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TESTIMONY OF A CONVERT.

proach, he addressed them, pointing to me, "There is Ra Mary, (Father of Mary,) who tells me, that the heavens were made, the earth also, by a beginner, whom he calls Mo rimo. Have you ever heard any thing to be compared with this? He says that the sun rises and sets by the power of Morimo; as also that Morimo causes winter to follow sum> mer, the winds to blow, the rain to fall, the grass to grow, and the trees to bud;" and casting his arm above and around him, added, "God works in every thing you see or hear! Did ever you hear such words?" Seeing them ready to burst into laughter, he said, "Wait, I shall tell you more; Ra-Mary tells me that we have spirits in us, which will never die ; and that our bodies, though dead and buried, will rise and live again. Open your ears to-day; did you ever hear litlamane (fables) like these?" This was followed by a burst of deafening laughter, and on its partially subsiding, the chief man begged me to say no more on such trifles, lest the people should think me mad!

But it is to the testimony of such as have been brought out of darkness into the marvellous light of the Gospel, that we must look for decisive evidence on this point. The fol lowing is one example out of many which could be given. The question being put to one whose memory was tenacious as his judgment was enlightened, "How did you feel in your natural state, before hearing the Gospel? How did you feel upon retiring from private as well as public crimes, and laying your head on the silent pillow? Were there no fears in your breast, no spectres before your eyes, no conscience accusing you of having done wrong? No palpitations, no dread of futurity?" "No," said he. "How could we feel,

or how could we fear? We had no idea that an unseen eye saw us, or that an unseen ear heard us. What could we know beyond ourselves, or of another world, before life and immortality were brought to us by the word of God." This declaration was followed by a flood of tears, while he added, "You found us beasts and not men."

CHAPTER XVII.

THE preceding chapter contains facts from which important deductions may be drawn; and the writer has involuntarily been led to inquire, Are we compelled to enter the gloomy recesses of heathenism? If we look at home—a land of light-shall we not find individuals whose ignorance would equal that either of Hottentot or Bechuana? Have not our noble band of home missionaries brought to light instances of the grassest darkness? How many are there who have resisted the force of every argument on the subject, and even laughed to scorn every article in our creed, and have died martyrs to atheism! Let us go to the asylums for the deaf and dumb, and we shall find there persons having eyes to see and gaze on the infinitude of wonders in creation, and possessing minds capable of reasoning from effect to cause, who, previous to their being instructed, were perfectly ignorant of a Divine Being. While then we have these facts before us, we feel compelled to differ in opinion from those who would have us believe, that the volume of Nature "affords the primary and entire proof of God's existence;" and "to vindicate his claim to be, he leaves to the heavens which declare his glory, to the firmament which showeth his handywork, to the days which utter knowledge, and the nights which proclaim wisdom." The preceding examples exhibit to our view sentient beings, whose minds, notwithstanding the indications of Divine wisdom, power, and goodness in creation, are unconscious of any existence beyond what they see and feel. This demonstrates that all the knowledge of Divine things existing in every nation, from the refined Greek down a thousand generations, through the numberless shades of polytheism to the rude barbarian, is to be traced to Divine Revelation, whether written or traditional, and not to innate or intuitive ideas. This view of the subject we shall find, on more minute inquiry, in perfect accordance with the declarations contained in the inspired volume. For "it is He that teacheth man knowledge. I am the Lord that maketh all things, that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad the

186

THE INVISIBLE THINGS OF GOD.

heavens by myself." These are the declarations of the great "I AM;" and without such a revelation, the world by wisdom could never have found out God. It is recorded by some author, that there were two periods of the world in which the knowledge of God was universal. This was at

the creation, and during the days of Noah, after the flood. At the former period the revelation must have been made known by God himself; and at the latter by the preacher of righteousness in his own family. Keeping this in mind, there is no difficulty in understanding the following declaration of the Apostle. "For the invisible things of Him (His eternal power and Godhead) revealed or made known at the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead." That the stupendous earth and heavens, and the endless variety of order, change, and the dazzling beauty and grandeur of every thing touched by the finger of Jehovah, do testify with a voice, loud as the thunder's roar, clear as the noon-tide beam, there can be no question; but surely not by uttering speech to a previously uninformed mind, and conveying the primary idea of the existence of God. This, in my humble opinion, is not what the Apostle intended to convey, but simply that God originally imparted the knowledge of his own being to man, and that tradition has circulated the report through the nations of the earth, which has undergone, by satanic influence on the minds of fallen creatures, all those modifications presented to us in the pantheon, or in the minds of savages.

The Scriptures, so far from teaching us that we may infer the being of a God from the works of creation, assert that our knowledge of the visible universe, as the production of God's creative power, is derived, not from the deductions of reason, but from a belief of the Divine testimony revealing

* Romans i. 20:-" For (λàð, nam, siquidem, forasmuch as) the invisible things of him, his eternal power and godhead, as afterwards explained, from not ik, but ano, ever since, the creation of the world, when they were fully communicated, are clearly seen, because after a declaration of his nature and existence, the Divine attributes are plainly evinced, being understood voμeva, explained to the understanding, by the things that are made, onuar, the works of God, or things which he had done, not only of creation but of providence, in the deluge, in the wonderful preservation of the church, and destruction of his enemies, in his many appearances, miracles, and interpositions with mankind, which, through all ages, had been related to them, and were a sensible demonstration of omniscience, omnipotence, invisibility, and immateriality, even his eternal power and godhead, which alone could effect such wonderful things.". Ellis on Divine Things.

PRESIDENT EDWARDS'S ARGUMENT.

11

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the fact; "Through faith we understand that the worlds were made by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.' Such as advocate the dignity of human reason may spin a fine theory, but let them go to the hut or the den of the sunburnt African, and ask if any such a system has been spun by these children of nature. It is easy to detect the borrowed plumes with which the heathen moralists bedecked their bright effusions. Philosophers and poets find no difficulty in following nature to nature's God, when they have revelation to lead the way, but let them point out to us nations who have found the Almighty without other aids than their own resources. It is to this that Tertullian refers, when he asks them, "Which of your poets, which of your sophisters, have not drunk from the fountains of the prophets?" and thus, as Dr. Ellis expresses it, "their noblest flights took wing from the gospel." Many heathen philosophers who possessed advantages vastly superior to any of Africa's sons, instead of inferring from works of creation, the existence of a Supreme Being, generally maintained that the matter, and some even that the form of the world itself was eternal, and others again substituted parts of the visible universe for God himself. Even no less a person than the learned philosopher Dr. Clarke, the defender of natural religion, admits, that "of the philosophers themselves, who should have corrected the errors of the vulgar, some argued themselves out of the belief of the very being of God." The following from President Edwards's "Miscellaneous Observations," will be found to throw additional light on the subject:

"If the most sagacious of the philosophers were capable of doing this, after hearing so much of a first cause and a creation, what would they have done, and what would the gross of mankind, who are inattentive and ignorant, have thought of the matter, if nothing had been taught concerning God and the origin of things; but every single man left solely to such intimation as his own senses and reason could have given him? We find the earlier ages of the world did not trouble themselves about the question, whether the being of God could be proved by reason; but either never inquired into the matter, or took their opinions upon that head, merely from tradition. But allowing that every man is able to demonstrate to himself, that the world, and all things contained therein, are effects, and had a beginning, which I take to be a most absurd supposition, and look upon it to be almost impossible for unassisted reason to go so far; yet, if effects are to be ascribed to similar causes, and a good and wise effect must suppose a good and wise cause; by the same way of reasoning, all the evil and irregularity in the world must be attributed

* Heb. xi. 3.

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REASON INSUFFICIENT.

to an evil and unwise cause. So that either the first cause must be both good and evil, wise and foolish, or else there must be two first causes, an evil and irrational, as well as a good and wise principle. Thus man, left to himself, would be apt to reason, 'If the cause and the effects are similar and conformable, matter must have a material cause, there being nothing more impossible for us to conceive than how matter should be produced by spirit, or any thing else but matter.' The best reasoner in the world, endeavouring to find out the causes of things by the things themselves, might be led into the grossest errors and contradictions, and find himself, at the end, in extreme want of an instructor.

"What instance can be mentioned, from any history, of any one nation under the sun, that emerged from atheism or idolatry into the knowledge or adoration of the one true God, without the assistance of revelation? The Americans, the Africans, the Tartars, and the ingenious Chinese, have had time enough, one would think, to find out the right and true idea of God; and yet, after above five thousand years' improvement, and the full exercise of reason, they have, at this day, got no farther in their progress towards the true religion, than to the worship of stocks and stones and devils. How many thousand years must be allowed to these nations to reason themselves into the true religion? What the light of nature and reason could do to investigate the knowledge of God, is best seen by what they have already done. We cannot argue more convincingly on any foundation than that of known and incontestable facts."

All this, and much more that might be said on the subject, goes to prove, that reason, whose province is not to invent, but to collect, arrange, and deduce, cannot discover first principles; and that unless these are supplied by the law and the testimony, the mind must wander as it has done in the bewildering maze of uncertainty, and darken instead of seeing more clearly the reflected beams of revealed truth, which tradition has conveyed like a glimmering ray to the minds of most of the inhabitants of our globe.

It appears evident, then, from what has been written, that all the relics of theology to be found in heathen lands, are only the remaining fragments which have been handed. down by a vitiated and defective tradition. But more than this, we find people not only in Africa, but in other parts of the world, from whose intellectual horizon the last rays of tradition have fled, proving what the Scriptures affirm, that man's depraved nature is such, as to choose darkness rather than light,—and who have now most emphatically forgotten God. The late Rev. William Roby, in his Lectures on Revealed Religion, from which some hints have been taken, makes the following remarks:

"With respect to ourselves, it must be admitted, that we derived our knowledge of the truth from instruction; and wherever it exists, it may be traced through antecedent generations, to the first parents of the human race: and they could derive it from no other than their Creator.