Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws Part 14

It is thus that G.o.d answers the prayers of men without working a miracle."[213]

"It is not impossible," says Dr. Wollaston, "that such laws of Nature, and such a series of causes and effects, may be originally designed that not only general provisions may be made for the several species of beings, but even _particular cases_, at least many of them, may also be provided for, without innovations or alterations in the course of Nature. It is true this amounts to a prodigious scheme, in which all things to come are, as it were, comprehended under one view, estimated and laid together: but when I consider what a ma.s.s of wonders the universe is in other regards, what a Being G.o.d is, incomprehensibly great and perfect, that He cannot be ignorant of anything, no not of the future wants and deportments of particular men, and that all things which derive from Him, as their First Cause, must do this so as to be consistent with one another, and in such a manner as to make one compact system, befitting so great an Author; when I consider this, I cannot deny such an adjustment of things to be within His power. The order of events, proceeding from the settlement of Nature, may be as compatible with the due and reasonable success of _my endeavors and prayers_ (as inconsiderable a part of the world as I am) as with any other thing or phenomena how great soever.... And thus the _prayers_ which good men offer to the all-knowing G.o.d, and the _neglects_ of others, may find fitting effects, already _forecasted_ in the course of Nature, which possibly may be extended to the _labors_ of men and their _behavior_ in general."[214]

"If ever there was a future event," says Dr. Gordon, "which might have been reckoned on with absolute certainty, and one, therefore, in the accomplishment of which it might appear that _prayer_ could have no room or efficacy, it was just the restoration of the Jewish captives to the land and city of their fathers. And yet, so far from supposing that there was no place for prayer to occupy, among the various means that were employed to bring about that event, it was just his firm belief in the nearness and certainty of it that set Daniel upon fervent and persevering supplications for its accomplishment.... With regard to the rank which Daniel's prayer occupied among the various means or agencies that were to be employed in bringing about the object of it, he had good reason to believe that it was neither without a definite place, nor in itself devoid of efficacy.... He had been honored to vindicate the power and a.s.sert the supremacy of the Lord G.o.d of Israel; by the wisdom of his counsels and the weight of his personal character, he had paved the way for that decision in favor of the people of G.o.d to which the King of Persia was soon to be brought; and the whole business of his active and most laborious life was made to bear on the interests and the liberation of his afflicted brethren. And if G.o.d had thus a.s.signed to _the outward actions_ of His servant an important place in carrying into effect His thoughts of peace towards his penitent people, is it conceivable that He had no place in that scheme for _the holy and spiritual_ efforts of the same servant? or that the aspirations of a sanctified spirit, the travailing of a soul intent upon the accomplishment of the Divine will and the manifestation of the Divine glory, should be less efficient or less essential in the execution of the Divine counsels, than the outward and ordinary agency of human actions? The whole tenor and the most explicit declarations of Scripture stand opposed to such a supposition; nor can I understand how a devout mind should have any difficulty in conceiving that it must be so. The agency of _prayer_ is, indeed, a less obvious and palpable thing than that outward cooperation whereby mankind are rendered subservient to the accomplishment of the Divine purposes.

But is it not an agency of an unspeakably loftier character? Is it not the cooperation of an immortal spirit, bearing the impress of the Divine image, and at the moment acting in unison with the Divine will? Is it not befitting the character of G.o.d to set upon that cooperation a special mark of His holy approbation, by a.s.signing to it a more elevated place among the secondary causes which He is pleased to employ? And must there not be provision made, therefore, in the general principles of His administration, for fulfilling the special promise of His word, 'The Lord is nigh to all that call upon Him, to all that call upon him in truth.'"[215]

"We should blush," says Bishop Warburton, "to be thought so uninstructed in the nature of _prayer_, as to fancy that it can work any temporary change in the dispositions of the Deity, who is 'the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.' Yet we are not ashamed to maintain that G.o.d, _in the chain of causes and effects_, which not only sustains each system, but connects them all with one another, hath so wonderfully contrived, that the temporary endeavors of pious men shall procure good and avert evil, by means of that 'preestablished harmony' which He hath willed to exist between _moral actions_ and _natural events_."

"But should some frigid skeptic, therefore, dare To doubt the all-prevailing power of prayer; As if 'twere ours, with impious zeal, to try To shake the purposes of Deity; Pause, cold philosopher, nor s.n.a.t.c.h away The last, the best, the wretched's surest stay.

Look round on life, and trace its checkered plan, The griefs, the joys, the hopes, the fears of man; Tell me, if each deliverance, each success, Each transient golden dream of happiness, Each palm that genius in the race acquires, Each thrilling rapture virtuous pride inspires, Tell me, if each and all were not combined In the great purpose of the Eternal Mind?

Thus while we humbly own the vast decree, Formed in the bosom of Eternity, And know all secondary causes tend Each to contribute to one mighty end; Yet while these causes firmly fixed remain-- Links quite unbroken in the endless chain, So that could one be snapped, the whole must fail, And wide confusion o'er the world prevail; Why may not our pet.i.tions, which arise In humble adoration to the skies, Be foreordained the causes, whence shall flow Our purest pleasures in this vale of woe?

Not that they move the purpose that hath stood By time unchanged, immeasurably good, _But that the event and prayer alike may be United objects of the same decree._"[216]

On the whole, we feel ourselves warranted, and even constrained, to conclude that the theory of "government by natural law" is defective in so far as it excludes the superintendence and control of G.o.d over all the events of human life, and that neither the existence of second causes nor the operation of physical laws should diminish our confidence in the care of Providence and the efficacy of Prayer.

FOOTNOTES:

[181] CICERO, "De Natura Deorum," lib. I. c. 44.

[182] HOWE, "Works," I. 104. CUDWORTH, "Intellectual System," I. 120, 144.

[183] M. COMTE, "Cours," VI. 149, 247, 295. SPINOZA, "Tractatus Theol.-politicus," pp. 57, 102, 122, 144, 150, 319.

[184] DR. CHANNING, "Memoirs," II. 439. ROBT. BOYLE, "Free Inquiry into the Notion of Nature," p. 7.

[185] PROFESSOR SEDGWICK, "Discourse," fifth edition, p. CLIII. MR.

COMBE, "Const.i.tution of Man," p. 417.

[186] Proverbs 6: 27; Psalm 68: 2; 83: 14; James 3: 12; Matthew 7: 16; Proverbs 8: 29; Job 38: 11, 33; Psalm 119: 90; Jeremiah 31: 35; 33: 25.

[187] DR. M'COSH, "On the Divine Government," pp. 126, 129, 149.

[188] "Westminster Confession," c. v., -- II., III.

[189] M. COMTE, "Cours," IV. 663, 669; V. 259, 277; VI. 702, 780. J. S.

MILL, "Logic," I. 397, 417, 422; II. 109, 471. LEWES, "Biographical History," I. 14; III. 55; IV. 9, 42.

[190] DR. REID, "Essays," III. 44. DR. M'COSH, "Divine Government," 88, 91, 111, 114.

[191] SIR JOHN HERSCh.e.l.l, "Address to the British a.s.sociation," 1845.

[192] DR. THOS. BROWN, "Essay on Cause and Effect," p. 86. DR. THOS.

REID, "Essays," I. 136. PIERRE POIRET, "De Deo, Anima, et Malo."

[193] DR. THOMAS BROWN, "Essay on Cause and Effect," pp. 74, 83, 93, 108, 191.

[194] GEORGE COMBE, ESQ.

[195] "Reasoner," XII. 21, 23.

[196] HOLYOAKE, "Grant and Holyoake's Discussion," p. 40.

[197] GEORGE COMBE, "Const.i.tution of Man," pp. 150, 155, 163, 165, 234, 343, 358.

[198] MR. COMBE, "Const.i.tution of Man," VI., IX., 25, 39, 41.

[199] MR. SCOTT, "Harmony of Phrenology with Scripture," pp. 82, 97.

[200] CITIZEN KENNEDY, "Nature and Revelation Harmonious," pp. 70, 122, 124, 131.

[201] MR. COMBE, "Const.i.tution of Man," pp. 25, 53, 306, 364.

[202] F. B. BARTON, "The Reasoner," XI. 24, 373.

[203] VOLNEY, "La Loi Naturelle," which has been translated, and is usually appended to his "Ruins of Empires."

[204] BUTLER'S "a.n.a.logy," p. 1. c. 7.

[205] WARBURTON'S "Works," X. p. 8.

[206] DR. PRICE'S "Dissertations," p. 198.

[207] DR. PRICE, "Dissertations," pp. 208, 219.

[208] Daniel 9: 2, 19.

[209] Ezekiel 36: 37.

[210] DR. CHALMERS, "Works," II. 286.

[211] Ibid., 325.

[212] HON. ROB. BOYLE, "Theolog. Works," II. 96, III. 230. PRESIDENT EDWARDS, "Works," X. 1.

[213] EULER, "Letters to a German Princess," I. 271.

[214] DR. WOLLASTON, "Religion of Nature," p. 103.

[215] DR. ROBT. GORDON, "Sermons," p. 369.

[216] It is with melancholy pleasure that the author recalls and reproduces, after an interval of thirty years, the lines of his early college companion,--WILLIAM FRIEND DURANT,--a young man of high promise, removed, like his distinguished fellow-student, ROBERT POLLOCK, by what might seem a premature death, but for the prospect of immortality.