in the knowledge of the existence, character, and plans of Jehovah. We
shall find that progress to have been marked by epochs, rather than
continuous advancement. Some new revelation from heaven, or some new
discovery in science, has given a sudden expansion to his views of the
Deity, which have then remained in a good degree stationary for a long
period. My chief object in this lecture is to show what accessions to our
knowledge of the divine plans have been derived from science, especially
from geology. But it will give greater distinctness and impressiveness to
the subject to take a review of the principal steps by which the human
mind has reached its present accurate spiritual and enlarged views of the
Deity.
_We will first look at man in the rudest condition in society, in which he
has any idea of the existence of beings superior to himself._
For there is a state of his being in which no such ideas exist in his
mind; tribes of men, and especially individuals, who have lived in a wild
state, away from all human intercourse, have been found with no idea of a
superior being of any sort. Other tribes have existed a little more
elevated above the irrational animals, and these have an impression,
derived perhaps from their moral sense, or growing out of their
superstitious fears, that some power exists in the universe greater than
themselves. But having never entertained an abstract idea on any other
subject, and depending alone upon their senses for their knowledge, they
identify God with the most remarkable objects of nature. They listen to
his voice in the wind and the thunder, in the ocean's roar, and the
volcano's bellowing; and they see him in the sun, moon, and stars. They
feel that he must be superior to themselves; but how much superior, they
know not. They never think of him as infinite, because the idea of
infinity on any subject never enters their mind. They conceive of the
earth only as a plain of considerable extent, bounded by a circle, beyond
which their thoughts never wander; and they look up to the heavens as a
dome, perhaps solid, studded by luminous bodies, it may be a few feet or
yards in diameter. They suppose that, somehow or other, this superior
Being has the control of their destinies; but the idea of any thing like
worship is too spiritual to be conceived of, except, perhaps, some
superstitious rite, performed to deprecate the divine displeasure. In
short, every thing in their notion of God is indefinite, gross, and
confined to the narrow sphere of the senses.
_In the second place, polytheism, especially among nations somewhat
civilized, is an advance in man's conceptions of the Supreme Being._
Polytheism probably originated in the deification of distinguished men.
Superior minds, who had been the leaders or the benefactors of mankind,
were suddenly torn from an admiring world by death. Their bodies were left
behind, but the animating principle, the immortal mind, had vanished in a
moment; and it was a most natural inquiry, even among the most ignorant,
whether some undying principle had not escaped and gone to a higher
sphere; for it would be difficult to conceive how so much intelligence
and virtue should be quenched in a moment in eternal night. It would be a
most natural and gratifying conclusion with survivors, that their departed
leaders and benefactors still lived, and were in some way concerned in
watching over their interests, and in controlling their destinies.
Conjectures of this sort would, in a few generations, settle into positive
belief. Now, this would be a most important advance upon the gross
materialism, and indefinite ideas, which identified divinity with striking
objects of nature; for if distinguished warriors and statesmen were still
alive after their bodies were laid in the grave, there must have escaped,
at the moment of death, some principle too subtile to be cognizable by the
senses, or by chemical, mechanical, or electrical agencies; and which,
therefore, may have been immaterial. At least, by such a belief, men would
be led insensibly to form an idea of the human soul as an extremely
tenuous, if not immaterial, principle. Especially would educated
men--those devoted to philosophical pursuits--come at length to have a
clear conception of a spiritual being, neither visible by the senses, nor
dependent upon the senses for the exercise of its faculties. Very soon
would the imagination fill the universe with such beings, and conceive
them as holding intercourse with one another, and as presiding over all
the objects of this lower world, and directing all its destinies. It would
be very natural, however, to endow these superior beings with human
characteristics, and to suppose them actuated by human passions; and thus
would the celestial society be represented as a counterpart of that on
earth, deformed by the same vices and crimes. This would lead to the idea
of a gradation in rank, power, and intellect among the gods, and to the
conception of one as supreme. In the popular mythology, however, even
Jupiter was represented as acting under the influence of selfishness,
pride, lust, and passion; and as sometimes brought into peril by his
powerful inferiors. Some of the philosophers of Greece and Rome did,
indeed, give descriptions of their supreme divinity not unworthy the
biblical views of Jehovah. It may be that they got the clew to these just
and elevated conceptions from the Bible. But it is not difficult to
conceive that, in the manner which I have described, they might, by
reasoning, with, perhaps, some hints derived from revelation, have
gradually attained to these just and noble conceptions of the supreme
divinity. Yet it ought not to be forgotten that these exalted views of the
philosophers were not shared at all by the common people, and that even
the philosophers themselves were for the most part polytheists.
The next step in man's knowledge of God was an immeasurable advance upon
polytheism. _I refer to the revelation which God made of himself to the
Jews in the Old Testament._ Most of this revelation did, indeed, precede
the writings of the Greek and Roman philosophers, but it was confined to a
rude and almost unknown people, until the days of their glory had gone by,
and did not spread over the globe till an opportunity had been afforded to
prove that _the world by wisdom knew not God_. You may, indeed, find, in
the writings of a few philosophers, passages descriptive of the natural
attributes of the Deity that will compare favorably with those of the Old
Testament. But his moral attributes, his benevolence, mercy, justice, and
holiness, are brought out in the Old Testament in a far more distinct and
impressive manner than in all other ancient writings. Another point, and a
vital one, with the writers of the Old Testament, in which that inspired
volume goes infinitely beyond the philosophers, is the unity of God. They
teach, as a fundamental principle, and with all the earnestness which
inspiration can bestow, not only that Jehovah is supreme, but that he is
God alone, and that no other gods exist. You may, indeed, find statements
to this effect in the works of the philosophers; but the conduct of
Socrates, the most enlightened of them all,--in his dying moments,--in
directing a sacrifice to be made to AEsculapius, is a good practical
commentary upon their doctrine of the divine unity. It shows that, with
some correct notions of the supreme divinity, they believed in the
existence of inferior deities; or, at least, they did not regard the
popular error on this subject of importance enough to require them boldly
to testify against it. But such testimony constitutes the burden of the
Old Testament, as if all other religious truths were of little importance
without it. And so far as these inspired books succeeded in fixing this
doctrine in the minds of the Jews, they performed an immense service for
religion. They swept at once from the universe the thirty thousand
divinities of Greece and Rome, and placed Jehovah only on the throne. But,
for some reason or other, polytheism has always been a doctrine most
congenial to human nature; especially to the uncultivated mind; and the
probability is, that the great mass of the Jews, while they believed in
the supremacy of Jehovah, still supposed that the gods of the heathen had
a real existence. This certainly was the case before the Babylonish exile,
though doubtless the patriarchs had more correct notions. This fact
explains the otherwise unaccountable disposition of the Jews to fall away
to idolatry, in spite of all which Jehovah did to preserve among them his
true worship.
On the subject, also, of the divine spirituality, we have evidence that
the notions of the great mass of the Jewish nation were low and confused.
They distinguished, it is true, very clearly between the body and the
soul. But they probably conceived of the latter as a very subtile,
invisible, corporeal essence, and not that pure, immaterial substance
which is understood by that term in metaphysics. The abstract ideas
attached to the soul in the nineteenth century probably never entered
their minds; and though in strict language they might be called
materialists, they were by no means such materialists as modern times have
produced, who understandingly deny the existence of the soul, and regard
it as a function of the brain. The Jews thought of God as the most subtile
essence of which they could form any idea; but whether he were material,
or immaterial, probably they never inquired. And it cannot escape the
notice of a reader of the Old Testament how frequently God is represented
by figures derived from material objects. This was in accommodation to the
rude and uncultivated state of most minds in those early days. Purely
abstract truths would have conveyed no ideas to minds which had never been
accustomed to abstractions. Hence it is, that we meet in the Bible with so
many descriptions of the Deity, which theologians and philosophers
denominate _anthropopathic_ and _anthropomorphic_. It was in accommodation
to the uncultivated state of common minds, which could form no conceptions
of God that were not founded on some property belonging to man. The
language of the sacred writers does, indeed, when correctly interpreted,
convey the idea of the most perfectly simple, spiritual, and immaterial
substance as constituting the divine essence; and minds accustomed to
abstract ideas find no difficulty in enucleating the spiritual meaning of
Scripture. But had the divine Being been described by abstract terms, the
great mass of men, even at the present day, would receive no impressive
conception of the Godhead. God, therefore, in the Old Testament, revealed
as much concerning himself and his plans, as men would understand. But
other revelations and developments would follow, when the human mind
should be prepared to receive and appreciate them.
_The revelations of Christianity have brought to light so much respecting
the moral character and moral government of Jehovah, as to leave little
further to be desired or expected in this world._
The natural attributes of the Deity have a more spiritual and less
anthropopathic aspect in the New Testament than in the Old. We are told in
the former distinctly, that _God is a spirit, and those who worship him
must worship him in spirit and in truth_. But God's moral character, as
developed in the New Testament, in the plan of redemption and salvation,
presents us with a perfection and a glory unknown in all previous
revelations. We have, it is true, in the Old Testament intimations and
predictions of the plan, which is fully developed and exemplified in the
new dispensation. But these were only shadows of Jesus Christ and him
crucified. When he appeared, and by his sufferings, as a substitute for
man, reconciled divine justice and mercy, and made a clear exposition of
the moral law, and a disclosure of a future state of retributions, a flood
of light was thrown upon God's moral character. Every cloud that had
rested upon it was cleared away, and immaculate holiness covered it with
unapproachable splendor. In short, the human mind is incapable of forming
a more correct estimate of moral excellence than is exhibited in the
scriptural plan of salvation. The more it is meditated upon, and the more
we experience its practical influence, the higher will be our conceptions
of the moral glory of the divine character; nor have we reason to suppose
that any further revelations would increase our apprehensions of it. For
benevolence, mercy, justice, and grace are here exhibited in unlimited,
that is, in infinite, glory and perfection, and therefore can never be
exceeded.
But though the exhibitions of the divine character and plans contained in
the Bible are thus perfect and excellent, they are not the only
exhibitions which the universe contains, and which man is capable of
understanding. _Lo, these are a part of his ways._ The Bible has left the
wonders of the natural world where it found them, to be examined and
developed by philosophy. Some have thought that it has anticipated a few
scientific discoveries; but if it had done this in one instance, it must
have carried the same plan through the whole circle of science; else how
could readers determine when the sacred writers were describing phenomena
according to appearances and general belief, and when according to real
scientific truth? But the fact is, scientific discoveries are left to
man's ingenuity; and as they are made from time to time, they bring out
new and splendid illustrations of the character and plans of Jehovah. Let
us now recur to some of these discoveries, that have opened the widest
vistas into the arcana of nature.
_The discoveries in modern astronomy constitute the fifth step in man's
knowledge of God._
In order to see how much man's conceptions of the universe have been
enlarged by these discoveries, compare the opinions which prevailed before
the introduction of the Copernican system with what is now certain
knowledge, founded upon physico-mathematics, respecting the extent of the
universe. Then this earth was thought to be the centre and the principal
body of the creation, immovably fixed, with the heavenly bodies, generally
thought to be of diminutive size, revolving around it every twenty-four
hours. The earth, too, except in the opinion of a few sagacious
philosophers, was not imagined to be that vast globe which we now
understand it to be, but a flat surface, perhaps a few hundred or
thousand miles in extent, bounded by a circle, and resting on an imaginary
foundation. The heavenly bodies were looked upon as little more than
shining points, or at most a few yards, or by the most daring fancies a
few miles, in extent. What a change have the telescope, the quadrant, and
the transit instrument, aided by profound mathematics, and the talismanic
power of the Newtonian theory of gravitation, produced! Every schoolboy
now knows that this globe, enormous though it be compared with what the
eye can take in from the loftiest eminence, is but a mere speck in
creation, and, with the exception of the moon, appearing from other worlds
only as one of the smallest stars in their heavens; so small that its
extinction would not be noticed. To the ignorant mind, distances and
magnitudes exceeding a hundred miles are conceived of only with great
difficulty. But the astronomer, when he conceives of magnitudes, must make
a thousand miles his shortest unit, and a million of miles when he
conceives of distances in the solar system. And when he attempts to go
beyond the sun and the planets, the shortest division on his measuring
line must be the diameter of the earth's orbit; and even then he will be
borne onward so far, not on the wings of imagination, but of mathematics,
that this enormous distance has vanished to a point. Even then he has only
reached the nearest fixed star, and, of course, has only just entered upon
the outer limit of creation. He must prepare himself for a still loftier
flight. He must give up the diameter of the earth's orbit as the unit of
his measurements, because too short, and take as his standard the passage
of light, at the rate of two hundred thousand miles per second. With that
speed can he go on, until his mind has reckoned up six thousand years of
seconds, and he will reach fixed stars whose light has not yet arrived at
the earth, because it did not commence its journey till the time of man's
creation.
But it is not merely in respect to distance and magnitude that astronomy
has enlarged our knowledge of the universe. Numerically it has opened a
field equally wide. Think of two thousand worlds rolling nightly around
us, visible to the naked eye. Take the telescope, and see those two
thousand multiply to fifty or one hundred millions, and then recollect how
very improbable it is that the keenest optics of earth can reach more than
an infinitesimal part of creation. Surely the mind is as much confounded
and lost, when it attempts to conceive of the number of the worlds in the
universe, as when it contemplates their distances and magnitudes. In
respect to number and distance, at least, we find no resting-place but in
infinity.
Now, when we turn our thoughts to the Author of such a universe, our
conceptions of his power, wisdom, and benevolence cannot but enlarge in
the same ratio as our views of his works. They must, therefore, experience
a prodigious expansion. And, indeed, the merest child in a Christian land,
in the nineteenth century, has a far wider and nobler conception of the
perfections of Jehovah than the wisest philosopher who lived before
astronomy had gone forth on her circumnavigation of the universe. From the
fact, also, which astronomy discloses, that worlds are in widely different
chemical and geological conditions, some gaseous and transparent, some
solid and opaque, and some liquid and incandescent, the mind can hardly
avoid the inference that they are fulfilling the vast and varied plans of
Jehovah.
_The sixth step in man's knowledge of Jehovah has been made by the
microscope._
To give any correct idea of the boundless field which that instrument has
opened into the infinitesimal parts of creation, it would be necessary to
go into details too extended for the present occasion. Perhaps the
animalcula or infusoria furnish the best example. "In the clearest
waters," says an able writer, "and also in the strongly-troubled acid and
salt fluids of the various zones of the earth; in springs, rivers, lakes,
and seas; in the internal moisture of living plants and animal bodies; and
probably, at times, carried about in the vapor and dust of the whole
atmosphere of the earth, exists a world, by the common senses of mankind
unperceived, of very minute living beings, which have been called, for the
last seventy years, _infusoria_. In the ordinary pursuits of life, this
mysterious and infinite kingdom of living creatures is passed by without
our knowledge of, or interest in, its wonders. But to the quiet observer
how astonishing do these become, when he brings to his aid those optical
powers by which his faculty of vision is so much strengthened! In every
drop of dirty, stagnant water, we are generally, if not always, able to
perceive, by means of the microscope, moving bodies, of from one eleven
hundred and fiftieth to one twenty-five thousandth of an inch in diameter,
and which often lie packed so closely together that the space between each
individual scarcely equals that of their diameter."--Prichard, _History of
Infusoria_, p. 2, 1841.
Again says he, "It is hardly conceivable that, within the narrow space,
[of a grain of mustard-seed,] eight millions of living, active creatures
can exist, all richly endowed with the organs and faculties of animal
life. Such, however, is the astonishing fact."--_Ib._ p. 3.
In short, whoever will thoroughly study this subject will be satisfied
that Dr. Ehrenberg does not exceed the truth when he asserts, as the
result of his inquiries, that "experience shows an unfathomableness of
organic creations, when attention is directed to the smallest space, as it
does of stars, when revealing the most immense."--_Prichard_, p. 8.
He who follows out the revelations of the telescope, as it penetrates
deeper and deeper into space, will feel, when he has seen the remotest
object which its power discloses, that there must certainly be a vast
unknown region beyond, infinitely exceeding that one over which he has
passed. Just so is it with the microscope. It penetrates to an astonishing
distance into the infinitesimal forms of organic and inorganic matter; but
every improvement in the instrument reaches a new and equally interesting
field; and the conclusion forces itself upon the mind that there are
regions beyond of indefinite extent, teeming with countless millions even
of organic beings, of a size much more diminutive than those yet
discovered, and with inorganic forms too minute for the imagination to
conceive. Indeed, we can no more set limits to creation in the direction
pointed out by the microscope than in that laid open by the telescope. We
hence get a most impressive conception of divine wisdom and benevolence,
which could thus bestow exquisite organization and life upon atoms minute
beyond the power of the imagination to conceive. Indeed, it seems to me
that the lesson is even more striking than the contemplation of vast
worlds in rapid and harmonious motion; because the latter seem to demand
only infinite power, but the former requires infinite wisdom to direct
infinite power.
_In the seventh and last place, geology has given great enlargement to our
knowledge of the divine plans and operations in the universe, and in the
following particulars_:--
1. It expands our ideas of the time in which the material universe has
been in existence as much as astronomy does in regard to its extent.