DISCOURSES

ON

THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION,

VIEWED IN CONNEXION WITH

THE MODERN ASTRONOMY.

PREFACE.

THE astronomical objection against the truth of the Gospel does not occupy a very prominent place in any of our Treatises of Infidelity. It is often, however, met with in conversation-and we have known it to be the cause of serious perplexity and alarm in minds anxious for the solid establishment of their religious faith.

There is an imposing splendour in the science of astronomy; and it is not to be wondered at, if the light it throws, or appears to throw, over other tracks of speculation than those which are properly its own, should at times dazzle and mislead an inquirer. On this account we think it were a service to what we deem a true and a righteous cause, could we succeed in dissipating this illusion; and in stripping Infidelity of those pretensions to enlargement, and to a certain air of philosophical greatness, by which it has often become so destructively alluring to the young, and the ardent, and the ambitious.

In my first Discourse, I have attempted a sketch of the Modern Astronomynor have I wished to throw any disguise over that comparative littleness which belongs to our planet, and which gives to the argument of Freethinkers all its plausibility.

This argument involves in it an assertion and an inference. The assertion is, that Christianity is a religion which professes to be designed for the single benefit of our world; and the inference is, that God cannot be the author of this religion, for he would not lavish on so insignificant a field, such peculiar and such distinguishing attentions as are ascribed to him in the Old and New Testament.

Christianity makes no such profession. That it is designed for the single benefit of our world, is altogether a presumption of the Infidel himself—and feeling that this is not the only example of temerity which can be charged on the enemies of our faith, I have allotted my second Discourse to the attempt of demonstrating the utter repugnance of such a spirit with the cautious and enlightened philosophy of modern times.

In the course of this Sermon I have offered a tribute of acknowledgment to the theology of Sir Isaac Newton; and in such terms, as if not farther explained, may be liable to misconstruction. The grand circumstance of applause in the character of this great man, is, that unseduced by all the magnificence of his own discoveries, he had a solidity of mind which could resist their fascination, and keep him in steady attachment to that book whose general evidences stamped upon it the impress of a real communication from heaven. This was the sole attribute of his theology which I had in my eye when I presumed to eulogize it.

pur

I do not think, that, amid the distraction and the engrossment of his other suits, he has at all times succeeded in his interpretation of the book; else he would never, in my apprehension, have abetted the leading doctrine of a sect, or a system, which has now nearly dwindled away from public observation.

In my third Discourse I am silent as to the assertion and attempt to combat the inference that is founded on it. I insist, that upon all the analogies of nature and of providence, we can lay no limit on the condescension of God, or on the multiplicity of his regards even to the very humblest departments of creation; and that it is not for us, who see the evidences of divine wisdom and care spread in such exhaustless profusion around, to say, that the Deity would not lavish all the wealth of his wondrous attributes on the salvation even of our solitary species.

At this point of the argument I trust that the intelligent reader may be enabled to perceive in the adversaries of the gospel, a twofold dereliction from the maxims of the Baconian philosophy; that, in the first instance, the assertion which forms the groundwork of their argument, is gratuitously fetched out of an unknown region where they are utterly abandoned by the light of experience; and that, in the second instance, the inference they urge from it, is in the face of manifold and undeniable truths, all lying within the safe and accessible field of human observation. In my subsequent Discourses, I proceed to the informations of the record. The infidel objection, drawn from astronomy, may be considered as by this time disposed of; and if we have succeeded in clearing it away, so as to deliver the Christian testimony from all discredit upon this ground, then may we submit, on the strength of other evidences, to be guided by its information. We shall thus learn, that Christianity has a far more extensive bearing on the other orders of creation than the infidel is disposed to allow; and whether he will own the authority of this information or not, he will at least be forced to admit, that the subject matter of the Bible itself is not chargeable with that objection which he has attempted to fasten upon it.

Thus, had my only object been the refutation of the Infidel argument, I might have spared the last Discourses of the Volume altogether. But the tracts of Scriptural information to which they directed me, I considered as worthy of prosecution on their own account-and I do think, that much may be gathered from these less observed portions of the field of revelation, to cheer, and to elevate, and to guide the believer.

But, in the management of such a discussion as this, though for a great degree of this effect it would require to be conducted in a far higher style than I am able to sustain, the taste of the human mind may be regaled, and its understanding put into a state of the most agreeable exercise. Now, this is quite distinct from the conscience being made to feel the force of a personal application; nor could I either bring this argument to its close in the pulpit, or offer it to the general notice of the world, without adverting, in the last Discourse, to a delusion which, I fear, is carrying forward thousands, and tens of thousands to an undone eternity. I have closed the volume with an Appendix of Scriptural authorities. I found that I could not easily interweave them in the texture of the Work, and have, therefore, thought fit to present them in a separate form. I look for a twofold benefit from this exhibition-first, on those more general readers, who are ignorant of the Scriptures, and of the riches and variety which abound in themand, secondly, on those narrow and intolerant professors, who take an alarm at the very sound and semblance of philosophy, and feel as if there was an utter irreconcileable antipathy between its lessons on the one hand, and the soundness and piety of the Bible on the other. It were well, I conceive, for our cause, that the latter could become a little more indulgent on this subject; that they gave up a portion of those ancient and hereditary prepossessions, which go so far to cramp and to enthral them; that they would suffer theology to take that wide range of argument and of illustration which belongs to her; and that less, sensitively jealous of any desecration being brought upon the Sabbath, or the pulpit, they would suffer her freely to announce all those truths, which either serve to protect Christianity from the contempt of science, or to protect the teachers of Chris

tianity from those invasions which are practised both on the sacredness of the office, and on the solitudes of its devotional and intellectual labours.

I shall only add, for the information of readers at a distance, that these Discourses were chiefly delivered on the occasion of the week-day sermon that is preached in rotation by the Ministers of Glasgow.

DISCOURSE I.

A Sketch of the Modern Astronomy.

"When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast or dained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him."

Psalm viii. 3, 4.

ments, he had reconciled one or any number of Jews to Christianity, then it was the part of these Gentiles, though receiving no direct or personal benefit from the arguments, to have blessed God, and rejoiced along with him.

IN the reasonings of the Apostle Paul, | prejudices which kept back so many huwe cannot fail to observe how studiously man beings from the participation of the he accommodates his arguments to the pur- Gospel. And should Paul have had reason suits, or principles, or prejudices of the to rejoice, that, by the success of his argupeople whom he was addressing. He often made a favourite opinion of their own the starting point of his explanation; and educing a dexterous but irresistible train of argument from some principle upon which each of the parties had a common understanding, did he force them out of all their Conceive that Paul were at this moment opposition, by a weapon of their own choos- alive, and zealously engaged in the work ing-nor did he scruple to avail himself of of pressing the Christian religion on the a Jewish peculiarity, or a heathen super-acceptance of the various classes of society. stition, or a quotation from Greek poetry, Should he not still have acted on the prinby which he might gain the attention of ciple of being all things to all men? Should those whom he labored to convince, and he not have accommodated his discussion by the skilful application of which he might to the prevailing taste, and literature, and "shut them up unto the faith." philosophy of the times? Should he not Now, when Paul was thus addressing have closed with the people, whom he was one class of an assembly or congregation, addressing, on some favourite principle of another class might, for the time, have their own; and, in the prosecution of this been shut out of all direct benefit and ap- principle, might he not have got completely plication from his arguments. When he beyond the comprehension of a numerous wrote an Epistle to a mixed assembly of class of zealous, humble, and devoted ChrisChristianised Jews and Gentiles, he had tians? Now, the question is not, how these often to direct such a process of argument would conduct themselves in such circumto the former, as the latter would neither stances? but how should they do it? Would require nor comprehend. Now, what should it be right in them to sit with impatience, have been the conduct of the Gentiles at because the argument of the apostles containthe reading of that part of the Epistle which ed in it nothing in the way of comfort.or edibore almost an exclusive reference to the fication to themselves? Should not the beJews? Should it be impatience at the hearing nevolence of the Gospel give a different of something for which they had no relish or direction to their feelings? And, instead understanding? Should it be a fretful dis- of that narrow, exclusive, and monopolizappointment, because every thing that was ing spirit, which I fear is too characteristic said, was not said for their edification? of the more declared professors of the truth Should it be angry discontent with the as it is in Jesus, ought they not to be paApostle, because, leaving them in the dark, tient, and to rejoice; when to philosophers, he had brought forward nothing for them, and to men of literary accomplishment, through the whole extent of so many suc- and to those who have the direction of the cessive chapters? Some of them may have public taste among the upper walks of sofelt in this way; but surely it would have ciety, such arguments are addressed as may been vastly more Christian to have sat with bring home to their acceptance also, "the meek and unfeigned patience, and to have words of this life?" It is under the imrejoiced that the great Apostle had under-pulse of these considerations, that I have, taken the management of those obstinate with some hesitation, prevailed upon my

self to attempt an argument which I think of the firmament. And there is much in fitted to soften and subdue those prejudices the scenery of a nocturnal sky, to lift the which lie at the bottom of what may be soul to pious contemplation. That moon, called the infidelity of natural science; if and these stars, what are they? They are possible to bring over to the humility of the detached from the world, and they lift you Gospel, those who expatiate with delight above it. You feel withdrawn from the on the wonders and sublimities of creation; earth, and rise in lofty abstraction above and to convince them that a loftier wisdom this little theatre of human passions and still than that even of their high and hon-human anxieties. The mind abandons itourable acquirements, is the wisdom of him who is resolved to know nothing but Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

It is truly a most Christian exercise to extract a sentiment of piety from the works and the appearances of nature. It has the authority of the Sacred Writers upon its side, and even our Saviour himself gives it the weight and the solemnity of his example. “Behold the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin, yet your heavenly Father careth for them." He expatiates on the beauty of a single flower, and draws from it the delightful argument of confidence in God. He gives us to see that taste may be combined with piety, and that the same heart may be occupied with all that is serious in the contemplations of religion, and be at the same time alive to the charms and the loveliness of nature.

self to reverie, and is transferred, in the ecstacy of its thoughts, to distant and unexplored regions. It sees nature in the simplicity of her great elements, and it sees the God of nature invested with the high attributes of wisdom and majesty.

But what can these lights be? The curiosity of the human mind is insatiable, and the mechanism of these wonderful heavens has, in all ages, been its subject and its employment. It has been reserved for these latter times, to resolve this great and interesting question. The sublimest powers of philosophy have been called to the exercise, and astronomy may now be looked upon as the most certain and best established of the sciences.

We all know that every visible object appears less in magnitude as it recedes from the eye. The lofty vessel as it reThe Psalmist takes a still loftier flight. tires from the coast, shrinks into littleness, He leaves the world, and lifts his imagina- and at last appears in the form of a small tion to that mighty expanse which spreads speck on the verge of the horizon. The above it and around it. He wings his way eagle with its expanded wings, is a noble through space, and wanders in thought over object; but when it takes its flight into the its immeasurable regions. Instead of a dark upper regions of the air, it becomes less to and unpeopled solitude, he sees it crowded the eye, and is seen like a dark spot upon with splendour, and filled with the energy of the vault of heaven. The same is true of the Divine presence. Creation rises in its all magnitude. The heavenly bodies appear immensity before him, and the world, with small to the eye of an inhabitant of this all which it inherits, shrinks into littleness earth, only from the immensity of their at a contemplation so vast and so overpow-distance. When we talk of hundreds of ering. He wonders that he is not over- millions of miles, it is not to be listened to looked amid the grandeur and the variety as incredible. For remember that we are which are on every side of him, and pass- talking of those bodies which are scattered ing upward from the majesty of nature to over the immensity of space, and that space the majesty of nature's Architect, he ex- knows no termination. The conception is claims, "What is man that thou art mind-great and difficult, but the truth is unquesful of him, or the son of man that thou shouldest deign to visit him?"

It is not for us to say, whether inspiration revealed to the Psalmist the wonders f the modern astronomy. But even though he mind be a perfect stranger to the science of these enlightened times, the heavens present a great and an elevating spectacle; an immense concave reposing upon the circular boundary of the world, and the innumerable lights which are suspended from on high, moving with solemn regularity along its surface. It seems to have been at night that the piety of the Psalmist was awakened by this contemplation, when the moon and the stars were visible, and not when the sun had risen in his strength, and thrown a splendour around him, which bore down and eclipsed all the lesser glories

tionable. By a process of measurement which it is unnecessary at present to explain, we have ascertained first the distance, and then the magnitude of some of those bodies which roll in the firmament; that the sun, which presents itself to the eye under so diminutive a form, is really a globe, exceeding, by many thousands of times, the dimensions of the earth which we inhabit; that the moon itself has the magnitude of a world; and that even a few of those stars, which appear like so many lucid points to the unassisted eye of the observer, expand into large circles upon the application of the telescope, and are some of them much larger than the ball which we tread upon, and to which we proudly apply the denomination of the universe.

Now, what is the fair and obvious pre

as to us, has God divided the light from the darkness, and he has called the light day and the darkness he has called night. He has said let there be lights in the firmament of their heaven, to divide the day from the night: and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven, to give light upon their earth; and it was so. And God has also made to them great lights. To all of them he has given the sun to rule the day; and to many of them has he given moons to rule the night. To them he has made the stars also. And God has set them in the firmament of heaven, to give light unto their earth; and to rule over the day, and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness; and God has seen that it was good.

In all these greater arrangements of divine wisdom, we can see that God has done the same things for the accommodation of the planets that he has done for the earth which we inhabit. And shall we say, that the resemblance stops here, because we are not in a situation to observe it? Shall we say, that this scene of magnificence has been called into being, merely for the amusement of a few astronomers? Shall we measure the counsels of heaven by the narrow importance of the human faculties? or conceive, that silence and solitude reign throughout the mighty empire of nature, that the greater part of creation is an empty parade; and that not a worshipper of the Divinity is to be found through the wide extent of yon vast and immeasurable regions?

sumption? The world in which we live, is a round ball of a determined magnitude, and occupies its own place in the firmament. But when we explore the unlimited tracts of that space, which is every where around us, we meet with other balls of equal or superior magnitude, and from which our earth would either be invisible, or appear as small as any of those twinkling stars which are seen on the canopy of heaven. Why then suppose that this little spot, little at least in the immensity which surrounds it, should be the exclusive abode of life and of intelligence? What reason to think that those mightier globes which roll in other parts of creation, and which we have discovered to be worlds in magnitude, are not also worlds in use and in dignity? Why should we think that the great Architect of nature, supreme in wisdom as he is in power, would call these stately mansions into existence, and leave them unoccupied? When we cast our eye over the broad sea, and look at the country on the other side, we see nothing but the blue land stretching obscurely over the distant horizon. We are too far away to perceive the richness of its scenery, or to hear the sound of its population. Why not extend this principle to the still more distant parts of the universe? What though, from this remote point of observation, we can see nothing but the naked roundness of yon planetary orbs? Are we therefore to say, that they are so many vast and unpeopled solitudes; that desolation reigns in every part of the universe but ours; that the whole energy of the divine attributes is expended on one insignificant corner of these mighty works; and that to It lends a delightful confirmation to the this earth alone belongs the bloom of vege-argument, when, from the growing perfectation, or the blessedness of life, or the dig-tion of our instruments, we can discover a nity of rational and immortal existence? new point of resemblance between our But this is not all. We have something more than the mere magnitude of the planets to allege, in favour of the idea that they are inhabited. We know that this earth turns round upon itself; and we observe that all those celestial bodies, which are accessible to such an observation, have the same movement. We know that the earth performs a yearly revolution round the sun; and we can detect in all the planets which compose our system, a revolution of the same kind, and under the same circumstances. They have the same succession of day and night. They have the same agreeable vicissitude of the seasons. To them, light and darkness succeed each other; and the gaiety of summer is followed by the dreariness of winter. To each of them the heavens present as varied and magnificent a spectacle; and this earth the encompassing of which would require the labour of years from one of its puny inhabitants, is but one of the lesser lights which sparkle in their firmament. To them, as well

earth and the other bodies of the planetary system. It is now ascertained, not merely that all of them have their day and night, and that all of them have their vicissitudes of seasons, and that some of them have their moons to rule their night and alleviate the darkness of it. We can see of one, that its surface rises into inequalities, that it swells into mountains and stretches into valleys; of another, that it is surrounded by an atmosphere which may support th respiration of animals; of a third, that clouds are formed and suspended over it, which may minister to it all the bloom and luxuriance of vegetation; and of a fourth, that a white colour spreads over its northern regions, as its winter advances, and that on the approach of summer this whiteness is dissipated-giving room to suppose, that the element of water abounds in it, that it rises by evaporation into its atmosphere, that it freezes upon the application of cold, that it is precipitated in the form of snow, that it covers the ground with a