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largement of meaning with our growth of understanding, the rising of precept and doctrine into rules of higher discipline for the advancement of purity, had long been matter of spiritual experience to devout minds; but accurate scientific thought led to inquiry whether those parts also which address our reason, not the emotional and reverential faculties, do not possess equal power of enlargement. What have we found? We have found that the Bible is the boldest and truest book in the world. It says "Go with the antiquary among ancient ruins, you will find confirmation of my veracity on every medal and in all inscriptions. I love light, hate darkness, rejoice in true science-for it is death to superstition and life to faith." This excellency of the Bible above all other books, and its peculiarity as the Word of God, prove it to be a spiritual organism (Heb. iv. 12). The words are not chosen and arranged as by a scientific man, nor do they contain latent systems of science; but, when scientific facts become known, they confirm the old letter. As an artist beholds spirit and life in that which, to a common eye, is dead; or as the sculptor sees genius live and move in the marble that, to another man, is lifeless; the believer finds the chambers of Scripture to be full of true and holy living things. He says "I am not great, yet I feel some far-off touch of greatness, not mine own, but of a Heavenly Friend, by whom I shall be great." There are some rare human countenances in which an honest homely look might be counted all; but in a moment, as if light from heaven shone, depths of soul are revealed glowing with love and truth: so is it with the Bible.

We respectfully ask scientific men whether cold, mechanical, narrow conception and interpretation of the Book are not as scientifically wrong as some old conceptions of Nature are actually false? whether the difficulties in Scripture do not arise, for the most part, from the low state of knowledge among translators, expositors, readers? Can a book excite holy emotion, quicken pious resolve, overcome fear of death, enable the low, the vicious, the cruel, to attain elevation, sanctity, and mercifulness, and its powers be accounted for by mechanical arrangements? Are its peculiar construction -sometimes setting aside modern rules of grammar; its

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splendour of imagery-adorning every chamber of our mind; its array of facts and historic narration-delighting to confound our theories; to be interpreted, or corrected, or rejected, because some of our systems are not yet in accord with its statements? Ought it not to be meted by another measure than the hard analysis of criminal court procedure? Surely, godly emotions, sense of the Supreme, desire for immortality in purity and truth, are valuable parts of human nature, more worthy of cultivation and reliance than the carnal instincts which crave only to eat, drink, and be merry?

Let it be a matter of duty to develop the high, as it is a necessity to appease the low. Let the mastery of logical methods and the accuracy of experiment, partake of those more elaborate, delicate, and comprehensive processes of thought and emotion which during long ages have drawn the pure in heart to Scripture, to Faith, to God. If a critic asserts "Shakespeare had no genius, and Milton no imagination," will not men smile at his folly? Is it not greater folly to call Moses, the most wonderful of men, "a semi-barbarous Hebrew;" to account the Prophets enthusiasts, Jesus as wholly human, and the Apostles as deceived or deceivers? We cannot but hope that He who, in compassionate and unfaltering love, prayed for His enemics-" Father, forgive them," will look from the Cross upon those who count themselves wise, turn His sublime suffering countenance upon them, draw them with His love, save them in His mercy.

STUDY XXII.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

"Institutions are to be judged by their great men; in the end they take their line from their great men. The Christian Church, and the line which is natural to it, and which will one day prevail in it, is to be judged from the saints and the tone of the saints."-MATTHEW ARNOLD, The Church of England.

"Deus est homo factus; quid futurus est homo,

Quem propter Ipse factus est homo Deus?"

"FROM the consideration of ourselves, and what we infallibly find in our own constitutions, our reason leads us to the knowledge of this certain and evident truth, that there is an eternal, most powerful, and most knowing Being"-these are the words of John Locke.1 The existence of God is a verity real as are mathematical axioms: so thought Descartes-the Infinite, Eternal, Unchangeable, Self-existent, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Creator, is God.2 Add the belief of Malebranche, that God acts in all things by the counsels of wisdom, and by inspiration of love. Take Newton's words-" He is not eternity and infinity, but Eternal and Infinite; not time and space, but the Ever-Living and Ever-Present, in whom time and space have existence and foundation;" "Non est æternitas et infinitas, sed æternus et infinitus; non est duratio et spatium, sed durat et adest. Durat semper et adest ubique, et existendo semper et ubique, durationem et spatium constituit."" We thus form that idea of God which conscience and Holy Scripture approve, and conclude with Descartes-"God is the first and eternal of all the truths which can possibly exist, and the One whence all others proceed."4

"Human Understanding," book iv. ch. x.

2 "Discourse on Method," i. p. 161.

3 66

Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Scholium Generale." "Letters," i. p. 112.

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On this fact, the First Study-"Intelligence is not divorced from Piety," was established.

The same truth takes another form.

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The perfect human life is that most conformed, not to blind appetite, but to the enlightened desires of wisdom. Consciousness of this wisdom leads to the conviction that an infinite guiding Mind holds all events within control, and says to every surging wave-"Hitherto shalt thou come, no further." This intelligent Governor is a personal God: for knowing, as well as we know anything, that our own wisdom cannot spring from a world of blind fatality; we also know that the world is not one huge terror, rolling on with mighty speed and energy, mind-less, reason-less, soul-less, crumbling our every hope into disappointment; but a world in which we reach through everything felt and seen, to depths of inwardness, to springs of life, to law of knitted purport. Not one living thing is too minute for Infinite care, or too stupendous for Divine strength. The sun in heaven, or the lowly life rejoicing in his beams; the destiny of an empire, or a tear on infant's cheek; are cared for by One omniscient to guide, omnipotent to save. know and serve such a God, love and obey Him with fervent emotion and clear intelligence, is highest, happiest, fullest life : it satisfies the purest desire of our being, gives reality to virtue, truth to religion, unity to mankind. The existence of God is written as a law in human nature, and is the immortal original which men have sought to transcribe in all their faiths. "No fantastical art of juggling with words," no sensuality of low animal-men, ever stifled our consciousness of the Supernatural, "We have a more certain knowledge of the existence of a God, than of anything our senses have not immediately discovered to us." 2 The desire of all nations for freedom of conscience is not because of unbelief, but a yearning for inquiry to establish more life and fuller faith. The best man, the man in whom piety and intelligence are duly combined, will say, as Plato did long ago--"The world is guided by an accompanying Divine Power, and receives life and immortality by the appointment of the Creator." 3

1 "Descartes' Ethics-Liberty," part v. prop. xx.

2 John Locke, "Human Understanding," book iv. ch. x.
3 "Plato's Dialogues-Statesmen," p. 270: Jowett's translation.

In Studies of "The Supernatural," "Threshold of Creation," "Rudiments of the World," we arrived at the Creation as a fact. We are not "a crowd of wretches, equally criminal and unfortunate,” but children of God-not looking from the outside into halls and saloons, but tenants of a spacious house, to whom all doors are open. Competent to labour, mentally capable of investigation, spiritually desirous of knowing whence we came and whither we go, we somewhat apprehend the influence of spirit on matter; how it is possible for a being to go forth from his own sphere to influence the development of another being: nevertheless, the effective real physical action of one substance upon another is really "unthinkable;" therefore, the actuality of it in Nature, being "unthinkable," is a continual miracle. Unbelievers will have no miracles, and say "What is so absurd as perpetual miracles in Nature?" Yet the universe is one splendid, universal, all-comprehending miracle: an infinite number of incomprehensible energies acting in, by, and through matter; of living units, the same in essence, but different in degree and capacity of development. The different degrees are classed in families, orders, species, and rise from brute nature, in which life sleeps, to life's spiritual awakening in the splendour of humanity. Minerals and plants, animals and men, things gross and things sublime, all that can be imagined and not imagined, our own world and existence in other known worlds, are but a small part of the infinite whole of the universe. All these existences, separate but mingled with one another, alike and unlike, ever dying yet continuing through innumerable ages in successive evolution, so act for, with, and against one another, that the sounds of life are a grand march-tune of the universe. Every existence is, in itself, a little world; represents, in diminutive mirror, the whole universe. Every creature lives, not of itself; but continues by continual efficacy of the unknown eternal energy in whom all lines of life centre. We all know that the visible is the actual and continual outcome of the Invisible, a manifestation of the Supernatural, a splendid miracle in the whole and essentially miraculous in every part; yet, forsooth our blind men do not see a miracle, nor are the ignorant conscious of Great Intelligence.

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