GENTLEMEN:--

      In testimony not merely of my sense of the honor you have done me in unanimously electing me an honorary member of your institution, nor of the high regard which I entertain for such of your association as I have the pleasure personally to know, but rather in proof of the high estimate I have formed of the great and useful objects of your lyceum, do I at this time appear before you. On every other account, I should certainly at this time have declined a task for which I am so ill qualified. Fatigued as I am with the labors of a six months' tour, only closed this forenoon in this city, and not having had an hour to arrange my thoughts on any subject since I received from your committee an invitation to address you, I should, in justice to myself, as well as to the expectations expressed by the large assemblage before me, have deferred this address to a more convenient and propitious. season. But, as in the routine of the reigning manners and customs of society we sometimes make visits of friendship as well as fashionable visits, I prefer to appear before you in the guise of the former rather than in the disguise of the latter. In the one case, dress and display are supreme; in the other, the frank and unadorned congratulations and communications of friendship and of the social feelings have the ascendency. Without the corsets and trappings of a set speech and a fashionable address; I propose, then, gentlemen, to offer you a few practical remarks connected with the great object of your association--viz. "Mental and Moral Improvement."

      Among the useful institutions of this age of improvement, I think the village and city lyceums occupy a very prominent and a very large space. When well conducted and in reference to the object you propose, they offer, in my judgment, at least half the advantages of a collegiate course of instruction. Aided by a good library and [142] governed by the decorum of a polite and rational administration, young men especially may derive from them many and great advantages, not only in compensation of the want of a liberal education, but even in superaddition to all the benefits usually derived from it.

      Well, then, gentlemen, as you have very wisely organized with a, true regard to your mental and moral advancement, permit me to invite your attention to a subject of transcendent importance, involving in it the genuine radices of all intellectual and moral superiority. That subject is the nature and use of supernatural facts. This, as you have no doubt frequently observed, is an age of facts against hypotheses, and of the inductive process of inferring the laws of things from facts observed and classified; and, therefore, all that is now dignified with the name of science is the knowledge of facts and of the inferences logically drawn from them. As there is but one great truth in the universe, and all truths are but fractional parts of that sublime and incomprehensible truth; so there is, indeed, but one science, of which all the varieties of human knowledge are but so many component parts. There is neither an isolated fact nor science in this great universe. They run into each other, and mutually lend or borrow light, illustration or proof from one another.

      The classification of science most convenient and philosophical is that which arranges human knowledge according to the facts of which it treats. Thus, as we have physical, intellectual and moral facts, generically speaking, we can only have physical, mental and moral sciences. The knowledge of things physical, mental and moral is, therefore, the measure and boundary of all our scientific attainments.

      But, besides these facts, which are the basis of all human science, there is another class of facts, mysterious and sublime beyond comparison, which, for the want of a more distinctive name, we have called supernatural facts. These, as have been stated, constitute the theme of our present address.

      How, then, shall we define this word supernatural? You say, gentlemen, "It literally means above nature." But still the wonder grows, and we are asked, "What is nature?" The answer commonly given is, "The usual course," or, "The established order of things." Supernatural, then, would indicate something above the reach or power of the established connection of things. The established order of things is not to be trenched upon, nor violated, nor even suspended, by any one who is himself a subject of those laws. Hence, none but the Author of nature, or a being not a subject of the laws of nature, can either suspend or control any of her laws or arrangements. [143] Supernatural facts are, then, facts superior to the powers of nature--facts above the established order of things, and which can only be performed by a hand that can control, suspend or annihilate the laws of nature. All facts, therefore, that are clearly not the effect of any law of nature, but contrary or superior to those laws, we call supernatural; such as a person's walking in the midst of a burning fiery furnace without the slightest injury, or upon the tops of the waves of a tempestuous sea as upon a rock, or curing natural diseases or raising to life a dead person by speaking a word.

      I need not tell you, gentlemen, that the reality of such facts is denied, and that, too, by some of our shrewd and speculative philosophers; nay, further, there are some who teach that if such facts did happen, no sort of evidence could sustain them, because it is more probable and more credible that the witnesses are mistaken than that the event or fact reported should have occurred. With a few there is no power above nature--nature is omnipotent, self-existent and eternal. These are not to be reasoned with; and, therefore, they are not at present within our jurisdiction. We now reason with those who contemplate nature not as a first cause--"a cause uncaused"--but as an effect of one intelligent and almighty agent.

      Next to Newton, La Place ranks in the philosophy of nature. He is decidedly skeptical. He denies supernatural facts altogether. So does David Hume. These are the two greatest names on the list of skeptics. Their philosophy is standard and canonical in all the high schools of infidelity. If, then, we can show their philosophy to be at fault, false and chimerical, foolish and absurd, on this subject, we shall, I trust, be excused from wrestling with inferior spirits--mere freshmen in their school. On this occasion, then, we shall contend with none but these two great masters of the hosts of skepticism. I have to prove the existence of supernatural facts; and my first task shall be to show that the skeptical philosophy is based on a false hypothesis, and, consequently, a gross and even a palpable delusion.

      We shall first hear La Place state his own argument against revelation:--"The probability of the continuance of the laws of nature is, in our estimation, superior to every other evidence, and to that of historical facts the best established. One may judge, therefore, the weight of testimony necessary to prove a suspension of those laws, and how fallacious it is in such cases to apply the common rules of evidence."

      Now, the strength and point of this philosophy is, that the probability that the laws of nature have always continued and shall continue [144] as they are, is superior to the evidence of sense, the evidence of testimony, and every other evidence by which we prove any fact whatever. If, then, we had walked through the channel of the Red Sea after Moses, or had seen the rock Horeb turned into a fountain of water at the bidding of the prophet; if we had seen the three sons of the captivity walking in the midst of the fiery furnace, breathing in flame; or Lazarus rising out of his grave, on the fourth day, at the command of the Christian Lawgiver; we should rather believe that our eyes and ears and senses had deceived us, than doubt the probability that the laws of nature continued in these cases to operate as they had always done. Is there not, then, but one short step between the assumption of La Place and absolute and universal skepticism of even the laws of nature themselves? For, let me ask even the sons of skepticism, On what sort of evidence does our assent to this "probability" rest? or, rather, By what sort of evidence do we learn the laws of nature? Is it not by the testimony of our senses? If, then, I believe my senses while they at one time attest the regularity of the laws of nature, why should I disbelieve them when, in a particular case or in a number of cases, they depose that the laws of nature are suspended, violated or changed? Why should the senses in this arbitrary way be metamorphosed into true or false witnesses to suit the emergency of a philosopher? Now, we--who believe in supernatural facts, or facts above the regular continuance of the laws of nature, and which those laws can by no possibility achieve--admit the testimony of our senses as true and faithful in both cases. Judge, then, gentlemen, which of the two schemes is most rational and consistent--that which uniformly credits the senses as faithful witnesses, or that which, according to the emergency of the case, whimsically and arbitrarily makes them true or false witnesses at the demand of a favorite theory. And is it not evident that he who discredits the testimony of the senses in any case, in which they unequivocally and concurrently depose a fact, natural or supernatural, aims a fatal blow at the foundation of all certainty, natural and moral--at the foundation of all science, material and mental?

      But, to come to still closer quarters with this great sage of nature's laws, let me ask, Whence the evidence of the probability of the continuance of these laws of nature? Is not the skepticism of the philosopher in supernatural facts clearly based upon a most fallacious hypothesis? Who has proved the uninterrupted continuance or the much boasted uniformity of the laws of the universe? It is a baseless assumption, and obviously contrary to the evidence of both sense and reason, especially when they are permitted to extend [145] their researches through all the fields of human science, limited though they be.

      If nature's laws are uniform and permanent without the intervention of a supernatural agency; if all things continue as they were from eternity--all science is hypothetical--astronomy and geology, with all the physical sciences, are without facts and without reason. But they are not; therefore we have all the physical facts against the hypothesis of the skeptic, and in proof of facts supernatural. Let us, then, hear what the sciences already named depose against the skeptical hypothesis. What saith Geology? Does she prove that all things continue as they were? Does she testify to the uninterrupted continuance of the laws of nature?

      We shall first hear the testimony of Mr. Lyell, the President of the British Geological Society, in his anniversary address to the society for 1837:--¹

      "All geologists will agree with Dr. Buckland, that the most perfect unity of plan can be traced in the fossil world, the modifications which it has undergone, and that we can carry back our researches distinctly to times antecedent to the existence of man. We can prove that man had a beginning, and that all the species now contemporary with man, and many others which preceded, had also a beginning; consequently, the present state of the organic world has not gone on from all eternity, as some philosophers have maintained."

      To this I may add the testimony of Dr. Buckland himself, author of the Bridgewater Treatise on this most interesting science. His words are, "All observers" of the mechanism of the earth "admit that the strata" of which it is composed " were formed beneath the waters, and have been subsequently converted into dry land." (p. 44.)

      To these two distinguished witnesses we shall add the testimony of a still more deservedly renowned name--one of the three greatest men of the present century that have flourished in the French metropolis, and near the court of that great nation. I allude to Cuvier, and his distinguished friends M. M. Cousin and Guizot. These three deserve the admiration and the gratitude of that nation and all lovers of religion and, science. Gentlemen, let me recommend to you the late work of M. Guizot on the Progress of European Civilization. I have read it with pleasure and profit. It traces, with the hand of a master the agencies and elements that have conspired in the present civilization [146] of the world. While I would not endorse every sentiment in the works of these great masters in philosophy and science, I cannot but regard them and their works as a blessing to that volatile, vivacious but great and distinguished nation. They have greatly contributed to redeem France from the theoretic atheism of the Voltaire and Volney school, and to convert its seminaries to a theism not only tending to good morals and good government, but to emancipate the people from the superstition and follies of the Papacy, and to propitiate their ears to the religion of the Bible. And, ladies, permit me to say for your consolation and encouragement that all the piety of these great authors, and the good tendency of their numerous and elegant productions, are to be traced to the religious affections and pious trainings of the mother of one of them, Madame Cuvier, at whose house the other two, when lads, were accustomed to visit in the days of their juvenile amusements. She was accustomed to take every occasion to imbue their minds with a deep and abiding sense of the being and perfections of God as displayed in all his works and in his word--and to lead them "to look through nature up to nature's God."

      From this digression let us turn to the testimony of Cuvier in his most splendid System of Geology:--

      "The lowest and most level parts of the earth exhibit nothing, even when penetrated to a very great depth, but horizontal strata or layers composed of substances more or less varied, and containing almost all of them innumerable marine productions. Similar strata, with the same kind of productions, compose the lesser hills to a considerable height. Sometimes the shells are so numerous as to constitute of themselves the entire mass of the rock; they rise to elevations superior to every part of the ocean, and are found in places where no sea could have carried them at the present day, under any circumstances; they are not only enveloped in loose sand, but are often enclosed in the hardest rocks. Every part of the earth, every hemisphere, every continent, every island of any extent, exhibits the same phenomenon. It is the sea which has left them in the places where they are now found. But this sea has remained for a certain period in those places; it has covered them long enough and with sufficient tranquillity to form those deposits, so regular, so thick, so extensive, and partly so solid, which contain those remains of aquatic animals. The basin of the sea has therefore undergone one change at least, either in extent or in situation: such is the result of the very first search and of the most superficial examination."

      "The traces of revolutions become still more apparent and decisive [147] when we ascend a little higher, and approach nearer to the foot of the great chains. There are still found many beds of shells; some of these are even thicker and more solid; the shells are quite as numerous and as well preserved, but they are no longer of the same species. The strata which contain them are not so generally horizontal; they assume an oblique position, and are sometimes almost vertical. While in the plains and low hills it was necessary to dig deep in order to discover the succession of the beds, we here discovered it at once by their exposed edges, as we followed the valleys that have been produced by their disjunction."

      "These inclined strata, which form the ridges of the secondary mountains, do not rest upon the horizontal strata of the hills which are situate at their base, and which form the first steps in approaching them; but, on the contrary, dip under them, while the hills in question rest upon their declivities. When we dig through the horizontal strata in the vicinity of mountains whose strata are inclined, we find these inclined strata reappearing below; and even, sometimes, when the inclined strata are not too elevated, their summit is crowned by horizontal ones. The inclined strata are therefore older than the horizontal strata; and as they must necessarily, at least the greatest number of them, have been formed in a horizontal position, it is evident that they have been raised, and that this change in their direction has been effected before the others were superimposed upon them."

      "Thus the sea, previous to the disposition of the horizontal strata, had formed others, which, by the operation of problematical causes, were broken, raised and overturned in a thousand ways; and as several of these inclined strata which it had formed at more remote periods rise higher than the horizontal strata which have succeeded them and which surround them, the causes by which the inclination of these beds was effected had also made them project above the level of the sea, and formed islands of them, or at least shoals and inequalities; and this must have happened whether they had been raised by one extremity or whether the depression of the opposite extremity had made the waters subside. Thus is the second result not less clear nor less satisfactorily demonstrated than the first, to every one who will take the trouble of examining the monuments on which it is established."--Cuvier's Theory of the Earth, vol. v. pp. 8-10.

      May we not now ask, How can these plain, sensible and incontrovertible facts of geology, stereotyped in rocks and mountains, clearly legible to the eye of science, be reconciled with the hypothesis of the skeptic--that "the probability of the continuance of the laws of nature [148] is superior to every other evidence"--when, in fact, we find no evidence of the continuance of the said laws of nature for any great length of time; but rather the tokens of a series of supernatural facts, answering to the series of creative acts recorded by Moses? He says, "The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God separated the waters, and the dry land appeared." Peter says, when speaking of our present scoffers, that this wilfully escapes those who say that "all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation:"--"This wilfully escapes them, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water; by which water the old earth perished," &c. Geology is proving this by tables of rock, by stratas of earths, by the indurated remains of progressive creations, showing that at least six grand generic fiats originated and ordered the dominions of nature so far as pertains to our terraqueous inheritance. There is no bribing of these fossil witnesses--no counterfeiting of these imprinted rocks--these tables engraven by the finger of God; a portion of which, exclusively a petrifaction of sea-shells, I picked up the other day in this county of Mason; and if I were permitted to conclude from the pavements of your streets and the excavations from the bottoms of your wells, I would say that you, gentlemen and ladies, live and move and have your being on an immense bed of sea-shells deposited ages since by the movements of a shoreless ocean, now converted into limestone;² whose upper surface, by the action of atmospheric agents, has mouldered down to dust; and from which, mingled with vegetable deposits, the beautiful frames around me have, by another marvellous process; been reared and animated by the omnipotent hand of the Creator. Yes, gentlemen, I read on the deeply imprinted volumes of God's earth, in your own city and county, the refutation of the theory of La Place, and all of that school, who affirm that all things have continued in one uniform system of nature from some dateless eternity, alike unknown to reason and record.

      From the geological premises now before us, and I believe they are the most scientifically orthodox, though as nothing compared with the masses of documents and stratas of evidence within our reach; still, from these premises the following conclusions are inevitable:--

      1. The present earth was formed under water. Geology, and the Bible, Moses and Peter agree in this testimony. This truth is most [149] prolific of facts subversive of the skeptical philosophy. For, in the second place, the vegetable and animal structures and creations requiring atmosphere, did not, could not possibly, exist from the beginning. Therefore a new class of supernatural facts, or a new series of supernatural operations, must have succeeded the first system of nature, before the fiat which separated the waters above and under the firmament, and which caused the dry land and the pure air to appear.

      2d. The creation, then, of all the vegetable genera and species, each of which is a special operation, a new suspension, violation or deviation of the then laws of nature, next ensued, and became a distinct category of supernatural facts--a new system of nature.

      3d. Then, when the vegetable dominions were finished, the earth clothed and filled with provisions for animal creations, a new series of supernatural interpositions was required to fill the air, the sea and the earth with inhabitants, requiring vegetable productions mediately or immediately for their subsistence. This occasioned more supernatural facts.

      4th. And even yet the work was not complete; for there was no being of earthly creation that could read, or understand, or enjoy either the Creator or his creation; and this called forth those divine energies that brought man into existence.

      Without further details, you will perceive, gentlemen, how baseless the hypothesis that nature's laws, operations and powers have continued always as they now are. Nothing can be more absurd. Consequently, nothing can be plainer to the candid, unsophisticated mind, than that there is a class of facts as properly styled supernatural, or miraculous, as that there are physical facts for the foundation of physical science. What more evident than that there was one man who was never born--a person that spoke who had never been spoken to by man--an oak that never sprang from an acorn--and trees innumerable that never sprang from seeds? Or, will the skeptic prefer to say that there was a child without a father--speech before persons--eggs before birds--and seeds before trees? On either hypothesis, miracles or supernatural facts are conceded as true and undeniable; and therefore La Place's hypothesis of the uniformity and continuance of the laws of nature falls prostrate to the dust. Dare any philosopher affirm that nature continues to operate as she began? Why, then, does she not annually cast up new genera and species, and begin new races of plants, animals and men? May we not then conclude that the probability of the long continuance of the present system of nature is fairly shown to be a fond hypothesis rather than an ascertained fact? [150]

      But the facts of geology are sustained and illustrated by astronomical observations; so far, indeed, as the conglomeration of our planet, and, I might add, so far as the Mosaic account of the creative processes are implicated.

      The two Herschels, Sir William and Sir John, have greatly enriched astronomical science by their many splendid discoveries and speculations on the construction and architecture of the heavens. By the aid of their immense telescopes, of from ten to forty feet in length, they have ascertained that stars are still forming, and the remote fields of space are filling up with new systems of suns and their satellites. "A shining fluid," rare and cloud-like, or nebulous, in immense masses, sometimes of a pale milky appearance, diffused over millions of miles, and of immense depth, like a curdling liquid, thickens, and, from being without form and void," gradually assumes a globular appearance, thickens down into less dimensions, and finally shines as a star occupying but a speck, a shining point in a region which it once filled with its cloud-like appearance. Stars are counted up to thousands, in different states of perfection, from shapeless masses of nebulæ to sparkling orbs of various magnitudes. They are said to resemble one another in their approaches to perfection, as an infant in its annual progress to manhood resembles a perfect man. "In the first and rudest state," Nichol in his Architecture of the Heavens has said, "the nebulous matter is characterized by great diffusion; the milky light is spread over a large space so equally that scarcely any peculiarity of construction or arrangement can be perceived." The perfectly chaotic modification of this matter on its first appearance, or original form, resembles vapor thinly spread, some spots thicker and more luminous than others. So Moses describes our planet:--"And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the mass; and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."³

      We cannot now detail what astronomers have said on the gradual condensation of these amorphous nebulosities into globular masses, or of the increased brilliancy which follows a change of structure. Suffice it to say, their matter seems gradually to fall under the same laws of gravitation and motion which govern our system; but in the first instance one of their diurnal revolutions may occupy thousands [151] of years, while as they condense into more solid masses, their motion increases, until their days, like those of our planet, from thousands of years are reduced to a few hours. Hundreds of instances given by our greatest astronomers confirm the truth of this statement, and show that the matter of these stars, by this rotatory motion, is separated and gradually solidified into a globe.

      If any one should doubt the power of glasses to bring such objects under our vision, to him we should say that the largest telescopes do penetrate into distances perfectly beyond the limits of even our imaginations. The diameter of the orbit of our earth is about one hundred and ninety millions of miles; and, making it a sort of measuring-rod, it is calculated that our most powerful glasses can descry luminous objects almost four hundred times more remote than Sirius, which is distant from our earth about thirty-six billions of miles.

      It would be foreign to our object to institute a comparison between the discoveries of modern astronomers and the record of Moses concerning the first state of the heavens and the earth, and the gathering together of our globe. I will only say that, as in geology, so in astronomy, the nearer we approach the truth, the more complete is the evidence that no person in the times of Moses could have given such a description of the heavens and the earth, unless guided by the unerring hand of omniscient wisdom.

      We have made this reference to the diffused nebulosities, those chaotic vaporous masses which contain within them the seeds and elements of new suns and systems, and which in process of time are rolled up, condensed and solidified into globes like ours, and fitted up for the production and residence of numerous and greatly-diversified inhabitants, to show that when Moses says the old earth was without form and void, and enveloped in darkness, and that God separated the waters above and below the firmament, and darkness and light, and finally made the dry land appear, he only speaks in accordance with the modern discoveries of the great masters of astronomical science; and for another purpose of greater interest with many--with a reference to the length of the six days, or the much higher antiquity that some geologists assign to our earth, compared with what is understood to be the Mosaic account of this matter. It is alleged that the fossil remains, deposits and formations discovered in this earth argue an antiquity many thousand years beyond the period which Moses assigns to its origin, not yet full six thousand years. But to say that the time from darkness to darkness, or from light to light, called "evening and morning," is necessarily of one length, is as unwarranted from the Bible as [152] it is from analogy, or from the changes which must have happened to the vaporous mass, formless and void, of which this globe was formed. Is there any ball in motion--any wheel in the universe, that performs its first rotatory motion in the same time in which it performs even its second, to say nothing of its motion when under the full influence of all the agencies and impulses which are then in co-operation upon it? This would be a supernatural fact indeed! The earth now revolves upon its axis in twenty-four hours; but that it must have occupied no more time when it was an immense volume of vapor spread over a thousand millions of times its present occupancy of space, and uninfluenced by the same laws that now govern it, would be a preposterous conclusion, a supernatural fact of marvellous import. While, then, the last days of the creation-week may have been no more than twenty-four hours, the first two or three may have been twenty-four thousand years, for any thing which science or the Bible avers on the subject.

      But all this is a free-will offering, uncalled for by the oracles of faith or of reason--by the word of God or the scientific researches in either of the departments of geology or astronomy. When any one argues from the length of time necessary to the formation of all the strata of earths and rocks with which the earth abounds, against its being created in six common days, he resembles a brother skeptic who argues against the fact of the first man's being an adult the first moment he saw the sun, because the formation of the bones and sinews, the muscles, arteries and nerves of an adult requires some twenty-five or thirty years to develop and confirm. To such drivelling philosophers we say, if God by one word could raise up in perfection one man, could he not by one word raise up this earth in all its developments--though now, as in the case of man, many years might be necessary, by the operations of the common laws of nature, to such a wonderful consummation? We conclude, then, that there is nothing in true, philosophy or in true science against supernatural facts, on the ground assumed by La Place, in his false hypothesis concerning the continuance of the laws of nature; but, on the contrary, that both geology and astronomy, when fairly and impartially considered, compel the conclusion that various systems of nature must have preceded the present; and that to the commencement of each a divine or supernatural interposition was absolutely necessary.

      As an astronomer, La Place deposes against himself; for, according to him, "the primitive fluidity of the planets is clearly indicated by the compression of their figure conformably to the laws of the mutual attraction of their molecules; it is moreover demonstrated by the [153] regular diminution of gravity as we proceed from the equator to the poles. The state of primitive fluidity to which we are conducted by astronomical phenomena is also apparent from those which natural history points out."⁴

      As La Place endorsed for David Hume, alleging that he was the first writer who had fairly and correctly propounded the connection between the evidence drawn from universal experience and the evidence of testimony--who had, in one word, declared that miracles are incredible because the laws of nature are inviolable--we need not assign much place to the consideration of his objections to supernatural facts, they being identical with those of the great materialist already examined. Still, as Hume is the real author of that philosophy which makes it equally impossible for God to work a miracle as for man to believe it, he deserves a more formal notice at our hand than we have yet given him. La Place's immutable and eternal continuance of the laws of nature, and Hume's inviolability of those laws, are identical propositions. If, then, the Creator of man desired to communicate with him, either by word or sign, on the assumption of these two mighty infidel chiefs, whose dogmas are the boast of all the French and English skeptics of the present day, he could not do it: for that would be to violate the inviolable laws--that would be to break up their eternal continuance. Revelation is, therefore, impossible to God himself; and the glorious consummation of the philosophy of this school is, that man has more power to reveal himself to man, or even to the animals around him, than God himself. Man, then, is condemned to eternal ignorance of his origin and destiny, and of the will of his Creator, if nature's laws are inviolable, and God cannot suspend them. This, we think, would be absurd enough for even the skeptical philosophers themselves.

      But Mr. Hume could not "believe any testimony that is contrary to universal experience," because it is infinitely more probable that the witnesses are mistaken, than that the laws of nature have been violated. This is the marrow and strength of his essay against miracles, or supernatural facts. This sophistry has been so ably exploded by the justly celebrated Dr. George Campbell, that it would seem a work of supererogation again to notice. it. But as many still rest in the delusion, who do not love truth so well as to listen to the other side of any question, for their sakes I would briefly ask Mr. Hume, if he were present, or any of his friends, How do you come into the possession of that which [154] you call universal experience? By what evidence do you acquire the assurance that the laws of nature are inviolable? Your own observation? Your own senses? A narrow horizon, truly, from which to infer the uniformity and the inviolability of the laws of nature! And is this your boasted philosophy, to infer from the evidence of your own senses, for some half-century exercised on an atom of the universe--not a hand's-breadth of creation--the inviolable character of its laws through infinite space and eternal duration? A mole, a gnat, an insect, may, then, from the image of this great world painted on the retina of its eye, philosophically depose that the universe is self-existent and eternal!

      But, stranger still, do you call your own observations universal experience? Is not universal experience the experience of all men in all places and at all times? And have your five senses given you the assurance of the experience of all persons in all places and at all times? It is absurd. You can know only the experience of one man in one place and at one time. The rest is all memory, or all faith. You believe the experience of all men, and know only your own. Your own experience is knowledge, other men's experience is with you faith. Yes, gentlemen, your own personal experience is all that you know of this great universe; all the rest is mere belief of the testimony of others. And so it comes to pass that Mr. Hume could not believe the testimony of some men, because their testimony was contrary to the testimony of all men!! But had he heard and examined the testimony of all men before he concluded himself in actual possession of universal experience? No, not a millionth part of the testimony of all men: yet on this veriest fraction of universal experience he presumes to erect a house of refuge for all the outlaws of the universe, and calls it the Castle of Universal Experience! Mr. Hume's "splendid, unanswerable and most philosophic argument," as his disciples call it, against supernatural facts, when analysed, is simply this:--"I cannot believe the testimony of some men, because it is contrary to my own experience and to that of a millionth part of all men, whose experience is, in my judgment, universal experience!" And so deposes the Emperor of Siam:--"I cannot believe one word that an Englishman utters, because he says that in England men and cattle walk upon water congealed into ice, which certainly is a glaring falsehood, because contrary to my experience and to that of all the good people of the torrid zone, which is the universal experience of all mankind in all ages and in all places!"

      But if it were allowable further to expose this shameless sophistry, [155] I would yet ask, Why does Mr. Hume believe the testimony of any man on any subject? Because his own experience and that man's exactly tally with one another? Then his own individual experience is the standard of all truth! Who can believe that? Mr. Hume, in his elegant but insidious History of England, shows that he believed ten thousand facts without, or contrary to, his own experience. This, then, was mere credulity, his own philosophy being in the chair. But his vouchers were honest men, veracious and competent witnesses. Andy have we not as honest men--as veracious and competent witnesses of supernatural facts, as they? And if we rely upon the eyes and ears of one class of witnesses, why not upon the eyes and ears of another class, who are even more disinterested and capable than they? men who sealed their testimony of supernatural facts by laying down their lives calmly and deliberately in proof of what they alleged?

      We admit that it requires good, strong and unimpeachable testimony to establish a suspension or violation of the laws of nature. And we admit that the uniformity of the laws of nature must be well established in order to the credibility of a supernatural fact: for were the laws of nature frequently suspended, or were not their uniformity, except by the interposition of the Creator, fully sustained, then the proof of a supernatural fact would be impossible. The Christian philosopher contends strongly for the uniformity and inviolability of the laws of nature, unless the Author of nature interpose, and that on an occasion worthy of such an interference; for with Horace be will say--

      But we are persuaded, from the sciences already named, that occasions have occurred in which the Divinity has interposed; for the tables of nature, as well as the oracles of prophets, have made, it most evident; and if it were expedient for the Creator to interpose on any occasion in reference to the creation of man, reason says, with her ten thousand tongues, more necessary it is that he interpose to save man from ruin, that this creation, this mundane system, might not issue in a perfect abortion! We Christians thank all the philosophers, and amongst them the two master-spirits now before us, for their efforts to establish the uniformity and inviolability of the laws of nature; for we need their arguments to establish ours; but with one of their own school, the eloquent though visionary Rousseau, we will say, "Can God work miracles? that is to say, Can he derogate from the laws which [156] he has established? The question, treated seriously, would be impious, if it were not absurd."

      Having seen that philosophy, from all her treasures and with all her talents, not only inefficiently assails, but even corroborates and illustrates the certainty of supernatural facts; we shall define a miracle with a reference to its utility in religion and morals; for with us miracles or supernatural facts are as necessary to true morals as to true religion. Evidence and authority are demanded alike by conscience and by reason, before we make a perfect surrender of ourselves to the dictates of piety and humanity.

      A MIRACLE, in the Jewish and Christian sense, is a display of supernatural power in attestation of the truth of a message from God. To seal a message, or to attest a messenger, is essential to the credit and acceptance of them. Now, miracles are the seal of a message. "Witness my hand and seal" is the philosophy of the whole matter. "God the Father sealed Jesus;" Moses and Jesus were sealed messengers of God. The former was the minister of law; the latter the minister of grace: "for the law was given by Moses; but the grace and the substance came by Jesus Christ."

      Now, as there are two sorts of supernatural power, there are two sorts of supernatural facts--physical and mental. Miracles, then, may be displays of the one or the other, or of both conjointly, as the nature of the case may demand. The person who controls, violates or suspends any of the laws of physical nature,--curing disease by a word, healing the sick, restoring the maimed, raising the dead, or dispossessing demons, gives evidence that he is sustained by the hand of Omnipotence. He performs physical miracles; he overpowers physical nature. This is what we mean by a display of supernatural physical power.

      He who foretells a future event, depending on no known or ascertainable cause, such as the fortune of a man, a family, a nation, at any given future period, displays a mental power equally supernatural and miraculous. This is a display of supernatural mental power. Physical miracles are, then, primarily addressed to the reason and senses of living witnesses; intellectual miracles to the reason and senses of those who shall hereafter live. One class, it may be said, are primarily designed for contemporaries; the other for posterity.

      Thus we who now live are made equal to those who lived in the times of the apostles in point of assurance of the truth of the Christian religion. They saw some miracles, and believed others; we see some miracles, and believe others. The miracles which they saw, we believe; the miracles that we see, they believed. One half of our supernatural [157] evidences grows weaker, the other half grows stronger, by time. This, with me, is a point of great moment; permit me therefore, gentlemen, to make myself fully understood. The power that infallibly foretells a future event, depending on no laws known to mortals, but upon a thousand contingencies beyond human calculation, is as clearly supernatural as that power which reanimates at a bidding the dust of a dead man. Not, however, the uttering of a prediction, but the accomplishment of it, constitutes the proof of omniscience.

      Now, the longer the interval between the prediction and the event foretold, the clearer the evidence of supernatural knowledge: whereas the longer the interval between a reported miracle, and the more numerous the hands through which it has been transmitted to us, the fainter or more obscure the evidence. Thus, while for the sake of argument it might be admitted that the evidence of the miracles of Moses and of Christ, at the distance of two or four thousand years, is weaker than it was a single century after they occurred; surely it will be conceded that their clear predictions of events two or four thousand years future, is a stronger proof of their inspiration, or divine mission, than tire foretelling of events only fifty or a hundred years distant. Thus, while the evidence of physical miracles daily grows lighter, the evidence of mental miracles or prophecy daily grows heavier. And he that lives to see a prediction fully and clearly accomplished as certainly sees a miracle as he that by his natural eyes saw Lazarus revive and leave the sepulchre at the command of Jesus of Nazareth.

      To illustrate:--Suppose any one should arise amongst us in the character of a divine messenger, having some communication from Heaven of transcendent importance to the human race: it would not be sufficient that he solemnly affirm his mission: he must prove it; he must show the hand and seal of Heaven attached to it. Nothing like omnipotence or divine power so naturally addresses itself to the human understanding through the senses in evidence of inspiration. He performs physical miracles: this satisfies contemporaries, and they report it to posterity. But posterity would like to see as well as to believe a miracle. Well, he is willing that posterity as well as his contemporaries should be blessed. He, therefore, in the presence of many witnesses, at diverse times and places, foretells some future events which shall in the different ages of the world sensibly and intelligibly occur: for example, among other predictions, he foretells that the inhabitants of a certain Spanish island shall, in fifty years from this time, possess this whole continent; that their language, laws, customs and religion [158] shall be everywhere predominant; and that our children, excepting such as migrate to some distant region, shall be extirpated by them. Now, suppose this prediction be made a matter of state record, placed among the archives of the nation and copied and translated into different languages; and, finally, should this event, with all its circumstances, so strange, so unexpected, so contrary to all human probability, actually occur: I ask, would not those who then lived see as great a miracle, having the prediction in their eye, as we who saw the same prophet raise the dead? While, then, we his contemporaries see some miracles and believe others, our posterity believe the miracles that we see, and see the miracles that we believe; and thus the more improbable the events foretold, and the longer the interval, the stronger the assurance of the mission of him that uttered them.

      Such, gentlemen, are the supernatural facts recorded in the Bible, and such their use. And, when the subject is examined with the candor and the care which its infinite importance demands, it will undoubtedly appear to all that we who live in the year of grace 1839 have prophecies accomplishing, miracles occurring before our eyes, which were registered in the records of nations and translated into different languages thousands of years before we were born; and therefore we have as good reason to believe that Jesus is the Saviour of the world as they who witnessed his miracles in Judea.

      Indeed, the Bible is the only book in the world that ever did presume to foretell the fortune of the whole human race. It has, so to speak, one great prophetic meridian-line which surrounds the destinies of our globe; and, when we intelligently bring up any particular place or epoch to that line, upon it we read its fortunes at that hour. But this requires some intelligence in that book and in the history of the world: it requires that both be read and understood--just as it required the Jews to walk with Jesus to the tomb of Lazarus, and to look and listen, to see and believe that miracle. It therefore behooves us to go with the prophets, geographically and chronologically, and to listen and look that we may see and understand the miracles submitted to us. The same candor and attention that could have seen and believed a miracle then, can see and believe a miracle now.

      I can illustrate by only an instance or two these remarks on the second class of miracles--those displays of supernatural intellectual power in attestation of the great proposition. I will select a single specification from each Testament. That from the Old will be found in the writings of Moses--the most ancient of historians--delivered at a time when his own people were standing around him on their way [159] from Egypt to Canaan. In anticipation of their breaking covenant with God; the prophet Moses states (Deut. xxviii. 46-68) certain "curses which should be upon them for a miracle and perpetual wonder." These are among the specifications:--

      1. A far foreign nation, swift as eagles fly, should come from the ends of the earth--a nation of a foreign and to them a barbarous speech, of warlike character, fierce and unrelenting to old or young--and should devour their good land with all its products, and then besiege them in all their cities.

      2 The details of the sieges are then given with a minuteness that ends with the account of a delicate lady eating her own infant secretly in the distress and straitness which should come upon them.

      3. They should afterwards be reduced in number, from immense multitudes to comparatively a very few, and driven from their own land.

      4. Then they were to be scattered among all people from one end of the earth to the other, and should serve them and their gods of wood and stone.

      5. And, while among these nations, they should have no ease, no rest for the sole of their feet, but should be seized with a trembling heart, failing of eyes and sorrow of mind.

      6. Yet they should not be absorbed by those nations; for, as saith the Lord by Jeremiah, "they should never, while sun, moon and star existed, cease from being a nation before him." Jer. xxxi. 35, 36.

      These are but a few--not a hundredth part--of the clear, literal, unfigurative predictions of that miraculous people: a standing miracle, indeed, they have ever been, from the supernatural birth of Isaac to the present hour; which go to prove that Moses and their prophets spoke by a divine and supernatural wisdom and intelligence. Now, as they who lived in the times of the siege of Jerusalem saw the verification of so much of the prediction as pertained to that epoch, so we who now live see another portion of it literally accomplishing: we see the Jews in our own land preserved a separate and distinct people--not yet amalgamated and absorbed by any nation on earth, though dispersed through Asia, Africa and Europe, as among us, without a home, a resting-place, or national institutions--yet still a people; while the Assyrians, Medo-Persians, Greeks and Romans, who, ages after the prediction was delivered, tyrannized over them, and rose to the government of the world, have long since been absorbed, amalgamated and lost in the ocean of humanity. Now, that Moses wrote in Hebrew more than three thousand three hundred years ago, and was publicly [160] and by national authority translated into Greek more than two thousand years ago, are facts as veritable and certain as that there were once Assyrians, Modes, Persians, Greeks, Romans; and that is all that is necessary to perfect this miracle. For, let me ask, was it within the power of human reason or intellect to foretell, with such minuteness, with a singularity of incident unparalleled in the history of the world, the present fortunes of any people some two, three or four thousand years ago? If this be not a display of supernatural intellectual power--a real miracle--a palpable supernatural fact--we confess ourselves incompetent judges of the attributes of any fact, ordinary or extraordinary.

      Take another example. Paul (in the second chapter of Second Thessalonians) foretells a man of sin, with such a variety of circumstances as wholly transcends all human prescience, as much as the removal of a mountain exceeds all human volition. Within thirty years of the crucifixion of the Messiah, he describes one who should sit in the Christian church, assuming a power over all political magistrates and rulers; that this personage could not appear till an apostasy from the apostles' doctrine should occur, and until the Roman Pagan magistracy was taken out of the way, as a hindrance to his full revelation. He also foretells the consumption of this son of perdition, his final ruin, &c. And have we not this fact now before our eye? That apostasy came: Christian emperors mounted the throne of the Cæsars, Christian priests made for themselves a Pontifex Maximus--a great High-Priest--a Pope, who now sits in what he claims to be the temple of God, and who has oft assumed all the powers before described over all princes and rulers. And has not the consumption, of his power commenced? and do we not see, ever since the Protestant Reformation, the waning and gradual diminution of his authority? Surely, we have this fact before our eyes at this moment. Now, that the prediction is eighteen hundred years old, is proved from the ancient Syriac and Latin versions, and all authentic records concerning the commencement and progress of Christianity, Jewish, Pagan and Christian. And need I say that nothing was or could be more unlikely to happen than that the alleged vicar of one then so recently crucified should rise to a transcendency of power eclipsing the glory of all Roman, of all Pagan magistracy--not for a moment, but for a series of ages, amounting to almost thirteen centuries?

      In the extemporaneous address of an hour, gentlemen, it is not possible to set this matter forcibly and clearly before you. We rather submit to you these facts and observations as a subject of your own [161] examination and development. To give to one of these supernatural facts the demonstration of which it is susceptible would require more time than we have now occupied on the whole premises before us. With me, I assure you, this is an important subject. True religion and true morals are, like all true science, founded on homogeneous facts. Christianity is a supernatural institution for man in a preternatural condition, and it is itself--both its proposition and its proof--a superhuman system. That God should have permitted his Son to die for his rebellious creatures, in open war engaged, is itself a moral miracle, and demands supernatural attestations. It is unique. The proposition, the proof, and the issue, are alike supernatural and transcendent.

      In bringing this subject before you, gentlemen, I had another object: I desired to contribute my mite to the proof of another proposition not fully stated in this address--that all the discoveries in science are favorable to Christianity. The voice of nature will never contradict the voice of revelation. Nature and the Bible are both witnesses for God--they are consistent witnesses, and mutually corroborate each other. But they must be understood.

      Some novices in religion are alarmed at every new discovery in science, lest it should militate against the Bible. Astronomy, geology, phrenology, have all been proscribed, like Galileo, by some untaught and unteachable ecclesiastics. We fear nothing from true science. Phrenology herself, when she takes her seat in the temple of true science, will lift up her voice for the necessity of the Bible and of religion. She does it already by showing that man is made to worship and adore, to be both righteous and religious, just and generous; that, in order to be happy, he must know and reverence and delight in the true God. She proves man, as he now is, to be a religious animal, and in need of a revelation from God; and leaves to reason and conscience to prefer truth to error--Christianity to idolatry--reality to fable.

      That you, gentlemen, individually and collectively, may not only attain to the true science of God, but to the true enjoyment of a religion based on supernatural facts; that you may be prepared for the enjoyment of an immortal life in a new creation; is the unfeigned desire of your friend and fellow-citizen, long devoted with you to the great work of mental and moral improvement. [162]

[PLA 142-162]