necessities, and under whose guardianship it can be safe from those powers of evil to which it knows that it is on all sides and at all times exposed ; a Being whose existence, and whose relation to it- self, can explain all the mysteries of its own being, and secure its felicity in the future, on which it knows it must soon enter. Just as certainly as hunger in the animal supposes that there is food adapted to still its cravings, so certainly does this hunger of the soul suppose that there is some Being in the universe to satisfy its necessities. In both cases the craving is natural, universal, and imperative.
It cannot be that man is an exception to the laws above-men- tioned ; that he alone, of all that lives, has capacities, desires, ne- cessities, for which no provision has been made. God is the correl- ative of man, in the sense that the existence of such a creature as man necessitates the assumption of such a Being as God.
D. From the Moral Nature of Man. The familiar facts of consciousness on this subject are, —
1. That we have, by the constitution of our nature, a sense of right and wrong ; we perceive or judge some things to be right, and others to be wrong. This perception is immediate. As the reason perceives some things to be true, and others false ; and as the senses take immediate knowledge of their appropriate objects, so the soul takes immediate cognizance of the moral character of feelings and acts. The reason, the senses, and the conscience are alike infallible within certain limits, and liable to error beyond those limits.
2. Our moral perceptions or judgments are sui generis. They have their peculiar, distinctive character, which belongs to no other of our states of consciousness. The right is as distinct from the true, the proper, the agreeable, or the expedient, as these latter are from our sensations. The right is that which we are bound to do and to approve ; the wrong is that which we are bound to avoid and to disapprove. Moral obligation, as expressed by the word "ought," is a simple and primary idea. It can be understood only by those who have felt it. And it can be confounded with nothing else.
3. These moral judgments are independent. They are not under the control of the understanding or of the will. No man can will to regard an axiom as false, or think that black is white, or white black. Nor can any sophistry of the understanding lead him to such false judgment. In like manner, no man can will to believe
238 PART I. — THEOLOGY. [Ch. II. — Theism.
that to be right which his conscience tells him to be wrong ; nor can he argue himself into the conviction that he has done right, when his conscience tells him he has done wrong.
4. Our moral judgments, or, in other words, the conscience, has ' an authority from which we cannot emancipate oursehes. We can
/ neither deny nor ignore it. It has a lordship. It commands, and it forbids. And we are bound to obey. It has power also to en- force its decisions. It can reward and punish. Its rewards are among the greatest blessings we can enjoy. Its punishments are the most intolerable agony the human soul can endure.
5. Our moral judgments involve the idea of law, i. e., of a rule or standard to which we are bound to be conformed. When we judge a thing to be right, we judge it to be conformed to the moral law ; when we judge it to be wrong, we judge that is not conformed to that law.
6. This law has an authority which it does not derive from us. It is essentially different from a sense of propriety, or perception of expediency. It is something imposed upon us, and to which we are required to be conformed by an authority out of ourselves.
7. Our moral nature involves, therefore, a sense of responsibility. We must answer for what we are, and for what we do. This re- sponsibility i^ not to ourselves, not to society, nor to being in gen- eral. It must be to a person ; that is, to a Being who knows what we are, what we do, and what we ought to be and do ; who ap- proves of the right, and disapproves of the wrong ; and who has the power and the purpose to reward and punish us according to our character and conduct. Sin, from its very nature, as it reveals it- self in our consciousness, involves not only a sense of pollution, or moral degradation, but also a sense of guilt ; i. e., a conviction that we deserve punishment, that we ought to be punished, and, there- fore, that punishment is inevitable.
If such be the facts of our moral nature, it is plain that we are under the necessity of assuming the existence of an extramundane, personal God, on whom we are dependent, and to whom we are responsible. This is undoubtedly the ground for the conviction of the being of God, which has universally prevailed among men. Having the idea given in the constitution of their nature, or being under an inward necessity of believing in such a Being, cultivated men have sought and found evidence of his existence in the world without them. But these external proofs have neither been as general nor as operative as those derived from what we ourselves are, and from what we know that we deserve. Such men, there-