Twelve discourses

Front matter

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TWELVE

Contents

I. There is a God

II. The whole Bible, or none . .

III. Repentance alone insufficient .

I. Hebkews Iii: 4

EVERY HOUSE 18 BUILDED BY SOME MAX ; BUT HE THAT BUILT ALL THINGS IS GOD.

Lord Bacox says, " God never wrought miracles to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it." I believe this to be true, and I have felt that it might strengthen our convictions of the Divine existence, and of the duties which it involves, if we were to consider more in detail than it has been usual for writers, or preachers, to do, that argument for God which is found in the common facts and daily experiences of ordinary life.

Bear in mind that the question is not whether we can establish the being of a God by evidence which nobody can possibly object to, but whether we can do it by evidence against which no valid objection can be brought. An ingenious man can suggest objections to any thing ; and therefore an objection proves nothing until it is found to overmaster opposing considerations.

* Preached in the Pine Street Church, Boston, (Sabbath Evening,) November 18th, 1855.

1 (1)

Xor, is the question whether we can demonstrate a Supreme Being with absolute certainty ; for nothing can be demonstrated with such absolute certainty that it shall not be possible for the fertile mind to imagine some opposite possibility. But the question is. Is there such and so much evidence of the being of God, as to amount to an efficient certainty : such a certainty as we are accustomed to demand and rely upon in all the common acts of life ; such as it would be folly and madness to resist ?

Thus clearly comprehending the point to be proved, let us glance a moment at the nature of the argTiment on which it will be natural and necessary for us to depond in its demonstration. We must rely, in the first place, upon the five senses to put us in possession of the facts upon which our proposition will rest. We must rely, in the second place, upon testimony to enlarge our own personal cognizance of such facts, by the added experience of others. We must rely, in the third place, upon common sense to supply such principles as may be necessary to link those facts together. And, in the last place, we must rely upon reasoning to frame those facts and principles into a bridge of argument, which will carry us securely and strongly over from the known result to the unknown cause.

The two main prhiciples, from the domain of common sense, on which it is needful to rely, in such an argument, are, that every eftect must have a cause, and that every cause implies the presence of mind. So vital are these to the result, that I shall pause a moment to develop more fully their nature and reliability, before proceeding further.

I wish to move my hand to my head. It moves as I would have it. Xow in this I am conscious of an act of will, and I am also conscious of a bodily motion following that act of will ; and my common sense tells me that the volition was the cause of the motion. I jDlunge a bar of cold iron into the white heat of a forge ; it soon reddens, and glows, and softens. My common sense tells me that the fire is the cause of the heat of the bar. I get upon a locomotive which is standing, with steam up, upon the rails. I open the valve which admits that steam to the cylinders, and the machinery starts, and the engine rushes along the track. My common sense tells me that my act was the cause of that motion. I visit Donald McKay's ship-yard at East Boston. I find the " Great Republic " on the stocks just ready to be launched. I know that she was not always there. I know that she did not grow there, as the corn grows in the field. I know that she was put together there, piece by piece, by ship-carpenters and others. I know that Donald McKay showed those workmen how to place each stick, and that it was the model which he fashioned which made her a sharp clipper ship, and not a broad-bottomed barge. My common sense tells me that Donald McKay's skill, is the cause of that huge vessel.

Thus, I invariably come back from all such observations to the original suggestion which my common sense impresses upon my mind concerning them, that there is a law of cause and effect : so that when I see any thing effected, I cannot help inferring that it had a cause. I pick up a little cog-wheel upon a surf-beach. I at once feel that it did not grow there in that form, — that it had a cause other than the waves and the sand. I know that man made it, and made it for some use ; tliat, in his thought, it had place in some machine. I pick up a round pebble that was lying by its side. I at once feel concerning that, also, that it did not receive its sliape and character from that spot. I attribute its roundness to the attrition of the waves, which, for centuries, perliaps, have been grinding it upon their gravelly bed. Now, in these judgments, I am perfectly reasonable. I strain no point. I follow the natural and necessary processes of my mind. If I cannot rightly infer that order, organization, effect, imply, by an absolute necessity, a cause, — and that every cause energized, will result in an effect, then I cannot reason at all — nay, I cannot utter another sound, for as I am speaking to you now, I am proceeding upon the supposition that the action of my will, as a cause, upon certain muscles which I am using about the lungs and throat, will produce certain sounds, as an immediate effect, and that those sounds will carry over certain ideas to you, and awaken certain convictions in you, as an ultimate effect.

Equally imperative is the original suggestion of my common sense, that every cause implies the action of mind. You find it impossible to believe that the cog-wheel is not the result of contrivance ; fixing the number and size of the teeth, and shaping Wie whole for its place with other wheels. If a man tells you you do not know this, ])ecause you cannot prove it, you naturally rejjly ; It needs not that I prove how it came on this beach, and what man made it, since my common sense obliges me to believe that some man made it, and made it because some mind contriTed it. And with regard to those causes which take place under what we call the laws of nature, and which, at first glanpe, do not so immediately suggest and demand mind as insei> arable from them, we reason thus. True, I might perhaps, conceive of one pebble, as being rounded by the action of the waves, accidentally, and as the result of no plan, but when I observe that millions of pebbles are, in the same way, rounded by the action of the waves, I cannot help inferring that there is some reason why the rolling of the surf upon the shore should always tend to make pebbles smooth and round ; nay, that there must be some reason why the surf rolls upon the shore ; and thus I am carried back until I reach a plan ; and that plan compels me to the conviction of some mind planning ; and so, wherever I find an effect, I am driven to infer a cause ; and wherever I find a cause, I am driven to infer a causing mind. So universal and absolute is the working of these convictions in the human soul, that even the skeptic who tries to deny them, cannot help acting upon them. Stand behind him while his mouth is open with an argument against them, and touch his shoulder with your finger, and see if he does not turn to find who touched him ; to ask what is wanted. He cannot hel^D inferring that some person was the cause of the finger-pressure which he felt, and that that person had a cause for his act.

These preliminaries being settled, and the way clear before us — knowing exactly what we have to prove, and by what process of argument the work may be logically brought to a result of efficient certainty — we are ready to commence the demonstration.

1*

And, for the sake at once of grouping together our facts, for more easy remembrance, and of gaining practical force for the argument, I propose to imagine a day in the ordinary life of a mechanic — say a machinist, — and as we follow him along its hours and labors, to develop such considerations in proof of the Divine existence, as naturally suggest themselves in that connection.

I imagine him first as waking at dawn. As his eyes open, and he gains full consciousness, his first feeling is one of refreshment from slumber. He went to bed exhausted, with aching muscles, and a throbbing head, from his yesterday's over-exertion. He now feels fresh and vigorous ; his muscles are supple, his head clear. What is the cause of this grateful change ? Sleep. But what is sleep, and how comes sleep to refresh a tired man ?

Sleep is the resting of the brain. Every voluntary motion of the body, and every thought of the mind is the result of an act of the brain, giving off nervous force to the nervous system. The consequence is, that a long day's work, with its innumerable mental acts, and bodily motions, exhausts the concentrated stock of nervous energy, and sensations of weariness and torpor follow. The eyes close, the muscles relax, those bodily movements, which depend upon volition, cease ; the l)rain has nothing to do, until morning, and rests — secreting a new stock of nervous energy for the uses of to-morrow. The process is somewhat analogous to that by which the little brook is sometimes made to turn the great water-wheel. A dam is thrown across its ravine, and, during the night, when the miller has no corn to grind, the pond tills up. At morning it is fall, and all the day it wliiiis the millstones merrily, till it is all run out at night, and the mill sleeps to let it till up again.

XoTV tliis matter of sleeping, and waking refreshed, taken in comiection with the fact that hours of dayhght, which invite to labor, and which are enough to exhaust the accumulated energy of the brain, and hours of darkness, which invite to sleep, and which are enough to recruit that stock of nervous energy again, are constantly succeeding each other, develops a law under which men live. It is an effect : just as clearly the contrivance of a mind, as the mill-pond and the mill. So that the mechanic, as he sleeps and wakes again, demonstrates the existence of a mind which arranged that process for him. and for all men. That mind we caU God.

Our mechanic rises, and, perceiving that the morning gives promise of a day of greater heat than yesterday, lays aside the warm woolens in which he was then clad, and dresses himself in cooler linens. But how coDies it that woolen is warm, and linen cool ? The shortest and simplest answer is, that it is found, as a matter of fact, to be a law, that woolen is a slow conductor of heat, and linen a good conductor ; so that clothes made of woolen, retain and so augment the heat of the body, and clothes made of linen, conduct it quickly off, and so give rise to the sensation of coolness. If this were so in one case alone, it would be a pleasant fact, but when we find it to be always so, it develops another effect ; it announces itself as the result of mmd ; and that mind we call God.

Our machinist sits down to his mornins: meal. He is hungiy, and he eats and drinks, and rises invigorated, and feeling now fully equal to the labors of the day. But what is hunger, and how came he to be hungry ; and what are eating and drinking, and how come they to satisfy hunger, and impart strength ? Hunger is that uneasiness of a healthy stomach when empty, which gives notice that it needs food ; just as some contrivances indicate when a steam boiler is out of water. Eating and drinking are mechanical processes which introduce the needed food into the stomach — as the engineer pumps a supply into the boiler when the water is scant, and throws coal in through the furnace door when the fire is low.

Let us now inquire exactly whence comes the feeling of faintness in hunger, and how this process of introducino' food into the stomach takes awav that feehno; of faintness, and imparts the feeling of strength ?

During the twenty-four hours of each day, the body of a healthy man of average size, breathes at least three thousand gallons of air ; gives oflF, in the air exhaled, some three pounds of carbonic acid, and the same weight of water ; and throws off also several ounces of the waste particles of its own substance, and of undigested matter. Moreover, in order to keep up the animal heat of the body to its natural temperature of about 98°, it is necessary that there should be a constant combustion (without flame) going on within, by which the starch, sugar, and fat of the food, are — so to speak — burned into the carbonic acid and water which escape in the breath. Still further, in order to supply the constant waste which is caused to the body by the act of living — which uses it up, much as burning uses up the oil in a lamp — it is necessary that a large quantity of fibrin, and albumen, be furnished by the blood to take the place of that which is withdrawn, and so to prevent emaciation and death. We have then a constant draft going on, in the simple performance of the ordinary functions of hfe, which takes out of the blood at every moment, and with every breath and bodily motion, certain quantities of fibrin, gluten, fat, and sugar, which are the essential elements that the body uses in its growth, and for its daily work : by which, on the one hand, by burning a part of them into carbonic acid and water, it maintains the bodily heat ; and, by which, on the other, it repairs its own daily decay, and energizes its own constant motions. To furnish this fibrin, gluten, fat, and sugar, from without, is, of course, a frequent necessity. Hunger and thirst notify us when the stock v/ithin is getting scant, and eating and drinking introduce the fresh supply. Our survey of this part of the animal economy would be incomplete, however, if we did not notice the manner in which the miscellaneous food eaten, is converted into the exact materials required for the manufacture of strength within.

Our mechanic eats — we will suppose — a beef-steak for his breakfast. That beef-steak contains, in every 100 parts, 78 parts of water and blood, 19 parts of fibrin, and 3 parts of fat. The wheat bread which he eats with it, contains 45 parts of water, 6 of gluten, 1 of fat, and 48 of starch. The potato contains 8 parts of gluten, and 92 of starch and water. The coffee which he drinks with it, contains 12 parts of water, 15J of sugar, 13 of gluten, 13 of fat, and the rest of woody fibre, etc. The milk contains 35 parts of gluten, or casein, 24 of fat, and 37 of starch and sugar. Thus it \yill be seen that the various articles which he eats, under different forms and combinations, all contain very nearly the same essential elements, and those the very elements which are needed to support life. But how are these elements to be separated and applied internally to the uses of the body ?

In the first place, by the operation of chewing, the food is ground fine, and diluted with saliva. This saliva, of which more than one pound's weight is usually manufactured by the glands and swallowed with the food every day, contains salt, and alkali, and a substance called ptyalin, which has the property of changing starch into sugar. The food thus ground and diluted, is deposited in the stomach by the act of swallowing. Here, at a temperature of 98°, it is digested, the starch is converted by the ptyalin into sugar, the fat is subdivided into exceedingly minute globules, the fibrin and gluten are dissolved, and the whole mass is softened by the operation of the gastric juice, aided by the heat of the stomach, until it is reduced to a greyish substance, of the consistency and appearance of gruel, which is called chyme. Some of this is absorbed through the coats of the stomach as soon as it is produced, so that the process of nourishment begins almost as soon as the food is swallowed, and one part, thus absorbed, keeps up the strength while the rest undergoes further necessary processes. The unabsorbed mass passes on from the stomach through its outlet, into the duodenum — so called — where three new liquids flow in upon it, namely, the bile from the liver, the pancreatic juice, and a mucus secreted by the duodenum itself. The bile removes the acidity of the chyme, and corrects its tendency to fermentation. The pancreatic juice continues the conversion of starch into sugar, and still further digests the fatty globules, in which it is aided by the third fluid. As the result of the action of the three, the grey chyme becomes changed into a milky liquid called chyle. This chyle flows on through the small intestines, which gradually drink it up through their lacteal glands, and carry it along to the thoracic duct in which they all meet, and through which they all pour the chyle they have absorbed into the jugular vein, where it mingles with the blood, and by the action of the heart is forced forward throuo-h the lunes, and thence takes the circuit of the body through the arteries ; carrying its fresh stock of fibrin, gluten, fat, and sugar, to all those parts of the body which need it to supply their waste, or to keep up the animal heat, or for any other purpose.

Clearly this process by which food is first prepared to nourish the body by mastication and the action of saliva, and digestion with the gastric fluid, and the bile, and the pancreatic juice, and the intestinal mucus, each havmg its own cliemical peculiarity, and doing its own special work, and by which it is thus passed along from the teeth to the heart and arteries, and then, as it flows on through the circulation, is taken up wherever it is needed for the repair of damages, and the supply of the daily waste of the body ; this process is just as clearly a contrivance, as a cotton factory wliich takes in raw cotton and turns out sheeting ; and if the cotton factory argues a contriver, so does this process compel us to infer a designmg mind as its cause : which mind we call God.

Having breakfasted, our machinist walks to the shop to commence his day's work. But what is walkmg, and how comes he to be able to walk ? It is the conveyance of the body from place to jDlace, by first throwing its weight upon one foot and advancmg that which is free, and then throwing the weight upon the oth6r, and advancing the former, and so on. The limb which sustains the body is stiffened for that purpose by the tension of certain of its muscles, and the limb which is thrown forward is advanced by the contraction of certain of its muscles, by which, in connection with the hinge joints of the thigh, and knee, and ankle, the compound progressive motion is attained. These muscles are made to contract by the excitement of a nerve imbedded in them, and that excitement is produced by an impulse dispatched from the brain along the spinal marrow to the appropriate nerve. And the body is kept perpendicular through all the comi^licated motions of walking, by constant impulses — unconscious to us now, but very conscious when we were learning to walk — from the brain to different nerves, appropriately moving appropriate muscles, and so seasonably counteracting any sideway tendency.

Now, if a telegraphic dispatch were sent to a shipmaster, and in obedience to it he should navigate his vessel — by puUing her ropes, and changing her sails as the wind required, and by the constant steerage of her lielm, — from India wharf in Providence, to India wharf in Boston, you would say, at once, there must be mind and contrivance tliere. So there must be mind l)ehind tliis arrangement for the navigation of a human body from one spot to another, in obedience to the telegraphic dispatches of the brain. Aiid that mind we call God.

Our machinist now takes up his morning task. We will suppose him to be turning out some delicate and important piece of machinery in a lathe, with the pattern before him. Having adjusted the lathe so that it will advance and cut away so much of the iron as is needed, he leaves it, for a few moments, to work unwatched. A single false movement would ruin the piece. How does he know that no such false movement will take place in his absence ? Because it is a law of such a lathe to turn truly according to its exact adjustment. But how came it to be a law that it should turn truly, instead of untruly ? And how came it to be a law that steel should always be harder than iron, so that the small steel chisel will shave off the iron as it turns against it, as a knife cuts a pine stick ? And how came it to be a law that a machine made exactly according to its design, in parts, will resemble that design when put together ? Here is contrivance every where ; mind back of all that our machinist puts his hand unto to do.

His lathe is turned by a steam-engine. But how comes it to be a law of water to boil and give off steam, always at 212° ? And how comes it to be a law that this steam can always be condensed into water again ? And why does steam always have expansive power ? And liow comes it to be a law that iron and copper boiler-plates have sufficdent strength and tenacity to resist and retain the force of the steam, long enough to make it useful in the engine ? And how comes the atmospliere always to furnisli a resistance of exactly 15 pounds to the square inch — no more, no less, — to the movement of the piston ? And how comes it to be a law that wood and coal will burn and heat the boiler, while stones and sand are incombustible ? There is but one answer ; all is the fruit of design — every thing fits together ; and as a builder could not find stone, and bricks, and lumber of all sorts, and hardware, and glass, and all the materials for a house, piled upon a vacant lot, each in its exact proportion, and of the right quality, and all ready to go together into an edifice, without concluding that some mind was behind it all, intending a house, so no man can look at these details, and their mutual adaptations, without concluding that a mind intending human life and human industry is belnnd it all. That mind we call God.

I insist upon it, that our machinist cannot select any thing that he sees around him, which shall not conduct him, by its own individual necessity, straight to the same grand conclusion. He himself and his skill, he cannot account for, without demonstrating a God. How comes it that his labor will now earn him, perhaps, twenty-five dollars a week, while ten years ago it would not yield him a dollar a day ? Because he is more skillful now. But what is skill ? It is the product of ingenuity and experience, by which a man is constantly improving as a workman ; by the use of new processes, and by recollecting all his old errors, to shun them, and all his old excellencies, to improve upon them. But whence come these laws of memory and forecast, making experience and ingenuity possible to man ? We get but the old answer, carrying us, here as before, back to that contriving mind, which we call God.

Take the metals upon which he works. How does it happen that iron when heated becomes soft, and can be shaped and welded, and drawn out into wire ; that if heated further, it melts and takes the shape of its mould in cooling ? How does it happen that always when mixed with one and one half per cent, of carbon, it makes steel ? And how does it happen that if you heat steel red hot and plunge it in cold water, it becomes hard enough to scratch glass ; while if you heat and cool it slowly, it will be soft as iron ? How does it happen that at different degrees of hardness it has different colors ; so that steel of a straw yellow is just right for razors, and steel of a deep blue just right for swordblades, and saws, and watch-springs ?

How does it happen that zinc always has a specific gravity of 7 ; copper, of nearly 9 ; lead, of almost 11^ ; silver, of 10^ ; gold, of 19 ; and platinum, of 22 ? How comes it tliat 2 parts of copper united with 1 part of zinc, always make brass? that 90 parts of copper and 10 of tin, always make bronze ? that 92 of copper and 8 of tin, always make gun-metal ? that 80 of copper and 20 of tin, always make bell-metal ? that 4 of lead and 1 of antimony, always make type-metal ?

How does it happen that water always freezes at 32° above zero, and mercury at 39° below it ? that alcohol boils at 173° degrees, and water at 212° ? that tin always melts at 451° ; lead, at 633° ; silver at 1873° ; gold, at 2016°, and cast iron at 2786° ?

Why is it that there is such an invariableness about those methods by which all these metals are wrought for use ? Why, for example, when a foundryman has tested different processes for melting his iron, and different kinds of sand for making his molds, until he lias fixed upon what he considers best, does he always trv exactly to repeat those best processes ? How does he know that what is once best, will always be best ?

Only one answer is possible : there is law everywhere. It is a law that Uke causes shall produce like results, and man, and metals, and nature itself, obey that law. But who made it ? who impressed it upon the universe ?

The truth is, that the machinist cannot intelliorentlv look upon a single process of his daily work, a single material which he uses in it. nay, upon any single thing which he sees in it, without being carried straight back to the conviction of some cause for all the principles and facts on the due knowledge and just use of which, his own success de})ends ; without feehng that if his completed locomotive demonstrates to any but a fool, some mind as its contriver and constructer, much more do the materials and laws by which its contriver and constructer were able to build it, demonstrate a mind as their cause. So that whether he think of it or not, he never strikes a blow of his hammer, without proving the being of a God.

But let us suppose our machinist to have finished his day's task, and to walk out as the evening shadows begin to lengthen, till he reaches the gTeen fields. The freshness of nature charms his eye, and the sweet air is grateful to his lungs. But how comes nature to affect his soul, and what makes the air fi^om green fields pleasanter to his lungs, than the dusty breath of the paved streets ?

Nature affects his soul in this wise. The sunhorht is reflected from the herbage and fohage, upon the outer convex lens, or aqueous humor of the eye, which passes it through the circular aperture of the iris to the inner convex lens or crystalline humor, which concentrates all the scattered rays into a beautifully clear miniature of that which is without, upon the retina or expansion of the optic nerve lying behind it. This nerve, passing out through the back of the eye, carries the sensation of this miniature, straight to the brain. It is a law of our nature, that a prevalent tint of green is grateful to the eye, and that the reflection of the varied objects which are set in a green landscape, should have a soothing tendency upon the mind, and for this reason, the freshness of nature charms him.