THE STORY OF THE DARKNESS. "What sudden turns! What strange vicissitudes in the first leaf HAVING hitherto confined ourselves to the fact of human degradation, we would now consider its story. The one is preliminary to the other; for it were useless to try to prove that man has apostatized from God in the way that Moses has described, if it could be shown that he has not apostatized at all; while the evidence that tends to establish the truth of the general proposition that ours is a fallen race tends also, and proportionately, to establish the historical credibility of the scriptural narrative in which its fall is recorded. With these remarks let us resume the tale of darkness that constitutes man's moral and religious history. We have seen that, from the very constitution of his nature, as God's image, he was likely to be open to the temptation of supposing himself to be, like God, independent, and that he was placed under a law, in order that, by voluntary obedience, he might show and confess that he was not. He was to remember that, though an image, he was only an image of his Maker, and to acknowledge his obligations for all that he had, and owed to the common Author alike of himself and his inheritance-to work out the resemblance between himself and his Creator into a closer and closer similitude to that great Original-to live with Him, by Him, and in Him continually-to feel that departure would be death-and to yield the free homage of his heart's affections to that one, only, and gratefully acknowledged source of all his rich enjoyments. And was this, it may be asked, an unreasonable requirement? Did not the boundless beneficence of God render this tribute of love, loyalty, and obedience, but a small return for services at once so vast and so numberless? Verily, we have no sort of sympathy with the cold and withered spirit of one who could say that this commandment was grievous. But the same authority which tells us it was given, tells us, also, that it was broken, and acquaints us with the circumstances which attended its infraction. Those circumstances are described in Scripture as supernatural. It tells us of an evil spirit who succeeded by miraculous means in causing the first of all human transgressions. Now, the doctrine of spiritual agency for evil, as well as for good, is one which it would be impossible here fully to discuss; suffice it to say, that it can present no real difficulty, except to the actual materialist. For if it be granted that man is a spiritual being, as well as a corporeal, there can be but little difficulty in believing that in the universe there may be other spiritual beings, who are not corporeal, or corporeal in any such sense as would enable us to ascertain their existence through the medium of our senses. And if, again, there are evil spiritual beings who are men, what forbids us to suppose that there may also be evil spiritual beings who are not men? But all must allow that we are tempted by the former. Why, then, is it incredible that we should also be tempted by the latter? Nor can it be reasonably denied, that among such evil spiritual beings who can tempt, there may be one in particular more evil, and also more powerful, than the rest. Yet this is all that is necessary in order to a belief in the existence of Satan, and in the part which, according to Scripture, he has taken to seduce our first parents into the earliest act of all human disobedience. The instrument he employed, as we are told, was that of a serpent. But it is no more incredible that evil spirits should make use of instrumentalities, than it is that men should do the same. The serpent, however, is described as using articulate speech, and addressing himself to Eve. But is it not presumptuous, in the highest degree, to conclude that this was impossible? There are persons, and unhappily not a few, who consider the mere fact that an account is supernatural—no matter how attested, or under what circumstances and for what purpose it may have been recorded-enough to convince them that it must be fabulous. This wild incredulity has led the modern rationalist to eliminate from Scripture the miraculous element altogether, and to explain away whole chapters of the Bible—indeed, almost all Scripture-by a purely mythical interpretation. Of course, then, the story of Eve and the serpent has not escaped the fate from which not even the miracles of our Lord Himself have been exempted; and while the story has been allowed to have an important, though allegorical meaning, its truth has been utterly denied. But waiving any regular discussion on the subject of miracles, as wholly unsuitable to a work like the present, it is enough to refer the general reader to such publications as "The Bible and Modern Thought," the first essay in "Aids to Faith," "The Eclipse of Faith," "Trench on the Miracles," &c., &c., for a clear and thoroughly conclusive answer to the objection of rationalists that a miracle is impossible. But there is one reply which, as addressed to common sense and common honesty, can hardly fail to have weight with the English mind in general, and show that we must either, like the older deists, reject the Scriptures altogether, as a gross and impudent forgery, or else receive them as true in despite of the supernatural accounts which they contain; since it is utterly impossible to disbelieve those accounts, and yet be consistent in professing, like some modern rationalists, any reverence for Scripture at all. The reply in question affects, and vitally affects, the moral character of the sacred writers, and even that of the Saviour Himself.* If no miracles such as those which the Bible relates have ever been performed, then our Lord and His Apostles were not only not inspired, but not even honest; for they distinctly assert that the power which on certain occasions they employed was miraculous, and appeal to that power as a proof that they were Divinely commissioned. Now, it is utterly impossible that Christ can be our Example, and yet *This argument is very ably put, both by Dr. Maunsell and Mr. Cook, in " Aids to Faith." ness. have ever been guilty of any kind of untruthfulHe is, in every sense, "the Truth." On His veracity, the truth of His religion must stand or fall; for we are certain of nothing if not of this, that there is no deceitfulness of any kind whatsoever in God. The supposition that Christ wrought natural works, the secret of which may one day be discovered, and yet supposed that they were miraculous, is a strange hypothesis; but even if such a monstrous explanation could be received, it would only save His sincerity at the expense of His judgment, and deprive Him of all effective authority as a "teacher come from God." It is manifest, then, that by rejecting all miracles, we reject also all Scripture as a Divine revelation to mankind. The attempt to save it, even in the character of a mythical representation of moral truths, must be a mockery; and the rationalistic notion, that after we deprive it of the miraculous element it is still a rule of faith and practice, must be at once abandoned; for in that case it has lost the first claim to our belief as in any sense from God; for it states as true that which in reality was false. Another proof of the utter futility of all attempts thus to rid the Scriptures of the supernatural, and yet retain them as worthy of devout or even of serious attention, is furnished by the history of all such attempts up to the present moment. The miracles of our Lord have been attacked by no less than seven different kinds of assault.* The Jews ascribed them to Beelzebub. *For an account of these see Trench on the Miracles. |