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A
Sermon.*
*
This sermon is the first of a short series of four lectures on miracles,
of which
the one
in the first number of the Occident was the third. We probably
may give the other two hereafter.
O
Thou! who appearedst unto thy messenger in the flaming bush, which
though lucent with fire was not consumed, we acknowledge thy power and
greatness as did our fathers whom Thou didst call unto thy service. And
now, unworthy though we be of thy mercy, we come before Thee to seek thy
undeserved favour, because that Thou didst swear to preserve us when thy
justice would visit our iniquities. Do Thou therefore unto us even
according to the prophetic vision which Moses beheld when he was first
called to become thy messenger of grace and justice; and let us be
unconsumed, our numbers undiminished, whilst the flaming fire of
tribulation purifies us of our impurities, whilst the stains of sin are
cleansed by the fiery ordeal of the wrath which our transgressions
provoke. Cause us thus to feel thy chastening rule, O Thou! who art the
God of nations, and Arbiter of the fate of man; the everlasting One, who
speaketh and fulfilleth; who commandeth and every thing springeth into
being; who slayeth and there is no one to hinder Him; who showeth mercy
and forgiveness, and there is no one to say, “What doest Thou?” And
let thy name be glorified through us, the children of Israel, and cause
many nations to behold thy mercy in thy return to Zion, the city of our
desires. Amen.
BRETHREN,
In
my last address I laid before you the three principal articles on which
our religious system is founded. These were, briefly, the belief in the
existence of God, the existence of a revelation, and the existence of
accountability, or a righteous scheme of rewards and punishments. We may
say with perfect truth, that without admitting the whole of these three,
there can be no religion; for we would not submit to its restraints if
there were no Head and Chief, capable through his wisdom and power to
direct our will; we could not
obey Him if there were no
prescribed rule which we could follow out in our course of conduct; and
lastly, many, if not all, of us would not follow the dictates of an
acknowledged Supreme even, if we did not dread his power, or looked up
to Him for a favourable judgment of our deeds. Man may aver that he
would practise what he terms virtue, even if there were no God, from
motives of general benevolence to his species; exercise justice and
mercy, though there were no precepts to direct him, as being most
consonant with the refined feelings of human nature, and lastly, be good and righteous from no motives of reward, from no fear of
punishment, but only because the good man must naturally love the good
and eschew the evil, simply because of their intrinsic qualities, and
because the inherent loveliness of virtue and the natural deformity of
vice carry with them their own reward and punishment, as the case may
be. Such reasoning would hold good, were man that perfect being which
this theory would require him to be; were he in a state of nature
benevolent, generous, docile, obedient, honest, chaste, and sober; were
he, when tempted, always averse to practising vice, though there were no
fear of bodily injury to prevent him. But experience proves, that man is
only capable of a high degree of perfection, not perfect, however, in
his natural state; that even with instruction he may feel drawn
towards benevolence and generosity, and be capable of becoming docile,
honest, chaste, and sober, and yet be the very reverse in his conduct;
and that lastly the abstract love of virtue is no safeguard against the
desire for indulgence, if opportunity, unchecked by outward restraint,
tempt the weak son of earth to taste of the dangerous fruits of
self-indulgence. Without, therefore, enlarging at present on these
points, we will re-assert what we started with, that without God,
revelation, and retribution, no virtue, deserving of the name, can have
any existence, no matter what the unthinking may say to the contrary.
Besides,
however, these necessary truths, there are others which might have been
otherwise, but which have become incorporated with religion, either as
historical events, or as the promises of the spirit of God, which both
must be admitted as true, the first class, as things which have actually
taken place, the second, as
certain to occur; since the Being from whom they emanate is infallible, and cannot therefore predict or
promise any thing which will not ultimately be fulfilled.
Historical
facts, which serve as the basis of doctrines connected with our
religion, are solely and alone to be looked for in Scripture, which of
itself bears internal evidence of its truth, and is itself an historical
fact, or traditional truth of religion. In the same manner the prophetic
truths, as we aptly term the promises of God, are also contained in the
same vehicle of faith; and consequently such only are to be admitted
into the articles of our religion, as are substantially borne out by
internal consistency, and supported by the words of the Bible, in their
evident and common sense meaning. This belief in the history and
prediction of the Bible becomes the duty of every Israelite; although
this acquiescence in facts and promises would presuppose our admission
of a state of things differing materially from every-day life, in other
words, the truth of miracles and a change of nature as we see it
organized by means of our bodily organs.
It is true that revelation, or the Biblical
record, contains also the commandment of the acknowledgment of the Deity
as a part of divine legislation; nevertheless this command did not
establish the existence of God as a new fact which did not exist before,
but merely recited this existence as a truth which had existed
already from the beginning, and which the sound common sense of man must
admit as a matter of necessity more than of belief. God’s existence is
not established by the precept; but the precept was given because of his
existence being the basis, the starting point, upon which all good acts
are founded, and from which all virtuous resolves must proceed. So also
that there are acts which are pleasing to God is, as we have said, a
prerequisite for religion; and if the record now contains such general
directions as are evidently conducive to the general prosperity of
society and the well-being of individuals, we must say, that these laws
or facts of revelation are not only true because they are commanded, but
also because the human mind requires such directions to satisfy its
craving for what is in itself good and beautiful. But there are other
facts recorded, and other commandments given, which need not necessarily
be so, and which might have been otherwise if God had so ordained it;
and though the latter are necessary now to a correct religious life,
human reasoning would not have discovered them by unaided research; and
they therefore do not, and many of them cannot, appeal to our reason as
a ground for believing the first and obeying the latter.
But,
although the details of the Scriptures are not necessary truths, they
are manifestations of the will of the Lord, who in this manner declared
what He chose to decree as evil, and what He wished to command as good.
In the same manner, though the flood, for instance, was not a necessary
consequence of the deeds of the Antediluvians, as another punishment
equally efficacious might
have been dispensed, its occurrence has rendered it an historical fact,
recorded in the Bible, and thus it has become a matter on which we are
not at liberty to doubt or to offer any speculations of our own,
inconsistent with the text of the sacred volume. The same holds good
with almost every fact of which we have any account in the Bible. Yet it
has to be observed, that all the occurrences which are related to us,
although of their truth there can and ought to be no doubt on the mind
of a believer, are not of themselves articles of faith, or that kind of
facts which has a bearing on our course of conduct. In fact the greater
number is merely recorded as having occurred in the course of the
transactions which the Lord was pleased to permit being done, and all
such acts are only surprising or claiming our attention, as they are of
uncommon magnitude, or out of the ordinary course of events with which
our experience has rendered us familiar. It would evidently consume a
great deal of time to glance even at all the facts of Scripture, and to
argue their reasonableness; we will therefore only take up a few in
connexion with some brief remarks on the miraculous power.
Perhaps no one
fact of Scripture has given more cause of exultation to the unbeliever,
than the improbability of miracles, especially as they do not occur
before our eyes in our own days. But let us look into the nature of any
miracle recounted in the Bible; take for instance the first mission of
Moses, when he beheld a bush flaming in fire without being consumed, and
it will strike you, that the object of the appearance was not of a
trifling kind, not merely performed to show off an extraordinary power
before an astonished audience: but to introduce some great and important
event in history, which had an important bearing union the affairs of
mankind in general, or at least to teach a true and wholesome lesson to
the people before whom the transaction took place. To infer the
probability of such an occurrence, we should consider who caused the
same to happen, and what gives to general events, of which we are
informed, an air of plausibility?
To commence with the latter part of
our proposition:—we say that we believe any event to have happened, no
matter how grand the effect said to have been produced, if we can
suppose that the means and strength of the agents were equal to the
effect said to have been produced. Let us take an example from an
occurrence not now very rare, but which was utterly unheard of within
less than the age of many persons yet living, that of a man ascending
high above the earth in a machine of peculiar construction. Were we to
be told that the aëronaut accomplished this feat by means of a heavy
iron structure, and of complicated contrivance, we would, with our
present impressions, pronounce the thing impossible and untrue. [Bear
in mind this was written 60 years before the Wright Brothers' first
flight, and more
than a century before the 747 and the Space Shuttle.--Webmaster.]
But if we were to be informed that he employed an air-tight silken bag,
filled with a well-known fluid, many times lighter than the air we
breathe, and which will therefore float in the atmosphere, just as
lighter substances will float on the surface of the water, though partly
immersed therein, and that he was conveyed in this voyage in a frail car
attached by ropes to the airfilled silken bag: they who are familiar
with the laws of nature, as laid open by the late discoveries in
science, would pronounce the relation not alone probable, but true
likewise, although no ocular demonstration had made the thing manifest
to their outward sensual organs. But suppose that before the discovery
of the existence of the different gases had been demonstrated, and their
respective specific weights had been determined, one had proposed to
accomplish a voyage in the air, he would have been pronounced as
attempting impossibilities; or should he have succeeded, by a natural
process known to him only, he would have risked an accusation of
witchcraft, which would have been fatal to him from the ignorance of
those who witnessed his miraculous exhibition. Of course there are many
hundred instances which, at
one time actually impossible from the want of the proper knowledge of
producing them, have become of late matters of common notoriety, to such
a degree that we cease to regard them with wonder. I will notice one
single fact only, bearing strongly upon our discussion. Before the art
of printing was invented, books could only be multiplied by the slow
process of transcribing each letter separately, one at a time. Just
about four hundred years ado the inventive genius of man was led upon
the idea of contriving the multiplying of transcripts by machinery of
very simple construction; and so wonderful were the cheapness at which
books were offered, and the rapidity with which they were multiplied by
those who did not at once make public their mode of accomplishing this
astonishing work, considered, that the art was ascribed to supernatural
agency and demoniacal power, by those whose ignorance caused them to
doubt the possibility of man to accomplish that which in our day is too
generally diffused to excite the smallest attention.
This
is the case where a mere mortal is the agent; impossibilities to some
are pastime to others; and what one age fails to realise, becomes in a
succeeding one matter of every-day occurence.—Now let us ascend from
man to his Maker. What is God, regarded as Master of the world?
All-powerful. What do we call all-powerful? That He is able to do
whatever He pleases, every thing which is beyond the power of
accomplishment by the greatest of men, nay, even of all men
combined.What is nature? The organization of things in every state of
existence in all the extent of creation, from the commencement to the
end, as God has ordained them, and as they were arranged by Him; just in
such a manner as seed best adapted to the ends of his wisdom.—Can God
change nature? Certainly; nature adds nothing to his power and
greatness, since He alone ordained it; there is moreover no other power
to interfere with Him in his judgment and the execution of his almighty
pleasure; consequently nature as an entire, and as constituted of an
infinite number of details, becomes of itself subject to the immediate
control of its sovereign Lord, and He can consequently change, alter, or
subvert it, if his designs require such change. Indeed were miraculous
power claimed by any other than the Creator, we might freely say that it
would be an impossibility; because a miracle is contrary to the course
of nature, or that surprising system
of organization established by the Supreme Wisdom. But when the Creator
himself comes to instruct, to govern, to restrain, to control, to
reward, to punish,—what, we ask, is to prevent Him from working a miracle? Ay, He changes nature! but is the
new arrangement any thing more wonderful than the ordinary course of
events? When there was darkness upon the face of the deep, and the Lord
spoke, “Let there be light,” was the instantaneous burst of the
flood of brilliancy which rejoiced the face of creation, till then
buried beneath ages of gloom and desolation, any less wonderful than the
change of the waters of Egypt’s river into stagnant blood? or the
sudden burst of hail, rain, and fire which whelmed that hapless country
with despair and dread because of the sin of its ruler and
inhabitants?—Some indeed have of late years endeavoured to render the
Bible more credible, by explaining all, or nearly all, the miracles
recorded there by the ordinary laws of nature. In this they certainly do
not act wisely and scarcely honestly. The Bible claims for God the power
of doing what He deems best; it teaches that he empowered man, acting
under his special guidance, to work astonishing things at different
periods of the history of the world; it tells us as facts that such
events did happen: and it is therefore not proper that we at this late
day should attempt to do away with the evident meaning of Scripture by
substituting our own fancies in its stead. It is certainly true that in
several instances the miracles are within the range of the laws of
nature; for instance, the locusts which devoured every thing in Egypt,
the destruction by a sort of earthquake of Korah and his fellow
conspirators; but in all cases we shall see that it is not so much the
event as the promptness of the occurrence, which is dwelt upon as a sign
or evidence of the truth of that which it was intended to verify. It
does not derogate from the dignity of the Lord that He called in the aid
of nature as it is already constituted, as little as He is restrained by
the non-existence of the thing he wishes to produce, which his creative
power has to call into being, before his will can be accomplished.
We are too apt to think of the immaculate
Sovereign as we would think of a mortal; in using the terms
wonderful—impossible,—we fancy that we have expressed something too
great for every being, the Supreme no less than ourselves. But when we
say that any thing is impossible for us, we only say that with our
present capacities and powers we cannot accomplish the act mentioned;
but this does not say, that another is equally weak with ourselves, or
that we also, with an increase of energy, proceeding from any source,
either by the march of discovery, or an augmented experience elaborated
by our own mind, might not be able to accomplish the thing conceived
impossible.—Now grant that not one miracle in the Bible should ever be
within the scope of human possibility, it does not restrict in the least
its being done by divine possibility. The acts of God are not limited by
our will, nor restrained by our power; it is enough that He wishes to do
strange things, and they are done. He created the sea and the dry land;
and when He means to let the waters flow over delightful valleys and
fruitful mountains, or to convert the ocean into fertile fields, the
change must take place, and desolation speeds onward at his nod, or
prosperity hastens hither by the King’s command. The word
“impossibility” is not applicable to the Deity; whatever exists is
in being through his sufferance only, and it is only existing because He
has made it as it is. When now He finds it consonant with his wisdom, of
which fact He is the sole judge, He can so change nature for the time
being as to produce the intended effect, or He can work counter to the
ordinary course of events without deranging the same. Every source of
events, and every thought in the moral, with every cause in the material
world, are alike within his view and knowledge; consequently He can
arrange events in one spot of the creation without in the least
affecting the other parts. So then if a miracle be confessedly a breach
of the laws of nature, it is a breach produced by the great Architect
himself, who, whilst effecting it, has the mastery over all nature, so
as not to injure or derange the other portions, nor to break up the
harmony which governs every sphere in the most distant orbit.
It
is said by some who, whilst professing an intimate knowledge with the
laws of nature, doubt the truth of the Bible history, that the
recurrence of a miracle would subvert the course of nature, and that
consequently God would not, if He could, permit any such to take
place.—But such an objection has no force if we carefully consider
what we have advanced, already. Were it that God, having once fixed
certain laws for the government of the universe, had retired, to use a
human phrase, from the active rule of things, and left it altogether to
these unalterable laws of his own institution: then indeed might it be
said that He would not suffer any miracle to occur for fear of
disturbing the universal harmony of creation.—Yet both reason and
religion teach us a different idea of the Supreme; He not alone founded
the structure of the universe, but continues to superintend it by his
wisdom and direct overruling providence; He is not wearied with
watching, nor fatigued by his exertions; He is not overtasked in his
labours, nor inadequate to the part which He has assumed; He is the same
as from the beginning, and knows not sleep nor slumber, and might,
wisdom, and goodness are yet his characteristics as in the days of old.
Now imagine a case where a great event is yet buried deep in the
recesses of time; the welfare of a large portion of sentient beings,
either on our globe or in one of the many other worlds which compose our
Master’s kingdom, should require a chain of events to bring the
desired occurrence to pass; and imagine farther that the ordinary course
of things would be inadequate to bring it forth at all, or not with
sufficient effectiveness:—we would ask, why should the Lord not
abrogate for the time the laws of nature and make himself manifest as
the Ruler of events by the recurrence of an astounding thing, one beyond
the laws of nature, to accomplish? We have already proved that to God
there is nothing impossible; and his having left nature endued with such
harmonious laws only places it beyond the power of creatures to arrest,
alter, or destroy in the smallest particular; but to the Maker himself
it must be evidently as easy to act counter to his own institutions, if
He desires, it, as it was in the first instance, to institute those laws
of wonderful harmony, to which the thousands of suns, with their
millions of planets; to which on earth all the minerals, all the
mountains, all the valleys;—all the plants with their immense variety
of flowers and fruits;—all the animals, they who range the forest,
they who live in peace with man and are obedient to his word; the birds
that sing amid the leafy branches, and the fishes that sport in the
sea;—all mankind, from the sage whose lips drop the honey of wisdom,
to the nursling in its mother’s arms, bow in silent submission,
acknowledging all their Maker’s power.
Already, in the early part of the history of man,
we find an instance of unbelief recorded in one from whom such ought not
to have been looked for. I allude to the announcement to Sarah, that at
the expiration of a year she should be the happy mother of a son, with
whom the Lord would establish his covenant. She affected to consider the
fulfilment impossible, having reached the age of near ninety in her
childless state. But the Lord reproved Abraham for the unbelief of his
wife, in these words “Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a
surety bear a child, when I am old? Is any thing too hard for the Lord?
At the time appointed, I will return unto thee, at this time next year,
and Sarah shall have a son.” (Gen. 18:13, 14.) This occurrence will
serve us as an illustration for many other miracles. All that was needed
to accomplish the prediction was to restore the youth of Sarah, which
she thought unlikely to occur. But from the child with which God meant
to bless Abraham it was intended to raise up a people that should become
the light of the world; moreover it was deemed necessary that its mother
too should be one who had a due knowledge of divine things, fittingly to
educate the son who should become the successor to the covenant of
Abraham with God. However the superficial may view the subject, it has
had the most important bearing upon man, that Abraham and his son Isaac
were true worshippers in the time of general idolatry. Hence the birth
of Isaac was thought worthy to be attended by a miracle, in order to
signalize more emphatically the sacred calling for which he vas
destined, to transmit. the blessing of true religion to the latest
descendants of Adam.
Now let us go down in our inquiries to later
generations, and we will be surprised at the actually small number of
prodigies recorded in the Bible. Were it then that this book should not
be a true record, the authors thereof would have introduced necessarily
many attestations of their truth, and would thus have recorded many
wonders as proofs of their authenticity, if they once had claimed them
to be within the range of divine economy. But from the time of Noah to the mission of Moses there are but
few indications of supernatural occurrences, with the exception of the
confusion of tongues, the destruction of Sodom, and the manifestation of
prophecy to various pious persons. When, however, we come to the time of
the redemption of Israel, we see a more evident display of the divine
power before the eyes of mankind. Why is this?—Let us attempt an
answer. The promise which had been given when the birth of Isaac was
first announced, had now ripened to a fulfilment. The descendants of
Abraham had increased, though in servitude, and become a numerous
nation, distinct and separate, despite of their being the fellow
countrymen of a people of a different origin and a peculiar mode of
thinking.—But the promise of the Lord had to be fulfilled, since He is
the God of truth, in whom there is no deception; yet He found his people
oppressed, slaves to those who regarded not his name, nor feared his
power. How then, we ask, was the promise to be kept? Should the Lord, by
his almighty influence, so work upon the heart of the king of Egypt and
his people as to cause the liberation of Israel without their having any
outward cause to discover the potency of Him who had thus influenced
them; or should there be such manifestation of divine might that, though
unwilling, the oppressors would have to acknowledge that the Creator was
too mighty for mortals, exalted above the strength of man and the idols
which he had made for his worship?—Either action would have been a
miracle; the first, though inward, no less wonderful than the second,
for man is too tenacious of power, too greedy for his own interest, ever
to relinquish his hold from a free accord over the rights of others,
especially if, as was the case in Egypt, the governing class thought
themselves far superior to those they held in bondage. Yet if this
inward influence alone had been exerted, the effect would have been only
very transient upon the minds of the Egyptians, and quite unfelt by the
Israelites, despite of their being thus the recipients of the Lord’s
bounty; they would have ascribed their freedom to an act of grace on the
part of their masters, and would probably have little valued a boon so
easily obtained. But the course indicated in the Bible was decidedly
more calculated to produce a lasting effect, and one much more likely to
reduce such a man as the arbitrary king of Egypt to obedience. He was
told that the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, demanded of him to let his
people go free. He answered insolently: “I know not the Lord, and also
Israel I will not let go.” It was then that the Most High deemed it necessary to show the manifestation of his
power which we find narrated in the first chapters of Exodus, till
Pharaoh was compelled to acknowledge the omnipotence of the Protector of
Abraham’s sons. During the time that these miracles transpired, there
was no cessation of the powers of nature, except as it regarded the
bodies of the Egyptians themselves, for to the Israelites there was
neither the plague of the pestilence, nor injury from the wild beasts,
nor death from the hailstones, nor darkness in their dwellings; but all
the afflictions were special creations to warn and punish those whom it
was necessary thus to reduce to obedience to the divine commands. This
will explain to us the first two verses of the tenth chapter of Exodus,
which speak as follows:
ואמר ה׳ אל משה בא אל פרעה כי אני הכבדתי את לבו ואת לב
עבדיו למען שתי אתתי אלה בקרבו׃ ולמען תספר באזני בנך ובן בנך את אשר
התעללתי במצרים ואת אתתי אשר שמתי בם וידעתם כי אני ה׳׃
שמות י׳ א׳ ב׳׃
“And
the Lord said unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, for I have caused to be heavy
his heart and the heart of his servants, for the sake that I might do
these my signs in the midst of them. And for the sake that thou mightest
tell in the ears of thy son and of thy son’s son that which I have wrought
in Egypt, and my signs which I have done among them; and you shall know
that I am the Lord.”
We
have explained on a former occasion what is to be
understood by the word hardening or making heavy the heart of Pharaoh,
and stated it to be nothing else than what we see every day among sinful
men, who do not open their souls to divine admonition,
and remain callous to the wrathful dispensations which
others around them consider as sufficient to open their eyes to the
erroneousness of their course. We then stated that the Lord must not be
supposed as active in preventing Pharaoh’s repentance, but as not
compelling him to pay obedience before the chain of events had produced
the necessary conviction on his mind. We have now merely to apply the
miraculous part to our today’s discussion. It has been stated before
that, like their masters, the Israelites had learned to pay divine
honours to idols; witness the many murmurings mentioned during their
travels in the wilderness. Now let us not forget what we have insisted
on in several previous lectures, that the ultimate salvation of all
mankind was to be brought about by the education of the seed of Abraham
as the Lord’s peculiar people. They had therefore need to be purified
of their reverence for the superstitions of Egypt, no less than to be
cautioned against the pernicious practices unblushingly perpetrated in
that unhappy land, which, amid a high state of civilization, was
prostrated beneath the sway of idolatrous priests, the coadjutors of
despotism, who enslaved the minds as much as the sovereigns the bodies
of the people. But when the Israelites beheld the destruction which
reached alike the people, the king, the priests, and their idols, they could not help feeling that the power of
the God who humbled all that were held up to them as objects of
reverence, must be vast, infinite, immeasurable; that He who arrested
nature at his mere word, who made the winds his messengers, and the
flaming fire his servants; who covered the heavens with darkness, and
sent the angel of death unerringly into every house to slay the oldest
of every family from the prince down to the captive slave, must in truth
be the Lord, the Creator, the sovereign of the universe, He who builds
up and destroys, who revives and slays, and there is no one to snatch or
save from his hands. This it was that should be told to the descendants
of Israel, namely, that their God is the Most High, who abideth unto
everlasting, unchangingly holy, wise, and pure, great beyond human
conception, all-powerful in the execution of his will, cognizant of
nature, and changing its laws whenever He wills a change to take place;
but who is true to his word, to repay the obedience of the fathers unto
their children, and who is ever at hand to hear the prayer of the
oppressed, and to save the weak and humble from the hand of him who is
stronger than they are; who is the God of truth, in whom there is no
evil, no falsehood, who shields from the arrows of life all those who
put their trust in Him!
Be
it now thy will, O our Father and God, to open our eyes unto the
knowledge of thy ways, and fill us with understanding to study with
humility the word of salvation which thy wisdom has written down for our
instruction; subdue in us the pride of human reason which refuses to be
taught by thy word, and cause thy law to be engraven on our hearts, that
we may observe its precepts, and speak of the great deeds Thou hast
wrought for us, and through us for all the world, to those who are to
come after us. Let thus thy name be sanctified through our humble
efforts, and let us feel the assurance that Thou art with us whenever we
assemble in this house, which we have built unto thy glory, to offer up
our prayer at the foot of thy mercy-seat, and to proclaim aloud our
abiding trust in the truth of thy law which Thou hast imparted to us as
the best heritage of the congregation of Jacob thy servant.—May this
be ever thy will, and may thy abundant blessing be poured out over all
Israel thy people! Amen.
Fri.
Jan. 6. Shebat 5, 5603. |
