If we consider what an almost total failure there is, even on the part of every good man, to attain in any respect the great end of his creation; how weak in resolution and feeble in heart—how little success in subduing his passions and governing his temper—how much of life is spent before he even begins to live in obedience to the demands of duty and of conscience—how remote he is from the uniform and settled tranquility of perfect virtue—what dissatisfaction he feels with, the present, unappeased by all the world can offer—what an Impatience and disgust with the littleness of all he finds—what an ever-restless aspiration after nobler and higher things—what anticipations and hopes from futurity never realized, here on earth—how does our spirit labor under a sense of the incongruity between his attainments and his powers! and, unless there is a future state, what an insignificance is imparted to all that can be called virtue here on earth, and also to man himself!
[Footnote 9: An eminent Congregational divine, long professor of theology in Tale College, and distinguished by the vigor and originality of his thinking.]
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=Edward Hitchcock, 1793-1804.= (Manual, p. 532.)
From "The Religion of Geology."
=30.= GEOLOGICAL PROOF OF DIVINE BENEVOLENCE.
My second argument in proof of the divine benevolence is derived from the disturbed, broken, and overturned condition of the earth's crust.
To the casual observer the rocks have the appearance of being lifted up, shattered, and overturned; but it is only the geologist who knows the vast extent of this disturbance. He never finds crystalline, non-fossiliferous rocks which have not been more or less removed from their original position. The older fossiliferous strata exhibit almost equal evidence of the operation of a powerful disturbing force, though sometimes found in their original horizontal position. The newer rocks have experienced less of this agency, though but few of them have not been elevated or dislocated.
If these strata had remained horizontal, as they were originally deposited, it is obvious that all the valuable ores, minerals, and rocks, which man could not have discovered by direct excavation, must have remained forever unknown to him. Now, man has very seldom penetrated the rocks below the depth of half a mile, and rarely so deep as that; whereas, by the elevations, dislocations, and overturnings that have been described, he obtains access to all deposits of useful substances that lie within fifteen or twenty miles of the surface; and many are thus probably brought to light from a greater depth. He is indebted, then, to this disturbing agency for nearly all the useful metals, coal, rock salt, marble, gypsum, and other useful minerals; and when we consider how necessary these substances are to civilized society, who will doubt that it was a striking act of benevolence which thus introduced disturbance, dislocation, and apparent ruin into the earth's crust?
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