Why, that
is taken for granted, I hold, throughout the Bible. I cannot see
how our Lord's parables, drawn from the birds and the flowers, the
seasons and the weather, have any logical weight, or can be
considered as aught but capricious and fanciful illustrations--which
God forbid--unless we look at them as instances of laws of the
natural world, which find their analogues in the laws of the
spiritual world, the kingdom of God. I cannot conceive a man's
writing that 104th Psalm who had not the most deep, the most earnest
sense of the permanence of natural law. But more: the fact is
expressly asserted again and again. "They continue this day
according to Thine ordinance, for all things serve Thee." "Thou
hast made them fast for ever and ever. Thou hast given them a law
which shall not be broken--"
Let us pass on, gentlemen. There is no more to be said about this
matter.
But next, it will be demanded of us that natural theology shall set
forth a God whose character is consistent with all the facts of
nature, and not only with those which are pleasant and beautiful.
That challenge was accepted, and I think victoriously, by Bishop
Butler as far as the Christian religion is concerned. As far as the
Scripture is concerned, we may answer thus:
It is said to us--I know that it is said: You tell us of a God of
love, a God of flowers and sunshine, of singing birds and little
children.
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