A Word about Chance

Atheists tell us that there is no God, and that everything happens by chance; and then if we question them they inform us, that chance is alike cause and effect. Sometimes it was fortune, and sometimes an event which came about without being contrived, expected, intended, or foreseen. If you inquire more into the philosophy of these profound philosophers, who are too philosophical to believe that the universe had a rational Creator, or is governed by an intelligent Benefactor, they frankly admit that their favourite chance, has neither body nor soul; has neither thought, imagination, reason, will nor power; is neither good nor evil, wise nor foolish, right nor wrong.

Chance can neither walk, nor talk, love nor hate, move nor stand still! It is, in fact, an infinite, eternal, everlasting nothing; which though a nonenity itself, yet made everything that is made, and produces all the order and confusion of the universe. It exists, of course, although no Atheist or Deist ever saw, or heard it, or knows anything at all about it. It is everywhere and nowhere at the same time; it does everything, and does nothing; it fills immensity, and yet is less than the smallest atom, and has been active and passive from all eternity, although it never had any existence!

Such is chance, and such the rationality of some who call themselves rationalists. And if we go from Atheists to Deists, who deny revelation, or to Polytheists, who have never seen the Word of Life, we find nothing but absurdity every where. All idolaters and unbelievers, prove to a demonstration, that the world by wisdom knew not God; and we may well ask, as we read their works, who by searching can find out God? who can find out the Almighty to perfection? We have China and India with their antiquity; Greece and Rome with their learning; and modern sceptics, with all the wit, blunders, and follies of former barbarians and sages, to instruct them; and yet, whether we investigate the past or the present, we have the same ignorance respecting God and the universe. It is now as clear as any demonstration of Euclid, that the only book that can teach us is the Bible; for in the first chapter of Genesis we have more reason, theology, and consolation, on the great and sublime character of Jehovah, the origin of creation, and the nature of man, than in all the other books in the world. Here we have divinity, cosmology, and antropology— in a few words, written so plainly, that a clown may understand them, and so briefly, that a child, with a little effort, can commit them to memory.--Anon