- 1. Why do we say there are laws of nature?
- 1.) We indeed know some such. But nothing of the laws of many things, e.g.
- · Pestilence.
- · Storms.
- · Earthquakes.
- · Diversities of human powers.
- · Association of ideas.
- 2.) Hence we call many things accidental, which we know are not matters of chance, but are subject to general laws.
- 3.) It is a very little way that we can trace things to their general laws.
- 4.) We attribute many things to such laws, only by analogy.
- 1.) We indeed know some such. But nothing of the laws of many things, e.g.
- 2. Just for the same reasons, we say that miracles comport with God’s general laws of wisdom. These laws may be unknown to us; but no more so than those by which some die as soon as born, or live to old age, or have superior understandings, &c.
- 3. We see no more reason to regard the frame and course of nature as a
scheme, than we have to regard Christianity as such.
- 1.) If the first is a scheme, then Christianity, if true, would be likely to be a scheme.
- 2.) As Christianity is revealed but in part, and is an arrangement to accomplish ends, there would of course seem to us, in it, irregularities; just as we see in nature.
- 3.) Therefore objections against the one, are answered in the same manner as objections against the other.
Having, in a previous chapter, [[ch. iii.],] answered objections to Christianity as a matter of fact, and in this, as a general question of wisdom and goodness, the next thing is to discuss objections in particular.
As one of these is directed against the scheme, as just now described, it will be considered here.
- Objec. Christianity is a roundabout, and perplexed contrivance; just such as
men, for want of understanding or power, are obliged to adopt, in
their designs.
- Ans. 1.) God uses just such complex arrangements in the natural world. The mystery is quite as great in nature as in grace.
- 2.) We do not know what are means, and what are ends.
- 3.) The natural world, and its government, are not fixed, but progressive.
- 4.) Great length of time is required in some changes; e.g. animals, vegetables, geological periods, &c.
- 5.) One state of life is a preparation and means for attaining another.
- 6.) Man is impatient, but Jehovah deliberate.
CHAPTER V.
OF A MEDIATOR, AND REDEMPTION BY HIM.
Nothing in Christianity is so much objected to as the position assigned to Christ; yet nothing is more unjust. The whole world exhibits mediation.
I. Our existence, and all its satisfactions, are by the medium of others.
- 1. If so in the natural world, why not in the spiritual?
- 2. The objection therefore is not only against Christ’s mediation, but all mediation.