The differences between them are too numerous to be easily enumerated.
The oracles of the heathen are always sources of gain to their prophets.
The ancient Pythoness must have a hecatomb, the writing medium a dollar, and the modern Pythoness of the platform a dime. But under the inspiration of G.o.d even a Balaam becomes honest, and the leprosy of Naaman marks the sordid Gehazi and his seed forever.
The oracles of the heathen are always immoral in their tendency. From the first spiritual communication through the serpent medium in the tree of knowledge, down to the last spiritual marriage rapped out by the oracle, they are all in favor of pride, ambition, lying, l.u.s.t, and murder. The oracles of G.o.d begin with a prohibition of curiosity, pride, covetousness, and theft: "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." And they are uniformly of the same tenor, forbidding, reproving, threatening vice, and encouraging virtue, down to the last: "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city; for without are dogs, and sorcerers, and wh.o.r.emongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie."
This last mark--falsehood--belongs to all heathen oracles, from the first utterance by the serpent, down to the last response rapped out by the medium. Take any one heathen oracle of which we have any definite account--and the number is very small--and you will find that, if it is not "as equivocal as Apollo," _it is false_.
For instance, Dean Stanley very confidently refers to certain heathen oracles, "the fulfillment of which, according to Cicero, could not be denied without a perversion of all history. Such was the foreshadowing of the twelve centuries of Roman dominion, by the legend of the apparition of the twelve vultures to Romulus, which was so understood 400 years before its accomplishment." Comparing the prophetic predictions with such fables, he says: "_It is not that they are more exact in particulars of time and place_; none can be more so than that of the twelve centuries of the Roman Empire."[81]
The oracle thus exalted to a level with the predictions of our Lord and his apostles is quoted by Censorinus,[82] A. D. 238, from Varro, who died B. C. 28. Varro stated that he had heard Vettius, no common augur, of great genius in disputing, a match with any of the most learned, say, "If it was so, as the historians related, as to the auguries of the founding of the city of Romulus and the twelve vultures, since the Roman people had pa.s.sed 120 years safe, it would reach 1,200."
Dean Stanley misquotes the oracle, and does injustice to the old heathen prophet. He spake no word whatever about _dominion_; all he dared conjecture for his city was _safety_. Even that is put in a highly hypothetical mood. The augury begins with an "if," regarding the apocryphal story of Romulus and the twelve vultures. But whether the fable of the vultures be true or not, the augury of twelve centuries of safety deduced from it is undeniably false, whether it refers to the material city, or to the political const.i.tution then established. The city then built was burnt by Brennus, the Gaul. Its successor was taken and plundered by Alaric, in A. D. 410; again by Genseric, and the Vandals, in 455; and again by the Ostrogoths, in 546. Thus the material city was repeatedly taken and destroyed during the twelve centuries succeeding its founding. If the augury referred to the duration of the political const.i.tution then inst.i.tuted, every school-boy knows that half a dozen revolutions falsified the prediction. If, however, it be alleged that it referred to the ultimate fate of the city of Rome, that it should cease to exist after twelve centuries, it is self-evidently false; for now, after the lapse of twenty-six centuries, Rome is larger, its people more numerous, and its territory wider than it was for centuries after Romulus saw the twelve vultures. Thus G.o.d "frustrateth the tokens of the liars." Yet men who have read Roman history, and whose business it is to read their Bibles, continue to cite Vettius Valens as a prophet, and to compare his false auguries with the predictions of the Scriptures of truth!
This is only one of a number of such secular predictions confidently cited by the learned Dean as having been as minute and specific as those of Scripture, and undeniably fulfilled. But a scholar of his own church has examined his references and alleged facts, and the result is, that not a single instance remains of the fulfillment of any definite prediction given by the original writers; and where the transcriber and the Dean have helped them out to a more definite prediction, it has proved a false prophecy, as in the case of Sterling"s and Spence"s prediction of the year of the disruption of the Union of the United States. Dr. Pusey summarizes this discussion in his work on Daniel (p.
637), from which we extract and condense the following paragraphs on this subject:
"Dean Stanley produces a certain number of alleged predictions in secular history, as counterparts of the predictions of _the political events_ of their own, and the surrounding nations," in the Hebrew prophets, _i. e._ (in religious language), "of G.o.d"s judgments upon both for their sins against himself and their fellow-men." He says, "Every one knows instances, both in ancient and modern times, of predictions which have been uttered, and fulfilled, in regard to events of this kind. Sometimes such predictions have been the results of political foresight. Many instances will occur to students of history. Even within our own memory the great catastrophe of the disruption of the United States of America _was foretold, even with the exact date, several years beforehand_. Sometimes there has been an antic.i.p.ation of some future epoch in the pregnant sayings of eminent philosophers and poets; as for example the intimation of the discovery of America by Seneca; or of Shakespeare by Plato; or the Reformation by Dante. Sometimes the result has been produced by the power of divination, granted in some inexplicable manner to ordinary men. Of such a kind were many of the ancient oracles, the fulfillment of which, according to Cicero, could not be denied without a perversion of history. Such was the foreshadowing of the twelve centuries of Roman dominion by the legend of the apparition of the twelve vultures to Romulus, which was so understood 400 years before its actual accomplishment. Such, but with less certainty, was the traditional prediction of the conquest of Constantinople by the Mussulmans; the alleged predictions by Archbishop Malachi, whether composed in the eleventh or sixteenth centuries, of the series of popes down to the present time; not to speak of the well-known instances which are recorded both in French and English history. But there are several points which at once place the prophetic predictions on a different level from any of these. _It is not that they are more exact in particulars of time and place_; none can be more so than that of the twelve centuries of the Roman Empire; and our Lord himself has excluded the precise knowledge of times and seasons from the widest and highest range of prophetic vision." (Jewish Church, 463. The Bible: its Form and Substance, pages 80, 82.)
"It might safely be admitted," says Dr. Pusey, "that the outward predictions of time and place are of the body, rather than of the soul of prophecy, yet as indications that he revealed himself, who alone could know long before what he willed to bring to pa.s.s by his Providence, the predictions of the Hebrew prophets are not to be paralleled by any human history.
"Definite predictions of the Hebrew prophets have been instanced above.
Dr. Stanley"s instances of secular fulfillment are unhappy." He then proceeds to examine in their turn the political, poetic, Popish, Mohammedan, and heathen oracles quoted by Dean Stanley.
_I. The Political Predictions._
Sterling, as quoted by Mr. Spence, so far from predicting the great catastrophe of the disruption of the United States _at the end_ of the four years, says that no wise man would predict anything even within those four years. "It appears to me that amid so many elements of uncertainty as to the future, both from the excited state of men"s minds in the States themselves, and the complication of surrounding circ.u.mstances, no wise man would venture to foretell the probable issue of American affairs during the next four years." (On the American Union, page 14.) And this was written amid all the heavings which preceded the bursting of the volcano. It followed, after statesmen had, one after another, seen the elements of that disruption. The probability of the severance of the North and South has been a speculation to which the older of us have long been familiar. And now [1864] who would venture to predict the time of the close of that sad war? (First edition.) Now [1865] that it has come to an end Americans taunt Europeans with their want of foresight in their antic.i.p.ations as to its issue. The _Times_ correspondent retorts as to false antic.i.p.ations of Americans--(1) that the issue would not interfere with slavery; (2) that there would be separation without bloodshed; (3) that the war would last only some ninety days; (4) that the United States would break up into fragments (Northern); (5) they contemplated that the interests of trade would suffice for the harmony of North and South when separated, etc., etc.
June 6, 1865. Europeans almost universally antic.i.p.ated the success of the South. So little did the human sagacity of men really sagacious, with intimate knowledge of the strength of the different parties, their numbers, resources, and all the calculations as to modern warfare, enable them to antic.i.p.ate within half a year the result of a war, which, through the vivid description of it, and clear knowledge, was carried on almost under their eyes. And these men would have us to suppose that Hebrew prophets, living in the center of a small people, could, with mere human knowledge, foretell with absolute certainty the overthrow of flourishing empires, when at the acme of their power!
_II. The So-called Prophecies of S. Malachi._
These have long been recognized to be a forgery, unmeaning except for the immediate purpose for which they were "forged by the partisans of the Cardinal Simoncelli, one of the candidates for the tiara, who was designated by the words "de antiquitate orbis," because he was of Orvieto, in Latin, "orbs vetus."" (Biog. Unv"l v. Wion.) Menestrier published a refutation of the pretended prophecies of S. Malachi, Paris, 1689, written with much solidity. Don Feijoo also refuted these pretended prophecies in his _Teatro Critico_. The Noveau Dictionnaire Historique, by MM. Chaudon and Delaudine, speaks of the "errors and anachronisms with which this impertinent list swarms." "The forgetfulness of common sense makes itself felt in a few pages. Those who have set themselves to explain these too noted insipidities, always find some allusion, forced or probable, in the country, name, arms, birth, talents of the popes, the cardinalatory dignities they had borne, etc.; _e. g._, the prophecy which related to Urban the Eighth was, _Lilium et Rosae_." It was fulfilled to the very letter, say these absurd interpreters, for that pope had in his coat of arms bees, which suck lilies and roses. (Art. Malachi and Wion.)
III. Dr. Pusey proceeds to examine the process by which a prediction of _the conquest of Constantinople_ has been manufactured for the false prophet, Mohammed.
"In the mosque of Sultan Mohammed the Second," says V. Hammer, "which was finished A. D. 1469, there stands, to the right of the main door, on a marble slab, on an azure field, in gold raised characters, the tradition of the prophet relating to Constantinople. "They _will conquer_ Constantinople; and blessed the prince, blessed the army which shall fulfill this."" (Constant v. d. Bosporos I. 393.) Or (as he renders more exactly in Gesch d. Osm. Reich, p. 523), "the best prince is he who conquers it, and the best army, his army." This tradition, being above eight centuries after Mohammed, has, of course, no value. It reappears in a different form in Ockley, the conquest being presupposed, rather than prophesied. Ockley says (History of Saracens, II. 128), "Mohammed having said, "The sins of the first army which takes the city of the Caesar are forgiven."" Ockley referring only vaguely to Bokhari, who, early in the third century, after Mohammed selected 7,000 traditions which he held to be genuine, out of some 267,000, I applied to my friend, M. Reinaud, professor of Arabic at Paris, and member of the Inst.i.tute, not doubting that with his large knowledge he would be able to point out to me the pa.s.sage in the _Sahih_. This, with his well-known kindness, he has done, amid his many labors. It puts an end to all questions about prophecy. The pa.s.sage is this: As Omm Heram has related to us that she heard the prophet say, "The first army of my people which shall war by sea will acquire merits with G.o.d, Omm Heram said, "I said, O Apostle of G.o.d, I will be among them." He said, "Thou shalt be among them." Then the prophet said, "The first army of my people which shall attack the city of the Caesar, their sins shall be forgiven them." Then I said, "I will be with them, O Apostle of G.o.d." He said, "No!"" M. Reinaud adds, "There is no question but that Mohammed conceived the idea of the invasion of the Roman Empire, and of the kingdom of Persia by his disciples. He himself shortly before his death tried his strength against the Roman forces in Syria. But the pa.s.sage does not say what Ockley makes him say. It does not say that Constantinople would be taken."
The other prophecy referred to by Von Hammer is as follows: "Have you heard of a city of which one side is land, the two others sea? They said, "Yea, O Apostle of G.o.d." He said, "The last hour will not come without its being conquered by 70,000 sons of Isaac. When they come to it they will not fight against it with weapons and engines of war, but with the word, There is no G.o.d but G.o.d, and G.o.d is great!" Then will one side of the sea walls fall; and at the second time the second; and at the third time the wall on the land side; and they will enter in with gladness."
The framer of this prophesy expected the walls of Constantinople to fall like those of Jericho, which he must have had in mind. He expected it to fall before Arabs, "sons of Isaac," not before Turks. * * * Yet, contrary to the expectation, and the prophecy, it did fall before the Turks, after having been seven times besieged by the Arabs, and four times by the Turks; by whom it was taken A. D. 1453. The framer of the prediction antic.i.p.ated that the representatives of the followers of the prophet would be Arabs to some indefinite period, near the last hour; he expected a miraculous destruction of Constantinople; it was besieged seven times by those before whose war-cry he expected it to fall. It did not fall before those before whom he said it would fall; it fell in an ordinary way, not in that predicted; it was besieged in the way in which he said it would not be besieged; lastly, it fell, but its walls fell not. _Every detail of the prediction is contrary to the fact._ As for the mere capture, it befalls all great cities in turn; so that a prediction of the capture of any great city would be the safest of all prophecies. But the prediction did not antic.i.p.ate, what is now certain, that as soon as Christian jealousies permit, before the end of the world, it will be wrested from its captors.
IV. The legend of Romulus and the vultures, and the falsehood of the prediction based upon it, have been exposed on a previous page.
V. In regard to Seneca"s alleged prediction of the discovery of America, it was exceedingly vague; and was wholly based on the undoubted knowledge of its existence by the ancient Egyptians, and by Plato, Proclus, Marcellus, Ammia.n.u.s, Marcellinus, Diodorus, Aristotle, and Plutarch; whose a.s.sertions influenced Columbus to undertake the search for it. Nothing could be more certain than that such a continent would be rediscovered. But in the only indication which Seneca gives us of its location he erred; for Thule is still the utmost land northward, no new continent having been discovered, nor remaining to be discovered, toward the North Pole.
VI. As to the heathen oracles we have already spoken enough.
VII. "The antic.i.p.ation of Shakespeare by Plato amounts to this, that he makes Socrates compel his friends to admit, "that it belongs to the same man, how to compose comedy and tragedy, and that he who is by skill a composer of tragedies is also a composer of comedies." (Sympos fin.) * * * But it is mere confusion to speak of this as _antic.i.p.ation_. Plato does not say that there would be any greater combination of the two talents than there had been; he does not even say that the highest excellence in one involved excellence in the other; he simply says that the two faculties belonged to the same mind. According to his maxims, if true, it would be rather marvelous that they were not more frequently combined than that they were remarkably in one mind."
VIII. "Those best read in Dante are at a loss to find in him any trace of a prediction of the Reformation. Dante, with his firm faith in all Roman doctrine, could not have imagined or antic.i.p.ated such a disruption as Luther"s. Dean Stanley corrects an unimportant misprint or two in the second edition of his book, on the ground of the above statements. He does not even attempt to supply a pa.s.sage from Dante. I have looked for one in vain."
Yet such a collection of errors, absurdities, falsehoods, and impostures is gravely presented, in this nineteenth century, by a learned clergyman, as comparable in regard to exact fulfillment with the oracles of G.o.d.
It is not intended here to discuss the question of the continuance of prophetic powers in the Church. If, as many believe, the promise in Joel ii. 28--"It shall come to pa.s.s in the last days, saith G.o.d, that your sons and your daughters shall prophesy," etc.--is a promise not yet exhausted, predictions given by the Holy Spirit may have been given through Christians in former times, and may still be given. But if such be the fact, these are not secular predictions; but spiritual and supernatural, and of the same cla.s.s with those of Scripture; they are therefore not to be cited by Rationalists as examples of secular prediction.
But it is objected that "the prophecies of Scripture are as obscure as the oracles; are all wrapped up in symbolical language; that many of them have a double meaning; that no two interpreters are agreed as to the meaning of the unfulfilled predictions; and that no man can certainly foretell any future event by means of them."
The objection proceeds on a total mistake of the nature and design of prophecy, which is not to unvail the future for the gratification of your curiosity, but to give you direction in your present duty; precisely the reverse of the oracles referred to, which proposed to tell their votaries what should happen, but rarely condescended to direct them how to behave themselves so that things might happen well. The larger part of the prophecies of Scripture is taken up with directions to men how to regulate their conduct, rather than with information how G.o.d means to regulate his. There is just as much of the latter as is sufficient to show us that the G.o.d who gave the Bible governs the world, and even that always urges the same moral lesson: "Say ye to the righteous that it shall be well with him, for he shall eat the fruit of his doings." "Woe to the wicked; it shall be ill with him, for the reward of his hands shall be given him." Whenever a vision relates to what G.o.d will do in the distant future, it is dark and mysterious; but whenever any directions are given necessary for our immediate duty, then the "vision is written and made plain on tables, _that he may run that readeth it_." The possessors of a clearly engrossed t.i.tle-deed have surely no reason to complain that the president has chosen that his seal appended to it shall consist of a device, which, by reason of its being hard to read, and harder to imitate, secures both himself and them against forgery. The double meaning of some prophecies is a double check. So far from resembling the equivocations of heathen oracles, by taking either of two opposite events for a fulfillment, they require both of two corresponding ones; and some prophecies, like a master key, open several successive events, and thus show that the same mind planned both locks and key. When the prediction is fulfilled all mystery vanishes, and men see plainly that thus it was written; that is to say, men who look; for the man who will not open his eyes will never see anything that it concerns him to know. But the man who thinks that it concerns him so much to know what G.o.d will do with the world a hundred years after he is dead, that unless the prophecies of the Bible are all made plain to him, he will neither read G.o.d"s word, nor obey his law, may go on his own way. We expound no mysteries to such persons; for it is written, "None of the wicked shall understand."
As to the objection taken from the symbolical language of prophecy, and which seems to a number of our modern critics so weighty that they remove to the purely mythologic ground everything "couched in symbolical language," and account nothing to be prediction unless "literal history written in advance"--I would merely ask, How is it possible to reveal heavenly things to earth-born men but by earthly figures? Do you know a single word in your own, or any other language to express a spiritual state, or mental operation, that is not the name of some material state, or physical operation, used symbolically? Heart, soul, spirit, idea, memory, imagination, inclination, etc., every one of them a figure of speech--a symbol. Nay, is there a letter in your own, or in any other alphabet, that was not originally a picture of something? I demand to know in what way G.o.d or man could teach you to know anything you have never seen, but by either showing you a picture of it, or telling you what it is like? That is simply by type or symbol; these are the only possible media of conveying heavenly truth, or future history to our minds. When, therefore, the skeptic insists that prophecy be given literally, in the style of history written in advance, he simply requires that G.o.d would make it utterly unintelligible. We can gather clear and definite ideas from the significant hieroglyphics of symbolical language, but the literalities of history written in advance would be worse to decipher than the arrow-headed inscriptions of Nineveh. Just imagine to yourself Alexander the Great reading Guizot, instead of Daniel; or Hildreth, as being less mysterious than Ezekiel; and meeting, for instance, such a record as this: "In the year of Christ, 1847, the United States conquered Mexico and annexed California." "In the year of Christ--what new Olympiad may be that?" he would say. "The United States of course means the States of the Achaen League, but on what sh.o.r.e of the Euxine may Mexico and California be found?" What information could Aristotle gather from the record that, "In 1857, the Transatlantic Telegraph was in operation?" Could all the augurs in the seven-hilled city have expounded to Julius Caesar the famous dispatch, if intercepted in prophetic vision, "Sebastopol was evacuated last night, after enduring for three days an infernal fire of shot and sh.e.l.l?" Nay, to diminish the vista to even two or three centuries, what could Oliver Cromwell, aided by the whole Westminster a.s.sembly, have made of a prophetic vision of a single newspaper paragraph of history written in advance, to inform them that, "Three companies of dragoons came down last night from Berwick to Southampton, by a special train, traveling 54-1/2 miles an hour, including stoppages, and embarked immediately on arrival. The fleet put to sea at noon, in the face of a full gale from the S. W.?" Why, the intelligible part of this single paragraph would seem to them more impossible, and the unintelligible part more absurd, than all the mysterious symbols of the Apocalypse.
The world has accepted G.o.d"s symbols thousands of years ago, and it is too late in the day for our reformers to propose new laws of thought, and forms of speech, to the human race. David"s prophetic lyrics, Christ"s graphic parables, Isaiah"s celestial anthems, Ezekiel"s glorious symbols, and Solomon"s terse proverbs, will be recited and admired, ages after the foggy abstractions of mystified metaphysicians have vanished from the earth. The Thirst of Pa.s.sion, the Cup of Pleasure, the Fountain of the Water of Life, the Blood of Murder, the Rod of Chastis.e.m.e.nt, the Iron Scepter, the Fire of Wrath, the Balance of Righteousness, the Sword of Justice, the Wheels of Providence, the Conservative Mountains, the Raging Seas of Anarchy, and the Golden, Brazen, and Iron Ages, will reflect their images in truth"s mirror, and photograph their lessons on memory"s tablet, while the mists of the "positive philosophy," "the absolute," and "the conditioned," float past unheeded, to the land of forgetfulness. G.o.d"s prophetic symbols are the glorious embodiments of living truths, while man"s philosophic abstractions are the melancholy ghosts of expiring nonsense.
The prophetic symbols are sufficiently plain to be distinctly intelligible _after_ the fulfillment, as we shall presently see; sufficiently obscure to baffle presumptuous curiosity before it. Had they been so written as to be fully intelligible beforehand, they must have interfered with man"s free agency, by causing their own fulfillment. They hide the future sufficiently to make man feel his ignorance; they reveal enough to encourage faith in the G.o.d who rules futurity.
The revelation of future events, however, is not the princ.i.p.al design of the prophecies of the Bible; they bear witness to G.o.d"s powerful present influence over the world now. For G.o.d"s prophecy is not merely his foretelling something which will certainly happen at some future time, but over which he has no control--as an astronomer foretells an eclipse of the sun, but can neither hasten nor hinder it--but it is his revealing of a part of his plan of this world"s affairs, to show that G.o.d, and not man, is the sovereign of this world. For this purpose he tells beforehand the actions which wicked men, of their own free will, will commit, contrary to his law, and the measures he will take to thwart their designs, and fulfill his own. Nay, he declares he will so manage matters that, without their knowledge, and even contrary to their intentions, heathen armies, and infidel scoffers shall serve his purposes, and show his power; while yet they are as perfectly voluntary in all their movements as if they, and not G.o.d, governed the world.
Every fulfilled prophecy thus becomes an instance and evidence of a supernatural government; and is, to a thinking mind, a greater miracle than casting mountains into the sea. The style of prophecy corresponds to this design. It is not by any means apologetic, or supplicating; but, on the contrary, majestic, convincing, and terrifying to the unG.o.dly.
"_Remember this and show yourselves men.
Bring it again to mind, O ye transgressors.
For I am G.o.d, and there is none else.
I am G.o.d, and there is none like me.
Declaring the end from the beginning, And from, ancient times the things that are not yet done, Saying_, "MY COUNSEL SHALL STAND, AND I WILL DO ALL MY PLEASURE.""[83]
Infidels feel the power of this manifestation of G.o.d in his word; and are driven to every possible denial of the fact, and evasion of the argument drawn from it. They feel instinctively that Bible prophecies are far more than mere predictions. They would rather endow every human being on earth with the power of predicting the future than allow the G.o.d of heaven that power of ruling the present which these prophecies a.s.sert. Hence the attempt to admit their predictive truth, and yet deny their divine authority, by ascribing them to human sagacity.
Transatlantic steam navigation has produced a remarkable change in the tone of Infidel writers and speakers in regard to the prophecies of the Bible. You could not converse long with an Infidel on this subject, a few years ago, until he would a.s.sure you, with all confidence, that the prophecies were all written after their fulfillment, and so were not prophecies at all. But now that travelers of all cla.s.ses, scoffers, sailors, and doctors in divinity, scientific expeditions, and correspondents of daily papers, have flooded the world with undeniable attestations that many of them are receiving their fulfillment at this day, none but the most grossly ignorant and stupid attempt to deny that the prophecies of the Bible were written thousands of years since, and that many of them have since been accomplished; and that so many have been fulfilled that their accomplishment can not be ascribed to chance.
But the force of the argument for the divine inspiration of the prophets is met by the a.s.sertion, that there is nothing supernatural in prophecy, and that it is only one form of the inspiration of genius applying the general laws of nature.
Calculating securely on that profound ignorance of the Bible which characterizes their followers, modern writers inform them that "none of the prophets ever uttered any distinct, definite, unambiguous prediction of any future event which has since taken place, which a man without a miracle could not equally well predict." It is alleged that the prophecies, in predicting the overthrow of the nations of antiquity, predicted nothing beyond the ken of human sagacity, enlightened by a careful study of the experience of the past, and the invariable laws of nature; that it requires no inspiration to foretell the decay of perishing things; that the invariable progress of all things, empires as well as individuals, is first upward, through a period of youthful vigor and energy, then onward through a period of ripe maturity, and then downward, through a gradual decay, and final dissolution, to the inevitable grave. The world"s history is but a history of the decline and fall of nations.
1. Now, if this be true, it is an awful truth for the Infidel, for _it sweeps away the last vestige of a foundation of his hope for eternity_.
The only reason any unbeliever in Revelation could ever give, or that modern Rationalists do give, for their hope of a happy eternity, is the a.n.a.logy of nature--the alleged constant progress of all things toward perfection in this world. It is an awkward truth that individually we must die, and the worms crawl over us; but then the wretched fate of the individual was to be compensated by the glorious progress of the race onward and ever onward and upward; from the fungus to the frog, and from the frog to the monkey, from the monkey to the man, from the n.o.ble savage wild in woods, to the pastoral tribe, thence to the empire and the federal republic, and finally to the reign of individual and pa.s.sional attraction, and union with the sum of all the intelligences of the universe, through a constant progress toward infinite perfection.
But, alas! it seems it was a false a.n.a.logy, an ill-observed fact, a delusion; the course of nature is all the other way. The tendency of all perishing things is not to perfection, but to perdition; and it needs no inspiration to tell that man"s loftiest towers, and strongest cities, and proudest empires will come to ruin; or that the most polished, powerful, and populous nations of antiquity will dwindle down into Turks, Moors, and Egyptians. Here is a fact of awful omen. Death reigns in this world of ours; death moral, social, political, and physical, has ever trampled upon man, proud man, learned man, civilized man, over all the plans of man, over every man, and over every a.s.sociation of men, even the largest, the widest, the mightiest. And now the Infidel, having taken away our hope of help from heaven, comes with the serpent"s hiss, and fiendish sneer, to taunt the perishing world with this miserable truism--that the tendency of everything on earth is to perdition, and that it needs no inspiration to tell it. Truly it does not. Were that all the prophets of G.o.d had to tell us--as it is all the prophets of Infidelity can prophecy--we had as little need for the one as for the other. Earthquake and hurricane, volcano and valley flood, autumn frosts and winter blasts, fever, consumption, war, and pestilence, the grave-yard and the charnel-house, the Parthenon and the Pyramids, the silent cities of Colorado, and the buried palaces of a.s.syria, unite to attest this awful doom.
But what reason has the skeptic to believe that this invariable law of nature shall ever be repealed, and this inevitable progress of all things to perdition be arrested? Why may not men be as selfish, and filthy, and grasping, and murderous in the other world, as they are in this? Why may not the course of nature be as fatal to the sinner"s prosperity there as it is here? Why may not the progress of the proud empires and spheres of futurity be such as the skeptic declares the progress of the past to have been, so invariably toward dissolution and death, that it shall need no inspiration to predict its course downward, downward, ever downward, to endless perdition? Stand forward, skeptic, and point the world to an instance in which an unG.o.dly nation has stemmed this all-destroying torrent of ruin; or acknowledge that all you can promise the nations of the world to come, from your experience of the invariable laws of nature, is _perdition, endless perdition_.
2. It is manifest, however, that this destruction of nations and desolation of empires must have had a beginning some time or other.
Nations could not perish before they had grown, nor empires be destroyed till they had acc.u.mulated; and during all this period of their growth and vigor the experience of mankind would never lead them to predict their ruin. The sagacious observer, beholding Babylon, Nineveh, Damascus, and Tyre, growing and flourishing during a period of a thousand years past, could have had no reason from such an experience to expect anything else than a thousand years of prosperity to come.
Especially impossible is it for human sagacity, enlightened by experience, to predict _unexampled_ desolations, destructions such as the world had never witnessed.