HIS RELIGION.
"Philosophy directs us to bear evils with patience and fortitude, because they are inevitable; but Christianity gives us consolation under sufferings, by assuring us that they are but the discipline of a Parent who loveth while he chastiseth, and that they are but for a moment, when compared with eternity. The Christian\'s Hope has made him whom it has supported rejoice under the greatest sufferings that mortality could endure; yet Hope is but the offspring of faith, and therefore it was necessary to make faith the foundation of the structure of the Christian Religion, and to assign and affix to it peculiar privileges and rewards." Mr. Abernethy79.
Whoever reflects on the influence produced on the mind by research in Science, will, we think, arrive at a very important conclusion.
It is true that, at the commencement, numerous worldly motives tend to place most prominently before us the temporal advantages of scientific Inquiry. There are distinctions of wealth, rank, position, which not unfrequently await its successful cultivation. Then there are the multiform applications of science in extending the enjoyments, in ministering to the wants, and, still better, relieving the calamities of mankind; but when we have arrived at this, surely the acmé of its utilitarian allurements, we find there are still higher motives engendered—that science has a still richer harvest to encourage its onward cultivation. Nor is312 it too much to say, that, if cultivated aright, the fruits may be more surely garnered than any of those to which we have previously referred. The harvest we mean consists of those moralizing influences which, however neglected, are never separable from the study of Nature; which, however ordinary the impulses with which the inquiry may have commenced, slowly overlay it with motives and feelings which lead us to investigate Nature for the sake of truth alone. And here, we think, first dawns upon us the conclusion to which we have alluded: viz. that the highest attractions of science are to be found in what we venture to term its "Religion."
However much the influences first mentioned tend to place the more lofty suggestions of science in temporary abeyance, there always comes a time when the sincere inquirer begins to feel a double current of thought. In the one, the thoughts are open, aspiring—ambitious, it may be—public, and directed only to the laws and phenomena of Nature; in the other, they are calm, deep, humble, silent, and will turn to the Supreme Cause. The former may foster his ambition, animate his research, sustain his industry. The latter carry him beyond those influences, and supplies something which they cannot give. In loving truth for its own sake, he learns by degrees to lean little on the worldly appreciation of labour—convinced that whatever is true, will one day find its own way, in the time best fitted for it. We cannot help thinking that it is the force of this double current of thought by which that climax has been reached by some of the greatest minds; which has exemplified the coincidence of the utmost range of human knowledge with the most profound humility; thus rendering the highest aspirations of science subservient to the cultivation of a principle; inseparable, we suppose, from all Religion; but certainly one of the most distinguishing characteristics of Christianity.
An idea, however, has arisen in some minds, that the pursuit of science has a tendency to make men sceptical in Religion. This we believe to be not only a demonstrable, but a dangerous error—demonstrable, as remarkably opposed to the evidences of fact and observation; and dangerous, as withdrawing the minds313 of many from the study of science, who would be perhaps especially fitted to estimate its advantages and enjoy its pleasures.
History, who from her ample store of testimony has so often repealed injustice and defeated error, is no where more conclusive than on the question before us. The study of Nature not only has no tendency to induce a state of mind unfavorable to the reception of the truths of Religion, but just the contrary; for the proofs of a humble and sincere reliance on the promises of the one, have been infinitely most striking in those who have proved themselves the most successful cultivators of the other.
The philosopher, regarding the universe as the dwelling of the Supreme, sees in the laws of nature, and in the powers through which he is permitted in a degree to interpret them, only another revelation—a Divine recognition of his high relations and destiny; and grasps in one comprehensive idea the Word and the Works, as an integral communication—one extended privilege to Man. He does not indeed confound the evidences on which philosophical and religious truths respectively repose. He knows that they rest on different kinds of testimony, which he neither strives to identify, nor misapply. He no more expects to deduce the generalizations of science from the Scriptures, than he does the commands of the Deity from the facts of the natural world. Philosophy and Religion, however, are constantly impressing similar facts. In science, we learn—and no doubt the deepest learn it best—that "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy." Religion tells us there are many things "past man\'s understanding." Religion and science teach us alike that any inquiry into the positive and ultimate nature of anything which exists, is entirely beyond our faculties; and respectively impress on us the conviction, that our proper business is to search out the phenomena and laws of the one, and to obey the Commandments of the other.
Philosophy is daily teaching us how little we know, as compared with that which is unknown. Religion informs us that, at present, we see "through a glass darkly." Yet, at the same time, both concur in encouraging us to believe that everything that is really required of us, everything that is good and useful to us314 both here and hereafter, are alike open to human capacity. The pursuit of science, no doubt, establishes requisitions which are essential to the proper study of it. A mind undisciplined by any rule; a mind taking only a conjectural view of nature; a mind allowing fancy or imagination to usurp the place of intellectual power; a condition which ignores the guidance of patience, circumspection, and industry, and which seeks the explanation of the impressions made on the senses by ingenious hypotheses made to fit them; or which sees no order or intelligibility in anything which it does not at once comprehend; that these and many other states of mind may tend to confound the understanding, and replace anything rational or profitable by anything else, is possible enough. But is it not equally true of Religion? Experience has abundantly shown us the result of Man trying to fit the mysteries of Religion to the measure of intelligibility set up by the human intellect. There surely is no subject on which men have become more lamentably bewildered. This, however, is merely one of the too common examples of abuse of our faculties; and that such men may become sceptical, whether pursuing Science or any subject whatever, is probable. It is, in truth, "Science falsely so called," and has no more relation to the legitimate study of Nature, than the most orderly formula of the mathematician has to the wildest conjecture.
But that research in science, legitimately conducted, has any tendency to produce what is usually intended by the term scepticism, is not only improbable;—it is directly contradicted by the facts of experience. So numerous are the examples of the contrary, to which we here add the name of Abernethy, that it is difficult to select, so as not to leave the evidence unjustifiably bald on the one hand; or to render it superfluous even to tediousness on the other. That which confers, however, the greatest interest on this part of the subject, is not so much the mass of testimony, not so much the crowd of witnesses, as the peculiar, yet varied, character of the august assemblage. It is extremely significant to observe, that whilst we find amongst the most earnest advocates of the paramount importance of Revealed Truth, the names of the most successful students of the Truths of Science,—so, on the315 other hand, no persons have laboured to impress us with the important uses of the facts in nature with more zeal and success than distinguished Divines. Amongst the many scientific men who have exemplified the purifying tendencies of scientific pursuits in promoting their reverence for Revealed Religion, it will suffice to mention such names as Boyle, Bacon, Kepler, Newton, Locke. The latter too reminds us that the medical profession has contributed no small number of witnesses; of whom, B?erhaave, Linn?us, Sloane, and Haller, are a few of the more illustrious examples. All the foregoing are men who have explored one or more of the ample fields of Nature; some of them, extending their views beyond the planet we inhabit, into the whole visible universe, have come back, showing us how to understand the necessity, and estimate the value, of Revealed Truth; converting, it may be, in many instances, Belief (so called) into a positive Faith; and a passive assent into an earnest and clear conviction.
But, as we have said, Divines have not been slow in contributing the weight of their testimony to the value of natural evidence, and the acceptable assistance afforded by a contemplation of the laws and the mysteries of Nature. So abundant indeed are these mysteries, that there is not a path of our progress by day, nor a waking thought by night, that does not at times present some of them to our reflection. Mysteries in operation so clear, that our very senses take cognizance of them; so orderly, that when we are allowed to discover the law which regulates them, we are at a loss which most to admire, the power, the number, or the simplicity of its manifestations; and yet which, as to their intrinsic nature, are so recondite as to be entirely beyond our researches; leaving us, in fact, no faculty which can deal with them, but faith alone. Divines have shown the value they attach to all such facts, by the admirable application they have made of them in aiding the cultivation of Religion—sometimes by teaching the necessity and reasonableness of faith in the mysteries of Religion; at others, in impressing the nature and attributes of the Supreme.
It would be easy to produce a longer roll of such men; but most readers are acquainted with such names as Cudworth, Butler, Sturm, Derham, Paley, Crombie, who have, in one or other sense,316 exemplified the importance of natural knowledge, and the interest they took in its cultivation. In every phase of the investigation, we meet with fresh examples of the union of Religion with Science. Paschal and St. Pierre are eminent illustrations. Paschal was a Divine, and an eminent mathematician: mankind is surely under obligations to him for his "Lettres Provinciales." These extraordinary compositions must have operated with uncommon force against the sophistries of the Jesuits; and, considering the nature of the subject, it could have been no ordinary work that could have induced Voltaire to say that he had never read anything more humorous than the earlier letters, or more sublime than the later. St. Pierre80, too, should not be passed without mention. His book is, in some points of view, one of the most interesting works ever written: occasionally fanciful or enthusiastic, it is a most unusually rich collection of facts and observations. How excellently adapted it is to encourage observation of natural phenomena! How just and philanthropic—how circumspect and comprehensive his observations in Nature! and how excellent and free from cant the paramount importance he impresses of Religion as a principle, and of Christianity as the perfect supply of all that is necessary to us in time or in eternity. Yet St. Pierre was a soldier; and it is to our present purpose that he was a scientific man, and an engineer. Neither should we pass unnoticed the numerous associations of pastoral care with the observation of nature, so pleasingly exemplified in White of Selborne, and Gilpin of the New Forest—men whose books we count now rather by generations than editions, and which suggest to our imagination the additional gratification which such men must have derived to their favourite pursuits, in the continued sanction afforded by Scripture. We would reverently point to the site first chosen as the abode of purity and innocence; and the numerous illustrations from nature contained in the Sacred Volume; whether in enforcing general rules, or a special command—impressing a particular principle, or illustrating a recondite mystery,—and especially that which is a remarkable and necessary combination of mystery with faith. For whilst it is, as317 well as other mysteries, beyond our comprehension, it commands so entire a faith in its reality, as to be, in some form or other, instinctive and universal81.
Mr. Abernethy, it has been stated in former editions, was, as regards his religious tenets, a member of the Church of England: and it would have been gratifying to have included some of those sentiments on religious and moral matters which we now record; but, although some of these documents had been open to our inspection before the completion of the second edition, they were not so entirely at our disposal as Miss Abernethy has subsequently placed them. Of these documents, those which relate to religious and moral subjects consist, first, of a small book on the Mind, which Abernethy published a great many years ago, anonymously; and certain reflections, found amongst the very few MSS. which he had preserved. Amongst these papers, there are two which are in the form of sermons; and, although they are all somewhat fragmentary, they are in several points of view more or less interesting.
As it appears to be an abuse of the proper business of biography to publish every thing that an eminent man says or does, we shall endeavour to make such selection as shall fall within its legitimate objects—viz. as establishing some fact of importance, as illustrating the tone and character of the man, or as placing some conclusion which had been drawn more or less from general observation, on the more secure basis of the sentiments he has himself recorded.
EXTRACTS.
There is "more moral certainty in the greater number of instances of those things which we believe from the deduction of reason, than of those we believe from the action of the senses.&qu............