men, but to these heaven has added direct and supernatural light, that man's heart might have the amplest means of understanding the, character of him who made and rules him. Let us then see what reasons we have for believing in the goodness of God. There are four different sources of the knowledge of God. There are, first, Nature, or the works of God; secondly, the human Soul, the rational and moral image of God; thirdly, Providence, or the ordinary government of God as seen in the workings of human affairs; fourthly and lastly, Revelation, coming to its most luminous point in the person of Christ. From these sources we derive all our knowledge of the divine Being and character. Let us examine briefly these four witnesses to the divine character, Nature, the human Soul, Providence, and Jesus Christ. have denied The atheist I. And first, Nature. In all ages, and among all people, the benignity of nature has been felt and acknowledged. Kind mother, is the affectionate appellation with which Heathen and Christian have greeted her. Nature has won the reverence and love of those who the being and attributes of its great Maker. has declared her his only God, and a better one than the Christian possesses. The constancy of her laws, the reg ularity of the seasons, the unfailing fertility of the earth, the richness and variety of its products, the abundance of its provisions against the wants of its numerous tribes of animated beings, the comparative scarcity of injurious substances, and their ministration in skilful hands to the good of man poisons become the most powerful agents of restoration to health, under the direction of medical science, the vast amount of sentient happiness in aniNO. 214. -- VOL. XVIII. 1* mated Nature, evinced in all the ordinary sounds, from the hum of insects, to the song of birds, to the laugh of man ; the beauty with which the earth is çlad, its robe of green, spangled with flowers; and finally, the evident tendency in Nature to repair any injuries which may happen through the clashing or overaction of her energies, all speak the benevolence of the Creator. What would surprise us so much, as to discover a law in Nature, the manifest tendency of which was malignant and injurious? And what more characterizes the discoveries of modern science, what clue has done more to guide its investigations to success, than the principle that Nature does nothing in vain, and nothing which is not indisputably useful and beneficent? Those phenomena, which at first view seem evil and disastrous, are found to have a benevolent cause, and on the whole a benevolent operation. Storms, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions, are not without their uses, and however destructive they may sometimes prove, their influence upon the general health and safety of the globe is now fully recognised.. It is not to be denied that there is evil and imperfection in Nature, but it is enough for us to see that the evil is the exception, and not the rule, and that the evident and unquestionable disposition and tendency of her works is good. And, indeed, it is only when we consider Nature with reference to man's physical and temporary happiness, that we can admit any deficiency. For the very evils which might be enumerated, have an obvious connexion with his moral welfare, and by the discipline they lend him, more than atone for the labor and anxiety they cost him. Nature stops her kindness short of ruinous indulgence. She is bountiful, generous, kind, but she is not doting and disposed to pet and spoil her child. Nor does she so cushion and bolster him up, that he can stand without effort, and never learn to go alone. There are beautiful bounds to Nature's bounty. The earth yields enough to sustain generously the whole human family; but she yields it to human industry; and what a terrible calamity would it become, did she do it spontaneously! Nature's laws are all subject to abuse; they all possess a power to injure as well as to bless, and this is essential to their twofold office, to enrich and to teach. There is nothing so good in Nature that man may not pervert it. The wisdom and benevolence of Providence is as much illustrated in this as in anything, that Nature, with all her maternal bounty and tenderness, is still a moral teacher, and in everlasting league with the justice and holiness of its maker and the conscience of man. There is a retributive power in Nature she punishes sloth, carelessness, and excess, and warns ignorance and presumption. Her richest sweets become the most virulent acids to the glutton, her most cheering cordials, the most stupefying drugs to the intemperate. She gives nothing which is not dangerous and baleful, except it be mixed up with the wit, the prudence, and the principle of man. There is a double benevolence in Nature; "she is twice blessed." That in her which might at first seem a drawback upon her infinite goodness, proves upon examination to be only a heightened excellence. The bounds within which she keeps her bounty are as benevolent as the bounty itself, and the severe side of her face betrays only the solicitude, the care, and the watchfulness of her maternal heart. In fine, outward nature, the material universe, is beautifully, divinely adapted to the nature and wants of man; it consults his happiness and his improvement in what it gives and in what it keeps back, in what it bestows upon him, and in what it exacts from him. If Nature were made only for the brute, it might possibly be improved, but it is for rational and moral man, and it is impossible to conceive a more beneficent ministry than it thus affords to his welfare and improvement. God's goodness and holiness are equally illustrated in its marvellous phenomena. This is the testimony of the first witness. II. If we summon now the second witness, the human soul, what testimony will it bear to the character of God? Let us remember that we are in quest of proofs of the divine goodness. Man is God's creature, his only rational and moral creature; whom he declares to be made in his own image. Unless man possess a nature which upon the whole is fashioned to produce his happiness, and unless the reflection which his whole being casts is characteristically benevolent in its features, we might well doubt the goodness of his Creator. Nothing, therefore, has done more to cloud over and darken the divine character, than misconceptions and abuse of human nature. The very efforts whose object it has been to exalt God at man's expense, have had a totally different result. God is most honored when his greatest works are best appreciated. The human soul is the eye through which God is alone seen, and if we depreciate human understanding or conscience, we throw suspicion over the only organs by which the existence and character of the Creator are to be known. Take man then as he is, or as he ever has been, a creature of twofold nature; made up of appetites and passions, of rational and moral powers; take him with all his weakness, folly, sin and violence upon his head; take him as he is found in the worst times, and in the worst circumstances, as well as in the best, and deny if you can, that his nature, taken together, with all its cheeks and balances, with all its capacities and tendencies, with its lengthened future before it, is not the glorious workmanship of a benevolent Being! Let us keep none of the dreadful passions, the Justful appetites, the mean selfishness of man out of sight. We seek the truth, and not a lie. The point for us to decide is this; whether a being destined to immortal life, and the highest rational and moral happiness, could be framed with a nature different from man's. The question is, whether God does not exhibit his benevolence in designing man for this future greatness and happiness; and whether the risks, exposure and painful discipline, injury and wrong by which his education is accomplished, are not richly compensated and fully justified by the result? Take away human appetites and passions, and you greatly diminish human misery, but you vastly more diminish human happiness and human energy. Take away human will, and you render wilfulness impossible, but at the same stroke abolish virtue. Render any vice to which human nature is subject impossible, and you blot out a corresponding grace. Selfishness is the fault of a creature capable of disinterestedness; jealousy is the disease of love; anger is the perversion of that spirit of resistance to injury and wrong, which makes patriots and philanthropists. There is no quality in man, which in its place and in due subjection to other powers, does not add to the beauty and increase the strength and harmony of human nature. We may safely defy objectors and slanderers of God's image, to point out a tendency or quality in our nature |