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ters we must leave to the writings of those who have had stomach to handle them. In the answer of Bishop Watson, you may see how entirely boasting is their strength. They need but the light to make all their show of argument fade away. Their best answer is found in the profligate life and despairing death of the poor miserable man himself.

The mysteriousness of certain things in Christianity is urged as a strong reason for the rejection of its divine authority. Many will not believe the doctrine of the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, his incarnation, his atoning sacrifice, his resurrection from the dead, his intercession in heaven, the influences of the Holy Spirit upon the hearts of men, and our new creation unto holiness by his converting power, not to speak of many other of the deep things of God, because they are mysteries. Mysteries they are unquestionably, and were intended to be so regarded. So far as we have need to understand them, they are as intelligible as the plain truth that man is the union. of body and spirit. So far as we are not concerned to understand them, they are as mysterious as the nature of the union between body and spirit in man, but not more so. Religion must have mysteries. Religion without its mysteries is a temple without its God."

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Whither shall we flee to get beyond the region of things incomprehensible? They beset us behind and before. If from revealed religion we go to natural, they are there. The most essential doctrine of all religion, the existence of God, is mystery to the

uttermost. What explanation can be given of his self-existence? His presence in all parts of the universe at once? How he inhabits eternity, having no relation to time-and immensity, having no relation to space? If from natural religion we go to atheism, they are there also. He who denies the existence of God, plunges at once into the most confounding of all mysteries. What in Scripture is more incomprehensible, than that this world had no Maker; that all its examples of wise and deep design had no Designer? Will you go from thence to the experimental certainties of natural philosophy? Mysteries are there also. Explain the attraction of gravitation, the nature of electricity, the elastic power of steam, the secrets of evaporation. What is vegetable, or animal, or spiritual life? In mechanics, we arrive at the utmost certainty respecting the relations of force, matter, time, motion, space; while with the things themselves we have not the least acquaintance. They are mysteries as unsearchable to us as the deepest things of revealed religion. How force is communicated from one body to another, is no more intelligible than how the influences of the Holy Spirit are communicated to man. Matter, in its changes, is as incomprehensible as grace in its operations. "There are questions, doubts, perplexities, disputes, diversities of opinions, about the one as well as about the other. Ought we not, therefore, by a parity of reasoning, to conclude that there may be several true and highly useful propositions about the latter as well as about the former? Nay, I will venture to go

further, and affirm," says a devoted teacher of science, "that the preponderance of the argument is in favor of the propositions of the theologian. For while force, time, motion, etc., are avowedly constituent parts of a demonstrable science, and ought therefore to be presented in a full blaze of light, the obscure parts proposed in the Scriptures for our assent are avowedly mysterious. They are not exhibited to be perfectly understood, but to be believed. They cannot be understood without ceasing to be what they Obscurities, however, are felt as incumbrances to any system of philosophy; while mysteries are ornaments of the Christian system, and tests of the humility and faith of its votaries. So that if the rejecters of incomprehensibilities acted consistently with their own principles, they would rather throw aside all philosophical theories in which obscurities are found and exist as defects, than the system of revealed religion, in which they enter as essential parts of that mystery of godliness' in which the apostles gloried."

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If from natural philosophy we ascend to the higher branches of pure mathematics, the regions of unmixed light and certainty, where naught is tolerated but strict demonstration, even there will mystery find us and its right hand will hold us.

Explain the demonstrated fact that "there are curves which approach continually to some fixed right line without the possibility of ever meeting it ;” that " a space infinite in one sense, may, by its rota* Gregory's Letters.

tion, generate a solid of finite capacity;" that “a variable space shall be continually augmenting, and yet never become equal to a certain finite quantity."

These are depths which the mathematician can solve no better than Christians can explain the great mysteries of redemption. But they do not hinder him. He can use, as the elements of his calculation, doctrines thus incomprehensible without feeling any diminution in the certainty of the result. Why may not a Christian, with equal reason, include among the articles of his belief doctrines no more incomprehensible, without embarrassing his assurance of the duties and consolations which result from them?

If mysteries be valid objections to that which speaks of God and his relations to man, why are they not at least as formidable in all those branches of human knowledge in which created and finite subjects alone are involved? But they are not treated as objections by the mathematician or the philosopher. The former asks no question but, simply, what is demonstrated? the latter, what is proved, either by experiment or by testimony? If phenomena be well attested, he does not wait to understand their cause, or mode, or effects; he does not suspend belief till he has harmonized their peculiarities with a favorite hypothesis, or with previous observations. He sets them down among the truths of science, and believes: taking for granted that though he may not understand them, there is One that does; and though he should never discover the

theory by which such events are shown to be in agreement with all others, there is still a harmony which pervades "all things in heaven and earth, and under the earth."

Such is the application of inductive philosophy to the mysteries of nature. Let the mysteries of revelation be treated with equal justice, and instead of employing them as objections to its truth, you will acknowledge them as essential to its nature and portions of its glory."

But there are many who object to Christianity, not only because they cannot understand the nature, but because they cannot see the reason, of certain things contained in or connected with it. For example, it is well known that God is gracious and merciful, and desireth not the death of a sinner, and that he has all power to save whom he will; and yet it is revealed that without the sacrifice of Christ, and without conversion and faith, the sinner cannot be saved. Why, it is asked, this circuitous method, this expense of suffering, when a word from the Almighty would save the world? An intelligent Christian could give many answers to this question; but what if he had none? Would the way of salvation, as revealed in the gospel, be in any degree less credible? Shall we refuse to believe the ways of God till he has laid all his reasons before us? Why not as well deny his works on the same indefensible ground? Why believe that a sick man cannot recover without a tedious

* See an admirable article on Mysteries in Religion, in Gregory's Letters, vol. 1.

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