Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-06-03
For the Nashville Pdtrio.
Hametic Slavery sNormaI-God the
7. Author'O the chronological Differ
ences-Justice of Divine DEGREES.
or the Nashville Patriot.


causes of Gibbon, no doubt had their Sec
ondary influences, but like them, are, as
causes, totally inadequate to account for the
effects. "Observe," says DR.. Good, s'the deli
cate cuticle, the exquisite rose and lilly, that
beautify the face of the Georgian or Circas-
sian: contrast them with the coarse skin and
greasy blackness of the African negro, and
imagination is lost in the discrepancy! Take
the nicely turned and globular form of the
Georgian head or the elegant and triangular
oval of the Georgian face: compare the former
with the fiat skull of the Carib; and the latter
with the fat visage of the Mogul Tartar, and
it must. at first sight, be difficult to conceive
that each Of these could have proceeded from
one common source. Yet the diversities of
the intellectual powers are perhaps as great
as those of corporeal.''
''With these forms. proportions, and col
ors," says Lawrence, (which we consider so
beautiful in the fine figures of Greece, con-
trast the woolly hair, fat nose, thick lips, the
retreating forehead, advancing jaws. and black
skin of the negro; or the broad square face mar
rowoblque eyes, beardless chin coarse straight
hair and olive color of the Calmuck" Yet
both Good and Lawrence attribute all this
wide diversity to '.climate and food. and af-
kind into five varieties. Cuvier, one of the
greatest of philosophers. reduces the race to
three species or varieties-the Caucasian, the
Negro, and the Mongolian-and these three
are really, but the European, the African and
the Asiatic. This classification is the correct
one, because it is the only one fully sustained
by the Mosaic record and present facts-at
least far more sustainable than the five varie-
ties of Blumenbach and the mass of philoso-
| pliers. The classification of Cuvier exactly
accords with the separation of the descend
ants of Shem, Ham and Japheth ordained in
the 9th chapter of Genesis. Taken with this
explanation, that by the establishment of a
new ordinance, the descendants of Shem,
| Ham and Japheth were divided and marked
never to be reunited. and the existing dis
tinctions become, not only, perfectly COM
patible with the Mosaic record, but actually,
| convincing evidence of its truth; and this
troublesome problem of original unity, and
| present. WIuc 10 mus
and thus only, solved by cause entirely
adequate to the effect. But here we are met
with the cry of injustice. We are told that
this is not true, or God is unjust-for it is
unjust to curse the whole Hametic race with
infcriority and servitude for the sin of its pro-
genitor This difficulty is readily solved by
the fact that finite minds cannot comprehend,
and therefore cannot judge at all of infinite
| Justice God caused the Israelitcs to destroy
the whole people who inhabited the Promised
Land: this, according to our finite ideas of
right and Justice, is clear case of doing evil
tainly just and right because it was the act
of infinite justice and righteousness. The
mind of man is too UNNECESSARILY finite to
measure the inconceivable infnity of Cod
or to say of His providence, this is just, that
is unjust. We have no right to discuss the
Justice of God at all. Whatever can be es-
tablished to be the fiat of Jehovah, that is
necessarily right, and it is not our place to
question its Justice. We cannot even imagine
God, save only as himself has condescended
| to reveal Himself. Try for a moment to i'm
when nothing was, out the IrIuue IIuu III,
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost
The boldest and largest human intellect can
not grasp the idea. We cannot conceive O
God surrounded by creation-who then car
conceive of eternity, and God alone! TIL,
created universe is barely, if at all, within
the reach of imagination; but beyond that
even language fails us. The earth is part o
a system revolving round the sun; the sun il
part of still mightier system revolving
round one of the Pleiades; it. again is part o
system vaster still, whose center is som,
unknown sun far beyond our utmost vision
and so on, system piled on system, until W,
reach the last and grandest, whose center i.
the throne of God itself, round which all th,
united universe revolves! This idea is grand
amazing, yet, possibly, conceivable. Blu
here, with creation, the power of human i'm
agination ends; and creation can give us bu
a faint idea of God. In an attempt to con
ceive an idea of the infinite in eternity, wher
nothing was but God; the mind sinks fright
ened and onfOunded-language refuses III
office-and our thoughts and our words be
| II
descension and love, only less amazing thar
himself, God has told us all that we know. OF
that it is necessary for us to know of himself
He has told us all that we know even of our
selves and of our own little world. We know
that He has given us the power to distinguish
between good and evil, together with freedom
of choice. We know too, that God is not the
author of sin. OF course, sin must have re.
suited from His creation, but from no wish or
fiat of His. We cannot doubt that He could
have prevented sin, had He so wlled it, for
absolutely, nothing is impossible with God
Theologians have habit of saving God can
not do such and such things. but they step
beyond the legitimate pale of humanity, when
ever they use such expressions, for they are
illogical and unphilosophical. Christ plainly
says that nothing is impossible with God To
say that God cannot make an equal indcpen-
dent being, is probably the only conceivable
instance in which we have the shadow of a
warrant for using the expression, and then it
is better unsaid. To say that God cannot
make right angles unequal to each other, or
| that He cannot make five the product of two
and two, is both irreverent and unphilosophi-
cal-irreverent because God is infinite and
unphilosophical because these very relations
of angles and numbers are the creation of
God. 1t is not right or philosophical even TO
say that God cannot make a world in which
the relations and results of good and evil
would be TRANSMITTED, for this would be to
make good and evil more eternal than Cod
would be long step back into Chaldean ages,
when men believed in the eternal coexistencc