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WE KNOW GOD BY HIS WORKS.

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We know all created things better, from the very circumstance that we know God as their author. Aristotle uttered a profound truth when he said we know things in their causes. The truth is, we can scarcely be said to have a full knowledge of a thing till we know its causes. I hold that we have a very imperfect knowledge of the works of nature till we view them as works of God, not only as works of mechanism, but works of intelligence; not only as under laws, but under a law-giver, wise and good.

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True, we do not know all about God. We know, after all, only a part; but, "we know in part," and what we know is truth, so far as it goes.

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Clouds and darkness are round about him; righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne." The truth is, there is no object with which we have such ample means of becoming acquainted. We cannot open our eyes without discovering his workmanship. We cannot inspect any part of nature without contemplating in the very act his ways of procedure. We are ever, whether we acknowledge it or not, recipients of his bounty. There is no being, excepting ourselves, with whom we come into more immediate and frequent contact. We know only in part, because of his infinity and our finity; but to know a very little of him is to know much. As Paul told the men of Athens, "He giveth to all life and breath, and all things,"

* Τότε γὰρ εἰδέναι φαμὲν ἕκαστον, ὅταν τὴν πρώτην αἰτίαν οἰώμεθα γνωρί Gew. - Metaphysics, B. 1. c. iii.

and he is "not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being, as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring." We know enough to gain our faith; to inspire our confidence; to kindle our love; to awe us in the time of prosperity when we might be tempted to become vain, proud, and presumptuous; and to sustain us in all the critical positions of life and the dark dispensations of providence.

It requires to be added that as most errors contain some truth, as all prevalent errors contain a sufficient amount of truth to make them plausible, so we may discover some truth even in the meagre fundamental principle of Spencer. I must ever hold that we can come to know God: still he is to a great extent unknown. "Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?" We can so far apprehend him; but, to use an old distinction, we cannot comprehend him. We know him as we know the ocean when we stand upon its shores what we see is the ocean, but not the whole ocean, which stretches beyond our ken. This arises mainly from our limited capacity; but partly, also, it may be, because of our pollution, as not capable of reflecting the full brightness of God. It is clear that God has attributes like ours; for, by the powers with which he has endowed us, we can produce effects like those we see produced by him in nature. We have been formed in his likeness, and

GOD SO FAR UNKNOWN.

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can thus understand those qualities in Him which are like those he hath been pleased to communicate to us. But, even as to these, the attributes. which are limited in us are infinite in him, and cannot be grasped by us who are finite. But there is more than this involved in our ignorance. There is another and deeper sense in which God is unknown. We discover effects in nature which we must refer to a sovereign power that must ever remain a mystery to us in this world. God seems to possess perfections differing not only in degree but in kind from any thing possessed by man. The blind man cannot form the most distant idea of colors, nor the deaf man of music; so there may be attributes of God of which we cannot form the dimmest conception, differing as much from any thing we have experienced, as colors do from sounds, as mind does from body. It is in this high region that we place the mysteries of the decrees of God, of the origin of evil, and such doctrines as that of the Trinity. Is not this the very view that is given in Scripture where he is described as known and yet unknown? "The invisible things are clearly seen, being understood from the things that are made." "Yet verily thou art a God that hidest thyself." All this is suited to our nature, to its strength and to its weakness. If God were all darkness, we could look upon him only with an ignorant terror: if he were all light, he might dazzle us by excess of brightness. As it is, we are led at once to revere and to love him. We instinctively avoid the open,

uninteresting plain, with the long, straight road leading through it, from which we see at once all we ever can see; and we prefer the country with hill and dale, with open lawn and forest, with light and shade, where we ever get glimpses of new objects and see them in distant perspective. It is from a like principle that we delight to lose ourselves in the contemplation of the mysteries of the divine nature, in which there is the brightest light, and yet enough of darkness to awe us into reverence, and subdue us into a sense of dependence. God may truly be described as the Being of whom we know the most, inasmuch as we cannot open our eyes without looking on the operations of his hands, and we see more of his works and ways than of the works and ways of any other; and yet He is the Being of whom we know the least, as we know comparatively less of his whole nature than we do of ourselves, or of our fellow-men, or of any object falling under our notice in this world. They who know most of him in earth or heaven know that they know little after all; but they know that they may know more and more of him throughout eternal ages.

VI.

PROGRESS OF FREE THOUGHT IN AMERICA. — RATIONALISM.

I

- BOSTON THEOLOGY. POSITIVISM.

KEEP it before me throughout these Lectures,

that I am addressing young men who have been thrown into the current of the times; who must swim with it, or resist it, or, better still, seek to guide it. I presume that you look, from time to time, into the literary organs of the day, and that you have heard of, and may have to take your part -by act, vote, or speech-in, the questions discussed. You wish to be able to form a sound judgment, each for himself, and then take your position, and act your part intelligently, charitably, wisely, courageously, in the eventful and critical era in which your lot has been cast.

In the Lectures already delivered, I have laid down what I believe to be the right positions, and defended them to the best of my ability, and as fully as my limited space allowed. I feel that I must now apply them, in the good old way of Puritan preaching, to the circumstances in which the students in this Seminary are placed. I cannot forget what are your surroundings, as you are pur

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