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both ;-- just as two ambassadors, each furnished with distinct credentials, may confirm one another's commission. · If these statements be applied to Christianity and the miracles which have been wrought in its support, they will, I trust, contribute much to convince every impartial judge of its truth.

It is evident that in the preceding demonstration we have all along assumed the existence and providence of God. Should it be demanded if the existence of God can be proved, or an atheist confuted by miracles, I answer briefly, that miracles are by no means necessary as an evidence of the divine existence ; since his ordinary works, the works of creation and common providence, are sufficient, and more than sufficient, for this purpose."

.* Nay, there is not an animalcule so despicable, or a vegetable so contemptible, as not to furnish evidence that there is a God. Justly, therefore, has it been said by Lord Bacon, “ There was never miracle wrought by God to convert an atheist, because the light of nature might have led him to confess a God: but miracles have been wrought to convert idol

a aters and the superstitious, because no light of nature extendech to declare the will and true worship of God.”+ But although miracles have not been performed by God for this end, and are not necessary to it, yet they are arguments well fitted to demonstrate it. This we affirm in opposition to the views of Spinosa. For if we suppose that all the events recorded in the saered Scriptures occurred in the manner in which they are related, he who refuses to acknowledge that there is a God must be obstinate indeed : it must at any rate, as appears from what we have formerly stated, be admitted, that there is some invisible being of amazing power, who demands some kind of worship from men, who, when favourable to them, is able to do them much good, and when angry, or at enmity with them, to do them much injury. And should any one affirm that it is not necessary to suppose that this invisible being is divine, the Creator of heaven and of earth, I would ask why he believes him to be some other being rather than God; why he gives credit to his own suspicions, rather than to those who perform these miracles in the name of God, and against whom he can advance no objection; why he imagines that this so powerful being, whose existence is real, performs miracles by the instrumentality of men, for the purpose of advancing the authority of a being who bas no existence; why he seeks not that men should worship

а

• Rom. i. 20; Acts xvii. 24-28.
+ Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning. Book ii.

I would ask

himself rather than this other imaginary being? him, in a word, whether he admits or denies the existence of another being greater in dignity and in power than he by whom these miracles are performed? If he admits that there is, he admits the existence of a supreme being; if he denies it, this being is himself supreme, and as such is entitled to adoration and worship.

DISSERTATION IV.

ON THE ZEAL FOR THE GLORY OF GOD EVERYWHERE

CONSPICUOUS IN THE SACRED SCRIPTURES.

If a book of considerable magnitude, the production of human intelligence, were to be published as a work proceeding from God, its merely human, not to say carnal tendency, would frequently betray its earthly origin. In it man would occupy a very prominent place. On the other hand, a book “given by inspiration of God," should everywhere savour of God, every thing contained in it should look solely to him and to his glory. In a divine book, this tendency ought, in a peculiar manner, to be uniformly conspicuous. Let us then inquire if this be the character of the sacred Scriptures.

a

They contain doctrines, prophecies, and histories. That their doctrines, under which we include their precepts, propose the glory of God as their only aim, is abundantly evident from what we have stated respecting the excellence of the religion revealed in Scripture. But to render this obvious to all, we would further observe, that the doctrine of Scripture proposes chiefly these two objects, first, to eradicate from the minds of men whatever is opposed to the glory of God, and secondly, to direct to God and to his glory whatever cannot be eradicated from their minds.

All sins and vices are opposed to the glory of God. Accordingly there is no sin which the Scriptures do not labour to extirpate from the human heart, by arguments, by commandments and prohibitions, and by threatenings. But as some sins are more directly opposed to the divine glory than others,

*

а

the Scriptures, so to speak, are avowedly more occupied in overthrowing one crime than another. There are no crimes which more directly assail the divine glory than idolatry and pride. . The glory which is due to the true God alone, idolatry gives to false deities, pride, to proud man. Idolatry changes “ the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beasts, and creeping things; it changes the truth of God into a lie, and worships and serves the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever."* The proud man makes himself his God; “ he sacrifices unto his net, and burns incense unto his drag; "+ he says in his heart, “ I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north ; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds ; I will be like the Most High." We may say also that there are no crimes with which the whole Scripture wages more constant warfare than these two ; so that both the Old and the New Testaments seem to treat of almost nothing else.

But here it may be proper to advert to a circumstance which I know not if it has ever received a due measure of attention. Men are vehemently inclined to both of these vices; with this

; difference, however, that the illiterate and the carnal, who are like children, are prone chiefly to idolatry ; the more intellectual and refined, to pride. In reference to this, the astonishing wisdom of God shines forth in the Scriptures. The Israelites were an illiterate and carnal people, addicted to I know

many childish things, and on that account greatly inclined to idolatry. In the Old Testament, therefore, God specially labours to destroy idolatry among this carnal people ; this is above every thing else the design of the law; this is the object both of its promises and threatenings; this is the aim of the numerous miracles by which God distinguished himself from the false deities of the heathen, and of the many divine judgments inflicted on idolaters, and on his own people also, as often as they defiled themselves with idolatry ; this is the pose of the apparently cruel devotement to destruction of idolatrous nations, and of the prohibition of all intercourse with them on the part of the Israelites. All was intended to inspire the Israelites with a horror of that crime. Moses and the prophets everywhere proclaim war against idolatry. What? do you say. In every part of the Old Testament God seems to

not how

pur

• Rom. i. 23, 25.

+ Hab. i, 16.

# Isaiah xiv. 13, 14,

proclaim nothing else than what is thus expressed in Isaiah, “ I am Jehovah; that is my name, and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images ?"*

Here it occurs to us to ask, by the way, whether it is more probable that men who display so much anxiety to extirpate idolatry among their countrymen, in order that they might adhere to the worship of the one true God, the maker of heaven and of earth, are anxious about this on their own account, for the sake of power, authority, honour, or other things of high estimation among men ; or rather on God's account? And if this anxiety is on his account alone, whether it is more probable that they were actuated by a human, or by a divine impulse ? Would it not have been more advantageous to Moses and the prophets to have indulged a carnal people whose propensity to idolatry they could scarcely restrain, and thereby have rendered them more compliant ; than to have pressed at so much hazard to themselves what was peculiarly obnoxious, and forcibly with the most ardent zeal to have destroyed the idols, the people's delight? would not this have been better fitted to secure the object they had in view, if, as profane men surmise, they were crafty impostors, who were seeking only personal advantage, and power and honour ? Who does not see that their souls were full of zeal for God, and that they subordinated every thing to the divine glory?

Moses and the prophets having at length, by numerous addresses and promises and threatenings, and by the performance of numerous miracles, accompanied by continual divine judgments against idolaters, extirpated the love of idolatry among the people of God, this evil was speedily followed by a new plague, not less hostile to the glory of God, Pride. The greater number were turned from the worship of idols, not so much to the true worship of God, as to a high conceit of themselves. For the people of God, reflecting on the care which he had manifested towards them above the rest of mankind from the earliest ages, began to entertain lofty ideas of their own character, to despise others in comparison with themselves, to admire their own righteousness, to look for justification before God on the ground of it, to regard all the favours conferred on them, not as flowing from his grace, but as due to their merit. This was their character when our Saviour appeared among them. Idolatry I admit there was none: but all were full of pride. With this hydra, therefore, he in a particular manner contend

Isaiah xlii. 8

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