I cannot conclude this volume without recording my solemn and
deliberate protest against the infidelity with which, to a very painful
extent, modern physical science is associated. I allude not only to the
ground which the conclusions of modern geologists take, in opposition
to the veracity of the “God which cannot lie,” though the distinct
statements which He has made to us concerning Creation are now, as if
by common consent, put aside, with silent contempt, as effete fables,
unworthy of a moment’s thought, and this too before vast assemblages of
persons, not one of whom lifts his voice for the truth of God. These
assaults are at least open and unmasked. But there is in our scientific
literature, and specially in that which takes a popular form, a tone
equally dangerous and more insidious. It altogether ignores the awful
truths of God’s revelation, that all mankind are guilty and condemned
and spiritually dead in Adam; that we are by nature children of wrath;
that the whole world lieth in the wicked one; and that the wrath of
God abideth on it: it ignores the glorious facts of atonement by the
precious blood of Christ, and of acceptance in Him. It substitutes for
these a mere sentimental admiration of nature, and teaches that the
love of the beautiful makes man acceptable to God, and secures His
favour. How often do we see quoted and be-praised, as if it were an
indisputable axiom, the sentiment of a poet who ought to have known
better,
“He prayeth best who loveth best
All things, both great and small;”--
a sentiment as silly as it is unscriptural; for what connexion
can there be between the love of the inferior creatures, and the
acceptableness of a sinner praying to the Holy God? It is the
intervention of Christ Jesus, the anointed Priest, which alone gives
prayer acceptance.
There is no sentimental or scientific road to heaven. There is
absolutely nothing in the study of created things, however single,
however intense, which will admit sinful man into the presence of God,
or fit him to enjoy it. If there were, what need was there that the
glorious Son, the everlasting Word, should be made flesh, and give His
life a ransom for many?
If I have come to God as a guilty sinner, and have found acceptance,
and reconciliation, and sonship, in the blood of His only-begotten
Son, then I may come down from that elevation, and study creation with
advantage and profit; but to attempt to scale heaven with the ladder
of natural history, is nothing else than Cain’s religion; it is the
presentation of the fruit of the earth, instead of the blood of the
Lamb.