222 On Mystery. 



it is necessary to find some cause still more general, to which 

 they may all be referred. With regard to such a cause vari- 

 ous hypotheses have been formed, all of which however are 

 entirely unsatisfactory except that which resolves all effects 

 into the immediate agency of one mighty and intelligent 

 Being. This would doubtless have been generally adopted, 

 were it not, that though the cause at work, in general oper- 

 ates like a wise and intelligent agent, yet if it be artificially 

 thwarted, it will still go on, and form ludicrous, abortive, and 

 monstrous combinations. If then we suppose it to operate 

 otherwise than by a surd necessity, we must conclude that 

 such operations are called for by the general scheme of Provi- 

 dence, to announce, (which is of great importance,) the stabili- 

 ty, in all cases, of the general rule. If this hypothesis be adop- 

 ted, we may consider every general law as a single fact, and 

 all general laws as a class of facts, referable to the simple 

 volition of the Deity as their cause. In such a case, the voli- 

 tion takes the place of the general law, as being that to which 

 every thing is to be referred ; and the mystery remains in the 

 fact that volition can communicate motion at all, and in 

 the existence and infinite energy of the will exerted. This 

 sublime view of the universe and its Author, we may perhaps 

 hereafter fully take in and enjoy. 



In all this however, it will be perceived that we have mere- 

 ly traced causes more limited to those more general, but have 

 not proceeded one step in removing the obscurity which 

 hangs over existence, and the nature of causation. It will 

 also be perceived, since a general law is only an abstract 

 name for a uniform mode of operation, which name can 

 have no efficiency, that the power which operates according 

 to the law, must be immediately exerted in producing every 

 individual effect ; and that if the law be mysterious, the par- 

 ticular facts, from an observation of which the law was in- 

 ferred, must, truly and philosophically speaking, be equally 

 so. It will then follow that every event is in fact equally 

 mysterious, — yes, every event, and it is familiarity alone that 

 deadens the sense of it. 



From this universal mystery, it results, that the creation of 

 the world, the resurrection of the dead, the mode of God's 

 being, and all those facts which from their nature, admit to 

 us, of no experience, or analogy, but still involve no contra- 

 diction or absurdity, are to be believed on good testimony 

 however far they may be removed from the course of our ex- 



