Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

II. This difference of character, which God sustains towards man, and which is all that nature can teach us concerning

stated. After many admirable proofs of the being of God, drawn up with that force and perspicuity for which the author is so much distinguished, he proceeds to resolve the whole constitution and course of nature into a display of divine goodness, without any apparent rẹference to that den*, or punitive justice, which is so obviously inscribed on the face of the world, when viewed in the light of scripture, (Compare Gen. ch. iii. v. 17.-19. with Rom. ch. viii. v. 18-23; and Isaiah, ch. xxiv. v. 5 and 6.) And I must be allowed to express my regret that an author who has deserved so well of mankind, by his excellent defence of revelation, should so little have availed himself of its assistance, in his contemplation of nature.

I would here further refer the reader to the descriptions of the golden age, and of those that followed, which we find in many ancient poets; among the rest, in Hesiod, in Virgil, and in Ovid; by all of whom it is expressly taught, that a great change has passed upon nature; and evidently supposed, that this change took place as a punishment of human degeneracy. The following passages from Ovid, in the first book of his Metamorphoses, may serve as a specimen for all.

See on this word, Poli Synopsis Crit. in Acta Apostol. C. xxviii. v. 4.

him, evidently must leave the serious mind in a state of awful suspense. Though it suggests a hope that our case is not absolutely desperate, or, in other words, that

Speaking of the golden age, he says:

Ver erat æternum; placidique tepentibus auris
Mulcebant Zephyri natos sine semine flores.
Mox etiam fruges tellus inarata ferebat;
Nec renovatus ager gravidis canebat aristis.
Flumina jam lactis, jam flumina nectaris ibant,
Flavaque de viridi stillabant illice mella.

Next, the silver age is thus described;

Postquam, Saturno tenebrosa in Tartara misso,
Sub Jove mundus erat; subiit argentea proles,
Auro deterior, fulvo pretiosior ære.
Jupiter antiqui contraxit tempora veris;
Perque hyemes, astusque & inequales autumnos,
Et breve ver, spatiis exegit quatuor annum:
Tum primùm siccis aër fervoribus ustus
Canduit; & ventis glacies adstricta pependit.

And after the wickedness of mankind was come to the height, and just before Jupiter is represented as bringing on the universal deluge, he is made to speak as follows:

Quà terra patet, fera regnat Erynnis;

In facinus jurâsse putes; dent ociùs omnes
Quas meruere pati (sic stat sententia) pœnas.

our Maker is still reconcileable, it directs us to no certain way or means of reconciliation; a deficiency which should dispose us to listen with humble gratitude to the farther instruction of scripture, whence only we can derive satisfaction in this, and in many other points that concern our highest interests.

Mr. Locke somewhere says, "I thank God for the light of revelation, which sets my poor reason at rest in many things that lay beyond the reach of its discovery." To this memorable and pious acknowledgment of the weakness of human understanding, let me add that of another very eminent philosopher *, who, in a prayer highly admired by Mr. Addison, thus addresses the Almighty, "I have sought thee in courts, fields, and gardens, but I have found thee in thy temples:" which is in other words to declare, that it was only by the light of scripture and the exercises of

*Lord Bacon.

devotion, that he attained to that acquaint ance with God which he had sought for in vain amidst the hurry of secular affairs, or in the course of his philosophical pursuits. These great examples, among others, may properly be urged in proof of the necessity and advantage of revelation, and as an authority which may confidently be opposed to that pride of pretended reason, and that ignorance and contempt of the Bible, which so unhappily distinguishes the present race of minute philosophers.

The Bible is the brightest mirror of the Deity. There we discern not only his being, but his character; not only his character, but his will; not only what he is in himself, but what he is to us, and what we may expect at his hands. This knowledge of God, as we have before suggested, neither nature nor providence can teach us, whatever we may thence collect concerning the relation he bears towards us as the Creator and Governor of the world, or of

[ocr errors]

his propensity to mercy and reconcile

ment.

He therefore who aspires after the knowledge now described, must direct his attention to those objects which are revealed to us only in scripture; and to that object in particular, in which the Almighty has manifested himself, both in his essential attributes and in his propensions towards the human race, in a manner more glorious than in all his other works and dispensations. This object is a mediator, in whom the sovereign of the universe appears a just God and a Saviour*, and at once eminently displays the holiness of his nature, the majesty of his government, and the immensity of his mercy.

No man, says Christ, knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him. And again: No man cometh

* Isaiah, xlv. 21.,

Matt. xi. 27.

« AnteriorContinuar »