099. QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER 2.
QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER 2.
1. What is the general definition given of a divine revelation?
2. In what respect are we in danger of erring in reference to reason, as connected with revelation?
3. To what extent should reason be used in investigating the evidences of Christianity?
4. When satisfied that God has given us a revelation, how should reason farther be employed?
5. Does revelation contain anything contrary to reason?
6. Does it contain any thing beyond the comprehension of reason?
7. How may we account for apparent discrepancies between reason and revelation?
8. Is the prima facie evidence for or against revelation?
9. With what generally-admitted fact does the author begin?
10. To what does he appeal for the establishment of that fact?
11. What is the second argument in favor of moral agency?
12. Can man by nature gain the knowledge necessary for him as a moral agent?
13. With what class of skeptics does the author propose to argue?
14. What knowledge of God and his attributes did the ancient pagans possess?
15. From what source was it derived?
16. How does the character of their worship show their ignorance of God?
17. Among what nations have human sacrifices been offered?
18. What was the character of the heathen mysteries?
19. What was their natural result?
CHAPTER 3 - REVELATION NECESSARY TO TEACH THE ORIGIN, DUTY, AND DESTINY OF MAN. IN this chapter we propose to show that revelation is necessary to teach us what we ought to know concerning ourselves - our origin, duty, and destiny. By claiming that revelation is necessary, we do not mean that it is so in the absolute and strongest sense, or that God is so obliged by his attributes, or the nature of things, by such necessity, that he could not avoid furnishing us a revelation of his will. The necessity in the case relates solely to the character and wants of man. Such are his destitution and imbecility, that he greatly needs a revelation from God - that is, he cannot otherwise gain that information which is indispensable, to enable him to fill the measure of his being, and the end of his creation, as a moral agent. In this sense, we consider revelation necessary.
We think that the possibility and probability of revelation are both clearly implied in its necessity; and therefore we deem a separate discussion of those questions superfluous. To deny that revelation is possible, is to deny the divine omnipotence. And if it be shown that revelation is necessary, its probability must be admitted as an inevitable sequence.
Occupying, as we unquestionably do, the position of intellectual, rational, moral agents, reason demands that we possess that information which is necessary to our character and position. Surely it cannot be consistent with the attributes of God, that he should leave his creature, thus nobly endowed, to grope in the dark in reference to his own origin, duty, and destiny! Unless we know our origin - that “God hath made us, and not we ourselves” - how can we feel our dependence upon him, and our obligation to do his will? And unless we are sensible of this dependence and obligation, by what influence can we be led to the performance of our duty, or even to know that such a thing as duty, in reference to ourselves, can exist? Unless we know what our duty is, how can we be expected to perform it, however much we may feel the obligation? And unless we have some knowledge of our destiny - unless assured of the immortality of our nature, and that we must meet the retributions of an hereafter - where will be the sanctions essential to enforce the will of God, as the law and rule of life, and the standard of moral rectitude? And without such standard or rule, clearly understood, how can we either occupy the position, or perform with propriety the part, of moral agents?
We think it clear, that if man be a moral agent, he must have some satisfactory knowledge of his origin, duty, and destiny. But with out revelation, have we, or can we have, this knowledge? Deny that God hath spoken to man; close the Bible, and ask the pagan world: Whence came man? In what part of the universe did he originate? From what source did he spring into being? Aside from revelation, this whole subject rests under an impenetrable cloud. No ray of light is to be seen. Ask the “wise men of the East,” the Brahmans and philosophers of India, and they will tell you that man was formed from the different parts of the body of the Creator - some from his mouth; others from his breast, or arm, or thigh, or foot. But go to the masters of Grecian and Roman learning - after they had enriched their magazines by ransacking the lore of Egypt, Assyria Babylon, and Persia - and how much better are their teachings? Diodorus Siculus, a learned historian of the famous Augustan age, after traversing Europe and Asia, and devoting thirty years to the task, comes forth with a general history of all nations, and, in reference to the origin of the human race, tells us “that moisture generates creatures from heat as from a seminal principle, whence it is manifest that, in the beginning of the world, through the fertility of the soil, the first men were formed in Egypt.” The presumption of this erudite pagan is, that from the fermenting mud on the banks of the Nile men originally came forth like frogs, and thus the world has been peopled. Nor need it be thought that this account does injustice to the pagan world; for if there be in all the writings of pagan philosophers any thing better, it has been pilfered from revelation.
Some have supposed that man never had a beginning, but that the race has been eternally propagated by an infinite succession of generations - a proposition too absurd to deserve notice. Some have attributed the origin of man to the elephant’s snout, and some to the dragon’s tooth, and others to a fortuitous flowing together of primeval atoms; and thus one absurd conjecture after another upon the subject has received favor with the philosophers and schools of pagan antiquity. Who that reflects upon this subject can fail to be convinced that revelation was necessary to dispel these dark clouds which have ever rested upon the heathen world, upon so interesting a question as the origin of man? One ray of light flashing from the first chapter of Genesis, is ten thousand times more satisfactory than all the silly dreams and senseless theories of paganism. But if we discard the teachings of the Bible, we are then left, as to the question of our origin, to be tossed forever upon the waves of wild conjecture.
Without revelation, we are quite as destitute in reference to a knowledge of our duty. To a moral agent, this knowledge is indispensable. Without it, moral agency is an utter absurdity. To see clearly what our condition would be without revelation, We need only look at the condition of pagans in all ages and in all parts of the world. What has ever been the state of morals in those dark regions? What were their national codes, the teachings of their philosophers and schools; and the example of the wisest and best of their sages, and the masses of their people? Not the first precept of the decalogue was ever understood and carried out among them.
We need not dwell upon the general licentiousness and crime in which the heathen masses have ever been immersed - their falsehood and theft, their debaucheries and murders, their profanity and vile uncleanness - but let us look at the theories and practice of the more enlightened and better classes. They knew nothing of the great Christian duty of loving our enemies, and doing good to all: they inculcated revenge as a virtue; pride and worldly ambition they encouraged and extolled. In Egypt and Sparta, theft was permitted and justified. Both Aristotle and Plato, with all their philosophy and refinement, saw nothing wrong in the exposure of infants, or the crime of abortion. The murder of weak, deformed, or imperfect children, was authorized by the renowned Lycurgus. In the refined city of Athens, with the sanction of public sentiment and civil authority, innocent infants were exposed, and virtuous women were treated as slaves. Socrates, Plato, and Seneca, both by precept and example, taught that there was nothing indecent or wrong in common swearing. Even among the renowned sages, and erudite masters of philosophy, unnatural lusts were not only taught and allowed, but unblushingly indulged. The practice of adultery was rather sanctioned and commended than censured or condemned. Cicero and Seneca were the open apologists and advocates of suicide; and Demosthenes, Cato, Brutus, and Cassius, hallowed it by their example. With all these authentic facts before us, can we believe that a divine revelation is not needed to teach man his duty? If such were the morals taught by the most intelligent and virtuous in the center of civilization, letters, and refinement, and even in the most favored times, what must have been the degradation of the masses? Contrast this picture with the justice, meekness, gentleness, temperance, chastity, purity, truth, sincerity, holiness, and benevolence of Christianity, and then decide the question: Was not revelation needed to teach man his duty?
There is no reason to suppose that modern unbelievers in Christian lands, destitute of the influence of revelation, would be wiser or better than Socrates or Plato, Seneca or Cicero. Such has been the influence of gospel precept, of the publication of the great lesson of love to God and man, in Christian lands, that it is difficult for the infidel to conceive his indebtedness to the Bible. Take the Saviour’s golden rule - “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” - and it embodies a more complete system of moral science than can be gained from all the tomes of pagan lore. Man never knew his great duty as a moral agent till he read the two great commandments of “loving God with all the heart, and loving our neighbor as ourselves;” and these holy precepts were never known on earth, except as borrowed from revelation.
Revelation is farther needed to instruct us concerning our destiny. Without the doctrine of the soul’s immortality, and of future rewards and punishments, there can be no substantial foundation for morals. Without penal sanctions, there may be room for counsel or advice, but there can be no place for law; and law is essential to moral agency. In regard to the soul, the notions of the wisest of the pagans were diverse, vague, and unsatisfactory, They were clouded with doubt and uncertainty. Among the Greeks, the atheists, as well as the principal schools of deistical philosophers - the Pythagoric, the Platonic, the Peripatetic, and the Stoic - all taught that God was the soul of the world, and that human souls are but an emanation, or separation of essence, from God, and that after their separation from the body at death, they will be reunited to God by refusion, as a drop of water to the ocean. This, it will be perceived, is substantially the doctrine of annihilation. Some of them held that this reunion of souls with God took place with all men at death; others, (the Pythagoreans,) that it was not till after a succession of transmigrations; and others still, (the Platonists,) held that the pure, unpolluted souls, were absorbed in the divine essence, immediately on death, but that others entered into a succession of other bodies, till, being purified by the process, they reentered the parent substance.
Democritus, and others, were real materialists, holding that the soul had no existence except as connected with the body, and that death is the end of the human career. Epicurus and his followers also denied a future state and Cicero testifies that the masses of the people were followers of Epicurus.
It is admitted that Socrates, Plato, Cicero, and a few of the wisest of the heathen philosophers, rose above the masses, and uttered some elevated notions concerning the soul and an hereafter. But they had no settled conviction - no firm assurance. With them, all was flickering hope, emitting a faint gleam to-day, to go out to-morrow. All was the unsatisfactory struggles of reason feebly grappling with a theme too wonderful for her unassisted faculties, and, like some half-fledged bird, making “unearthly flutterings” in its fruitless effort to fly. They never arrived at a certainty. Hypothesis, conjecture, and a degree of probability and hope, unsatisfying to their own minds, was all they could reach. And of this disquieting uncertainty and depressing doubt, they made ample confession, and mourned their inability to find a firmer basis for their reasoning and a surer foundation for their hope. And now, we ask, Can it be supposed that God, after having made man “in his own image,” and endued him with the noble principle of free moral agency, will leave him thus adrift, like a ship at sea without rudder or compass, to be wildly driven and tossed by the winds? Does not man need, not only a hope, but to be possessed of an assurance, of his immortality? And it is now almost universally admitted that this certainty can only be gained by a revelation from God. Is it not clear that God, who spoke man into being, can, with equal ease, speak him out of being; and whether he will or not, who can know but God, and he to whom he may reveal it? That he has revealed this doctrine, seems to us as certain as that man is constituted a moral agent. Surely it must greatly enhance our enjoyment to know that we shall live hereafter! And will not God, who alone can impart that knowledge, and who delights in the happiness of all, confer upon us this blessing? But if divine revelation was thus necessary to teach us concerning God and his worship, and concerning man, as to his origin, duty, and destiny, it is equally clear that it was necessary to teach us the way of reconciliation to God, and of eternal salvation. That man is a sinful being, in a state of guilt and consequent unhappiness, the candid, intelligent deist, cannot deny. It is a truth recorded upon the conscience of every reflecting man, and upon every page of the world’s history. It is not only a doctrine of the Bible, but has been fully admitted by all the sages and philosophers of paganism. To discover our great moral malady - our state of sin and misery - has been no difficult task for human reason, even where the light of divine revelation has not shone. But farther, the light of nature is too dim to conduct the anxious inquirer. Reason alone may teach man to sigh over his miseries here, but faith in the revelation of God must point him to his remedy, light up the torch of hope, and teach him to smile at the prospect of a blissful hereafter. After all the anxieties and struggles of the wisest of the pagans upon the subject, they honestly confessed their utter helplessness.
According to the admissions of all the most intelligent deists, God is not only good, but just, and must “render to every man according to his works.” Man being constituted a moral agent, must be under law to his Maker. This law is just, and holy, and righteous; and as such, “every transgression and disobedience must receive a just recompense of reward.” But the great question is, How can man obtain pardon for sins committed? Close the Bible, and from all the voices of nature there is heard no solution of this problem. Should man be supposed capable, beginning at any definite period in his history, of rendering perfect obedience for all time to come he would then only be doing his duty for the time. The past could not be affected by this period of rectitude, however perfect or long-protracted it might be. No claim of violated justice would be met; no past sin would be blotted out. The thunder of the insulted law would still be sounding in his ear: “Pay me what thou owest.” That man needs the pardon of sin, is testified, not only by the universal suffrage of conscience, but by the sacrifices so generally prevalent in the worship of the heathen world. While it is clear that sacrificial worship originated in the appointment of God, yet its perpetuation by tradition among the pagans, in however corrupt a form, evinces their felt necessity of pardon. Nor has this necessity been denied by modern unbelievers. But reason has failed to show how this pardon may be obtained. Some have relied upon the abstract benevolence of God, arguing that God is too good to punish his creatures for every slight offense, or to punish them severely at all; but this plea is it consistent with reason, and leads to absurdity. The same ground on which God would punish any sinner, to any degree, for any offense, would require him to punish every sinner, according to his deservings, for every offense. Hence, to claim pardon by mere prerogative on the ground of the divine goodness, is to abrogate all law, and disrobe man of his moral agency. It would dishonor God, setting his attributes at war. It would overthrow his justice, under the false pretense of extolling his goodness. In the nature of things, pardon cannot flow from government, as a matter of course. That would be to destroy all law, and proclaim universal license to sin. Pardon, by mere prerogative, or law, would require it in every case; and that would be a subversion of all authority and government. But a large class of unbelievers contend that God may pardon the sinner on the ground of repentance alone. This principle was laid down by Lord Herbert as one of the pillars of his deistical scheme, and has been advocated by the most numerous class of infidels. And we regret to know that some, calling themselves Christians, have favored the same doctrine. But against this theory there are several unanswerable objections.
If by repentance be meant merely a sorrow for sin, such as every sinner will be likely to feel as soon as overtaken by the just punishment for his sin, and resulting solely from that punishment - to pardon every sinner on the ground of that repentance, would be no better than pardon on mere prerogative; for what sinner, when made to feel the penalty, of violated law, will not be sorry for having incurred it? And to release from punishment as soon as it is felt, is the same as not to inflict it at all; and that would amount to the abrogation of all law. But if by repentance be understood that contrition for sin which implies a real reformation of heart and life, from a sincere conviction of the intrinsic evil of sin, and of its offensiveness to God, this is a repentance that infidelity never produced. It is a fruit which never grew in nature’s garden. It can only result from the gracious spiritual influence which the gospel provides, through the atonement of Christ. And in that case, pardon, though not given without repentance, is not on the ground of repentance, but of the atonement, and on the condition of faith. For the deist to base pardon on this ground, would be to renounce his infidelity, and to kneel at the cross of the Redeemer.
Again, if pardon may be conferred on the mere ground of repentance, then it would follow that whenever the sinner repents, the entire penalty of his sins should at once be removed. But such is evidently not the fact. Repentance does not restore the wasted fortune, health, and character, of the sinner. In regard to the things of this life, repentance does not remove the evils already incurred by sin; yet it may secure indemnity against similar consequences in the future, by saving us from turning again to sin and folly. Even so, in reference to spiritual things, repentance may prevent an accumulation of guilt in the future, but it cannot absolve from the guilt of a single sin of the past.
Repentance cannot change the divine law, nor the nature of the sin by which it has been insulted. And while these remain the same, on what principle can pardon be secured? The penalty must remain in its force, or the law, by the violation of which it has been incurred, must be satisfied, either in the person of the offender, or a substitute. The sinner, in his own person, can only meet the claims of the violated law, by suffering the penalty to the last jot and tittle. Nature can point to no substitute. The voice of reason speaks of no deliverer. The wealth of kings is too poor to purchase the pardon of one sin, nor can the wisdom of the schools show where it is to be found. But God, in his infinite wisdom and goodness, “hath found a ransom;” and revelation, shedding forth her beams upon the darkness of a guilty world, and lifting up her voice, cries: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!”
Natural religion can show us our misery, and pierce our vitals with the sting of sin; but revealed religion can point us to our remedy, and pluck that sting away. Natural religion may awaken our anxieties, tax the utmost powers of our reason, and suspend us forever, vibrating between hope and despair; but revealed religion places our feet upon the Rock, washes us from our sins, and anchors our hope in heaven. How precious, then, the revelation of God to a guilty world! How necessary to cheer us amid the darkness and gloom of this world, and to conduct us to the fruitions of the next!