science is neither the one nor the o

It may be obscured, weakened, stunted, mutilated; it may be silent, or we may decide in opposition to its dictates. Where, then, is the justice which is the fundamental law of human life? Grant that it is nothing but conscience, it must then be an infallible, inexorable, unavoidable conscience, that is to say, an absolute conscience-God, the supreme conscience of the world.

Our conscience demands a God, but our heart demands Him no less. We are made for devotion, faith, love, hope, happiness. Can the world be the object of our faith and love? The world is ever transitory and changeable; how are we to find peace therein? Faith and love are personal relations; we were made, then, for personal relations. Is man to be the supreme object of our love? The sister of Pascal tells us of a paper which her brother always carried about with him, upon which was written the words, it is wrong that any one should have an attachment to me, however voluntary; I could but disappoint those in whom I should call forth such a feeling, for I am no one's aim, and am able to satisfy Am I not about to die? And then even the object of attachment would be dead.' And in the Pensées he thus expresses himself; 'it is false to say that we deserve the love of others, and it is unjust to desire it.'(29) Certainly the power of loving each other is the best and highest attribute of human beings, but this best and highest attribute is but prophetic of something still better and higher. And

no one.

where love is real, what we love in man is more than man. That which Heloise loved in Abelard, which cultivated and embellished her mind, and taught it to soar aloft, was not Abelard, but something more than Abelard. All earthly love points beyond itself. So exalted a being is man, that the love of God is alone worthy of him, and can alone satisfy his heart. But love is a personal relation, love to God demands a personal God. If we do away with the personality of God, we do away with all that is best and noblest in human nature, with faith, love, and hope; and we get in exchange resignation, not meek and patient submission to the will of God, but that mute, cold resignation which submits because it must, which bows not to love but to power, which, with closed eyes, plunges into eternal death, to the extinction of our best attribute, our personal being. Pantheism annihilates human personality, by annihilating the personality of God. Its God, being himself no real and essential life, is not the God of the living, but of the dead.' (30)

In short, Pantheism is in absolute opposition to our inmost nature, our inmost truth, our inmost craving; it is a contradiction of our reason, our conscience, and our heart. He who admits there is such a being as man, is constrained to admit that there is a God; and he who admits that there is a God, is constrained to acknowledge the personal God. He who says, I am, must also say, O God, Thou art; and the whole bent of his mind will be determined by this admission.

LECTURE IV.

THE CREATION OF THE WORLD.

HE view we entertain of God will determine our view of the world. If God is a living and personal God, then the world was

made by Him, and creation was a free act of His power, wisdom, and love. Such is the foundation of the Christian view of the world. As soon, however, as we enter upon this subject, we are met by the objections raised by physical science and a naturalistic view of the world, against the religious, and especially against the biblical view. These have given rise to a series of inquiries and doubts, which have occupied, and often inordinately disquieted, the minds of many.

The conflict between the physical sciences and the religious view of the world is a product of modern times. It stands connected with the great advances lately made in physics, chemistry, astronomy, and geology. Since the disclosure of hitherto unknown worlds, the resolution of distant nebulæ into systems of stars by the telescopes of Herschel and Rosse, and the discoveries made in the world of infusoria by Ehrenberg, who found, for example, that a single cubic inch

of tripoli contained as many as forty-one thousand million of the siliceous fossil shells of these creatures, -new notions have been entertained of this visible world, and a consciousness of higher powers has, as may easily be conceived, taken possession of the human mind, which now believes that neither space nor time are any longer closed against it. The knowledge thus obtained has begun to be formed into a naturalistic view of the world, which is imposing in its appeal to facts, and its claim to tangible evidence; for that which is tangible naturally makes a great impression upon the mind. On the other hand, religious faith is not wont to limit its influence to one province of the intellectual life; it would leaven every thought of the mind, and bring all into harmony with itself. Now, it is contrary to the very nature of the mind to tolerate within itself views diametrically opposed to each other. Hence a schism has frequently arisen in modern intellectual life, and a consequent uncomfortable feeling of hesitation and uncertainty, whether or what concessions should be made, to restore, if possible, the lost harmony of the world of mind. Even Schleiermacher feared the results of scientific discovery, not merely for the sake of theology, but for Christianity in general. I fear,' writes he to Lücke in 1829 (Theol. Studien und Kritiken ii. 489), 'that we shall have to learn to do without much, which many are accustomed to regard as indissolubly united with Christianity. I do not speak of the six days' work, but of the notion of creation: how long will it be able

to hold out against a view of the world founded on scientific conclusions, which no one can escape?' 'And our New Testament miracles, for I speak not in the first instance of those of the Old: how long will it be before they fall again, but this time before far more dignified and well-founded premisses than formerly, in the days of the inflated Encyclopædists ? What is to be done then, my friend? I shall not live to see those days, but may lay myself down to my last sleep in peace. But what do you and your contemporaries intend to do? Will you entrench yourselves behind these outworks, and let yourselves be blockaded and shut out from science? The bombardment of derision would do you little harm. But the blockade? The starving out by science, which, because you thus entrench yourselves, will be forced by you to raise the standard of unbelief! Is it thus that the knot of history is to be severed, and Christianity to be allied with ignorance, science with unbelief?' Schleiermacher has gone to his rest, and so has Lücke, to whom he thus wrote: but we are here, and have the work to do which they left undone. What are we then to say? Is the danger really as great as he described it, and as many now seem to think?

When the Israelites had reached the borders of the promised land, they sent spies before them to obtain information concerning the country and its inhabitants, and to bring them back an account thereof. These returned dispirited, and discouraged the hearts of the rest by their report. Two only, Caleb and Joshua,