08 - Chapter 08
CHAP. VIII. PROOFS OF THE DIVINE LOVE TO MANKIND SUBSEQUENTLY TO THE FALL. The expulsion of the offenders from Paradise was the immediate, and requisite consequence of their transgression. Yet in the very judgement which the Almighty pronounced on the guilty pair three signal manifestations of mercy emanating from His persevering Love were interwoven. In the first place, a solemn promise was given of a future Deliverer, ordained to remove the evil brought upon the world by that malignant spirit, who under the assumed form of the serpent had withdrawn Adam and Eve from theij allegiance to their God. Secondly, this Deliverer would be the offspring, and the offspring in some mysterious and special sense, of the woman, who had been foremost in yielding to the wiles of Satan, and the instrument of beguiling her husband into the same sin. Thirdly, the execution of the sentence, Dust thou art, and unto dust shall thou a return, was delayed: and the intimations given concerning the future Deliverer, and also respecting the labour and sorrow which should attend the cultivation of the earth by Adam for his subsistence, implied that Death might not be near at hand; -that space would be granted for deep remorse and contrition to work upon the heart; and that in the unbounded compassion of the Most High means might be vouchsafed through which true repentance might be attainable, and might not be in vain in the eyes of a heart-searching God. We know that life was mercifully protracted in the case of Adam and of successive generations of his posterity to the length of many centuries.
While a most afflicting example of the corruption of human nature, a tremendous demonstration of the loss of the holy image of God in the soul of man, was exhibited in the family of Adam when Abel was murdered by his brother; the acceptance of Abel and of his sacrifice was a most encouraging attestation that grace was not denied to the fallen race of man. At the same time the punishment of the murderer, not by a sudden stroke cutting him off from the earth, from the eyes and from the thoughts of men, but by a continued judge? ment speaking aloud during the life of Cain to every contemporary individual, proclaimed the sanctity and the steadfastness of the Divine justice, and the certainty of the doom that would await every unrepenting sinner. It appears incontestable that the shedding of the blood of animals in sacrifice as exhibited by Abel—a practice thus shown to be nearly coeval with the existence of the human race, yet so little likely to have suggested itself to the family of Adam as in any way pleasing to God, especially as the flesh of animals was not granted to man for food — must have been an institution commanded of God, and opening a prospective view to that Great Redeemer, who should take away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. From the time therefore when our first parents were removed from the Garden of Eden, they were placed as sinful beings in a state of penal probation, cheered by animating indications of attainable mercy. Their posterity inheriting their corrupted nature, were to be continued under a corresponding condition of trial.
Before we proceed to investigate the proofs of the Divine Love towards man in the progressive preparations for the appearance of the predicted Redeemer, and in the complete developement of the plan of Redemption when he descended from heaven to dwell in human nature upon the earth ; the more convenient course will be to notice the manifestations of that Love in the powers and faculties granted to man, and in the nature and the arrangements of the external objects with which he was now to be conversant. Man found himself exposed to vicissitudes of seasons, against which the protection of clothing and of shelter were requisite. The Divine compassion had already indicated means of supplying the first of these wants; and the recesses of the woods would offer a present provision for the other. Man was under the necessity of procuring food by labour: and experience speedily showed that he was endued with strength and knowledge, and opportunities adequate for the purpose. He was surrounded by the animal creation, still subjected to his dominion, and retaining a large portion of the fear of him originally impressed upon them; yet now become in most instances subjects of precarious allegiance, and in many of harassing or dangerous hostility. The smaller tribes infest his abodes, plunder his stores, injure his crops; a larger race invades his flocks and herds ; and the more savage kinds glare upon him with an eye of defiance as he passes along, and will not hesitate to attack him when they are goaded by hunger, or irritated by his intrusion into their haunts. Still, however, by forethought and skill, and by concentration of force, he maintains his superiority. The dwellers in the wild give place before him: even the most powerful fly, or are progressively destroyed as he advances. Fallen as he is, Heaven sustains him in the substance of his primeval dominion over the other inhabitants of the globe. No living being which he has had occasion to encounter has proved capable of withstanding him. Every kind of beasts and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, it tamed (subdued) and hath been tamed of mankind.1 Various species of animals, — as the cow, the horse, the camel, the reindeer, the majestic elephant, — he has trained by domestication to minister most usefully to his support, or to his convenience. In the dog he has gained a watchful guard, and an attached and eminently
[1] James 3:7. serviceable associate and ally. And such, with respect to the irreclaimable species of the animal race, are the hardihood and the sagacity which man is qualified by his Creator to attain; that amidst the relative feebleness of his frame as to muscular vigour and activity, and its destitution of natural instruments of offence, an individual will assail, single-handed and victoriously, the bear in the den, the lion in the desert, and the shark in the ocean.
It is unquestionably true that toil, certainty of toil, and also that frequency of disappointment attend all the proceedings of man; that pain and sickness and grief chequer his days ; and that the inevitable termination is death. He experiences the execution of the sentence, Cursed is the ground for thy sake ; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life: thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat tread, till thou return unto the ground ; for out of it wast thou taken. And he complains that for three thousand years he has found the ordinary duration of his life, the space for improvement under trial, reduced to less than a tenth of the period granted to Adam and to many subsequent gene- traions. To advert, in the first instance, to this complaint of the curtailment of human life. The fitness of the length assigned to a term of probation is not to be measured by the greater or the less number of years which it occupies. The true criterion is this : Is the term amply sufficient, under the actual circumstances of the case, to prove the habitual desire and state of the heart of the individual; to evince whether he remains unmoved by the Divine mercy, and wilfully abandons himself to irreligion and sinful indulgences, or faithfully strives under the grace set before him to be turned from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God? When the fall of the first pair was recent, a very protracted delay of the stroke of death might reasonably act upon the minds of themselves and of their immediate descendents as a merciful encouragement to the hope that they should signalise, under a long course of steadfast obedience, their abhorrence of sin, and their solicitude to be pardoned and accepted by their Creator. But when the world before the flood gave itself up recklessly and determinately to wickedness; when because sentence against an evil work was not speedily executed, therefore the heart of the tons of men was fully set in them to do evil1; when the probable remoteness of death was perverted into a constant incitement to perseverance in transgression: it became an act of kindness, a token of love, in the Supreme Being gradually and effectively to diminish the duration of human life. The limits within which, since the days of David, it has been circumscribed afford abundant room for the final developement of the character. And we have complete assurance that as to every particular connected with those limits, in the case of each individual, every allowance which equity can suggest will be manifested from the throne of Judgement. The Judge of all the earth will do right.
Labour, and disappointments, and sorrows, are the lot of man. Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards. Are these appointments inconsistent with Divine Love ? No. What could be more injurious to an unholy being than idleness; than continual leisure for temptation and unrighteous pursuits ? Look to experience. Look to the idle. Are they the excellent of the earth ? Are they the most virtuous portion of 1 Eccles. viiL 11. the community ? Are they the men who are the most beneficial to their neighbourhood and to their country ? Are they the men distinguished for denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, and living soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world ? Then, with respect to disappointments and sorrows. Consider their object. Their tendency is constantly to press upon our remembrance that we are sinners placed under a merciful dispensation of trial; to teach us that our present abode is not our home ; to lead us to set our affections on things above; to strive through the grace offered to us for an inheritance in eternal blessedness. Before I was afflicted / went astray : but now have I kept thy word. It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the home of feasting, for that is the end of all men: and the living will lay it to heart. By the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. Thou shalt also consider in thine heart that as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee. Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God to walk in His ways and to fear Him. Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth ; and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. As many as I love I rebuke and chasten : be zealous therefore and repent. l In the case of all true servants of Christ, the declaration of the Apostle concerning the persecuted Christians in his days shall be verified. Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory ; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, For the things which are seen are temporal: but the things which are not seen are eternal.* Should any person, objecting to the preceding statement, contend that the aggregate amount of disappointments and troubles in human life is greater than is necessary for the accomplishment of the purposes alleged; due consideration of the two following circumstances may reasonably suffice to alter his opinion. First, a very large prc*- portion of that amount is produced, not by the arrangements of Providence, but wholly by the wilful proceedings of men: by their determined indulgence of evil and malignant passions, of envy, [1] Psalms 119:67. Revelation 3:19. Ecclesiastes 7:2-3. Deuteronomy 8:5. Hebrews 12:6.
[2] 2 Corinthians 4:17-18. and ambition, and pride, and covetousness, and deceit, and sensuality, and of every form of worldliness and selfishness. The more closely you examine this statement in the details, by which your reflection will show that it might be illustrated, the more clearly will you be satisfied as to its truth. Thus of persons labouring under habitually bad health before old age has brought forward its infirmities, what numbers owe their ailments not to constitutional weakness, but to intemperance or other misconduct ! Of individuals and families reduced to poverty, on how many has the distress been inflicted by extravagance on their own part, or by evil proceedings of others towards them ! Of the secret anxieties and cares which corrode the bosoms of multitudes, how great is the proportion which arises from the consciousness of sinful practices formerly indulged or still continued ; or from the apprehension of injury from unprincipled conduct experienced or dreaded from other men ! Then look to the varied miseries attendant on war ; miseries extending far and wide over both the contending parties, — over the party on whose side the hostility is that of aggression, over the other party who are compelled to resort to arms in order to repel aggression. Charge not an atom of any of these classes of suffering upon Providence. Secondly, The amount of which complaint is made is practically shown by the records of history, and by the existing state of the world, not to have been, nor at present to be, such as to prevent the rapid extension of population, the continual progress in each branch of art and science conducive to the private and the public accommodation and welfare of mankind, and to the universal improvement of human society ; nor to hinder, as is most deeply to be deplored, the general prevalence of irreligion and wickedness. The measure of labour and affliction appointed by Providence to man is a distinct manifestation of love on the part of God. And this character is the more strongly stamped upon tribulation by the unexpected and seemingly improbable deliverances which He frequently vouchsafes to the distressed, even to the flagrantly unrighteous ; and by the inward consolations with which He cheers and sustains His true servants under their sorrows, — the peace of God which passeth all understanding the peace which the world neither can give, nor can take away. An accession to the proofs of Divine Love still exercised towards man is derivable from the consideration of the intellectual powers and capacities continued to man in his present state. If he were left possessed only of such a measure of mental endowments as would be requisite to meet the current demands and wants of life, and to secure the general enjoyment of reasonable comfort, the attribute of Love would stand clear from grounds of impeachment. How much more powerfully does it vindicate itself, when it points beyond the range of those ordinary wants and enjoyments to the scientific attainments and the pleasures of intellect which are not only within the reach of man, but are largely possessed by him, and to an extent constantly spreading itself on every side, and ’without discernible limitations ! He explores the composition and dives into the hidden properties of material substances. He analyses the chemical constituents of the water which he drinks, the elementary ingredients of the air which he breathes. He draws down the lightning from the clouds. By his optical combinations he brings distance into vicinity. He pushes his researches among worlds removed by hundreds of millions of miles from the globe to which he is fixed. He constrains the planets severally to reveal to him the distances of one from another, from the sun, and from the spot where he is standing; and to disclose with scrupulous accuracy the length of their days and of their years. He computes their bulk, he calculates their weight, he ascertains the form and measures the circumference and the very aberrations of their orbits. He predicts the return of the comet rushing in its trackless career: and with unerring precision announces, fifty years beforehand, to a day and an hour and a minute and a second, the eclipse of an inconsiderable satellite. The continued possession, then, of the intellectual powers and capacities productive of these and similar results, and of the temporal advantages and of the high mental gratifications arising from them, is one among the eminent proofs of Divine Love to man. But to say no more would be to leave this branch of the subject not only imperfect, but devoid of its .most important and most beneficial character- istics. Every one of those results is an additional discovery of the power, the wisdom, and the goodness of the Great Creator and Disposer of all things, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift 1 ; and thus demonstrates itself to be both designed and adapted to lead men to adore, to love, and reverently to fear and obey Him; to train them onward habitually in religious improvement; to conduce to the accomplishment of that momentous purpose for which the state of human probation was graciously appointed, the reconciliation of repentant sinners to God through the Great Redeemer, and their future and eternal establishment in a state of blessedness and glory. Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. 2 [1] James 1:17.
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