A PARABLE.
A gentleman of the country, upon the occasion of some signal service this man had done him, gave him a curious silver cup. David (for that was the man’s name) was exceedingly fond of the present, and preserved it with the greatest care. But one day, by accident, his cup fell into a vessel of aqua fortis: he, taking it to be no other than common water, thought his cup safe enough, and therefore neglected it till he had dispatched an affair of importance, about which his master had employed him, imagining it would be then time enough to take out his cup. At length a fellow-servant entered the same room, when the cup was near dissolved; and looking into the aqua fortis, asked David, who had thrown anything into that vessel? David said that his cup accidentally fell into that water. Upon this, his fellow-servant informed him that his cup was almost dissolved in it. When David heard this, and was satisfied of the truth of it with his own eyes, he heartily grieved for the loss of his cup; and at the same time, he was astonished to see the liquor as clear as if nothing had been dissolved in it or mixed with it. As, after a while, he saw the small remains of it vanish, and could not now perceive the least particle of the silver, he utterly despaired of ever seeing his cup more. Upon this, he bitterly bewailed his loss with many tears, and refused to be comforted. His fellow-servant, pitying him in this condition of sorrow, told him that his master could restore him the very same cup again. David disregarded this as utterly impossible. “What do you talk of?” says he to his fellow-servant. “Do you not know that the cup is entirely dissolved, and that not the least bit of the silver is to be seen? Are not all the little invisible parts of the cup mingled with aqua fortis, and become parts of the same mass? How, then, can my master, or any man alive, produce the silver anew, and restore my cup? It can never be; I give it over for lost: I am sure I shall never see it again.” His fellow-servant still insisted that their master could restore the same cup, and David as earnestly insisted that it was absolutely impossible. While they were debating this point, their master came in, and asked them what they were disputing about? When they had informed him, he said to David, “What you so positively pronounced to be impossible, you shall see me do with very little trouble. “Fetch me,” said he to the other servant, “some salt water, and pour it into the vessel of aqua fortis. Now look,” says he, “the silver will presently fall to the bottom of the vessel in a white powder.” When David saw this, he began to have good hopes of seeing his cup restored. Next, his master ordered a servant to drain off the liquor, and to take up the powdered silver and melt it. Thus it was reduced into one solid piece; and then, by the silversmith’s hammer, formed into a cup of the same shape as before. Thus David’s cup was restored, with a very small loss of its weight and value.
It is no uncommon thing for men, like David in this parable, to imagine that to be impossible, which yet persons of greater skill and wisdom than themselves can easily perform. David was as positive that his master could not restore his cup, as unbelievers are, that it is incredible God should raise the dead; and he had as much appearance of reason on his side as they. If a human body, dead, crumbles into dust, and mingles with the earth, or with the water of the sea, so as to be discernible no more, so the silver cup was dissolved into parts invisible, and mingled with the mass of aqua fortis. Is it not then easy to be conceived, that as a man has wisdom and power enough to bring these parts of the silver to be visible again, and to reduce them to a cup as before, so God, the maker of heaven and earth, must have wisdom and power enough to bring the parts of a dissolved human body together, and to form them into a human body again? What though David could not restore his own cup? Was that a reason that no man could do it? And when his master had promised to restore it, what though David could not possibly conjecture by what method his master would do it? This was no proof that his master was at a loss for a method. So, though men cannot raise the dead, yet God, who is infinitely wiser and stronger, can. And though we cannot find out the method by which He will do this, yet we are sure that He who at first took the dust of the ground, and formed it into the body of man, can, with the same ease, take the dust into which my body shall be resolved, and form it into a human body again.
Nay, even if a body be burnt, and consumed by fire, the parts of that body are no more really lost than the invisible particles of the dissolved cup. As David, then, was wrong in thinking that it was impossible for his master to restore his cup, it must be at least equally wrong for us to think it impossible that God should raise the dead. —Hallett cited in Dr. Brown’s Resurrection of Life, pp. 300-302.
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