PART IV.

CERTAINTY.

"AN ARCH-LIKE, STRONG FOUNDATION, TO SUPPORT

THE WEIGHT OF ABSOLUTE, COMPLETE

CONVICTION: HERE, THE MORE WE PRESS, WE STAND MORE FIRM: WHO MOST EXAMINE MOST BELIEVE.”

YOUNG.

CHAPTER XI.

"No doubt a man may, in broad day, resolutely close his eyes, and assert that it is night. Blindness is much the same as darkness, only the sun still shines in the sky."-PROF. Auberlen.

To hear some men talk, one would imagine that the flippant fallacies we have been reviewing are nothing less than the redhot shot destined to demolish the entire edifice of Christianity. Whereas in truth, they are nothing more than the effervescence of a heated imagination, as hollow and as powerless as the soap-bubbles which secure the admiration of a child, while they glitter for a moment in the sun, and then perish for ever. And this will be abundantly manifest if now, from the specious Sophisms with which it is assailed, we turn to the Certainties, broad and deep, on whose immoveable stability its foundations. are securely established.

And first, let us consider these four :

IT IS CERTAIN

I. That man needs a religion.

II. That the Christian Religion is perfectly adapted to the actual condition and necessities of mankind.

III. That THE OBJECTIONS alleged against the Bible, as the Divine Revelation containing that Religion, ARE UNTENABLE. IV. That THE REASONS assigned for a belief in the Divine Authority of the Bible, ARE UNANSWERABLE.

I. First then: Man needs a Religion.

The certainty of this truth is demonstrated by three great facts.

1. The first fact is this :-"Man is a religious animal;" he will worship. He has been variously and humourously defined

as "a brain," "a stomach," "a machine," "a tail-less monkey," "a bundle of habits," "a combination of gases;" but the most comprehensive and most correct of all these definitions is that first given: he is "a religious animal." With the cause of this fact, or the reason for it, we are not here concerned. It may be found in man's nature, or condition, or circumstances. It may be a constitutional instinct, it may be a deduction of universal reason, it may be the effect of hereditary tradition descending from the first worshippers through all the tribes of the human family; but whatever may be the cause, whether it be any or all of these, the fact remains the same :- However degraded and imbruted, however barbarous and savage, this religious propensity, in all ages, and in all quarters of the globe, is found to characterize man as man. He is a religious being: HE WILL WORSHIP.

2. "Man, by worshipping, becomes assimilated to the moral character of the object which he worships." This is the second fact and to this fact the whole history of the idolatrous world bears testimony. Without an exception, the character of every nation and tribe of the human family has been formed and modified in a great degree, by the character attributed to their gods. If the worshippers of Thor and Woden were bloodthirsty and cruel, it was because they aspired to imitate the actions and to possess the character attributed to their gods. If the votaries of the hero-deity who after destroying vast numbers of the human race, destroyed himself, thought it disreputable to die in bed, it was because they imagined that a peaceful death might be so obnoxious to a god of violence as to exclude them from the halls of the Valhalla. If "to play the Corinthian became a synonyme for harlotry, it was because, in her palmiest days, in "Corinth the eye of Greece," the most sacred persons in the city were prostitutes whose very prostitution was in homage of Venus. In attestation of the fact of this debasing assimilation we have the unequivocal testimony of the best writers among the heathen themselves; and its operative principle is plainly asserted by the Buddhist priests of the present day. "Think of Buddha," say they, "and you will be transformed into Buddha. If men pray to Buddha and do not become Buddha, it is because the mouth prays, and not the mind."

NECESSITY OF REVELATION.

359

3. This process of necessary assimilation has uniformly been also a process of debasement; and from this debasement (-Christianity apart―) there are no possible means of extrication for mankind. This is the third great fact; and it is established by the history of idolatry, the testimony of the heathen philosophers, and the actual condition of human nature. After what I have already written on this subject,' it is unnecessary to do more than advert to this last point. Human nature, even in its very best specimens is confessedly defective and impure. But who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? How then is it possible that man should attribute to the gods of his own imagining, a character better or purer than that which he himself possessed? The very most that he could do has been expressed by Cicero with a philosophic force surpassing even its eloquence. He could transfer his own imperfect attributes to the gods, and then, by worshipping beings characterized by his own imperfections, he would receive in himself the reaction of his own depravity. He could not avoid assimilation to the objects of his worship. But these objects were uniformly depraved. And they were necessarily so: for they were of his own imagining. And other gods than those of his own imagining he had none. So that as simple matter of fact, the heathen clothed beasts and depraved beings with the attribute of power, and in effect, they worshipped mighty (though not almighty) beasts and devils. And the more they worshipped them, the more they resembled them.

"Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust,
Whose attributes were rage, revenge, and lust;
Such as the souls of cowards might conceive,
And, formed like tyrants, tyrants would believe."

It is therefore evident, philosophically and historically, that when left to himself, the corruption of man's nature is inevitable. He is led to worship by an instinct over which he has no control; the objects of his worship, self-originated and selfdevised, are all of a debasing and corrupting character; so that the indulgence of his instinctive propensities inevitably strengthens the corruption of his nature. O wretched man!

1. Voices from the Sanctuary." pp. 108-116.