The Analogy of Religion to the Constitution and Course of Nature. Butler Joseph

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      1. Why do we say there are laws of nature?

      1.) We indeed know some such. But nothing of the laws of many things, e. g.

      · Pestilence.

      · Storms.

      · Earthquakes.

      · Diversities of human powers.

      · Association of ideas.

      2.) Hence we call many things accidental, which we know are not matters of chance, but are subject to general laws.

      3.) It is a very little way that we can trace things to their general laws.

      4.) We attribute many things to such laws, only by analogy.

      2. Just for the same reasons, we say that miracles comport with God’s general laws of wisdom. These laws may be unknown to us; but no more so than those by which some die as soon as born, or live to old age, or have superior understandings, &c.

      3. We see no more reason to regard the frame and course of nature as a scheme, than we have to regard Christianity as such.

      1.) If the first is a scheme, then Christianity, if true, would be likely to be a scheme.

      2.) As Christianity is revealed but in part, and is an arrangement to accomplish ends, there would of course seem to us, in it, irregularities; just as we see in nature.

      3.) Therefore objections against the one, are answered in the same manner as objections against the other.

      Objec. Christianity is a roundabout, and perplexed contrivance; just such as men, for want of understanding or power, are obliged to adopt, in their designs.

      Ans. 1.) God uses just such complex arrangements in the natural world. The mystery is quite as great in nature as in grace.

      2.) We do not know what are means, and what are ends.

      3.) The natural world, and its government, are not fixed, but progressive.

      4.) Great length of time is required in some changes; e. g. animals, vegetables, geological periods, &c.

      5.) One state of life is a preparation and means for attaining another.

      6.) Man is impatient, but Jehovah deliberate.

      1. If so in the natural world, why not in the spiritual?

      2. The objection therefore is not only against Christ’s mediation, but all mediation.

      1. Future punishment may be as natural a sequence of sin, as a broken limb is of falling from a precipice.

      2. This is not taking punishment out of the hands of God, and giving it to nature; it is only distinguishing ordinary events from miraculous.

      1. We may say God could have prevented all evil. But we see he permits it, and has provided relief, and even sometimes perfect remedies for it.

      1.) Thus the bad consequences of trifling on a precipice may be prevented by a friend, if we do not reject his assistance.

      2.) We may ourselves do much towards preventing the bad consequences of our misdeeds.

      3.) Still more if assisted.

      2. It might have been perfectly just if it were not so; but that it is so, shows compassion, as distinguished from goodness.

      3. The course of nature affords many instances of such compassion.

      4. Thus analogy sanctions an arrangement, by which the ruinous consequences of vice or folly may be averted, at least in some cases.

      5. If the consequences of rash and inconsiderate acts, which we scarcely call vicious, are often so serious, we may apprehend that the bad consequences will be greater, in proportion as the irregularity is greater.

      6. A dissolute disregard to all religion, if there be a religion, is incomparably more reprehensible than the mere neglects, imprudencies, &c. of this life.

      7. As the effects of worldly imprudence and vice are often misery, ruin, and even death, no one can say what may be the consequences of blasphemy, contempt of God, and final impenitence.

      8. Nor can any one tell, how far the consequences of such great wickedness can possibly be prevented, consistently with the eternal rule of right.

      9. Still there would, from analogy, be some hope of room for pardon.

      1. We do not know all the reasons for punishment, nor why it should be fit to remit punishment.

      2. Nor do we know all the consequences of vice, and so should not know how to prevent them.

      3. Vice impairs men’s abilities for helping themselves.

      4. Misconduct makes assistance necessary, which otherwise would not have been. Why should not the same things be so, as to our future interests?

      5. In temporal things, behaving well in time to come, does not repair old errors, why should it as to future things?

      6. Were it so in all cases it would be contrary to all our notions of government.

      7. It could not be determined in what degree, or in what cases, it would be so, even if we knew it might in some cases.

      8. The efficacy of repentance, as urged in opposition to atonement, is contrary to the general sense of mankind; as shown by the prevalence of propitiatory sacrifices.