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the other hand, it is no less certain that our character does depend in a measure upon circumstances beyond our control; upon our original constitution, upon education, upon prevalent habits and opinions, upon Divine influence, etc. All this is proved by experience and observation. Here then are two facts resting on independent evidence, each certain, and each by itself securing general assent. Yet we see men constantly disposed to bring up the one against the other; and argue against their responsibility, because they are dependent, or against their dependence, because they are responsible. In like manner the proposition that man is a free agent, commands immediate and universal assent, because it is an ultimate fact of consciousness. It can no more be doubted than we can doubt our own existence. Side by side, however, with this intimate persuasion of our moral liberty, lies the conviction, no less intimate, of our inability to change, by merely willing to do so, either our belief or our affections, for which, as before stated, every man knows himself to be responsible. Perhaps few men,perhaps no man,-can see the harmony of these truths; yet they are truths, and as such are practically acknowledged by all men. Again, all experience teaches us that we live in a world of means; that knowledge, religion, happiness, are all to be sought in a certain way, and that to neglect the means is to lose the end.

"It is, however, no less true that there is no necessary or certain connection between the means and the end; that God holds the result in His own hands and decides the issues according to His sovereign pleasure. In all the ordinary affairs of life, men submit to this arrangement and do not

hesitate to use means, though the end is uncertain and beyond their control. But in religion, they think this uncertainty of the result a sufficient excuse for neglect."*

With this comes the following profound thought, expressed by Sir W. Hamilton with the felicity and sustained by the power of which he is so great a master: "It will argue nothing against the trustworthiness of consciousness, that all or any of its deliverances are inexplicable-are incomprehensible; that is, that we are unable to conceive through a higher notion how that is possible which the deliverance avouches actually to be. To make the comprehensibility of a datum of consciousness the criterion of its truth, would be indeed the climax of absurdity; for the primary data of consciousness, as themselves the conditions under which all else is comprehended, are necessarily themselves incomprehensible. We know, and can know only that they are, not how they can be."+

§ 133. e3. Incidental moral consequences of evil.

"De vitiis nostris scalam nobis facimus, si vitia ipsa calcamus," says St. Augustine; or, to take Mr. Longfellow's paraphrase,

Saint Augustine! well hast thou said

That of our vices we can frame

A ladder, if we will but tread

Beneath our feet each deed of shame.

We may here find the ground-work of a peculiar com

* Hodge's Way of Life, p. 99.

Hamilton's Reid, p. 745. See post, 3 241, etc.

munion with God; a communion so intimate, and so humble, as to exceed in its tender and pathetic love and its grand meekness even the sublimest adoration of the untempted and sinless of the angelic creation. "There is no temptation," says John of Wesel, one of the greatest of the pre-Lutheran reformers, "so great as not being tempted at all." In other words, there is nothing so dangerous to the love which is life, as that security which needs nothing to cling to, and which has no recollection of personal unworthiness and misery forgiven and relieved by a pity at once so tender and sublime. This experience of sin is a great teacher. One, who if he may not be cited as a Christian poet, may at least come before us as a sagacious and experienced judge of our common nature, thus writes :

I asked the Lord that I might grow

In faith and love and every grace;
Might more of His salvation know

And seek more earnestly His face.

I hoped that in some favored hour

At once He'd answer my request,
And by His love's constraining power,
Subdue my sins and give me rest.

Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry powers of hell
Assault my soul in every part.

"Lord, why is this?" I trembling cried,

"Wilt Thou pursue Thy worm to death?"

"Tis in this way," the Lord replied,

"I answer prayer for grace and faith.

"These inward trials I employ

From self and pride to set thee free,
And break thy schemes of earthly joy

That thou may'st seek thy all in me."

§ 134. And ONE other, who, if He did not, according even to modern positivism, speak divine truth, at least uttered words of deep wisdom, said :—

SIMON, I HAVE SOMEWHAT TO SAY UNTO THEE. AND HE SAITH, MASTER, SAY ON.

THERE WAS A CERTAIN CREDITOR WHICH HAD TWO DEBTORS : THE ONE OWED FIVE HUNDRED PENCE, AND THE OTHER FIFTY. AND WHEN THEY HAD NOTHING TO PAY, HE FRANKLY FORGAVE THEM BOTH. TELL ME THEREFORE, WHICH OF THEM WILL LOVE HIM MOST?

SIMON ANSWERED AND SAID, I SUPPOSE THAT HE TO WHOM HE FORGAVE MOST. AND HE SAID UNTO HIM, THOU HAST

RIGHTLY JUDGED.

c2. As the necessary incidents of limited creatures.

§ 135. The argument in this connection may be thus stated: The scheme of an ascending scale of beings, each of a distant order and degree of power, is of all others the one most consistent with the general good. To such a graduated order of beings, metaphysical evil, at least, is essential. Therefore metaphysical evil is essential to the highest standard we can propose for the general good.

We will examine the two premises in succession. The scheme of an ascending scale of beings, each of a distinct order and degree of power, is of all others the most consistent with the general good.

How far this scale ascends may be considered under an

other head. It is enough to say, that as it descends almost infinitely, and as from the lowest mollusc upward to man there is a gradual rise, the presumption is that this ascent continues. This, however, is not necessary to the strength of the present argument. We may suppose that the scale of creation terminates with man, and, even on this supposition, draw the following inferences :—

§ 136. a3. By a graduated scale there is room for the exercise of charity and an interchange of favors.

Wordsworth touches very delicately on this in that fine passage in which he speaks of the hardness of temper of those who herd and browse only

In the grove of their own kindred.

The association merely with those who stand with us in a high scale of comfort hardens the heart, and, in hardening it, closes up many avenues of pleasure. Cicero carries this to the irrational as well as the rational creation : "Accedit ad non nullorum animantium, et earum rerum quas terras gignit, conservationem et salutem, hominum etiam solertia et diligentia. Nam multæ et pecudes, et stirpes. sunt, quæ sine procuratione hominum salvæ esse non possunt." And even in the inanimate creation a similar teaching may be found. It is in the inequalities of the heavenly bodies that consists their harmony. The earth and its sister planets, inferior as they are in size and lustre, derive a comfort from the sun such as perhaps its splendor may not enable it to impart to itself. The moon waits on the earth,

* De Nat. Deorum, lib. ii. c. 52.

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