other sources of proof, I shall pass by; both because they are familiar to
all, and because I have, in a former lecture, shown the existence and
operation of the present laws of nature in all past ages. But there is one
feature of the past condition of the world taught by geology to which I
would call your attention, as exhibiting a more impressive view of the
wisdom and skill of ordinary providence than almost any other department
of nature presents. When the heavenly bodies are once put under the
control of the two great forces that guide them, viz., the centrifugal and
centripetal, we see no reason why they may not move on forever in their
accustomed paths. But the two great agents of geological change, fire and
water, have an aspect of great irregularity and violence, and are
apparently less under the control of mathematical laws. In the mighty
intensity of their action in early times, we can hardly see how there
could have been much of security or permanence in the state of the globe,
without the constant restraining energy of Jehovah. We feel as if the
earth's crust must have been constantly liable to be torn in pieces by
volcanic fires, or drenched by sweeping deluges. And yet the various
economies of life on the globe, that have preceded the present, have all
been seasons of profound repose and uniformity. The truth is, these mighty
agencies have been just as much under the divine control as those which
regulate the heavenly bodies; and I doubt not but the laws that regulate
their action are as fixed and mathematical as those which guide the sun,
moon, and planets. Still, it must have required infinite wisdom and power
so to arrange the agencies of nature that the desolating action of fire
and water should take place only at those epochs when every thing was in
readiness for the ruin of an old economy and the introduction of a new
one. Geological agencies differ from astronomical in this--that the former
must be allowed an irregular action within certain limits; whereas the
latter act with unvarying uniformity in all circumstances. If the former
had not some room for irregular action, they would not act at all; but if
allowed too much liberty, they will destroy what they were intended to
preserve. And God does restrain, and always has restrained them, just at
the point where desolation would be the result of their more powerful
operation. I do not, indeed, contend that it requires more power or wisdom
to bind those mighty agencies within proper limits than to control the
heavenly bodies. But to our limited faculties it certainly seems a more
difficult work; and, therefore, the geological history of the globe gives
us a more impressive idea of the ordinary providence of God than we see in
the calm and uniform movements of nature around us.
_In the second place, geology furnishes us with some very striking
examples of miraculous providence._
In disproving the eternity of the organic world, in a former lecture, I
adduced and illustrated these examples so fully, that I shall do little
more in this place than give a recapitulation of that argument.
If we suppose the earth originally to have been merely a diffused mass of
vapor, like comets, or nebulae, I can conceive how, by the operation of
such natural laws as now exist, it might have been condensed into a solid
globe; into a melted state, indeed, from the amount of heat extricated in
the condensation. Those same laws might subsequently form over the molten
mass a solid crust, which, at length, might be ridged and furrowed by the
action of internal heat, so as to form the basis of continents and the
beds of oceans. In due time, the vapors might condense, so as to fill
those basins with water; and, by the mutual and alternate action of the
waters above and the heat beneath, the rocks might be comminuted, so as to
form the basis of soils. So far might the arrangements of the world have
proceeded by natural laws; in other words, by the ordinary providence of
God. But at this point we must bring in an extraordinary agency of the
Deity, or the world would have remained, in the expressive language of
revelation, _without form and void_; that is, invisible and unfurnished.
You have, indeed, the framework of a world, but the most difficult and
complicated part of the work, the creation of plants and animals, remains
yet to be performed. Here, then, is the precise point where you must call
in the miraculous agency of the Deity, or the earth would forever remain
an uninhabited waste. For if it does not require miraculous agency to
bring into existence animals and plants, I know not what can require it,
or prove its operation. I can almost as easily conceive how matter might
spring from nothing fortuitously, certainly I can as easily conceive of
its eternity, as that organism and life can result from the ordinary laws
of nature.
It may be, however, that I shall here be met by the statement, that some
distinguished geologists maintain the probable existence of organized
beings on the globe at an indefinitely earlier period than that in which
their remains first appear in the rocks. They contend that the extreme
heat which has melted the older rocks has obliterated all traces of
organic existence below a certain line. Now, in order to meet this
difficulty, it is not necessary to show this opinion to be erroneous. We
have only to advance another step in our general argument, which brings us
upon ground admitted to be good by the geologists above alluded to. They
all of them believe that many new animals and plants have from time to
time appeared on the globe; that, in fact, there have been several almost
entire changes in its inhabitants. Most of them suppose these new races to
have been introduced in large numbers at particular epochs, though some
prefer the theory which supposes the new species to have been introduced
one by one, as the old ones became extinct. But even this supposition does
not essentially affect my argument; because they all allow that these
successive species were really new, and could not have been the result of
any metamorphosis of the old species. And it is the fact that new organic
beings have, from time to time, been created, that is alone essential to
my argument. Whether they were created by groups or singly, is an
interesting geological question; but, in either case, miraculous power
must have been put forth as really and as efficiently to call into
existence a single new species of animalcula, or sea-weed, as to introduce
an entirely new race. The successive economies of organic life that have
existed on the earth, and passed from it, do most unequivocally
demonstrate the extraordinary or miraculous providence of God.
But we might abandon even this strong ground of our argument, and still
geology would afford us a most unequivocal example of the creative agency
of the Deity. That science shows, beyond all question, that man, and most
of his contemporary races of animals and plants, have not always occupied
this globe; and, indeed, that they were not placed upon it till nearly
every form buried in the rocks had passed away. And since those races
which now inhabit the globe have among them a larger proportion of highly
organized and more complicated species than have ever before been
contemporaries,--especially since man is among them, confessedly the most
perfect in organization and in intellect of all the beings that ever
occupied this planet,--we can here point to the highest exercise of
creative power ever exhibited in this lower world, as a certain memento of
God's extraordinary or miraculous providence. Indeed, who, that has any
adequate idea of the wonders of man's intellectual, moral, and immortal
nature, and of the strange extremes that meet and harmonize in his
physical and intellectual constitution, will believe that any loftier
miracle has ever been exhibited on this globe than his creation?
But I have already dwelt so long upon this whole argument in a former
lecture, that I will add no more in this place. If the facts which I have
stated do not prove the miraculous agency of the Deity in past ages, I
know not how it can be proved. But assuming this position to be
established, and several inferences of importance will follow.
_In the first place, this subject removes all philosophical presumption
against a special revelation from heaven._
If we can prove that the Deity has often so interfered with the course of
nature as to introduce new species, nay, whole races of animals and plants
upon the globe,--if, in a comparatively recent period, he has created a
moral and immortal being, endowed with all the powers of a free and an
accountable agent,--it would surely be no more wonderful if he should
communicate to that being his will by a written revelation. Indeed, the
benevolence of the Deity, as we learn it from nature, would create a
presumption that such a revelation would be given, if it appear, as we
know it does, that no sufficient knowledge is inherent in his nature to
guide him in the path of duty; since such a revelation would be no greater
miracle than to people the world, originally destitute of life, and then
to repeople it again and again, with so vast a variety of organic natures.
Philosophy has sometimes been disinclined to admit the claims of
revelation, because it implies a supernatural agency of the Deity; and,
until recently, revelation seemed to be a solitary example of special
interference on the part of Jehovah. But geology adds other examples, long
anterior to revelation--examples registered, like the laws of Sinai, on
tables of stone. And the admission of the geological evidence of special
interference with the regular sequence of nature's operations ought to
predispose the mind for listening to the appropriate proofs of a moral
communication to ignorant and erring man.
_In the second place, the subject shows us how groundless is the famous
objection to the miracles recorded in Scripture, founded on the position
that they are contrary to experience._
"It is," says Mr. Hume, "a maxim worthy of our attention, that no
testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of
such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact
which it endeavors to establish." Hence he asserts, that "the evidence of
testimony, when applied to a miracle, carries falsehood on the very face
of it, and is more properly a subject of derision than of argument," and
that "whoever believes the Christian religion is conscious of a continued
miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his
understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most
contrary to custom and experience."
At the time when Mr. Hume wrote, and with his great skill in weaving
together metaphysical subtilties, such an argument might deceive
superficial minds; for then a miracle was supposed to be contrary to all
experience. But geology has disclosed many new chapters in the world's
history, and shown the existence of miracles earlier than chronological
dates. Even Mr. Hume would hardly deny that the creation of whole series
of animals and plants was miraculous; and yet, in proof of that creation,
we need not depend upon testimony; for we can read it with our own eyes
upon the solid rocks. Such proof appeals directly to our common sense; nor
can any ingenious quibble, concerning the nature of human testimony,
weaken its influence in producing conviction.
And if God has wrought stupendous miracles of creation in order to people
the world, who does not see that it is still more probable he would
perform other miracles when they were needed to substantiate a revelation
of his will to those moral and accountable beings, who needed its special
teachings to make them acquainted with their God, their duty, and their
destiny?
_Finally. The subject removes all presumption against the exercise of a
special and miraculous providence in the divine government of the world._
In all ages of the world, philosophers, and even many theologians, have
been strenuous opposers of special and miraculous providence. If they have
admitted, as most of the latter class have done, that some miracles were
performed in ancient times, they have strenuously maintained that the
doctrine of special providence in these days is absurd, and that God
cannot, without a miracle, bestow any special favors upon the virtuous in
answer to their prayers, or inflict any special punishments upon the
wicked; and that it is fanaticism to expect any other retributions than
such as the ordinary and unmodified course of nature brings along with it.
The unvarying constancy of nature, in consequence of being governed by
fixed laws, is the grand argument which they adduce in opposition to any
supposed special providence. _Since the fathers fell asleep_, say they,
_all things continue as they were from the beginning._ God has subjected
the world to the government of laws, and he will not interfere with,
counteract, set aside, or give a supernatural force to those laws, to meet
particular exigencies. For the adjustment of all apparent inequalities of
good and evil, suffering and enjoyment here, we must wait for the
disclosure of eternity, when strict retributive Justice will hold her even
scales. When natural evils come upon us, therefore, it is idle to expect
their removal, except so far as they may be mitigated or overcome by
natural means; and hence it is useless to pray for their removal, or to
expect God will deliver us from them in any other way. When the heavens
over us become brass, and the earth under our feet iron, and the rain of
our land is powder and dust, and want, and famine, as the consequence,
stalk forth among the inhabitants, of what use to pray to God for rain,
since to give it would require a miracle, and the age of miracles has
passed? When the pestilence is scouring through the land, and our
neighbors and nearest friends are within its grasp, and we may next become
its victims,--nay, when we, too, are on the borders of the grave,--why
should we expect relief by prayer, since sickness is the result of natural
causes, and God will not interpose to save us from the effects of natural
evils, because that would be contrary to a fixed rule of his government?
When dangers cluster around the good man in the discharge of trying
duties, it would be enthusiasm in him to expect any special protection
against his enemies, though he pray ever so fervently, and trust in divine
deliverance with ever so much confidence. He must look to another world
for his reward, if called to suffer here. Nor has the daringly wicked man
any reason to fear that God will punish his violations of the divine law
by any unusual display of his power; not in any way, indeed, but by the
evils which naturally flow from a wicked life. In short, it will be
useless to pray for any blessing that requires the least interference with
natural laws, or for the removal of any evil which depends upon those
laws. And since our minds are controlled as much by laws as the functions
of our bodies, we are not to expect any blessings in our souls, which
require the least infringement of intellectual laws. In fine, the effect
of prayer is limited almost entirely to its influence upon our own hearts,
in preparing them to receive with a proper spirit natural blessings, and
to bear aright natural evils; to stimulate us to use with more diligence
the means of avoiding or removing the latter, and securing the former.
Not a few philosophers of distinction, and some theologians, have adopted
these views. Even Dr. Thomas Brown uses the following language: "It is
quite evident that even Omnipotence, which cannot do what is
contradictory, cannot combine both advantages--the advantage of regular
order in the sequences of nature, and the advantages of a uniform
adaptation of the particular circumstances of the individual. We may take
our choice, but we cannot think of a combination of both; and if, as is
very obvious, the greater advantage be that of uniformity of operation, we
must not complain of the evils to which that very uniformity which we
cannot fail to prefer--if the option had been allowed us--has been the
very circumstance that gave rise."--_Lecture 94._
"Science," says George Combe, "has banished from the minds of profound
thinkers belief in the exercise by the Deity, in our day, of special acts
of supernatural power, as a means of influencing human affairs; and it has
presented a systematic order of nature, which man may study, comprehend,
and follow, as a guide to his practical conduct. Many educated laymen, and
also a number of the clergy, have declined to recognize fasts,
humiliations, and prayers, as means adapted, according to their views, to
avert the recurrence of the evil, [the potato blight.] Indeed, these
observances, inasmuch as they mislead the public mind with respect to its
causes, are regarded by such persons as positive evils."
"The most irreligious of all religious notions, as it seems to us," says
the North American Review, "is a belief in special providences; for if the
doctrine has any weight at all, it is gained at the expense of a general
providence. To assume to detect God as nearer to us on some occasions is
to put him farther off from us on other occasions. To have him in special
incidents is to forget him in the common tenor of events. The doctrine of
special providences evidently has no other foundation than this, that men
_think they can detect_ God's purpose and presence more signally in some
incidents than in others; so that the doctrine, after all, is only a
compliment to man's power of detection, instead of an acknowledgment of
God's special presence."
Such views and reasonings seem, upon a superficial examination, to be very
plausible. But when we look into the Bible, we cannot but see that the
main drift of it is directly opposed to such notions. That book does
encourage man to pray to God for the removal of evils of every kind; evils
as much dependent upon natural laws as the daily course of the sun through
the heavens. It does teach us to look to God in every trying situation for
deliverance, if it is best for us to be delivered. It does represent the
wicked man as in danger of special punishment. It exhibits a multitude of
examples, in which God has thus delivered those who trusted in him, and
punished those who violated his laws.
In every age, too, the most devotedly pious men have testified, that they
have found deliverance and support in circumstances in which mere natural
laws could afford them no relief. Moreover, when men are brought into
great peril or suffering of any kind, they involuntarily cry to God for
help. When the vessel founders in the fury of the storm, the hardened
sailor employs that breath in ardent prayer which just before had been
poured out in blasphemies. And when the widowed mother hears the tempest
howling around her dwelling at night, she cannot but pray for the
protection of her child upon the treacherous sea. When violent disease
racks the frame, and we feel ourselves rapidly sinking into the grave, it
is scarcely in human nature to omit crying to God with a feeling that he
can save us. In short, it is a dictate of nature to call upon God in times
of trouble. Our reasoning about the constancy of nature, which appears to
us while in safety so clearly to show prayer for the removal of natural
evils to be useless, loses its power, and the feelings of the heart
triumph. It now becomes, therefore, an important practical question, which
of these views of the providence of God is correct. Is it those which our
reasoning derives from the constancy of nature, or those inspired by piety
and the Bible? I have already said, that the subject of this lecture
removes all presumption against the latter view; and I now proceed to show
how God can exercise a special providence over the world, so as to meet
the case of every individual, whether for blessing or punishment, and
that, too, without miracles.
Whoever believes that geology discloses stupendous miracles of creation,
at various epochs, will not doubt that all presumption against miraculous
agency at any other time is thus removed. For we are thus shown that the
law of miracles forms a part of the divine plan in the government of the
world. But this does not prove the same to be the fact in respect to a law
of special providence.
It is indeed true that geology gives us no distinct examples of special
providence, in the sense which we have attached to that term in the
present lecture. But it does furnish a multitude of instances in which
changes of physical condition in the earth were met by most wisely adapted
changes of organic nature. And even though these changes were the result
of miraculous agency, they disclose this principle of the divine
government, viz., that peculiarities of condition are to be met by special
arrangements, so that every exigency shall be provided for in the manner
infinite wisdom sees to be best. Now, this principle constitutes the
essence of special providence; and, therefore, geology, in showing its
past operation in the world's early organic history, affords a presumption
that the same unchanging God may still employ it in his natural and moral
government.
But does not this principle of special adaptation to individual exigencies
demand miraculous agency in all cases? Can the wants of individuals be met
in any other way than by miracles, or by the ordinary and settled laws of
nature? I maintain that there are other modes in which this can be done;
in which, in fact, every case requiring special interference can be met
exactly and fully.
_This can be done, in the first place, by a divine influence exerted upon
the human mind, unperceived by the individual._
If it were perceived, it would constitute a miracle. But can we doubt that
the Author of mind should be able to influence it directly and indirectly,
unperceived by the man so acted upon? Even man can do this to his fellow;
and shall such a power be denied to God?
Now, in many cases,--I do not say all,--it only needs that the minds of
others should be inclined to do so and so towards a man, in order to place
him in circumstances most unlike those that would have surrounded him
without such an influence. Even the very elements, being to some extent
under human control, can thus be made subservient, or adverse, to an
individual; and, indeed, by a change in the feelings and conduct of others
towards us, by an unseen influence upon their minds, our whole outward
condition may be changed. In this way, therefore, can God, in many
instances, confer blessings on the virtuous, or execute punishment upon
the wicked, or give special answers to special prayer; and yet there
shall be no miracle about it, nor even the slightest violation of a law of
matter or of mind. The result may seem to us only the natural effect of
those laws, and yet the divine influence may have modified the effect to
any extent.
_In the second place, God can so modify the second causes of events out of
our sight, as to change wholly, or in part, the final result, and yet not
disturb the usual order of nature within sight, so that there shall be no
miracle._
A miracle requires that the usual order of nature, as man sees it, be
interrupted, or some force superadded to her agency. But if such change
take place out of our sight, it might not disturb that order within sight;
and, therefore, to us it would be no miracle.