Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1885-07-07
MIR. BEECHER ON THE DESIGN IN CREATION
From the New York Herald.]


Mr. Reecher's sermon last Sunday week
dealt with the two questions of design in
creation and of general and special
providence as they stand related to the
testimony of Scripture and what has been
learned of the course of natural law in the
world.
There is no attempt in the Hebrew Scrip
lures, said Mr.. Beecher, to give definite
form to God There is no philosophy of
God made known in the Bible any more
| than there is science in nature. 1t was ex-
pressly forbidden, indeed, that there should
be any form given to God. 1t degraded
God in the maginations of men to limit
Him by forms and matter. The Scripture
development of God conforms to the fact
of infinity and to the unsearchable in time
and space, and it is remarkable that the
process of scientific unfolding finds itself in
close analogy with this mode of treatment
of the Divine Being. Men think that be
cause theology has made up God on the
arithmetical plan, exactly described all his
attributes and located them and their func-
tions, anything that changes that mechan-
| ical conception must be wandering away
from the truth. 1t is going back to the truth.
| The theistic view, that this world needs
| no God, instead of simplifying and relieving
us, makes the matter still more difficult of
comprehension. There is nothing in human
experience which can furnish basis for be-
! lieving that the world came without any eX
| ternalinduence Time and matter beinggiven
and certain laws established, then the world,
| to be sure, could be unfolded as it is taught
| by evolution. But where was the matter and
where were the laws that directed it through
the unaccountable periods, and gave to it
system, progress and organic symmetry.
No man can believe that things happen of
themselves There is always prior force
to an effect. But the origin of matter
| what matter is we don't know any better
| than we know what the spirit, the mind,
the soul is. The men that ridicule the doc
trine of soul or spirit as something sepa-
| rate from matter are no better off in their
mud than we are in our mire. The law OF
cause and effect is fundamental to the very
| existence of science, so that we gain moth.
ing by excluding the divine intelligence,
and to include it smoothes the way Of in
| vestgation The doctrine Of evolution at
first sight seems to destroy the fact OF intel
| ligent design in creation for long time 1t
seemed to be shaken from its basis. 1t is
being restored in larger and grander way.
Evolution only places it upon wider plane
and makes the outcome more wonderful.
The old theory conceived God as creating
things for special uses that when the idea
of lily dawned on Him he smiled and
said, II will make it," and make it he did
and when plants were to be ordered, so that
some should live in the frigid zones and
some only in the tropical, men have said
| that God adapted all His creations to the
soil and to the circumstances, and it
was beautiful thing to see how
things did fit by the divine wisdom
to the place where they were. Now ev-
olution comes and shows that things were
fitted to the place where they are in con-
sequence of the fact that all that was not fit
for the place perished. The theory of evo-
luton is largely theory of destruction. Gre
alton has been with enormous waste. We
behold the infowing through the ages of all
things, governed by the law of variation.
In the battling life, one thing struggling
with another, the strong or the best adapted
crowd out the weak or the i'll adapted and
they perish, and the best things take their
place and continue to transmit their quail
ties until something better yet shall destroy
them. The vast universe, then, looked at
largely, is moving in determinate lines and
directions, while by the way the weak are
perishing, yet there is an unfolding process
that is carrying creation up upon higher
plane and higher lines, reaching more
complicated condition in structure, in tunc
ton, in adaptation, with systematic and har
monious results, so that the whole physical
creation is knitting itself together in sub
, lime march onward and upward. Is there
no evidence here of design? Was it an evil
dence of design that plant was created that
fitted the position, and no evidence ofdesiSr
that this plant belonged to the whole move
ment of creation itself? 1t may be said
then. that evolution, instead of obliteratine
design, has lifted it to higher plane, and
made it more sublime than it ever was con
; templated under the old reasoning.
Next it has been thought that science, BY
introducing the doctrine of natural law ane
giving it a larger and more definite field o
operation, has destroyed all possibility 0
teaching that there is any special provi
dence of God over men and events. Ii th'
tbeistic doctrine of general providence,
supervision of fthemachinery of the universe
|, or the Christian doctrine of special provi
: dences were to be oVegthrown by science, i
would make very great breach in on
faith in the New Testament or IN the diviu
5 ity of Christ. One of the things that maxi
: life endurable is the thought tnat we ar
not SO many stones being worn IN the brook
} and ratified down by booming torrents, On
, that we are grouped together in famille
and communities under benefcent super
vision of God Himself. If this world is
vast machine, left to nothing but the guild
ance of natural laws, get very little quiet
, I admit the uniformity of great laws. Go
o works through laws or force. But there
a mistaken idea about laws that they ar
: : unchangable and cannot be controlled. Tn
irresistibleness of natural law is an illusion
Nothing is gentler. Once obey natura
: law and it becomes your servant. Every
where throughout the world you can max