The Analogy of Religion to the Constitution and Course of Nature

5.) Christ now presides over it, and will establish the church, judge the world, give up the kingdom, &c. &c.

4. Of course, we can comprehend but little of such a scheme.

5. We plainly see, from what is revealed, that there is very much unrevealed.

6. Thus it is evident that we are as little capable of judging as to the whole system of religion, as we are as to the whole system of nature.

II. In both material and spiritual things, means are used to accomplish ends

1. Hence a thing may seem foolish to us, because we do not know its object and end.

2. Its seeming foolish to us, is no proof that it is so.

III. Christianity is carried on by general laws, no less than nature

1. Why do we say there are laws of nature?

1.) We indeed know some such. But nothing of the laws of many things, e. g.

· Pestilence.

· Storms.

· Earthquakes.

· Diversities of human powers.

· Association of ideas.

2.) Hence we call many things accidental, which we know are not matters of chance, but are subject to general laws.

3.) It is a very little way that we can trace things to their general laws.

4.) We attribute many things to such laws, only by analogy.

2. Just for the same reasons, we say that miracles comport with God’s general laws of wisdom. These laws may be unknown to us; but no more so than those by which some die as soon as born, or live to old age, or have superior understandings, &c.

3. We see no more reason to regard the frame and course of nature as a scheme, than we have to regard Christianity as such.

1.) If the first is a scheme, then Christianity, if true, would be likely to be a scheme.

2.) As Christianity is revealed but in part, and is an arrangement to accomplish ends, there would of course seem to us, in it, irregularities; just as we see in nature.

3.) Therefore objections against the one, are answered in the same manner as objections against the other.

Having, in a previous chapter, [ch. iii. (#II_CHAPTER_III),] answered objections to Christianity as a matter of fact, and in this, as a general question of wisdom and goodness, the next thing is to discuss objections in particular.

As one of these is directed against the scheme, as just now described, it will be considered here.

Objec. Christianity is a roundabout, and perplexed contrivance; just such as men, for want of understanding or power, are obliged to adopt, in their designs.

Ans. 1.) God uses just such complex arrangements in the natural world. The mystery is quite as great in nature as in grace.

2.) We do not know what are means, and what are ends.

3.) The natural world, and its government, are not fixed, but progressive.

4.) Great length of time is required in some changes; e. g. animals, vegetables, geological periods, &c.

5.) One state of life is a preparation and means for attaining another.

6.) Man is impatient, but Jehovah deliberate.

CHAPTER V

OF A MEDIATOR, AND REDEMPTION BY HIM

Nothing in Christianity is so much objected to as the position assigned to Christ; yet nothing is more unjust. The whole world exhibits mediation.

I. Our existence, and all its satisfactions, are by the medium of others

1. If so in the natural world, why not in the spiritual?

2. The objection therefore is not only against Christ’s mediation, but all mediation.

II. We cannot know all the ends for which God punishes, nor by whom he should punish

1. Future punishment may be as natural a sequence of sin, as a broken limb is of falling from a precipice.

2. This is not taking punishment out of the hands of God, and giving it to nature; it is only distinguishing ordinary events from miraculous.

III. In natural providence, God has made provision that the bad consequences of actions do not always follow

1. We may say God could have prevented all evil. But we see he permits it, and has provided relief, and even sometimes perfect remedies for it.

1.) Thus the bad consequences of trifling on a precipice may be prevented by a friend, if we do not reject his assistance.

2.) We may ourselves do much towards preventing the bad consequences of our misdeeds.

3.) Still more if assisted.

2. It might have been perfectly just if it were not so; but that it is so, shows compassion, as distinguished from goodness.

3. The course of nature affords many instances of such compassion.

4. Thus analogy sanctions an arrangement, by which the ruinous consequences of vice or folly may be averted, at least in some cases.

5. If the consequences of rash and inconsiderate acts, which we scarcely call vicious, are often so serious, we may apprehend that the bad consequences will be greater, in proportion as the irregularity is greater.