Note 123 — Chapter VII · THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD, CONSIDERED AS A SCHEME OR CONSTITUTION, IMPERFECTLY COMPREHENDED.

[Let us imagine a person to be taken to view some great historical painting, before which hangs a thick curtain. The attendant raises the curtain a few inches. Can the spectator, from the unmeaning strip of foreground, derive any conception of the figures yet concealed? Much less is he able to criticize their proportions, or beauty, or perspective, or even the design of the artist? The small fragment of a tree, or flower, or animal, or building, may seem quite unmeaning and even ugly, though the whole would present beauty, fitness, or grandeur. Now the portion of God’s dominions within our survey, is as utterly insignificant, compared to the universe, and its interminable duration, as, an atom compared to a planet or a man’s age to eternity.The concluding observations of this chapter, abundantly remove every difficulty as to such ignorance being as valid against the proofs of religion, as it is against objections to it.]