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Untitled Article
title to existence ; arul in the moment which should succeed to the cessation of the efficient will of the First Cause , all creatures must fall back to utter dissolution . "— " But the conditions of existence , not less than its matter and form , are from God . In truth , the notions of being and of well-being are not to be distinguished in reference to the Divine causation ; for all his works
are perfect , both in model and in movement There is , therefore , no particle of virtue or of happiness in the universe , any more than of bare existence , of which God is not the author . Neither Scripture nor philosophy permit exceptions to be made ; for if we attribute to the Creator the organ , we must also attribute to him its functions and its health , which is only the perfection of its functions . And thus also if the soul , with its complex apparatus of reason , and moral sentiment , and appetite , be the handy work of God , so is its healthful action . But the healthful action of the soul consists in love to
God , and free subjection to his will . Virtue is nothing else in its substancenothing else in its cause . As in him ' we live , and move , and have our bein # / so also it is he who * worketh in us to will and to do' whatever is pleasing to himself Whether we take the safe and ready method of acquiescing in the obvious sense of a multitude of scriptures , or pursue the laborious deductions of abstract reasonings , the same conclusion is attainedthat in the present world , and in every other where virtue and happiness are found , virtue and happiness are the emanations of the Divine blessedness and purity . " tc
But if this efflux of the Divine Nature belongs to the original constitution of intelligent beings , and is the permanent and only source of all goodness and felicity , it must be intimately fitted to the movements of mind , and must harmonize perfectly with its mechanism ;—just as perfectly as the creative influence harmonizes with the mechanism ana movements of animal life . " " Whatever is vigorous and healthful in the one kind of existence , or holy and happy in the other , is of God , whose power and goodness are , throughout the universe , the natural , not the supernatural , cause of whatever is not evil .
It were then a strange supposition to imagine that this impartation of virtue and happiness may be perceptible to the subject of it , like the access of a foreign and extraordinary influence ,- or that while the creative agency is altogether undistinguishable amid the movements of animal and intellectual life , the spiritual agency which conveys the warmth and activity of virtue to the soul , is otherwise than inscrutable in its mode of operation . As the one
kind of divine energy does not display its presence by convulsive or capricious irregularities , but by the unnoticed vigour and promptitude of the functions of life , so the other energy cannot , without irreverence , be thought of as making itself felt by extra-natural impulses , or sensible shocks upon the intellectual system ; but must rather be imagined as an equable pulse of life , throbbing from within , and diffusing softness , sensibilitv , and force through the soul . "—Pp . 60—63 .
This illustration , faint though it be and finite , of an influence to whose power and extent there are no bounds , approves itself to the reason as entirely as it accords with Scripture ; and it seems strange that one who so expressly ascribes every movement of the animal frame , every thought of the mind , and every emotion of the heart , to the influence of the First Cause , should have made the exception which we find in the passage where God
is declared to be " the cause of whatever is not evil . " It is strange that he should not perceive that there can be no exception to the operation of the Divine influence , no mode of being which is not upheld by it . All our reasonings lead us to the conclusion that evil is only an aspect under which we view objects which , in a more perfect state , will appear purely good . To us , evil is a real existence , an object of fear and aversion , and a substantial motive to action ; in the same manner as contingency , which we believe
Untitled Article
424 Natural History of Enthusiasm .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1829, page 424, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2573/page/56/
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