Germs of Thought.

Questions of the Creator to the Creature.

(No. V.)

SUBJECT:-The Folly of Man as a Worker.

"Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not?"-Isaiah lv. 2.

Analysis of Homily the Three Hundred and Twenty-first.

In this Divine interrogation we have the recognition of three facts in relation to man, facts that deserve our earnest and devout attention.

OF THE FACT THAT MAN

I. HERE IS THE RECOGNITION IS A VOLUNTARY WORKER. The appeal here implies that he is free both in the expenditure of his "money," and the prosecution of his "labour." Every part of the universe works, every atom moves and plays its part. "All things are full of labour;" but man only is a free worker. He works, not as material bodies work, by an outward force, nor as brutes, by blind impulses, but by his own deliberate purpose,by choice and plan. His body is an engine, every part of which is made for motion; so is his intellect with all its faculties; but whether he shall move his physical members or mental powers, it is for him and him only, to determine: each man acts from himself. He is a self-acting agenta moral cause. He is the sovereign lord of his own activities.

In thus broadly stating the freedom of man as a worker, I am not ignorant of the array of facts that can be brought against my position, facts which it would be difficult, if not impossible for me, by any amount of argument, to disprove. I know how from the absolute dependence of all creatures upon the Creator, from the mighty ab-extra forces which are ever pressing on every energy and impulse of our nature, and from the necessary causal connexion of God with every

motion of every fraction of His universe, a skilful reasoner would not have much difficulty in making out a strong, if not an unanswerable, argument, against the doctrine of man's moral freedom. One of the mysteries of our existence is, that our logic frequently conducts us to conclusions against which our consciousness protests. By this, however, we are far enough from admitting that the "Necessitarians," as they are called, have all the argument on their side. After a careful endeavor to form a just estimate of the totality of their reasoning, there are at least four considerations, which bind, with strong and indissoluble bonds, our faith to the doctrine of man's voluntary action.

First: It is not impossible for the Almighty to create a being that shall be wholly free in action. To say that the creation of a being who shall have a self-determining activity, a power and a sphere of independent action, is an impossibility, is to say not only that the finite can gauge the Infinite, but that Infinite wisdom is limited in its inventions, and Infinite power in its capabilities. This is a philosophic absurdity, as well as an impious arrogancy. If I believe that HE, the INFINITE, IS, I am bound to believe that He could do it.

:

Secondly There is an antecedent probability that He would create such a being. A creature endowed with this independency of action, would of all creatures be most like Himself, most fitted to show forth His glory. And as He created the universe for the manifestation of Himself, would it not be probable that, having the power to do so, He would create beings of a type that should most fully reflect Himself? "How would it now look to you,' says the philosophic Saxon, King Alfred, if there were any very powerful king, and he had no freemen in all his kingdom, but that all were slaves?' 'Then,' said I, 'it would be thought by me neither right nor reasonable if men that were in a servile condition only, should attend upon him.' 'Then,' quoth he, 'it would be more unnatural if God, in all His kingdom, had no free creature under His power.' Therefore, He made two rational creatures, free angels and men, and gave them the great

gift of freedom. Hence they could do evil as well as good, whichever they would. He gave this very free gift, and a

very fixed law to every man unto his end." *

Thirdly: The mental constitution of man seems to provide for this freedom of action. Man is so formed that he always acts from purpose. Whatever may be the course of action he pursues, sensual, secular, or spiritual, to what instinct or impulse he gives way, he has a purpose in every step of his career. Even the man who lives the most grossly animal life, does not act blindly and directly from the lower passions, as the brute, regardless of all appearances, methods, and consequences; the intellect has always something to do with it; always comes between the mere animal impulse and the act. There is a purpose. Now in the formation of this purpose, man is evidently free. Purpose requires thought, and in the exercise of thought he is ever independent. can think or not think-think upon this subject or that, in this aspect or that. He can, by thought, either quench a furnace of animal passion, or kindle its feeblest embers into a conflagration. Thus we hold with Coleridge,-that " It is man that makes the motive, and not the motive the man." Man moves by motives, but the motives he creates by thought, and thought is free. By this power of thought the mind can withdraw herself from the outer world,—bar and bolt all the sensuous doors, dare all external forces, create within a magnificent world for itself, and sit as the ruler upon the throne of all impulses.

He

Fourthly: The consciousness of universal man attests the fact of human freedom. This we have shown in the discourse on responsibility immediately preceding this in the present series.

Man, then, is a voluntary worker. He is not a machine, he is an agent; he is not a wheel in the great engine of nature, he is a person; his actions are not the necessary effects of an eternal series of causes; they are self-originated productions.

See McCosh, "Method of Divine Government;" p. 296.

II. HERE IS THE RECOGNITION OF THE FACT THAT MAN AS A VOLUNTARY WORKER SHOULD AIM AT THE ATTAINMENT OF MORALLY STRENGTHENING AND SATISFYING GOOD. The word "bread" here, as is in other places of the Divine Word, is used not in a literal and material, but in a figurative and moral, sense. It is used to represent a something which is as indispensable to the spiritual nature of man, as material bread, which is regarded as the staff of life, is to the corporeal. Material bread invigorates the energies and satisfies the cravings of the body. But what is the moral bread? What is that something which the word "bread" is here intended to represent? Ask first what is the strength of the soul, the moral stamina? I have no hesitation in saying, Godliness. I say godliness rather than religion, for religion may be either good or bad, true or false. Most men have some kind of religion, and the religion of some people is a terrible curse. The Hindoos, the Mussulmen, the Mormonites, are religious. Indeed, the greatest curse of all ages and lands has been some kind of religion. Godliness is the true thing. I like this good old Biblical word ;-let us use it. By it, I mean that supreme love for the one true and living God which absorbs the human will in the Divine, fashions the human character after the Divine. This godliness is "the root of the matter,"—it is "the Kingdom of God within you." It is that which "is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come."

Now, this godliness is the strength and satisfaction of the soul. The man who has it is strong in a moral sense,strong to resist the wrong and pursue the right; strong to bear up with fortitude under the trials of life, and to look with calmness at the solemnities of death; strong in devotion to the cause of truth, the claims of Heaven, and the interests of man. He is not only strong but satisfied. He is freed from that burning thirst, that restless craving which characterizes the worldly man. He has a joy in himself alone; he is "satisfied from within," he rejoices "in hope of the glory of God."

Now the question is, Where is the "bread" which both strengthens and satisfies the soul? The answer is at hand. Christ says, "I am the bread of life." He is "the bread which came down from heaven, of which if a man eat he shall never die." In one word, the Gospel is the means to generate, foster, and perfect, this godliness. "When we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." Christ died to give the world moral strength. The world had no moral strength before the Gospel came. Have you ever seen a man bereft of moral energy,-energy of heart and purpose?

Take an illustration:-There is a man in business, who with honest intentions to obtain a livelihood for himself and family, has embarked in various commercial undertakings, and failed in all. Crushed by frequent failures, his hope expires and his moral energy forsakes him. A gloom gathers around his being, despondency sits as a night-mare on his mind. He has no heart-power to make another effort; he gives up all as lost. He sees nothing but starvation or the workhouse before him and his family. Now, what could give new moral energy to that man, brace him to another bold mercantile effort? Enter his sombre home, lay before him another mercantile enterprise full of promise, show him that it is all but certain to lead him on to fortune and to fame, if he pursue it. Convince him of its feasibility and great advantage, and if you succeed, you will scatter the darkness that has gathered about his being. You will brighten his brow and nerve his heart anew, you will light up his sphere with a new sun. The world, which before seemed to forbode evil in all its aspects, will smile with hope and promise. Under this new and exhilirating influence he will set to work; work his muscles and his limbs, his brain and being, and reach the point of opulence and ease. Humanity, before Christ came, was like this poor man before you presented him with a new mercantile enterprise. It was "without strength;" it had tried everything to appease conscience, to satisfy the cravings of its soul, and to obtain a vital fellow

Vol. VIII.

D