PROBABILITIES;

AN AID TO FAITH. 

BY

Martin Farquhar Tupper, A. M. , F. R. S. 

THE AUTHOR OF

"PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. "

"ALMOST THOU PERSUADEST ME TO BE A CHRISTIAN. "

HARTFORD:

PUBLISHED BY SILAS ANDRUS & SON. 

1851. 

PROBABILITIES. 

AN AID TO FAITH. 

The certainty of those things which most surely are believed among us, is a matter quite distinct from their antecedent probability orimprobability. We know, and take for facts, that Cromwell and Napoleonexisted, and are persuaded that their characters and lives were such ashistory reports them: but it is another thing, and one eminentlycalculated to disturb any disbeliever of such history, if a man wereenabled to show, that, from the condition of social anarchy, there wasan antecedent likelihood for the use of military despots; that, from thecondition of a popular puritanism, or a popular infidelity, it waspreviously to have been expected that such leaders should have theseveral characteristics of a bigoted zeal for religion, or a cravingappetite for worldly glory; that, from the condition liable torevolutions, it was probable to find such despots arising out of themiddle class; and that, from the condition of reaction incidental to allhuman violences, there was a clear expectability that the power of suchmilitary monarchs should not be continued to their natural heirs. 

Such a line of argument, although in no measure required for thecorroboration of facts, might have considerable power to persuade _àpriori_ the man, who had not hitherto seen reason to credit such factsfrom posterior evidence. It would have rolled away a great stone, whichto such a mind might otherwise have stood as a stumbling-block on thevery threshold of truth. It would have cleared off a heavy mist, whichmight prevent him from discerning the real nature of the scene in whichhe stood. It would have shown him that, what others know to be fact, is, even to him who does not know it, become antecedently probable; and thatReason is not only no enemy to Faith, but is ready and willing toacknowledge its alliance. 

Take a second illustration, by way of preliminary. A woodman, cleavingan oak, finds an iron ball in its centre; he sees the fact, and ofcourse believes; some others believing on his testimony. But a certainvillage-pundit, habitually sceptical of all marvels, is persuaded thatthe wonder has been fabricated by our honest woodman; until the parson, a good historian, coming round that way, proclaims it a most interestingcircumstance, because it was one naturally to have been expected; forthat, here was the spot where, two hundred years ago, a great battle hadbeen fought: and it was no improbability at all that a carbine-bulletshould have penetrated a sapling, nor that the tree should thereafterhave grown old with the iron at its heart. How unreasonable then wouldappear the pundit's incredulity, if persisted in: how suddenlyenlightened the rational faith of the rustic: how seasonable would befelt the useful learning of him, whose knowledge well applied can thusunfetter truth from the bandages of ignorance. 

Illustrations, if apt, are so well adapted to persuade towards aparticular line of argument, that, at the risk of diffuseness, andbecause minds being various are variously touched, one by one thoughtand one by another, I think fit to add yet more of a similar tendency:in the hope that, by a natural induction, such instances may smoothe ourway. 

When an eminent living geologist was prosecuting his researches atKirkdale cave, Yorkshire, he had calculated so nicely on the antecedentprobabilities, that his commands to the labourers were substantiallythese: "Take your mattocks, and pick up that stone flooring; then takeyour basket, and fill it--with the bones of hyænas and other creatureswhich you will find there. " We may fancy the ridicule wherewithignorance might have greeted science: but lo, the triumph of philosophy, when its mandate soon assumed a bodily shape in--bushels of bones gnawedas by wild beasts, and here and there a grinning skull that looked likea hyæna's! Do we not see how this bears on our coming argument? Such adeposit was very unlikely to be found there in the eyes of theunenlightened: but very likely to the wise man's ken. The realprobabilities were in favour of a strange fact, though the seemingprobabilities were against it. 

Take another. We are all now convinced of the existence of America; andso, some three or four hundred years back, was Christopher Columbus--butnobody else. Alone, he proved that mighty continent so probable, fromgeometrical measurements, and the balance of the world, and tides, andtrade-winds, and casual floatsams driven from some land beneath thesetting sun, that he was antecedently convinced of the fact: and itwould have been a shock to his reason, as well as to his faith, had hefound himself able to sail due west from Lisbon to China, without havingstruck against his huge probability. I purposely abstain from applyingevery illustration, or showing its specific difference regarding ourtheme. It is better to lead a mind to think for itself than to endeavourto forestall every notion. 

Another. A Kissoor merchant in Timbuctoo is told of the existence ofwater hard and cold as marble. All the experience of his nation isagainst it. He disbelieves. However, after no long time, the testimonyof two native princes who have been _fêted_ in England, and have seenice, shakes his once not unreasonable incredulity: and the additionalidea brought soon to his remembrance, that, as lead cools down from hotfluidity to a solid lump, so, in the absence of solar heat, in allprobability would water--corroborates and makes acceptable by analogouslikelihood the doctrine simultaneously evidenced by credible witnesses. 

Yet one more illustration for the last. Few things in nature appear moreunlikely to the illiterate, than that a living toad should be foundprisoned in a block of limestone; nevertheless, evidence goes to provethat such cases are not uncommon. Now, if, instead of limestone, whichis a water-product, the creature had been found embedded in granite, which is a fire-product; although the fact might have been fromeye-sight equally unimpeachable, how much more unlikely such acircumstance would have appeared in the judgment of science. To therustic, the limestone case is as stout a puzzle as the granite one; but_à priori_, the philosopher--taking into account the aqueous fluidity ofsuch a matrix at a period when reptiles were abundant, the torpidqualities of the toad itself, and the fact that time is scarcely anelement in the absence of air--arrives at an antecedent probability, which comforts his acceptance of the fact. The granite would havestaggered his reason, even though his own experience or the testimony ofothers were sufficient, nay, imperative, to assure his faith: but in thecase of limestone, Reason even helps Faith; nay, anticipates and leadsit in, by suggesting the wonder to be previously probable. How truly, and how strongly this bears upon our theme, let any such philosophizingmind consider. 

But enough of illustrations: although these, multipliable to any amount, might bring, each in its own case, some specific tendency to throw lightupon the path we mean to tread: it is wiser perhaps, as implying moreconfidence in the reader's intellectual powers, to leave other analogouscases to the suggestion of his own mind; also, not to vex him in everyinstance with the intrusive finger of an obvious application. Meanwhile, it is a just opportunity to clear the way at once of someobstructions, by disposing of a few matters personal to the writer; andby touching upon sundry other preliminary considerations. 

1. The line of thought proposed is intended to show it probable that anything which has been or is, might, viewed antecedently to its existence, by an exercise of pure reason, have by possibility been guessed: and onthe hypothesis of sufficient keenness and experience, that this idea maybe carried even to the future. Any thing, meaning every thing, is a wordnot used unadvisedly; for this is merely a suggestive treatise, startinga rule capable of infinite application: and, notwithstanding that wehave here and now confined its elucidation to some matters of religiousmoment only, as occupying a priority of importance, and at all timesdeserving the lead; still, if knowledge availed, and time and spacepermitted, I scarcely doubt that a vigorous and illuminated intellectmight so far enlarge on the idea, as to show the antecedent probabilityof every event which has happened in the kingdoms of nature, providence, and grace: nay, of directing his guess at coming matters with nouncertain aim into the realms of the immediate future. The perception ofcause in operation enables him to calculate the consequence, evenperhaps better than the prophecy of cause could in the prior case enablehim to suspect the consequence. But, in this brief life, and under itsdisturbing circumstances, there is little likelihood of accomplishing inpractice all that the swift mind sees it easy to dream in theory: and ifother and wiser pens are at all helped in the good aim to justify theways of God with man, and to clear the course of truth, by some of thenotions broadcast in this treatise, its errand will be well fulfilled. 

2. Whether or not the leading idea, so propounded, is new, or is new inits application as an auxiliary to Christian evidences, the writer isunaware: to his own mind it has occurred quite spontaneously and on asudden; neither has he scrupled to place it before others with whateverill advantage of celerity, because it seemed to his own musings to sheda flood of light upon deep truths, which may not prove unwelcome norunuseful to the doubting minds of many. It is true that in this, as inmost other human efforts, the realization of idea in concrete falls farshort of its abstract conception in the mind: there, all was clear, quick, and easy; here, the necessity of words, and the constraints of anunwilling perseverance, clog alike the wings of fancy and the feet ofsober argument: insomuch that the difference is felt to be quitehumiliating between the thoughts as they were thought, and the thoughtsas they are written. Minerva, springing from the head of Jove, is notmore unlike the heavily-treading Vulcan. 

3. Necessarily, that the argument be (so to speak) complete, and on thewise principle that no fortresses be left untaken in the rear, it mustbe the writer's fate to attempt a demonstration of the anteriorprobability of truths, which a child of reason can not only now neverdoubt as fact, but never could have thought improbable. Instance thefirst effort, showing it to have been expectable that there should, inany conceived beginning, have existed a Something, a Great Spirit, whomwe call God. To have to argue of the mighty Maker, that HE was anantecedent probability, would appear a most needless attempt; if it didnot occur as the first link in a chain of arguments less open toobjection by the thoughtless. With our little light to try to prove _àpriori_ the dazzling mystery of a Divine Tri-unity, might (unreasonablyviewed) be assailed as a presumptuous and harmful thing; but it is ourwise prerogative, if and when we can, to "Prove all things. " Moreover, we live in a world wherein Truth's greatest enemy is the man who shrinksfrom endeavouring at least to clear away the mists and clouds that veilher precious aspect; and at a time when it behooves the reverentChristian to put on his panoply of faith and prayer, and meet inargument, according to the grace and power given to him--not indeed theblaspheming infidel, for such a foe is unreasonable and unworthy of ananswer, but--the often candid, anxious, and involuntary doubter; themind, which, righteously vexed with the thousand corruptions of truth, and sorely disappointed at the conduct of its herd of false disciples, from a generous misconception is embracing error: the mind, never enoughtenderly treated, but commonly taunted as a sceptic which yet with anatural manliness asserts the just prerogative of thinking for itself:fairly enough requiring, though rarely finding, evidence either to propthe weakness of a merely educational faith, or to argue away theobjections to Christianity so rife in the clashing doctrines and unholylives of its pseudo-sectaries. One of our poets hath said, "He has nohope who never had a fear:" it is quite as true (and take this sayingfor thy comfort, any harassed misbelieving mind), He has no faith, whonever had a doubt. There is hope of a mind which doubts, because itthinks; because it troubles itself to think about what the mass ofnominal Christians live threescore years and die of very mammonism, without having had one earnest thought about one difficulty, or onemisgiving: there is hope of a man, who, not licentious nor scornful, from simple misconception, misbelieves; there is just and reasonablehope that (the misconception once removed) his faith will shine forthall the warmer for a temporary state of winter. To such do I addressmyself: not presumptuously imagining that I can satisfy by my poorthoughts all the doubts, cavils and objections of minds so keen andcurious; not affecting to sail well among the shoals of metaphysics, norto plumb unerringly the deeper gulphs of reason; but asking them forawhile to bear with me and hear me to the end patiently; with me, convinced of what ([Greek: kat' exochên]) is Truth, by far surer andstronger arguments than any of the less considerations here expounded asauxiliary thereto; to bear with me, and prove for themselves at thispenning of my thoughts (if haply I am helped in such high enterprise), whether indeed those doctrines and histories which the Christian worldadmit, were antecedently improbable, that is, unreasonable: whether, onthe contrary, there did not exist, prior to any manifestation of suchfacts and doctrines, an exceeding likelihood that they would be so andso developed: and whether on the whole, led by reason to the thresholdof faith, it may be worth while to encounter other arguments, which haverendered probabilities now certain. 

4. It is very material to keep in memory the only scope and object ofthis essay. We do not pretend to add one jot of evidence, but only toprepare the mind to receive evidence: we do not attempt to prove facts, but only to accelerate their admission by the removal of prejudice. If abed-ridden meteorologist is told that it rains, he may or he may notreceive the fact from the force of testimony; but he will certainly bemore prëdisposed to receive it, if he finds that his weatherglass isfalling rather than rising. The fact remains the same, it rains; but themind--precluded by circumstances from positive personal assurance ofsuch fact, and able only to arrive at truth from exterior evidence--isin a fitter state for belief of the fact from being already made awarethat it was probable. Let it not then be inferred, somewhat perversely, that because antecedent probabilities are the staple of our presentargument, the theme itself, Religion, rests upon hypotheses so slender:it rests not at all upon such straws as probabilities, but on posteriorevidence far more firm. What we now attempt is not to prop the ark, butfavourably to prëdispose the mind of any reckless Uzzah, who mightotherwise assail it; not to strengthen the weak places of religion, butto annul such disinclination to receive Truth, as consists in prejudiceand misconception of its likelihood. The goodly ship is built upon thestocks, the platforms are reared, and the cradle is ready; but mistakenprëconceptions may scatter the incline with gravel-stones rather thanwith grease, and thus put a needless hindrance to the launching: whereasa clear idea that the probabilities are in favour, rather than thereverse, will make all smooth, lubricate, and easy. If, then, we fail inthis attempt, no disservice whatever is done to Truth itself; no breachis made in the walls, no mine sprung, no battlement dismantled; all theevidences remain as they were; we have taken nothing away. Even grantingmatters seemed anteriorily improbable, still, if evidence proved themtrue, such anterior unlikelihood would entirely be merged in the stoutlyproven facts. Moreover, if we be adjudged to have succeeded, we haveadded nothing to Truth itself; no, nor to its outworks. That sacredtemple stands complete, firm and glorious from corner-stone totop-stone. We do but sweep away the rubbish at its base; the driftingdesert sands that choke its portals. We only serve that cause (a mosthigh privilege), by enlisting a prëjudgment in its favour. We proposeherein an auxiliary to evidence, not evidence itself; a finger-post topoint the way to faith; a little light of reason on its path. The riskis really nothing; but the advantage, under favour, may be much. 

5. It is impossible to elude the discussion of topics, which in theirdirect tendencies, or remoter inferences, may, to the author at least, prove dangerous or disputable ground. If a "great door and effectual" isopened to him, doubtless he will raise or meet with many adversaries. Besides mere haters of his creed, despisers of his arguments, andprotestors, loud and fierce against his errors; he may possibly fallfoul of divers unintended heresies; he may stumble unwittingly on therelics of exploded schisms; he may exhume controversies in metaphysicalor scholastical polemics, long and worthily extinct. If this be so, hecan only plead, _Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_. But it isopen to him also to protest against the common critical folly of makingan offender for a word: of driving analogies on all four feet, andstraining thoughts beyond their due proportions. Above all, never let areader stir one inch beyond, far less against, his own judgment: ifthere seem to be sufficient reasons, well: if otherwise, let me walkuncompanied. The first step especially is felt to be a very difficultone; perhaps very debatable: for aught I know, it may be merely a vaininsect caught in the cobweb of metaphysics, soon to be destroyed, andeasily to be discussed at leisure by some Aranean logician. However, itseemed to my midnight musings a probable mode of arriving at truth, though somewhat unsatisfactorily told from poverty of thought andlanguage. Moreover, it would have been, in such _à priori_ argument, ridiculous to have commenced by announcing a posterior conclusion: forthis cause did I do my humble best to work it out anew: and howeversupererogatory it may seem at first sight to the majority of readers, those keener minds whom I mainly address, and whose interests I wish toserve, will recognise the attempt as at least consistent: and will beready to admit that if the arduous effort prove anteriorly a First GreatCause, and His attributes, be futile (which, however, I do not admit), it was an attempt unneeded on the score of its own merits; albeit, withan obvious somewhat of justice, pure reason may desire to begin at thebeginning. No one, who thinks at all upon religion, howevermisbelieving, can entertain any mental prejudice against the existenceof a Deity, or against the received character of His attributes. Such aman would be merely in a savage state, irrational: whilst his own mind, so speculating, would stand itself proof positive of an IntellectualFather; either immediately, as in the first man's case, or mediately, asin our own, it must have sprung out of that Being, who is emphaticallythe Good One--God. But if, as is possible, a mind, capable of thinking, and keen to think on other themes, from any cause, educational or moral, has neglected this great track of mediation, has "forgotten God, " and"had him _not_ in all his thoughts, " such an one I invite to walk withme; and, in spite of all incompleteness and insufficiency, uncaptious ofmuch that may haply be fanciful or false, briefly and in outline to testwith me sundry probabilities of the Christian scheme, consideredantecedently to its elucidation. 

A GOD: AND HIS ATTRIBUTES. 

I will commence with a noble, and, as I believe, an inspired sentence:than which no truth uttered by philosophers ever was more clearly ormore sublimely expressed. "In the beginning was the Word: and the Wordwas with God; and the Word was God. " In its due course, we will considerespecially the difference between the Word and God; likewise the seemingcontradiction, but true concord, of being simultaneously God, and withGod. At present, and previously to the true commencement of our _àpriori_ thoughts, let us, by a word or two, paraphrase that brief butcomprehensive sentence, "In the beginning was the Word. " Eternity has nobeginning, as it has no end: the clock of Time is futile there: itmight as well attempt to go in vacuo. Nevertheless, in respect tofinite intelligences like ourselves, seeing that eternity is an ideatotally inconceivable, it is wise, nay it is only possible, to bepresented to the mind piecemeal. Even our deepest mathematicians do notscruple to speak of points "infinitely remote;" as if in that phrasethere existed no contradiction of terms. So, also, we pretend in ouremptiness to talk of eternity past, time present, and eternity to come;the fact being that, muse as a man may, he can entertain no idea of anexistence which is not measurable by time: any more than he can conceiveof a colour unconnected with the rainbow, or of a musical note beyondthe seven sounds. The plain intention of the words is this: place thestarting-post of human thought as far back into eternity as you will, beit what man counts a thousand ages, or ten thousand times ten thousand, or be these myriads multiplied again by millions, still, in any suchBeginning, and in the beginning of all beginnings (for so must creaturestalk)--then was God. He Was: the scholar knows full well the force ofthe original term, the philological distinctions between [Greek: eimi]and [Greek: gignomai]: well pleased, he reads as of the Divinity [Greek:ên], He self-existed; and equally well pleased he reads of the humanity[Greek: egennêthê], he was born. The thought and phrase [Greek: ên]sympathizes, if it has not an identity, with the Hebrew's unutterableName. HE then, whose title, amongst all others likewise denotingexcellence supreme and glory underivative, is essentially "I am;" HEwho, relatively to us as to all creation else, has a new name wiselychosen in "the Word, "--the great expression of the idea of God; thismighty Intelligence is found in any such beginning self-existent. Thatteaching is a mere fact, known posteriorly from the proof of all thingscreated, as well as by many wonderful signs, and the clear voice ofrevelation. We do not attempt to prove it; that were easy and obvious:but our more difficult endeavour at present is to show how antecedentlyprobable it was that God should be: and that so being, He should beinvested with the reasonable attributes, wherewithal we know Hisglorious Nature to be clothed. 

Take then our beginning where we will, there must have existed in that"originally" either Something, or Nothing. It is a clear matter toprove, _à posteriori_, that Something did exist; because somethingexists now: every matter and every derived spirit must have had aFather; _ex nihilo nihil fit_, is not more a truth, than that creationmust have had a Creator. However, leaving this plain path (which I onlypoint at by the way for obvious mental uses), let us now try to get atthe great antecedent probability that in the beginning Something shouldhave been, rather than Nothing. 

The term, Nothing, is a fallacious one: it does not denote an existence, as Something does, but the end of an existence. It is in fact anegation, which must prësuppose a matter once in being and possible tobe denied; it is an abstraction, which cannot happen unless there besomewhat to be taken away; the idea of vacuity must be posterior to thatof fullness; the idea of no tree is incompetent to be conceived withoutthe previous idea of _a_ tree; the idea of nonentity suggests, _ex vitermini_, a pre-existent entity; the idea of Nothing, of necessity, prësupposes Something. And a Something once having been, it would stilland for ever continue to be, unless sufficient cause be found for itsremoval; that cause itself, you will observe, being a Something. Thechances are forcibly in favour of continuance, that is of perpetuity;and the likelihoods proclaim loudly that there should be an Existence. It was thus, then, antecedently more probable, than in any imaginablebeginning from which reason can start, Something should be foundexistent, rather than Nothing. This is the first probability. 

Next; of what nature and extent is this Something, this Being, likely tobe?--There will be either one such being, or many: if many, the manyeither sprang from the one, or the mass are all self-existent; in theformer case, there would be a creation and a God: in the latter, therewould be many Gods. Is the latter antecedently more probable?--let ussee. First, it is evident that if many are probable, few are moreprobable, and one most probable of all. The more possible gods you takeaway, the more do impediments diminish; until, that is to say, youarrive at that One Being, whom we have already proved probable. Moreover, many must be absolutely united as one; in which case the manyis a gratuitous difficulty, because they may as well be regarded for allpurposes of worship or argument as one God: or the many must have beenin essence more or less disunited; in which case, as a state of anything short of pure concord carries in itself the seeds of dissolution, needs must that one or other of the many (long before any possiblebeginnings, as we count beginnings, looking down the past vista ofeternity), would have taken opportunity by such disturbing causes tobecome absolute monarch: whether by peaceful persuasion, or hostilecompulsion, or other mode of absorbing disunions, would be indifferent;if they were not all improbable, as unworthy of the God. Perpetuity ofdiscord is a thing impossible; every thing short of unity tends todecomposition. Any how then, given the element of eternity to work in, a one great Supreme Being was, in the created beginning, an _à priori_probability. That all other assumptions than that of His true andeternal Oneness are as false in themselves as they are derogatory to therational views of deity, we all now see and believe; but the directproofs of this are more strictly matters of revelation than of reason:albeit reason too can discern their probabilities. Wise heathens, suchas Socrates and Cicero, who had not our light, arrived nevertheless atsome of this perception; and thus, through conscience and intelligence, became a law unto themselves: because that, to them, as now to any oneof us who may not yet have seen the light, the anterior likelihoodexisted for only one God, rather than more; a likelihood which preparesthe mind to take as a fundamental truth, "The Lord our God is oneJehovah. "

Next; Self-existence combined with unity must include the probableattribute, or character, Ubiquity; as I now proceed to show. On the sameprinciple as that by which we have seen Something to be likelier thanNothing, we conclude that the same Something is more probable to beevery where, than the same Nothing (if the phrase were not absurd), tobe any where: we may, so to speak, divide infinity into spaces, andprove the position in each instance: moreover, as that Something isessentially--not a unit as of many, but--unity involving all, it followsas most probable that this Whole Being should be ubiquitous; in otherparlance, that the one God should be every where at once: also, therebeing no limit to what we call Space, nor any imaginable hostile powerto place a constraint upon the One Great Being, this Whole Being must beubiquitous to a degree strictly infinite: "HE is in every place, beholding the evil and the good. "

Such a consideration (and it is a perfectly true one) renders necessarythe next point, to wit, that God is a Spirit. No possible substance canbe every where at once: essence may, but not substance. Corporeity inany shape must be local; local is finite; and we have just proved theanterior probability of a One great Existence being (notwithstandingunity of essence) infinite. Illocal and infinite are convertible terms:spirit is illocal; and, as God is infinite--that is, illocal--it isclear that "God is a Spirit. "

We have thus (not attempting to build up faith by such slight tools, butonly using them to cut away prejudice) arrived at the high probabilityof a God invested with His natural qualities or attributes;Self-existence, Unity, the faculty of being every where at once and thatevery where Infinitude; and essentially of a Spiritual nature, notmaterial. His moral, or accidental attributes (so to speak), were, antecedently to their expression, equally easy of being provedprobable. First, with respect to Power: given no disturbing cause--(weshall soon consider the question of permitted evil, and its origin; butthis, however disturbing to creatures, will be found not only none toGod, but, as it were, only a ray of His glory suffered to be broken forprismatic beauty's sake, a flash of the direction of His energiessuffered to be diverted for the superior triumph of good in that daywhen it shall be shown that "God hath made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the time of visitation")--with the _datum_ then ofno disturbing cause obstructing or opposing, an infinite being must beable to do all things within the sphere of such infinity: in otherphrase, He must be all-powerful. Just so, an impetus in vacuity suffersno check, but ever sails along among the fleet of worlds; and the innateImpulse of the Deity must expand and energize throughout thatinfinitude, Himself. For a like reason of ubiquity, God must know allthings: it is impossible to escape from the strong likelihood that anyintelligent being must be conversant of what is going on under his veryeye. Again; in the case both of Power and Knowledge, alike with thecoming attributes of Goodness and Wisdom--(wisdom considered as morallydistinct from mere knowledge or awaredness; it being quite possible toconceive a cold eye seeing all things heedlessly, and a clear mindknowing all things heartlessly)--in the case, I say, of all theseaccidental attributes, there recurs for argument, one analogous to thatby which we showed the anterior probability of a self-existence. Thingspositive must precede things negative. Sight must have been, beforeblindness is possible; and before we can arrive at a just idea of nosight. Power must be precursor to an abstraction from power, orweakness. The minor-existence of ignorance is an impossibility, unlessyou prëallow the major-existence of wisdom; for it amounts to a debasingor a diminution of wisdom. Sin is well defined to be, the transgressionof law; for without law, there can be no sin. So, also, without wisdom, there can be no ignorance; without power, there can be no weakness;without goodness, there can be no evil. 

Furthermore. An affirmative--such as wisdom, power, goodness--can existabsolutely; it is in the nature of a Something: but a negative--such asignorance, weakness, evil--can only exist relatively; and it would, indeed, be a Nothing, were it not for the previous and now simultaneousexistence of its wiser, stronger, and better origin. Abstract evil is asdemonstrably an impossibility as abstract ignorance, or abstractweakness. If evil could have self-existed, it would in the moment of itseternal birth have demolished itself. Virtue's intrinsic concord tendsto perpetual being: vice's innate discord struggles always with a forcetowards dissolution. Goodness, wisdom, power have existences, and havehad existences from all eternity, though gulphed within the Godhead; andthat, whether evidenced in act or not: but their corruptions have had nosuch original existence, but are only the same entities perverted. Lovewould be love still, though there were no existent object for itsexercise: Beauty would be beauty still, though there were no createdthing to illustrate its fairness: Power would be power still, thoughthere be no foe to combat, no difficulty to be overcome. Hatred, ill-favour, weakness, are only perversions or diminutions of these. Power exists independently of muscles or swords or screws or levers;love, independently of kind thoughts, words, and actions; beauty, independently of colours, shapes, and adaptations. Just so is Wisdomphilosophically spoken of by a truly royal and noble author:

"I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and find out the knowledge of cleverinventions. Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom; I am understanding; Ihave strength. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, beforehis works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, orever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth;before the mountains were fixed, or the hills were made. When Heprepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass upon the faceof the depth; when he established the clouds above; when he strengthenedthe foundations of the deep: Then was I by him, as one brought up withhim: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; rejoicingin the habitable parts of his earth; and my delights were with the sonsof men. "

King Solomon well knew of Whom he wrote thus nobly. Eternal wisdom, power, and goodness, all prospectively thus yearning upon man, andincorporate in One, whose name, among his many names, is Wisdom. Wisdom, as a quality, existed with God; and, constituting full pervasion of hisessence, was God. 

But to return, and bind to a conclusion our ravelled thoughts. As, originally, the self-existent being, unbounded, all-knowing, might takeup, so to speak, if He willed, these eternal affirmative excellences ofwisdom, power, and goodness; and as these, to every rationalapprehension, are highly worthy of his choice, whereas their derivativeand inferior corruptions would have been most derogatory to anyreasonable estimate of His character; how much more likely was it thatHe should prefer the higher rather than the lower, should take theaffirmative before the negative, should "choose the good, and refuse theevil, "--than endure to be endowed with such garbled, demoralizing, finite attributes as those wherewith the heathen painted the Pantheon. What high antecedent probability was there, that if a God should be (andthis we have proved highly probable too)--He should be One, ubiquitous, self-existent, spiritual: that He should be all-mighty, all-wise, andall-good?

THE TRIUNITY. 

Another deep and inscrutable topic is now to engage our thoughts--themystery of a probable Triunity. While we touch on such high themes, theChristian's presumption ever is, that he himself approaches them withreverence and prayer; and that, in the case of an unbeliever, any suchmind will be courteous enough to his friendly opponent, and wise enoughrespecting his own interest and safety lest these things be true, toenter upon all such subjects with the seriousness befitting theirimportance, and with the restraining thought that in fact they may besacred. 

Let us then consider, antecedently to all experience, with what sort ofdeity pure reason would have been satisfied. It has already arrived atUnity, and the foregoing attributes. But what kind of Unity is probable?Unity of Person, or unity of Essence? A sterile solitariness, easilyunderstandable, and presumably incommunicative? or an absolute oneness, which yet relatively involves several mysterious phases of its ownexpansive love? Will you think it a foregone conclusion, if I assert thesuperior likelihoods of the latter, and not of the former? Let us comethen to a few of many reasons. First: it was by no means probable to besupposed anteriorly, that the God should be clearly comprehensible: yethe must be one: and oneness is the idea most easily apprehended of allpossible ideas. The meanest of intellectual creatures could comprehendhis Maker, and in so far top his heights, if God, being truly one in oneview, were yet only one in every view: if, that is to say, there existedno mystery incidental to his nature: nay, if that mystery did notamount to the difficulty of a seeming contradiction. I judge it likely, and with confidence, that Reason would prërequire for his God, a Being, at once infinitely easy to be apprehended by the lowest of His spiritualchildren, and infinitely difficult to be comprehended by the highest ofHis seraphim. Now, there can be guessed only two ways of compassing sucha prërequirement: one, a moral way; such as inventing a deity who couldbe at once just and unjust, every where and no where, good and evil, powerful and weak; this is the heathen phase of Numen's character, andis obviously most objectionable in every point of view: the other wouldbe a physical way; such as requiring a God who should be at oncematerial and immaterial, abstraction and concretion; or, for a stillmore confounding paradox to Reason (considered as antagonist to Faith, in lieu of being strictly its ally), an arithmetical contradiction, analgebraic mystery, such as would be included in the idea of CompositeUnity; one involving many, and many collapsed into one. Some such enigmawas probable in Reason's guess at the nature of his God. It is theChristian way; and one entirely unobjectionable: because it is the onlyinsuperable difficulty as to His Nature which does not debase the notionof Divinity. But there are also other considerations. 

For, secondly. The self-existent One is endowed, as we found probable, with abundant loving-kindness, goodness overflowing and perpetual. Is itreasonable to conceive that such a character could for a moment besatisfied with absolute solitariness? that infinite benevolence should, in any possible beginning, be discovered existent in a sort of selfishonly-oneness? Such a supposition is, to the eye of even unenlightenedReason, so clearly a _reductio ad absurdum_, that men in all countriesand ages have been driven to invent a plurality of Gods, for verysociety sake: and I know not but that they are anteriorly wiser and morerational than the man who believes in a Benevolent Existence eternallyone, and no otherwise than one. Let me not be mistaken to imply thatthere was any likelihood of many cöexistent gods: that was a reasonableimprobability, as we have already seen, perhaps a spiritualimpossibility: but the anterior likelihood of which I speak goes toshow, that in One God there should be more than one cöexistence: each, by arithmetical mystery, but not absurdity, pervading all, cöequals, each being God, and yet not three Gods, but one God. That there shouldbe a rational difficulty here--or, rather, an irrational one--I haveshown to be Reason's prërequirement: and if such a one as I, or anyother creature, could now and here (ay, or any when or any where, inthe heights of highest heaven, and the far-stretching distance ofeternity) solve such intrinsic difficulty, it would demonstrably be onenot worthy of its source, the wise design of God: it would prove thatriddle read, which uncreate omniscience propounded for the baffling ofthe creature mind. No. It is far more reasonable, as well as far morereverent, to acquiesce in Mystery, as another attribute inseparable fromthe nature of the Godhead; than to quibble about numerical puzzles, andindulge unwisely in objections which it is the happy state of noblerintelligences than man on earth is, to look into with desire, and toexercise withal their keen and lofty minds. 

But we have not yet done. Some further thoughts remain to be thrown outin the third place, as to the prëconceivable fitness or propriety ofthat Holy Union, which we call the trinity of Persons who constitute theSelf-existent One. If God, being one in one sense, is yet likely toappear, humanly speaking, more than one in another sense; we have toinquire anteriorly of the probable nature of such other intimate Beingor Beings: as also, whether such addition to essential oneness is likelyitself to be more than one or only one. As to the former of thesequestions: if, according to the presumption of reason (and accordingalso to what we have since learned from revelation; but there may begood policy in not dotting this book with chapter and verse)--if theDeity thus loved to multiply Himself; then He, to whom there can existno beginning, must have so loved, so determined, and so done from alleternity. Now, any conceivable creation, however originated, must havehad a beginning, place it as far back as you will. In any succession ofnumbers, however infinitely they may stretch, the commencement at leastis a fixed point, one. But, this multiplication of Deity, this complexsimplicity, this intricate easiness, this obvious paradox, thissub-division and con-addition of a One, must have taken place, so soonas ever eternal benevolence found itself alone; that is, in eternity, and not in any imaginable time. So then, the Being or Beings wouldprobably not have been creative, but of the essence of Deity. Take alsofor an additional argument, that it is an idea which detracts from everyjust estimate of the infinite and all-wise God to suppose He should takecreatures into his eternal counsels, or consort, so to speak, familiarlywith other than the united sub-divisions, persons, and cöequals ofHimself. It was reasonable to prëjudge that the everlasting companionsof Benevolent God, should also be God. And thus, it appears antecedentlyprobable that (what from the poverty of language we must call) themultiplication of the one God should not have been created beings; thatis, should have been divine; a term, which includes, as of right, theattribution to each such Holy Person, of all the wondrouscharacteristics of the Godhead. 

Again: as to the latter question; was it probable that such so-calledsub-divisions should be two, or three, or how many? I do not think itwill be wise to insist upon any such arithmetical curiosity as a perfectnumber; nor on such a toy as an equilateral triangle and its properties;nor on the peculiar aptitude for sub-division in every thing, to bediscerned in a beginning, a middle, and an end; nor in the considerationthat every fact had a cause, is a constancy, and produces a consequence:neither, to draw any inferences from the social maxim that for counsel, companionship, and conversation, the number three has some specialfitness. Some other similar fancies, not altogether valueless, might bealluded to. It seems preferable, however, on so grand a theme, toattempt a deeper dive, and a higher flight. We would then, reverently asalways, albeit equally as always with the free-born boldness of God'sintellectual children, attempt to prëjudge how many, and with whatdistinctive marks, the holy beings into whom (Greek: ôst epos eipein)God, for very Benevolence sake, pours out Essential Unity, were likelyto be. 

Let us consider what principles, as in the case of a forthcomingcreation, would probably be found in action, to influence suchcreation's Author. 

First of all, there would be Will, a will energized by love, disposingto create: a phase of Deity aptly and comprehensively typified to allminds by the name of a universal Father: this would be the primaryimpersonation of God. And is it not so?

Secondly: there would be (with especial reference to that idea ofcreation which doubtless at most remote beginnings occupied the GoodOne's contemplation), there would be next, I repeat, in remarkableadaptation to all such benevolent views, the great idea of principle, Obedience; conforming to a Father's righteous laws, acquiescing in hisjust will, and returning love for love: such a phase could not be bettershadowed out to creatures than by an Eternal Son; the dutiful yetsupreme, the subordinate yet cöequal, the amiable yet exalted Avatar ofour God. This was probable to have been the second impersonation ofDeity. And is it not so?

Thirdly: Springing from the conjoint ideas of the Father and the Son, and with similar prospection to such instantly creative universe, therewould occur the grand idea of Generation; the mighty cöequal, pure, andquickening Impulse: aptly announced to men and angels as the HolySpirit. This was to have been the third impersonation of Divinity. Andis it not so?

Of all these--under illumination of the fore-known fact, I speak, intheir aspect of anterior probability. With respect to more possiblePersons, I at least cannot invent one. There is, to my reflection, neither need nor fitness for a fourth, or any further Principle. Ifanother can, let him look well that he be not irrationally demolishingan attribute and setting it up as a principle. Obedience is not anattribute; nor Generation; nor Will: whilst the attribute of Love, pervading all, sets these only possible three Principles going togetheras One in a mysterious harmony. I would not be misunderstood; personsare not principles; but principles may be illustrated and incorporativein persons. Essential Love, working distinctively throughout the Three, unites them instinctively as One: even as the attribute Wisdom designs, and the attribute Power arranges all the scheme of Godhead. 

And now I ask Reason, whether, prësupposing keenness, he might not havearrived by calculation of probabilities at the likelihood of these greatdoctrines: that the nature of God would be an apparent contradiction:that such contradiction should not be moral, but physical; or ratherverging towards the metaphysical, as immaterial and more profound: thatGod, being One, should yet, in his great Love, marvellously have beencompanioned from eternity by Himself: and that such Holy and UnitedConfraternity should be so wisely contrived as to serve for the brightunapproachable exemplar of love, obedience, and generation to all thefuture universe, such Triunity Itself existing uncreated. 

THE GODHEAD VISIBLE. 

We have hitherto mused on the Divinity, as on Spirit invested withattributes: and this idea of His nature was enough for all requirementsantecedently to a creation. At whatever beginning we may suppose suchcreation to have commenced, whether countless ages before our present[Greek: kosmos], or only a sufficient time to have prepared the crust ofearth; and to whatever extent we may imagine creation to have spread, whether in those remote periods originally to our system alone and atafter eras to its accompanying stars and galaxies and firmaments; or atone and the same moment to have poured material existence over space towhich our heavens are as nothing: whatever, and whenever, and wherevercreation took place, it would appear to be probable that some one personof the Deity should, in a sort, become more or less concretelymanifested; that is, in a greater or a minor degree to such createdminds and senses visible. Moreover, for purposes at least of aconcentrated worship of such creatures, that He should occasionally, orperhaps habitually, appear local. I mean, that the King of all spiritualpotentates and the subordinate Excellencies of brighter worlds thanours, the Sovereign of those whom we call angels, should will to bebetter known to and more aptly conceived by such His admiring creatures, in some usual glorious form, and some wonted sacred place. Not that anyshould see God, as purely God; but, as God relatively to them, in thecapacity of King, Creator, and the Object of all reasonable worship. Itseems anteriorly probable that one at least of the Persons in theGodhead should for this purpose assume a visibility; and should hold Hiscourt of adoration in some central world, such as now we callindefinitely Heaven. That such probability did exist in the humanforecast, as concerns a heaven and the form of God, let the testimony ofall nations now be admitted to corroborate. Every shape from a cloud toa crocodile, and every place from Æther to Tartarus, have been peopledby man's not quite irrational device with their so-called gods. But wemust not lapse into the after-argument: previous likelihood is ourharder theme. Neither, in this section, will we attempt theprobabilities of the place of heaven: that will be found at a moredistant page. We have here to speak of the antecedent credibility thatthere should be some visible phase of God; and of the shape wherein hewould be most likely, as soon as a creation was, to appear to such hiscreatures. With respect, then, to the former. Creatures, being finite, can only comprehend the infinite in his attribute of unity: the otherattributes being apprehended (or comprehended partially) in finitephases. But, unity being a purely intellectual thought, one high and drybeyond the moral feelings, involves none of the requisites of aspiritual, that is an affectionate, worship; such worship as it waslikely that a beneficent Being would, for his creatures' own elevationin happiness, command and inspire towards Himself. In order, therefore, to such worship and such inspiration acting through reason, it wouldappear fitting that the Deity should manifest Himself especially withreference to that heavenly Exemplar, the Three Divine Persons of theOne Supreme Essence already shown to have been probable. And it seemslikeliest and discreetest to my thinking, that, with this view, thesecondary phase, loving Obedience, under the dictate of the primaryphase, a loving Will, and energized by the tertiary or conjoining phasea loving Quickening Entity, should assume the visible type of Godhead, and thus concentrate unto Himself the worship of all worlds. I canconceive no scheme more simply profound, more admirably suited to itscomplex purposes, than that He, in whom dwelt the fullness of theGodhead, bodily, should take the form of God, in order that unto Himevery knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, andthings in regions under the earth. Was not all this reasonably to havebeen looked for? and tested afterwards by Scripture, in its frequentallusions to some visible phase of Deity, when the Lord God walked withAdam, and Enoch, and Abraham, and Peter, and James, and John--I ask, isit not the case?

The latter point remaining to be thus briefly touched upon, respects theprobable shape to be assumed and worn, familiarly enough to berecognised as His, by Deity thus vouchsafing Himself visible. And herewe must look down the forward stream of Time, and search among thecreatures whom thereafter God should make, to arrive at some good reasonfor, some antecedent probability of, the form which he should thusfrequently inhabit. Fire, for example, a pure and spirit-like nature, would not have been a guess unworthy of reason: but this, besides itshumbler economic uses, would endanger an idolatry of the natural emblem. So also would light be no irrational thought. And it is true that Godmight, and probably would, invest Himself in one or both of these pureessences, so seemingly congenial to a nature higher than ours: but thenthere would be some nucleus to the brilliancy and the burning; thesewould be as a veil to the Divinity; we should have need, before He weretruly visible, that the veil were laid aside: we should have to shredaway to the nucleus, which (and not the fire or light) would be the formof God. Similar objections, in themselves or in their idolatrizingtendencies, would lie against any such shape as a cloud, or a rainbow, or an angel (whatever such a being may resemble), or in fact any otherconceivable creature, whether good as the angelic case or indifferent asthat of the cloud, which the Deity, though assuming often, wouldnevertheless in every instance assume in conjunction with such hisordinary creature, and could not entirely monopolize. I mean; if God hadthe shape of a cloud, or of a rainbow, common clouds and rainbows wouldcome to be thought gods too. Reason would anticipate this objection tosuch created and too-favoured shapes: more; in every case, but one, hewould be quite at a loss to look for some type, clearly apt andprobable. That one case he might discern to be this. Known unto God areall things from the beginning to the end: and, in His fore-knowledge, Reason might have been enlightened to prophesy (as we shall hereaftersee) that for certain wise and good ends one great family out of themyriads who rejoice in being called God's children, would in a mostmarked manner fall away from Him through disobedience; and shouldthereby earn, if not the annihilation of their being, at least itsendless separation from the Blessed. Manifestly, the wisdom andbenevolence of God would be eager and swift to devise a plan for theredemption of so lost a race. Why He should permit their fall at allwill be reverentially descanted on in its proper section; meanwhile, howis it probable that God, first, by any theory consistently with truthand justice, could, and next by power and contrivance actually would, lift up again this sinful family from the pit of condemnation? Reason isto search the question well: and after much thought, you will arrive atthe truth that there was but one way probable. Rebellion against theGreat and Self-existent Author of all things, must needfully involveinfinite punishment; if only because He is infinite, and his laws of aneternal sanction. The problem then was, how to inflict the unboundedpunishment thus claimed by justice for a transgressional condition, andyet at love's demand to set the prisoner free: how to be just, andsimultaneously justifier of the guilty. That was a questionmagnificently solved by God alone: magnificently about to be solved, asaccording to our argument seemed probable, by God Triune, in wondrousself-involving council. The solution would be rationally this. Himself, in his character of filial obedience, should pay the utter penalty toHimself in his character of paternal authority, whilst Himself in thecharacter of quickening spirit, should restore the ransomed family fromdeath to life, from the power of evil unto good. Was not this a mostprobable, a most reasonably probable scheme? was it not altogether wiseand philosophical, as well as entirely generous and kind to wretchedmen?

And (returning to our present topic), was it not antecedently to havebeen expected that God the Son (so to put it) should, in the shape Hewas thereafter to assume upon earth, appear upon the eternal throne ofheaven? In a shape, however glorified and etherealized, with glisteningcountenance and raiment bright as the light, nevertheless resemblingthat more humble form, the Son of Man, who was afterwards thus by acircle of probabilities to be made in the form of God; in a shape, notliable, from its very sinfulness, to the deification either of otherworlds or of this [hero-worship is another and a lower thing altogether;we speak here of true idolatries:]--was it unlikely, I say, that in sucha shape Deity should have deigned to become visible, and have blazedManifested God, the central Sun of Heaven?--This probability, prior toour forth-flowing thoughts on the Incarnation, though in some measureanticipating them, will receive further light from the views soon to beset forth. I know not but that something is additionally due to thesuggestion following; namely: that, raise our swift imagination to whatheight we may, and stretch our searching reason to the uttermost, wecannot, despite of all inventive energies and powers of mind, conceiveany shape more beautiful, more noble, more worthy for a rationalintelligence to dwell in, more in one Homeric word [Greek: theoeides], than the glorified and etherealized human form divine. Let this serve asReason's short reply to any charge of anthropomorphism in the doctrinesof his creed: it was probable that God should be revealed to Hiscreation; and as to the form of any such revealed essence in any suchinfinite beginnings of His work, the most likely of all would appear tobe that one, wherein He, in the ages then to come, was well resolved toearn the most glorious of all triumphs, the merciful reconciliation ofeverlasting justice with everlasting love, the wise and wondrous schemeof God forgiving sinners. 

THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 

It will now be opportune to attempt elucidation of one of the darkestand deepest riddles ever propounded to the finite understanding; the _àpriori_ likelihood of evil: not, mind, its eternal existence, which is afalse doctrine; but its probable procession from the earliest createdbeings, which is a true one. 

At first sight, nothing could appear more improbable: nothing moreinconsistent with the recognised attributes of God, than that error, pain, and sorrow should be mingled in His works. These, the spontaneousoffspring of His love, one might (not all wisely) argue, must always begood and happy--because perfect as Himself. Because perfect?--Thereinlies the fallacy, which reason will at once lay bare. Perfection isattributable to no possible creature: perfection argues infinity, andinfinity is one of the prerogatives of God. However good, "very good, " acreation may be found, still it must, from essential finitude, fallshort of that Best, which is in effect the only state purelyunexceptionable. For instance, no creature can be imagined of a wisdomundiminished from the single true standard, God's wisdom: in otherphrase, every creature must be more or less departed from wisdom, thatis, verging towards folly. Again; no creature can be presumed of apurity so spotless as to rank in an equality with that of the Almighty:in other words, neither man, nor angel, nor any other creature, canexist who is not more or less--I will not say impure, positively, but--unpure negatively. Thus, the birth-mark of creation must have beenan inclination towards folly, and from purity. The mere idea ofcreatures would involve, as its great need-be, the qualifying clausethat these emanations from perfection be imperfect; and that thesechildren of purity be liable to grow unpure. They must either be thusnatured, or exist of the essence of God, that is, be other persons andphases of the Deity: such a case was possible certainly; but, as we havealready shown, not probable. And it were possible, that, in consequenceof some redemption such as we have spoken of, creatures might byingraftation into God become so entirely part of Him--bone of bone, andflesh of flesh, and spirit of spirit--that an exhortation to such blestbeings should reasonably run, "Be ye perfect. " But this infinitemunificence of the Godhead in redemption was not to be found among Hisbounties as Creator. It might indeed arise afterwards, as setting upagain the fallen creature in some safe niche of Deity: and we now knowit has arisen: "we are complete in Him. "

But this, though relevant, is a digression. Returning, and to producesome further argument against all creature perfectness; let us considerhow rational it seems to prësuppose that the mighty Maker in hisboundless love should have willed to form a long chain of classes ofexistence more and more subordinated each to the other, each good of itskind and happy in its way, but yet all needfully more or less removedfrom the high standard of uncreate Perfection. These descending links, these graduations downwards, must involve a nearer or remoter approachto evil. Now, we must bear in mind that Evil is not a principle, but aperversion: it amounts merely to a denial, a limitation, a corruption ofgood, not to the dignity of its abstract antagonism. Familiarly, butfallaciously, we talk of the evil principle, the contradictory to good:we might as well talk of the nosologic principle, the contradictory tohealth; or the darkness principle, the contradictory to light. They arecontraries, but not contradictories: they have no positive, but only arelative existence. Good and evil are verily foes, but originally therewas one cemented friendship: slender beginnings consequent on acreation, began to cause the breach: the civil war arose out of a stateof primitive peace: images betray us into errors, or I might add with aprotest against the risk of being misinterpreted, that like brothersturned to a deadly hate, they nevertheless sprang not originally out oftwo hostile and opposite hemispheres, but from one paternal hearth. Not, however, in any sense that God is the author of evil; but that God'sworkmanship, the finite creature, needfully perverted good. 

The origin of evil--that is, its birth--is a term true and clear:original evil--that is, giving it no birth but an antedate to allcreated things, suffering it to run parallel with God and good from alleternity--this is a term false and misty. The probability that goodwould be warped, and grow deteriorate; that wisdom would be dwindleddown into less and less wisdom, or foolishness; and power degeneratedmore and more towards imbecility; must arise, directly a creature shouldspring out of the Creator; and that, let astronomy or geology name anydate they will: Adam is a definite date; perhaps also the firstday's--or period's--work: but the Beginning of Creation is undated. Itwould then, under this impression of the necessary defalcation of thecreature from the strict straight line, be rational to look fordeviations: it would be rational to prësuppose that God--just, and good, and pure, and wise--should righteously be able to "charge his angelswith folly, " should verily declare that "the heavens are not pure in hissight. "

Further; it would be a possible chance (which considerations soonsucceeding would render even probable) that for a wise humiliation ofthe reasoning creature, and a just exaltation of the only Source of lifeand light and all things, one or more of such first created beings, orangels, should be suffered to fall, possibly from the vastest height, and at first by the slenderest beginnings, lower and lower into folly, impurity, and all other derelictions from the excellence of God. Thelines, once unparalleled, would, without a check, go further apart forall eternity; albeit, the primal deviation arose in time. The aerolite, dropping slowly at first, increases in swiftness as it multiplies thefathoms of descent: and if the abyss be really bottomless, howimpossible a check or a return. 

Some such terrible example would amount to a reasonable likelihood, ifonly for a lesson and a warning: to all intelligent hierarchs, be nothigh-minded, but fear; to all responsible beings, keep righteousness andreverence, and tempt not God; to all the Virtues, Dominations, Obediences, and due Subordinations of unknown glorious worlds, a loudand living exhortation to exercise, and not to let grow dim theirspiritual energies, in efforts after goodness, wisdom, and purity. Acreature state, to be happy, must be a progressive state: the capabilityof progression argues lack, or a tendency from good: and progressionitself needs a spur, lest indolence relapse towards evil. 

Additionally: we must remember that a creature's excellence before Godis the reasonable service which he freely renders: freedom, dangerousprerogative, involves choice: and choice necessitates the possibility oferror. The command to a rational intelligence would be, do this, andlive; do it not, and die: if thou doest, it is well done, good andfaithful servant; thou hast mounted by thine own heaven-blest exertionsto a higher approach towards infinite perfection; enter thou into thejoy, not merely of a creature, but of thy Lord. But, if thou doest not, it is wo to thee, unworthy hireling; thou hast broken the tie that boundthee to thy Maker--obedience, the root of happiness; thou livest onindeed, because the Former of all things cancelleth not nor endeth hisbeginning; but henceforth thine existence is, as a river whichearthquakes have divorced from its bed, and instead of flowing on forever through the fair pastures of peace and among the mountain roots ofeverlasting righteousness, thy downward course is shattery, headlong, turbulent, and destructive; black-throated whirlpools here, miasmaticmarshes there, a cataract, a shoal, a rapid; until the remorselessstream, lashing among rocks which its own riot rendered sterile, poursits unresting waters into the thirsty sands of the Sahara. 

It was indeed probable (as since we know it to be true) that thegenerous Giver of all things would in the vast majority of casesminister such secret help to His weaker spiritual children, that, farfrom failing of continuous obedience, they should find it so unceasinglyeasier and happier that their very natures would soon come to be imbuedwith that pervading habit: and that thus, the longer any creature stoodupright, the stronger should he rest in righteousness; until, at no verydistant period, it should become morally impossible for him to fall. Such would soon be the condition of myriads, perhaps almost the whole, of heaven's innumerable host: and with respect to any darker Unit inthat multitude, for the good of all permitted to make early shipwreckof himself, simply by leaving his intelligence to plume its wings intopresumptuous flight, and by allowing his pristine goodness or wisdom togrow rusty from non-usage until that sacred panoply were eaten intoholes; with respect to any such unhappy one, and all others (if othersbe) who should listen to his glozing, and make a common cause in hisrebellion, where, I ask, is any injustice, or even unkindness done tohim by Deity? Where is any moral improbability that such a traitorshould be; or any just inconsistency chargeable on the attributes of Godin consequence of such his being? Whom can he in reason accuse buthimself for what he is? And what misery can such a one complain of, which is not the work of his own hands? And lest the Great Offendershould urge against his God, why didst thou make me thus?--Is not theanswer obvious, I made thee, but not thus. And on the rejoinder, Whydidst thou not keep me as thou madest me? Is not the reply just, I madethee reasonable, I led thee to the starting place, I taught thee and setthee going well in the beginning; thou art intelligent and free, andhast capacities of Mine own giving: wherefore didst thou throw aside Mygrace, and fly in the face of thy Creator?

On the whole; consider that I speak only of probabilities. There is adepth in this abyss of thought, which no human plummet is long enough tosound; there is a maze in this labyrinth to be tracked by no mortalclue. It involves the truth, How unsearchable are his judgments: Thouhidest thy ways in the sea, and thy paths in the deep waters, and thyfootsteps are not known. The weak point of man's argument lies in thesuggested recollection, that doubtless the Deity could, if He would, have upheld all the universe from falling by his gracious power; andthat the attribute of love concludes that so He would. However, thesethree brief considerations further will go some way to solve thedifficulty, and to strengthen the weak point; first, there are otherattributes besides love to run concurrently with it, as truth, justice, and unchangeableness:--Secondly, that grace is not grace, if manifestedindiscriminately to all: and thirdly, that to our understanding at leastthere was no possible method of illustrating the amiabilities ofGoodness, and the contrivances of Wisdom, but by the infused permissionof some physical and moral evils: Mercy, benevolence, design, would in auniverse of best have nothing to do; that universe itself would growstagnant, as incapable of progress; and the principal record of God'sexcellences, the book of redemption, would have been unwritten. Is notthen the existence of evil justified in reason's calculation? and wasnot such existence an antecedent probability?

Of these matters, thus curtly: it is time, in a short recapitulation, toreflect, that, from foregoing causes, mysteries were probable around thethrone of heaven: and, as I have attempted to show, the mystery ofimperfection, a concrete not an abstract, was likely to have sprung outof any creature universe. Reason perceives that a Gordion knot waslikely to have become entangled; in the intricate complexities ofabounding good to be mingled needfully with its own deficiencies, corruptions, and perversions: and this having been shown by Reason asanteriorly probable, its difficult involvements are now since cut by thesword of conquering Faith. 

COSMOGONY. 

These deep themes having been descanted on, however from their natureunsatisfactorily and with whatever human weakness, let us now endeavourmentally to transport ourselves to a period immediately antecedent toour own world's birth. We should then have been made aware that a greatevent was about to take place; whereat, from its foreseen consequences, the hierarchies of heaven would be prompt to shout for joy, and the holyones of God to sing for gratitude. It was no common case of a creation;no merely onemore orb, of third-rate unimportance, amongst the millionothers of higher and more glorious praise: but it was a globe and a raceabout to be unique in character and fate, and in the far-spread resultsof their existence. On it and of its family was to be contrived thescene, wherein, to the admiration of the universe, God himself in Personwas going visibly to make head against corruption in creation, and forever thus to quench that possibility again: wherein He was marvellouslyto invent and demonstrate how Mercy and Truth should meet together, howRighteousness and Peace should kiss each other. There, was going to beset forth the wonderfully complicated battle-plan, by which, forcecountervailing force, and design converging all things upon one fixedpoint, Good, concrete in the creature, should overwhelm not withoutstrife and wounds Evil concrete in the creature, and all things, "eventhe wicked, " should be seen harmoniously blending in the glory of theattributes of God. The mythologic Pan, [Greek: to pan] the greatUniversal All, was deeply interested in the struggle: for the seed ofthe woman was to bruise the serpent's head; not merely as respected thesmall orb about to be, but concerning heaven itself, the unbounded"haysh hamaim, " wherefrom dread Lucifer was thus to be ejected. On theearth, a mere planet of humble lustre, which the prouder suns aroundmight well despise, was to be exhibited this noble and analogous result;the triumph of a lower intelligence, such as man, over a higherintelligence, such as angel: because, the former race, however frail, however weak, were to find their nature taken into God, and should havefor their grand exemplar, leader and brother, the Very Lord of allarrayed in human guise; while the latter, the angelic fallen mass, inspite of all their pristine wisdom and excellency, were to set up astheir captain him, who may well and philosophically be termed theirAdversary. 

This dark being, probably the mightiest of all mere creatures as theembodiment of corrupted good and perversion of an archangelic wisdom, was about to be suffered to fall victim to his own overtoppingambitions, and to drag with him a third part of the heavenly host--sometributary monarchs of the stars: thus he, and those his colleagues, should become a spectacle and a warning to all creatures else; to standfor spirits' reading in letters of fire a deeply burnt-in record howvast a gulf there is between the Maker and the made; how impassable abarrier between the derived intelligence and its infinite Creator. Suchan unholy leader in rebellion against good--let us call him _A_ or _B_, or why not for very euphony's sake Lucifer and Satanas?--such acorrupted excellence of heaven was to meet his final and inevitabledisgrace to all eternity on the forthcoming battle-field of earth. Wouldit not be probable then that our world, soon to be fashioned and stockedwith its teeming reasonable millions, should concentrate to itself thegaze of the universe, and, from the deeds to be done in it, shouldarrogate towards man a deep and fixed attention: that "the morning starsshould sing together, and all the sons of God should shout for joy. " Letus too, according to the power given to us, partake of such attentionantecedently in some detail: albeit, as always, very little can betracked of the length and breadth of our theme. 

What would probably be the nature of such world and of such creatures, in a physical point of view? and what, in a moral point of view? It isnot necessary to divide these questions: for the one so bears upon theother, or rather the latter so directs and pervades the former, that wemay briefly treat of both as one. 

The first probability would be, that, as the creature Man so to beabased and so to be exalted must be a responsible and reasonable being, every thing--with miraculous exceptions just enough to prove therule--every thing around him should also be responsible and reasonable. In other words, that, with such exceptions as before alluded to, thewhole texture of this world should bear to an inquisitive intellect thestamp of cause and effect: whilst for the mass, such cause and effectshould be so little intrusive, that their easier religion mightrecognise God in all things immediately, rather than mediately. Forinstance: take the cases of stone, and of coal; the one so needful forman's architecture, the other for his culinary warmth. Now, howeversimple piety might well thank the Maker for having so stored earth withthese for necessary uses; they ought, to a more learned, though not lesspious ken, to seem not to have been created by an effort of the GreatFather _quâ stone_, or _quâ coal_. Such a view might satisfy theordinary mind: but thinkers would see no occasion for a miracle; whenChrist raises Lazarus from the dead, it would have been a philosophicalfault to have found the grave-clothes and swathing bandages readyloosened also. Unassisted man can do that: and unhelped common causescan generate stone and coal. The deposits of undated floods, theperiodical currents of lava, the still and stagnant lake, and thefurious up-bursting earthquake; all these would be called into play, andnot the unrequired, I had almost said unreasonable, energies, which wecall miracle. An agglutination of shells, once peopled with life; acrystallized lump of segregate minerals, once in a molten state; a massof carbonated foliage and trunks of tropical trees, buried by longchanges under the soil, whereover they had once waved greenly luxuriant;these, and no other, should have been man's stone and coal. Thisinstance affects the reasonableness of such material creation. Takeanother, bearing upon its analogous responsibilities. As there was to bewarred in this world the contest between good and evil, it would beexpectable that the crust of man's earth, anteriorly to man's existenceon it, should be marked with some traces that the evil, though newlyborn so far as might regard man's own disobedience, nevertheless hadexisted antecedently. In other words: it was probable that there shouldexist geological evidences of suffering and death: that the giganticichthyosaurus should be found fixed in rock with his cruel jaws closedupon his prey: that the fearful iguanodon should leave the tracks ofhaving desolated a whole region of its reptile tribes: that volcanoesshould have ravaged fair continents prolific of animal and vegetablelife: that, in fine, though man's death came by man's sin, yet thatdeath and sin were none of man's creating: he was only to draw down uponhis head a prëexistent wo, an ante-toppling rock. Observe then, thatthese geological phenomena are only illustrations of my meaning: andwhether such parables be true or false, the argument remains the same:we never build upon the sand of simile, but only use it here and therefor strewing on the floor. Still, I will acknowledge that theintroduction of such fossil instances appears to me wisely thrown in asaffects their antecedent probability, because ignorant comments uponscriptural cosmogony have raised the absurdest objections against thetruth of scriptural science. There is not a tittle of known geologicalfact, which is not absolutely reconcilable with Genesis and Job. Butthis is a word by the way: although aimed not without design against oneof the poor and paltry weak-holds of the infidel. 

ADAM. 

Remembering, then, that these are probabilities, and that the wholetreatise purports to be nothing but a sketch, and not a finishedpicture, we have suggestively thus thrown out that the material world, man's home as man, was likely to have been prepared, as we posteriorlyknow it to be. Now, what of man's own person, circumstances, andindividuality? Was it likely that the world should be stocked at oncewith many several races, or with one prolific seed? with a specimen ofevery variety of the genus man, or with the one generic type capable offorming those varieties?--Answer. One is by far the likelier in itself, because one thing must needs be more probable than many things:additionally; Wisdom and Power are always economical, and where one willsuit the purpose, superfluities are rejected. That this one seed, covering with its product a various globe under all imaginabledifferences of circumstance and climate, should, in the lapse of ages, generate many species of the genus Man, was antecedently probable. Forexample, morality, peace and obedience would exercise transformingpowers: their opposites the like in an opposite way. We can well fancy amild and gentle race, as the Hindoo, to spring from the formereducationals: and a family with flashing eyes and strongly-visagednatures, as the Malay, from a state of hatred, war, and license. We canwell conceive that a tropical sun should carbonize some of that tenderfabric the skin, adding also swift blood and fierce passions: while anarctic climate would induce a sluggish, stunted race. And, when to theseconsiderations we add that of promiscuous unions, we arrive at the justlikelihood that the whole family of man, though springing from one root, should, in the course of generations, be what now we see it. 

Further. How should this prolific original, the first man, be created?and for a name let us call him Adam; a justly-chosen name enough, asalluding to his medium colour, ruddiness. Should he have been cast uponthe ground an infant, utterly helpless, requiring miraculous aid andguidance at every turn? Should he be originated in boyhood, that hot andtumultuous time, when the creature is most rash, and least qualified forself-government? or should he be first discerned as an adult, in hisprime, equal alike to obedience and rule, to moral control and moralenergy?

Add also here; is it probable there would be any needless intervalplaced to pröcreations? or rather, should not such original seed be ableimmediately to fulfil the blank world call upon him, and as thegreatly-teeming human father be found fitted from his birth to propagatehis kind? The questions answer themselves. 

Again. Should this first man have been discovered originally surroundedwith all the appliances of an after-civilization, clad, and housed, andrendered artificial? nor rather, in a noble and naturally royal aspectappear on the stage of life as king of the natural creation, sole warderof a garden of fruits, with all his food thus readily concocted, and aneastern climate tempered to his nakedness?

Now, as to the solitariness of this one seed. From what we have alreadymused respecting God's benevolence, it would seem probable that theMaker might not see it good that man should be alone. The seed, originally one, proved (as was likely) to resemble its great parent, God, and to be partitionable, or reducible into persons; though withreasonable differences as between creature and Creator. Woman--Eve, theliving or life-giving--was likely to have sprung out of the compositeseed, Man, in order to companionship and fit society. Moreover, it wereexpectable that in the pattern creature, composite man, there should beinvolved some apt, mysterious typification of the same creature, after afore-known fall restored, as in its perfect state of rëunion with itsMaker. _A posteriori_, the figurative notion is, that the Redeemedfamily, or mystical spouse, is incorporated in her husband, theRedeemer: not so much in the idea of marriage, as (taking election intoview) of a cöcreation; as it were rib of rib, and life woven into life, not copulated or conjoined, but immingled in the being. This is amystery most worthy of deep searching; a mystery deserving philosophiccare, not less than the more unilluminate enjoyment of humble andbelieving Christians. I speak concerning Christ and his church. 

THE FALL. 

There is a special fitness in the fact, long since known and now to beperceived probable, that if mankind should fail in disobedience, itshould rather be through the woman than through the man. Because, theman, _quâ man_, and the deputed head of all inferior creatures, wasnearer to his Creator, than the woman; who, _quâ woman_, proceeded outof man. She was, so to speak, one step further from God, _ab origine_, than man was; therefore, more liable to err and fall away. To my ownmind, I confess, it appears that nothing is more anteriorly probablethan the plain, scriptural story of Adam and Eve: so simple that thechild delights in it; so deep that the philosopher lingers there with anequal, but more reasonable joy. 

For, let us now come to the probabilities of a temptation; and a fall;and what temptation; and how ordered. 

The heavenly intelligences beheld the model-man and model-woman, rational beings, and in all points "very good. " The Adversary panted forthe fray, demanding some test of the obedience of this new, favouriterace. And the Lord God was willing that the great controversy, which hefore-knew, and for wise purposes allowed, should immediately commence. Where was the use of a delay? If you will reply, To give time tostrengthen Adam's moral powers: I rejoin, he was made with more thanenough of strength infused against any temptation not entering by theportal of his will: and against the open door of will neither time norhabits can avail. Moreover, the trial was to be exceedingly simple; nodifficult abstinence, for man might freely eat of every thing but one;no natural passion tempted; no exertion of intelligence requisite. Adamlived in a garden; and his Maker, for proof of reasonable obedience, provides the most easy and obvious test of it--do not eat that apple. Was it, in reality, an improbable test; an unsuitable one? Was it not, rather, the likeliest in itself, and the fittest as addressed to thenew-born, rational animal, which imagination could invent, or an amiablefore-knowledge of all things could desire? Had it been to climb somearduous height without looking back, or on no account to gaze upon thesun, how much less apt and easy of obedience! Thus much for the test. 

Now, as to the temptation and its ordering. A creature, to be temptedfairly, must be tempted by another equal or lower creature; and throughthe senses. If mere spirit strives with spirit, plus matter, the strifeis unequal: the latter is clogged; he has to fight in the net ofRetiarius. But if both are netted, if both are spirit plus matter, (thatis, material creatures, ) there is no unfairness. Therefore, it wouldseem reasonable that the Adversary in person should descend from hismere spirituality into some tangible and humbled form. This could notwell be man's, nor the semblance of man's: for the first pair would wellknow that they were all mankind: and, if the Lord God himself wasaccustomed to be seen of them as in a glorified humanity, it would bemanifestly a moral incongruity to invest the devil in a similar form. Itmust, then, be the shape of some other creature; as a lion, or a lamb, or--why not a serpent? Is there any improbability here? and not ratheras apt an avatar of the sinuous and wily rebel, the dangerous, fascinating foe, as poetry at least, nay, as any sterner contrivancecould invent? The plain fact is, that Reason--given keenness--might haveguessed this also antecedently a likelihood. 

A few words more on other details probable to the temptation. Wonderfulas it may seem to us with our present experience, in the case of thefirst woman it would scarcely excite her astonishment to be accosted inhuman phrase by one of the lower creatures; and in no other way couldthe tempter reach her mind. Much as Milton puts it, Eve sees a beautifulsnake, eating, not improbably, of the forbidden apple. Attracted by anatural curiosity, she would draw near, and in a soft sweet voice theserpent, _i. E. _ Lucifer in his guise, would whisper temptation. It waslikely to have been keenly managed. Is it possible, O fair and favouredmistress of this beautiful garden, that your Maker has debarred you fromits very choicest fruit? Only see its potencies for good: I, a poorreptile, am instantly thereby endued with knowledge and the privilege ofspeech. Am I dead for the eating?--ye shall not surely die; but shallbecome as gods yourselves; and this your Maker knoweth. 

The marvellous fruit, invested thus with mystery, and tinctured withthe secret charm of a thing unreasonably, nay, harmfully, forbidden, would then be allowed silently to plead its own merits. It was good forfood: a young creature's first thought. It was pleasant to the eyes:addressing a higher sense than mere bodily appetite, than mentalpredilection for form and colour which marks fine breeding among men. Itwas also to be desired to make one wise; here was the climax, the greatmoral inducement which an innocent being might well be taken with;irrespectively of the one qualification that this wisdom was to beplucked in spite of God. Doubtless, it were probable, that had man notfallen, the knowledge of good would never have been long withheld: buthe chose to reap the crop too soon, and reaped it mixed with tares, good, and evil. 

I need not enlarge, in sermon form, upon the theme. It was probable thatthe weaker creature, Woman, once entrapped, she would have charms enoughto snare her husband likewise: and the results thus perceived to havebeen likely, we have long since known for fact. That a depravedknowledge should immediately occasion some sort of clothing to beinstituted by the great moral Governor, was likely: and there would benothing near at hand, in fact nothing else suitable, but the skins ofbeasts. There is also a high probability that some sort of slayingshould take place instantly on the fall, by way of reference to thecoming sacrifice for sin; and for a type of some imputed righteousness. God covered Man's evil nakedness with the skins of innocent slainanimals: even so, Blessed is he whose unrighteousness is forgiven, andwhose sin is covered. 

With respect to restoration from any such fall. There seems a remarkableprior probability for it, if we take into account the empty places inheaven, the vacant starry thrones which sin had caused to be untenanted. Just as, in after years, Israel entered into the cities and the gardensof the Canaanite and other seven nations, so it was anteriorly likely, would the ransomed race of Men come to be inheritors of the mansionsamong heavenly places, which had been left unoccupied by the fallen hostof Lucifer. There was a gap to be filled: and probably there would besome better race to fill it. 

THE FLOOD. 

Themes like those past and others still to come, are so immense, thateach might fairly ask a volume for its separate elucidation. A fewseeds, pregnant with thought, are all that we have here space, or time, or power to drop beside the world's highway. The grand outlines of ourrace command our first attention: we cannot stop to think and speak ofevery less detail. Therefore, now would I carry my companion across thepatriarchal times at once to the era of the Deluge. Let us speculate, ashitherto, antecedently, throwing our minds as it were into some angelicprior state. 

If, as we have seen probable, evil (a concretion always, not anabstraction) made some perceptible ravages even in the unbounded sphereof a heavenly creation, how much more rapid and overwhelming would itsavalanche (once ill-commenced) be seen, when the site of its inflictionwas a poor band of men and women prisoned on a speck of earth. Howlikely was it that, in the lapse of no long time, the whole world shouldhave been "corrupt before God, and filled with wickedness. " Howprobable, that taking into account the great duration of pristine humanlife, the wicked family of man should speedily have festered up into anintolerable guiltiness. And was this dread result of the primal curseand disobedience to be regarded as the Adversary's triumph? Had thisAccuser--the Saxon word is Devil--had this Slanderer of God's attributethen really beaten Good? or was not rather all this swarming sin anawful vindication to the universe of the great need-be that Godunceasingly must hold his creature up lest he fall, and that out of Himis neither strength nor wisdom? Was Deity, either in Adam's case orthis, baffled--nor rather justified? Was it an experiment which hadreally failed; nor rather one which, by its very seeming failure, provedthe point in question, the misery of creatures when separate from God?Yea, the evil one was being beaten down beneath his very trophies in sadTarpeian triumph: through conquest and his children's sins heighteninghis own misery. 

Let us now advert to a few of the anterior probabilities affecting thisevil earth's catastrophe. It is not competent to us to trench upon suchulterior views as are contained in the idea of types relatively toanti-types. Neither will we take the fanciful or poetical aspect ofcoming calamity, that earth, befouled with guilt, was likely to bewashed clean by water. It is better to ask, as more relevant, in whatother way more benevolent than drowning could, short of miracle, therace be made extinct? They were all to die in their sins, and swell inanother sphere the miserable hosts of Satan. There was no hope for them, for there was no repentance. It was infinitely probable that God'slong-suffering had worn out every reasonable effort for theirrestoration. They were then to die; but how?--in the least painfulmanner possible. Intestine wars, fevers, famines, a general burning-upof earth and all its millions, were any of these preferable sorts ofdeath to that caused by the gradual rise of water, with hope of lifeaccorded still even to the last gurgle? Assuredly, if "the tendermercies of the wicked are cruel, " the judgments of the Good one aretempered well with mercy. 

Moreover, in the midst of this universal slaughter there was one goodseed to be preserved: and, as Heaven never works a miracle where commoncause will suit the present purpose, it would have been inconsistent tohave extirpated the wicked by any such means as must demonstrate thegood to have been saved only by super-human agency. 

The considerations of humanity, and of the divine less-intervention, addthat of the natural and easy agency of a long-commissioned comet. No"_Deus e machinâ_" was needed for this effort: one of His ministers offlaming fire was charged to call forth the services of water. This wasan easy and majestic interference. Ever since man fell--yea, ages beforeit--the omniscient eye of God had foreseen all things that shouldhappen: and his ubiquity had, possibly from The Beginning, sped a cometon its errant way, which at a calculated period was to serve to wash theglobe clean of its corruptions: was to strike the orbit of earth just inthe moment of its passage, and disturbing by attraction the fountains ofthe great deep, was temporarily to raise their level. Was not this ajust, a sublime, and a likely plan? Was it not a merciful, a perfect, and a worthy way? Who should else have buried the carcases on thosefierce battle-fields, or the mouldering heaps of pestilence andfamine?--But, when at Jehovah's summons, heaving to the comet's mass, the pure and mighty sea rises indignant from its bed, by drowning tocleanse the foul and mighty land--how easy an engulfing of the corpses;how awful that universal burial; how apt their monumental epitaphwritten in water, "The wicked are like the troubled sea that cannotrest;" how dread the everlasting requiem chanted for the whelmed race bythe waves roaring above them: yea, roaring above them still! for inthat chaotic hour it seems probable to reason that the land changedplace with ocean; thus giving the new family of man a fresh young worldto live upon. 

NOAH. 

When the world, about to grow so wicked, was likely thus to have beencleansed, and so renewed, the great experiment of man's possiblerighteousness was probable to be repeated in another form. We may fancysome high angelic mind to have gone through some such line of thought asthis, respecting the battle and combatants. Were those champions, Lucifer and Adam, really fit to be matched together? Was the tourneyjust; were the weapons equal; was it, after all, a fair fight?--on oneside, the fallen spirit, mighty still, though fallen, subtlest, mostunscrupulous, most malicious, exerting every energy to rear a rebelkingdom against God; on the other, a new-born, inexperienced, innocent, and trustful creature, a poor man vexed with appetites, and as naked forabsolute knowledge in his mind as for garments on his body. Was it, inthis view of the case, an equal contest? were the weapons of thatwarfare matched and measured fairly?

Some such objection, we may suppose, might seem to have been admissible, as having a show at least of reason: and, after the world was to havebeen cleansed of all its creatures in the manner I have mentioned, a newchampion is armed for the conflict, totally different in every respect;and to reason's view vastly superior. 

This time, the Adam of renewed earth is to be the best and wisest, nay, the only good and wise one of the whole lost family: a man, with theexperience of full six hundred years upon his hoary brow, with theunspeakable advantage of having walked with God all those long-drawncenturies, a patriarch of twenty generations, recognised as the onegreat and faithful witness, the only worshipper and friend of hisCreator. Could a finer sample be conceived? was not Noah the only sparkof spiritual "consolation" in the midst of earth's dark death? and wasnot he the best imaginable champion to stand against the wiles of thedevil? Verily, reason might have guessed, that if Deity saw fit to renewthe fight at all, the representative of man should have been Noah. 

Before we touch upon the immediate fall of this new Adam also, at a timewhen God and reason had deserted him, it will be more orderly to alludeto the circumstances of his preservation in the flood. How, in such ahurlyburly of the elements, should the chosen seed survive? No house, nor hill-top, no ordinary ship would serve the purpose: still less theunreasonable plan of any cavern hermetically sealed, or any aerialchariot miraculously lifted up above the lower firmament. To use plainand simple words, I can fancy no wiser method than a something between ahouse and a diving-bell; a vessel, entirely storm-tight and water-tight, which nevertheless for necessary air should have an open window at thetop: say, one a cubit square. This, properly hooded against delugingrain, and supplied with such helps to ventilation as leathern pipes, airtunnels and similar appliances, would not be an impracticable method. However, instead of being under water as a diving-bell, the vessel wouldbe better made to float upon the rising flood, and thus continuallykeeping its level, would be ready to strike land as the waters assuaged. 

Now, as to the size of this ark, this floating caravan, it must needs bevery large; and also take a great time in building. For, suffering causeand effect to go on without a new creation, it was reasonable to supposethat the man, so launching as for another world on the ocean ofexistence, would take with him (especially if God's benevolence soordered it) all the known appliances of civilized life; as well as apair or two of every creature he could collect, to stock withal therenewed earth according to their various excellences in their kinds. Thelengthy, arduous, and expensive preparation of this mighty ark--a vesselwhich must include forests of timber and consume generations inbuilding; besides the world-be-known collection of all manner of strangeanimals for the stranger fancy of a fanatical old man; not to mentionalso the hoary Preacher's own century of exortations: with how greatmoral force all this living warning would be calculated to act upon theworld of wickedness and doom! Here was the great ante-diluvianpotentate, Noah, a patriarch of ages, wealthy beyond ourcalculations--(for how else without a needless succession of miraclescould he have built and stocked the ark?)--a man of enormous substance, good report, and exalted station, here was he for a hundred and twentyyears engaged among crowds of unbelieving workmen, in constructing amost extravagant ship, which, forsooth, filled with samples of all thisworld's stores, was to sail with our only good family in search of abetter. Moreover, Noah here declares that our dear old mother-earth isto be destroyed for her iniquities by rain and sea: and he exhorts us bya solid evidence of his own faith at least, if by nothing else, torepent, and turn to him, whom Abel, Seth, and Enoch, as well as thisgood Noah, represent as our Maker. Would not such sneers and taunts beprobable: would they not amply vindicate the coming judgment? Was notthe "long-suffering of God" likely to have thus been tried "while theark was preparing?" and when the catastrophe should come, had not thatevil generation been duly warned against it? On the whole, it would havebeen Reason's guess that Noah should be saved as he was; that the arkshould have been as we read of it in Genesis; and that the veryimmensity of its construction should have served for a preaching tomankind. As to any idea that the ark is an unreasonable (some have evensaid ridiculous) incident to the deluge, it seems to me to havefurnished a clear case of antecedent probability. 

Lastly: Noah's fall was very likely to have happened: not merely in thetheological view of the matter, as an illustration of the truth that nohuman being can stand fast in righteousness: but from the justconsideration that he imported with him the seeds of an impure state ofsociety, the remembered luxuries of that old world. For instance, amongthe plants of earth which Noah would have preserved for future insertionin the soil, he could not have well forgotten the generous, treacherousVine. That to a righteous man, little used to all unhallowed sources ofexhilaration, this should have been a stepping-stone to a defalcationfrom God, was likely. It was probable in itself, and shows the honestyas well as the verisimilitude of Scripture to read, that "Noah began tobe a husbandman, and planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, andwas drunken. " There was nothing here but what, taking all things intoconsideration, Reason might have previously guessed. Why then withholdthe easier matter of an afterward belief?

BABEL. 

This book ought to be read, as mentally it is written, with at the endof every sentence one of those _et ceteras_, which the genius of a Cokeinterpreted so keenly of the genius of a Littleton: for, far moreremains on each subject to be said, than in any one has been attempted. 

Let us pass on to the story of Babel: I can conceive nothing more _àpriori_ probable than the account we read in Scripture. Briefly considerthe matter. A multitude of men, possibly the then whole human family, once more a fallen race, emigrate towards the East, and come to a vastplain in the region of Shinar, afterwards Chaldæa. Fertile, well-watered, apt for every mundane purpose, it yet wanted one greatrequisite. The degenerate race "put not their trust in God:" they didnot believe but that the world might some day be again destroyed bywater: and they required a point of refuge in the possible event of asecond deluge from the broken bounds of ocean and the windows of theskies. They had come from the West; more strictly the North-west, a landof mountains, as they deemed them, ready-made refuges: and their scheme, a probable one enough, was to construct some such mountain artificially, so that its top might reach the clouds, as did the summit of Ararat. This would serve the twofold purpose of outwitting any further attemptto drown them, and of making for themselves a proud name upon the earth. So, the Lord God, in his etherealized human form (having taken counselwith His own divine compeers), coming in the guise wherein He was wontto walk with Adam and with Enoch and his other saints of men, "came downand saw the tower:" truly, He needed not have come, for ubiquity washis, and omniscience; but in the days when God and man were (so tospeak) less chronologically divided than as now, and while yet thetrial-family was young, it does not seem unlikely that He should. Godthen, in his aspect of the Head of all mankind, took notice of thatdangerous and unholy combination: and He made within His Triune Mind thewise resolve to break their bond of union. Omniscience had herein a viewto ulterior consequences benevolent to man, and He knew that it would bea wise thing for the future world, as well as a discriminative checkupon the race then living, to confuse the universal language into manydiscordant dialects. Was this in any sense an improbable or impropermethod of making "the devices of the wicked to be of none effect, and oflaughing to scorn the counsels of the mighty?" Was it not to have beenexpected that a fallen race should be disallowed the combinative forcenecessary to a common language, but that such force should be dissipatedand diverted for moral usages into many tongues?--There they were, allthe chiefs of men congregated to accomplish a vast, ungodly scheme: andinterposing Heaven to crush such insane presumption--and withalthereafter designing to bless by arranging through such means the futureinterchange of commerce and the enterprise of nationalities--He, in hisTrinity, was not unlikely to have said, "Let us go down, and confoundtheir language. " What better mode could have been devised to scattermankind, and so to people the extremities of earth? In order that thevarious dialects should crystallize apart, each in its discriminativelump, the nucleus of a nation; that thereafter the world might be ableno longer to unite as one man against its Lord, but by conflictinginterests, the product of conflicting languages, might give to good abetter chance of not being altogether overwhelmed; that, though many "amultitude might go to do evil, " it should not thenceforward be the wholeconsenting family of man; but that, here by one and there by one, theremembrance of God should be kept extant, and evil no longer acquire anaccumulated force, by having all the world one nation. 

JOB. 

Every scriptural incident and every scriptural worthy deserves its ownparticular discussion: and might easily obtain it. For example; theanterior probability that human life in patriarchal times should havebeen very much prolonged, was obvious; from consideration of--1, thebenevolence of God; 2, the inexperience of man; and 3, the claim soyoung a world would hold upon each of its inhabitants: whilst Holy Writitself has prepared an answer to the probable objection, that the yearswere lunar years, or months; by recording that Arphaxad and Salah andEber and Peleg and Reu and Serug and Nahor, descendants of Shem, eachhad children at the average age of two-and-thirty, and yet the lives ofall varied in duration from a hundred and fifty years to five hundred. And many similar credibilities might be alluded to: what shall I say ofAbraham's sacrifice, of Moses and the burning bush, of Jonah also, andElisha, and of the prophets? for the time would fail me to tell howprobable and simple in each instance is its deep and marvellous history. There is food for philosophic thought in every page of ancient JewishScripture scarcely less than in those of primitive Christianity: here, after our fashion, we have only touched upon a sample. 

The opening scene to the book of Job has vexed the faith of many veryneedlessly: to my mind, nothing was more likely to have literally andreally happened. It is one of those few places where we get an insightinto what is going on elsewhere: it is a lifting off the curtain ofeternity for once, revealing the magnificent simplicities constantlypresented in the halls of heaven. And I am moved to speak about ithere, because I think a plain statement of its sublime probabilitieswill be acceptable to many: especially if they have been harassed by thedoubts of learned men respecting the authorship of that rare history. Itsignifies nothing who recorded the circumstances and conversations, solong as they were true, and really happened: given power, opportunity, and honesty, a life of Dr. Johnson would be just as fair in fact, ifwritten by Smollett, as by Boswell, or himself. Whether then Job, thewealthy prince of Uz, or Abraham, or Moses, or Elisha, or Eliphaz, orwhoever else, have placed the words on record, there they stand, true;and the whole book in all its points was anteriorly likely to have beendecreed a component part of revelation. Without it, there would havebeen wanting some evidence of a godly worship among men through the longand dreary interval of several hundred years: there would never havebeen given for man's help the example of a fortitude, and patience, andtrust in God most brilliant; of a faith in the resurrection andredeemer, signal and definite beyond all other texts in JewishScripture: as well as of a human knowledge of God in his works beyondall modern instance. However, the excellences of that narrative arescarcely our theme: we return to the starting-post of its probability, especially with reference to its supernatural commencement. What we haveshown credible, many pages back, respecting good and evil and thedenizens of heaven, finds a remarkable after-proof in the two firstchapters of Job; and for some such reason, by reference, these twochapters were themselves anteriorly to have been expected. 

Let us see what happened:

"There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves beforethe Lord, and Satan came also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan, whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From goingto and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. And theLord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there isnone like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one thatfeareth God and escheweth evil? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for naught? Hast thou not made a hedge about him, andabout his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hastblessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in theland. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all he hath, and he willcurse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all thathe hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. SoSatan went forth from the presence of the Lord. "--[Job 1. 6-13. ]

It is a most stately drama: any paraphrase would spoil its dignity, itsquiet truth, its unpretending, yet gigantic lineaments. Note: inallusion to our views of evil, that Satan also comes among the sons ofGod: note, the generous dependence placed by a generous Master on hisservant well-upheld by that Master's own free grace: note, Satan'sconstant imputation against piety when blessed of God with worldlywealth, Doth he serve for naught? I can discern no cause wherefore allthis scene should not have truly happened; not as in vision of some holyman, but as in fact. Let us read on, before further comment:

"Again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselvesbefore the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himselfbefore the Lord. And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? AndSatan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hastthou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in theearth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and eschewethevil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst meagainst him, to destroy him without cause. And Satan answered the Lord, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for hislife. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life. So Satan went forth fromthe presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils, from the soleof his foot unto his crown. "

Some such scene, displaying the devil's malice, slandering sneers, andpermitted power, recommends itself to my mind as antecedently to havebeen looked for: in order that we might know from what quarter many oflife's evils come; with what aims and ends they are directed; whatlimits are opposed to our foe; and Who is on our side. We needed somesuch insight into the heavenly places; some such hint of what iscontinually going on before the Lord's tribunal; we wanted this plainand simple setting forth of good and evil in personal encounter, ofinnocence awhile given up to malice for its chastening and its triumph. Lo, all this so probable scene is here laid open to us, and many, against reason, disbelieve it!

Note, in allusion to our after-theme, the _locus_ of heaven, that thereis some such usual place of periodical gathering. Note, the openunchiding loveliness dwelling in the Good One's words, as contrastedwith the subtle, slanderous hatred of the Evil. And then the vulgarproverb, Skin for skin: this pious Job is so intensely selfish, that lethim lose what he may, he heeds it not; he cares for nothing out of hisown skin. And there are many more such notabilities. 

Why did I produce these passages at length? For their Doric simplicity;for their plain and masculine features; for their obvious truthfulness;for their manifest probability as to fact, and expectability previouslyto it. Why on earth should they be doubted in their literal sense? andwere they not more likely to have happened than to have been invented?We have no such geniuses now as this writer must have been, who by thepure force of imagination could have created that tableau. Milton hadJob to go to. Simplicity is proof presumptive in favour of the plaininspiration of such passages: for the plastic mind which could conceiveso just a sketch, would never have rested satisfied, without havingpainted and adorned it picturesquely. Such rare flights of fancy arealways made the most of. 

One or two thoughts respecting Job's trial. That he should at last giveway, was only probable: he was, in short, another Adam, and had anotherfall; albeit he wrestled nobly. Worthy was he to be named among God'schosen three, "Noah, Daniel, and Job:" and worthy that the Lord shouldbless his latter end. This word brings me to the point I wish to touchon; the great compensation which God gave to Job. 

Children can never be regarded as other than individualities: andnotwithstanding Eastern feelings about increase in quantity, its qualityis, after all, the question for the heart. I mean that many children tobe born, is but an inadequate return for many children dying. If afather loses a well-beloved son, it is small recompense of that achingvoid that he gets another. For this reason of the affections, andbecause I suppose that thinkers have sympathized with me in thedifficulty, I wish to say a word about Job's children, lost and found. It will clear away what is to some minds a moral and affectionateobjection. Now, this is the state of the case. 

The patriarch is introduced to us as possessing so many camels, andoxen, and so forth; and ten children. All these are represented to himby witnesses, to all appearance credible, as dead; and he mourns for hisgreat loss accordingly. Would not a merchant feel to all intents andpurposes a ruined man, if he received a clear intelligence fromdifferent parts of the world at once that all his ships and warehouseshad been destroyed by hurricanes and fire? Faith given, patiencefollows: and the trial is morally the same, whether the news be true orfalse. Remarkably enough, after the calamitous time is past, when thegood man of Uz is discerned as rewarded by heaven for his patience bythe double of every thing once lost--his children remain the same innumber, ten. It seems to me quite possible that neither camels, &c. , norchildren, really had been killed. Satan might have meant it so, andschemed it; and the singly-coming messengers believed it all, as alsodid the well-enduring Job. But the scriptural word does not go to saythat these things happened; but that certain emissaries said theyhappened. I think the devil missed his mark: that the messengers werescared by some abortive diabolic efforts; and that, (with a naturalincrease of camels, &c. , meanwhile, ) the patriarch's paternal heart wasmore than compensated at the last, by the restoration of his own dearchildren. They were dead, and are alive again; they were lost, and arefound. Like Abraham returning from Mount Calvary with Isaac, it was theResurrection in a figure. 

If to this view objection is made, that, because the boils of Job werereal, therefore, similarly real must be all his other evils; I reply, that in the one temptation, the suffering was to be mental; in theother, bodily. In the latter case, positive, personal pain, was the gistof the matter: in the former, the heart might be pierced, and the mindbe overwhelmed, without the necessity of any such incurable afflictionas children's deaths amount to. God's mercy may well have allowed theevil one to overreach himself; and when the restoration came, how doublewas the joy of Job over those ten dear children. 

Again, if any one will urge that, in the common view of the case, Job atthe last really has twice as many children as before, for that he hasten old ones in heaven, and ten new ones on earth: I must, in answer, think that explanation as unsatisfactory to us, as the verity of itwould have been to Job. Affection, human affection, is not sonumerically nor vicariously consoled: and it is, perhaps, worth whilehere to have thrown out (what I suppose to be) a new view of the case, if only to rescue such wealth as children from the infidel's sneer ofbeing confounded with such wealth as camels. Moreover, such a paternalreward was anteriorly more probable. 

JOSHUA. 

How many of our superficial thinkers have been staggered at the greatmiracle recorded of Joshua; and how few, even of the deeper sort, comparatively, may have discerned its aptness, its science, and itsanterior likelihood: "Sun! stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon. " Now, consider, for we hope to vindicate eventhis stupendous event from the charge of improbability. 

Baal and Ashtaroth, chief idols of the Canaanites, were names for sunand moon. It would manifestly be the object of God and His ambassador tocast utter scorn on such idolatry. And what could be more apt than thatJoshua, commissioned to extirpate the corrupted race, shouldmiraculously be enabled, as it were, to bind their own gods to aid inthe destruction of such votaries?

Again: what should Joshua want with the moon for daylight, to help himto rout the foes of God more fiercely? Why not, according to theastronomical ignorance of those days, let her sail away, unconsorted bythe sun, far beyond the valley of Ajalon? There was a reason, here, ofsecret, unobtruded science: if the sun stopped, the moon must stop too;that is to say, both apparently: the fact being that the earth must, forthe while, rest on its axis. This, I say, is a latent, scientific hint;and so, likewise, is the accompanying mention as a fact, that the Lordimmediately "rained great stones out of heaven" upon the flying host. For would it not be the case that, if the diurnal rotation of earth weresuddenly to stop, the impetus of motion would avail to raise high intothe air by centrifugal force, and fling down again by gravity, suchunanchored things as fragments of rock?

Once more: our objector will here perhaps inquire, Why not then commandthe earth to stop--and not the sun and moon? if thus probably Joshua orhis Inspirer knew better? Answer. Only let a reasonable man considerwhat would have been the moral lesson both to Israelite and toCanaanite, if the great successor of Moses had called out, incomprehensibly to all, "Earth, stand thou still on thine axis;"--andlo! as if in utter defiance of such presumption, and to vindicate openlythe heathen gods against the Jewish, the very sun and moon in heavenstopped, and glared on the offender. I question whether such a noon-daymiracle might not have perverted to idolatry the whole believing host:and almost reasonably too. The strictly philosophical terms would haveentirely nullified the whole moral influence. God in his word neversuffers science to hinder the progress of truth: a worldly philosophydoes this almost in every instance, darkening knowledge with a cloud ofwords: but the science of the Bible is usually concealed in someneighbouring hint quite handy to the record of the phenomena expressedin ordinary language. In fact, for all common purposes, no astronomerfinds fault with such phrases as the moon rising, or the sun setting: hespeaks according to the appearance, though he knows perfectly well thatthe earth is the cause of it, and not the sun or moon. Carry this out inJoshua's case. 

On the whole, the miracle was very plain, very comprehensible, and veryprobable. It had good cause: for Canaan felt more confidence in theprotection of his great and glorious Baal, than stiff-necked Judah inhis barely-seen divinity: and surely it was wise to vindicate the truebut invisible God by the humiliation of the false and far-seen idol. This would constitute to all nations the quickly-rumoured proof thatJehovah of the Israelites was God in heaven above as well as on theearth beneath. And, considering the peculiar idolatries of Canaan, itseems to me that no miracle could have been better placed and bettertimed--in other words, anteriorly more probable--than the command ofobedience to the sun and to the moon. I suppose that few persons whoread this book will be unaware, that the circumstance is alluded to aswell in that honest heathen, old Herodotus, as in the learned JewJosephus. The volumes are not near me for reference to quotations: butsuch is fact: it will be found in Herodotus, about the middle ofEuterpe, connected with an allusion to the analogous case of Hezekiah. 

No miracles, on the whole (to take one after-view of the matter), couldhave been better tested: for two armies (not to mention all surroundingcountries) must have seen it plainly and clearly: if then it had neveroccurred, what a very needless exposure of the falsity of the JewishScriptures! These were open, published writings, accessible to all:Cyrus and Darius and Alexander read them, and Ethiopian eunuchs;Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, with all other nations of the earth, hadfree access to those records. Only imagine if some recent history ofEngland, Adolphus's, or Stebbing's, contained an account of a certainday in George the Fourth's reign having had twenty-four hour's daylightinstead of the usual admixture; could the intolerable falsehood last aminute? Such a placard would be torn away from the records of the landthe moment a rash hand had fixed it there. But, if the matter werefact, how could any historian neglect it?--In one sense, the veryimprobability of such a marvel being recorded, argues the probability ofit having actually occurred. 

Much more might here be added: but our errand is accomplished, if anystumbling-block had been thus easily removed from some erring thinker'spath. Surely, we have given him some reason for faith's due acceptanceof Joshua's miracle. 

THE INCARNATION. 

In touching some of the probabilities of our blessed Lord's career, itwould be difficult to introduce and illustrate the subject better, thanby the following anecdote. Whence it is derived, has escaped my memory;but I have a floating notion that it is told of Socrates in Xenophon orPlato. At any rate, by way of giving fixity thereto and picturesqueness, let us here report the story as of the Athenian Solomon:

Surrounded by his pupils, the great heathen Reasoner was beingquestioned and answering questions: in particular respecting theprobability that the universal God would be revealed to his creatures. "What a glorious King would he appear!" said one, possibly the brilliantAlcibiades: "What a form of surpassing beauty!" said another, notunlikely the softer Crito. "Not so, my children, " answered Socrates. "Kings and the beautiful are few, and the God, if he came on earth as anexemplar, would in shape and station be like the greater number. ""Indeed, Master? then how should he fail of being made a King of men, for his goodness, and his majesty, and wisdom?" "Alas! my children, " waspure Reason's just rejoinder, "[Greek: oi pleiones kakoi], most men areso wicked that they would hate his purity, despise his wisdom, and asfor his majesty, they could not truly see it. They might indeed admirefor a time, but thereafter (if the God allowed it), they would even huntand persecute and kill him. " "Kill him!" exclaimed the eager group oflisteners; "kill Him? how should they, how could they, how dare theykill God?" "I did not say, kill God, " would have been wise Socrates'sreply, "for God existeth ever: but men in enmity and envy might even beallowed to kill that human form wherein God walked for an ensample. Thatthey could, were God's humility: that they should, were their ownmalice: that they dared, were their own grievous sin and peril ofdestruction. Yea, " went on the keen-eyed sage, "men would slay him bysome disgraceful death, some lingering, open, and cruel death, even suchas the death of slaves!"--Now slaves, when convicted of capital crime, were always crucified. 

Whatever be thought of the genuineness of the anecdote, its uses are thesame to us. Reason might have arrived at the salient points of Christ'scareer, and at His crucifixion!

I will add another topic: How should the God on earth arrive there? Wehave shown that His form would probably be such as man's; but was he todescend bodily from the atmosphere at the age of full-grown perfection, or to rise up out of the ground with earthquakes and fire, or to appearon a sudden in the midst of the market-place, or to come with legions ofhis heavenly host to visit his Temple? There was a wiser way than these, more reasonable, probable, and useful. Man required an exemplar forevery stage of his existence up to the perfection of his frame. Theinfant, and the child, and the youth, would all desire the human-God tounderstand their eras; they would all, if generous and such as he wouldlove, long to feel that He has sympathy with them in every early trial, as in every later grief. Moreover, the God coming down with supernaturalglories or terrors would be a needless expense of ostentatious power. He, whose advent is intended for the encouragement of men to exercisetheir reason and their conscience; whose exhortation is "he that hathears to hear, let him hear;" that pure Being, who is the chief preacherof Humility, and the great teacher of man's responsiblecondition--surely, he would hardly come in any way astoundinglymiraculous, addressing his advent not to faith, but to sight, andchallenging the impossibility of unbelief by a galaxy of spiritualwonders. Yet, if He is to come at all--and a word or two of thishereafter--it must be either in some such strange way; or in the usualhuman way; or in a just admixture of both. As the first is needlesslyoverwhelming to the responsible state of man, so the second isneedlessly derogatory to the pure essence of God; and the third ideawould seem to be most probable. Let us guess it out. Why should not thishighest Object of faith and this lowest Subject of obedience be born, seemingly by human means, but really by divine? Why should there not befound some unspotted holy virgin, betrothed to a just man and soon to behis wife, who, by the creative power of Divinity, should miraculouslyconceive the shape divine, which God himself resolved to dwell in? Whyshould she not come of a lineage and family which for centuries beforehad held such expectation? Why should not the just man, her affianced, who had never known her yet, being warned of God in a dream of thisstrange, immaculate conception, "fear not to take unto him Mary hiswife, " lest the unbelieving world should breathe slander on her purity, albeit he should really know her not until after the Holy Birth. Thereis nothing unreasonable here; every step is previously credible: andinvention's self would be puzzled to devise a better scheme. TheVirgin-born would thus be a link between God and man, the greatMediator: his natures would fulfil every condition required of theirdouble and their intimate conjunction. He would have arrived at humanitywithout its gross beginnings, and have veiled his Godhead for a while ina pure though mortal tenement. He would have participated in all thetenderness of woman's nature, and thus have reached the keenestsensibilities of men. 

Themes such as these are inexhaustible: and I am perpetually consciousof so much left unsaid, that at every section I seem to have said nextto nothing. Nevertheless, let it go; the good seed yet shall germinate. "Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou shall find it after manydays. "

It may to some minds be a desideratum, to allude to the anteriorprobability that God should come in the flesh. Much of this has beenanticipated under the head of Visible Deity and elsewhere; as thistreatise is so short, one may reasonably expect every reader to take itin regular course. For additional considerations: the Benevolent Makerwould hardly leave his creatures to perish, without one word of warningor one gleam of knowledge. The question of the Bible is consideredfurther on: but exclusively of written rules and dogmas, it was likelythat Our Father should commission chosen servants of his own, orally toteach and admonish; because it would be in accordance with man'sreasonable nature, that he should best and easiest learn from theteaching his brethren. So then, after all lesser ambassadors had failed, it was to be expected that He should send the highest one of all, saying, "They will reverence my Son. " We know that this really did occurby innumerable proofs, and wonderful signs posterior: and now, after theevent, we discern it to have been anteriorly probable. 

It was also probable in another light. This world is a world ofincarnations; nothing has a real and potential existence, which is notembodied in some form. A theory is nothing; if no personal philosopher, no sect, or school of learners, takes it up. An opinion is mere air;without the multitude to give it all the force of a mighty wind. Anidea is mere spiritual light; if unclad in deeds, or in words written orspoken. So, also, of the Godhead: He would be like all these. He wouldpervade words spoken, as by prophets or preachers: He would includewords written, as in the Bible: He would influence crowds withspirit-stirring sentiments: He would embody the theory of all things inone simple, philosophic form. As this material world is constituted, Godcould not reveal himself at all, excepting by the aid of matter. I mean;even granting that He spiritually inspired a prophet, still the man wasnecessary: he becomes an inspired man; not mere inspiration. So, also, of a book; which is the written labour of inspired men. There is nodoing without the Humanity of God, so far as this world is concerned, any more than His Deity can be dispensed with, regarding the worldsbeyond worlds, and the ages of ages, and the dread for ever and ever. 

MAHOMETANISM. 

It seems expedient that, in one or two instances, I should attempt theillustration of this rule of probability in matters beyond the Bible. Asvery fair ones, take Mahometanism and Romanism. And first of the former. 

At the commencement of the seventh century, or a little previously tothat era, we know that a fierce religion sprang up, promulgated by afalse prophet. I wish briefly to show that this was antecedently to havebeen expected. 

In a moral point of view, the Christian world, torn by all manner ofschisms, and polluted by all sorts of heresies, had earned for the humanrace, whether accepting the gospel or refusing it, some signal andextensive punishment at the hands of Him, who is the Great Retributor aswell as the Munificent Rewarder. In a physical point of view, thecivilized kingdoms of the earth had become stagnant, arguing thatcorrupt and poisonous calm which is the herald of a coming tempest. Theheat of a true religion had cooled down into lukewarm disputations aboutnothings, scholastical and casuistic figments; whilst at the same timethe prevalence of peaceful doctrines had amalgamated all classes into aluxurious indolence. Passionate Man is not to be so satisfied; and thetime was fully come for the rise of some fierce spirit, who shouldchange the tinsel theology of the crucifix for the iron religion of thesword: who should blow in the ears of the slumbering West the shrillwar-blast of Eastern fervencies; who should exchange the dull rewards ofcanonization due to penance, or an after-life voluntary humiliationunder pseudo-saints and angels, for the human and comprehensible joys ofanimal appetite and military glory: who should enlist under his bannerall the frantic zeal, all the pent-up licentiousness, all theheart-burning hatreds of mankind, stifled either by a positivebarbarism, or the incense-laden cloud of a scarcely-masked idolatry. 

Thus, and then, was likely to arise a bold and self-confiding hero, leaning on his own sword: a man of dark sentences, who, by judiciouslypilfering from this quarter and from that shreds of truth to jewel hisblack vestments of error, and by openly proclaiming that Oneness of theobject of all worship which besotted Christendom had then, from unduereverence to saints and martyrs, virgins and archangels, well nighforgotten; a man who, by pandering to human passions and setting wide asvirtue's avenue the flower-tricked gates of vice; should thus, likeLucifer before him, in a comet-like career of victory, sweep thestartled firmament of earth, and drag to his erratic orbit the stars ofheaven from their courses. 

Mahomet; his humble beginnings; his iron perseverance under earlyprobable checks; his blind, yet not all unsublime, dependence onfatality; his ruthless, yet not all undeserved, infliction of fire andsword upon the cowering coward race that filled the westernworld;--these, and all whatever else besides attended his train oftriumphs, and all whatever besides has lasted among Moors, and Arabs, and Turks, and Asiatics, even to this our day--constitute to a thinkingmind (and it seems not without cause) another antecedent probability. Let the scoffer about Mahomet's success, and the admirer of his hotchpotKoran; let him to whom it is a stumbling-block that error (if indeed, quoth he, it be more erroneous than what Christendom counts truth)should have had such free course and been glorified, while so-calledTruth, _pede claudo_, has limped on even as now cautiously andingloriously through the well-suspicious world; let him who thinks hesees in Mahomet's success an answer to the foolish argument of some, whotest the truth of Christianity by its Gentile triumphs; let him ponderthese things. Reason, the God of his idolatry, might, with anarchangel's ken, have prophesied some Mahomet's career: and, so far fromsuch being in the nature of any objection to Faith, the idea thus thrownout, well-mused upon, will be seen to lend Faith an aid in the way ofprevious likelihood. 

"There is one God, and Mahomet is his prophet!" How admirably calculatedsuch a war-cry would be for the circumstances of the seventh century. The simple sublimity of Oneness, as opposed to school-theology andcatholic demons: the glitter of barbaric pomp, instead of tameobservances: the flashing scimetar of ambition to supersede the cross: aturban aigretted with jewels for the twisted wreath of thorns. As humannature is, and especially in that time was, nothing was more expectable(even if prophetic records had not taught it), than the rise andprogress of that great False Prophet, whose waving crescent even nowblights the third part of earth. 

ROMANISM. 

We all know how easy it is to prophesy after the event: but it would beuncandid and untrue to confound this remark with another, cousin-germaneto it; to wit: how easy it is to discern of any event, after it hashappened, whether or not it were antecedently likely. When the race isover, and the best horse has won (or by clever jockey-management, theworst), how obviously could any gentleman on the turf, now in possessionof particulars, have seen the event to have been so probable, that hewould have staked all upon its issue. 

Carry out this familiar idea; which, as human nature goes, is none theweaker as to illustration, because it is built upon the rule "_parviscomponere magna_. " Let us sketch a line or two of that greatfore-shadowing cartoon, the probabilities of Romanism. 

That our blessed Master, even in His state as man, beheld its evilcharacteristics looming on the future, seems likely not alone from bothHis human keenness and His divine omniscience, but from here and there ahint dropped in his biography. Why should He, on several occasions, haveseemed, I will say with some apparent sharpness, to have rebuked Hisvirgin mother. --"Woman, what have I to do with thee?"--"Who are mymother and my brethren?"--"Yea--More blessed than the womb which bareme, and the paps that I have sucked, is the humblest of my truedisciples. " Let no one misunderstand me: full well I know the justexplanations which palliate such passages; and the love stronger thandeath which beat in that Filial heart. But, take the phrases as theystand; and do they not in reason constitute some warning and someprophecy that men should idolize the mother? Nothing, in fact, was morelikely than that a just human reverence to the most favoured among womenshould have increased into her admiring worship: until the humble andholy Mary, with the sword of human anguish at her heart, should becomeexaggerated and idealized into Mother of God--instead of Jesus's humanmatrix, Queen of heaven, instead of a ransomed soul herself, the joy ofangels--in lieu of their lowly fellow-worshipper, and the Rapture of theblessed--thus dethroning the Almighty. 

Take a second instance: why should Peter, the most loving, mostgenerous, most devoted of them all, have been singled out from among thetwelve--with a "Get thee behind me, Satan?"--it really had a harshappearance; if it were not that, prophetically speaking, and notpersonally, he was set in the same category with Judas, the "one who wasa devil. " I know the glosses, and the contexts, and the whole amount ofit. Folios have been written, and may be written again, to disprove thetext; but the more words, the less sense: it stands, a record graven inthe Rock; that same Petra, whereon, as firm and faithful found, our LordJesus built his early Church: it stands, a mark indelibly burnt intothat hand, to whom were intrusted, not more specially than to any otherof the saintly sent, the keys of the kingdom of heaven: it stands, alongwith the same Peter's deep and terrible apostacy, a living witnessagainst some future Church, who should set up this same Peter as theJupiter of their Pantheon: who should positively be idolizing now animage christened Peter, which did duty two thousand years ago as astatue of Libyan Jove! But even this glaring compromise was a matterprobable, with the data of human ambitions, and a rotten Christianity. 

Examples such as these might well be multiplied: bear with a word or twomore, remembering always that the half is not said which might be saidin proof; nor in answering the heap of frivolous objections. 

Why, unless relics and pseudo-sacred clothes were to be propheticallyhumbled into their own mere dust and nothing-worthiness, why should therude Roman soldiery have been suffered to cast lots for that vestment, which, if ever spiritual holiness could have been infused into merematter, must indeed have remained a relic worthy of undoubted worship?It was warm with the Animal heat of the Man inhabited by God: it washalf worn out in the service of His humble travels, and had even, onmany occasions, been the road by which virtue had gone out; not of it, but of Him. What! was this wonderful robe to work no miracles? was itnot to be regarded as a sort of outpost of the being who was Human-God?Had it no essential sacredness, no _noli-me-tangere_ quality of shiningaway the gambler's covetous glance, of withering his rude and venturoushand, or of poisoning, like some Nessus' shirt, the lewd ruffian whomight soon thereafter wear it? Not in the least. This woven web, towhich a corrupted state of feeling on religion would have raisedcathedrals as its palaces, with singing men and singing women, andsinging eunuchs too, to celebrate its virtues; this coarse cloth of somepoor weaver's, working down by the sea of Galilee or in some lane ofZion, was still to remain, and be a mere unglorified, economical, usefulgarment. Far from testifying to its own internal mightiness, it probablywas soon sold by the fortunate Roman die-thrower to a second-hand shopof the Jewish metropolis; and so descended from beggar to beggar till itwas clean worn out. We never hear that, however easy of access soinestimable relic might then have been considered, any one of thenumerous disciples, in the fervour of their earliest zeal, threw awayone thought for its redemption. Is it not strange that no St. Helena wasat hand to conserve such a desirable invention? Why is there no St. Vestment to keep in countenance a St. Sepulchre and a St. Cross? Thepoor cloth, in primitive times, really was despised. We know well enoughwhat happened afterwards about handkerchiefs imbued with miraculousproperties from holy Paul's body for the nonce: but this is an inferiorquestion, and the matter was temporary; the superior case is proved, andbesides the rule _omne majus continet in se minus_ there are differencesquite intelligible between the cases, whereabout our time would be lessprofitably employed than in passing on and leaving them unquestioned. Suffice it to say, that "God worked those special miracles, " and not theunconscious "handkerchiefs or aprons. " "Te Deum laudamus!" isProtestantism's cry; "Sudaria laudemus!" would swell the Papal choirs. 

Let such considerations as these then are in sample serve to show howevidently one might prove from anterior circumstances, (and the canon ofScripture is an anterior circumstance, ) the probability of the rise andprogress of the Roman heresies. And if any one should ask, how was sucha system more likely to arise under a Gentile rather than a Jewishtheocracy? why was a St. Paul, or a St. Peter, or a St. Dunstan, or aSt. Gengulphus, more previously expectable than a St. Abraham, a St. David, a St. Elisha, or a St. Gehazi? I answer, from the idea ofidolatry, so adapted to the Gentile mind, and so abhorrent from theJewish. Martyred Abel, however well respected, has never reached thehonours of a niche beside the altar. Jephtha's daughter, for all hermourned virginity, was never paraded, (that I wot of, ) for any otherthan a much-to-be-lamented damsel. Who ever asked, in those old times, the mediation of St. Enoch? Where were the offerings, in jewels or ingold, to propitiate that undoubted man of God and denizen of heaven, St. Moses? what prows, in wax, of vessels saved from shipwreck, hung aboutthe dripping fane of Jonah? and where was, in the olden time, thatwretched and insensate being, calling himself rational and godly, whohad ventured to solicit the good services of Isaiah as his intercessor, or to plead the merits of St. Ezekiel as the make-weight for his sins?

It was just this, and reasonably to have been expected; for when the Jewbrought in his religion, he demolished every false god, broke theirimages, slew their priests, and burnt their groves with fire. But, whena worldly Christianity came to be in vogue, when emperors adorned theirbanners with the cross, and the poor fishermen of Galilee, (in theirportly representatives, ) came to be encrusted with gems, and rustlingwith seric silk; then was made that fatal compromise; then it was likelyto have been made, which has lasted even until now: a compromise which, newly baptizing the damned idols of the heathen, keeps yet St. Bacchusand St. Venus, St. Mars and St. Apollo, perched in sobered robes uponthe so-called Christian altar; which yet pays divine honours to anancyle or a rusty nail; to the black stones at Delphi, or thegold-shrined bones at Aix; which yet sanctifies the chickens of thecapitol, or the cock that startled Peter; which yet lets a wealthysinner, by his gold, bribe the winking Pythoness, or buy dispensingclauses from "the Lord our God, the Pope. "

There is yet a swarm of other notions pressing on the mind, which tendto prove that Popery might have been anticipated. Take this view. Thereligion of Christ is holy, self-denying; not of this world's praise, and ending with the terrible sanction of eternity for good or evil: itsets up God alone supreme, and cuts down creature-merit to a pointperpetually diminishing; for the longer he does well, the more he owesto the grace which enabled him to do it. 

Now, man's nature is, as we know, diametrically opposite to all this:and unable to escape from the conviction of Christian truth in somesense, he would bend his shrewd invention to the attempt of warpingthat stern truth to shapes more consistent with his idiosyncrasies. Areligious plan might be expected, which, in lieu of a difficult, holyspirituality, should exact easy, mere observances; to say a thousandPaters with the tongue, instead of one "Our Father, " from the heart; toexact genuflections by the score, but not a single prostration of thespirit; to write the cross in water on the forehead often-times, butnever once to bear its mystic weight upon the shoulder. In spite ofself-denial, cleverly kept in sight by means of eggs, and pulse, andhair-cloth, to pamper the deluded flesh with many a carnal holiday; incontravention of a kingdom not of this world, boldly to usurp thetemporal dominion of it all: instead of the overwhelmingincomprehensibility of an eternal doom, to comfort the worst with falseassurance of a purgatory longer or shorter; that after all, vice may beburnt out; and who knows but that gold, buying up the prayers andsuperfluous righteousness of others, may not make the fiery ordeal aneasy one? In lieu of a God brought near to his creatures, infinitepurity in contact with the grossest sin, as the good Physician loveth;how sage it seemed to stock the immeasurable distance with intermediatenumia, cycle on epicycle, arc on arc, priest and bishop and pope, andmartyr, and virgin, and saint, and angel, all in their stations, at dueinterval soliciting God to be (as if His blessed Majesty were not so ofHimself!) the sinner's friend. How comfortable this to man's sweetestimation of his own petty penances; how glorifying to those "filthyrags, " his so-called righteousness: how apt to build up the hierarchistpower; how seemingly analogous with man's experience here, where clerkslay the case before commissioners, and commissioners before thegovernment, and the government before the sovereign. 

All this was entirely expectable: and I can conceive that a deepReasoner among the first apostles, even without such supernal light as"the Spirit speaking expressly, " might have so calculated on theprobabilities to come, as to have written, long ago, words akin tothese: "In the latter times some shall depart from the faith, givingheed to seductive doctrines, and fanciful notions about intermediatedeities, ([Greek: daimoniôn], ) perverting truth by hypocriticaldepartures from it, searing conscience against its own cravings afterspiritual holiness, forbidding marriage, (to invent another virtue, ) andcommanding abstinence from God's good gifts, as a means of building up acreature-merit by voluntary humiliation. " At the likelihood that such"profane and old wives' fables" should thereafter have arisen, mightPaul without a miracle have possibly arrived. 

Yet again: take another view. The Religion of Christ, though intendedto be universal in some better era of this groaning earth, was, untilthat era cometh, meant and contrived for any thing rather than aCatholicity. True, the Church is so far Catholic that it numbers of itsblessed company men of every clime and every age, from righteous Abeldown to the last dear babe christened yester-morning; true, thecommission is "to all nations, teaching them:" but, what mean thesimultaneous and easily reconciled expressions--come out from amongthem, little flock, gathered out of the Gentiles, a peculiar people, achurch militant, and not triumphant, here on earth? Thus shortly of aword much misinterpreted: let us now see what the Romanist does, what, (on human principles, ) he would be probable to do, with thisdiscriminating religion. He, chiefly for temporal gains, would make itas expansive as possible: there should be room at that table for everyguest, whether wedding-garmented or not; there would be sauces in thatpoisonous feast, fitted to every palate. For the cold, ascetical mind, acell and a scourge, and a record kept of starving fancies as callingthem ecstatic visions vouchsafed by some old Stylite to bless hisfavoured worshipper; for the painted demirep of fashionable life, therewould be a pretty pocket-idol, and the snug confessional well tenantedby a not unsympathizing father; for the pure girl, blighted in herheart's first love, the papist would afford that seemingly mercifulrefuge, that calm and musical and gentle place, the irrevocable nunnery;a place, for all its calmness, and its music, and its gentlereputations, soon to be abhorred of that poor child as a living tomb, the extinguisher of all life's aims, all its duties, uses and delights:for the bandit, a tythe of the traveller's gold would avail to pay awaythe murder, and earn for him a heap of merits kept within the cash-box:the educated, high-born and finely-moulded mind might be well amusedwith architecture, painting, carving, sweet odours, and the mostwondrous music that has ever cheated man, even while he offers up hiseasy adorations, and departs, equally complacent at the choral remediesas at the priestly absolution; while, for those good few, the trulypious and enlightened children of Rome, who mourn the corruptions oftheir church, and explain away, with trembling tongue, her obviouserrors and idolatries, for these the wily scheme, so probable, devisedan undoubted mass of truth to be left among the rubbish. True doctrines, justly held by true martyrs and true saints, holy men of God who havedied in that communion; ordinances and an existence which creep up, (heedless of corruption though, ) step by step, through past antiquity, to the very feet of the Founder; keen casuists, competent to prove anypoint of conscience or objection, and that indisputably, for they climaxall by the high authority of Popes and councils that cannot be deceived:pious treatises and manuals, verily of flaming heat, for they mingle theyearnings of a constrained celibacy with the fervencies of worship andthe cravings after God. Yes, there is meat here for every human mouth;only that, alas for men! the meat is that which perisheth, and notendureth unto everlasting life. Rome, thou wert sagely schemed; and ifLucifer devised thee not for the various appetencies of poor, deceivable, Catholic Man, verily it were pity, for thou art worthy ofhis handiwork. All things to all men, in any sense but the right, signifies nothing to anybody: in the sense of falsehoods, take theformer for thy motto; in that of single truth, in its intensity, thelatter. 

Let not then the accident--the probable accident--of the Italiansuperstition place any hindrance in the way of one whose mind is all atsea because of its existence. What, O man with a soul, is all the worldelse to thee? Christianity, whatever be its broad way of pretences, isbut in reality a narrow path: be satisfied with the day of small things, stagger not at the inconsistencies, conflicting words, and hatefulstrifes of those who say they are Christians, but "are not, but are ofthe synagogue of Satan. " Judge truth, neither by her foes nor by herfriends but by herself. There was one who said (and I never heard thatany writer, from Julian to Hobbes, ever disputed his human truth orwisdom) "Needs must that offences come; but wo be to that man by whomthe offence cometh. If they come, be not shaken in faith: lo, I havetold you before. And if others fall away, or do ought else than mybidding, what is that to thee? follow thou ME. "

THE BIBLE. 

Whilst I attempt to show, as now I desire to do, that the Bible shouldbe just the book it is, from considerations of anterior probability, Imust expand the subject a little; dividing it, first, into thelikelihood of a revelation at all; and secondly, into that of itsexpectable form and character. 

The first likelihood has its birth in the just Benevolence of ourheavenly Father, who without dispute never leaves his rational creaturesunaided by some sort of guiding light, some manifestation of himself soneedful to their happiness, some sure word of consolation in sorrow, orof brighter hope in persecution. That it must have been thus an _àpriori_ probability, has been all along proved by the innumerablepretences of the kind so constant up and down the world: no nation everexisted in any age or country, whose seers and wise men of whatever namehave not been believed to hold commerce with the Godhead. We may judgefrom this, how probable it must ever have been held. The Sages of oldGreece were sure of it from reason: and not less sure from acceptedsuperstition those who reverenced the Brahmin, or the priest ofHeliopolis, or the medicine-man among the Rocky Mountains, or the Llamaof old Mexico. I know that our ignorance of some among the mostbrutalized species of mankind, as the Bushmen in Caffraria, and thetribes of New South Wales, has failed to find among their rites anything akin to religion: but what may we not yet have to learn of goodeven about such poor outcasts? how shall we prove this negative? Foraught we know, their superstitions at the heart may be as deep and asdeceitful as in others; and, even on the contrary side, the exceptionproves the rule: the rule that every people concluded a revelation solikely, that they have one and all contrived it for themselves. 

Thus shortly of the first: and now, secondly, how should God revealhimself to men? In such times as those when the world was yet young, andthe Church concentrated in a family or an individual, it would probablybe by an immediate oral teaching; the Lord would speak with Adam; Hewould walk with Enoch; He would, in some pure ethereal garb, talk withAbraham, as friend to friend. And thereafter, as men grew, andworshippers were multiplied, He would give some favoured servant acommission to be His ambassador: He would say to an Ezekiel, "Go untothe house of Israel, and speak my words to them:" He would bid aJeremiah "Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the wordsthat I have spoken to thee:" He would give Daniel a deep vision, not tobe interpreted for ages, "Shut up the words, and seal the book even tothe time of the end:" He would make Moses grave His precepts in therock, and Job record his trials with a pen of iron. For a family, theBeatic Vision was enough: for a congregated nation, as once at Sinai, oral proclamations: for one generation or two around the world, the zealand eloquence of some great "multitude of preachers:" but, indubitably, if God willed to bless the universal race, and drop the honey of hiswords distilling down the hour-glass of Time from generation togeneration even to the latter days, there was no plan more probable, none more feasible, than the pen of a ready writer. 

Further: and which concerns our argument: what were likely to be thecharacteristic marks of such a revelation? Exclusively of a pervadingholiness, and wisdom, and sublimity, which could not be dispensed with, and in some sort should be worthy of the God; there would be, it wasprobable, frequent evidences of man's infirmity, corrupting all hetoucheth. The Almighty works no miracles for little cause: one miraclealone need be current throughout Scripture: to wit, that which preservesit clean and safe from every perilous error. But, in the succession of athousand scribes each copying from the other, needs must that the tiredhand and misty eye would occasionally misplace a letter: this was nonodus worthy of a God's descent to dissipate by miracle. 

Again: the original prophets themselves were men of various charactersand times and tribes. God addresses men through their reason; he boundnot down a seer "with bit and bridle, like the horse that has nounderstanding"--but spoke as to a rational being--"What seest thou?""Hear my words;"--"Give ear unto my speech. " Was it not then likely thatthe previous mode of thought and providential education in each holy manof God should mingle irresistibly with his inspired teaching? Should notthe herdsman of Tehoa plead in pastoral phrase, and the royal son ofAmoz denounce with strong authority? Should not David whilst a shepherdpraise God among his flocks, and when a king, cry "Give the King thyjudgments?" The Bible is full of this human individuality; and nothingcould be thought as humanly more probable: but we must, with thisdiversity, connect the other probability also, that which should showthe work to be divine; which would prove (as is literally the case)that, in spite of all such natural variety, all such unbiassed freedomboth of thought and speech, there pervades the whole mass a oneness, amarvellous consistency, which would be likely to have been designed byGod, though little to have been dreamt by man. 

Once more on this full topic. Difficulties in Scripture were expectablefor many reasons; I can only touch a few. Man is rational as he isresponsible: God speaks to his mind and moral powers: and the mindrejoices, and moralities grow strong in conquest of the difficult andsearch for the mysterious. The muscles of the spiritual athlete pant forsuch exertion; and without it, they would dwindle into trepidimbecility. Curious man, courageous man, enterprising, shrewd, andvigourous man, yet has a constant enemy to dread in his own indolence:now, a lion in the path will wake up Sloth himself: and the verydifficulties of religion engender perseverance. 

Additionally: I think there is somewhat in the consideration, that, ifall revealed truth had been utterly simple and easy, it would haveneeded no human interpreter; no enlightened class of men, who, accordingto the spirit of their times, and the occasions of their teaching, might"in season and out of season preach the word, reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine. " I think there existed an anteriorprobability that Scripture should be as it is, often-times difficult, obscure, and requiring the aid of many wise to its elucidation; because, without such characteristic, those many wise and good would never havebeen called for. Suppose all truth revealed as clearly and indisputablyto the meanest intellect as a sum in addition is, where were the need oruse of that noble Christian company who are every where man's almonersfor charity, and God's ambassadors for peace?

A word or two more, and I have done. The Bible would, as it seems to meprobable, be a sort of double book; for the righteous, and for thewicked: to one class, a decoy, baited to allure all sorts of generousdispositions: to the other, a trap, set to catch all kinds of evilinclinations. In these two senses, it would address the whole familyman: and every one should find in it something to his liking. Purityshould there perceive green pastures and still waters, and a tenderShepherd for its innocent steps: and carnal appetite should here andthere discover some darker spot, which the honesty of heaven had filledwith memories of its chiefest servants' sins; some record of adultery ormurder wherewith to feast his maw for condemnation. While the good manshould find in it meat divine for every earthly need, the sneerer shouldproclaim it the very easiest manual for his jests and lewd profanities. The unlettered should not lack humble, nay vulgar, images and words, tokeep himself in countenance: neither should the learned look in vain forreasonings; the poet for sublimities; the curious mind for mystery; northe sorrowing heart for prayer. I do discern, in that great book, awondrous adaptability to minds of every calibre: and it is just whatmight antecedently have been expected of a volume writ by many men atmany different eras, yet all superintended by one master mind; of avolume meant for every age, and nation, and country, and tongue, andpeople; of a volume which, as a two-edged sword, wounds the good man'sheart with deep conviction, and cuts down "the hoary head of him whogoeth on still in his wickedness. "

On the whole, respecting faults, or incongruities, or objectionableparts in Scripture, however to have been expected, we must recollectthat the more they are viewed, the more the blemishes fade, and arealtered into beauties. 

A little child had picked up an old stone, defaced with time-stains: thechild said the stone was dirty, covered with blotches and all colours:but his father brings a microscope, and shows to his astonished glancethat what the child thought dirt, is a forest of beautiful lichens, fruited mosses, and strange lilliputian plants with shapely animalculeshiding in the leaves, and rejoicing in their tiny shadow. Every blemish, justly seen, had turned to be a beauty: and Nature's works arevindicated good, even as the Word of Grace is wise. 

HEAVEN AND HELL. 

Probably enough, the light which I expect to throw upon this importantsubject will, upon a cursory criticism, be judged fanciful, erroneous, and absurd; in parts, quite open to ridicule, and in all liable to theobjection of being wise, or foolish, beyond what is written. Nevertheless, and as it seems to me of no small consequence to reachsomething more definite on the subject than the Anywhere or Nowhere ofcommon apprehensions, I judge it not amiss to put out a few thoughts, fancies, if you will, but not unreasonable fancies, on the localitiesand other characteristics of what we call heaven and hell: in fact, Iwish to show their probable realities with somewhat approaching todistinctness. It is manifest that these places must be somewhere; for, more especially of the blest estate, whither did Enoch, and Elijah, andour risen Lord ascend to? what became of these glorified humanities when"the chariot of fire carried up Elijah by a whirlwind into heaven;" andwhen "HE was taken up, and a cloud received him?" Those happy mortalsdid not waste away to intangible spiritualities, as they rose above theworld; their bodies were not melted as they broke the bonds ofgravitation, and pierced earth's swathing atmosphere: they went upsomewhither; the question is where they went to. It is a question ofgreat interest to us; however, among those matters which are rathercurious than consequential; for in our own case, as we know, we that areredeemed are to be caught up, together with other blessed creatures, "inthe clouds, to meet our coming Saviour in the air, and thereafter to beever with the Lord. " I wish to show this to be expected as in our case, and expectable previously to it. 

We have, in the book of Job, a peep at some place of congregation: someone, as it is likely, of the mighty globes in space, set apart as God'sespecial temple. Why not? they all are worlds; and the likelihood beingin favour of overbalancing good, rather than of preponderating evil fromconsiderations that affect God's attributes and the happiness of hiscreatures, it is probable that the great majority of these worlds areunfallen mansions of the blessed. Perhaps each will be a kingdom for oneof earth's redeemed, and if so, there will at last be found fulfilledthat prevailing superstition of our race, that each man has his star:without insisting upon this, we may reflect that there is no oneuniversal opinion which has not its foundation in truth. Tradition maywell have dropped the thought from Adam downwards, that the stars maysome day be our thrones. We know their several vastness, and can guesstheir glory: verily a mighty meed for miserable services on earth, tofind a just ambition gladdened with the rule of spheres, to which Terrais a point; while that same ambition is sanctified and legalized byruling as vicegerent of Jehovah. 

Is this unlikely, or unworthy of our high vocation, our immortality, andnearness unto, nay communion with God? The idea is only suggested: let aman muse at midnight, and look up at the heavens hanging over all; lethim see, with Rosse and Herschell, that, multiply power as you will, unexhausted still and inexhaustible appear the myriads of worldsunknown. Yea, there is space enow for infinite reward; yea, let everygrain of sand on every shore be gathered, and more innumerable yetappear that galaxy of spheres. Let us think that night looks down uponus here, with the million eyes of heaven. And for some focus of themall, some spot where God himself enthroned receives the homage of allcrowns, and the worship of all creature service, what is thereunreasonable in suggesting for a place some such an one as is instancedbelow?

I have just cut the following paragraph out of a newspaper: Is this theridiculous tripping up the sublime? I think otherwise: it is honest touse plain terms. I speak as unto wise men--judge ye what I say. Withrespect to the fact of information, it may or it may not be true; buteven if untrue, the idea is substantially the same, and I cannot helpsupposing that with angels and archangels and the whole company ofheaven, such bodily saints as Enoch is, (and similar to him all risen, holy men will be, ) meet for happy sabbaths in some glorious orb akin orsuperior to the following:

"A CENTRAL SUN. --Dr. Madier, the Professor of Astronomy at Dorpat, haspublished the results of the researches pursued by him uninterruptedlyduring the last sixty years, upon the movements of the so-called fixedstars. These more particularly relate to the star Alcyone, (discoveredby him, ) the brightest of the seven bright stars of the group of thePleiades. This star he states to be the central sun of all the systemsof stars known to us. He gives its distance from the boundaries of oursystem at thirty-four million times the distance of the sun from ourearth, a distance which it takes five hundred and thirty-seven years forlight to traverse. Our sun takes one hundred and eighty-two millionyears to accomplish its course round this central body, whose mass isone hundred and seventeen million times larger than the sun. "

One hundred and seventeen million times larger than the Sun! itself, forall its vastness, not more than half one million times bigger than thisearth. To some such globe we may let our fancies float, and anchor thereour yearnings after heaven. It is a glorious thought, such asimagination loves; and a probable thought, that commends itself toreason. Behold the great eye of all our guessed creation, the focus ofits brightness, and the fountain of its peace. 

A topic far less pleasant, but alike of interest to us poor men, is theprobable home of evil; and here I may be laughed at--laugh, but listen, and if, listening, some reason meets thine ear, laugh at least nolonger. 

We know that, for spirit's misery as for spirit's happiness, there is noneed of place: "no matter where, for I am still the same, " said one mostmiserable being. More--in the case of mere spirits, there is no need forany apparatus of torments, or fires, or other fearful things. But, whenspirit is married to matter, the case is altered; needs must a place toprison the matter, and a corporal punishment to vex it. 

Nothing is unlikely here; excepting--will a man urge?--the dreadduration of such hell. This is a parenthesis; but it shall not beavoided, for the import of that question is deep, and should be answeredclearly. A man, a body and soul inmixt, body risen incorruptible, andsoul rested from its deeds, must exist for ever. I touch not here theproofs--assume it. Now, if he lives for ever, and deliberately choosesevil, his will consenting as well as his infirmity, and conscienceseared by persisted disobedience, what course can such a wilful, rational, responsible being pursue than one perpetually erratic? Howshould it not be that he gets worse and worse in morals, and more andmore miserable in fact? and when to this we add, that such wretchedcreatures are to herd together, continually flying further away from theonly source of Happiness and Good; and to this, that they have earned bysin, remorses and regrets, and positive inflictions; how probable seemsa hell, the sinner's doom eternal. The apt mathematical analogy of linesthrown out of parallel, helps this for illustration: for ever and forever they are stretching more remote, and infinity itself cannot rëunitetheir travel. 

This, then, as a passing word; a sad one. Honest thinker, do not scornit, for thine own soul's sake. "Now is the time of grace, now is the dayof salvation. " To return. A place of punishment exists; to what quartershall we look for its anterior probability? I think there is alikelihood very near us. There may be one, possibly, beneath us, in thebowels of this fiery-bursting earth; whither went Korah and his company?This idea is not without its arguments, just analogies, and scripturalhints. But my judgment inclines towards another. This trial-world, weknow, is to be purified and restored, and made a new earth: it was evento be expected that Redemption should do this, and I like not to imagineit the crust and case of hell, but rather, as thus: At the birth of thissame world, there was struck off from its burning mass at a tangent, amournful satellite, to be the home of its immortal evil; the convictshore for exiled sin and misery; a satellite of strange differences, asguessed by Virgil in his musings upon Tartarus, where half the orb is, from natural necessities, blistered up by constant heats, the other halffrozen by perennial cold. A land of caverns, and volcanoes, miles deep, miles high; with no water, no perceptible air: imagine such a dreadfulworld, with neither air nor water! incapable of feeding life like ours, but competent to be a place where undying wretchedness may struggle forever. A melancholy orb, the queen of night, chief nucleus of all thedark idolatries of earth; the Moon, Isis, Hecate, Ashtaroth, Diana ofthe Ephesians!

This expression of a thought by no means improbable, gives an easychance to shallow punsters; but ridicule is no weapon against reason. Why should not the case be so? Why should not Earth's own satellite, void, as yet, be on the resurrection of all flesh, the raft whereon tofloat away Earth's evil? Read of it astronomically; think of it asconnected with idols; regard it as the ruler of earth's night; considerthat the place of a Gehenna must be somewhere; and what is there in myfancy quite improbable? I do not dogmatize as that the fact is so, butonly suggest a definite place at least as likely as any other hithertosuggested. Think how that awful, melancholy eye looks down on deeds ofdarkness how many midnight crimes, murders, thefts, adulteries, andwitchcrafts, that would have shrunk into nonentity from open, honestday, have paled the conscious Moon! Add to all this, it is the onlyworld, besides our own, whereof astronomers can tell us, It is fallen. 

AN OFFER. 

Nothing were easier than to have made this book a long one; but that wasnot the writer's object: as well because of the musty Greek proverbabout long books; which in every time and country are sure never to beread through by one in a thousand; as because it is always wiser tosuggest than to exhaust a topic; which may be as "a fruit-tree yieldingfruit after its kind whose seed is in itself. " The writer then intendedonly to touch upon a few salient points, and not to discuss everyquestion, however they might crowd upon his mind: time and space alikewith mental capabilities forbade an effort so gigantic: added to which, such a course seemed to be unnecessary, as the rule of probability, thusillustrated, might be applied by others in every similar instance. Still, as the errand of this book is usefulness, and its author's hopeis, under Heaven, to do good, one personal hint shall here be thrownupon the highway. Without arrogating to myself the wisdom or theknowledge to solve one in twenty of the doubts possible to bepropounded; without also designing even to attempt such solutions, unless well assured of the genuine anxiety of the doubter; andpreliminarizing the consideration, that a fitting diffidence in theadvocate's own powers is no reason why he should not make wide effortsin his holy cause; that, such reasonable essays to do good have no sortof brotherhood with a fanatical Spiritual Quixotism; and that, to my ownapprehensions, the doubts of a rationalizing mind are in the nature ofhonourable foes, to be treated with delicacy, reverence, and kindness, rather than with a cold distance and an ill-concealed contempt;preliminarizing, lastly, the thought--"Who is sufficient for thesethings?"--I nevertheless thus offer, according to the grace and powergiven to me, my best but humble efforts so far to dissipate the doubtsof some respecting any scriptural fact, as may lie within the provinceof showing or attempting to show its previous credibility. This is not achallenge to the curious casuist or the sneering infidel; but aninvitation to the honest mind harassed by unanswered queries: nogauntlet thrown down, but a brother's hand stretched out. Suchquestions, if put to the writer, through his publisher by letter, mayfind their reply in a future edition: supposing, that is to say, thatthey deserve an answer, whether as regards their own merits or thetemper of the mind who doubts; and supposing also that the writer hasthe power and means to answer them discreetly. It is only a fair rule ofphilanthropy (and that without arrogating any unusual "strength") to"bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves:" andnothing would to me give greater happiness than to be able, as I amwilling, to remove any difficulties lying in the track of Faith before agenerous mind. I hang out no glistening holly-bush a-flame with itsostentatious berries as promising good wine; but rather over my portalis the humbler and hospitable mistletoe, assuring every wearied pilgrimin the way, that though scanty be the fare, he shall find a heartywelcome. 

CONCLUSION. 

I have thus endeavoured (with solicited help of Heaven) to place beforethe world anew a few old truths: truths inestimably precious. Remember, they cannot have lost by any such advocacy as is contained in the ideaof their being shown antecedently probable; for this idea affects not atall the fact of their existence; the thing is; whether probable or not;there is, in esse, an ornithorhyncus; its posse is drowned in esse:there exists no doubt of it: evidence, whether of senses physical, or ofconsiderations moral, puts the circumstance beyond the sphere ofdisputation. But such truths as we have spoken of do, nevertheless, gainsomething as to--not their merits, these are all their ownsubstantially; nor their positive proofs, these are adjectives properlyattendant on them, but as to--their acceptability among the incredulousof men; they gain, I say, even by such poor pleading as mine, from beingshown anteriorly probable. Take an illustration in the case of thatstrange and anomalous creature mentioned just above. Its habitat is in aland where plums grow with the stones outside, where aboriginal dogshave never been heard to bark, where birds are found covered with hair, and where mammals jump about like frogs! If these are shown to beliteral facts, the mind is thereby well prepared for any animalmonstrosity: and it staggers not in unbelief (on evidence of honesttravellers) even when informed of a creature with a duck's bill and abeaver's body: it really amounted in Australia to an antecedentprobability. 

Carry this out to matters not a quarter so incredible, ye thinkers, yefree-thinkers; neither be abashed at being named as thinking freely:were not those Bereans more noble in that they searched to see? For myhumble part, I do commend you for it: treacherous is the hand that rootsup the inalienable right of private judgment; the foundation-stone ofProtestantism, the great prerogative of reason, the key-note ofconscience, the sole vindex of a man's responsibility: evil and false isthe so-called reverential wisdom which lays down in place of the truththat each man's conscience is a law unto himself, the tyranny of othermen's authority. Cheap and easy and perilled is the faith, which clingsto the skirt of others; which leans upon the broken staff ofpriestcraft, until those poisoned splinters pierce the hand. 

Prove all things; holding fast that which is good: good to thine ownreasonable conscience, if unwarped by casuistries, and unblinded bylicentiousness. Prove all things, if you can, "from the egg to theapple:" he is a poor builder of his creed, who takes one brick oncredit. Be able, as you can be, (if only you are willing so far to bewisely inconsistent, as to bend the stubborn knee betimes, and thoughwith feeble glance to look to heaven, and though with stammering tongueto pray for aid, ) be able, as it is thy right, O man of God--to give aReason for the faith that is in thee. 

 THE END.