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
This moral nature, which we are thus led to ascribe to our Creator,
includes, in the first place, the existence of a feeling that whatever
lessens or destroys happiness is unfitted to the system of the universe,
and that _voluntary sacrifice and suffering to purchase the highest
possible happiness is fitted to or in accordance with the eternal nature
of things_.
Next, we are thus taught that in the Eternal Mind is existing that
_sense of justice_ which involves the desire of good to the author of
good, and of evil to the author of evil, which requires that such
retributions be _proportioned_ to the good and evil done, and to the
_voluntary_ power of the agent.
Lastly, we are thus instructed that the Author of all created things
possesses that susceptibility called _conscience_, which includes, in
the very constitution of mind itself, retributions for right and wrong
actions.
But while we thus assume that the mind of the Creator is, so far as we
can conceive, precisely like our own in constitutional organization, we
are as necessarily led to perceive that the _extent_ of these powers is
far beyond our own. A mind with the power, wisdom, and goodness
exhibited in the very small portion of his works submitted to our
inspection, who has inhabited eternity, and developed and matured
through everlasting ages--our minds are lost in attempting any
conception of the extent of such infinite faculties!
But we have another intuitive truth to aid in our deductions. It is that
by which we infer the continuance of a _uniformity in our experience_;
that is, we necessarily believe that "things will continue as they are
and have been, unless there is evidence to the contrary." Now all past
experience as to the nature of mind has been uniform. Every mind known
to us is endowed with intellect, susceptibility, and will, like our own.
So much is this the case, that when any of these are wanting in a human
being, we say he has "lost his mind."
Again: all our experience of mind involves the idea of the _mutual
relation of minds_. We perceive that minds are made to match to other
minds, so that there can be no complete action of mind, according to its
manifest design, except in relation to other beings. A mind can not love
till there is another mind to call forth such emotion. A mind can not
bring a tithe of its power into appropriate action except in a community
of minds. The conception of a solitary being, with all the social powers
and sympathies of the human mind infinitely enlarged, and yet without
any sympathizing mind to match and meet them, involves the highest idea
of unfitness and imperfection conceivable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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