Man Primeval, Or, the Constitution and Primitive Condition of the Human Being; A Contribution to Theological Science

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1852. Excerpt: ... a motive to humility, we state our conviction, the grounds of which will presently appear, that one of the innumerable reasons is, in order that man might subserve a plan of such diversified creations as shall demonstate the Divine all-sufficiency. Sect. II.--That part of the reason which relates to the Divine all-sufficiency, and so includes man's destiny. 1. The sentence with which the last section concludes may possibly suggest to some minds the idea, that if, as we believe, the exhibition of the Divine all-sufficiency be the ultimate end of creation, the only adequate plan must be one which includes a graduated scale of being filling up the wide interval between the extremes of non-existence and the highest relative perfection. For all-sufficiency, it might be said, must be sufficiency for so much as that, and can be proved only by it. But such a supposition overlooks two very important considerations: first, that the exhibition is to be made to a being capable of inferring beyond the extent of his evidence, of reasoning from the actual to the possible--of perceiving that his own mind is not the measure of the universe, and that the actual creation is not the measure of the Creative power--of concluding from the finite to the infinite. Now, for such a being, the physical demonstration of the Divine all-sufficiency, by literally calling into being all possible orders of creations, would appear to be eminently unsuitable, for it would compel his belief on the subject, and leave no room whatever for the voluntary exercise of his powers. Whereas, one of the highest ends of creation is his probationary self-development, which requires that his powers shall neither be superseded nor overborne, but be so conditioned as to be kept in harmonious and ever-stren...