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The Works of Thomas Chalmers

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The Works of Thomas Chalmers 2 3T- ¥- LIBRARY OF THE Theological Seminary, PRINCETON, N. J. y BX 8915 .C5 1836 v. Chalmers, Thomas, 1780-1847. The works of Thomas Chalmers DONATION THE WORKS THOMAS'CHALMERS, d.d. & LL.D. PROFES-OR OF THEOLOGY I.\ THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, AM) CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE 01 - . '. VOLUME SECOND. GLASGOW: WILLIAM COLLINS,. INGRAM STREET HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO. LONDON. ON NATURAL THEOLOGY THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D.&LL.D. PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY Dl THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, AND CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. VOL. II. GLASGOW: WILLIAM COLLINS, INGRAM STREET; HAMILTON, ADAMS & CO. LONDON. Printed bv W. Collins & Co. Bgow. CONTENTS. BOOK IV. EVIDENCES FOR A GOD IN THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF .MAN. CHAP. I. On the General Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral Constitution of Man, .... 7 II. On the special and subordinate Adaptations of external Nature to the Moral Constitution of Man 32 III. On those special Affections which conduce to the civil and political Well-being of Society, . 58 IV. On those special Affections which conduce to the economic Well-being of Society, . .108 V. Adaptations of the Material World to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man, . .144 VI. On the Capacities of the World for making a virtuous Species happy; and the Argument de- ducible from this, both for the Character of God, and the Immortality of Man, 206 CONTENTS. BOOK V. ON THE INSCRUTABILITY OF THE DIVINE COUNSELS AND WAYS ; AND ON NATURAL THEOLOGY VIEWED AS AN IMPERFECT SYSTEM AND AS A PRECURSOR TO THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. Chap. I. On Man's Partial and Limited Knowledge of Divine Things, 248 II. On the Use of Hypotheses in Theology, . .286 leibnitz's theory of the origin of evil. III. Use of Hypothesis in Theology, 314 ON THE DOCTRINE OF A SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER. IV. On the Defects and the Uses of Natural Theology, 358 — EVIDENCES FOR A GOD IN THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. CHAPTER I. On the General Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral Constitution of Man. 1 . It needs but a cursory observation of life to be made sensible, that man has not been endowed with a conscience, without, at the same time, being placed in a theatre which afforded the most abun- dant scope and occasion for its exercise. The truth is, that, in the multitude of fellow-beings by whom he is surrounded, and in the manifold variety of his social and family relations, there is a perpetual call on his sense of right and wrong insomuch, that to the doings of every hour through- out his waking existence, one or other of these moral designations is applicable. It might have been stigmatized as the example of a mal-adjustment in the circumstances of our species, had man been provided with a waste feeling or a waste faculty, which remained dormant and unemployed from the want of counterpart objects that were suited to it. The wisdom of God admits of glorious vindication — y ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO against any such charge in the physical department of our nature, where the objective and subjective have been made so marvellously to harmonize with each other ; there being, in the material creation, sights of infinitely varied loveliness, and sounds of as varied melody, and many thousand tastes and odours of exquisite gratification, and distinctions innumerable of touch and feeling, to meet the whole compass and diversity of the human senses multiplying without end, both the notice that we receive from external things, and the enjoyments that we derive from them. And as little in the moral department of our nature, is any of its faculties, and more especially the great and master faculty of all, left to languish from the want of occupation. The whole of ]ife, in fact, is crowded with opportunities for its employment—or, rather, instead of being represented as the subject of so many distinct and ever-recurring calls, conscience may well be represented as the constant guide and guardian of human life ; and, for the right discharge of this its high office, as being kept on the alert perpetually. The creature on whom conscience hath laid the obligation of refraining from all mischief, and rendering to society all possible good, lives under a responsibility which never for a single moment is suspended. He may be said to possess a continuity of moral being; and morality whether of a good or evil hue, tinges the whole current of his history. It is a thing of constancy as well as a tiling of frequency—for, even when not carried forth into action, it is not dormant; but possesses the mind in the form of a cherished purpose or — THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 9 cherished principle, or, as the Romans expressed it, of a perpetual will either to that which is good or evil. But over and above this, the calls to action are innumerable. In the wants of others ; in their powers of enjoyment; in their claims on our equity, our protection, or our kindness; in the various openings and walks of usefulness ; in the services which even the humblest might render to those of their own family, or household, or country ; in the application, of that comprehensive precept, to do good unto all men as we have opportunity we behold a prodigious number and diversity of occasions for the exercise of moral principle. It is possible that the lessons of a school may not be arduous enough nor diversified enough for the capacity of a learner. But this cannot be affirmed of that school of discipline, alike arduous and unremitting, to which the great Author of our being hath introduced us. Along with the moral capacity by which He hath endowed us, He hath provided a richly furnished gymnasium for its exercises and its trials—where we may earn, if not the triumphs of virtue, at least some delicious foretastes of that full and final blessedness for which the scholarship of human life, with its manifold engagements and duties, is so obviously fitted to prepare us. 2. But let us now briefly state the adaptation of external nature to the moral constitution of man, with a reference to that three-fold generality which we have already expounded.* We have spoken of the supremacy of conscience, and of the inherent * Book. III. Chapters ii., iii. k iv. A 2 10 ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO pleasures and pains of virtue and vice, and of the law and operation of habit—as forming three distinct arguments for the moral goodness of Him, who hath so constructed our nature, that by its workings alone, man should be so clearly and powerfully warned to a life of righteousness—should in the native and immediate joys of rectitude, earn so precious a reward—and, finally, should be led onward to such a state of character, in respect of its confirmed good or confirmed evil, as to afford one of the likeliest prognostications which nature offers to our view of an immortality beyond the grave, where we shall abundantly reap the conse- quence of our present doings, in either the happiness of established virtue, or the utter wretchedness and woe of our then inveterate depravity. But hitherto we have viewed this nature of man, rather as an individual and insulated constitution, than as a mechanism acted upon by any forces or influences from without. It is in this latter aspect that we are henceforth to regard it ; it being the proper design of the Book on which we have entered to state the adaptations of the objective to the subjective, or of external nature to the mental constitution of man. It should be recollected, however,* that in our view of external nature, we comprehend, not merely all that is external to the world of mind—for this would restrict us to the consideration of those reciprocal actings which take place between mind and matter. We further comprehend all that is external to one individual * See Introductory Chapter, 1, 2, 3. — THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 1 1 mind, and therefore the other minds which are around it ; and so, as pregnant with the evidence of a divine wisdom, it is our part to unfold the actings and readings that take place between man and man in society. 3. And first, in regard to the power and sensi- bility of conscience, there is a most important influence brought to bear on each individual possessor of this faculty from without, and by his fellow men. It will help us to understand it aright, if we reflect on a felt and familiar experience of ail men—even the effect of a very slight notice, often of a single word, from one of our companions, to recall some past scene or transaction of our lives, which had long vanished from our remembrance ; and would, but for this reawakening, have remained in deep oblivion to the end of our days. The phenomenon can easily be explained by the laws of suggestion. Our wonted trains of thought might never have conducted the mind to any thought or recollection of the event in question w hereas, on the occurrence of even a very partial intimation, all the associated circumstances come into vivid recognition; and we are transported back again to the departed realities of former years, that had lain extinct within us for so long a period, and might have been extinct for ever, if not lighted up again by an extraneous application.
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