It is interesting to think that the same illustrious Prince who suggested the inscription for the Royal Exchange, originated the idea of the Exhibition of the industry of all nations. It is to the honour of England, that the first time that the whole world, so to speak, comes together for a peaceful purpose, the meeting takes place in the British metropolis; and it is to the honour of the husband of England’s Queen, not only that he should have been the father of this thought, but that by a previous one he should have attempted, as it were, to sanctify industry, and trade, and commerce, and manufactures, by an open recognition of the providence of God as the source of them all. It is worth living for, to be, first, the occasion of a great central commercial edifice, in one of the greatest cities of the world, bearing on its front the record of the central truth of religion; and then, secondly, to be the cause of the congregating together, in that city, of men of all lands and of all languages, to look, among other things, upon that edifice, and to observe the truth which the people it represents have there publicly enthroned!
The writer of the following pages proposes, then, to unite in his reflections the two things which, through the agency of the same mind, are thus already united in fact—the Inscription on the Royal Exchange, and the Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations. He intends, in the first part, to point out and illustrate the great primary religious truths which are involved in the announcement of the inscription itself. As it, however, is the first verse of a psalm, he purposes, in the second part, to look at it in connexion with the whole of the psalm, and at the psalm in connexion with the whole of Revelation, and thus to bring out and associate with the inscription additional ideas of both truth and duty. Then, supposing the whole series of these truths and duties to be earnestly adopted and practically exemplified by all nations—by England herself, and by those to whom they will be virtually presented on their meeting together in the British metropolis—it is proposed, in the last part, to describe what, on such a supposition, would be the coming future of Europe and of the world.
I.
The Divine Existence and Personality.
The first idea suggested by the words of the inscription is the existence of God: “The earth is the Lord’s.” It is here assumed that there is a God; and it is further assumed that God is a person. He is the possessor and proprietor of the world: he has an existence distinct from it: he is capable of looking upon it, and of regarding it as his own: “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” Not only is the material structure his, but the living inhabitants; and not only those of inferior rank, but the Lord and Master of them all. The same being that claims “the fowls of the mountains, the wild beasts of the field and the forest, and the cattle upon a thousand hills,” claims also to be the proprietor of man, the source and sovereign of the intelligent universe;—“all souls are mine.” God is not nature, nor nature God. God and the universe are not one and the same thing. He is not a force, a power, a law; he is not attraction, electricity, or any of the great active material agents, or all of them put together: he is not necessity, chance, fate: he is not a thing, nor the sum of things, but a person: he is a mind, with faculties, affections, character, and is as distinct from the “earth” and the “world” as a man is distinct from a house or a clock, or anything whatever that he can call his.
The personality of God—his existence as an intelligent agent distinct from the universe,—is destructive of all theories of atheism and pantheism; of the philosophy which teaches that there is no God at all, and of that which teaches that all things are God. The two systems, indeed, are essentially one; they are alike opposed to the existence of religion, and render faith and piety impossible. A principle is proclaimed in the words before us,—words ceaselessly uttered, and uttered to all men, from the commercial centre of this great city,—which repels and repudiates a godless philosophy, in whatever form it may be held or taught—by whatever name it may be indicated or concealed.
The truth thus referred to, the foundation truth of all religion, is taught and illustrated in the Holy Scriptures in the most remarkable manner. The Bible, indeed, seldom or never attempts to prove that there is a God; it rather assumes his existence, takes it for granted, proceeds upon it as a necessary intuitional truth, and regards any one who would pretend to deny it, either as “a fool” who is prompted to the denial by his corrupt “heart;” or as a philosopher who has become “vain in his reasonings,” and whose “understanding is darkened.” While, however, the Bible starts with the acknowledgment of God, and proceeds throughout on the recognition of his existence, it occasionally illustrates his personality, supremacy, distinctness from the universe and correlative truths, in a way which is at once adapted to confirm these views where they are admitted,—to demonstrate them to those that doubt,—and to cover with contempt idolaters or sophists by whom they may be denied.
Two or three scriptural passages may be quoted here, in support or illustration of this statement. Let it be remembered then, that the Scriptures always ascribe to God personal attributes. He is “a God of knowledge.” His “understanding is infinite.” He acts “according to the council of his will.” He is “holy,” “just,” “good,” “pure;” He loves and hates, observes and remembers, approves and condemns, punishes and rewards. His personal omniscience, and consequent independence of all other beings, is powerfully asserted by Isaiah:—“Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding?” But the personality of God, and his distinct existence from the universe, are sometimes united together in a very striking way. He is referred to as the Creator—the source whence all things have proceeded; and then, on the principle that what there is in the effect there must first have been in the cause, and must continue to be in an existing cause, his personal properties are argued from the fact that such properties actually exist,—exist, that is, in men,—beings whom he has made: “He that planted the ear, shall not he hear? he that formed the eye, shall not he see? … he that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know?” The same argument, in another form, is used by the apostle Paul, when reasoning with the philosophers of Athens. Having referred to God as the Creator of the world; as giving “to all life, and breath, and all things;” and as “having made all nations of men that dwell on the face of the earth;”—having illustrated his position by the saying of one of their own poets,—“we are also his offspring,”—he proceeds to argue thus:—“forasmuch then, as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device:” in other words, “seeing that we have thought, intelligence, and will,—that we have affections, consciousness, personality,—and seeing that we are the creatures of God, and must have derived from him whatsoever we possess, it is absurd to think of him as impersonal, material, unintelligent, since he must certainly have in himself what he has been able to confer.” There is great force in this form of putting the truth as it is put both by the prophet and the apostle. To ordinary common sense, it would seem to be demonstrative. It appears so natural to infer that the great parent of persons must be a person;—that the source of thought must be able to think;—that the fountain whence flows to the intelligent universe, faculty and affection, reason and will, must possess these in infinite plenitude in itself;—it would appear so natural to reason thus, and so obvious, as almost to render reference to it superfluous, were it not that it is now fashionable to think of the universe as a mere machine, and God as the central and pervading force, and that this machine, in the course of its ceaseless and everlasting action, and in the process of its varied movements from eternity, has happened, or contrived, to grind out thought along with other things, and to fill worlds with persons (or what seem to be such) as well as with form and colour, and the different objects of material existence! In reference to such a theory, we may appropriately adopt the words of the psalmist, which stand in immediate connexion with those already quoted. “Understand, ye brutish among the people: and ye fools, when will ye be wise?—The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.”
II.
Creation.
But the words of the Inscription, read in connexion with the second verse of the psalm from which it is taken, further illustrate the ideas adverted to—God’s existence, personality, and distinction from the universe—by placing the fact of his ownership of the earth, on the previous fact of his having created it. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.”
God is thus distinctly recognised as the Creator of all things, and as hence becoming, or being, their proprietor, by necessary consequence. That the universe is a creation, in the most strict and literal sense of the word, is the teaching of the Bible;—a truth which, while leading to that of his universal proprietorship of the earth and the world, as necessarily implies and strikingly illustrates his own distinct independence and personality: “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” The meaning of this statement is, that visible objects—that is, the whole visible universe—did not originally spring out of visible materials. However long might be the periods, during which the substance of the earth was undergoing preparatory processes, previous to the appearance of its destined inhabitant, there was a time when that substance was not. There was a period when the Eternal lived alone,—when space was literally infinite, except as filled and pervaded by him,—when nothing material anywhere existed, by which any portion of space could be inclosed or limited. In that mysterious solitude, God was as much a personality,—as much a mind with thought and will,—as he is now. He could not then be confounded with his works, for his works were not; and he ought not now to be confounded with them because they are. It is possible to conceive of all the suns and systems that exist, as being swept away into utter nothingness, and yet to understand that God might continue in all the fulness of his being and perfections. “In the beginning,”—at some period in the immeasurable depths of the abyss of that eternity which is the dwelling-place of Deity, God exerted the act of creation, and gave birth to what we call matter, which, in the revolutions of ages, he framed and fashioned into separate worlds. The Lord was, “before his works of old.” He was “from everlasting, or ever the earth was.” “When there were no depths,” he existed;—“before the mountains and hills,—while as yet he hath not made the earth, nor the fields, nor (even) the dust (or matter) of the world.” This is the sublime and awful truth which the Scriptures teach as to the primary relation of God to the universe, and on the ground of which they ascribe to him successive acts of formative power,—often in language highly figurative, but always meant to convey the idea of the exercise of the wisdom, goodness, foresight, and similar attributes of a personal agent in the Maker of the world.