with its smoky lights, its paths that lead to wandering; that God's heaven is over us and His ground is under our feet, His eternity before us, and His Spirit in our spirit.

"Oh ye, who pined in dungeons for the sake

Of Truth which tyrants shadowed with their hate,
Whose only crime was that ye were awake

;

Too soon, or that your brethren slept too late
Mountainous minds, upon whose top the great
Sunrise of knowledge came, long e'er its glance
Fell on the foggy swamps of fear and ignorance;
"The time shall come when from your heights serene,
Beyond the grave, ye will look back and smile,
To see the plains of earth all growing green,

Where Science, Art, and Love repeat Heaven's style,
And with God's beauty fill the desert isle,

'Till Eden blooms where martyr-fires have burned,
And to the Lord of life all hearts and minds are turned.

"The seeds are planted, and the spring is near;
Ages of blight are but a fleeting frost:
Truth circles into Truth. Each mote is dear
To God, no drop of Ocean is e'er lost,
No leaf for ever dry and tempest-tost.

Life centres deathless underneath Decay,

And no true Word or Deed can ever pass away."

V.

OF SPECULATIVE THEISM, REGARDED AS A THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE.

ARE NOT TWO SPARROWS SOLD FOR A FARTHING? AND ONE OF THEM SHALL NOT FALL ON THE GROUND WITHOUT YOUR FATHER.— MATTHEW x. 29.

On the last four Sundays I spoke of Atheism, regarded first as a Theory of the Universe, and then as a Principle of Ethics; next of the popular Christian Theology, also regarded first as a Theory of the Universe, and then as a Principle of Ethics. I have spoken of each, as metaphysics and as ethics; as theory first, and then as practice. Both subjects were painful to touch, yet needing to be

handled at this day. It is never pleasant to point out and expose a false theory of philosophy, or a false system of practice, and I am glad I have passed by that for the present. A good man hates to kill anything,—even snakes and hyænas.

I now come to a theme much more pleasant: namely, the Philosophical Idea of God. So I ask your attention to a Sermon of Speculative Theism, considered as a Theory of the Universe; and next Sunday I hope to speak of Theism considered as a Principle of Practice. If what I have to say this morning be somewhat abstract and metaphysical, and closely joined together, and rather hard to follow, I beg you will remember that this dryness belongs to the nature of the subject, which I shall treat as well as I can, and as plain as I may.

I use the word Theism, first, as distinguished from Atheism; that is, from the absolute denial of all possible ideas of God. Second, as distinguished from the Popular Theology, which indeed affirms God, but ascribes to Him a finite character, and makes Him a ferocious God. And third, as distinguished from Deism, which affirms a God without the ferocious character of the popular theology, but still starts from the sensational philosophy, abuts in materialism, derives its idea of God solely by induction from the phenomena of material nature, or of human history, leaving out of sight the intuition of human nature; and so gets its idea of God solely from external observation, and not at all from consciousness, and thus accordingly represents God as finite and imperfect. I use the word as distinguished from Atheism, the denial of God; from the Popular Theology, which affirms a finite ferocious God; and from Deism, which affirms a finite God without ferocity. So much for the definition of terms.

Some of you may perhaps remember the introductory sermon of last year's course, treating of the Infinite Perfection of God. In that discourse I started from human nature, from the facts of consciousness in your heart and in my heart, assuming only the fidelity of the human. faculties, their power to ascertain truth in religious matters, as in philosophical and mathematical matters; and I showed, or think I showed, that those faculties of human nature-the intellectual, the moral, the affectional,

and the simply religious-in their joint and normal exercise, led to the idea of God as a Being infinitely powerful, infinitely wise, infinitely just, infinitely loving, and infinitely holy, that is, faithful to Himself.

To-day I start with that conclusion as a fact. I shall not undertake to prove the actuality of this idea,—the existence of the infinite God; I shall take it for granted. I did not undertake to prove the existence of a God against Atheism; nor the non-existence of the ferocious God against the Popular Theology. At this stage of proceeding I shall assume the existence of the Infinite God, relying for proof on what has been said so often before, and still more, on what is felt in your consciousness, without my saying anything. Only for clearness of conception, let me state some of the most important matters connected with the idea of God.

I. There must be many qualities of God not at all known to men, some of them not at all knowable by us; because we have not the faculties to know them by. Man's consciousness of God and God's consciousness of Himself must differ immeasurably. God's ideas of Himself must

differ as much from our idea of Him, as the constellation called the Great Bear differs from one of the beasts in the public den at Berne. For no man can ever have an exhaustive conception of God,-one I mean which uses up and comprises the whole of God. We have scarcely an exhaustive conception of anything. Certain properties and forces of things we know; the substance of things is almost, if not quite, beyond our ken. But we may have such an idea of God as, though incomplete, is perfectly true, and comprises no quality which is not also a quality of God. Then our idea of God is true as far as it goes, only it does not describe the whole of God. To illustrate this,- —a thimble cannot contain all the water in the Atlantic Ocean at once, but it may be brimful of water from the Atlantic Ocean; and it may contain nothing but water from the Atlantic Ocean. So our idea of God, though not containing the whole of Him, may yet comprise no quality which is not a quality of God, and may omit none which it is needful for our welfare that we should know. In the self-consciousness of God subject and object are the same, and He must know all His own Infinite Nature. But

in our consciousness of God the limitations of the finite subject make it impossible that we should comprehend God as He is conscious of Himself. It is enough for us to know of the Infinite what is knowable to finite man.

With qualities not knowable to us I have nothing to do. I shall not undertake to discuss the psychology and metaphysics of God. The metaphysics of man are quite hard enough for me to grapple with and understand.

II. Then as a next thing, God must be different in kind from what I call the Universe; that is, from Nature, the world of Matter, and from Spirit, the world of Man. They are finite, He infinite; they dependent, He self-subsisting; they variable, He unchanging. God must include both, matter and spirit.

There are two classes of philosophers often called Atheists; but better, and perhaps justly, called Pantheists. One of these says, "there are only material things in existence," resolving all into matter; "The sum-total of these material things is God." That is material Pantheism. If I mistake not, M. Comte of Paris, and the anonymous author of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," with their numerous coadjutors, belong to that class.

The other class admits the existence of spirit, sometimes resolves everything into spirit, and says, "the sum total of finite spirit, that is God." These are spiritual Pantheists. Several of the German philosophers, if I understand them, are of that stamp.

One difficulty with both of these classes is this: Their idea of God is only the idea of the world of Nature and of Spirit, as it is to-day; and as the world of Nature and of Spirit will be fairer and wiser a thousand years hence than it is now, so, according to them, God will be fairer and wiser a thousand years hence than He is now. Thus they give you a variable God, who learns by experience, and who grows with the growth and strengthens with the strength of the universe itself. According to them, when there was no vegetation in the world of matter, God knew nothing of a plant; no more than the stones on the earth. When the animal came, when man came, God was wiser, and He advances with the advance of man. When Jesus came, He was a better God; He was a wiser God, after

Newton and La Place; and was more a philosophical Being, after those pantheistic philosophers had taught Him the way to be so for their God knows nothing until it is either a fact of observation in finite Nature-in the material world, or else a fact of consciousness in finite Spirit-in some man; He knows nothing till it is shown Him. That is a fatal error with Hegel and his followers in England and America.

Mr Babbage, a most ingenious Englishman, invented a calculating engine. He builded wiser than he knew; for by and by he found that his engine calculated conclusions which had never entered into the thought of Mr Babbage himself. The mathematical engine outciphered its inventor. And these men represent God as being in just that predicament: the world is constantly revealing things unknown before, and which God had not conceived of. As there is a Progressive Development of the powers of the Universe as a whole, and of each man, so there is a Progressive Development of God. He is therefore not so much a Being, as a Becoming.

This idea of an Improvable and Progressive Deity is not wholly a new thing. The doctrine was obscurely held by some of the ancient philosophers in the time of Plato.

If God be Infinite, then he must be immanent, perfectly and totally present, in Nature and in Spirit. Thus there is no point of space, no atom of matter, but God is there; no point of spirit, and no atom of soul, but God is there. And yet finite matter and finite spirit do not exhaust God. He transcends the world of matter and of spirit; and in virtue of that transcendence continually makes the world of matter fairer, and the world of spirit wiser. So there is really a progress in the Manifestation of God, not a progress in God the manifesting. In thought you may annihilate the world of matter and of man; but you do not thereby in thought annihilate the infinite God, or subtract anything from the Existence of God. thought you may double the world of matter and of man; but in so doing you do not in thought double the Being of the Infinite God; that remains the same as before.

In

That is what I mean when I say that God is infinite and transcends matter and spirit, and is different in kind