The only idea man can affix to the name of God, is that of a first
cause, the cause of all things. And, incomprehensibly difficult as it
is for a man to conceive what a first cause is, he arrives at the
belief of it, from the tenfold greater difficulty of disbelieving it.
It is difficult beyond description to conceive that space can have no
end; but it is more difficult to conceive an end. It is difficult
beyond the power of man to conceive an eternal duration of what we
call time; but it is more impossible to conceive a time when there
shall be no time.
In like manner of reasoning, everything we behold carries in itself
the internal evidence that it did not make itself. Every man is an
evidence to himself, that he did not make himself; neither could his
father make himself, nor his grandfather, nor any of his race;
neither could any tree, plant, or animal make itself; and it is the
conviction arising from this evidence, that carries us on, as it
were, by necessity, to the belief of a first cause eternally
existing, of a nature totally different to any material existence we
know of, and by the power of which all things exist; and this first
cause, man calls God.
It is only by the exercise of reason, that man can discover God. Take
away that reason, and he would be incapable of understanding
anything; and in this case it would be just as consistent to read
even the book called the Bible to a horse as to a man. How then is it
that those people pretend to reject reason?
Almost the only parts in the book called the Bible, that convey to us
any idea of God, are some chapters in Job, and the 19th Psalm; I
recollect no other. Those parts are true deistical compositions; for
they treat of the Deity through his works. They take the book of
Creation as the word of God; they refer to no other book; and all the
inferences they make are drawn from that volume.
I insert in this place the 19th Psalm, as paraphrased into English
verse by Addison. I recollect not the prose, and where I write this I
have not the opportunity of seeing it:
The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue etherial sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great original proclaim.
The unwearied sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator's power display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an Almighty hand.
Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the list'ning earth
Repeats the story of her birth;
Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets, in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
What though in solemn silence all
Move round this dark terrestrial ball
What though no real voice, nor sound,
Amidst their radiant orbs be found,
In reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing as they shine,
The hand that made us is divine.
What more does man want to know, than that the hand or power that
made these things is divine, is omnipotent? Let him believe this,
with the force it is impossible to repel if he permits his reason to
act, and his rule of moral life will follow of course.
The allusions in job have all of them the same tendency with this
Psalm; that of deducing or proving a truth that would be otherwise
unknown, from truths already known.
I recollect not enough of the passages in Job to insert them
correctly; but there is one that occurs to me that is applicable to
the subject I am speaking upon. "Canst thou by searching find out
God; canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?"
I know not how the printers have pointed this passage, for I keep no
Bible; but it contains two distinct questions that admit of distinct
answers.
First, Canst thou by searching find out God? Yes. Because, in the
first place, I know I did not make myself, and yet I have existence;
and by searching into the nature of other things, I find that no
other thing could make itself; and yet millions of other things
exist; therefore it is, that I know, by positive conclusion resulting
from this search, that there is a power superior to all those things,
and that power is God.
Secondly, Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection? No. Not
only because the power and wisdom He has manifested in the structure
of the Creation that I behold is to me incomprehensible; but because
even this manifestation, great as it is is probably but a small
display of that immensity of power and wisdom, by which millions of
other worlds, to me invisible by their distance, were created and
continue to exist.
It is evident that both of these questions were put to the reason of
the person to whom they are supposed to have been addressed; and it
is only by admitting the first question to be answered affirmatively,
that the second could follow. It would have been unnecessary, and
even absurd, to have put a second question, more difficult than the
first, if the first question had been answered negatively. The two
questions have different objects; the first refers to the existence
of God, the second to his attributes. Reason can discover the one,
but it falls infinitely short in discovering the whole of the other.
I recollect not a single passage in all the writings ascribed to the
men called apostles, that conveys any idea of what God is. Those
writings are chiefly controversial; and the gloominess of the subject
they dwell upon, that of a man dying in agony on a cross, is better
suited to the gloomy genius of a monk in a cell, by whom it is not
impossible they were written, than to any man breathing the open air
of the Creation. The only passage that occurs to me, that has any
reference to the works of God, by which only his power and wisdom can
be known, is related to have been spoken by Jesus Christ, as a remedy
against distrustful care. "Behold the lilies of the field, they toil
not, neither do they spin." This, however, is far inferior to the
allusions in Job and in the 19th Psalm; but it is similar in idea,
and the modesty of the imagery is correspondent to the modesty of the
man. |