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Untitled Article
wanders through the past , and our imagination works its way through the dimness of the future ; while effort succeeds to effort ; while a chain ot thoughts is evolved , and a sum of actions accumulated , —to God , " one day is as a thousand years , and a thousand years are as one day ; " he not only sees the end from the beginning , but the beginning and the end are identical : the actions of an eternity are comprehended in one energy ; the interests of a universe are ordained , created , established , and
immortalized at once and for ever . The question is not , therefore , whether the Father of all the families of the earth provided for their individual fortunes , ages ago , while he no longer interferes with the course of events , or whether he guides the influences as they arise ; but whether it is most easy for man to conceive of the one mode of agency or of the other . It is the choice of a medium through which an immutable object may be viewed ; the choice between two methods of demonstrating an unalterable truth ; and involves no supposition of a change in the object , or of a modification of the truth
under contemplation . The truest wisdom , therefore , is for every mind to conceive of the superintendence of Providence in that mode which nourishes the strongest convictions of unerring wisdom , and of unwearied tenderness . The child may be allowed and should be encouraged to think of his heavenly Father as smiling on his nascent efforts of duty , and frowning on his disobedience ; as bestowing his trivial enjoyments , watching his
occupations , and guarding his slumbers , in bodily presence , since no other presence is conceivable by the infant mind : while the philosopher may attempt to express his inadequate conceptions by yet more inadequate language ; speaking of One whose " centre is every where , and His circumference no where ; " who originates the faintest motion in the material universe , while he bestows the infinite blessedness of an immortal existence
on an innumerable multitude of spiritual beings . The latter of these modes of conception is not too high , if it does not impair the confidence of trust , or the sense of responsibility ; the former is not too low , if it aids the growth of holy awe and fervent love . Both are , doubtLess , inadequate , almost equally so : yet neither is so inadequate as the supposition , adopted by the learned Cudworth and a few others , that the various phenomena of
the world are produced by the agency of a vital , spiritual , and unintelligent substance , to which the name of a Plastic Nature is given . It is sufficient to say that we have no evidence of the existence of such a being ; but it is clear that so strange a hypothesis arose from the unworthy imagination that action is incompatible with the dignity of the Divine nature . Ail dignity , however , consists in action , as Being itself is evinced by action ; and in proportion to the energy and the perfection of action , is the perfection of Being , in dignity as well as in happiness . Thus only can we conceive of being , of happiness , of dignity , and of perfection . The hypothesis of
Cudworth does not in the least remove his own fancied difficulty ; for this Plastic Nature must have originated with God ; and according to the established maxim , " Causa causa ? causa causati , " the operations of the deputy are the operations of the principal , where that principal is prescient . This Idol of the Theatre may therefore be forgotten with the thousand others which may innocently divert the imagination when the occupations of the reasoning power are suspended ; but which should never be allowed to make sport among the grave employments of the humble and patient intellect . The Essay on the Immateriality of the Soul , we must pass over entirely , for the simple reason that the sutyect is so interesting , and that so much
Untitled Article
Crombie ' s Natural Theology . 225
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1830, page 225, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2583/page/9/
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