Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the PeopleBeecher, Catharine Esther
Religion
Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the People
Beecher, Catharine Esther
Religion -- Philosophy
Next come the relations of the body politic, for which labors are
demanded and pain is to be endured under the grand law of sacrifice,
that the individual is to subordinate his own interests and wishes to
the greater general good, and that the interests of the majority are to
control those of the minority.
Lastly, the whole world is to be taken into the estimate, and the
nations are to be counted as members of one great family of man, for
which every portion is to make sacrifices. Thus, as age, and experience,
and habits of obedience to the laws of rectitude increase, the duties
and obligations grow more numerous and complicated. But the same grand
principle is more and more developed, that each individual is to seek
the greatest possible happiness with the least possible evil, for the
vast whole as well as each subordinate part, while _self_ is to receive
only its just and proper share.
The same great design of the Creator can be detected also in specific
organizations, by which minds so differ from each other as to fit them
for the diverse positions and relations that the common good demands. If
all were exactly alike in the amount of constitutional powers and in the
proportionate combinations, it can easily be seen that the general
result would be far less favorable to the happiness of the whole. But as
it is, some have the love of power very large, and love to lead and
control; others have it small, and love to follow. Some have elevated
intellect, and love to teach; others have humbler capacities, and better
love humbler pursuits.
These varied combinations also give scope to the virtues of pity,
tenderness, patience, mercy, justice, self-denial, and many other graces
that could not be called into being without all the disparities, social,
domestic, intellectual, and moral, that we find existing. Meantime, the
principle of habit and the power of the will give abundant opportunities
for modifying these natural peculiarities to accommodate to varying
circumstances.
To these indications of benevolent design may be added the organization
of the bodily system, and the constitution of the material world
without. In examining the body we inhabit, so nicely adjusted, so
perfectly adapted to our necessities, so beautifully and harmoniously
arranged, so "fearfully and wonderfully made," it is almost beyond the
power of numbers to express the multiplied contrivances for ease,
comfort, and delight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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