By Rev. J. B. THOMAS, D.D.

There is noticeable similarity between nature and the Bible, the work and the word. There are countless evidences indicating that they have the same author. No case resting on evidence was ever clearer. You can always detect a master’s style in his creations; certain peculiarities are sure to appear. You can recognize a Rubens in the old galleries by the blonde hair, the pinkish tint of the flesh, and the luxurious stoutness of the physique. So the brush of Murillo and Guido, and every great artist carries its own mark. So one mark is on nature and the Bible. They are done in the same style. In Raphael, the reality of the earthly, and the gracefulness of the heavenly, never fail to be blended in wonderful harmony, apparent always to the practiced eye. His figures are pyramids of strength, transfused with celestial beauty. Nature confirms some of the most important doctrines of the Bible—some that men would rule out, or quietly ignore; but nature comes to their support, as another attraction of the same God, to the same truth. In nature, when spring comes, it is by silent and imperceptible approach, like the dawn of the morning. First, a bluebird’s note on the bare tree tops (no one saw her come), then the song of the robin. It is first the crocus, lifting up her head, and then the tulip and the hyacinth, while a tint, a shade softer, comes in the sky. One by one other birds and flowers appear, and at last, the full tide sets in, and beauty mounts the earth, and balm fills the air. The glory of the seasons is upon us, and the heart is entranced with the wonders of loveliness in the midst of which it moves.

So the Bible: First, the simple promise to Eve, far back in the moral winter of man’s estate, “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” This was the lone note of the bluebird, sounding out in the midst of the desolations of a fallen world. It was the first soft tint in the cold sky. By-and-by the promise to Abraham, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” This was the trailing arbutus. At last the definite announcement of a coming Savior to Isaiah, “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son, and his name shall be called Immanuel [God with us], for he shall save his people from their sins.” This was the blossom of the fig tree which showed that summer was nigh. Thus did revelation come slowly, through ages of delay, till at last in the fulness of time God unsealed his wonders, the star, the wise men, the angelic host, the watching shepherds, the “gloria in excelsis,” the earth breaking forth into singing, the desert places blooming as the rose, and fragrance of spices in all the air. Verily the God of nature and of the Bible is one God, the method of God in nature testifying that it is the same God in the Bible. In nature everything is in the concrete. We have the raw material in bulk there: the gold must be mined and melted; the timber must be cut, and squared with saw and ax; the stones fashioned with hammer and chisel; the land cleared and plowed and dressed. So different is this from the art of man, who puts everything in rows and squares, and introduces order everywhere. Similarly, revelation gives ideas, not forms. It scatters germs of thought, not finished creeds. It throws out great truths, doctrines, principles, not definite rules and completed systems. Everything as in nature must be carefully searched out, reduced and put in order. A casual observer would have no idea of the riches in the Bible, any more than in nature. Here is a doctrine mixed with a duty; there is a precept bound up with a paragraph of history. In one place is a miracle, where you looked for a promise; in another is prophecy, where you had expected law, and so on through. Strange, you say, so many curious things in the Bible, so much that is irreverent, so little system, so wanting in arrangement. But it is just like nature. There is a complete and definite order, a general organic unity runs from the first page to the last. Written by sixty-six different authors, and sixteen hundred years in the composition, it is still one book, one plan. All the parts combine to make the great whole. It must be studied out. Like nature, the Bible is planned to tax the higher faculties of man, to put them to search, and develop and enlarge them by thoughts and endeavors. Little study makes little men. What is lightly acquired is carelessly held. Easy lessons make barren lives. Out of the depths by toil come the great riches of head and heart. Down from the heights after profound thought the larger wisdom is brought. It is the glory of kings to search out a matter, and men become kings only as God puts them to kingly effort and service. This method of God in nature makes princes in science, as men learn to think God’s thoughts after him. This method in the Bible makes strong men. Verily the God of nature is also God of the Bible, and they will stand together, the Word as enduring as the world.

In nature there is no withholding of mysteries, no avoidance of difficulties, because they may disturb some weak faith, trouble somebody. The great God of the universe lets out his power and displays his wisdom, and builds up to his own level, whether anyone can understand or not. Out of nothing, nothing comes. Out of the infinite comes infinite greatness and wisdom, beyond the scope of man. There is a startling boldness in God’s works. In nature contradictions are piled mountains high, no matter whether man can reconcile them or not. Paradoxes abound without regard to how they will strike men; no explanations are vouchsafed; men are not followed up and told why this is, and why that. They have to take it as it comes. In nature, man is placed in the midst of untold wonders and marvels, without a word, and he is left there to grapple with the highest problems, and think them out. God does not “baby” his children, in these things. This is the highest kind of teaching. Man never finds his littleness, and begins to learn, and climb, till he is put on such a stretch. In this is God’s wisdom, as well as his greatness. Just this is God’s method, also, in the Bible. It is the most bold and fearless of books: mysteries utterly inexplicable it sets before you; difficulties the most irreconcilable it plants on every page, with no attempt at solution. God is master and in command; God governs, and not the skeptics or theologians. Prophecies are uttered, miracles are performed upon God’s plans, as is easy for him. Man may believe, or let it alone. As in nature, God can not be less than himself. There is much in nature and in the Bible that man never can think out, but nature is not the less to man because it is so much above him. The very fact helps to lift him; man needs Alps on Alps above him. If the Bible were more easy, contained fewer hard sayings and knotty doctrines, it would show a less wonderful God, it would be a less powerful stimulant and helper to men. Is not the God of nature and the Bible one God—the work confirming the book? In nature there is loveliness and peace, terror and death; what more calm and delightful than a quiet sunset? What more terrible than tornado and tempest? You have seen the fire of lightning, and heard death riding on the blast in the black darkness. There are peaceful vales of earth filled with the song of birds, the hum of bees, and the gentle lullaby of brooks. But are there not cyclones and whirlwinds, lightnings and thunders, that rend and wreck, and devastate—earthquakes that swallow up whole cities—volcanoes which belch liquid fires? In the midst of beauty and loveliness men starve, and burn, and drown, and rot with loathsome disease, and die.

Now there is no question in the world’s best thought, but that God is good, wonderfully good, notwithstanding all these sufferings and sorrows. Turn to the Bible, what love is there! what goodness and patience! what mercy and grace, for every son of man abundantly bestowed! God is not willing that any should perish. He would rather that all should turn and live. But suffering for sin is there, and punishment for guilt. What forked lightnings play against wickedness! what thunders roll for transgression! There is the worm that never dies, the fire that is never quenched, the outer darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Heaven is there, with all its bliss, for those who love and obey God, and hell is there with all its bale and blight for those who die unforgiven and unreconciled to God. Because of these things, many throw away the Bible and reproach God, and seek after an easier way; but they can not throw away nature, and the same law and method of government inhere in the very core of nature, and are stamped in all its structure. Where this truth is not read out of God’s word, it is still read every day in nature.

In nature there is a majestic order which is gone through, and then nature has no more to give. There is seed time, and a harvest. Both have their place and office, and if they are improved, well, unspeakably well; if disregarded, bad, unspeakably bad. The Bible offers to man a seed time and a harvest. The sowing neglected there is nothing to take its place. This is the only seed time of the soul; swiftly the summer ends, and the harvest is the end of the world. As nature treats man, so does the Bible; without faith and works, the Bible gives nothing; without ploughing and sowing all the pastures of the prairies would fail to give man anything; nature cuts off a sluggard with a straw; without sowing, man reaches the harvest time and brings in no sheaf. Nature deals squarely: without the seed committed to her, there are weeds in the autumn; nothing but leaves. So with the Bible: it demands our confidence, and asks our service; we must heed its call. Nature is so made as to reward man increasingly, as he rises in intelligence and his wants multiply. When wood was gone for fuel, coal came. When the whale oil gave out, petroleum was at hand. After the paddle came the sail, then the steamship. When the mail carrier was too slow, the rail car appeared, followed by the lightning of the telegraph. Nature has her supplies in waiting, and reveals them more and more through the growing needs of the ages. So of the Bible. Many said the Bible would do for the stiff-necked Jews in Palestine, but it would never suit the practical sense of the Romans and the subtle intellectual taste of the Greeks. It did both. Then it was claimed it would not avail for the barbarians of northern Europe. It was adopted by every European nation. Still it was held that the Bible would not reclaim cannibals and the savages of Africa. It has done for all, lifted all of every class which it has touched, and it has power to carry the race higher and wider till the end of time.

An oriental prince brought a tent to his father in a walnut shell, so runs the legend. The king took it out and began to unfold it. It covered the king and his counselors. It covered the royal household. It covered his generals and the army. It covered the kingdom. It covered the whole world. It was Christianity. God was the father, and the prince was Jesus Christ, the Messiah. The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of our Lord. The God of nature and of the Bible is one God.