and incessant 28 THE KEIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." variations. Multiply this by the days of a year then by all the ages since creation. Add to this what we may conjecture of the immense space in which our earth is so little, and of the multitude of " worlds " which move in it. Augment the calculation by such a glance over the eternal future as the Eternal One must have ever before Him. No less a collection of facts than all this must human science have before it, to establish as one of its true conclusions, that God in the creation set up a " reign of law." Even then it is not wise to believe that one of us creatures, were he the " wisest and brightest," or all of us together, could comprehend these particulars in one consistent view, and demon- strate " the knowledge of God's ways," as by "laws of nature " instead of His incessant and immediate will. Indeed, so far as I know, no such demonstration has been attempted. It is always assumed as something already proved, or self-evident; and as so admitted by all men as a matter of course. It is not, that I am aware of, stated as self-evident. For that, it must needs be one of those propositions which, when put in words, everyone agrees to at once: as that the whole of aii^'thing is greater than any part of it. On the contrary, this notion of the " reign of law " when presented to my mind (and many others) is evidently false. If it is said to be already proved to better informed men, whose discoveries I ought to accept, I can onl}'- do this reasonably upon such scrutiny of their proof as I now attempt. The argument already IS THIS A SCIENTIEIC OR A RELIGIOUS QUESTION? 29 pursued hardly leaves room to think that an}^ such proof is possible, short of direct information from the Eternal Creator Himself. Every just reflection then remits this question to the province of religion — to what God has chosen to tell mankind in words of Himself, as well as of their relations to Him. If it be true that He in creation set up certain natural forces to continue automatically until He removed them, or bound Himself by certain "laws" to carry on all this life and movement in an invariable way, then this is a truth of religion, and not of science. It is to be examined and proved as other religious truth is. Then, if so established, science may, within its domain, ascertain for us specially what those laws are; and we may decide upon the proof of these in detail, and as to how they relate to our religious faith. This is a ver}'' weighty conclusion and draws great consequences with it. Let us study it from every point of view to make sure of the truth, and to give that truth all the clearness and force possible. The first thing is to decline asswning such '* laws of nature" and their "reign," because all the great writers of our time do. It is proof which we want and must have. Have mankind " by searching found out God" in this respect? If some one asserts that He has so made man and the cosmos around him, that he may (and with the purpose that he should) discover such "laws," let them prove that. Is it so proved from God's own Word ? 30 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." I am not aware that any one affirms that. On the contrary, ^\o shall see in Chapters VI. and YII. that not a trace of it is found in Holy Scripture, but the opposite in the precise words of many passages, and in thousands of others by most plain implication. Or is it claimed upon the theory so often rashly insisted upon in the details of science, that a theory to which all facts so far discovered agree, is itself a demonstrated fact ? Surely no one who will ponder the vastness of such an inference in this case, com- pared with the immeasurable littleness in proportion of our accumulated facts, (or what we think so now,) can at once be sure of that. Indeed, all these facts really agree at least as well with the idea of the immediate will and power of G-od. Especially con- sidering the rash vanity of the human mind, which is such an infirmity in confusing its perceptions even of far inferior truth, shall we not take time to see whether this notion of " law in nature," etc., may not be rather some of that false " wisdom by which the world knew not God," than something which He is teaching us in His works? Again : there is a question of what God did '* in the beginning," — of how He did it. From whom can we have knowledge about this ? Surel}^ from none but Himself There was no human witness. If there could have been, he could not have compre- hended what he saw. God has indeed given to man some verbal account of this creation ; but He has 7iot added to this the suggestion that His creature IS THIS A SCIENTIFIC OR A RELIGIOUS QUESTION? 31 could only understand this thirty centuries after- ward by scientific studies of the existing order of nature, and even add to it the greater fact which He did not directly reveal, of a " reign of law." He has said no such thing in all his later written Word, even by sayings upon earth of Him who is in person the Word of God, and when it was perfected in the New Testament. But this He has said : " Canst thou by searching find out God ? . . . Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without know- ledire? . . . Where wast thou when I laid the foun- dations of the earth? declare if thou hast under- standing ? . . . Knowest thou it because thou wast then born, or because the number of thy days is great?" (Job xi. 7; xxxviii. 2, 4, 21.) And if we have ventured to make positive assertions about such things from what we have observed or conjectured, our best reason responds in the penitent confession of that man of great thought, the patriarch Job : "Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? Therefore have I uttered that I understood not: things too wonderful for me which I knew not." (xlii. 3.) It is but sober reason for us to conclude that we can no more discover the method of the innumerable and immeasurable works of God, by tracing backwards out of its millions of processes some few which we seem to understand, than we could have comprehended and stated it at the be- ginning, if eye-witnesses then. Or suppose the thoughtful Christian to try the question by the following method. We may proceed 33 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." in either of those two directions, viz. 1st. What is knowledge in religion ? and is this a question of that knowledge? Or, 2d. What is science? and is this a question of that kind ? Either one of these investi- gations should be a true test; and each must surely give the same result, for all truth is consistent with itself. We try them both in turn, 1. Religious truth certainly, at the least, includes all we know or can know about God. Therefore the proposition that God at creation set up an inva- riable sj^stem of law for all matter and life, which continues unbroken, unless in some very rare excep- tions ; or that He infused into this material creation a force or forces which were to remain in it and constitute its existence and motion afterwards — or that He bound Himself by such " laws of nature " — this in either of its forms is a statement about God, of what He did or does. Therefore, if true, it is a truth of religion. Is there any escape from this conclusion? I see none. Or, 2dly, What is science as distinguished from religion ? That is, what is its province? its field of investigation? its possible achievement? Certainly the facts of the "cosmos " around us — intellectual as well as material, if you please — but only that : the succession and (apparently and ordinarily) invariable connection of its events, whether you call them causes and effects, forces and motions, or life, or even "laws of nature." But whether there was something else before this present order of*' nature " began, or how or when it began, (that is, creation) IS THIS A SCIENTIFIC OR A RELIGIOUS QUESTION? 33 is entirely beyond the range of science. It knows nothing before that order — nothing beyond it.* The same man may indeed see God and His will by religion, and also learn about " nature " by science. He may connect the two in his thoughts, and illuminate the science by the religion. But none the less all this knowledge of God, including that of creation and of Divine power in existence and life, came to him in the way of religion and not of science. Follow any scientific investigation to the farthest conclusions and widest generalization, and what do we come to at last ? A true vision of God at creation, arranging a mechanism or limiting His own will for the future ? Do we then hear a divine voice telling this, or find an inscription recording it? No, we have our chain of successive facts, and nothing more. If indeed there were no revelation from God about creation, we might venture beyond real scien- tific research into some conjectures from it as to the beginning. But wiiat presumption it would be to compare them in importance or certainty to such a revelation, or to adjust its meaning to them ! Suppose that we here venture upon some such speculation, taking the fact (as now believed by us *It really knows nothing of that order as existing before its observa- tions begin, certainly not before the histories and traditions of men. It may Yearn of this preceding period from a Word of God, or may conjecture it in details, by reasoning that the first known facts being the results of processes now in action, it can trace them backwards for vast periods of our time, and really indefinitely. But this is at the utmost conjecture. It will be fully discussed later in observations upon the relation of such theories to the Word of God. See Chaps. V. and X. 34 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." all) of universal gravitation of matter. Let us pursue its instances everywhere in one direction to the parts of microscopic insects — the motes floating in our air, and the most attenuated element of that air ; in the other, to all the vast uncounted spheres- that move in the yet immeasurably vaster space into which our. great telescopes pierce. Suppose that we compare this with heat, electricity, chemical affinity and all other imagined forces ; that with the^ most grand conjecture we reduce them all to one by correlation, and presume the conservation of this in a total that never varies, however much it appears in changing proportions of these forms. V7hat then ? We have now really gone somewhat beyond fact and knowledge into the region of imagination. But suppose this brilliant guess to be yet turned into as much demonstration as is now allowed by all to the "law of gravitation." What then?' We have ascertained one force which represents all motion : that is, we have one word for it, and that is all. For what is this force ? Is it a living thing which moves- of itself? Then it is a person and a will. And with all this omnipresence and omnipotence it is a god ^ or rather, we who know the true religion, must say the One and Only God. And as we know Him to be the- Spirit w^ho is love and truth, we see that the one force is Himself, working incessantly and immediately by His mere will. (This is indeed not an argument for those who say that they do not know the being of that Person, unless and except so far as it is IS THIS A SCIENTIFIC OR A RELIGIOUS QUESTION? 35 proved from " nature." Unfortunately, it is the fashion of all philosophic writing now to allow this primary atheism. Whereas, the true reason of man is to recognize the personal being of the Eternal One as the first and necessary /ac^ in our knowledge.) Let us agree then, that if and when science gets to the fact of the one force ^ its own force is exhausted, and it has only again come in sight of the essential truth with which all knowledge begins. Then, if it will be rational, it cannot expect religion to learn anything from it, but can only be the humble pupil and servant of religion. It can no more answer the religious question now before us, in asserting that the force of nature is some mechanism created and set in motion before any history or observation of man — that is, previous to the very fixed order which it explores — than it can reveal what existed a thou- sand centuries before that. 36 THE KEIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LA.W. CHAPTER ly. 8H0ULD IT BE TRIED BY "NATURAL THEOLOGY"? WHAT then is the true method of investigating this religious question ? Our later Christian writers (all of them, I think) assume that the first pro- cess of religious inquiry is by what they call " natural theology." This assumption is as irresponsible as it is universal. It is not noticed in the ancient creeds of the Church ; not, that I am aware of, recognized in any confessions of faith, articles of religion, or other symbols of the main divisions of our later Christen- dom. It stands merely by the authority of certain great names among the writers of the last three centuries,* and is properly subject to the same free examination as all other matters of opinion. If true, it will be the stronger and more useful for the scrutiny ; if false, it is not a harmless or unimportant error in regard to our present inquiry. Let one of these later writersf represent them all in substance. In arguing against " modern doubt," he labors with some obscurity and not a few self- contradictions, to show that there is something called '' philosophy " or "natural theology," from which every human soul first gets religious knowledge. *Thi8 is the simple fact as to our English people. Of course I am aware that the phrase and something meant by it may be found in Chris- tian literature for ages before that, and was a part of the technical the- ology of the " schoolmen." +" Modern Doubt and Christian Belief," by Dr. Theodore Christlieb, p. 128 and passim. SHOULD IT BE TKIED BY "NATURAL THEOLOGY"? 37 Then be says that " revelation merely steps in to its aid, setting up, as it were, landmarks for necessary guidance in the region of moral and religious thoughts, etc." According to this then, we ought now first to apply to "natural theology," to find whether the " reign of law " is a true " religious thought." After that, ''revelation may merely step in to its aid," to make its truth or falsity the plainer. But there lies before us an earlier question yet, and that is, as to the truth of this whole idea of. natural theology. That idea is, that each soul of us begins to know God by reasoning from what we perceive of our own thoughts and of "nature" around us. Every man, woman or child is supposed at some time to reason thus : "There is a cause of everything; there is one cause of all — this is a person whom we know of by the name of God, and judge His general character to be according to the Christian idea." So it follows that only after this "natural theology" is received into our minds, can we learn something more of Him by His direct "revelation" to us, and what we are to Him and are to do toward Him. The general opinion of these Christian writers seems to be that but for man's fall from original innocence, this "natural theology" would have been religious know- ledge enough for him without any " Word of God." So, to strengthen or restore Christian faith in any soul, (why not to teach it to one who had never heard of it before ?) ; to prove any truth of religion, the process must always be in this order, first " natural theology," then " revelation." 4 38 THE llEIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." Bat is il a fact that you or I, or any one else, so far as we know, begins first to think of God after such reasonings as those ? Can we remember when we had no idea of Him, and got it afterwards by that process? Certainly not. Memory running back furthest into childhood can find no such atheis- tic blank. Little children may be very religious.* It matters not for this purpose whether we suppose the idea of God to be ^' innate " with the child, or to be always communicated to him by his elders before he can remember. There it is, before thought about ^' conscience " or anything else metaphysical. In the latter alternative it has passed down from one genera- tion to another, from the very first, and found each successive soul ready to receive it without question or reluctance, as if made for such belief. This at least is " innate " (inborn) — the adjustment of man's mind to the knowledge of God. The latter is as evidently suited and needful to the former as light to the eye.f If we had no actual information about this, we might indeed make the fanciful conjecture that the first man came to know God by abstruse reasoning. *Iu eap;er controversies over this sentence in other aspects, we do not observe how the Word of God said this in person, " Of such is the kingdom of heaven."— St. Matt, sviii. t To those who have read that curious and in many ways interesting book, "The Grammar of Assent," it would be well worth while to ex- amine how and why the writer substitutes for terms of immemorial usage and all just authority, such as belief, faith and knoivleclge of truth or of God, that of " assent." Without "following his ingenious discussions, how much better is the simple truth, that as God made man specially to know and love Him, so He made that capacity more immediate and certain than any other, even than the consciousness of our own thoughts. It is not He who said, "know thyself"; but it is He who says that He "hath given us an understanding that we may knoxo Him that is true.'' SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY "NATURAL THEOLOGY"? 39 But we have the actual history, and that tells us how the great Creator at once made Himself known in person to that creature whom he had " made in His own image." Let any thoughtful Christian read over this history in the first and second chapters of Genesis, and then try to adjust it to the theory of "natural religion," and he will find that theory casting over the whole account the same air of mythical unreality as the like treatment does to other parts of Holy Scripture. On the other hand, while we might never have discovered this great fact by our own studies, it commends itself to our reason as soon as known and reflected upon. The Glorious One having among other creatures on this earth made one sort of living beings who were to be distinguished among them all as most like the divine, made it the main purpose of their life to know and love Him. He might have made the beginning of this great knowledge and divine aff'ection to come only after a long and slow process of thought and many rolling years of life. But how plain it is that the simplest, natural and noble way would be to tell this man at the first: "lam God: know me with all thy mind : love me with all thy heart." Why was this harder for Him to do then, or for us to believe now, than the other opinion ? In no way, if we really believe in the Almight}^ God. But this rational faith does become difficult if our minds are obscured by the notion that He is under some " reign of law." But the question remains, whether mankind having 40 THE KEIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." the first and purest knowledge of God by his direct Word and not by any *' natural theology," they need resort to the latter for further religious information? It will be observed first, that to maintain this is to reverse the account of natural theology as given by its adherents. That supposes it to come first, when " revelation merely steps in to its aid," &c. And here 1 would guard against a possible misapprehen- sion arising from the popular use of terms, by which " Word of God " means always and only the book of Holy Scripture. Whereas it properly includes all that God says in direct address to mankind by words, as distinguished from what He may be said to tell us by what His works and providence suggest to our thoughts. Its primarj^ and literal meaning is speech, rather than writing. The latter is a later means of securing the former from loss or change, and providing that it may reach the increasing multitude of men. Doubtless the " Word of the Lord " often came to prophets in the first ages upon occasions when it was not afterwards written down, and thus every means by which any such revela- tion is preserved and repeated to men is, in a just sense, " the Word of God "; notablj' that society of men set up and continued in the world, expressly (among other purposes) to proclaim that truth. iieturning then to the question whether there be any such demonstrated truth or method of research as is commonly called " natural theology/' by which we can try questions of religion, and specially the one before us, I admit that it has in its favor the SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY "NATURAL THEOLOGY"? 41 weight of some of the greatest names. Indeed, it has come about that no one as much as thinks of proving that it is true, useful and even indispensable in religious discussion, but takes all that for granted. Our examination of it so far is a powerful suggestion, if not demonstration, that this is a mistake. If so, it is a great mistake, misleading men in their search of the highest and most necessary truth. Let us examine "natural theology" in another aspect, as it is brought forward by some of our day in a new and dangerous shape, under the term "Comparative Eeligion." This method is to select from all religions now maintained among mankind (or that ever have been) certain true principles in which they agree, and to discard all their points of difference as erroneous. Is this the way in which God has made men to know the truth about Himself and their duties? Quite opposed to it, and allowing of no reconciliation, is the idea that G-od has informed mankind of these things by " Word." We all agree that the present generation of men, and many generations before them, are far from all having the true knowledge of God. Their very differences prove that some, even vast multitudes, must be very far from the true religion. How came this to be so? And what is the remedy? Those who contend for the method of " natural theology " — as well such of them as admit a " Word of God" to the first man, as the others — point to what is true in all the false religions, as a proof that men can attain to some religious truth by their own thoughts. 42 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." But to them (and to those who will not allow that there was ever a " revelation " in words, as a deeper conjecture than any of theirs, of how all men have come by their notions of religion) I propound this question : What became afterwards of that true knowledge which the first man had? We find religions everywhere, in all regions and races and ages of men. These religions are various and even contradictory ; but they are religions. Whence, then, came the true religious idea of an unseen power above men, which must be worshipped? If we believe that men had at first some sort of information of this truth directly from God Himself, we cannot answer the question in the same way as if we suppose it to have come to them only by their own thoughts. Can we think that the first knowledge utterly perished from later generations? In at least one family and small nation, it survived in some purity, was re-inforced by other Divine messages through prophets, and at last merged into greater and perfect good tidings from heaven. But had that first knowledge of Grod given to the first man, utterly ceased for the heathen tribes and great nations? Even for any man, woman or child of them all? We cannot rationally think so. It is not fanciful, but most reasonable to suppose, that any great idea of truth like this, once getting abroad among men, will never perish from among them. It may be mingled by them with false notions, so as to dis- appear to ordinary notice in the compound. But it SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY "NATURAL THEOLOGY"? 43 will still remain in the thoughts of men, and work powerfully in all their history; it may enter into new combinations of influence a thousand times, but will never perish. It is one of the noblest conjectures of modern science that no force is ever lost : that when it seems so, it has only passed into another form in other conditions. Is not this even more probable of a great thought once in the minds of men ? Is it not of itself all but certain of a thought commu- nicated to the first progenitors of mankind by God Himself and about Himself? — and so proceeding from that beginning of the race to every soul of them all in all their generations ? Is there any place left for doubt, when that truth is involved in " the first and great commandment " of human life, its chief principle and object of being.* Otherwise, what afterwards became of this thought? Did it after a while vanish into non- entity? Here were the first of mankind (even ten pairs instead of one, if any insist upon making an allegory in that point of the story of Eden): G-od having made them and all else, talks with them. Here is personal knowledge of Him, not only that He is, but in some measure what He is. When their children were born and grew up, this knowledge passed to them in the practice of worship, in conver- sation, and in the thousand incidents upon which religious thought will affect the business of ordinary life. This must be so even supposing there was * Raison d'etre. 44 THE KEIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." nothing supei-njitural to reveal God anew. But certainly to these souls in which the thought of Him already lay, "the heavens," and others of His wonderful works, "declared the glory of God." We will not now trace this knowledge down the generations which preserved the original religion in practice, but rather those which passed into idolatry. Had the first revelation then utterly vanished with these, so that they began all thought of religion anew, with reflections upon their "consciousness" and " causation " ? Both reason and experience are against this notion. Who has ever had a great idea annihilated in his mind? What instance of it is there in history ? By what process or progress could this greatest of conceptions cease to exist in any society of men ? A change to false religion after mankind lost original innocence is quite supposable and really probable. The son of one who, like one of us, though beset by evil desire, is still a pious wor- shipper, becomes worldly and vicious. He changes his religion somewhat to agree more with his evil heart. His descendants follow the same downward process. At last we have a nation of idolaters, with an elaborate system of false worship, and successive generations born and growing up with no idea of any other religion than this. Yet all the while the original revelation of God survives in the very idea of any religion ; of some being, power and person (or persons) above man ; of this Divine law and will being contrary to man's SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY "NATURAL THEOLOGY"? 45 corrupt self-will. So that the traces of truth in all false religions, so far from being a proof of a "natural theology" which invents the conception of God from our own thoughts, and then by degrees rises from a non-religious conscience to the thought of Him as hol}^ and gracious, are only another tribute to the Word of God as the first and only authority in all these questions. But the theory of "Natural Eeligion " is some- times argued from Holy Scripture itself, viz. from what St. Paul says in the Epistle to the Eomans, Ist chap., 19th and 20th verses. All the chief matters of God's Word are mentioned or alluded to in various parts and passages. It is therefore astonishing to see what a structure of opinion has been raised upon only these two verses. (See Prof. Jowett's rules as quoted in Chap. YI.) Nowhere else in Holy Scrip- ture do any careful writers profess to find this idea; for the well-known passage which occurs soon after,'*' is by them all and correctly applied only to the moral sense of right and wrong in conduct. Yet if only those two first-mentioned verses did plainly declare the doctrine of natural theology, it would prove that to be divine truth. The precise words as given in our generally excel- lent English Bible are as follows: "Because that which may be known of God, is manifest in them; [or to them] for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the * Rom. ii. 14, 15.— For when the Gentiles, &c., . . are a law unto themselves. Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, &c. 46 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead ; so that they are [or, that they may be} without excuse." In this there is no direct state- ment that any man ever did or ever can by his mere thinking discover for the first time the fact of God's existence and His character. Let us examine whether the preceding and con^ tinuing argument of the writer, and a fair statement of the meaning of St. Paul in these verses in accor- dance with that, and in our more usual language,, will really express the idea of "natural theology." Thus: St. Paul declaring that (and how) all men alike, Jews or heathen (Gentiles) need the salvation of God in Christ, goes on to say: "The just dis- pleasure of the great God lies upon all mankind. The Gentiles are not innocent, though they have not had Moses and the prophets. For to all man- kind alike, the religious idea, the thought of God, had not only come by tradition from Adam and Noah,* but had been continually renewed and cor- rected in their minds by the sight of His great works. Thus the eternal power and Divinity as something above us and to which we should be obedient, is enough known to each soul of man to make him a wilful sinner if he will sin. In fact^ these Gentiles did not and do not obey and love God according to this knowledge. And as one of its results, this ungodliness darkened their very intelli- *Only a little before St. Paul recognizes the divine story of Adam in Genesis; and that tells us how Adam knew God, and talked with llim,. as also did Noah. SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY "NATURAL THEOLOGY"? 47 gence. So the more intelligent they claimed to be, the more really foolish they became in worldly self- conceit." It will be observed that in all this there is no encouragement to the notion that men can by their mere thoughts, ascend to any true knowledge of God. It teaches the precise opposite. St. Paul shows b}" a past history that all men are morally guilty, and are by this in an actual process of farther removal from the truth with which the first men began. It is really Avonderful that commenta- ries upon this passage do not take notice of this, and understand him to mean that God shows the know- ledge of Himself to all men "by the things which are made," in the way of reminder and corroboration, and not of original revelation. Certainly the divine story of Adam and his first descendants which St. Paul believed (as we do) tells us of a greater know- ledge of God among the first men than by mere thoughts about the seasons and stars. And he has in mind that first period, for he is speaking expressly of what men knew " from the creation of the world." We have before shown this, and also how that first knowledge could never entirely perish in the suc- ceeding generations, especially as that idea of religion was refreshed by their beholding visible works of the true God. Nor does St. Paul in this, or in the terrible account of the increasing degradation of mankind which follows, allow of an exception for certain philosophers of Greece. This is a very important matter in our 48 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." enquiry; for it will appear more and more in the course of this discussion that the opinions of these men, notably of Plato, have been made very much of by the Christian maintainers of " natural theology " — not to say allowed as of the highest authority in matters upon which this whole stud}^ turns. Let us remember that Socrates and Plato had lived and taught hundreds of years before St. Paul, and that he was then surrounded by their disciples and admirers. Wow Plato's ingenious ideas never saved him from the sensual vices of hie countrymen, nor worked any improvement in morals among the Greeks in the four hundred years that had followed. On the contrary, the world was probably more wncked in St. Paul's day than in Plato's. Observe rather, that if any men are singled out with emphasis in this divine condemnation, it is they who professed to be the (most) " wise " — GO(po\ or philosophers : see v. 22. Nor does this passage of Holy Scripture contain anv sort of suggestion that men come to a knowledge of God by metaphysical thinking about "conscious- ness." or the "absolute," or the "conditioned," or " ontology," which is what all our later Christian writers have in mind in their " natural theology." In the first place, it is not at all an account of the rise and advance of the knowledge of God among men, but in the exact contraiy, of their degradation from such knowledge at the first. We must then read the words of the apostle of God in accord with those of Moses the prophet of God, and understand SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY "NATURAL THEOLOGY"? 49 him to be telling how the sons of Adam fell from that state in which the knowledge of Himself which God had given to their forefathers, had come down to them, and was recalled to their attention every day by the " things which were made." Besides, the metaphysicians in using these words of St. Paul, evidently think that he is speaking of subtle abstract thinkers like Plato (and themselves); whereas he is describing " every soul of man " in the common duties and destiny. He is not busy and interested in the ingenious play of his own intellect, or its struggle of logic with other such ; he is think- ing and speaking of man's state and Christ's salva- tion, as they are seen spread out before his exalted and inspired vision. He sees that the true knowledge of the true Grod is of the very life of every man, woman and child. If then they all had to reason like Plato, or Sir W. Hamilton, or even intelligently to follov/ their arguments, they never could know Him "whom not to know is death eternal." Or are we asked to believe that the common herd are at all times vicariously represented for this by the philosophers ? It almost seems as if this absurd notion were in our scholars' minds. Or is the theory that the mass of us beside the Platonists, etc., enjoy the results of their severe thinking in our thus knowing God without that thinking? This is as impracticable, if not quite so preposterous upon its face, as the other. Nor can it be said that the metaphysical process always takes place in the ignorant man's mind 5 50 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." though he cannot state it in words. For if this be SO, somebody would have been found to express it in the language of plain people, so that they could now follow the account of it with assent. Whereas any such attempt onl}'- sets them to wondering why they never went through this necessary approach to belief. It is so foreign to their experience, and so contrary to fact, that it unsettles their actual know- ledge of God, and rather tends to make that most glorious truth fade from their apprehension like a dream and delusion. Certainl}^ neither these nor any other arguments for natural theology are in Holy Scripture here, but these words of St. Paul are really contrary to them. If any hesitate still to discard what has the authority of so many very learned and devout men let them go with me in studying what has misled them. First, there is a strong fascination to minds of that turn to find enjoyment in such speculation and not to notice where it deviates from real truth. Then in this, though they set out at first to encourage the faith of all, they lose sight of this main object in a mere intellectual struggle with the champions of doubt (gaudia certaminis). As this "natural" and metaphysical religion is the very fighting ground of all the objectors to Christian faith, its defenders follow them there and fanc}' it their ground too. Without doubt something of the kind may sometimes be done to help convince unbelievers — only for that, and only then with a distinct assurance to them that our faith in God does not rest upon this imperfect SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY "NATURAL THEOLOGY"? 51 reasoning, but upon far better ground.* But for aids to faith — for what Christendom most needs now, the re-assurance of those who have always had (at least intellectually) the Christian knowledge of God — this is irrational and harmful. (See Appendix A, on the relation between Metaphysics and Theo- logy.) There is another great aspect of this matter sug- gested by one of the words just used — "intellectu- ally." The philosophical defenders of faith treat it as merely mental. As in their view God is known only by an intellectual process through man's "consciousness," some of them speak of Him only as " Mind." This not only greatly contracts what we may and need to know of Him, but is exactly con- trary to the direction He gives for attaining such true knowledge, and defeats the greatest advantage of that knowledge to us. Its corollary is, the more intellectual the man, the more godly — at least the more God-knowing. Now Holy Scripture (in this case words spoken by the very AYord of God in person) has an altogether different account of this. It states a real order of the true knowledge of God, to some persons " revealed," from others " hidden." The former are the children, the poor, the "foolish"; the latter are " the wise and intellectual " (or " pru- dent," as our usually admirable version incorrectly renders. St. Matth. x. 25, &c.) So also, '*' If any man will do His will, he shall knoio of the doctrine," &c. — * I am arguing now not with such, but with those who defend faith upon inBuflScient grounds, and with people who have not renounced that faith, but are doubting and perplexed. The others will have a few words of kindly expostulation at the end. 52 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." whether what is taught him concerning God by the Word be true and divine. — St. John vii. 17. " Would you then insult and degrade religion by allying it with ignorance ? Have not bigots done this in all ages, and so been the worst enemies of faith ? For thus they have driven thoughtful and honest souls into unbelief; and so would you do now." To this I answer that our business is with this present, no matter what mistakes have been made in the past. There is certainly now no question of dungeons and racks for people who know too much. Did not God say what I have just quoted, to the effect that intellectual self-confidence hinders men from learning the highest truth, and that obedient humility promotes that knowledge? And have 1 not made the natural and true application of this to our present enquiry ? There is no greater illustration of this very misuse of "man's wisdom" in applying it to divine things, than that our Christian writers of great and deserved authority cannot see God's Word thus plainly for- bidding their " Natural Theology." It is not even only in the plain passages already cited, but appears in all parts of Holy Scripture, especially the Gospels and Epistles, notably this very Epistle of St. Paul to the Eomans, as well as his first to the Corinthians."^ It tells us all that whatever be the uses of human discovery in knowledge of a lower kind (or perhaps in cautious illustration of what we have learned directly in lowly obedience from a divine Word, in * See Appendix C for a careful study of Rom. i. 18-ii. 16, and 1 Cor. i. and ii. SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY "NATURAL THEOLOGY"? 53 which the plainer and less intellectually ambitious people are more likely to be the wisest), here are matters in which it cannot teach anything, but wiU actually tend to mislead. I have never seen these reasonings of "natural theology " used as a mere help and illustration of what is taught by God's Word. And, however used, I have never seen these divine cautions added to the reasonings by those who should never forget the spiritual danger to us all, of which the love of God gives such plain warning. To maintain the " Natural Theology " as meant only for the more intelligent people is of further ill effect, because no one can say where that line should be drawn. Besides, it is a suggestion that the simpler faith is false, as being irrational. It is true that the complete Christian knowledge of God is not merely intellectual ; it includes something far greater. Yet a fortiori it includes that inferior part, which may be known to the wise and intelligent, while the higher part is hidden from them. That knowledge, complete, is the only real life of each soul. And so the love of God for men does not hide the knowledge of Him from them in metaphysics and "ontology," which would be to subject almost all those souls to certain death. Yet men can hide it from themselves, or themselves from it, in philo- sophy. This erroneous tendency is in our day showing itself in a new "scientific" contradiction of the Word of God. It tends always to suppress the fact that man is a degraded creature, that is, one that has 54 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." sunk down from a higher original nature. But all our present "Science" is full of the theory that men were at first very brutish barbarians, upon which the lowest tribe now living are an improvement. So, with the disposition to " reconcile faith with modern thought," we tend to make such explanation of that sublime truth of the first man being most innocent and intelligent, and " walking with God" in perfect love, that it will be really denied. All just reasons therefore lead to the conclusion that it is our true nature, as Grod has made us, to learn truth in religion from what He has directly revealed to us according as we have obedient humility, while this greatest truth is hidden from intellectual pride. This is the healthful and origin- ally native air into which, notwithstanding a great fall of the race, we are yet born, by the gracious Divine love, and in which we may regain innocence and honor by the true knowledge of Grod. Why should " babes," for learning what is of their real life, go out of this warm light of home into the very dark and cold abandonment of negation and mere human thought, that they may afterwards regain this shelter by their own exertion ? Certainly, as we have seen before, no example or suggestion of such fiital folly is given us in the Book of God. But here is one of its statements of how men may come to know the highest truth : " God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past to the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son." This SHOULD IT BE TRIED BY "NATURAL THEOLOGY"? 55 too was immediately addressed to men who lived long after Plato, and with whom the same question as now was raised, whether or not they should set this knowledge from Heaven above all other thought. Nor have any apparent gopd eifects of Natural Theology given the Christian scholars reason to adhere to it. Even the writer already quoted"^ says : "Philosophy has arrived at no definite results in theology properly so called, and never laid down any principle as to the nature of God which has not in its turn been assailed and upset." Why then in our present investigation of a great religious subject should we resort to such a fruitless study as that? Eather let us proceed at once to the best, or rather the only real authority for Christians in such investigation, viz. Grod's direct Word, spoken to certain men for all, preserved upon earth in a divine society now for many ages_, and especially written in a Book of G-od kept and certified to by that Church. I may indeed challenge the assent to this of all Christians, even of those who contend most strenu- ously for Natural Theology. They will say that all its truth is declared yet more clearly in the Holy Scriptures of God ; so that anything not appearing therein, especially if " rather repugnant thereto," is not of the true Natural Theology. We have now arrived at these just conclusions: First, that if the assumed idea of "Laws of Nature" *0hri8tlieb — Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, p. 79. 56 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." be true, it is a truth of Eeligion. Secondly, that in such case it is made known to us as are other truths of religion in the Holy Scriptures. It follows of course, thirdly, that if the Scriptures contain no such doctrine, there is no sufficient ground for believing it; but, fourthly, if those vScriptures affirm the oppo- site, then we must dismiss the idea of " Laws of Nature " and a " Eeign of Law " as a false specula- tion and assumption. COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE. 57 CHAPTER Y. COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE BY "science" OR BY A WORD OF GOD. IF we were to proceed now to the test of a "reign of law" by Holy Scripture, we might be met at once with this objection, that Scripture itself must be interpreted by Science wherever they come in contact, because this latter is the more certain sort of knowledge. Even some to whom this objection did not occur at first, might afterward have the force of our completed proof impaired, if not entirely overcome, by the suggestion, which is maintained by some writers of high character. Another notion belongs with it, and will also be discussed in what follows, namely, that Science and Eeligion are two equal, co-ordinate, and yet inde- pendent kinds of truth, neither of which can well maintain itself without the alliance of the other. We will therefore proceed now to a thorough exam- ination of these assumptions. The Almighty Lord having made man in His own image, and placed him on earth among the inferior creatures, may have given him (and we know in fact that He has) two general sources of knowledge. These may be distinguished in two aspects : first, as to the subjects and importance of knowledge, and? secondly, as to the certainty of it. We do know that He has done all this with the most loving wisdom and with the wisest love. 58 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." It is then the only rational conjecture that He has made the higher sort of knowledge the more certain. It is quite incredible that He did not make that which was the more important to man's well- being the more certain to his apprehension. Even this presumption would be increased if man had become in any way separated from this most neces- sary knowledge by a degradation which he could not of himself reverse ; and if " God so loved the world" as to renew that knowledge, and so add to it as to give him thereby again " everlasting life." What then in this great division is the higher knowledge ? Certainly that of God Himself and of our relations to Him. What is the sort of know- ledge most important to man himself? That of his spiritual well-being, of his highest nature, and of his longest enduring welfare. This in fact belongs in and can no way be separated from the highest know- ledge mentioned just before — that of God Himself, and what the human soul has to do with Him and (by His will and law) with fellow-men. A knowledge of other creatures and of what promotes our merely animal, and even our merely intellectual, well-being — of what affects this for three or four or five score years of such life as we have now — is valuable, but certainly not in any just comparison with the other. The two general modes in which God gives ua knowledge, correspond to this distinction of the sorts of knowledge. The one is by direct speech of the Creator God to man. The other is by giving him the intelligence to observe and reason about his own COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE. 59 thoughts and the creation around him. The first impression from comparing these must be, that the method by direct words is the more certain. Suppose we try it by our experience with fellow- men, so far as that is a safe test of these matters. If one in whom I am sure of love and truth to me — as a good father to a good son — tell me something in words, and I go out and see something that he has done which seems to me not to accord with the words, can I with any reason judge this latter more certain information from him than his express speech ? Upon only one possible condition : namely, that he inadvertently, or with a mistaken impression of faot when he spoke, said what he would afterward himself correct. But this could not apply as to the Word of God. Without doubt all such illustrations should be used with reverent caution, and all their just qualifi- cations carefully stated. Thus, if it be said that God really speaks to us in His works, intending them as His communications of knowledge, which the father in the case supposed above does not, this assumes too much in either case. The comparison I have used is as just if the good father did intend such suggestion to his son, and did even sa\f, " I shall also tell you some things by what you will notice I have done.'" If there seemed afterward a conflict between the actual words and what I inferred from my observations, would I think the inferences the more certain ; or would I not more reasonably and modestly find the discrepancy to be caused by my 60 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." mistaken judgment of this latter information? We have indeed a proverb that " actions speak louder than words "; but that is an impeachment of the sincerity of the words. On the other hand the objector as above, assumes positively that God does teach us truth in our science just as He does by His Word. We do not know this directly by the Divine Word. It is but an inference^ like that scientific knowledge itself, from our reflec- tion upon our own minds and the creation around us. But after much reflection I am unable to see how any such reasoning of ours should make a Christian as sure that God is thus instructing him as when He does it in this way," Thus saith the Lord." It is an inference of an inference which we are thus comparing for certainty with the direct TTord! of God. Besides, there is no such immeasurable difl'erence of power and truth between the minds of any son and father, as between one of us or all of us com- bined and the knowledge of God. The son can in some degree try his father's words by facts ; for us creatures to do so toward our Creator, would be mere folly. If it be said that the uncertainty to us of the written Word of God lies in its coming to us through fellow-men, this can only be in so far as we reject an actual Divine inspiration of those writers. This is a great subject of itself I do not undertake here to discuss the diff'erent theories of " inspiration " which theologians have put forth. But even upon the lowest Christian view of this as regards the Old and COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE. 61 New Testaments, there is no comparison of certainty between these and what some men write and others read as " Science." If I were arguing with those who think that the Lectures of Prof. John Tyndall, or even the Principia of Kewton, have as much certainty of truth as the Grospels, or more, I would not suppose it to be a discussion between Christians. In the comparison we must also consider how the different kinds of knowledge reach, not merely the few thousands of men who make or carefully follow the scientific processes of discovery, but all the minds of mankind, say at least of the present Chris- tendom. For almost all of these the scientific know- ledge comes to them in the writings — the books — of the scientific few, or more commonly of those who compile from them. So that this, besides its first uncertainty, has also in a greater degree that same element of imperfection in human authorship which is erroneously objected to our sacred writings, and without their inspiration. But suppose it be still insisted that human lan- guage in writings is incurably uncertain as a medium of knowledge, as shown by the ver}^ disputes of men over the meaning of the Holy Scriptures. We need only reflect that this is even yet more true of scien- tific knowledge. For what does the discoverer and reasoner in this make haste to do at last, and account his greatest achievement? To state his result in the best words, so as to reach the minds of other men. Do not all such teachers send the rest of us rather to the libraries than the laboratories, and look to be 6 63 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE BETGN OP LAW." sustained, applauded and rewarded by the men who read? Our science owes everything to human speech. It cannot move without it; it cannot afford to disparage it. Granted that the controversies of Christians prove that some men, and perhaps all in some degree, do not obtain in the Word of God perfect knowledge of the truth it contains. This can be best understood fey moral causes — the prejudices and perversity of our loss of original innocence, some of which still remain, even in those most restored to goodness. Yet the useful knowledge which they do gain from the Word of God is of immense value. Man's lan- guage is, like his mind and all else about him, limited, and cannot contain all the Divine truth. But this imperfection of language goes to all its other uses in a yet greater degree. The Divine Word is not merely a wonderful book cast upon the earth for each one to read or neglect or misinterpret as he pleases. It is the substance of all that God has said to men, preserved and pro- claimed among them by a perpetual society of men under His patronage, and which is especially " the witness and keeper of Holy Writ:' How entirely different in this respect is our science at its best ! It is the mere substance or result of what individual men have written, or do now, without organization and without responsibility. A greater difference yet is to be observed in that, whatever be the imperfection of human language, it is what God in His love has made for man as the COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OF KNOWLB.DGE. 63 vehicle of truth ; so its most complete and successful use should be when He by it conveys to them the highest and most useful knowledge. There is but one imaginable escape from the application of this to our present question. That would be in proving that the religious knowledge was much the less important to man's welfare. Assuredly, any argu- ment founded upon that great fact, the love of God, ought to have the greatest force in this enquiry. Yery few will in terms deny that the moral and spiritual welfare of mankind is their chief interest. But even this does not adequately state the matter before us. In such discussion Christians should rather fix their thoughts from the first upon the real nature and life of man. They do know with absolute certainty of truth that the first and great command- ment of this, its foundation principle and man's pur- pose of existence, is, to love God Himself with a personal affection which not only transcends, but virtually includes all other purposes and true motives. For this then all the other parts and powers of human life really exist. This is true even of the kindly affections, in various relations, towards fellow human creatures ("thy neighbor") which make up so much of a good life. It may even be wisely believed by us, with far more certainty than our sciences, that only for that same purpose exists all the " Nature " about which our other knowledge is concerned. This is what man was made to do (let us mark these words well,) "with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind." This is what 64 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE KEIGN OF LAW." the perfect truth enjoins upon us all when it says: " Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God ": in a happy devotion to another person, which is honor and joy in itself. This is the knowledge which will survive with us and concern us as immortal forever ; while we have no reason to think that the other will be anything to us after the four-score years or less of this life. It follows therefore that far the most important knowledge for men is personally to know the Supreme Person, their relations and duties to Him, and with this all that belongs to their moral and spiritual life. If their original health of soul in this has been disturbed and really lost, their most urgent necessity is to know whatsoever the merciful love of God has provided for regaining it. Let us recall one or two of the plain sentences of Holy Writ in which the comparison of the Divine and spiritual knowledge with any other is given to us. " While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen ; for the things which are seen are tem- poral, but the things which are unseen are eternal." — 2 Cor. iv. 18. " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." — St. Matth. vi. 33. Considered then only as to comparative importance to man's purpose of existence and his welfare, I make bold to say that it is certain that God, who is love, would give him the religious knowledge with cer- tainty, rather than the scientific and secular. Let us not fail to remember also that the former affects COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE. 65 the whole present life of all men more than the latter ; that upon the cheerfulness, patience, hope, peace of soul and kind affections which belong with it, depends far more than upon any physical well-being which the other can promote, whether the mass of man- kind shall have the least pain and most enjoyment in this world. It is incredible then that the One " from whom all goodness flows," and all knowledge proceeds, should have made the superior and more important truth uncertain and doubtfully dependent upon the inferior. Would the Good One leave His hapless creatures to be entangled by the apparent contradiction of their faith in His great salvation by inferior but more certain knowledge, so as to lose that faith? " Philosophers " may only smile at this, and feel safe in what they think their love of truth. They even believe themselves of a more kindly spirit towards fellow-men than those who "sound an alarm" against whatever impairs Christian faith among plain people. But what sort of philanthropy is that which is so engrossed with the intellectual pleasures of ten thousand men and a few bookish women and chil- dren, that it does not make any account of what goes into every house and hovel, and decides whether one hundred millions of souls shall be happy or no? All these just aspects of the question converge upon the conclusion that the knowledge which God has given us directly in His Word is more certain than what we believe Him to have conveyed to us indirectly by scientific investigation. Yet there are 66 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." eminent and honest Christians who virtually deprive this truth of its effect by saying that indeed the Word of God is infallibly correct, but that our appre- hension of it is incorrect whenever that does not agree with " science." Whereupon our very love of that Divine truth requires us to readjust this sup- posed meaning of the Holy Scriptures to the latest " science " as often as this discrepancy is noticed. This idea is sometimes accompanied by the sugges- tion that such discrepancies only occur where natural facts are but incidentally mentioned in the Divine Word, and do not really belong with the spiritual verities which it means alone to declare, and in which it is without error and beyond correction. We might with entire truth and justice deny any just application of this to our present enquiry, and proceed at once to the examination of Holy Scrip- ture contained in the chapters which follow. It is a mere assumption, offering no proof, and so entitled to no weight, and really at once begging the main question. It is even a double fallacy as " reasoning in a circle " thus : The " reign of law " cannot be disproved or tried at all by Holy Scripture, because that must be interpreted according to our modern science, which is itself founded upon the " reign of law." This, notwithstanding it has been already (see Chap. III.) shown to be a religious rather than a scientific question. In fact the objection really, though not in the intention of its authors, is but an evasion of what has already been proved of the superior certainty of the Word of God. Yet, as it COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE. 67 does entangle and confuse so many minds, let us carefully examine it in this shape. We are all agreed that the Word of God does not intend to teach "science"; and also that in its incidental mention of ordinary natural facts it gives their appearance rather than their reality. So does all our language now after every discovery; and this not merely in the loose speech of ignorant people, but in the careful writing of the best informed. Our most exact men of science will describe their nicest observations thus : " Soon after the sun rose the clouds presented a very unusual appearance," etc. We agree that in the narrative parts of Holy Scrip- ture some men speak according to the notions of their age and country, however incorrect these notions have since been discovered to be. This is true history. What these men said may not be true, but it is true that they said it, as much as that " the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." Yet unless we believe that whatever the Holy Scriptures assert directly and as true, is true, we cannot fully believe in them as the Word of God. We cannot cure this by the distinction that whatever is moral and spiritual is the perfect divine; while what is natural and physical is the fallible human. For this finally leaves the question of what we are to believe from the Word of God to each man's fallible human judgment. This is precisely what is called "rationalism," and is rightly denied in matters of doctrine as overthrowing all real faith in God's Word. It is as fatally wrong in matters of fact ; for 68 THE REIGN OF GOD :SOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." men will and actually do disagree in particular instances as to what is spiritual and what natural. Besides, the spiritual and natural are usually so connected in Holy Scripture that they must be believed or denied together. Of this all miracles, prophecies and even Divine promises of temporal good are some instances. If the spiritual truths of the Gospels are alone divinely true, while I may correct the rest by the *' laws of Nature " known to us now, why should I believe something so contrary to these "laws" as that a man rose from the dead, or any of those great wonders which prove to us that we have any Word of God at all ? Prof. Tyndall has in fact just applied this notion to the Song of the Angels at Bethlehem, in a way which I could not object to if I accepted the notion that our Holy Scriptures are true barely as to the spiritual. It is fatally injurious to faith in the Word of God, because it suggests the question whether God would teach. us what is true spiritually by means of what is false physically. To say that this is necessary from the limit of man's intelligence and the imper- fection of his language, cannot protect that faith. For it violates our just instinct of thought of the almighty power of Him who made man and his language what they are, and could certainly adjust and use them to effect His loving will perfectly. Why then did He convey the spiritual truth in connection with physical error, which would expose me to my own intellectual doubts and the cavils of unbelievers ? Are there not enough moral difficulties of faith in my own perverseness and my temptations? COMPARATIVE CKKTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE. 69 Nor is it true that what is distinguished as natural and not spiritual and supernatural is never mentioned in Holy Writ as itself revealed, but only incidentally in revealing what is spiritual. In what sense is this true of the story of " the beginning " in the First Book of Moses ? How in any fair reading of that can we understand it otherwise than as a direct and circumstantial account of the creation of all the "Nature" which we know? Why was this given unless to be believed ? believed, not merely in the latter part of the nineteenth century^ when geology and astronomy gave us a scientific explanation, but as well for the three or four thousand years between Moses and the modern " scientists " ? We cannot ex- pect men to believe with a high and earnest religious faith what could not but have been entirely misun- derstood by the first hundred generations to whom it was revealed. It is but another illustration of this mistake that some orthodox Christians try to escape from the scientific difficulties by discrediting those first great words of the Book of Genesis, as not having the same author as the rest, or, at least, being the mere impressions of the uninformed man, which we, of an enlightened age, can transform to a true account of the creation. What then shall we say of the Fourth Commandment ? It is among the most purely moral and spiritual sayings of Holy Scripture. It has 710 defect of human composition, originally being " written with the finger of God upon a table of stone." Every element of majesty and authority 70 THE llEIGN OF GOD NOT " THE KEIGN OP LAW." combines to make it as certainly " the Word of God " as anything in Holy Writ. Yet it contains not only a reference which gives the highest sanction to that account of creation impugned by our modern science, but even an affirmation of the very thing in it w^hich is most objected to on the one side and most laboriously " reconciled " on the other. It is given as the Divine reason why we are to consecrate every seventh of our actual days to religion, because " in six days the Lord made heaven and earth," etc. Is this, too, an instance of the merely natural and physical side of Holy Scripture which is not inspired of God, and so is subject to correction by our science ? Then also, our science is by all confession of its intelligent votaries very incomplete. To think otherwise would be to stop at once all that triumphant progress which is so much admired. As it is sup- posed to have vast conquests before it, so, of neces- sity, it has as yet mastered but a very small part of its field. On the other hand, the Word of God to men was completed near two thousand years ago. While the other has been making its very incom- plete advances, it has stood without change and without addition ; all-sufficient for its superior pur- pose. Is it reasonable to adjust the greater to the less ; the perfect to the incomplete ? Must it not be a needless, a doubtful, and a very dangerous process ? We shall find an illustration of how it impairs faith in our Word of God in many thousands of less in- formed minds, in the statements of those Christian COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE. 71 writers who are fascinated by it ; while under various better influences they still hold fast to the Christian creed. One such says : " If science really proves that the Mosaic account of creation is false, then we will give up the Mosaic account, &c. But it never will," &c.* Is that the language of such faith as St. Paul had ? I am sure that that faith, representing what we must all aspire to, and by holy inspiration warn- ing us against " man's wisdom " in any such conflict, would say rather, " Then we will give up the science.'' I find as forcible an illustration of this tendency in the following sentence carefully published by a theo- logian of high repute as well in Europe as America as a sound divine and profound thinker : " Science has a foundation and so has religion; let them unite their foundations," &c.f The former, indeed, we have reason to think contains much useful truth ; but it is not according to Christian faith to believe it worthy of any comparison with the Gospel of God, either for the importance or the certainty of its propositions. But I would notice even more in detail what has appeared in a religious journal under a signature of high authority and well deserved influence.J In the midst of what is all expressed with the writer's elegance and force comes this passage : " We go farther still, and hold that in all that belongs to the natural form and expression of religion, deference *Ed. Ch. Journal, N. Y., September Slst, 1876. t Dr. McCoah. % " F. D. H." in " Churchman," November 4th, 1876. 72 THE RETGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." must be paid to any proved fact or demonstrated law in the physical world. That is, if the Bible should be found to affirm anything as in the sphere of nature which science can show to be contrary to nature, the written account must yield. Direct communica- tion by God's works is there more sure than the in- direct by human hands. In the sphere of the super- natural, the realm of the spirit, of the future life, of God and angels and of purely spiritual doctrine, science has no vocation or function ; can affirm nothing and deny nothing, is simply incompetent. Here is the real security of a positive faith and her domain against all possible scientific or so-called scientific assaults. But when we come to records, to a Bcripture, or to statements about natural things as natural^ any ascertained verity in the rocks or stars or mathematics is good against any verbal representa- tion," etc. What is said in this of men's science being "direct communication " from God, and His Word " indirect," after the careful discussion of these matters in the first part of this chapter, hardly needs more for its refutation than its statement apart from the influ- ence and the elegant rhetoric of the writer. But to make sure in so serious an affair, let us observe it in this just paraphrase : " Many different men in various ages and lands, observe and compare and generalize, and contend with one another, and write and pub- lish about this world which God has made around us^ what the rest of us receive as science. This is 'direct communication ' from Him! * Holy men of COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE. 73 old spake (and wrote, for ' all Scripture is given by in- spiration of God,') as they were moved by the Holy Grhost': and this is the 'indirect by human hands'." Surely, — " the force of folly could no farther go." There is an advantage to truth in having that strange inversion of the terms " direct " and " indi- rect," which has been examined in the general in the first part of this chapter, reviewed in this instance of its statement by a writer who expresses the opinion of many, and by his well-deserved influence other- wise is likely, if not confuted, to extend it to more. The " we " who are concerned are all of us to whom this question comes, — whether on account of modern science we ought to discard, or to change, our religious belief as we have understood the Church of Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible to declare that truth. The writer says we should not discard, but adjust the faith to the science, because the latter is a direct communication from Grod, while " the Bible," the " written account," " records " or " a Scripture," is " as in the sphere of nature," but " in- direct." Why ? Because whatever is written is " by human hands." But do not we, most (and virtually all) of us, including, I presume, the accom- plished writer, learn our geology and astronomy " biology " and " sociology " from books, and thus " by human hands " ? Is there such essential imper- fection in written words as the vehicles of God's communication of truth to man, that even " inspira- 7 74 THE KEIGN OF GOD NOT "THE liEIGN OF LAW." tion of Grod " cannot overcome it ? And yet are they when they come to us in a book of Herschel or Hugh Miller (not to say Profs. Tyndall and Huxley), what is " good against any verbal representation " of the Holy Book ? And does not the very scientific discovery, before it is put in words, come " by human hands" — having thus another remove from direct communication by the G-reat God to men, if we dare venture (as I do not) to call it such at all ? Why confine this to " the physical world " ? Is not man's soul and his thoughts among " G-od's works "; and so our study of them " direct communi- cation " about them from Him, which is thus " more sure than the indirect by human hands " — (meaning the Holy Gospels) ? Who can draw the precise line in the Holy Scriptures between what is " as in the sphere of nature" and "the sphere of the super- natural " ? The Duke of Argyll, who is a high authority in this sort of Christian science, labors hard,* and, as I suppose, his admirers think success- fully, to prove that there is no such true distinction of natural and supernatural. Will F. D. H. draw this distinction as to the begin- ning of the First Book of Moses ? Will he point out why, for " the supernatural " or for *' purely spiritual doctrine," any account of the creation should be given at all ; and as something not meant to be believed when " ascertained verities in rocks, or stars, or mathematics " should be set forth by scientific men ? And why is whatever such men convince us of in *'• Reign of Law," Chap. I. COMPARATIVE CERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE. 75 onr day, an " ascertained verity," (just as the Ptole- maic system of astronomy, and the notion of the " four elements " were once) ; while no such thing can come to our knowledge about " natural things as natural " by the *' verbal representation " of the Almighty Lord ? To my best reason the exact reverse of this is true. In a conflict of this kind the ascertained verity will be rather in what God tells men directly in words than in their studies of His material creation, were we the original discoverers of science, and quite as much when we read their books, which are at best very small and imperfect copyings out of what they call a " Book of Nature." It is also a very weighty suggestion of truth in such questions as these, to consider which of the methods compared would most promote the spiritual good of men. That we agree is the chief purpose of the Word of Grod. That is the main purpose of the Divine love in all that is about us, and all that we can know — "all things, visible and invisible." Humility and faith in God are our greatest intellectual necessi- ties. Unbelief in these spiritual verities, dullness of perception that way, and pride of opinion, are our chief dangers. Which must be of best effect as regards this about anything : to believe more in the science of men, or the written Word of God ? " Here is the real security of a positive faith." Not in false distinctions and absurd comparisons j but in strong, simple, direct faith in God as He speaks to us in His Church and in His Book ; so that what He thus tells us about anything is the absolute 76 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." truth, no matter what else seems to contradict it. If we adhere to this we need not mind the reproaches of those who call us " blind " and " narrow," and say that in our panic at the advancement of knowledge we " refuse to make room for all the facts." That is a mere begging of the question. That question is precisely : " What are the facts ? " We say, first and certainly, whatsoever God has told to man in His most august and gracious Word ; and secondly, and probably, many curious things that we can find out by the notice and reflection of men, accumulating through all the ages. HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 77 CHAPTEK YI. EXAMINATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. WHAT follows is the result of a complete and careful reading of the Holy Scriptures, with the purpose of finding and following the truth in this matter, without regard to previous impressions. All was thus read, so that nothing should escape atten- tion, whether belonging directly to this enquiry or only incidental thereto. Some eight thousand such passages have been carefully examined. The general method has been as follows: Every passage has been noted which (a) has ever been suggested as speaking of, or alluding to, " laws of nature," or which being of the same general purport as these, or for any other reason might possibly be cited to that effect ; (b) such as plainly mention " natural " occur- rences as being done by the immediate act of God ; (c) all relating to creation ; or (d) to the work of God in providence; or (e) to miracles; or (f) to His granting the prayers of men for material good ; and (g) prophecies. There is a curious suggestion in the very numbers found under these heads, as follows ; and it is not without force to the candid mind in the study which is before us. There are of such, (a) 12, (b) 55, (c) 240, (d) 4000+, (e) 3600+, (f ) 334, (g) 2000-I-. Com- pare especially those enumerated as (a) and (b) which present the issue most distinctly. Those which 78 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." declare expressly the reign of God are more than fourfold all that can be assumed as suggesting a " reign of law," while the hundred times as many others throw their incidental weight the same way. But the real and conclusive judgment must be found in the scrutiny of the several passages as we proceed through Holy Scripture, and the combined result of them all. Prof. Jowett* makes some very correct and for- cible observations upon the error of constructing what is set up as a great doctrine of religion out of very scant material in the Book of God. He is, indeed, mistaken in the instance and aj^plication which he gives, but no one can dispute his scholarship and critical acuteness; nor could any one impeach his authority in our question upon the ground of ortho- dox bigotry. He says : " How slender is the foundation in the New Testament for the doctrine . . . . ! two pass- ages of St. Paul at most, and those of uncertain in- terpretation ! The little cloud no larger than a man's hand has covered the heavens. To reduce such subjects to their proper proportions we should consider first, what space they occupy in Scripture ; secondly, how far the language used concerning them is literal or figurative ; thirdly, whether they agree with the vxore general truths of Scripture and our moral sense, or are not -rather repugnant thereto'; fourthly, whether their origin may not be prior to Christianity, or traceable in the after history of the Church ; fifthly, how far to ourselves they are any more * 1 Ep. of St. Paul to the Theda, with critical notes, p. 162. HOLY 8CRTPTUKE — OLD TESTAMENT. than words.'' Our present enquiry will give us a surprising illustration of each of these rules.* We will proceed upon this study of Holy Writ in its historical order. The One who is the Cause and the Reason of all else begins His written Word to mankind with an account of how He created all things. That He should thus give a " cosmogony " or account of the creation,f seems to displease some of our men of science. But to Christian belief this notion of theirs appears absurd. For He, and really He alone, could tell of the creation. And as it is the assumption and suggestion of all His Word that all this was done so that man might love and " glorify " Him, we would naturally hope to find it told in that Word. A " cosmogony " of man's devising, and that brought forward only after a hundred generations of them had lived and died — a matter of hypotheses and inferences — could not at all hold its ground against a true historical and Divine account of the creation. It does not mend this that our intellectual acrobats walk so boldly on the slender wires of their theories over the vast abysses of the past ; or that they insist positively that their geology is the Word of God, written by Him upon the rocks to tell the story of that past. * See Appendix C for the precise method and rules by which this ex- amination of Holy Scripture has been made. tLove of truth requires us to translate such terms into plain English; for really, while our ambitious modern speculators may have a dialect of their own, made up of pedantic terms either obsolete or fresh-coined, they have no right to force it into the correct use of the language, especi- ally where, as in this case, it may hide the real force of their thoughts from their readers. I cannot be mistaken in what I say above of men of science objecting to a Divine "cosmogony," since one so eminent as Prof. Tyndall. and who knows how to set his thoughts in most '"lear and eloquent phrase, has done this distinctly in his famous Uelfast address. 80 THE KEIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." In this Divine story of the Creation there is no mention of any " laws of nature," or of any mechan- ism set in motion by the Creator which corresponds to a " reign of law." Those who already held that notion might fancy that they found a suggestion of it in the third day's creation, of the tree and plant '* whose seed is in itself." But simply and fairly this means the first creation of what had life, and with it growth and decay, their perpetuation being not as with some things like *' the everlasting hills," by the continuance of what was first made, but of other individuals of the same kind in succession. This re- production and new life might then as well be by the direct will of God as was the first, — His working in the usual order which we see, but always as free to do otherwise, even in vegetable life, as when Aaron's rod budded, or in animal, as when that rod became a serpent. It is related that after the sixth day of Creation, God rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. All reflection shows that this must be a sublime mystery. Some venture to say that it must mean that He, having constructed the universe as a machine, and set it in motion, withdrew from any power or interference about it (as some say, except upon rare and extraordinary occasions). But we can think this only by so mistaking the Almighty power as to suppose that it needs intervals of rest and refreshment; or by fancying that because we cannot give any other explanation we are compelled to take up this semblance of one. HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 81 This is just as true of the explanation that God ceased then to give existence, and afterward only "preserved " and " upheld " it ; that is, if by this it is meant, as seems to be in the minds of those who say it, to exclude Him from the exercise of as much power as before, so relieving Him from exhausting all His force, and giving opportunity by repose to regain what was consumed ; or as if the created universe were a machine of which He is the great balance-wheel or the engineer. Holy Writ does not say in terms, or in expressions any way approaching it, that God had made a mechan- ical universe which He left to its 'Maws." It does say that He " rested," which plainly does not mean such rest as we need and take after exertion. "He fainteth not neither is weary." Then let us "rest" upon the sublime mystery of the words with patient and silent reverence. Or if any studious conjecture of their meaning be made, let it rather be this : that from thenceforth He made no new forms of being, but repeated in order and series those first created. Certainly, so far from this meaning a mechanical, invariable " reign of law," we find forthwith upon this rest, certain other things done which cannot but be thought outside of such laws, and as done for a special occasion by the direct will of the Supreme Lord. Of these are the placing man in Eden, which had been expressly prepared for him, the setting within it of the two mystical trees, the direct speech of God to man, especially in regard to his use of knowledge, and the temptation through the ser- 82 THE «EIGN OP GOD NOT " THE KEIGN OP LAW." pent. All these are related in the most literal and natural way without any suggestion of "laws'^ which are " suspended," or of any other " laws " brought into notice, as the fashion of argument is rather now, or, we may add, of any such " laws " as existing at all. The same method is used in relating the fall of man, God's declaration to him of his change of life as regards labor, suffering and death, and his expul- sion from Eden. Some will refuse all force to this by saying that all the story of Paradise and the Fall is but a fable or allegory. Their proof of this is merely to deride any one who takes it for history. But derision is not reason. It can be as easily used against what is most true and sacred as against bigoted credulity. Wise faith can no more reject these incidents from literal history than it can any- thing else supernatural in the Word of God. In the same way is the history of man brought down to the days of Noah. The tragic affair of the two oldest sons of Adam is related with much which God said to Cain. Then Enoch does 7iot die as is "appointed to all men "; and yet this is not told as our philosophers, who know of a " reign of law," would relate it now. Then comes a great miracle of God. It is quite against the imagined "reign of law" that this is foretold to one man. God says to him that He is displeased with the " cosmos " as He has maintained it now for the twelve longest generations of men, on account of the wickedness of this master-creature HOLT feCRIPTDRE — OLD TESTAMENT. 83 Avhich He had made in His own image. For this He will, after a while, by a flood of waters, suddenly destroy almost all of them, and of the other living creatures. So at the time appointed the usual order of rain and sunshine, of land and water, was entirely'' changed for many days, and that of vegetable and animal life interrupted for a w^hole year. It w^ould make but little difference in the force of this fact as bearing upon the question before us, even if we were to concede that this Flood did not cover all the globe, but only that fiftieth j)art of it perhaps then known to mankind. When the Flood ceased and the habitable earth reappeared, the few survivors of mankind offered worship to the Holy and Almighty God. And then, in gracious notice of this, " The Lord said in His heart .... while the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease."* Certainly this is more like a mention of the sup- posed " reign of law " than anything else so far in Scripture. Yet upon candid study it really forbids that notion. God did not say this at the Creation, or as any way relating to it. It is separated from that event b}' the vast lapse of sixteen centuries, during which He appears to us as " upholding (and doing) all things by the (mere) word of His power" and will. Nothing in the words suggests His " im- posing a law upon Himself." All declare His merci- ful and loving purpose and promise to a man who * Gen. viii. 21, 22. 84 THE liEIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." adored Him. And so it is given as His prophecy and covenant to us all of mankind. As between the physical and the spiritual, the natural and the super- natural, that great saying of God belongs altogether with the latter. Another great incident of these events is to the same effect. God spoke then to mankind some other words of blessing and promise ; of a " covenant that the waters should no more become a flood to destroy all flesh," and that something should there- after, at times, appear in the clouds as a '^ token " of this covenant.* All of these words are worthy of deep study, while they are, indeed, too great for our comprehension. This, however, is true of all the greatest truth which we receive directly from God ; and so, if we demand as a condition of belief such entire comprehension, we never shall believe ; and so would remain ignorant in spite of the greatest good- ness of God in instructing us. But giving faith and thought to what God has told us of the bright vision of the rainbow as we often behold it in the sky, it is plain that only after the flood did this appear to the sight of man. JSTow nothing could be more unlike the entire notion of the "reign of law " than this. It discloses a Person clothed with " all power," who, after day and night have followed one another in the eyes of man for near 6000 times, and when the longest living genera- tions of them that ever w^ere have come and gone *Gen. X. 1-17.— Even the writer of the Article "Noah," iu Smith's Bible Dictionary, which is quite given to the rationalistic, scientific method, admits that the Divine history plainly affirms that the rainbow first appeared after the Flood. HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TKSTAMENT. 85 again and again, begins before all mankind an entirely new phenomenon to take place frequently until the end of the world, and that for a purely spiritual purpose. The idea of a " reign of law," on the contrary, assumes that however this order of "Nature" first began, or whether or not it ever had a beginning, all has proceeded always without variation. Even those who, while allowing this in general, have no doubt of the miracles related in our Holy Scriptures, allow them to be but single and infrequent varia- tions from an exact mechanism which began before man inhabited the world. But here is a new general fact added to the usual order at least 1600 years after that began. Eemember that those very reasonings of our *' science " from a " reign of law " which have been the most generally accepted by Christians, have their whole force in the assumption that what we observe now in rocks or seas or stars can be traced back according to forces and processes now at work, so that we can tell with certainty that the earth existed a vast while before history, say 100,000 years, and can tell also what was doing upon it in the intervening time. Whatever suggests that anything in "]N"ature " began only by the will of God since the race of man has lived, shakes all that science. So it is safe to say that not only does noth- ing so far in the Book of Grenesis tell us of a " reign of law," but that this passage of the tenth chapter as well as that in the eighth chapter is plainly against it. The Divine history continues in the same way 8 86 THE RETGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." down through the times of the patriarchs for eight centurief^ more. In this we have more than a hun- dred different mentions of miracles, without one sug- gestion of their being *' interruptions of laws of Nature/' or any of the like exj)ressions with which all modern writings are filled. We have about as many mentions of natural events as being simply what was done at the time by God, and without a word of their being according to any such " law." The same is true of the several accounts in that his- tory, of things being done by Him, whether natural or supernatural, in favorable answer to the prayers of men. But while in all this Holy Writ so far there is nothing said of a " reign of law," there are such sayings as these : (to one doubting the promise of a gracious miracle) " Is anything too hard for the Lord? " — [Gren. xviii. 14.] (A holy patriarch by in- spiration of Grod prophesying blessings to his son) " Therefore, God give thee of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine." — [Gen. xxvii. 28.] (Another patriarch declar- ing the gracious things which God had done, even by means of man's evil deeds) " And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth and to save you by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God." — [Gen. xlv. 7, 8.]" The history of the days of Moses and Joshua which succeed is crowded with miracles and provi- dences; as also with mentions of the Creation, and of God's granting blessings, both temporal and spiritual, HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 87 in answer to the prayers of men. In all this too there is nothing said, even by way of most remote allusion, of any " laws of Nature." There is this silence in a thousand such sentences, when, if that be the truth of God, true of Him in '' His works," one cannot conceive why it should not be spoken of in explanation of a providence, in enhancement of a miracle, in true account of Creation, in assistance of embarrassed faith, in any natural statement of these great events. It would be so related if one of those who now believe in a " reign of law " were the original historian. There is also in the narrative a natural mingling of the normal with the supernatural, as if the one were as easy for the Great Worker as the other, both alike His immediate will, and equally easy of belief to one who believed in God. This accords exactly with the idea of all events since, being by God's direct will as much as the original Creation ; but it has no agreement with the notion of " natural law." It is also related in this history that God declared His name to be I AM. This is awfully sublime and full of deep thought for all the sons of men. One such true thought is that there is no past or future with Him ; that He knows and does all things as if in the same moment of time. Then no man can ever, without great folly, say that He is under limits of power, such as would compel us to extend great con- structions over long ages ; or can aflSrm that the mighty sayings in which He tells us of " stormy winds " and all other things in this Creation " fulfill- 88 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." ingHis word,'' must be hyperbolical figures of speech, because the greatest thing for a man to do would be to invent an automatic machine for such purposes, and leave it to its motion rather than put forth will upon each occasion. It also reminds us that for Him to wish anything, and that thing to take place, are identical. This great idea descending to us from Heaven itself thus speaks in the thousand sentences of the histor}^ of Israel down to the age of David — sentences in which God says to that people: "If you walk in m}^ statutes, etc., then I will give you rain in due season," etc. — [Lev. xxvi. 4] ; and such replies as this to any one who doubts relief which He promises in a great extremity : " Is the Lord's hand waxed short? Thou shalt see now whether my word shall come to pass unto thee or not." — [Numb, xi. 23.] Now begins the most intellectual age of Israel. For "sve have henceforth in the Holy Scriptures not only the history continued, but also a series of authors and writings, beginning with the great King David and his son, which are chiefly, as regards their human composition, poetical and eloquent. But before we examine these poetical Scriptures, we may well jDro- ceed with the sacred history to the end of the Old Testament. In all this too we find miracle and providence frequently narrated or alluded to with the same sublime naturalness ; but not one word of " laws of Nature," or anything equivalent to that idea. The first of the poetical books is thiit of Job, HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 89 which carries us again far back into the patriarchal times. This is true not only of its scene of narrative, but of its probable author. Both action and author appear to be at least as old as the days of Moses.* The language is a most wonderful combination of exquisite simplicity and sublime imagination. After reading more than half through this book and find- ing much that is powerfully said about the imme- diate will of Grod in all things, as in the other Scrip- tures, we find almost the first passages of Scripture which have been cited by Christian writers in favor of the notion of " laws of Nature." The first is this, which I give at length for its full meaning and connection, the precise words which have been cited by some authors as just mentioned being enclosed in brackets. " Whence then cometh wisdom, and where is the place of understanding? (jod understandeth the way thereof, and He knoweth the place thereof For He looketh to the ends of the earth and seeth under the whole heaven : [to make the weight for the winds, and He weigheth the waters by measure. When he made a decree for the rain and a way for the lightning of thunder. Then did He see it and declare it ; He prepared it, yea, and searched it out. And unto 7nan He said, Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil, that is understanding."] — [xxviii. 20-28.] The phrase in the twenty-sixth verse, "a decree for the rain," is assumed to mean that God has * Their being of a later date would not alter their main effect in this enquirj. 90 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." " subjected Himself" to supposed "laws of Nature." To me it seems simply one of the great figures of this God-inspired poet, in which he compares the will of God in Creation and in the movements of all things, to the edicts or decrees of a prince. Were the language literal, a decree need not mean, and usually did not mean, to the men of the East an enduring general law to subjects, but only the will of a sovereign declared about some one person or for some single transaction.* Thus, here it would literally mean each single act of God's will in Provi- dence. The entire passage as quoted above, when read with care, is no proof of a " reign of law," and surely does not affirm any such law imposed upon Himself by the Great King. It agrees best, as all this Book of Job does, in some two hundred and fifty other passages which speak of Providence, Creation and miracles, with the idea that God does all things always by His immediate will, and not by an interposed machinery of " forces," or " laws." Does not that divine argument actually intend to tell men that it is only folly in them to claim a know- ledge of how ^^God understandeth " the winds and lightnings ? concluding so plainly, " Unto man He said, Behold the fear of the Lord that is wisdom " for them. This applies in like manner to other passages sometimes cited as telling of " laws of Nature," as, "Dost thou know the balancing of the clouds [Job xxxvii. 16], and brake up for it (the sea) my decreed * Fro r« nata. HOLY eCRTPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 91 place, (or, as in the margin of A,V., " established my decree upon it") and set bars and doors and said, Hitherto shalt thou come and no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed ? Hast thou com- manded the morning since thy days ? . . . Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven ? " [xxxviii. 10, 12, 33.] These few most splendid and sublime imaginations of devout poetry appear in the midst of a long pro- cession of beautiful verses which all speak of God as doing all things by His immediate will and work. Thus, '^ He maketh small the drops of water, etc." [xxxvi. 27]. " By the breath of God frost is given " [xxxvii. 10], &c., &c. The general purpose of it all is plainly to reprove the presumption of mankind ; as e. g. what is said as quoted above, of " the ordi- nances of heaven," is immediately followed by such questions to us as this : " Canst thou send lightnings that they may go and say unto thee, Here we are ?" [xxxvii. 35.] Thus, would not God speak to man if He were only like him — even on ever so much greater a scale — a contriver and constructor of mechanism. We may pause here and reflect that we have now gone down about 4000 years of divine history, and searched nearly half through the Book of God, yet found nothing either in the story of Creation or the chronicles of Providence and miracles for that vast period in support of the idea of " laws of Nature," except the verbal resemblance of two words, "de- crees," " ordinances "; and these used in a figurative way in very splendid poetry, which of all sorts of 93 THE REIGN OF GOD SOT "THE REIGN OP LAW. writing is the farthest removed from exactness of expression. Should any one account for this general silence of God's Word about such "laws, etc.," upon the ground that those were very ignorant ages as com- pared with ours; and that since " Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night," the Divine compassion would not obscure the spir- itual truth which was to be revealed, by mention or allusion to the physical truth"; let him candidly observe a fact which our present study has just brought before us. It is in the Book of Job, in the least '* scientific" age, and among the least scientific race of men, that we have but just now found the words " decrees " and "ordinances " that are cited as such mention. Even in this view, which is the more probable, that those words are mere figures of speech about what God does, or that they tell man- kind of invariable "laws of Nature " established by Him? Then, too, in the Book of Psalms, mostly com- posed some 600 years later, with all its glorious im- aginations, we find only one or two phrases upon which the same argument has been attempted. Thus, " The day is Thine ; the night also is Thine. Thou hast prepared the light and the sun. Thou hast set all the borders of the earth. Thou hast made summer and winter " [Ixxiv. 16, 17]. " He hath made a decree which shall not pass " [cxlvii. 8]. This, too, sets forth with poetic beauty the con- HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. tinual power of God. As for any *' reign of law," it rather denies, and certainly does not state that. On the other hand, the Psalms are throughout and everywhere ablaze v/ith the glory of this vision of the immediate will of God in all things alike, whether in Creation, miracle or Providence. They summon every form of beauty to express this, per- sonifying and calling upon every creature to join in the chorus of worship. More than a thousand such passages could be cited. These are but specimens of them all. " This poor man cried and the Lord heard him, and delivered him out of all his distress " [xxxiv. 6]. "O Lord, Thou prcservest man and beast " [xxxvi. 6]. " These wait all upon Thee that Thou mayest give them their meat in due season. That Thou givest them they gather. Thou opcnest Thy hand ; they are filled with good. Thou hidest Thy face, they are troubled. Thou takest away their breath ; they die and return to their dust. Thou sondest forth Thy spirit, they are created ; and Thou renewest the face of the earth " [civ. 27-30]. Observe of this last pass- age, that all the things which we commonly speak of as the course of Nature are enumerated as the imme- diate acts of God ; the support of all animal life, the withdrawal of that life, and the succession of it in others of the same kind. So also, when by a sublime figure of speech all the things which God has made are called upon to join with us in singing His praise ; even " dragons and all deeps ; fire and hail, snow and vapor, stormy wind 94 THE llEIGN OF GOD NOT "THE KEIGN OF LAW. fulfilling His word," no such things are supposed and summoned as " forces of Nature." Do you reply that this would have been unmeaning to the men then living for lack of the science which we now have ? But why is it not there for these wiser gene- rations of ours? Granted that the Word of God being meant to teach spiritual, and not physical^ truth, might speak only of the former. Yet none the less if it did illustrate the former by the latter, He^ to whom all truth is always known, would teach the spiritual by the natural truth, and not by repeating to men their superstitious ignorance. The writings of Solomon, which follow next in Holy Writ, tell us nothing of the " reign of law." Yet he w^as specially an observer of natural life, and given to philosophic reflection. These writings con- tain many mentions of Creation and Providence, but none of miracles. Some who maintain the " reign of law " have cited for their purposes what is said in the III. and YIII. Chapters of the Book of Proverbs concerning " ivisdom." It may be that if this notion were otherwise and already proved, it w^ould be a. fair conjecture that those sublime and mystical words intended it. But that they are any proof of it, or Avould ever seem so, except by prepossession or prejudice in its behalf on the part of some who- feel bound to secure for it some authority in Holy Scripture, seems to me most unlikely. Let them speak for themselves at length. " The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth,, by understanding hath He established the heavens. HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 95 By His knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew " [Prov. iii. 19, 20]. "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning; or ever the earth was. When there were no depths I was brought forth ; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills were brought forth. While as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When He prepared the heavens I was there ; when He set a compass upon the face of the depth ; when He established the clouds above ; when He strengthened the foun- tains of the deep; w^hen He gave to the sea His decree that the waters should not pass His command- ment; when He appointed the foundations of the earth — then I was by Him as one brought up with Him, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him; rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth, and my delights were with the sons of men." [viii. 22-31.] These words do not directly speak of a '* reign of law." If any such force in them is claimed from the use of the terms "decree" and "commandment," this has been already answered in the comment upon the sentence of the Book of Psalms which resembles this. And so it would be a very fanciful assumption for any one to insist that to say that '^wisdom " was with God in Creation is the same as to say directly that He in the beginning set up invariable " law^s 96 THE ]{EIGN OF GOD NOT "THE IIRIGN OF LAW." of nature." We may leave it to any plain and un- prejudiced man whether we are not right in saying, that whatever it may say, it does not say that. Can we not, in all these mighty and mystical sen- tences, hear simply that the wisdom of God is greater and older than the stars? Must men have the notion of a " reign of law " before these other words have any meaning to them : " O Lord, how manifold are Thy works, in wisdom hast Thou made them all?" [Ps. civ. 24.] Had all those sayings no sense to the fifty generations of men who read them before that notion was thought of? Have they none now to the vast number of honest Christians who like me believe them without that ? May we not oven have a greater adoring admiration for that wisdom in immediate will and power? If devout men had never been able to find meaning in the words, and had waited in despair of it until modern science had offered this interpretation, we might, perhaps, allow it for lack of any other. But beside the sublime praise of Him whose " thoughts are very deep," which devout readers have found in them from the first, we have an application of them made by the great Church writers of St. Athanasius' age. This has also seemed to speak, with the very voice of all the Church ever since, when it declares its belief that Our Lord was " begotten before all worlds." No orthodox Christian can lightly assume the "reign of law " as the reasonable application and dismiss this as the fanciful, when he has once noticed how to the first words, " The Lord possessed me in HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 97 the beginning "; these words respond from the Gospel : '' In the beginning was the Word ; and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Nevertheless, let us further enquire whether this account of God's " wisdom " in the beginning, does, if not in terms, yet in substance and by fair reason- ing, teach us of a " reign of law." The Book of Proverbs is an instruction to us, not in physical science, but in morals and religion. With this pur- pose in all parts, and often it speaks of " wisdom," and personifies it as the true principle of men in their conduct toward God and their fellows. It repeats that great saying of the Book of Psalms that " the fear of the Lord (reverent and obedient love of Him), is the beginning of wisdom." [Ps. ex. 10. — Prov. ix. 10]. It tells the same great truth again in nearl}^ the same terms as do other parts of Holy Scripture, and with such related sayings as that, " the fear of the Lord is to hate evil," &c. Thus, this very passage, fairly read in its connection, tells us of the great wisdom of God, as a reason why we should be Avise in true religion and all goodness. Can we then with reason think that the Divine wisdom means the intellectual contrivance of the universe and the mechanical skill of setting it in motion, like a vast machine, as we sometimes call human inventors wise ? Finally, to do justice to both sides of this question, let us paraphrase and amplify, in that supposed sense, the words which are claimed as involving the idea of a " reign of law." Thus: "A wisdom which 9 98 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." was with God in Creation must mean that He econo- mized force and time by such arrangements of all matter (and spirit, too, for that matter), as that He might sjiare His continual attention and exertion, and might leave this creation to its automatic motion. This Avould be the highest achievement of a man in the use of force and motion, and so it must be * the wisdom of God.' " That is really the argument. This is what the words mean, if in them God sjjeaks to us of a "reign of law." What must we judge when ingenious men can find in Holy Scripture no better proof of their belief than such far-fetched interpretations as that? On the other hand, there is one thing said to all man- kind in the Holy Scriptures of God with much fre- quency, solemnity and plainness of speech, namely, that pride of intelligence is one of their greatest dangers and infirmities. " The Law and the -Prophets," the Gospels and the Epistles join in this, with only the difi'erence that the New Testament, as the more com- plete and spiritual, is more express in such doctrine. Surely that folly could find no more dangerous ex- ercise than in reasonings about the works of God which are not full of humility and reverence. And thus, not to anticipate the commands of Our Lord to be as humble as little children, and the warnings of His Apostles against " man's wisdom," this divine '* wisdom of Solomon," in the Book of Ecclesiastes as well as that of Proverbs, so far from encouraging us to put forth theories of what God must have done in the beginning, formed from our ambitious studies, teaches us to learn such things only from His mouth. HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 99 The very j^assage we have been examining is really a warning against such conceit. It tells ns of the great and unapproachable glory of God in wisdom ; and then that, for us " the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Beyond doubt to me this means that, instead of fancj^ing that by intel- lectual research we shall come to know much of what He has done and is doing, it is reverence, humility and obedient love for Him that must pre- cede and accompany all such true acquirements. How well we all know that the science which insists upon a reign of law does not always begin or proceed with reverent piety. Some of its most successful votaries, as they advanced in and became absorbed in it, have receded from all religion. Theirs, then, was not the wisdom which Solomon commended in men, nor their favorite notion of " Mature " that which he, at the same time, was revealing to us as the wisdom of God. On the contrary, those inspired writings of his even agree with the rest of Holy Scripture in fre- quent mentions of all events as the immediate work of God. For example : " By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor and life" [Prov. xxii. 14]. " A Inan to whom God hath given riches, wealth and honor," &c. [Eccl. vi. 2.] Examining next the Prophets, numbering fourteen different writers, and including more than a fourth part of the Old Testament, we find them full of sublime mentions of Creation, miracles and Providence. Yet among two thousand such passages noted there are 100 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." only some six which have ever been cited as suggesting a ** reign of law." Even then it is only by that un- reasonable process of seizing upon a slight verbal re- semblance, and imagining in splendid figures of speech something to be declared which no one would ever find there unless he were in search of support of a notion elsewhere derived. Thus they correspond to those brought forward by some in support of the same notion, from the other poetical books. The same observations apply to them and need not be repeated. They are as follows : " Fear ye not Me ? saith the Lord. Will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree that it cannot pass it ? And though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail ; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it " [Jer. v. 22]. " Yea the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times ; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming ; but my people know not the judg- ment of the Lord " [Jer. viii. 7]. " Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night ; which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar, the Lord of hosts is His name. If these ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever " [xxxi. 35, 36]. '* If ye can break my covenant of the day and my covenant of the night, that there HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 101 should not be day and night in their season, then may also my covenant be broken with David, my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne " [Jer. xxxiii. 20, 21]. " If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not ap- pointed the ordinances of heaven and earth, then will I cast away the seed of Jacob," &c. [Ibid. 25, 26]. Of the first of these passages, it is an easy question whether it is literal or figurative. If the former, then has the sea a restless loUl, prone to disobey God ; tossing its mane in rage and roaring with baffled desire. But we none of us think that. We justly see in this a noble figure of the supreme will of God, in which even the mighty ocean is repre- sented as a self-willed, yet subjugated subject, upon whom, after such attempts, a perpetual decree of re- straint is imposed. The more careful our study of the words, the more it will appear that they suggest the opposite of " natural law," namely, the immediate power of God. So also in the second passage, the migration of birds is spoken of not as some mechanical order established at the creation, but as if each year they heard the voice of their Lord and obeyed Him! This is but a figure of speech to rebuke the disobedience of men who have laws given them and a will with which they can obey ? So it is ; and therefore least of all is it any proof of a " reign of law." The same judgment applies to the other sayings about " cove- nants " and " ordinances " of sun, moon and stars, or of day and night. The allusion of these is naturally 103 THE REIGN OP QOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." rather to the spiritual and supernatural blessing bestowed upon mankind after the flood, than upon what was set up in the beginning. Anyway there is nothing about " laws of Nature " in them, but those great and gracious ways of God to us alike in " all things visible and invisible." There is in both the same free and instant power by which ** He doeth according to His will in the armies of heaven," in a usual, regular order of loving-kindness to men. And He reminds us of these covenants and blessings of things temporal to affirm other promises, even of spiritual good. We have as much right to reduce these to " natural law " as the others. But this is not all that we may learn about this question from the Holy Scriptures of the Prophets. To confront these few weak and far-fetched attempts at proof upon one side, we could summon from them thousands of sentences which reveal tons with direct- ness, the Great and Gracious One doing everything in " Nature " as immediately as when He said, " Let there be light ! " These few may represent them all. " Lift up your eyes on high and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number ; He calleth them all by names ; by the great- ness of His might, for that He is strong in power, not onefaileth. . . . The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary ; there is no searching of His understand- ing" [Is. xl. 26, 28, &c]. (How exactly does this agree with the thought that all things are and move by the present will of God, and not by forces which HOLT SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 103 He set up thousands of years ago ! How naturally we can understand it is a reproof of those who think that men of our day have searched the understanding of God and found that He would " faint and be weary " with such constant work ; and that stars and seasons fail not, not " for that He is strong in power," but because of the might of an ancient '* reign of law.") *' When He uttereth His voice there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and He causeth the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. He maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of His treasures " [Jer. x. 13]. " For wisdom and might are His ; and He changeth the times and the seasons " [Dan. ii. 20, 21]. " And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing ; and He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest thou?" [Dan. iv. 35]. "The God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways " [Dan. v. 23]. ** Eejoice in the Lord your God, for He hath given you the former rain moderately, and He will cause to come down for you the rain," &c. [Joel ii. 23-27]. *' Bring ye all the tithes into the store-house that there may be meat in my house, and jprove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the 104 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT " THE REIGN OF LAW." fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field," &c. [Mai. iii. 10, 11.] Notice the natural force of all this class of pass- ages as compared with the others. Observe this contrast in the number, in their easy and obvious meaning ; in the divine power of their very words to " exalt the Lord Our God " and to increase our faith in Him. Do they not fit only to the thought that we may think of Him and adore Him and call upon Him in prayers, as One who does all things in person and now ? If Ave could deny that these divine sentences directly teach men to think so, could we question that they encourage them in that thought if already entertained ? Does not the opposing notion of a " reign of law " jar harshly upon the sayings of the Prophets ? It is a favorite observation of our modern science, that in degree as men have been ignorant and super- stitious, they have ascribed all things to divine acts ; and that as they come to know more they learn that all these things are according to general law. This would apply exactly to these and all like sayings of the Old Testament. It would be in effect to say that men, moved by the Holy Grhost, misrepresented true religion, at least that Grod allowed them to echo and so to encourage the superstitious follies of igno- rance. Observe, in further objection to this notion, that these same teachings run through all the ages and all the writers of the Old Testament. They are in the story of " the beginning"; in the manly sim- HOLY SCRIPTURE — OLD TESTAMENT. 105 plicity of thinking found among the free tribes of the first ages ; in the intellectual and spiritual refinement of the first (and greatest) of the kings of Israel ; in the first Prophets, who knew all the science and reasonings of the Chaldeans, and in the last of them who looked toward the dawn of *' the new law." But it is by the last that our question must be mainl}^ tried, by that " perfect day " of light intellectual and spiritual for all mankind, the INew Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 106 THE KEIGN OF GOD NOT "THE RKIGN OP LAW." CHAPTEE YII. EXAMINATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE — NEW TESTAMENT. "\"TT*E come now to the brightest and plainest VV and complete Word of God written, "the New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." We have already gone over that larger part of Holy Writ in which, as relating the Creation itself and four thousand years of Providence and miracles afterwards, we might have felt sure that we should find any truth there might be of a " reign of law,' told us directly and by many plain allusions. We have found nothing of the kind; nothing which could be so quoted, unless in the way of fanciful re- semblance or very remote conjecture. But in the Scriptures which we are now to " search," we shall be sure to find the conclusive truth. These will either at last reveal " the reign of law " in "JSature "; or dismiss the notion from our knowledge as untrue. Some of the greatest matters of religion were reserved to this New Testa- ment. The intelligence of man in divine things was in the earlier period treated as in a state of nonage. So we might suppose that the Creator reserved this disclosure of " natural law," or such recognition as complete religious truth must make of it, if true, to the Church founded upon the Redeemer of mankind. Now that " the Light of the World " aj^pears in person, and the complete knowledge of God rises HOLY SCRIPTURE — NEW TESTAMENT. 107 upon earth like the sun, this truth would certainly no longer be withheld. At the very least, as 1 have suggested, there would be some notice of it in speak- ing of those matters in which it could not but touch upon the glory of God and men's faith in Him ; so that when these wiser ages of Christendom should come, men would see their faith in God to be in full accord with that truth. The result of a careful study of the New Testa- ment is in general that there is not one word about " laws of Nature " in it, either of statement or allu- sion from beginning to end. On the other hand we find many (and nowhere else in Holy Scripture so many) statements and implications that God does all things by His immediate will. These things are not said with the inexact warmth and color of poetical ex- citement. Nor are they of those things in Hol}^ Scripture (if there be any such) in which we might properly allow that the inspired man uttered the divine thought with some of the error of his preju- dice. Thc}^ are the clear and calm voices, first of the Son of God Himself, and then of His Apostles, to whom He committed most distinct and intellectual utterances of His Word. In this case it was not even necessary to anticipate a thought which was not really to be known among men until after many unscientific centuries. This notion of law in Nature was already in the world. For more than three centuries it had been talked of by acute Pagan philosophers. What could we say, then, if such a great religious, or at least semi- 108 THE IlEIGN OP GOD NOT " TUE REIGN OP LAW." religious, truth had no recognition in the perfect Word of God ? The Christian era begins with most magnificent disphiys of the supernatural. These are told in the Gospels in the most simple and natural way. Other incidents which no one thinks miraculous are related with them, and all alike as done by the immediate will of God. It is not even always easy to distin- guish in these glorious facts between what is natural and what is supernatural. Of such is the birth of St. John Baptist, which is foretold by a bright angel from God. When a similar message comes to the virgin mother of that altogether supernatural nativity of Our Lord, the Son of God, it is said even of John's birth, " With God nothing shall be impos- sible." The glories of Bethlehem are recounted in the most direct and simple way, as if they had no intellectual difficulties for real faith, and without any of the apologies and qualifications which those who believe in *' laws of Nature " cannot dispense with in recounting the marvellous. This great event was followed by about thirty years of the ordinary life of the world. The divine history interrupts this first with the preaching of St. John Baptist. It is remarkable that he reproves his countrymen for a conceited security in " the reign of law " (as that notion was obscurely in men's minds,) with these words : " Begin not to say in yourselves, We have Abraham to our father ; for I say unto you that Qod is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham " [St. Luke iii. 8]. HOLY SCRIPTURE — NEW TESTAMENT. 109 Our Lord proceeded to His public ministry among men after a most sublime, mystical conflict with Satan,* in which twice occurs the occasion for Him to speak of '^ laws of Nature," if there were any such. The first saying of the tempter is : '* If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be niade bread." Is His answer at all, or in substance, what even the most religious of our Christian men of science would say now ? Would they not say that the will of God was in fixed "laws of Nature"; or at least allude to these? The Lord's answer is, "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God." This, as I apprehend, tells us with the greatest plainness, that our physical life is entirely dependent upon the immediate will of the Blessed, Eternal One ; and this, whatever further reference to our spiritual good w^e may suppose in the words. The reply to the second temptation was another occasion to mention this truth of natural law, if a truth. The suggestion to venture upon a miracle of mere display is met, not by saying that it is impos- sible or even improper on account of a "law of Nature," and as it would not in this case be done to attest the Word of God to men. It is refused simply because it is not -the will of God. "j" Let us notice that this is not so much because against that blessed Will, as not being positively called for by it. When this glorious Master of Wisdom goes to * St. Matthew iv. St. Luke iv. fSt. Matthew iv. 7—" Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." 10 110 THE KEIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." teach mankind about their ordinary life, e. g. how they are to think about their food and clothing, He says nothing, even by most remote allusions, of this " reign of law." He speaks in such an unconscious- ness of it, as would now make our man of science smile if he overheard such teaching. He said simply and directly that God " clothes the grass of the field," and feeds the birds, and, in the same way, '* adds unto " us whatever we need for our bodily life. He enjoins upon us to imitate Him who " maketh the sun to rise upon the evil and the good, and sendeth rain upon the jast and the unjust." He teaches us to live without care or fear, because not a sparrow falls to the ground without God, and because the very hairs of our head are numbered by Him. He teaches each soul of man to make this daily prayer, asking Our Father Who is in Heaven, " G-ive us this day our daily bread." (I would put these seven short words alone against all the ingenious philosophy that has reasoned of " natural law," the confident references to " a decree for the rain " and other such phrases of the Old Testament, and all the " painful " arguments used to persuade devout men that a "reign of law " does not forbid them to pray. The more those words are pondered, the more weighty they are in this question. Entangle your soul if you will in an intellectual demonstration that we men are but insignificant parts of a vast inexorable machine ; but with every rising sun remember to pray, not. Give me all knowledge of these unvarying laws i» obeying which all my HOLY SCRIPTURE — NEW TESTAMENT. Ill welfare consists; but, "Give us this day our daily bread.")* He speaks again and again of things which are impossible to men, while " all things are possible with God " [St. Matth. xix. 26.— St. Mark x. 27.— St. Luke xviii. 27]. He tells them how to avail them- selves of that infinite power [St. Matth. xvii. 20, etc]. He says that if they are children of God, and the fewest of them combine in asking anything of Him, "it shall be done for them" [St. Matth. xviii. 19, etc.]. He does not limit this to spiritual and so ex- elude physical things. He makes a tree wither before men's eyes, and uses that occasion to say, " If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder plain ; and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible to you " [St. Matt. xvii. 20]. He Himself continually for three years ''doeth great wonders." He heals incurable diseases. He replaces the utterly lost senses of men, and creates those senses in some who had never before possessed them. He restores others to life after they have died. He walks at night upon a raging sea amid a howling tempest, and by His words of command makes a great and sudden calm. He says of these miracles, " My Father worketh hitherto and I work," describing the power of God in all things visible as being like His, acts of present Divine will [St. John v. 17]. Yet in none of these instances, nor at any other * After this was written I waa not surprised to read of some (orthodox but) scientific Christian teacher who contended that this petition of the Lord's Prayer should be disused by all who understand the " reign of law." It is an irresistible corollary of that notion. 112 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." time, does He talk of " forces " or " laws of Nature," or anything equivalent to them, nor make the most remote allusion to such things. Let us challenge the reconsideration and honest judgment of all Christian men upon these facts. Could they reasonably believe in a "reign of law," if the Gospels were only silent about it? But j^et more, is it credibly true when with so many occasions, and we may even say necessities for Our Lord Christ to speak of it to men if true, not a word of the sort can be found to set against the mighty sen- tences in which He shows us the present power of Grod in all events ? And who is this " Word of God '* in complete truth " without any mixture of error " ? What is He beside being the Witness of the Divine ? He is the very person who would have made the *' laws of Nature " if there were any. He is the One who, (if there be any truth in that notion,) " subjected Himself" to this " reign of law," of which evidently He knows nothing ! After Our Lord ascends into Heaven, the New Testament continues with a history of the Acts of the Apostles. Nowhere in this have we a word of "natural law." One of these Apostles is evidently well acquainted with the Greek philosoph}^, which did already contain at least the suggestion of ^Maws of Nature " and the notion (in germ) of their " reign "; but he nowhere mentions it. Some later Christian writers (whose works are not Holy Scriptures, nor they any way as safe guides to truth as this Apostle,) treat this and other notions of Plato as profound HOLY SCRIPTURE — NEW TESTAMENT. 113 searchiogs into the truth of God, only less than in- spired. We shall see later that St. Paul does speak generally of this " men's wisdom," but only to warn Christians against mixing it with their reli- gious thought. He did go to Athens itself, and " certain philo- sophers encountered him." That these at first were not Platonists, but "Epicureans and Stoics," does not alter the significance of this occasion. His great discourse at Athens was before an audience made up from all the curious and disputatious Athenians, among whom he might be sure were some Academics or scholars of Plato, as well as some Peripatetics or followers of Aristotle. He proceeds to speak of the One God, of Creation, and of all life and movement since. He gladly seizes upon the re- semblance of one of their superstitions (of "the Unknown God ") to the true religion, to teach that truth. But does He say, " Someof your philosophers have had divine light given them to perceive by their studies how God, in Creation, set up unvarying laws of Nature ; and unless He interposes in these in a very unusual way, all things proceed by their own force "? No ; but he does say what is in eifect the exact oppo- site ; that " He giveth (not gave) to all life and breath and all things. ... In Him we live and move and have our being " [Acts xvii. 25, 28]. Much the same in substance had he publicly said once before in a heathen city [Acts xiv. 15, 17]. Thus, in all the Acts of the Apostles, while we have many miracles 114 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." related without any suggestion that God then " sus- pended the laws of Nature," or the like ; and while Providence and prayer are often mentioned without an}^ allusion to a " reign of law "; we have the imme- diate power of Grod in all things set against those opposite notions which were already in the philo- sophy of men. In the Epistles we have the truth of God given to us in the " scientific " form (as some would say), rather than the historical. Perhaps here, at last, we are to have a disclosure of the religious truth about ''laws of Nature"? But no; it is not in the Epis- tles at all. They are (as we have observed in other parts of Holy Scripture,) thickly sown with occasions to speak of it, if true ; as whenever the great Crea- tion, or the good Providence, or mighty miracles, or gracious answers to men's prayers, are mentioned. Yet never was a more decisive " silence of Scripture." Nor is this all. They say things plainly opposed to that notion. " Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights," etc. [St. James i. 17.] " It is the same God who worketh all in all " [1 Cor. xii. 6]. " It is God who worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure " [Phil. ii. 13]. "According to the good pleasure of His will " [Eph. i. 5]. " Who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will " [Eph. i. 11]. It is unfortunate that these last sentences have been commonly (but not properly) assumed to speak only of what the Almighty One does to mew, HOLY SCRIPTURE — NEW TESTAMENT. 115 and in regard to their spiritual welfare ; and so have 011I3" been fought over in the great controversy about *' free will." In so far as God is said to do all, while we are morally free, a fortiori (so much the more) are they true of all that is outside of a moral free- agency. It does not belong at all to this enquiry to treat of that-great question. We may simply stand upon the truth, that if God has chosen to give inde- pendent action to free personal wills in some of His creatures, surely all others move and act only by Mis immediate will. But the last of those passages needs more critical notice, on account of the strange misuse of it by the great Hooker in the very question before us.* He maintains that to say " the counsel of His will," implies that it was not absolute will, but that God had to consider some abstract " reason of things " or a sort of eternal " reign of law " which would cer- tainly decide His choice. But let any one carefully study the word BouXrjv of the original Greek, and he will find that no term could have been used to express will more absolutely. In classic Greek it is the word always employed to express divine volition. It is unfortunate that our excellent English version should have here rendered it " counsel." Not that it could not be justified by many parallel passages where this very term '' counsel " cannot possibly mean anything but will (as, e. g., Heb. vi. 17, " the immutability of His counsel ") ; showing the English word " counsel " may properly mean the secret * Eccl. Pol., Book I.— See more fully of this infra. 116 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." purpose and decision of a will ; but it has given a chance for the misconstruction mentioned above. The sentence would, therefore, read most correctly in English, " Who worketh all things according to the wish of His own will.'''' It was meant for the most precise and energetic expression of such abso- lute will without any suggestion — rather with exact exclusion — of anything like consultation, reasoning or motive, and yet more of any law for the Eternal Lord. If my reader could need anything more to convince him, he will see it in the passage I cited just before this one. It is in the very same exhorta- tion of St. Paul to his Ephesian converts, but a few verses before this, and evidently another noble ex- pression of the same great truth : "According to the good pleasure of His will." Nor would this study of the Epistles be complete without recalling attention to what St. Paul says in condemnation of" the wisdom of this world," etc., as compared with (or if mingled with) the knowledge of divine things which we get from the very Word of God. What he says of this at least includes, if it be not even specially intended for, such speculations of Plato, Aristotle, etc., as grew into the modern notions of " natural law " and its " reign." But we shall treat of this more fully under the title of the history of that theory. (See infra Chap. VIII.) But there is a certain other saying of St. Paul's which, though I am not aware that it has ever before been so suggested, bears powerfully, and I think decisively, upon this enquiry. If there is any. HOLY Scripture— NEW testament. 117 writer who can be styled in a good sense " the Chris- tian philosopher," he may be. God gave him a mind to see the deepest general relations of things, and, what is much more, inspired him to write His Word with incidental mention of such relations in absolute truth. We might apply in expostulation with many a Christian thinker, his very words, '* Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man " — who loseth thine own way in human metaphysics and bewilderest others ! without a thought of what St. Paul and others " moved by the Holy Ghost " have, in the midst of the lessons of true religion, let fall by the way, about the " spirit, soul and body " of man. This has not been quite unnoticed ; but he who shall yet give the time and labor necessary for a complete treatment of this, will do a great work toward clearing up the obscurities and errors of all philosophy. Whether or not St. Paul had been instructed in his youth in the Greek and other philosophies rife in that age, (as some think) or not, he had been at Athens debating the high questions of religion with the scholars of Epicurus, Zeno, Plato, and Aristotle. It was after this that, "by inspiration of God," he wrote the perfect theory and argument of what was already in the faith of Christians, the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. In this he adduces in illustration one of the very things which are certainly under the " reign of law," if there be any such thing. It was such a case that the favorite postulate of modern science, if true, could not fail to be men- tioned ; namely, the growth of a plant from its seed. 118 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." But what is St. Paul's account of this ? " But some man will say, How are the dead raised up ? and with what body do they come ? Thou fool ! that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die ; and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body which shall be, but bare grain ; it may chance of wheat or some other grain ; but Ood giveth it a body, as it hath pleased Him ; and to every seed his own body " [1 Cor. xv. 35-38]. It will be observed upon scrutiny that not only is " natural law " entirely (in lawj^er's phrase) ignored, but that something else is affirmed, viz., that in each case of the growth of a plant from the seed, " Grod giveth it a body." Had the verb been " gave " there might be opportunity to argue that this meant some general gift of inherent power at the time of the Creation. The entire argument is against all un- believing notions of impossibility in anything which^ God sa3^s He will do. The special illustration here is that just as, with an attention and action which has no possible weakness or weariness. He in all vege- table growth, by His mere will, makes a plant follow a seed, so will He give each of us a spiritual body in succession to this natural one which decays. In both cases alike, a kind of identity and a succession of life between the new thing and the old is expressly recognized. The words, " and to every seed his own body," confirm this; while the other phrase, ''as it hath pleased Him," emphasizes it all as His immediate act. Only see how the notion of a " reign of law " must needs have expressed itself in a like case ; thus, HOLY SCRIPTURE — NEW TESTAJVIENT. 119 begininng with the 37th verse, "And that which thou sowest, etc., but — it receiveth a certain body according to an invariable law established in the Crea- tion "; or ^^it receiveth a body developed by forces which were set in jnotion then and are never interfered ivith,^' (unless in express miracle, which was not all the case supposed by St. Paul) ; as Leibnitz actually says, " so that they are able of themselves to execute their functions." The great Eevelation of St. John, which closes the Book of God, has no notice of " natural law," while it contains various sublime declarations concerning the works of God which agree only with His inces- sant and immediate doing of all things. Its awful and glorious visions of the passing away of the present Creation, recognize no repeal of existing " laws of Nature," but they might well suggest to us the falsity of any notion of a •' reign of law." This should remind us that there really is in these Holy Writings one mention, by way of prophecy, of this notion and of its natural eifect upon faith. It is this : " There shall come in the last days scoffers saying, Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the Creation " [2 Peter iii. 3, 4]. It is true, and I have already many times recognized it as true, that many who are by no means scoffers, but are sincere Christian believers, maintain the opinion which I suppose to be intended, or at least included, in the terrible censure of this 120 THE KEIGN OP GOD NOT "THE KEIGN OF LAW." sentence of Holy Writ. This application of the words is founded upon the general sense of all Holy Scripture. For this question, and for the best result of all this present study, we shall do well to look to such general sense. We must not be at all satisfied with some success in finding passages which seem to favor our preconceived opinions, or with ingeniously *' reconciling " others that were not so much to our purpose. The comparison and verbal discussion of separate verses of Holy Scripture has its illusions, and its tendencies to deviation from the direct pursuit of truth. It is, therefore, most useful to turn from this at last, however needful in its place, and take a fair look at the general spirit and effect of the written Word of God, and more especially of the New Testa- ment, as regards the matter in question. Let each of my readers then ask himself which of the opposing ideas before us agrees best with the whole tenor of the Book of God as we have now traversed it together ; or, according to his own careful reading and recollection, if he has preferred another method. We did begin that investigation in th« order of time, and with the Old Testament. That order has its value. But now, in this review and general result, the other order is most reasonable. The Gospel of Our Lord is the complete truth of re- ligion ; His Church is the kingdom of God on earth that is to last till time shall be no more. And especially as the notion which is upon trial is sup- posed by its adherents to bo the result of men's later intellectual activity, it will if true find recognition. HOLY SCRIPTUKE — NEW TESTAMENT. 121 not in the dawn of God's Word in prophecy and jDoetry, but rather in that Divine light of clear in- telligence which followed, and in which true discovery found its greatest impulse. Now there are two general ideas of man's life, and his knowledge of what is around him, which we have to choose between. One is, that our best nature and aspiration is to regard this world and all in it, and all other worlds, as a vast and perfect machine, which only needs each of us to study and all to com- bine their results in collecting this knowledge, so as to learn about all its past and calculate all its future. The tendency of this idea is to persuade us that the present processes have had no real beginning ^nd will have no end. And one of its .corollaries is that man is an insignificant thing in all this vastness, and his individual .life but a little floating bubble on the shoreless ocean. The other and opjx)site idea is, that we know^rsif of a great Person, immensely greater not only than we, but than all beside Himself, who has told us that many ages ago He made us and all this for His good pleasure, and especially in order that we of mankind might know and love Him ; and that He will, we can never be sure how soon, make an end of '• all things visible," and replace them with something better and more enduring, while spirits and persons (i. e. God, angels and mankind) will continue to exist : that this great change will be made (at least for one purpose) in order that we men may be raised out of a general degradation from the love of God and man, and un- 11 123 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE BEIGN OP LAW." happiness, which has befallen our kind, and in which the Cosmos around us has a certain sympathy of dis- order; that our chiefconcern of knowledge and hope is with this Divine and spiritual now, and that super- natural future ; so that while we have cares and duties which must employ much of our time, and belong mainly to this life, and therefore some may well explore this universe and its usual order of cause and effect, and all may use this knowledge as it accumulates with the successive generations of men, this does not compare in urgency and value to us with the knowledge of God, and of how to regain our true life as He has given us that knowledge in a Gospel of mercy ; to regain this partially now, and afterwards completely and forever. Need I say that these two ideas of man's life are entirely opposed to one another ; that one cannot occupy a mind without displacing the other? Need I say that the latter prevails through all the Holy Scriptures ?* The other is I think in substance and essence, certainly in intellectual tendency, that of the " reign of law." So the Holy Scriptures always speak of pride as one of the greatest mischiefs of mankind, and espe- cially of the pride of knowledge acquired by our own observation and reasoning, as a weakness and danger; while the humility which would rather love truth as *If any Christian believers call for specific citations in support of this beside their general reading and the combined effect of a thousand rerses, I refer them to such passages as these : " For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now," [Rom. viii. 22.] " While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal," [1 Cor. It. 18.] Are these at all accordant with the other idea ? HOLY SCRIPTURE — NEW TESTAMENT. 123 told us by our Superior, is both more honorable and more sure. Thus they command and commend simple faith in God's Word. On the other hand, all such science as is founded upon the assumption of a " reign of law," both promotes intellectual pride and makes religious faith more diflScult. This tendency is well displayed in the remark often met with in modern books, that in proportion as ages or nations are ignorant of " natural law," they think whatever they do not understand to be Divine power ; but that as they become enlightened, they refer all such things to some invariable but unknown "law." Another such tendency is to assume that whatever high powers or valuable knowledge mankind have now, must have been reached by gradual intellectual improvement from the first ages, when man was in all respects a creature far inferior to his present "best estate." But Holy Writ without denying the low condition of all mankind, almost from the first, and especially of the great part of it which has been sitting in darkness of false religion, informs us that this is a fearful fall from the glorious " image of God " in which He created our first progenitors, to which we can only be gradually returning now by His mercy, and never completely in this life. Another such contrast deserves the notice of thoughtful Christians. All the writings and speech of our age are full of the term " Nature," meaning the whole universe of what God has created, as if it had a personality, or at least unity of organization and force in itself One who should try to dispense with 124 THE IlEIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." the term in this sense even for common conversation, would be astonished to find what difficulty and singularity' of expression would be forced upon him. But the Holy Scriptures of God use no such term or any equivalent expression for the conception ; "^ they tell us of " the creation of God " and of His " works," but they have not from beginning to end anything of " the works of Nature " or of its making or doing anything. As the result of this study of the Word of God, it appears that the assumption of a "reign of law," which touches all the greatest questions of faith, has no recognition in the New Testament, nay, is quite expressly contradicted there. Is not this deci- sive? Nevertheless, if some sentences of the Old Testament are still alleged in behalf of that notion, we might proceed further to examine it throughout for all teaching which bears upon this matter. But if in this we have found the few alleged proofs to be bold figures of prophecy and poetry which by no means need mean what is claimed, while the whole tenor of Law and Prophets accords with the New Testament in teaching the present power and will of God in all things, then the proof of this is comj^lete. There may be Christian readers of this who are still so loath to surrender what they have long accepted as certain truth, that they will not allow this test of it by Holy Scripture, upon the plea that, as the "reign of law" was a great truth which God *If any one question this by reference to any of the thirteen passages in which our English Bible gives the term "nature," he need but ex- amine them to be convinced. HOLY SCRIPTURE — NEW TESTAMENT. 135 meant to disclose to men only by their discoveries and reflections, and ages after His Scripture was given them complete, so He would not anticipate it by any mention or reference therein. But they can. not so think without refusing to Grod's Word Written such faith and reverence as are due. For to say nothing of its being silent about something which men were yet to discover for themselves, and yet which cannot be separated from the greatest questions of religion, the express words of Ro\y Scripture must have tended to encourage men of earlier days in what this notion calls a false thought of God. Even now those words forbid me to believe in a *' reign of law." No ; this is rather a most clear and powerful illus- tration of the value of fixed institutions of religion ; fixed in words both of instruction and worship, which do not merely reflect the intellectual fashion of the l^assing age. Here is all our literature and the ordinary speech of men full of the false notion of "natural law," and tending to the universal acknow- ledgment of its despotic "reign." There stand the Holy Scriptures of God and, at least for the great and influential English-speaking nations, the words of Christian worship in their Common Prayer, how_ ever obsolete to the greater number in this country ,=* silent about this "Nature," but resj^onding with approval to the humblest voice that recalls a despised ♦Those of my readers who are disposed to agree with me so far in the mam, but find this against their prepossessions, can easily enough pasd It over. But /could not, in my purpose to " declare all the counsel " of this great truth, according to the observations and reflections of many years. 126 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT " THE REIGN OP LAW." and forgotten truth. It is the eager and self-sufficient human present corrected by Divine truth out of the past. It is mankind intoxicated and led astray by intellectual vanity even far down in the Christian era, yet called back to truth and salvation by the mercy of God. HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A " REIGN OF LAW." 127 CHAPTER YIII. History of the Notion of a "Reign of Law." 'TT'T'HEN we are making a faithful investigation VV of the truth and value of some opinion, nothing is better to clear the mind from disturbing prepossessions, than to study its history. This is especially so when the opinion in question has long prevailed and is strong in the authority of great men, both living and long dead. Such study leads us out of the fogs of prejudice and controversy, into clear air in which we see the actual objects of our thoughts. It shows us the first approaches and access to men's minds of the opinion in question : what then disposed them in its favor ; what confirmed this and extended it to many other minds ; what earlier and contrary belief may have once prevailed, and how that fared in collision with this ; and what still maintains the one against the other. If the now prevailing opinion be true, it will grow strong by this enquiry ; if false, we shall the better escape from its hold. Mr. Her- bert Spencer has a glimpse of this when he says that enquiring into the pedigree of an idea is not a bad way of estimating its value. In a great matter like that before us, we need more than pedigree ; we need a chronology — a real history. The history of '^ the reign of law " as of some other dynasties, has its difficulties. It loses itself in the region of mere tradition, and even "myth." 128 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." Such notions, like other nebulous bodies, are often long in taking definite and final shape. Some of its patrons are certain that it came from Plato and Aristotle, or the ancient Greek philosophy in general effect.* Others are sure that it is entirely the pro- duct and crowning achievement of Modern Scienee.f Some even refer it to Holy Scripture ; but this, as wo have already seen, cannot be true.J Each of the other theories is right in a measure. Some notions and phrases of the Greek philosophers and their scholars gave a certain direction of this kind to the language and assumptions of Modern Science. No one can find in Plato what is now so confidently imputed to him. He left in writing so many curious speculations, without caring about their consistency, and in so entertaining a way, that entirelj^ contrary opinions have been since his day sincerely and zealously maintained under authority of his name. The nearest approach to the "reign of law " in Plato is where, among other such things in the Tim£eus,§ he says : " The Creator Himself being the artificer of Divine natures, committed to His offspring (the inferior gods) the charge of producing those that are mortal"; and "after arranging these particulars. He retired to His accustomed state, and His sons obeyed their Father's order." Those who know Plato only by the unmeasured praises and even * Hooker's Eccles. Pol. Book Ist— McCosh on Positivism, etc. + Lewes' Aristotle; Fiske's Outl. of Cosraical Philos. I. 173, etc. $See also a fuller discussion of Eccles. Pol. Bk. I. infra Chap. IX. ^ Gary's Transl. Bohn's Ed. ii. 380, 347. I quote this translation as being upon the whole as fair a rendering as can be given of this rather obscure passage. HISTORY OF THE NOTION OP A " RKIGN OP LAW." 129 worship of Mr. E. W. Emerson, or the only less extravagant admiration of some Christian writers, will be astonished at this gross polytheism ; but their surprise will pass away as we proceed in this investi- gation. In truth Plato, as also his master Socrates, was a pagan, though with some ideas of the Divine far above most of his countrymen. He was also a man of very uncommon quickness and strength of mind. He had travelled into far countries in search of wise men and of new ideas : certainly to Egypt, perhaps to Babylon and Persia. No doubt he had learned the doctrines of some of "the wise men of the East," who taught that there was but one God, but mixed this with various errors of religion. This was four hundred years before any of the I^ew Testament was written, but long after the Old was complete. We have no certain knowledge that these holy books of those who were at least known to the inquisitive Greeks as the singular little nation of monotheists called Jews, had come into their hands. Yery likely they had learned something of the religious ideas of the Jews as well as of the Hindoos from the Egypt- ians or Babylonians, and were not uninformed of the mono- (or duo-) theism of the Persians. And so from Israel rather than from their own deep thinking they really got what idea they had of One God and of His true character. And yet this was mixed with a vast deal of heathenish religion and false philosophy. For all of old Israel lived in a far greater light of truth than the wisest Brahmin, Persian or Athenian 130 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE REIGN OP LAW." philosopher. What Abraham or Job knew b}^ pure tradition from Adam, or by visions from Jehovah, and what of such truth the men of Judah and Jerusalem had besides in the Law and the Prophets, was as breaking day to moonless and almost starless mid* night, compared with the highest thoughts in re- ligion of all the heathen world. It was a strange perversity in men to whom "oracles of God" were given, that some ambitious Jews while captives in heathen Babylon, began to stud}^ the false notions of that people, and of the Hindoos and Persians, and to mix these with their true knowledge of God. The beginning of " philo- sophy and vain deceit" among the Jews dates from that time, as shown in the "Cabbala" and "Talmud" and such writings. And so during the succeeding 600 years they imparted some ideas to the Greeks and copied some notions from them. The nations were all becoming mingled as never before by the wars of those times, and the subjection of all the others by the Romans. In the meantime Aristotle, who came just after Plato, and was more practical and consis- tent, though a less entertaining writer, had already made it a fashion of philosophy to talk about "Nature." This meant much the same as it does m common use in our day, i. e. all the world and life outside of us, as if it Avere a vast order which existed and lived and moved (at least as far as we knew or need think) of itself. So the very phrase "laws of Nature" begins to appear in the Latin poets."^ * Diigald Stewart, Ment. Phil. (Sir W. Hamilton's ed.) 1. 158-1(52. HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF A " REIGN OF LAW." 131 Yet there was no such distinct assertion of a '' reign of law " as we have now. A God or gods were supposed to govern aH things. There was a certain collection of writings extant then and already translated into Greek, which spoke in thousands of places of the One True God immediately doing all things.* We may now mention this, not adducing it here as decisive of the truth (though it is so), but simply as a fact of history showing that the idea of "the reign of God," the contrary of the other, was known to some men. But evidently by the time of Our Lord's advent, the more intellectual and ambi- tious Jews were far gone from this truth and faith of God, through their studies of Greek and Oriental philosophies. In religious opinion they were strongly and sternly Unitarian, abhorring the Greeks for their many gods. Yet in fact and spirit they neglected the true Word of the one God committed to them alone as a people, and " went a whoring after " vain inventions of pagans. It is a curious fact that in this the irreligious philosophy joins with the false religious superstition. Even Mr. G. H. Lewes, who scorns our faith, saysf that the notion of forces acting of themselves in Nature came first from the deification of the great movements which men ob- served. It was thus with the Greeks, whose idea of religion for ages had been of a god for every great object or movement which they saw. So that even when Plato came to the conception of One Supreme, he still held to the many inferior deities, and assigned * We found this out in the thorough investigation of Chap. VI. t Lewes' Aristotle, p. 86. 132 THE REIGN OP GOD NOT "THE KEIGN OF LAW." to them what simply belongs to the Only Eeal and True. Indeed, thus only can we imagine how the true re- ligion of primitive man had sunk into the grotesque and hideous idolatry of intellectual Greece and rational Eome, as well as of all the rest of the world, except little Israel. Even if we believe (as have some great Christian writers, both ancient and modern,) that this false worship is described by Holy Scriptures as in fact that of evil angels,* this deify- ing of ''Nature" and its ** forces " may still be thought the intellectual process by which men "de- parted from the living God " to these other religions. With this agrees the only historical account which Holy Scripture gives of that dreadful degradation of mankind. For in the famous passage of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans which is so much misunder- stood and misused, describing the process by which they thus "changed the truth of God into a lie," he says that "they worshipped and served f the crea- tionX more than the Creator." Add to this that it describes them as those who "did not like to re- tain God in their knowledge " in the sense of peni- tence, humility, self-denying obedience and devout love. These might reject idolatry, wholly, as the Jewish scribes did, or partly as the Greek philo- sophers; but they also would see all real power in "Nature" or its f forces." Thus we already see the two false tendencies which obscure the true know- ledge of God — from opposite directions, yet con- *1 Cor. X. 20, 21. f 'E^.ai'partfaj', i. e. gave latria or dirinc homage, as in idolatry. Xl^ot "creature," a8 in the A. V. HISTORY OP THE NOTION OF A "REIGN OF LAW." 133 verging and concurring toftivor the notion of a "reign of law "; the one idolatrous and polytheistic, the other worldly and atheistic. Perhaps there already appeared also a reinforce- ment of these tendencies, which has been very powerful in modern times, the (at least apparent) convenience of this notion for scientific research and generalizing. To an acute man like Aristotle, of pagan birth and education, who has set himself only to learn what he can of this world, it was very natural to personify " Nature," to say that " she " obeyed "laws " in all these motions : to imagine this really all the Divine that we really know of, and yet treat it as a vast and curious self-acting machine, which w^e are to study and understand by degrees. Not far removed from this was, and by almost irresistible transitions indeed proceeded, the atheism of some of the Greeks and Romans of that time, especially displayed in the elegant poem of Lucretius, Be Berum Natura. Remember that all this was of " the wisdom of this world," when St. Paul wrote his famous sentences about that, without excepting an}^ of it from his censure. Then rose upon mankind a sun of spiritual light, in which even the illumination of Israel was but little to be distinguished from the " darkness " in which sat every other people in the world. The Word of God was present upon earth as a man. What He said as remembered and recorded ; what He did for a complete redemption of "the whole world"; what His Apostles and other ministers said and wrote ia 12 134 THE REIGN OF GOD NOT "THE KEIGN OP LAW." books of the New Testament, " as they were moved by the Holy Ghost "; what that Third One of the adorable Trinity of God has said through the per- petual Church in all the ages since, — this is pure and complete light of truth in religion. We all know that this light was not to shine at once upon all mankind, but to follow a growth of extension by the Church, from one small tract of the world, until the earth should be full of this knowledge, or the Lord should consummate all by a second appearance among mankind as the universal sovereign. But who (except as he sees the like done in our days) would suppose, that men upon whom this heavenly truth did shine, would wish to interpret or improve it by the writings of any groping pagan of a former age ? A Christian might, e. g., admire Plato's elegant language, the entertaining wit with which he leads his reader along through the most abstract reasoning, and even the flash of some great thought of goodness or of the Divine, which appeared in the midst of much superstition and other spiritual darkness. For this he might well adore Him who not only gave to Plato the glimpse, but to himself such light of day, for his ill use of which he meekly repented before God. He might humbly and lov- ingly pity those who did thus ^' feel after God " in the dark lands and days. But could he actually study the pagan writers as intellectual and spiritual masters in the knowledge of God's Word? Some may say, that he must be very narrow- minded who would not learn the beautiful teachings HISTOET OP THE NOTION OF A "REIGN OF LAW." 135 of Prof. Tyndall about light (physical) because he is so wrong in his notions of religion. Why then might not a wise Christian avail himself of whatever truth heathen philosophers had written ? Ought he not to? Would not neglect to do it bring just reproach upon the true religion, and even be the cause that the more spiritual and intelligent pagans would never come to that light of the Gospel ? In answer to this we ought to consider first, that the Greek philosophy knew almost nothing of " sci- ence " in the modern sense. It rather held such knowledge in contempt. All that a man would learn by the study of Plato (beyond some idle or mischievous fancies) would be certain speculations upon the beginning and cause and continuance of all things — the nature of man's soul, its duty and destiny. These are essentially religious questions. They are answered truly, and as fully as we can comprehend them, b}' the Word of God. To construe that, or try to improve upon it by the groping guesses of a heathen man, brought up in idolatry and practising it in some measure all his life, and low in much of his actual moral conduct, could not but be irrational. When we know that he also in these fine speculations rather taught that matter was eternal, was only shaped and set in motion (not created) by the Supreme One, and had been always since kept in motion and controlled by a number of lower gods, — then surely this study of Plato by Christians could only *« darken " the bright ''counsel" of God by misleading "words" (of intel- lectual ambition) " without (real) knowledge." 136 THE KEIGN OF GoD NOT "THE REIGN OF LAW." And so it did in fjxct. The Lord had set up a society of all believers in Him which should endure as long as the world, and should proclaim His Gospel to every soul of mankind. Some men joined this society in the first ages who were not only acquainted with the philosophies, but began to try and state the faith of the Church in that language, or even accord- ing to those systems of thought. They may have fancied they were thus beautilying or adding to the truth of the Gospel. With some it may have been a fancy that this would bring honor to the Church, and draw other intellectual men into it. With others it may have been that they were unwilling to give up the flattering suj^eriority over their fellow-men which knowledge of the " ffo