Part 7 (1/2)
The free agency of man was an object in the highest degree desirable. Yet such a character made him liable to fall; and G.o.d knew that he would fall.
To human sagacity that act would seem to seal up his fate forever. But infinite wisdom saw that the case was not hopeless. It placed him in a state of temporal suffering and temporal death, that he might still have a chance of escaping eternal suffering and eternal death. The discipline of such a world was eminently adapted to restore his lost purity, and death was probably the only means by which a fallen being could pa.s.s to a higher state of existence. That discipline, indeed, if rightly improved, would probably fit him for a higher degree of holiness and happiness than if he had never sinned; so as to make true the paradoxical sentiment of the poet,--
”Death gives us more than was in Eden lost.”
Misimproved, this discipline would result in an infinite loss, far greater than if man never pa.s.sed through it. But this is all the fault of man; while all the benefit of a state of probation is the result of G.o.d's infinite wisdom and benevolence.
In the fifth place, this theory relieves us from the absurdity of supposing that G.o.d was compelled to alter the plan of creation after man's apostasy.
The common theory does convey an idea not much different from this. It makes the impression that G.o.d was disappointed when man sinned, and being thereby thwarted in his original purpose, he did the best he could by changing his plan, just as men do when some unexpected occurrence interferes with their short-sighted contrivances. Now, such an anthropomorphic view of G.o.d is inexcusable in the nineteenth century. It was necessary to use such representations in the early ages of the world, when pure spiritual ideas were unknown; and hence the Bible describes G.o.d as repenting and grieved that he had made man. But with the light of the New Testament and of modern science, we ought to be able to enucleate the true spiritual idea from such descriptions. The theory under consideration does not reduce G.o.d to any after-thought expedients, but makes provision for every occurrence in his original plan; and, of course, shows that every event takes place as he would have it, when viewed in its relations to the great system of the universe.
In the sixth place, this theory sheds some light upon the important question, why G.o.d permitted the introduction of death into the world.
It is difficult for some persons to conceive why G.o.d, when he foresaw Adam's apostasy, did not change his plan of creation, and exclude so terrible an evil as death. But according to this theory, he permitted it, because it was a necessary part of a great system of restoration, by which the human race might, if not recreant to their true interests, be restored to more than their primeval blessedness. It was not introduced as a mere punishment, but as a necessary means of raising a fallen being into a higher state of life and blessedness; or, if he perversely spurned the offered boon, of sinking him down to the deeper wretchedness which is the just consequence of unrepented sin, without even the sympathy of any part of the created universe.
Finally. This subject throws some light upon that strange mixture of good and evil, which exists in the present world. We have seen, indeed, that benevolence decidedly predominates in all the arrangements of nature; and we are called upon continually to admire the adaptation of external nature to the human const.i.tution. A large portion of our sufferings here may also be imputed to our own sins, or the sins of others; and these we cannot charge upon G.o.d. But, after all, it seems difficult to conceive how even a sinless man could escape a large amount of suffering here; enough, indeed, to make him often sigh for deliverance and for a better state. How many sources of sufferings there are in unhealthy climates, mechanical violence, and chemical agents; in a sterile soil, in the excessive heats of the tropical regions, and extreme cold of high lat.i.tudes; in the encroachments and ferocity of the inferior animals; in poisons, mineral, vegetable, and animal; in food unfitted to the digestive and a.s.similating organs; in the damps and miasms of night; and in the frequent necessity for over-exertion of body and mind! And then, how many hinderances to the exercise of the mental powers, in all the causes that have been mentioned!
and how does the soul feel that she is imprisoned in flesh and blood, and her energies cramped, and her vision clouded, by a gross corporeal medium!
And thus it is, to a great extent, with all nature, especially animal nature; and I cannot but believe, as already intimated, that Paul had these very things in mind when he said, _The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now, and waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of G.o.d_; that is, for emanc.i.p.ation from its present depressed and fettered condition. In short, while there is so much in this world to call forth our admiration and grat.i.tude to G.o.d, there is enough to make us feel, also, that it is a fallen condition. It is not such a world as infinite benevolence would provide for perfectly holy beings, whom he desired to make perfectly happy, but rather such a world as is adapted for a condition of trial and preparation for a higher state, when both mind and body would be delivered from the fetters that now cramp their exercise.
Now, the theory which I advocate a.s.serts that this peculiar condition of the world resulted from the divine determination, upon a prospective view of man's transgression. It may, therefore, be properly regarded as occasioned by man's transgression, but not in the common meaning attached to that phrase, which is, that, before man's apostasy, the const.i.tution of the world was different from what it now is, and death did not exist. This theory supposes G.o.d to have devised the present peculiar mixed condition of the world, as to good and evil, in eternity, in order to give man an opportunity to rescue himself from the penalty and misery of sin; and in order to introduce those who should do this into a higher state of existence. The plan, therefore, is founded in infinite wisdom and benevolence, while it brings out man's guilt, and the evil of sin, in appalling distinctness and magnitude.
But, after all, how little idea would a man have of the entire plot of a play, who had heard only a part of the first act! How little could he judge of the bearing of the first scene upon the final development! Yet we are now only in the first act of the great drama of human existence. Death shows us that we shall ere long be introduced into a second act, and affords a presumption that other acts--it may be in an endless series--will succeed, before the whole plot shall have pa.s.sed before us; and not till then can we be certain what are all the objects to be accomplished by the introduction of sin and death into our world. And if thus early we can catch glimpses of great benefit to result from these evils, what full conviction, that infinite benevolence has planned and consummated the whole, will be forced upon the mind, when the vast panorama of G.o.d's dispensations shall lie spread out in the memory! For that time shall Faith wait, in confident hope that all her doubts and darkness shall be converted into noonday brightness.
LECTURE IV.
THE NOACHIAN DELUGE COMPARED WITH THE GEOLOGICAL DELUGES.
The history of opinions respecting the deluge of Noah is one of the most curious and instructive in the annals of man. In this field, Christians have often broken lances with infidels, and also with one another. The unbeliever has confidently maintained that the Bible history of the deluge is at war with the facts and reasonings of science. Equally confident has been the believer that nature bears strong testimony to its occurrence.
Some Christians, however, have a.s.serted, with the infidel, that no trace remains on the face of nature of such an event. And as this is a subject which men are apt to suppose themselves masters of, when they have only skimmed the surface, the contest between these different parties has been severe and protracted. Almost every geological change which the earth has undergone, from its centre to its circ.u.mference, has, at one time or another, been ascribed to this deluge. And so plain has this seemed to those who had only a partial view of the facts, that those who doubted it were often denounced as enemies of revelation. But most of these opinions and this dogmatism are now abandoned, because both Nature and Scripture are better understood. And among well-informed geologists, at least, the opinion is almost universal, that there are no facts in their science which can be clearly referred to the Noachian deluge; that is, no traces in nature of that event; and on the other hand, that there is nothing in the Mosaic account of the deluge which would necessarily lead is to expect permanent marks of such a catastrophe within or upon the earth.
If such be the case, you will doubtless inquire, what connection there is between geology and the revealed history of the deluge, and why the subject should be introduced into this series of lectures. I reply, that so recently have correct views been entertained on this subject, and so little understood are they; that they need to be defined and explained.
And if the distribution of animals and plants on the globe come within the province of geology, then this science has a very important point of connection with the history of the deluge, as will appear in the sequel.
And finally, the history of opinions on this subject is full of instruction to those who undertake to reason on the connection between science and religion. Obviously, then, my first object should be to give a brief history of the views that have been entertained respecting the deluge of Noah, so far as they have been supposed to have any connection with geology.
It is well known, that in the written and unwritten traditions of almost every nation and tribe under heaven, the story of a general deluge has been prominent; and probably, in all these cases, some attempt has been made to explain the manner in which the waters were brought over the land.
But most of these reasonings, especially in ancient times, are too absurd to deserve even to be recited. Indeed, it is not till the beginning of the sixteenth century, that we find any discussions on the subject worthy of notice. At that time, some excavations at Verona, in Italy, brought to light many fossil sh.e.l.ls, and awakened a question as to their origin. Some maintained that they were only _simulacra_, or resemblances to animals, but never had a real existence. They were supposed to have been produced by a certain ”_materia pinguis_,” or ”fatty matter,” existing in the earth. Others maintained that they were deposited by the deluge of Noah.
Such, indeed, was the general opinion; but Fracastoro and a few others maintained that they were once real animals, and could not have been brought into their present condition by the last deluge. For more than three hundred years have these questions been more or less discussed; and though decided many years ago by all geologists, not a few intelligent men still maintain, that petrified sh.e.l.ls are mere abortive resemblances of real beings, or that they were deposited by the deluge.
The advocates of the diluvial origin of petrifactions soon found themselves hard pressed with the question, how these relics could be scattered through strata many thousand feet thick, by one transient flood.
They, therefore, came to the conclusion, in the words of Woodward, a distinguished cosmogonist of the eighteenth century, that the ”whole terrestrial globe was taken to pieces and dissolved at the flood, and the strata settled down from this promiscuous ma.s.s, as any earthy sediment from a fluid.” During that century, many works appeared upon cosmogony, defending similar views, by such men as Burnet, Scheuchzer, and Catcott.
Some of these works exhibited no little ability, mixed, however, with hypotheses so extravagant that they have ever since been the b.u.t.t of ridicule. The very t.i.tle of Burnet's work cannot but provoke a smile. It is called ”The Sacred Theory of the Earth, containing an Account of the Original of the Earth, and of all the general Changes it bath already undergone, or is to undergo, till the Consummation of all Things.” He maintained that the primitive earth was only ”an orbicular crust, smooth, regular, and uniform, without mountains and without a sea.” This crust rested on the surface of a watery abyss, and, being heated by the sun, became c.h.i.n.ky; and in consequence of the rarefaction of the included vapors, it burst asunder, and fell down into the waters, and so was comminuted and dissolved, while the inhabitants perished. Catcott's work was confined exclusively to the deluge, and exhibited a good deal of ability. He endeavored to show, that this dissolution of the earth by the deluge was taught in the Scriptures, and his reasoning on that point is a fine example of the state of biblical interpretation in his day. ”As there are other texts,” says he, ”which mention the dissolution of the earth, it may be proper to cite them. Ps. xlvi. 2. _G.o.d is our refuge; therefore will we not fear though the earth be removed_, [be changed, be quite altered, as it was at the deluge.] _G.o.d uttered his voice, the earth melted_, [flowed, dissolved to atoms.] Again, Job xxviii. 9. _He sent his hand_ [the expansion, his instrument, or the agent by which he worked]
_against the rock, he overturned the mountains by the roots, he caused the rivers to burst forth from between the rocks_, [or broke open the fountains of the abyss.] _His eye_ [symbolically placed for light] _saw_ [pa.s.sed through, or between] _every minute thing_, [every-atom, and so dissolved the whole.] _He_ [at last] _bound up the waters from weeping_, [i. e. from pressing through the sh.e.l.l of the earth, as tears make their way through the orb of the eye; or, as it is related, (Gen. viii. 2,) _He stopped the fountains of the abyss and the windows of heaven_,] _and brought out the light from its hiding-place_, [i. e., from the inward parts of the earth, from between every atom where it lay hid, and kept each atom separate from the other, and so the whole in a state of dissolution; his bringing out those parts of the light which caused the dissolution would of course permit the agents to act in their usual way, and so reform the earth.”]--_Treatise on the Deluge_, p. 43, (London, 1761.)
We can hardly believe at the present day, that a logical and scientific mind, like that of Catcott, could satisfy itself, by such a dreamy exegesis, that the Scriptures teach the earth's dissolution at the deluge; especially when they so distinctly describe the waters of the deluge, as first rising over the land, and then sinking back to their original position. Still more strange is it how Burnet could have thought it consistent with Scripture to suppose the earth, before the flood, ”to have been covered with an orbicular crust, smooth, regular, and uniform, without mountains and without a sea,” when the Bible so distinctly states, as the work of the third day, that _the waters under the heavens were gathered together unto one place, and the dry land appeared_; and that _G.o.d called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called seas_; and further, that, by the deluge, _all the high hills were covered_. Yet these men doubtless supposed that, by the views which they advocated, they were defending the Holy Scriptures. Nay, their views were long regarded as exclusively the orthodox views, and opposition to them was considered, for one or two centuries, as virtual opposition to the Bible. Truly, this, in biblical interpretation, was straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.
It is quite convenient to explain such anomalies in human belief, by referring them to the spirit of the age, or to the want of the light of modern science. But in the present case, we cannot thus easily dispose of the difficulty. For in our own day, we have seen these same absurdities of opinion maintained by a really scientific man, selected to write one of the Bridgewater Treatises, as one of the most learned men in Great Britain. I refer to Rev. William Kirby, evidently a thorough entomologist and a sincere Christian. But he adopts the opinion, not only that there exists a subterranean abyss of waters, but a subterranean metropolis of animals, where the huge leviathians, the gigantic saurians, dug out of the rocks by the geologist, still survive; and this he endeavors to prove from the Bible. For this purpose he quotes the pa.s.sage in Psalms, _though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death_. His exposition of this text is much in the style of that already given from Catcott. Following that writer and Hutchinson, he endeavors to show, by a still more fanciful interpretation, that the phrase ”windows of heaven,” in Genesis, means cracks and volcanic rents in the earth, through which air and water rushed inwardly and outwardly with such violence as to tear the crust to pieces. This was the effect of the increasing waters of the deluge; the bringing together of these comminuted particles, so as to form the present strata, was the work of the subsiding waters.