GUIDANCE OF NATURE by John Norton Loughborough

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 13, 1887

GUIDANCE OF NATURE.

By John Norton Loughborough

"For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." 1 Cor. 1:21.

The central idea of our text is that worldly wisdom does not lead to God. And this is not a contradiction of those scriptures which tell us in plain terms that the book of nature properly studied will lead to a knowledge of God. As beautifully expressed by the psalmist, Ps. 19:1-4: "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." And again by Isaiah, chap. 40:26: "Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number; he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth."

As Paul puts the matter, Rom. 1:19, 20: "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse."

Their difficulty was not that the heavens and earth and all things created did not give proof of a creator, but, Paul says: "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things." So the wisdom alluded to in our text is not a careful following of God's teaching in nature or revelation, but a following of the vain imaginings of man's own heart.

While laboring to enforce upon the minds of the people the importance of giving heed to the precepts of the Bible, we are often met with the statement that "nature is a sufficient guide, and in fact the only revelation that God has made to his creatures." But we conclude that this is not so; for if God reveals himself only through nature, and if those who profess to be guided by reason and nature are following such revelation, then we must certainly conclude from their various and contradictory views that the revelation of nature is a contradictory revelation.

We find one class worshiping the sun and moon and all the hosts of heaven. Another class have the river Ganges as their god; while others bow in reverence to a crocodile or other inferior reptiles. Even the more enlightened among the heathen nations, and those also who profess to be skilled in the principles of the philosophy of nature, come to discordant conclusions in their reasoning from nature, for the simple reason that nature furnishes them no standard by which to try their reasonings. Sometimes their philosophical deductions lead them to the conclusion that there is a future state; again they give it all up, and admit that they can tell nothing about it. So it was with ancient heathen, and so with modern free-thinkers.

Seneca says the Stoics equaled themselves to the gods; for the gods, they affirmed, "are what they are by nature; the wise man is what he is by his own industry." Again they say: "The gods excel not a wise man in happiness, though they excel him in the duration of happiness."

Socrates, the ancient heathen philosopher, who at one time told his friends that when they buried his body he should "go to be among the gods," seemed afterwards to lose this confidence, and his principles of reason led him to other conclusions. Just as he was about to die, he said: "I hope I am now going to good men, though this I would not take upon me peremptorily to assert; but, that I shall go to the gods, lords that are absolutely good, this, if I can affirm anything of this kind, I would certainly affirm. And for this reason I do not take it ill that I am to die, as otherwise I should do; but I am in good hope that there is something remaining for those who are dead, and that it will then be much better for good than for bad men." Again he said, that though he should be mistaken, he did at least gain this much, that the expectation of it made him less uneasy while he lived, and his error would die with him, and he concluded thus: "I am going out of the world, and you are to continue in it; but which of us has the better part is a secret to everyone but God."

Here we see an illustration of the uncertainty of the religion of nature. As its principles were mainly drawn from the reasonings of the people, it left them in a blank uncertainty as to the future, and they have to admit that how it will be, "God only knows." This is frankly admitting that the revelation of futurity from nature and reason are but blank uncertainties.

We cannot refrain from contrasting with the above Job's hope: "Oh that my words were now written! oh, that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." Job 19:23-27. What a contrast in these cases. Socrates's hope is like a drowning man catching at straws, but Job's is fixed in a foundation so sure that it is knowledge. He says, "I know."

Again, on the unsatisfying nature of a hope based on reason alone, we will instance the last moments of Voltaire. Says Voltaire: "Who can without horror consider the whole world as the empire of destruction? It abounds with wonders, it abounds also with victims. It is a vast field of carnage and contagion. Every species is without pity pursued and torn to pieces, through the air, and earth, and water. In man there is more wretchedness than in all other animals put together. He loves life, and yet he knows he must die. If he enjoys a transient good, he suffers various evils, and is at last devoured by worms. This knowledge is his fatal prerogative. . . . I tremble at the review of this dreadful picture, and find it contains a complaint against Providence itself. I wish I never had been born."

I look on the above statement of Voltaire as a strong plea for men to understand God's will by a written revelation, although penned by him for altogether a different purpose. Were nature our only guide, and the deductions of reason our only hope, we might perhaps join in the doleful strain of Voltaire. But when we consider that this lamentable picture is for the most part of those who reject the Bible, and among those who are professedly guided by nature and reason, we conclude that nature's guidance comes quite too short of the mark. With the Christian, who puts his trust in God and his word, what a different feeling we find. He has the "love of Christ which passeth knowledge" as the Lord grants him his blessing in copious showers, until he is "filled with all the fullness of God." Eph. 3:19.

With Voltaire we might contrast the experience of Paul: "We glory in tribulations also." "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." And again he says: "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." Rom. 5:3; 8:18; 2 Cor. 4:17, 18.

Voltaire died in 1779. He was the French infidel who claimed that in one hundred years the Bible would be exterminated; but let us read a few words of the report of the British and Foreign Bible Society at the close of the year's labor in 1879. It reads:—

"Last year 100,000 copies of the holy Gospels, besides 4,000 Bibles, were distributed in France, and at least 150 persons were converted to Protestantism by the influence of the colporters of the society, whilst curiously enough the centenary of Voltaire's death was the occasion of the sale of more Bibles in France than ever, and thus there was a falsification of the great atheist's prediction that in 100 years the Bible would become effete. . . . Since its formation the society had issued 86 millions of copies of God's word in 250 languages."

Sutterly has failed the prediction of one whose wish that the Bible might be destroyed "was the father of the thought he expressed, that it 'would become effete.'"

We may be allowed to avail ourself of a contrast with the above, used by Mr. Wm. Plummer, in his "Bible True," in the case of Paul: "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing." 2 Tim. 4:6-8. The unbeliever in trouble is a reed shaken with the wind—he is tossed with the tempest and not comforted. But he whose trust is in the living oracles of Jehovah, even when sorrow betides him, stands

"As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm; Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head."

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.