He has been ruined for a servant of inspiration; and how?
By a process, let it be remembered, of which all the steps are inevitable
under the same agency: that is, in the case of any primitive Christian
teacher having attempted to speak the language of scientific truth in
dealing with the phenomena of astronomy, geology, or of any merely human
knowledge.
Now, thirdly and lastly, in order to try the question in an extreme form,
let it be supposed that, aided by powers of working miracles, some early
apostle of Christianity should actually have succeeded in carrying through
the Copernican system of astronomy, as an article of blind belief, sixteen
centuries before the progress of man's intellect had qualified him for
naturally developing that system. What, in such a case, would be the true
estimate and valuation of the achievement? Simply this, that he had thus
succeeded in cancelling and counteracting a determinate scheme of divine
discipline and training for man. Wherefore did God give to man the powers
for contending with scientific difficulties? Wherefore did he lay a secret
train of continual occasions, that should rise, by relays, through scores
of generations, for provoking and developing those activities in man's
intellect, if, after all, he is to send a messenger of his own, more than
human, to intercept and strangle all these great purposes? This is to
mistake the very meaning and purposes of a revelation.
Pages:
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98