NATURE AND REVELATION.

CHAPTER I.

INFIDELITY.

THE skeptics of old, did not fall into darkness by looking at the heavens, but by stumbling over the systems of dogmatists and sophists. These systems they found to be erroneous and contradictory; and, therefore, they drew the conclusion that there is no certainty.

Modern skeptics seem to come to their disbelief in the same way. They do not set out in a natural and free mode of inquiry for themselves; but, condemning the dogmas of false theology, the discords of sectarian creeds, or the practices of corrupt churches, they deny the existence or government of God entirely.

A lecturer, who was very popular with large numbers of our citizens, says, "all real knowledge is derived from positive sensations." "Whatever we see and feel, and attentively examine, with all our senses, we know; and, respecting things thus investigated, we can afterwards form a correct opinion." "Things which we have not ourselves examined, and occurrences which we have not ourselves witnessed, but which we receive on the attested sensations of others, we may believe, but we do not know." By "sensations," she means the reports of our five senses; "all, in short, that we can see, hear, feel, taste, or smell."

Her professed disciples are very few, compared with the great body of the people; but, for a long time, I have had an opinion that infidelity in the Revelation of God, proceeds from practical infidelity in the existence of God; and, if so, then her actual disciples form a vast majority of mankind. Because, if any one felt, in his

heart, that God Is-that His holy eye looks upon us-that He reads the secret thought and forming intent; and that He will, most surely, bring all things to judgment—if these facts were KNOWN as firmly as if they were derived from what are called positive sensations, I apprehend no one would doubt that the same Lord who stands by him, also speaks to him.

Let us search our own bosoms. Truth, as the same writer remarks, is a jewel to be found,—not coined. We are to seek and find,--not invent and fabricate. Seeking, therefore, the truth-freely against all others, boldly against ourselves-let us propose this plain question: You have never been in England-you have never seen her metropolis-and, yet, have you the smallest doubt whatever that the country and the city exist? If you were now to travel thither, and test the existence of these places, by all your five senses together, could you then say, now, I am certain that England and London have existence; whereas, before, I thought them only conjectural ?

If, in presenting the terms, " Belief" and "Knowledge," the persons employing them intend to inform us that our mental certainty should be distinguished by different names, as it is conveyed by dif ferent channels or faculties, I should make no objection: the controversy would be then verbal. But they mean a very different thing. They intend, by this distinction, to assert that the only field of knowledge for us, is material existence; and that every other subject, whether of God and Spirit, of revelation and righteousness, of resurrection and judgment, are vain phantasmas.

The fact is, that the example, which I have already adduced, of certainty arising from faith in testimony, and inductive argument, is not the strongest which might have been selected. For we do not instantly believe every report of others concerning distant lands, or objects of knowledge, any more than we instantly believe the impressions of our own senses, in physical experiments: we wait for confirmation, and try the experiments in many ways. But when we fully perceive that there is no room for self-deception or imposture, we then repose, with as much confidence in faith, as in sensation. And the reason is, that both beliefs alike, are built on HUMAN consciousness, under tests, or safeguards, which admit of no deception. But, in some of these experiments, or observations, the steps. are longer than in others; and those truths which require the briefest

process, strike us with a quicker and more vivid force. Therefore, when I am asked concerning my certainty in the existence of a distant region, which I have myself never seen, I must first go over, in my mind, the kinds and the concurrence of the various testimony on which I have formed my judgment. If the process is long or remote, I may be as certain, as I am of my own existence, of the fact, and yet the conviction will not affect me in the same way. There are many truths, however, which we cannot submit to the action of our own senses, which, yet, as soon as they are announced, excite in us as prompt faith, as any thing we can hear, see, and feel. For example:-your own father, and his parents, may have died before your birth; and yet you have, instantly, no more doubt that your ancestors had life, than you have that you yourself exist. If any thing can shake your belief, it is only the still higher faith, that the great eternal Creator could, had he chosen it, have formed you, by his immediate power.

From this, it is quite evident that all our real knowledge is not derived from our own positive sensations; if by sensations be meant only what "we can see, hear, feel, taste, or smell." But let me guard against misconstruction. I am not now agitating any of the questions between the disciples of Locke, Reid, Brown, or Gall. Whether, in the manifestations of mind, the whole brain acts but as a single organ, or whether it is really an assemblage of many organs, I leave to the world to decide, by observation. It is an important subject, and is well worthy a free, patient investigation. Nor am I directing my arguments against the opinions of philosophers, who believe that all the original elements of knowledge enter by sensation; but that the mind, afterwards, as a whole, acts upon these elements; and, by induction, consciousness, and other operations, is able, with absolute certainty, to reason from things seen, to things unseen,from nature, up to nature's God,—and to range through the whole universe of physics, morals, and spirit. They may have, for aught that I know, a wrong system; and wrong systems must do harm. But, as they are very far, either from professing or favoring skepticism, and as I do not at all perceive that their principles necessarily lead to it, I engage not in controversy with them. My present remarks are confined to infidels, who, from the use or the abuse of the doctrine of sensations, restrict knowledge only to matter, and deny all other existence.

Permit me to dwell a brief time longer upon this point, by anticipating an objection which may be offered by a materialist. He may say, all these examples which you have supposed-viz: a country, or a parent-are only matter; and you cannot destroy the doctrine of materiality, by proofs of matter. I answer-I can disprove their system, by destroying the axiom on which it is founded: which is, that we can know, or have certainty of truths, only by actually submitting them to our own five animal senses. The cases that I have instanced, do abundantly accomplish this.

But I now proceed further. I assert that there is an existence, which is not matter,—which has neither beginning nor ending,which has existed from all eternity, and is indestructible,—which is all around us, and every where spread out,-which we can neither hear, see, taste, touch, nor smell,-but of which, we have as absolute certainty as we have of any material object whatever. It may be supposed that I mean the Deity. I do not. It is of SPACE I speak. Should it please Jehovah immediately to annihilate all matter, or to throw it to one side, still space must exist, infinite and eternal. Can any thing exclude or shut out space? Nothing can limit it; for, whatever you might suppose as the boundary, would be an evidence only of continued, unending extension. To imagine that there is a place where space is not, is to imagine that there is space where space is not. Think of this! Here is this eternal, infinite extension, before and all around you, of the existence of which it is impossible for you to doubt, and yet you cannot bring it to the action of a single one of your bodily senses. Its existence is, if possible, more certain than that of matter; for your five senses may, perhaps, in some cases, deceive you, in regard to the existence of particular bodies of matter; but, whether deceived or not, as to the existence of them, you know that the space, in which they might exist, is there.

Another advance we make: we know that mind exists. The materialist says, that mind is nothing but a law of matter. Of azote, oxygen, and hydrogen, in their simple states, it certainly is not the law; for all our senses deny it. And, if mind be a law of matter, at all, it can only be pretended of organized matter. Organization, then, would be the proximate cause, and mind the effect. A cause must exist, and act, before the effect takes place. The mind of the organization never could have produced the organiza

tion; for, according to the relation mentioned, it is the organization which first exists, and produces the mind. What, then, called forth the organization? Was it eternal, or created? If eternal, then mark the consequence: whatever is eternal, has, from necessity, a self-existence, which is independent of all causes, either to create or destroy it. For, the very fact that any thing has existed from all eternity, is incontrovertible evidence that there never was, at any period whatever, any cause to prevent the eternal existence of that self-same thing. All eternal existences or organizations, are, therefore, indestructible and imperishable,-else, how could they be eternal? But we behold no organization of that kind. They are of dust, and return to dust. Hence, they were created; and a creation of organized forms could have proceeded from nothing but the act of a prior mind. That prior, eternal mind, is God.

What will be answered? Will it be said that all matter, even inert, inorganized matter, viz: the simple gases, have mental faculties; but that they cannot display or exert them, until organized? This does not remove the difficulty. For, if inert matter cannot exert or display mind, it is the same as if mind did not exist : for, a mind having no power to act, as mind, can produce no effect whatever, as mind. And such matter would, after all, be nothing but inert.

But, conceive, for a moment, that matter, according to the theory of Materialists, is eternal, and that this eternal matter has inherent, eternal qualities or attributes, whereby it can assume an animal, rational existence,-then, eternal matter having, by its own inherent, eternal attributes, power of life in itself, could, at its mere pleasure, command itself eternally to exist, an organized being; and, as the matter of our own bodies would then be ourselves, we, ourselves, could, at our own desire, by inherent, indestructible attributes, command ourselves never to be in pain, and never to perish.

I

In conversation, a skeptic argued, in substance, as follows: do not say that matter eternally existed, in any organized form; nor that the elements of matter have, in themselves, and when disunited, any rational and volitive faculties; but may it not have been that matter eternally existed, in a certain preparatory state, whereby, from some natural convulsion, it was enabled to assume life; and so, by constant decay and renewals of life, in successive forms,