nature's chain must needs be tied to the foot of Jupiter's chair."

Even David Hume, notwithstanding the hazy web of scepticism with which, from a speculative rather than a practical habit of thought, he has overcast his better judgment, was enabled to see and to assert that " a purpose or design is evident in everything, and when our comprehension is so far enlarged as to contemplate the first rise of this visible system, we must adopt with the strongest conviction the idea of an intelligent Cause or Author." In fact, a moment's reflection, after a habit of thinking on such subjects has been formed, suffices to show that no inorganized object can produce any other inorganized object, any more than such latter object can produce itself; for the multiplication of objects is but repeating the difficulty, and cannot help us to its solution. The only source of active power we intuitively recognise as being something akin to the only source of power our experience observes in ourselves, namely, spirit.

I have spoken of atheistic materialism; but another system, though apparently opposite, yet in reality identical, was also at an early period in man's history in favour with many inquiring minds. They saw apparently the absurdity of attributing to inorganized matter motive powers and agencies, whilst experience showed them that their own wills acted and moved with an energy entirely different in its essence from the action of a weight or a spring, of fire, acids, or other apparently active material substances; and instead of asserting an atheistic eternity of the phenomena of the world in which they found themselves, that is, an eternity independent of all spiritual agency, they deified matter itself, and held that all that exists is God-a doctrine usually called Pantheism, and not without its adherents in the present day. The doctrine is contained in one line of the Latin poet :

"Deus est quodcunque vides, quocunque moveris."

It is expanded by Pope in those lines of his "Essay on Man," beautiful in their versification, but most questionable as regards their philosophy, which Warburton found the most difficult to deal with when defending that celebrated work from the charge of pantheism :

"All are but parts of one stupendous whole,

Whose body nature is, and God the soul.

That, changed through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame;

Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent,

Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,

As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart

As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,

As the rapt seraph that adores and burns;
To Him no high, no low, no great, no small,
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all."*

In a poetical point of view the passage is beautiful and perfectly allowable, but it is as unphilosophical to say that the Deity warms in the sun, as being a part of the sun, as it would be to say that man's soul is a part of the words he utters.

The error of this system and its correction are pointed out with his usual precision by Newton, when he says:

"Deus non est æternitas sed æternus."
"God is not eternity but eternal."

The personality of God, as distinct from all His works, is that alone which separates theism from atheism. The pantheistic system extends to and includes man as well as matter, and logically ends in the oriental doctrine of the ultimate absorption of all living souls into the Deity-in other words, the simple annihilation of our distinctive existence.

"Essay on Man," book i.

I have said that atheistic materialism and pantheism are one; and what conceivable difference can there be between holding that every material thing exists as it does by continual self-development from all eternity, and holding that Deity develops itself from all eternity in those particular shapes in which we find every material thing? It is a change of words, not of thought. One says, Matter is always developing itself; the other says, What you term matter I will dignify with the name of the Deity. The real question is, whether a Divine mind did not pre-exist before any material object, in the same sense in which the existence of man must be pre-supposed if we speak of any work of man.

But enough of this stumbling on the dark mountains of pagan philosophy, whether ancient or modern-this walking "in the light of the sparks that we have kindled." To the people that sit in darkness hath arisen a great light, and the Christian reads joyfully, by the clear day of the Word of God, that creation is God's work, and the result of His word, without which nothing was made that is made. It is true that "in Him we live, and move, and have our being," because He has willed that we should exist not as parts of Him and His eternal being, nor to be re-absorbed into His essence, but as individual creatures, whose existence began in time, who are ever to be under His rule and governance, and alas !-fearful as is the thought-who may, by the, exercise of our own independent will, be for ever separated from any participation of His glorious nature.

We hold, then, that every true and real thing is the creature of God, and that He is the sole source of truth.

Let me pause for a moment to warn you against an objection that you will be sure to hear urged against this doctrine, namely, that we thus make God the author of evil as well as good. The pantheistic system is indeed necessarily exposed to this difficulty, for it says that everything is God. But not

so the Christian scheme, which is indeed alone consistent with any sound philosophy-alone affords any clue to the solution of the one great mystery of our world, the existence of evil under the government of One who is all-wise, all-loving, and all-powerful. We may well indeed conceive that even with the light of revelation our finite intelligence will ever be unable to comprehend the infinite perfections of God's moral government. Doubtless much of that which we call evil is not really such. That which is external to our own soul (or, to speak more accurately, independent of it, for there is no inside or outside of a spirit), pain and sorrow, for instance, however severe, may be but wholesome discipline, which, like the ploughing and harrowing of the soil, is not intended for its destruction, but to fit it to bring forth abundant fruit. The real difficulty, the mystery of iniquity, that which tries our faith, is the unutterable anguish and misery of sin within ourselves, its torment to an awakened conscience, and oh! what if that awakening be not in this world!

Notwithstanding this difficulty, the notion of God's being the direct author of sin is at once and, as it were, intuitively rejected. Indeed, the only conceivable definition of sin is that it is a breach of God's law. Whatever be the apparent incongruity, we rest assured that one Being, and that a Being of pure benevolence, has made all things. Who that has been enabled, by God's mercy, to contemplate the glories of the creation-the beauty of the heavenly bodies, their wonderful harmony and order, the regularity of the solar system, and the consequent distribution of light and heat, and alternation of the seasons on our globe; the incessant uplifting of fresh vapour from the salt waters of the ocean, the suspension of it in the clouds, until they are commanded to drop fatness on the earth, or to feed the lofty mountain-reservoirs whence spring the rivers that run among the hills; the treasures of mineral wealth stored up in the bosom of the earth for the use

of man; the growth of forests; the rich increase of the culti vated soil; nay, even the joyous and exuberant variety of flowers, surpassing in their beauty Solomon in all his glory, as though framed to melt our hearts in love when hardened by this world's care and toil; the animal creation, no less rich in its varied types of strength, usefulness, and comeliness; and above all, the wonderful adaptation of each and all of these works of the Creator to the purposes of their own existence, and, at the same time, to all that co-exists around them, and the subordination of the whole to man-who, I say, can contemplate such things without acknowledging that there is one only Designer of this wondrous universe, whose love, and power, and wisdom are co-equal-without hearing, as it were, that choral harmony in which the inanimate creation is invited by the Psalmist to join "with the angels of heaven, with young men and maidens, old mer and children, praising the name of the Lord; for His name is excellent, and His praise above heaven and earth"?

Still, the deeper and more thoughtful minds, on contemplating this heavenly harmony, are yet the more struck with the harsh, jarring discord of sin; its awful power on their own souls; its deep malignity, which rendered necessary for its expiation and its cure the descent of God on earth, and the assumption by Him of man's nature before that nature could be brought back to His own law. Far be it from me to profess to fathom all the depths of this mystery. Yet we are enabled to form some faint guesses at the truth, to understand that obedience, worship, and praise, must then approach nearest to perfection when they are offered as the free-will offerings of a reasonable service. Who would exchange the affectionate and watchful love of a wife or child, a brother or friend, for the attachment of a dog or any other unreasoning creature? But if there be a will to obey there must also be a capacity to disobey. The perfection of the creature is thus