DISCOURSE X.

PATERNITY OF GOD.

TAKE HEED THAT YE DESPISE NOT ONE OF THESE LITTLE ONES; FOR I SAY UNTO YOU, THAT IN HEAVEN THEIR ANGELS DO ALWAYS BEHOLD THE FACE OF MY FATHER WHICH IS IN HEAVEN. FOR THE SON OF MAN IS COME TO SAVE THAT WHICH WAS LOST. HOW THINK YE? IF A MAN HAVE A HUNDRED SHEEP, AND ONE OF THEM BE GONE ASTRAY, DOTH HE NOT LEAVE THE NINETY AND NINE, AND GOETH INTO THE MOUNTAINS, AND SEEKETH THAT WHICH IS GONE ASTRAY? AND IF SO BE THAT HE FIND IT, VERILY I SAY UNTO YOU, HE REJOICETH MORE OVER THAT SHEEP, THAN OF THE NINETY AND NINE WHICH WENT NOT ASTRAY. EVEN SO, IT IS NOT THE WILL OF YOUR FATHER WHICH IS IN HEAVEN THAT ONE OF THESE LITTLE ONES SHOULD PERISH. Matthew xviii. 10-14.

NEXT to the personality of God, in importance and moral power, among the doctrines taught or recognized by Christ, is the paternity of God, that God is a Father. No words can measure the importance of this doctrine to Christianity, either in modifying our conceptions of the Divine character, or commanding our affections and obedience. The most exalting and consoling truths are comprehended and implied in this single appellation.

It implies the correlative truth, that we are the

children of God, not alone his creatures, for whose physical wants he provides, but his children, for whose moral welfare he is above all things solicitous. This is a point upon which the human heart desires especially to be assured. God's physical providence is demonstrable, plain, and undeniable. Man, as an animal, is plainly under God's immediate care. Life itself is sustained and prolonged by his immediate agency. The fertility of the earth produces to man his daily food, the sun gives him light by day, and the silence and darkness of the night give him a season of repose. But this physical care man shares with the beasts that perish.

The animals have only one species of good and evil, and that is a merely physical pleasure or discomfort. That they are generally in a condition of tranquillity and enjoyment, by the providence of God, is one of the strongest evidences of the Divine goodness.

But to man, there is good and evil of a higher description. Superadded to an animal organization, instincts, and propensities, he has a moral nature. To him there is a wrong and a right, an honorable and a dishonorable, a truth and a falsehood, a sense of dignity, satisfaction, and desert, when he has done right, and of humiliation, pain, and guilt, when he has done wrong. This, of course, puts within the power of man the attainment of a higher species and degree of happiness than the lower animals, but at the same time subjects him to the danger of plunging into a deeper woe.

These higher endowments ought to result in the attainment of higher happiness. But they do not

always arrive at this consummation. They sometimes lead to a depth of misery which casts all animal suffering into the shade. In all cases, the high endowments of man are the cause of more or less suffering. If it be true that God is the Father of mankind, and is possessed at the same time of omniscience and omnipotence, why should the possession of a rational, a moral, and a voluntary nature be the cause of suffering at all? If they are necessarily the cause of suffering, why are they conferred

on man?

God, as a Father, is bound to consult the highest moral good of his children. That human father is thought to be wanting in the highest manifestation of parental affection, who suffers his child to fall into one sin which he can prevent, or fail to acquire a single virtue which he can give him the means of attaining. But what is the fact? To the imperfect vision of man, the moral world seems to be in the greatest disorder. The moral welfare of each individual does not seem to be cared for in the highest possible manner. No inconsiderable part of the human race are seen to pass through life under conditions most unfavorable to moral development and perfection, — in barbarism, in slavery, in ignorance, or in the very worst associations. Can the paternal character of God be vindicated in so arranging the world, that any portion of his children should be exposed to moral trials so dangerous, and so often fatal, to their happiness?

Or some might be disposed to go farther back, and inquire, Why should human nature have been constituted as it is? Why should the passions and

appetites have been made so strong, and reason and conscience so weak? Why should the career of humanity commence with infantile weakness and ignorance, and wisdom and virtue be the purchase of perilous experiment, of pain, regret, and remorse? Indeed, so dark is the moral condition of the world, so ineffectual the discipline which God has adopted for the production of holiness and happiness, that various apologies have been thought necessary, in order to explain the present state of things in consistency with the paternal character of God.

One of them is, that the world is in a state of ruin. Human nature is not now in the condition in which God created it, but in a state greatly deteriorated. By the sin of our first parents, the balance of human nature, equal before, between good and evil, received a fatal bias to evil, irresistible except by divine interposition. But this explanation does not at all relieve the character of God. It even casts a worse imputation on him than to leave things entirely without explanation. No such powers of ruining the constitution of human nature could have been possessed by the first pair, except by divine appointment. If the moral constitution of the posterity of Adam is determined by his act, then they are deprived of a fair moral probation, a deprivation arising not from the difficulties of their outward circumstances, or the nature of free agency, but from the ruin and disorganization of their moral constitution.

No worse imputation could rest on the character of God, and, if this be true, it must be given up as wholly indefensible. God is not a Father, if he makes such arrangements as to suffer his children to

be ruined for ever by an agency over which they have not the slightest control. That human father would be deemed a monster, who should be guilty of such conduct towards his children.

Another explanation is, that all mankind have pre-existed, and in a state of pre-existence have fallen from their original integrity, and are now consequently in a penal state, suffering the just consequences of previous misconduct. This, however, does not remove the difficulty. It only carries it farther back. If all mankind are now in a penal state, all must have sinned, and the experiment of free agency was just as much a failure there as here. Besides, all our ideas of justice demand that he who is punished should know that he has offended, and that he is suffering an appropriate punishment for his transgression. But we have no consciousness of having sinned in a previous state of existence, and, of course, what we suffer can never seem to us to be a just punishment, or a punishment at all. It must seem to us, if we do not understand the grounds of it, as an arbitrary, unjust infliction.

But there are two species of penal evils, which are represented as being inflicted on mankind here; first, pain and sorrow, and, in the second place, moral incapacity, an overpowering bias towards evil, a disinclination and an inability to good, naturally invincible. The integrity of God, and the equity of his government, demand that human consciousness should be conformed to things as they are, and should truly report the conditions of our moral action. We are conscious of possessing a just balance of moral constitution. Our consciousness is the only means