ing, and which, at the same time, points out the natural and
highly proper emotions which result from it. "They that go down to the
sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of
the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth and raiseth the
stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to
heaven, they go down again to the depths; their soul is melted because
of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and
all their wisdom is swallowed up. Then they cry unto the Lord in their
trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the
storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad
because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven. Oh
that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful
works to the children of men!" Almost every word of this gives the lie
to the practical consequences of our Doctor's theory. It would be
invidious to oppress him with any other of the numerous such like
instances which this book presents. He appears to make much of the
obvious impropriety of using such terms as _happened_, in speaking of
certain events. But this is childish; for every one knows that by such
terms is expressed merely our ignorance of the series or train of
operations by which those events are brought to pass. They are used in
respect of ourselves, not by any means in reference to the Deity. But
there is something vastly worse than childishness, in his insinuation as
to what Omnipotence might do in preventing, not remedying evils. They
breathe a spirit of malevolent disaffection, which is indeed but very
imperfectly smothered in the decent language of conjectural
propositions. A sounder philosophy than his own would have told Dr H. in
the words of Bacon, that "the prerogative of God extendeth as well to
the reason, as to the will of man;" and that therefore it became him
humbly to contemplate what God _has_ done, rather than to speculate as
to what he _might have_ done. In nothing, however, has he so monstrously
blundered, as in hinting, that if an event is natural, therefore
Providence is out of the question in effecting it; and that, on the
other hand, if it is not natural, therefore even a benevolent
Providence, that has interposed to remedy the evils of it, is faulty in
not having been earlier at work to prevent its occurrence altogether.
This is sophistry of the worst kind. A single