There is little wisdom in instituting comparisons between objects or facts not essentially analogous; and the idea of God has been so often disfigured by representing Him in the image of man, that I mistrust the efficacy of any analogies borrowed from humanity to convey a conception of God. I cannot, however, overlook the fact, that God has created man in his own image, nor can I absolutely refrain from seeking, in nature or the life of man, some type to shadow forth the features of God. Let us consider the human family: the father and mother assist in directing the active development of the child; they watch over it with authority and tenderness; they control its liberty without annulling it, and they listen to its little prayers—now granting them, now refusing them, as their reason dictates, and with a view to the child's main and future interests. The child, without thought or design, by the spontaneous instinct of its nature, recognizes the authority and feels the tenderness of its parents; as it advances in age, it sometimes obeys and sometimes resists their injunctions, using or misusing its natural liberty; but in all the fickleness of its will, it asks, it entreats, full of confidence—joyous and thankful when it obtains from its parents what it desires; yet, when denied, still ready again to ask and to entreat with the same confidence as before.
This is what takes place in the government of the human family when ruled according to the dictates of nature and right. An image we have here, imperfect but still true—a shadowing-forth, faint yet faithful—of Divine Providence. Thus it is that the Christian religion qualifies and describes the action of God in the life of man. It exhibits God as ever present and accessible to man, as a father to his child; it exhorts, encourages, invites man to implore, to confide in, to pray to God. It reserves absolutely the answer of God to that prayer; He will grant, or He will refuse: we cannot penetrate his motives—"The ways of God are not our ways." Nevertheless, to prayer, ceaseless and ever renewed, the Christian dogma associates the firm hope that "nothing is impossible with God." This dogma is thus in full and intimate harmony with the nature of man; whilst recognizing his liberty, it does homage to his dignity; in tendering to him the resource of an appeal to God it provides for his weakness. In science, it suppresses not the mystery which cannot be suppressed; but, in man's life, it solves the natural problem which weighs upon the soul.
III. Original Sin.
The dogmas of Creation and Providence bring us into the presence of God; it is the action of God upon the world and man that they proclaim and affirm. The dogma of Original Sin brings us back to man; it is the act of man towards God, which stands at the very beginning of the history of mankind.
In what does this dogma consist? What are the elements and the essential facts which constitute it, and upon which it is founded?
The dogma of Original Sin implies and affirms these propositions:
1. That God, in creating man, has created him an agent, moral, free, and fallible;
2. That the will of God is the moral law of man, and obedience to the will of God is the duty of man, inasmuch as he is a moral and free agent;