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THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS OF OUR TIME.

No. III.

BY GEORGE PARRY.

BUT when it is said that the Sacred Scriptures do not include the teaching of scientific truth, within the scope of their purpose or mission, it may be fairly asked, What worth for man to-day have those cosmogonical and astronomical notices discovered in the Sacred Volume, if we disclaim for them any scientific value? If the Mosaic account of the creation was not intended to contain in its letter a history of that work, what was it meant to teach,—has it a purpose or none? It may still be asked of us to show the precise meaning and present spiritual worth of all that large portion of the Scriptures which seems to deal with events, circumstances, laws, and rites which have so little relation to the social or spiritual condition of our own time. And it may be truly said that it is not sufficient to shew by external evidence that these Scriptures were written by men under inspiration. Who wrote the Scriptural Books,-when, where, and under what circumstances, are not the most important elements in a decision as to their character. The truth they utter is more important than all these. And if the Scriptures are to authenticate their claim to a Divine origin, they can only do so by the divinity of the wisdom they contain. To make the Word finite, is to make it human, and only on the basis of its infinitude can the divinity of its origin be established. The biblical critic may demonstrate, if he can, that the Pentateuch, the Historical Books, the Psalms, the Prophecies, and the Gospels were written by the persons to whom they are ascribed, and that there is no discrepancy in them of time, place, or circumstance. Still the question remains, What do they teach? It is not enough to say that here and there, in the letter of the Inspired Books, the surpassing glory of the truths enunciated gives evidence of a present God: it is needful to shew that the glory is everywhere-that, if its effulgence does not break forth on the surface, it is still there, though hidden by the literal cloud, without being destroyed or diminished.

We do not, indeed, propose to enter fully into the large argument which these questions open. Our purpose here is, chiefly, to state the conditions of that most important religious problem of our time, the character of the Sacred Scriptures, and the right method of interpreting their teaching; and to indicate, rather than develope, the required solution.

It has been said that any effort to demonstrate the divinity of the Sacred Scriptures by external evidence must end in failure. For it

begins with the assumption that the words, unlike the works of God, disclose their whole wisdom and beauty on the surface. It is a tacit admission that spirit and life are wanting to the Divine Records. Not recognizing the great principle that the spirit often subordinates the letter wholly to itself, and makes the body of the Word such as the soul of it needs for complete expression, theologians have tasked their ingenuity to the utmost, in the effort to claim scientific accuracy for that which was never intended to be scientifically accurate, and historical truth and consistency for that which has no historical character. That defeat has always followed these efforts of the well-meaning but injudicious supporters of the infallibility of the Scriptures we know, and that a similar result will still follow a like procedure we cannot doubt. The question must be boldly faced, What must be the character of that book which reveals not a finite, but an Infinite Intelligence,—not a finite, but an Infinite Love? That the depth of any finite revelation of human will and intellect is measured exactly by that of the character which has expressed itself in writing, must be admitted. And there is no escape from the conclusion that when God speaks, wisdom less than infinite can have no place in those records that declare Him to His creatures.

The power of that Word to teach, indeed, can be limited only by our power to comprehend; and our progress in intelligence, in time or in eternity, must still find it infinitely in advance of our highest attainment. For He from whom it proceeds is infinite in love and wisdom. His love extends its influence over the spiritual and material universe, in the effort to give of its own to others, to be conjoined with others, and to make them eternally happy. His wisdom is the omnipotent instrument and adequate expression of His love. Wisdom converts the desires and intentions of love into solid facts and uses. Creation, redemption, salvation, are the results of its operation. To that wisdom there is no past, no future; all things are present to its view. Creation in its beginning, progress, and results, stretching over the countless ages of a boundless futurity, was present from eternity to that Omniscience which receives no additions from the lapse of centuries. The Incarnation of Deity, the Glorification of the Assumed Humanity, the Redemption of Man, and the causes, process, and consequences of these events, were always present to the wisdom of God. Mankind as it was, as it is, and as it shall be to eternity, universally and individually, in heaven, on earth, or in hell, was known from the beginning to that Infinite Wisdom. All the faculties and capabilities of our nature; the affections of the heart, and the thoughts of the understanding; the motives that prompt and the wisdom that guides, in the lives of the

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good; the passions that dominate and the fallacies that mislead the wicked; and all these, as well in their minutest differences as in their general forms, were open and plain to that Infinite Wisdom. That unsleeping Providence which governs the vast operations of the universe, and yet tends with infinite love and care the weakest of His creatures; which preserves the order and happiness of heaven, governs all mundane affairs, and controls the violence and mitigates the misery of hell; and which, in all its permissions and appointments, regards the infinite and eternal, is still the operation of that Infinite Wisdom. Thus, the Wisdom of God contains all things of creation,-redemption and providence, salvation and heaven. It foresees all that relates to the nature, the wants, and the progress of humanity in the individual and the race, and, while it controls those principles that produce evil and misery, here and hereafter, it provides for the indefinite advancement of humanity in goodness and in wisdom.

And this wisdom must be contained, open or hidden, in those Scriptures which express God to man. Nothing can be absent from that Word which enters into the Divine Wisdom and Omniscience. In that Divine revelation we must find the prævision of evil and error, with the provision of the truth that may remove them. To the Word, as to its Author, there can be no past, no future. It must be equal to all the exigencies of humanity, through every stage of progress. It must be the pledge of unending advancement, for it declares the Infinite which may be ever approached but never attained. In short, it must be to us, God expressed. For, "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

And through breaks in the clouds that cover the glory of the Word, we get glimpses, here and there, of the sunshine that brightens and warms its inner heaven. The letter itself in many parts declares, by the divine majesty of its utterances, that God is speaking. The golden masses of wisdom that shine upon its surface, make all other books seem light and poor. And, though the spirit of the Word had remained unknown to us, these open lessons could establish heaven in our hearts, and make us angels there. But when we read those portions of the Inspired Books which appear to have no other purpose than to record events which either have never happened as recorded, or modern science is largely a mistake; when we peruse that minute detail of rite and ceremony which appears to relate, if at all, very remotely to the life of to-day; when we read those histories which appear, in a large part, as completely of the past as the peoples to whom they refer; when we are met in the letter by contradictions and discrepancies, the

explanation of which is impossible to us; then, indeed, if we would still retain our reverence for the whole of the Inspired Books as divine, must we ask for the lost link that unites these parts of the Word also to its spirit and life, and makes them too the continents and exponents of a divine wisdom. Accepting the Plenarily Inspired Word as everywhere divine, and equally divine, who shall quicken our eyes to see through these dense clouds to the bright light beyond them? How shall we read the hieroglyphs of the letter, that so everywhere we may see the divine lessons they teach ?

Already the books are open, to all those who are devoutly earnest in their desire to investigate these problems, which will afford the answer. Swedenborg, in the large logic of his writings, unfolds that Law of Correspondence which helps us to cross the gulf that has separated the spiritual and material worlds, and to pass from the letter to the spirit of the Word. He shews us how the love and wisdom of God formed for themselves a basis in the ultimate forms of human language, and how the law that governs the descent of wisdom from God to man, becomes the means of ascent from the literal effect to its spiritual cause. To him, indeed, was accorded the great mission of restoring to humanity the lost links between the sensual and supersensual-the letter and the spirit. True it is that he cannot, nor does he, claim the merit of a discoverer. He alone who gave the Word, and whose wisdom formed its letter into a fitting vesture for its spirit could give the link that unites both together. But while it needs to be plainly said that the Law of Correspondence could only be revealed from heaven, it must not, therefore, be concluded that a dogmatic claim is made for an implicit acceptance of it because it has been so revealed. That principle which discloses to us the relation between the body and spirit of the Word comes to us, not, indeed, as the discovery of any human intellect, but still finds in nature, revelation, and human reason, a united confirmation of its truth and uniform consistency. A true theory in physics co-ordinates numerous facts and phenomena that seemed to stand unrelated and apart, and finds in nature a thousand confirmations, until it ceases to be a theory doubtingly asserted, and takes rank as a principle universally accepted. And though we may refuse to accept the Law of Correspondence on the authority of him who affirms himself to be the messenger appointed to declare it, we cannot refuse to accept it as a sound theory, if it is found to explain with uniform consistency those relations existing between the spirit and form of Creation and Revelation to which it applies. Nor is it set forth, in those writings to which we have referred, as a dogma to be

accepted simply on the authority of its teacher. Gifted though he was with special illumination, and possessing means and opportunities of knowledge to which no other man has been admitted, he appeals always to the rational mind of his reader; not, indeed, with smart reasoning, that can pack itself neatly into pretty syllogisms, but with a grand logic that seems to regard in every deduction the whole circle of spiritual and mundane science. Hence the law which he has developed is no fine-spun theory of an ingenious mind, helping us, indeed, to a certain fanciful interpretation of the Sacred Volume, but having no place among those great principles which make the worlds of spirit and matter intelligible to us. On the contrary, it is to the relations existing between the spiritual and material universe and the spirit and the letter of the Word what the Copernican system and the Newtonian theory are to the solar system. As the latter made plain the order of the heavenly bodies, the laws of their motion, and the conditions of their permanence, so the former enables us to see how the spiritual reproduces itself on a lower platform in the material, how the spirit of the Word bases itself upon the letter, and how we may ascend in each case from the ultimate form to the spiritual cause that produced and lies within it. As the theories of the physical philosophers gave unity and simplicity to the apparently complex arrangements of our system, and the erratic movements of its constituents, so does the Law of Correspondence help us to see the universe as one, descending by successive degrees from its First Cause to its last effect, and everywhere bound together by the same grand but simple principle. While, then, it is a law that, lost to mankind in its long descent through the ages from the height of its primeval innocence, needed to be revealed anew from heaven, it yet finds everywhere in man and nature its proofs and illustrations.

In these days of much building and planting, of eating and drinking, and running in hot haste to and fro upon the earth, we forget, too often, in the presence of great material achievements, that spirit is the master of the world. But are not will and thought waging a constant and successful war against the crass and rugged materials of this mundane sphere, and forcing them to accept that shape which is correspondent to the soul that moulds and forms them? Will tolerates no interval between conception and achievement; and the mightiest forces in nature, held by iron fetters to continuous labour, are but the images of its energetic movement to its purpose. As the fertile land, adorned in the green and gold of meadow and of cornfield, lies stretched before the worker whose strong will, acting through strong arms, has redeemed it from the forest of centuries, he may not know that the love of order, use,

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