Still more abundant is the evidence derived from geology of the divine benevolence. And this evidence comes mostly from the operations and final effect of the most desolating agencies, heretofore regarded as a proof of malevolence, or, at least, of vindictive justice; and we may reasonably infer, that could we look through the whole system of divine government, we should find that all evil is only a necessary means of the greatest good.
No one can examine existing nature without being convinced that all its parts and operations belong to one great system. Geology makes other economies of wide extent to pass before us, opening a vista indefinitely backward into the hoary past; and it is gratifying to witness that same unity of design pervading all preceding periods of the world’s history, linking the whole into one mighty scheme, worthy its infinite Contriver.
How much, also, does this science enlarge our conceptions of the plans and operations of Jehovah! We had been accustomed to limit our views of the creative agency of God to the few thousand years of man’s existence, and to anticipate the destruction of the material universe in a few thousand years more. But geology makes the period of man’s existence on the globe only one short link of a chain of revolutions which preceded his existence, and which reaches forward immeasurably far into the future. We see the same matter in the hands of infinite wisdom, and by means of the great conservative principle of chemical change, passing through a multitude of stupendous revolutions, sustaining countless and varied forms of organic life, and presenting an almost illimitable panorama of the plans of an infinite God.
If such is the fruit which geology pours into the lap of religion, how misunderstood have been its principles! In many a mind there is still an anxious fear lest its discoveries should prove unfavorable to religion; and they would feel greatly relieved could they only be assured that no influence injurious to piety would emanate from that science. But we can give them far more than this assurance. We can draw from this science more to illustrate and confirm religion than from any other; and we believe that the history of the past justifies the general conclusion, that those sciences whose early developments excited most apprehensions of a collision with religion, have ultimately furnished the most abundant illustrations of its principles.
Another science regarded as barren of religious applications, and even as sometimes positively injurious, is mathematics. Its principles are, indeed, of so abstruse a nature, that it is not easy to frame out of them a religious argument that is capable of popular illustration. But, in fact, mathematical laws form the basis of nearly all the operations of nature. They constitute, as it were, the very framework of the material world. When we look up to the heavenly bodies, we see them directed and controlled, along with the earth, by those laws, which vary not, by an iota, from century to century. The infinity of changes, which are going on in the constitution of bodies upon and within the earth, chemistry reduces to mathematical laws. So far as organic operations depend upon chemical changes,—and this is very far,—mathematics is the controlling power. I will not say, that life and intellect are in a strict sense under the guidance of mathematics; and yet I doubt not that their operations are limited and controlled by its principles. Confident am I that atmospheric changes, apparently quite as anomalous and irregular as the movements of the vital and intellectual principles, rest on mathematics as certainly as do the revolutions of the heavenly bodies.
It seems, then, that this science forms the very foundation of all arguments for Theism, from the arrangements and operations of the material universe. We do, indeed, neglect the foundation, and point only to the superstructure, when we state these arguments. But suppose mathematical laws to be at once struck from existence, and what a hideous chaos would the universe present! What then would become of the marks of design and unity in nature, and of the Theist’s argument for the being of a God?
But mathematical principles furnish several interesting illustrations of truth, of no small importance. In a former lecture, we have seen how the doctrine of miracles stands forth completely vindicated by an appeal to mathematical laws; how, in fact, they might have formed a part of the original plan of the universe, when first it was conceived in the divine mind, and how their occurrence may be as much the result of a fixed law as the most common operations of nature; so that in this way all improbability of their occurrence, on the ground that nature is constant, is removed. These views are illustrated in that singular, yet original work of Professor Babbage, called the “Ninth Bridgewater Treatise,” a work written, it is true, in part, under the influence of exasperated feelings, but yet full of original and ingenious suggestions. But these views have been so fully presented in the Lecture on Special and Miraculous Providence, and in that upon the Telegraphic System of the Universe, that they need not here be repeated.
Mathematics, also, aids our conceptions of truths of religion difficult or impossible, from their nature, of being understood by finite beings. All the attributes of the Deity, being infinite, are of this description. But it seems to me that the contemplation of a mathematical series, either increasing or decreasing, gives us the strongest apprehension of infinity which we can attain. It puts into our hands a thread by which we can find our way, as far as our powers will carry us, towards infinity. True, after we have followed the series till the mind stops exhausted, we are no nearer infinity than when we started; yet we do get most deeply impressed with the unfathomableness of the abyss that separates the finite from the infinite.
To many minds all statements of the biblical doctrine of the Trinity appear so absurd and contradictory as to be incapable of belief. Yet let it be stated to a man, for the first time, that two lines may approach each other forever without meeting, and it must appear equally absurd. But after you have demonstrated to him the properties of the hyperbola and its asymptote, the apparent absurdity vanishes. So, when the theologian has stated, that by the divine unity he means only a numerical unity,—in other words, that there is but one Supreme Being, and that the three persons of the Godhead are one in this sense, and three only in those respects not inconsistent with this unity,—every philosophical mind, whether it admits that the Scriptures teach this doctrine or not, must see that there is no absurdity or contradiction in it. And thus it may happen, that the solution of a man’s difficulties on this subject may come from a proposition of conic sections, as in fact we know to have been the case.
It is said, however, that mathematicians have been unusually prone to scepticism concerning religious truth. If it be so, it probably originates from the absurd attempt to apply mathematical reasoning to moral subjects; or, rather, the devotees of this science often become so attached to its demonstrations, that they will not admit any evidence of a less certain character. They do not realize the total difference between moral and mathematical reasonings, and absurdly endeavor to stretch religion on the Procrustean bed of mathematics. No wonder they become sceptics. But the fault is in themselves, not in this science, whose natural tendencies, upon a pure and exalted mind, are favorable to religion, because its principles illustrate religion.