Chapter 3 - Nature in Scripture

If the work of God in nature, then, is admitted to to be any
testimony to God at all, that is nothing else but folly which lies hid
under what is supposed to be a self-evident truth, that "the Bible was
not intended to teach us science." For if science be nothing else than
reasoned knowledge, and if it be of importance that Nature should give
true witness to her God, who shall presume to say that Scripture will
not give us help in such a matter? Is it not, on the other hand, rather
to be expected that it would do so? If its own question be, "Doth not
nature itself teach you?" and if, after all this teaching be not always
so clear and explicit as to need no help to understand it, - (if it
were, we could hardly put the doubt,) - then we should surely expect
that at least the data for true science should be furnished us
abundantly. That, after what men have decided, seems a bold thing to
say; to many, no doubt, even to be evidently contrary to the fact. If
so, we shall refute ourselves, before we have travelled a good half our
proposed journey. The answer will be found, then, as we proceed with
it.

Scripture being witness however, nature does teach. "The
invisible things of Him are clearly seen, being known by the things
that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead." (Rom. i. 2o.) "The
heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His
handiwork." (Ps. xix. 1.) The work must needs declare the Artificer;
and the Worker is, we are assured, He who, because He is the Revealer,
is called the "Word of God." (Jno. 1. 1-3.) Creation must be, then,
part of this revelation.

The parables and types of Scripture take up, therefore, and
use Scripture to this end. They are not merely an adaptation of what
has strictly another meaning. Rather, they develop what is there. It is
in this way that they become so significant for the interpretation of
nature. Analogies of this kind we argue from constantly without
apology, and without suspicion of deception. They are the marks of the
One Mind which everywhere delights to show itself to us and thus would
make all things intelligent to creature intelligence. The proof is that
it really does this: as light, it illumines.

The men of
science have a name for a principle which underlies this. They call it
the "principle of continuity." Of this Prof. Drummond has well said:
"Probably
the most satisfactory way to secure for one's self a just appreciation
of the principle of continuity is to try to conceive the universe
without it. The opposite of a continuous universe would be a
discontinuous universe, an incoherent and irrelevant universe - as
irrelevant in all its ways of doing things as an irrelevant person. In
effect, to withdraw continuity from the universe would be the same as
to withdraw reason from an individual. The universe would run deranged;
the world would be a mad world. . . . The authors of The Unseen
Universe conclude their examination of this principle by saying that
'assuming the existence of a Supreme Governor of the Universe, the
principle of continuity may be said to be the definite expression in
words of our trust that He will not put us to permanent intellectual
confusion, and we can easily conceive similar expressions of trust with
regard to the other faculties of man.'"

Now, if this be true,
as it surely is, the continuity of Nature and Revelation is assured. It
does not imply, as our author would seem to make it, that the book of
nature will be the simpler to read, the surer to follow, therefore in
fact the more authoritative, but the reverse. For, if nature-teaching
be essentially that of parable, no parable is primarily authoritative
as to doctrine; and though still of an importance hard to be
exaggerated, it leaves Scripture as that in which alone God speaks to
us "face to face."

Yet nature remains unfallen from its place as the eldest of
revelations. There is nothing fallen but man, and even his fall has
only in a sense confirmed its witness to us as from Him to whom man's
ruin is no surprise, and redemption no after-thought. Assuredly, such a
world of conflict and destruction, beast preying upon beast, down to
the minutest being that comes under the microscope, would be to an
unfallen being an inharmonious and incongruous mystery. How striking,
then, that we find the yet unfallen parents of our race shut off from
it in a specially prepared and sheltered garden of delight, which might
be for them a better witness of Creating Love, - a memory of blessing
to them when fallen. Then, when at last sent forth into the earth, with
the new strife that had been awakened in their souls, they could find
from the conflicting elements around, with which they were in so
manifest sympathy, the assurance of omniscient foresight undeceived and
undethroned. Has science done aught but deepen this thought, when it
bids us note that the very ground they trod upon was already the wreck
of former worlds? Yet that mountain-upheaval, and glacier-plough, and
the long list of catastrophic forces had been used of Him whom
Scripture reveals as the God of resurrection, to prepare and fertilize
and beautify their yet wondrous dwelling-place?

And this
Scripture also confirms, even though we may have been a long time
coming to read it right, and for this too are indebted, as they say, to
science. Science did not, however, put it in the book of Genesis, that
while God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth, before
the first day's work the earth was waste and empty, and darkness on the
face of the deep. Then the Spirit of God and His Word bring in the
light, and the work of renewal begins.

Here the analogy, then,
is perfect The history of the earth is the prophecy of the man who is
to be put upon it; an this prophecy proceeds step by step with the
history of the six days, creation being the type of new creation, until
the Man comes for whom all is destined, the first man here the type of
the Second, Christ, who is the Heir of all. This can be shown even
minutely, though here is neither time nor place; and the spiritual
significance is the seal of the natural, the perfect assurance of whose
inspiration has guided Moses. But we must pass on.

Spiritual law
then governs the natural world. God, the Creator, is the " Father of
spirits," and to spirits He speaks in it. Nature is, to him who has the
key of it, one vast object-lesson of spiritual things. Did we know it,
what a different world would the. world be to us! How full of reason
would all things become! How should day to day utter speech, and night
to night tell knowledge! How would we realize in our daily toil the
presence of God! How would all the natural sciences become Christian
sciences, and only what was unnatural be at last unchristian! A dream,
you say? Well, then, at any rate, suffer a little while the dream; and
if it should after all be found so rational as to fill all else with
reason, so lightlike as to fill the whole landscape with colour,
warmth, and beauty, so spiritual as to connect all things with God,
then it will be worth while, surely, to inquire how far the realism of
such a dream can differ from reality itself.

We take Scripture
with us as we go forward - Scripture that cannot be broken, the true
Ithuriel's spear by the touch of which all falsehood is discovered;
Scripture, not as the poor thing that men have made it, a rush that one
cannot lean upon, a sensitive plant that shrinks from contact with the
realities around, but as the weapon of the Spirit, sharper than any
two-edged sword; as the staff of the pilgrim, more trusted the more
used; yea, as the word of Him, from whom nothing is hid, and of that
Spirit who "searcheth the deep things of God." There are wide fields
before us, reader. Let us go forth.