falsity and evil. We thus perceive, that man is entirely and momentarily dependent upon God, his Creator, for all he has or enjoys. Without the power given continually from above, he would not be able to move or breathe or think or feel: all his physical life is from his mental life, and all his mental life is derived perpetually from God.
Now, this great truth, made known to us from Revelation, and confirmed by all right reason, and by all the analogies in the natural universe, is a fundamental and most vital one. Upon the knowledge and acknowledgment of it, depends all true humility of spirit, all sense of dependence on our Maker and heavenly father,—in a word, all true religion. Yet this truth is contrary to the appearance. It appears to man as if his life were his own, bubbling up from a fountain within him, instead of being derived from a Being out of and above him. It appears to man as if his thoughts and intellectual powers, his ardor of feeling, his physical energies, were all his own and self-derived. Now, were man to take this appearance for a truth,—were he to give way to this persuasion, and confirm himself in this fallacy, what would be the effect? The effect would be pride, self-dependence, self-admiration, denial of God,—in a word, self-love of the deepest die; self-love, going on increasing and rifting and swelling itself up, till man would at length believe himself to be a god. It was a sin of this nature that was represented by eating of the forbidden tree: "the serpent said. In the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil."[1] Such a belief, when carried
- ↑ Genesis iii. 5.
