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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."-The Church of England-MATT. ARNOLD.

"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. 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. If we add the belief of Malebranche, that God acts in all things by the counsels of wisdom, and by inspiration of love; taking also 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 eternitas 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."S We form that idea of God which our 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 from whence all others proceed."4

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

1 "Human Understanding," Book iv., Chap. x.

2

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

3 "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Scholium Generale."

4 "Letters," i. p. 112.

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The same truth may take another form. The perfect life is that most conformed, not to blind appetite, but to the enlightened desires of wisdom. Consciousness of this leads to the conviction that an infinite guiding Mind holds all events within its control, and says to every surging wave—“ Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further." This intelligent Governor is a personal God: for knowing, as well as we can know anything, that our own wisdom cannot spring from a world of blind fatality, without intellect, feeling, will; 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 under the control of God. Of this God are all things. All things are not God, for then there would be no God separate from the world, or above the world: our God energizes in all, through all, over all; is beautiful with a love sublime beyond human conception, glorious with magnificence of goodness, of wisdom, of might, so that not one living thing is too minute for His care or too stupendous for His strength; the sun in the midst of heaven or a mote in his beams, the destiny of an empire or a tear that glistens in an infant's eye, are cared for by One infinite to feel, omniscient to guide, omnipotent to save. Life, conscious of such a God, loving and obeying Him with fervent emotion and clear intelligence, is highest. life; the happiest, the fullest; because it satisfies the purest desire of our being, gives reality to virtue, truth to religion, and sacred unity to society. To this may be added-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," nor 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 belief. The best man, the man in whom piety and intelligence are combined, will

1

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

2 John Locke. "Human Understanding," Book iv., Chap. x.

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."

1

In the Studies of "the Supernatural," "Threshold of Creation," and "Rudiments of the World," we arrived at the Creation as a fact; and that 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, being tenants of a spacious house, all doors are thrown open to us. Nevertheless, though competent to labour, mentally capable of investigation, and spiritually desirous of knowing whence we came and whither we go, we cannot comprehend the influence of spirit on matter; nor how it is possible for any being, of whatever kind, to go forth from his own sphere to influence the development of another being-whether of the same nature or of different kind; in fact, the effective real physical action of one substance upon another substance is really "unthinkable;" and, therefore, the actuality of it in nature is "unthinkable," is a continual miracle. Science will have no miracles, and says-"What is so absurd as perpetual miracles in nature?" Yet, behold the marvellous spectacle presented by the Universe! It is one splendid, universal, all-comprehending miracle. We have an infinite number of energies acting in, by, and through matter; of living units, the same in essence, but different in degree of development; these different degrees are classed in families, orders, species; and rise, by continual gradation, from brute nature, in which life sleeps, to life's spiritual awakening in the splendour of human nature. We have to connect minerals and plants, animals and men, things gross and things sublime, all that can be imagined and not imagined, our own world and existences in other worlds, with the infinite whole of the universe. All these existences, mixed with one another, alike and unlike, capable of continuing their life through innumerable ages in successive evolution and transformation, so act, for, with and against one another, that the battle-sounds of life form a grand march-tune for the universe. Every existence is in, and to, and for, itself, a little world; representing, in diminu

1 "Plato's Dialogues-Statesmen," p. 270: Jowett's Translation.

Demonstration of Miracles.

443

tive mirror, the whole universe. Nor is that all every creature is something which lives, not of itself: but continues by continual efficacy of the unknown energy in whom all the lines of life centre. Hence, the visible is the actual and continual outcome of the Invisible, a manifestation of the Supernatural, a splendid miracle.

An objection is thus raised-" A miracle is beyond usual law, and science declines to admit such weakness in Omnipotence." We reply-usual law is administered and explained by infinite variety of operation, and no man is able to limit even the power of a usual operation when an unusual element is introduced. To this may be added-it is gross presumption to imagine that we know all the operation of usual law, and are so acquainted with the whole course of things that we can say "It would be a weakness in Omnipotence to act outside the usual course that we know of, in another course of which we do not know." These statements do not express the whole argument, which is manifold, in favour of miracles: we think, indeed, that demonstration may be thus given-The highest act of creation is to produce free beings: we may be sure that a perfect God will perform perfect work, and create these free beings. They must be finite beings: for everything created is so of necessity. These finite free beings must, in the roll of infinite duration, be liable to misuse their freedom: otherwise, they are not free. This freedom of action, both connected and disconnected with usual law, inevitably brings in new elements modifying law, requiring new procedure, and necessitating special operations of wisdom and power. These special operations are miracles, are actualities to meet necessities, and not out of but within the Divine plan, not marks of weakness, or of short-sightedness, but undeniable proofs that omnipotence and omniscience control all existence: guiding the free actions of intelligent moral responsible creatures, not in such manner as coerces, but by exercise of that suasion which is capable of producing those pure motives which result in right conduct as the fruit of choice and good will.

The Studies as to "Creative Words," "Days of Creation," "the Two Divine Accounts," and "Pre-Adamite Earth," could not explain the two great mysteries, which must ever

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be buried in the depths of Divine existence, why God is, and how creation was possible: but we know that God was neither indifferent nor powerless as to the image of the universe eternally imprinted on His Intelligence: He realised it as a manifestation of Himself. The might of God, that was the worker; the love of God, that was the inspiring motive; the wisdom of God, that was the guide. Divine Intelligence is not circumscribed as our intelligence; and it is certainly better to speak of God's attributes as those of mind rather than those of matter.

Did God create the world from without Himself? If so, a being acting from without Himself is not Infinite, but as a sculptor who fashions from marble. Did God act upon chaos, as Anaxagoras said-Mind moving inert matter? or as the Demiurgos of Plato-Impressing luminous ideas of the good and beautiful? or did the world, being eternal, in virtue of God's secret aspiration, as Aristotle would say, move towards Him who attracts all things; yet in His Solitude and Bliss, regards them not? Put it otherwise :did God create the world from within Himself? then the world is Himself, His substance, His life; and this is Pantheism.

How are these difficulties, as to a personal God, and as to Pantheism, to be overcome? A personal God is an Individual, not an absolutely abstract notion which we form concerning infinitude and universality; but the I Am, the self-existent and all-perfect Being. Do we, by this Personality, represent to ourselves a superb idol, who truly may dwell in Heaven-that is, a limited space; yet, though we load him with brilliant gifts and magnificent attributes, is but a dwarf in comparison with the Infinite whose abode is immensity, and whose duration is eternity? Certainly not: for the more we meditate upon the problem of creation, the surer our conviction that all difficulties arise only from our ignorance; whereas Pantheism contains fatal contradictions.

Pantheism reproaches Scripture for making God like man, yet falls itself into something lower than anthropomorphism— grossest materialism; by attributing the properties of matter, and the imperfections of creatures, to the Creator. There

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