Various

“ Will it no more be said that—
"Not a truth has to art or to science been given,
But brows have ached for it, and souls toiled and striven?"
Rejecting the Bible, you must either accept Deism or Atheism. Deism admits the existence of a God of infinite power and intelligence. A Deist need have no trouble in believing a miracle. The question with him is not, can God work miracles, and thereby reveal himself to man, but has he done it. Reason teaches us that intelligent design characterizes every act of God. Which theory ascribes the more intelligence to God—the Deist's or the Christian's? ”

“ A book can not write itself. Nature, or the material universe, neither did nor could write it, for she has no power of action, inertia being her property. She might be acted upon. I can write upon this sheet, but it can not write upon itself. If it is written upon it is self-evident that a foreign power has done it. So Nature, being the aggregate of everything, can not move without the hand of a foreign power moving her. I suppose you are now ready to ask, "Is it not a scientific truth that matter is eternal?" ”

“ If men prefer to deify life-germs, of course that is their business, but we have no disposition to accept a distinction without a difference, excepting the sacrifice of our common sense. It is more rational to believe in an ever-living intelligence as the source of all life, intelligence and moral nature. Did an eternal life-germ evolve all the forms of organic life known upon our earth? The eternal life-germ idea of materialistic philosophy represents no evolutionists of any note whatever. ”

“ Do you say, organic life does evolve organic life and mind. From a state of death? Without antecedent life and mind being drawn upon? Come, gentlemen; how is this? You say inanimate Nature produced life and mind without the previous existence of either; can you duplicate that feat with your power? If you can't are you not below the inanimate Nature which did it for the first time? Can inanimate forces do more than living intelligent Nature? Do you say no! Then demonstrate the philosophy of spontaneous generation of life, and show yourself a God. ”

“ Could you write the history of your origin, of your birth, without the aid of some one older than yourself? Did you have the powers of observation in active exercise, watching every movement among the causes that brought you into being? Now, if man could not be an eye-witness to his own [Pg 332] origin, upon this planet of ours, was there anything else in nature that could be, and so gave that history, which you know you could not? Is it not possible that you have obtained your intelligence from another source—from what I call the revelation of the Creator? ”

“ Science is certain knowledge. Therefore spontaneous generation of life and intelligent being is not science. Now, gentlemen, don't prostitute science at the shrine of your nonsensical guessing any more. Throw your guessing to one side and acknowledge God like wise men, and be no longer foolish.
Do you say life was always in matter? "Then we must conclude that it is in matter in the same sense in which all other corporeal qualities are in bodies, so as to be divisible together with it, and some of it be in every part of the matter." ”

“ So evolution is a negation of the doctrine of a creation. And the doctrine that there is nothing but matter, and that matter is eternal, is a denial of creation by intelligence or otherwise. The infidel says, life began to be; for there was a time when there was no life. But they say matter is eternal. And life is not eternal. Therefore life is not matter. Gentlemen, will you get away with this conclusion? The opposite is equally fatal to the materialistic theory. Thus, matter is eternal. There is nothing but matter. Therefore life is eternal. ”

“ You must be at home in all those sciences, and emancipate yourselves from all religious beliefs before you have a right to be heard upon the grave question of evolution from an ancestral moneron; for you are incapable of comprehending your own monistic—materialistic origin. For, according to Haeckel, before a man is entitled to be heard he must renounce all faith in God, in the Bible, in the human spirit, and in the future life. Mr. Haeckel knows a great deal? Well, there are some very weighty men in this world? But, when they are in the east, our planet does not tip up in the west? ”

“ To the orthodox Christian, who fully believes all he professes, cheerful resignation to the divine will is comparatively a natural, an easy, a simple thing. To the religious philosopher (meaning such as himself) it is the highest exercise of intellect and virtue. The man who has realized the faith that his own lot is so regulated by God as unerringly to work for his highest good—with such a man, resignation, patience, nay cheerful acquiescence in all suffering and sorrow, appear to be in fact only the simple and practical expression of his belief. ”

“ Common admission, Christ is the grandest character, the purest life, the finest teacher, finest organization ever yet given to the race. The Christian says, Amen! But science must find a cause for every effect. What was the cause of the teachings of the apostles, whose sincerity was such that they died for their religion? Well, Strauss says, It is inconceivable that they should have done it if Jesus himself had not designated himself as the Redeemer from sin, guilt and death, and required faith in his person as a religious duty, claiming the power to secure peace in the Holy Spirit. ”

“ God is represented as our Father in heaven, to be whose especial children is the best reward of the peace-makers, to see whose face is the highest hope of the pure in heart, who is ever at hand to strengthen his true worshipers, to whom is due our heartiest love, our humblest submission, whose most acceptable worship is righteous conduct and a holy heart, in whose constant presence our life is passed, to whose merciful disposal we are resigned by death. ”

“ Is life, perception and understanding essential to matter, as such? Is senseless matter perfectly wise, without consciousness? Such is Hylozoism, and it is outrageous nonsense. Very few men ever had credulity enough to receive and appropriate it. This form of Atheism was a forlorn and abandoned thing, without form or systemization, for centuries gone by—and it has few—very few—votaries, even now. ”

“ Gregg, a Deist, says: "I value the religion of Jesus, as containing more truth, purer truth, higher truth, than has ever yet been given to man. Much of his teaching I unhesitatingly receive as, to the best of my judgment, unimprovable and unsurpassable—fitted, if obeyed, to make earth all that a finite and material scene can be, and man only a little lower than the angels. ”

“ Men of the profoundest wisdom have investigated the claims of the Bible upon the attention of the literary and scientific, upon the attention of the moral and civil in every nation. They tell us that its morality and theology are far superior to the teachings of any and all of the ancient teachings of the greatest known philosophers, and that the writings of those philosophers are much inferior to those of Moses and the prophets. The poetry and philosophy of the Hebrews, as presented in the Bible, surpasses Homer and Aristotle. ”

“ The efforts of unbelievers to produce organic life by spontaneous generation, is an effort to produce organic life where it is not. Therefore the efforts of unbelievers to produce organic life, by spontaneous generation, is an effort to create organic life.
An effort to create organic life where it is not is an effort to rise into the character of a God, and show one's self the equal of God. But why should this effort not be made? If unintelligent dead matter has performed the feat, without wisdom or design, why should it not be performed by living intelligent Nature? ”

“ Buckner, a bold advocate of the "spontaneous generation" of life, who has published two volumes on Darwinism, says Darwin's views "are the most thoroughly naturalistic that can be imagined, and far more atheistic than those of his predecessor, Lamark, who admitted, at least, a general law of progress and development; whereas, according to Darwin, the whole development is due to the gradual summation of innumerable minute and accidental operations." It is admitted that the doctrine of evolution of species from other and entirely different species is a mere hypothesis, an opinion, or guess. ”

“ Rescued from the wreck of the Dark Ages by Luther and others, it commends itself more and more to every reflecting mind as the only living religion of the present and future. Deliver me from the credulity that believes that such a wonderful soul-redeeming institution had its origin in the passion of a crazy woman or the conspiracy of a few ignorant fishermen. ”

“ He that refuses to believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ, along with the claims of the Bible, has many more and greater difficulties in accounting for the existence of Christianity. It is here, and its existence is the greatest miracle man has ever witnessed. To deny its divinity only increases its wonderfulness. We can not have an effect without an adequate cause. It is hard to believe that humanity is an adequate cause of Christianity. For eighteen centuries it has been living and acting ”

“ We hold that God has so arranged matters in this beautiful and well-ordered, but mysteriously-governed universe, that one great mind after another will arise from time to time, as such are needed, to discover and flash forth before the eyes of men the truths that are wanted, and the amount of truth that can be borne. ”

“ I rejoice in the passionate earnestness with which he lifts the hearts of his readers to ideals which it seems to me—that Christianity which as a living force in the Apostles' days turned the world upside down, that is right side up, with its face toward heaven and God—alone can realize for man. ”

“ Neither Haeckel or Darwin advocates such a foolish idea; nor yet the idea of life-germs always existing. Life-germs are material organisms, and they may be alive or dead; for we know there is no period in the history of a living organism when it is not liable to die.
Spontaneous generation does not correlate with the idea that "life-germs always existed." And it is also opposed to the Christian idea that all life is from God, the eternal, ever-living spirit. So we Christians say, there is no life without antecedent life. ”

“ There is a great deal of religion in the human heart which is latent until some misfortune, that brings a man to a sense of his need of help from a higher source, brings it to the surface.
It is true of dishonest men, who try to stultify their religious nature, and make the world believe that they are genuine, honest infidels. ”

“ It is universally conceded that man has a worshiping nature. This is evinced by the almost universal idolatry of past ages. Would an act of wisdom reveal to man the true object of worship? Man has a conscience which smites him for his wrong doing, and approves him for his well doing. ”

“ Here we part with our friends of the Haeckel school. They maintain that there was life without antecedent life, and so get more out of dead atoms than was in them, which is equal to something made of nothing. Mr. Darwin, being apprised of this difficulty, claimed a miraculous origin for the first form, or forms, of life, but retired the Creator at once upon the great achievement, leaving all to be evolved from these first forms by and through natural agencies, denying even design in nature. ”

“ Such a one we believe was Jesus of Nazareth, the most exalted religious genius whom God ever sent upon the earth; in himself an embodied revelation; humanity in its divinest phase, 'God manifest in the flesh,' according to eastern hyperbole; an exemplar given in an early age of the world to show what man may and should become in the course of ages; in his progress towards the realization of his destiny; an individual gifted with a grand, clear intellect, a noble soul, a fine organization, marvelous moral intuitions, and a perfectly balanced moral being ”

“ Now, according to this Stoical theory, "life is no corporeal quality or form, but an incorporeal substance." There are, really, but two sorts of Atheism which have been in any thing like extensive notice. First, "Such as claim that life is essential to matter, and therefore ingenerable and incorruptible." Second, "Those who claim that life and everything, besides the bare substance of matter, or extended bulk, is merely accidental, generable, or corruptible, rising out of some mixture or modification of matter." ”

“ Many persons will not accept the Bible on account of its mysteries or miracles. To doubt seems to be as natural as to believe. Sir Wm. Hamilton says: "Philosophers have been unanimous in making doubt the first step in philosophy." When Paul says, "Prove all things," he tells us doubt a thing until it is tested. To doubt is not necessarily a fault, but to continue in doubt is blameworthy. ”

“ Well, teach them the knowledge of our Lord just as soon as you can, as soon as they are teachable, and then point them to the Savior of men, for they are then old enough and wise enough to become Christians. The gospel of the blessed Savior is so loaded down with divine mercy that it simplifies its requirements to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and obedience to his will. But ability measures responsibility, and where ability begins responsibility begins, and as ability increases responsibility also increases. ”