The pre-Adamite earth: contributions to theological science

Preface

The present volume is intended to be the first of a short series of Treatises — each complete in itself — in which the principles or laws hereafter deduced, and applied to the successive stages of the pre-Adamite earth, will be seen in their historical development as applied to individual man ; to the family; to the nation; to the Son of God as "the second Adam, the Lord from heaven to the church which he has founded ; to the revelation which he has completed ; and to the future prospects of humanity. It would not be difficult to state the reasons which have induced me to adopt this particular method of exhibiting theological science ; to specify the points in which it differs from those methods which may be considered most nearly to resemble it ; and to enlarge on the advantages, direct and indirect, which it is proposed to secure by it. But, besides that such topics, if introduced at all, would require to be treated at considerable length, I would rather that the method adopted vl

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should, as it is gradually unfolded in the successive Treatises, be allowed to speak for itself. If any explanatory remarks respecting it are deemed necessary, they will, it appears to me, be more in place at the close of the Series than at the commencement.

This first volume consists of five parts. Of these, the first part contains those Primary Truths which Divine Revelation appears to place at the foundation of all the objective manifestations of the Deity; the second, presents the Laws or General Principles, which are regarded as logically resulting from the preceding Truths ; and the third, fourth, and fifth parts, are occupied with the Exemplification and Verification of these Laws in the inorganic, the vegetable, and the animal kingdoms of the pre- Adamite earth, respectively. From this statement it will be seen that the first two parts are here as introductory, not to the present volume merely, but to the entire series ; and that, as exhibiting the process by which the method has been arrived at, they will not require, except in substance, to be subsequently repeated.

As Revealed Theology is here seen in organic connexion with natural science, a few remarks explanatory of that connexion will not be deemed irrelevant. Of the theology itself, I will only say, at present, that it is that which I believe ; but, inasmuch, as it is exhibited in mere human forms of thought and language, I can, of course, expect that

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vii others will accede to it only as far as they believe it to be in harmony with " the true sayings of God." Nor can I be insensible that the laws deduced from it will be prejudiced in some minds, by the notion that the adoption of them involves the reception of the theology. But as views deducible from the highest grounds are generally found to be inferrible also from lower and analogical premises, it should be considered, in the present instance, whether these laws might not be accepted on such inferior grounds without committing the recipient to any ulterior views. Even less than this, however, is necessary. For, if the reader should demur to adopt the Laws as they are deduced from the Primary Truths of the first Part, he has to consider whether he is not called on to admit them, as they are sustained and inductively verified by the facts adduced in the three concluding Parts. These facts, I may remark in passing, admit of almost indefinite multiplication, but it has been my aim to adduce only such and so many as appeared essential to the verification of the laws.

Of the connexion between theology and natural science generally, it may be assumed that every one who admits that there is a true theology and a true science of nature, will admit also that there is a sense, whatever it may be, in which the two are related. The mind which elicits and embraces both, is one ; so that, however distinct the processes by which it arrives at the knowledge of each, and vi

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however different the sources and kinds of evidence on which that knowledge rests, both branches evince their inherent unison, in the unity of the knowing mind itself. On this conviction it is that men no sooner begin to think, than they next proceed to examine the laws of thought ; if they collect facts, they next inquire for the causes of those facts ; and when they have succeeded in developing any of the sciences, they then look for the internal bond of union which makes them all one. And for such a nexus they seek under the unquestioned conviction that it exists; for the conviction simply implies that, as reasoning concerning each separate science is possible, so reasoning concerning collective science must be possible.

Well had it been for theology and philosophy if the bond which unites them had been clearly ascertained, and never dissevered. But the erroneous views which some have entertained respecting the relation of the two, have originated evils only less than those flowing from their unnatural separation. The error of Descartes and his followers consisted not in making theology the starting point of their philosophy, but in regarding their metaphysical deductions as adequate to explain all physical phenomena. By reasoning only, a priori, or proceeding continually downwards from cause to effect, they were not questioning Nature, but answering for her; legislating, in effect, where God had legislated already; and so " building a world upon hypo-

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thesis." 1 There is, however, a wide interval between the extreme which makes everything of a principle, and that which seeks security from it, by abandoning the principle altogether.

As surely as the mind is one, the truth to which the mind is preconfigured is one. On this ground it is that we argue from the known to the unknown ; approach a subject of inquiry under the guidance of an antecedent probability as to what we shall find in it; and employ analogy and hypothesis as instruments of scientific discovery. " How," inquires Plato, " can you expect to find unless you have a general idea of what you seek?" " The mind," says Lord Bacon, " must bring to every experiment a 4 precogitation,' or antecedent idea, as the ground of that 'prudens quasstio,' " which he pronounces to be the prior half of the knowledge sought — " dimidium scientise." Indeed, is not the Novum Organum itself of hypothetical origin? " When Newton said, ' Hypotheses non fingo,' he did not mean that he deprived himself of the facilities of investigation afforded by assuming, in the first instance, what he hoped ultimately to be able to prove. Without such assumptions, science could never have attained its present state; they are necessary steps in the progress to something more certain ; and nearly everything which is now theory was once hypothesis. Even in purely experimental science, some induce-

1 Introduction to Butler's " Analogy, &c."

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ment is necessary for trying one experiment rather than another." 1 These hypotheses, as the language implies, are only provisional. They must be of a nature to admit of verification ; and be actually subjected to a test which shall confirm or explode them.

In the same provisional manner might principles derived from the domain of revealed theology be advantageously carried into the province of nature. There is a true deductive method in science as well as a false ; and there is a right method of employing theological principles in philosophy, as well as a wrong. Everything depends on the manner in which they are employed. The inductive conclusion must be kept distinct from the speculative assumption. However fruitful the deductive principle may be, it can be used only for suggestion, not for demonstration; the proof of the view suggested must be of the same nature with that of the subject investigated or discussed.

In the following pages, the principles introduced are to be regarded as employed only in this conditional manner. The reader is to view them, as far as their application to nature is concerned, as entirely tentative or provisional, until their applicability has been tested. If on a comparison of the inductive truth adduced, with these deductive principles, their applicability is apparent, let the obvious inference be accepted, that there is a theology in nature which

1 Mill's System of Logic, vol. ii. p. 18.

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xi is ultimately one with the theology of the Bible — that there are principles of varied but universal application.

The attempt which is here made to deduce such principles, and to apply them to the successive stages of creation, proceeds on the assumption that the whole process of Divine Manifestation, including nature, is to be viewed in the light of a sublime argument in which God is deductively reasoning from principles to facts, from generals to particulars. With the great synthetic Whole ever present to His mind, He is seen unfolding the parts of which it consists. In order that man may feel the force of this reasoning, his mind, equally with the Divine Mind, must pre-suppose, or be prepared to admit, the primary truths on which the reasoning depends. But besides these, the Great Argument implies (as in every case of ordinary reasoning) that there are certain ideas or truths in the mind of God, which are not yet in the mind of man, and which it is the design of the argument to convey. For example — whatever exhibits marks of design must have had an intelligent author ; the world exhibits marks of design, therefore the world must have had an intelligent Author. Here, the major is assumed alike by God and man ; the conclusion is, at first, in the mind of God alone, and the design of the great argument is to convey it into the mind of man also ; but the attainment of this end depends on the truth of the minor — that the world does exhibit marks of design; and how is xii

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this proposition to be established except by induction? To the infinitely blessed G-od, then, the entire process of Divine Manifestation is, in its reference to man, a sublime syllogism, of which the last object and the remotest event are already included potentially in the major; the unfolding of which is destined to occupy the coming eternity. While man, appointed to find the sphere of his activity and improvement in the intermediate space between the Necessary and the Contingent, and unable to rest but in the felt junction of the two, shall derive perpetual accessions of enjoyment as he ascends from the Particular to the Infinite with whom it has originated, and in whom is it contained.

Contents

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Preface v

FIRST PART.

Chapter I

The Great Reason ; or, why God is, and must he His own end from everlasting to everlasting.

God is not nature; nor is nature God. Before nature, before any part or being of the objective universe existed, the God of the Bible had existed from eternity in His own self-sufficience. ! And the absolute perfection which that self-sufficience implies, determines that it shall be, in some sense, the chief reason and last end of everything created; so that He will continue to inhabit His self-sufficience through the eternity to come. We believe, indeed, that, while He supremely regards His own glory, He really regards the well-being of the created universe for its own sake ; that this well-being is regarded by God as an end — in the sense of being an object desirable on its own account; and that He delights in it as such ; but that the ultimate, chief, and all comprehending end is His own glory.

1. Had there ever been a period when nothing was, nothing would still have been. Then the Creator of all things is himself uncreated, unoriginated, eternal. " He is from everlasting." Far back, in thought, and beyond the limits of time, as we may be able occasionally, and for a single

B

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moment, to go, we are ever accompanied by the humbling conviction that we have made no approach whatever to the understanding of His eternity. The discoveries of science lead back our imagination to a period incalculably remote ; but even if each of the countless stars had been formed in succession, and if the time which elapsed between the formation of each had equalled that entire period, the mind which could span the whole — which could dart back a thought to the moment in which the first star beamed on the regions of space, would feel that it had only reached the starting point for the preceding eternity. For if then it should ask, "Where dwelt the Deity before that?" — the answer of the Oracle is, " He inhabited eternity and that star of which it had caught a glimpse, could only be regarded as the first lamp that was lighted up to guide the way back to His dread abode.

2. Then must His mysterious existence be necessary and independent ; l for as there has never been anything, ad extra, to necessitate it, had it not been necessary of and from itself only, it could neither have been, nor have continued to be. The great parent truth, therefore, which He may be regarded as silently repeating, through ^all the solitudes of space, and through every point of duration, is the sublime affirmation, " I AM — underived, self-existent, absolute Being ; in which sense there never has been, never will be, never can be, any Being besides." All other being can only be derived and dependent.

3. In harmony with the dictates of enlightened reason, the Bible authenticates the deduction that the Being whose existence is eternal and independent, is also absolutely perfect. The power of God must be omnipotence; His knowledge, omniscience ; His holy benevolence, unlimited by any

1 See Gillespie's Necessary Existence of God.

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thing incompatible with perfection. No one kind of excellence can be unlimited unless it be associated with every other kind of excellence ; so that the possession of any one unlimited excellence implies the existence, and involves the necessity, of absolute perfection.

4. But if the infinite nature of the Divine Being precludes the existence of another independent and unlimited Being, the existence of a second would necessarily involve mutual limitation ; which would amount to a self-contradiction. In every sense, therefore, consistent with perfection. He has ever existed alone. Were He to break the silence of eternity He might demand, " Is there a God besides me? yea, there is none; I know not any. 1 I, who know all the possibilities of being, know not of such a being ; I, who at this moment am everywhere present throughout illimitable space, find such a being nowhere ; I, who have thus inhabited immensity from eternity, have never, in any point of past duration, beheld the least manifestation of such a being ; I, who am unlimited Being, exclude, by that very necessity of my nature, the possibility of another unlimited being."

5. But what finite mind can conceive the conditions included in Absolute Perfection ! To evolve these will require eternity ; for could they be evolved in less they would not be unlimited. All that we can say, therefore, or shall ever be able to say, is, that whatever the amount of mystery included in the objective universe may ever be, the probability is, that the proportion which it bears to the mystery of the Divine nature will be that of the limited to the unlimited; that if infinite perfection implies infinite mysteriousness, which it certainly does, then infinite mysteriousness must ever form one of the distinctive excellences

1 Isaiah, xliv. 6, 8.

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of that perfection ; that if the operation of infinite activity (either of love, or power, or of any other excellence) be essential to infinite perfection, and if such activity could not be agent and object at the same time, and in the same act, and yet no object, ad extra, existed from eternity, then must it have existed in the Divine nature itself ; in other words, the Divine nature must include a plurality of distinctions, and include it as one of its necessary conditions, or essential perfections ; x that if no exercise of the Divine efficiency, ad extra, can ever be adequate to its infinite perfection, and yet such adequate exercise, in some way, must always be necessary to infinite perfection, then must it be one of the excellences of the Divine nature, not only that it should include a plurality of distinctions, but that the adequate sphere of its infinite activity should be its own infinite perfections; that if a God in unity, without internal distinctions, or diversity of modes, be incapable of moral affection, because having had nothing, ad extra, from eternity to love, then such internal distinctions must ever have existed as elements of reciprocal, social, self-sufficient perfection ; and that if such plurality be an excellence, and if unity be an excellence also ; and if there be any respect in which this plurality of one kind can consist as an excellence with this unity of another, then it will certainly be included in absolute perfection. And further, this perfection implies not only that all the excellence which it includes is simple, uncompounded, one, but that God and it are identical : that it is not an adjunct of His being, but His being itself.

1 See Howe's Calm Enquiry concerning the Possibility of a Trinity in the Godhead. Professor Kidd on the Trinity. Storr and Flatt, B. ii. § 46. § 44. 111. 8. Dr. J. P. Smith's Testimony of the Messiah, (Second Edition,) v. i. c. iv. § 35., v. iii. app. iv.

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6. But for the same reason that His perfection of being and character is unlimited, it must ever have been unchangeable also. Besides which, it must be of the essence of Absolute Perfection that in everything belonging to that perfection, it can neither require nor admit of a change. Though an eternity has passed, the Deity is now what He ever was; " without the shadow of a turning." The past has stayed with Him, the future has ever been present to Him : the one could not diminish his perfection, nor the other augment it. " Who by searching can find out God !"

7. Then the Deity has existed from eternity as His own end. By supposition, nothing as yet has been brought into existence. No ground therefore exists, no occasion has yet been given, for raising the great question as to who or what can be that end. No creative fiat has yet gone forth. Time has not counted its first revolution. In imagination, we are standing in the solitudes of the past eternity. Never has this stillness been broken. No ray of created light has ever penetrated this darkness. This infinite space has never owned a world. No seraph bows before His throne. If these solitudes shall ever be peopled with finite beings, the purpose is shut up in the mind of God. Boundless as His capacity for happiness must always have been, the consciousness of His own excellence, and the contemplation of His own perfections, have ever been sufficient to fill it. Unlimited and unceasing as must have been His activity, His own nature has been sufficient to exercise and contain the whole. Dateless in His duration, the postponement of creation for ten thousand thousand ages would not increase that duration, nor would it have been diminished had the fiat gone forth ten thousand thousand ages before it did. Unshared by anything, ab extra, as His eternity, and lonely, in the same sense, as His immensity must ever have been,

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His self-communion has been sufficient to occupy and replenish the whole with happiness. And inconceivably great as the end answered by this infinity and immensity of perfection must have been, His own enjoyment and glory are amply commensurate to the whole.

8. But if He has always been His own end, it follows that He must ever continue to be the same. For on the supposition of any other object becoming that end, then all that had gone before during the past eternity could only be regarded as its own end in a subordinate sense; while in reference to this other end since developed, it has been only the means. " That which exists merely as a cause, exists merely for the sake of something else — is not final in itself, but simply a means towards an end; and in the accomplishment of that end, it consummates its own perfection." From which it would follow, that, during a whole eternity, Infinite Self sufficience stood in the subordinate relation of means to beings not yet in existence; that during that eternity Infinite Perfection was imperfect as the means without the end ; and that the addition of imperfect and dependent beings was necessary to give perfection to that imperfection.

9. If to be His own end be an antecedent right, antecedent to creation by an eternity; and if after enjoying that right for an eternity, He choose to exercise another right — the right of creation — the exercise of this subsequent and inferior right cannot affect the primary eternal right. The display of Divine perfection can never impair the original prerogatives of that perfection. That He should lose His right, because of his perfection, is revolting to reason. Eender his prerogatives more evident it may, bat destroy them it cannot. For glorious as that display may be, and after it has been augmenting ten thousand ages, His absolute perfection will remain the same as it was before that

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display began. That manifestation will not have increased it; for it will be only the objective existence of that which was His subjectively from eternity. Lofty as may be the natures, and countless as may be the myriads which will encircle His throne, He must ever continue to dwell as perfectly alone, in a sense, through the eternity to come, as He did through the sublime and appalling solitude of the eternity past. On account of His incomparable greatness and excellence, never will He be able to bring himself within their comprehension. However exalted their natures and attainments may be, the universe will still exhibit the infinite distinction of the One unlimited being, and of orders of limited beings entirely dependent on Him. Eetired within the depths of his own immensity, they will never be able to approach and behold Him directly. For all they know of Him, they will ever feel that they are indebted to a medium of His own devising; and that, without that medium, the whole created universe, including themselves, would only have constituted a living altar with this inscription, " To the unknown God."

10. Whatever excellence, natural or moral, the created universe may ever contain, was contained previously in the Divine nature. Surely his impartation of it cannot give away His right in it ! Eather, He will be laying the recipients under an obligation to love Him as its Giver, and to adore Him as its Source. However vast the amount of excellence may be, it will still be limited, so that they will have to remember at any given moment of their unending being, that they are still infinitely short of His excellence. However vast and various the displays of His glory may be, they will ever have to remember that the universe which displays it leaves more unevolved and undisplayed, by an infinite amount. However much they may be able to com-

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prehend of what He is, from what He has done since they came into being, they will ever have to remember that all the eternity of His past glory remains unexplored. And unless they could exhaust the mystery of the Divine perfections during every moment since they came into being, they will ever have to remember that the mystery is every moment augmenting in their hands; that time is adding its mystery to the mystery of the past eternity ; and that the mystery of both is to be carried forwards to the still greater account of the eternity to come. However various the orders of their intellect may be, here they will all find themselves on a level ; here they will all and ever find that to reflect is to be lost ; that the very choicest terms which they may employ to denote their knowledge of God, will be only so many tacit confessions of their ignorance, and escapes from difficulty; since to speak of Him as eternal, is only to say that His duration had not, like theirs, a beginning; and to speak of Him as infinite, that His nature is not, like theirs, bounded by limits.

11. Nor will they ever cease to be entirely dependent on Him. Suppose the creation yet to commence, and we may ask, How can they be ever otherwise than dependent? During the eternity past, that question has never by possibility been raised; for He has existed, and, as to anything ad extra, still remains alone. By what possibility, then, can it ever be raised in the eternity to come ? The fact that God has been His own end in all the past determines the question for all the future. Whence could ever come the principle or the power which should invade, even in thought, this Divine prerogative, unquestioned and undisturbed as it has been from eternity? Surely not from any being of whom it is true that he has yet to be ; and as to whom the question whether he shall ever be or not, depends entirely

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on the Divine pleasure ; and who, even if it be the Divine pleasure that he shall be, will be as entirely dependent on the same pleasure for every successive moment of being, as he was for the first moment ! The idea of such a being, or of any number of such beings, entering into, and taking possession of the place which for an eternity had been occupied by God, as constituting his own end, is revolting to reason. The necessity of their own nature will forbid it. The only relation which that necessity will sustain to Him is that of dependence more profound, universal, and absolute, than they will ever be able to comprehend ; while the relation of His own nature to that end will always be, what it ever has been — that of self-sufficience.

12. And as His infinite self-sufficience necessitated that He should be His own end during the eternity past, the unchangeableness of His nature secures the same result during the eternity to come. What He was, He is, and what He was and is, He ever will be. However many worlds or systems He may create, they will never do more than display the nature of His perfection, they can never be the measure of its amount, much less limit that amount. Now, were He to make only a solitary being, that being could never think that God existed, and had existed from all eternity, for him — and why? because he would ever feel that God is infinitely above him. But no multiplication of mere finite beings will ever make an infinite being; and consequently can never affect the right of God to be the end of all things. On the contrary, the greater their multiplication, the more evident His claim, because they would feel the more vividly that the difference between them, the limited, and Him, the unlimited, is still infinite ; and that after they shall have continued to advance through interminable ages from throne to throne, and shall have come

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nearer to Him at every such advance, the distance between Him and them is still infinite — that God is all in alL

And thus we reach the conclusion, from the eternal self-sufficience of God, that He must ever be His own End ; or that His nature and glory form the Great Reason of the universe. For there was no reason why it should be, nor what it should be, but what existed in Himself.

Chapter II

The Ultimate Purpose; or, the manifestation of the Divine all-sufficiency the last end of creation.

The preceding Chapter showed that for the great reason of His eternal self-sufficience, God will ever be, what He always has been, His own end. But if He be thus absolutely self-sufficient and infinitely perfect, it follows that He is all-sufficient. By which we mean, generally, that, from eternity, He has included in himself all that is or ever will be necessary to impart (consistently with infinite perfection) existence and ever-advancing excellence, and happiness, to a created universe. And the object of the present Chapter is to show that the manifestation of this glory, by which we mean all-sufficiency, is the great purpose or ultimate end of creation.

I. Such a manifestation appears to involve the following conditions : —

1. That the manifestation be progressive. For surely a system which is always in progress both in its own develop-

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ment, and in the powers of the beings to whom it is made known and who form a part of it, must, by the endless combinations which it involves, furnish an inconceivably severer test of Divine all-sufficiency, than one which should be in every respect stationary from the beginning.

And this anticipates and answers the plausible but inconsiderate inquiry, " If the manifestation of the Divine all-sufficiency be infinitely desirable, would it not be equally desirable that the greatest possible extent should be given to the creation, and be given at once ; since, until that be done, how can it be known that God is all-sufficient?" In other words, an infinite cause should produce an infinite effect.