By REV. J. B. THOMAS, D.D.
There is noticeable similarity between nature and the Bible, the work
and the word. There are countless evidences indicating that they have
the same author. No case resting on evidence was ever clearer. You can
always detect a master’s style in his creations; certain peculiarities
are sure to appear. You can recognize a Rubens in the old galleries
by the blonde hair, the pinkish tint of the flesh, and the luxurious
stoutness of the physique. So the brush of Murillo and Guido, and every
great artist carries its own mark. So one mark is on nature and the
Bible. They are done in the same style. In Raphael, the reality of
the earthly, and the gracefulness of the heavenly, never fail to be
blended in wonderful harmony, apparent always to the practiced eye. His
figures are pyramids of strength, transfused with celestial beauty.
Nature confirms some of the most important doctrines of the Bible—some
that men would rule out, or quietly ignore; but nature comes to their
support, as another attraction of the same God, to the same truth. In
nature, when spring comes, it is by silent and imperceptible approach,
like the dawn of the morning. First, a bluebird’s note on the bare tree
tops (no one saw her come), then the song of the robin. It is first the
crocus, lifting up her head, and then the tulip and the hyacinth, while
a tint, a shade softer, comes in the sky. One by one other birds and
flowers appear, and at last, the full tide sets in, and beauty mounts
the earth, and balm fills the air. The glory of the seasons is upon us,
and the heart is entranced with the wonders of loveliness in the midst
of which it moves.
So the Bible: First, the simple promise to Eve, far back in the moral
winter of man’s estate, “The seed of the woman shall bruise the
serpent’s head.” This was the lone note of the bluebird, sounding out
in the midst of the desolations of a fallen world. It was the first
soft tint in the cold sky. By-and-by the promise to Abraham, “In thy
seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” This was the
trailing arbutus. At last the definite announcement of a coming Savior
to Isaiah, “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son, and
his name shall be called Immanuel [God with us], for he shall save
his people from their sins.” This was the blossom of the fig tree
which showed that summer was nigh. Thus did revelation come slowly,
through ages of delay, till at last in the fulness of time God unsealed
his wonders, the star, the wise men, the angelic host, the watching
shepherds, the “_gloria in excelsis_,” the earth breaking forth into
singing, the desert places blooming as the rose, and fragrance of
spices in all the air. Verily the God of nature and of the Bible is
one God, the method of God in nature testifying that it is the same
God in the Bible. In nature everything is in the concrete. We have the
raw material in bulk there: the gold must be mined and melted; the
timber must be cut, and squared with saw and ax; the stones fashioned
with hammer and chisel; the land cleared and plowed and dressed. So
different is this from the art of man, who puts everything in rows and
squares, and introduces order everywhere. Similarly, revelation gives
ideas, not forms. It scatters germs of thought, not finished creeds. It
throws out great truths, doctrines, principles, not definite rules and
completed systems. Everything as in nature must be carefully searched
out, reduced and put in order. A casual observer would have no idea of
the riches in the Bible, any more than in nature. Here is a doctrine
mixed with a duty; there is a precept bound up with a paragraph of
history. In one place is a miracle, where you looked for a promise;
in another is prophecy, where you had expected law, and so on through.
Strange, you say, so many curious things in the Bible, so much that is
irreverent, so little system, so wanting in arrangement. But it is just
like nature. There is a complete and definite order, a general organic
unity runs from the first page to the last. Written by sixty-six
different authors, and sixteen hundred years in the composition, it
is still one book, one plan. All the parts combine to make the great
whole. It must be studied out. Like nature, the Bible is planned to tax
the higher faculties of man, to put them to search, and develop and
enlarge them by thoughts and endeavors. Little study makes little men.
What is lightly acquired is carelessly held. Easy lessons make barren
lives. Out of the depths by toil come the great riches of head and
heart. Down from the heights after profound thought the larger wisdom
is brought. It is the glory of kings to search out a matter, and men
become kings only as God puts them to kingly effort and service. This
method of God in nature makes princes in science, as men learn to think
God’s thoughts after him. This method in the Bible makes strong men.
Verily the God of nature is also God of the Bible, and they will stand
together, the Word as enduring as the world.
In nature there is no withholding of mysteries, no avoidance of
difficulties, because they may disturb some weak faith, trouble
somebody. The great God of the universe lets out his power and displays
his wisdom, and builds up to his own level, whether anyone can
understand or not. Out of nothing, nothing comes. Out of the infinite
comes infinite greatness and wisdom, beyond the scope of man. There
is a startling boldness in God’s works. In nature contradictions are
piled mountains high, no matter whether man can reconcile them or
not. Paradoxes abound without regard to how they will strike men; no
explanations are vouchsafed; men are not followed up and told why this
is, and why that. They have to take it as it comes. In nature, man is
placed in the midst of untold wonders and marvels, without a word, and
he is left there to grapple with the highest problems, and think them
out. God does not “baby” his children, in these things. This is the
highest kind of teaching. Man never finds his littleness, and begins to
learn, and climb, till he is put on such a stretch. In this is God’s
wisdom, as well as his greatness. Just this is God’s method, also, in
the Bible. It is the most bold and fearless of books: mysteries utterly
inexplicable it sets before you; difficulties the most irreconcilable
it plants on every page, with no attempt at solution. God is master
and in command; God governs, and not the skeptics or theologians.
Prophecies are uttered, miracles are performed upon God’s plans, as is
easy for him. Man may believe, or let it alone. As in nature, God can
not be less than himself. There is much in nature and in the Bible that
man never can think out, but nature is not the less to man because it
is so much above him. The very fact helps to lift him; man needs Alps
on Alps above him. If the Bible were more easy, contained fewer hard
sayings and knotty doctrines, it would show a less wonderful God, it
would be a less powerful stimulant and helper to men. Is not the God of
nature and the Bible one God—the work confirming the book? In nature
there is loveliness and peace, terror and death; what more calm and
delightful than a quiet sunset? What more terrible than tornado and
tempest? You have seen the fire of lightning, and heard death riding
on the blast in the black darkness. There are peaceful vales of earth
filled with the song of birds, the hum of bees, and the gentle lullaby
of brooks. But are there not cyclones and whirlwinds, lightnings and
thunders, that rend and wreck, and devastate—earthquakes that swallow
up whole cities—volcanoes which belch liquid fires? In the midst of
beauty and loveliness men starve, and burn, and drown, and rot with
loathsome disease, and die.
Now there is no question in the world’s best thought, but that God
is good, wonderfully good, notwithstanding all these sufferings and
sorrows. Turn to the Bible, what love is there! what goodness and
patience! what mercy and grace, for every son of man abundantly
bestowed! God is not willing that any should perish. He would rather
that all should turn and live. But suffering for sin is there, and
punishment for guilt. What forked lightnings play against wickedness!
what thunders roll for transgression! There is the worm that never
dies, the fire that is never quenched, the outer darkness where there
is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Heaven is there, with all
its bliss, for those who love and obey God, and hell is there with all
its bale and blight for those who die unforgiven and unreconciled to
God. Because of these things, many throw away the Bible and reproach
God, and seek after an easier way; but they can not throw away nature,
and the same law and method of government inhere in the very core of
nature, and are stamped in all its structure. Where this truth is not
read out of God’s word, it is still read every day in nature.
In nature there is a majestic order which is gone through, and then
nature has no more to give. There is seed time, and a harvest.
Both have their place and office, and if they are improved, well,
unspeakably well; if disregarded, bad, unspeakably bad. The Bible
offers to man a seed time and a harvest. The sowing neglected there
is nothing to take its place. This is the only seed time of the soul;
swiftly the summer ends, and the harvest is the end of the world. As
nature treats man, so does the Bible; without faith and works, the
Bible gives nothing; without ploughing and sowing all the pastures
of the prairies would fail to give man anything; nature cuts off a
sluggard with a straw; without sowing, man reaches the harvest time and
brings in no sheaf. Nature deals squarely: without the seed committed
to her, there are weeds in the autumn; nothing but leaves. So with the
Bible: it demands our confidence, and asks our service; we must heed
its call. Nature is so made as to reward man increasingly, as he rises
in intelligence and his wants multiply. When wood was gone for fuel,
coal came. When the whale oil gave out, petroleum was at hand. After
the paddle came the sail, then the steamship. When the mail carrier
was too slow, the rail car appeared, followed by the lightning of the
telegraph. Nature has her supplies in waiting, and reveals them more
and more through the growing needs of the ages. So of the Bible. Many
said the Bible would do for the stiff-necked Jews in Palestine, but
it would never suit the practical sense of the Romans and the subtle
intellectual taste of the Greeks. It did both. Then it was claimed it
would not avail for the barbarians of northern Europe. It was adopted
by every European nation. Still it was held that the Bible would not
reclaim cannibals and the savages of Africa. It has done for all,
lifted all of every class which it has touched, and it has power to
carry the race higher and wider till the end of time.
An oriental prince brought a tent to his father in a walnut shell,
so runs the legend. The king took it out and began to unfold it. It
covered the king and his counselors. It covered the royal household. It
covered his generals and the army. It covered the kingdom. It covered
the whole world. It was Christianity. God was the father, and the
prince was Jesus Christ, the Messiah. The kingdoms of this world shall
become the kingdom of our Lord. The God of nature and of the Bible is
one God.
* * * * *
Resist as much as thou wilt; Heaven’s ways are Heaven’s
ways.—_Lessing._