Another illustration may be permitted. Suppose a colony, by some mischance, settles on an isolated island, which is found covered with the tobacco plant. They clear their plantations, but find that, by a remarkable and unintelligible arrangement, after every shower there is a fall of tobacco seeds, disseminated from an inaccessible height by a machine erected for the purpose and constantly supplied.
After some years, they receive a missive from the king to whom the island belongs, in which he informs them that tobacco is the chief object of his detestation; that it is doing incalculable mischief to his subjects; that it is the chief end of his life, and he wishes it to be of theirs, to exterminate the plant, and thus its use.
He, at the same time, states that he is the author of the contrivance for scattering the seed, and that he keeps it constantly supplied, and claims that he has a right "to do what he will with his own," without being questioned by his subjects.
He then enacts that any person who is found to use tobacco, or even to have a single seed or plant on his premises, shall be burned alive in a caldron of fire and brimstone.
If, in addition to this, that king were to command supreme love to him, and perfect confidence in his wisdom, justice, and goodness, all this would but faintly illustrate that awful system under consideration, whose penalties are eternal.
The assumption that the constitution of mind is depraved not only destroys the evidence of the Creator's wisdom and benevolence by the light of reason, but destroys the possibility of a credible and reliable revelation from him.
For the belief in the existence of a God is dependent on an intuitive truth, while his character is understood, without a revelation, only by the aid of that intuitive truth which teaches that the nature of his works proves his character and designs. Now if his greatest work, the immortal mind, that which alone gives any value to his other works, is malformed, and thus made the cause of all the misery, crime, and evil of this life, what is there to give any foundation for confidence that his revelations will not be false, pernicious, and malignant?
No man can start with the assumption that there is a revelation from the Creator that needs no proof. The only basis for such a revelation is that intuitive truth by the aid of which miracles and prophecy become evidences of the interposition of the Creator. Thus we perceive that the proof that "the author of a depraved constitution of mind is a depraved being," is as strong as the evidence of a revelation by miracles and prophecy can be.
In regard to these theories, and in regard to the dogma of theology which they are instituted to explain, it is claimed that both reason and the Bible equally forbid each and all of them.
It has already been shown, in Chapters xxii. and xxiii., that all the evidence of reason and experience goes to prove that the mind of man is perfect in its organization. We have only to inquire, then, in regard to the evidence claimed to be found in revelations from the Creator.