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

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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

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 anthropomorphismgrossest materialism; by attributing the properties of matter, and the imperfections of creatures, to the Creator. There

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is nothing more contrary to the idea of perfection, than that it should develop; yet this is the Pantheistic illusion. Pantheists liken God to the activities of the universe; make Him a being who changes, who develops, and consequently is infinitely short of perfection. Nor is that all: their God, without the world, is incomplete; a God-wanting essence, a power— without effect, a cause—without activity, wisdom-without purpose, love-without object; such a god, without the world, is no God.

Our God, the Personal God, is the Principle, the Spirit, the Universal, who inhabits heaven, earth, infinity, and eternity; He is not, in creating, as a Michael Angelo drawing forth Moses from a block of granite; He is not, in His own life, as a grain of wheat germinating; not as an oak extending its branches; but with profounder energy and more sublime activity than matter can exhibit, or we conceive, He exists and creates. He must not be conceived of as under the necessity of acting from within or without Himself; such conceptions are human and finite, have their limits in space, in time: God is Infinite, Eternal, Perfect. God is self-sufficient and complete, but the world is in course of development. God is in eternity-as the Eternal; the world is in time-as the temporal. The moments of time do not compose eternity; time is neither within nor without it; and, yet, eternity is the reason of its being. In like manner, the world which is incomplete-but becomes complete, is not strictly either within or without Him-the Eternally Complete; yet, He is the reason, cause, founder of it. The relation is unique, incomparable, mysterious, but a relation certain and demonstrated. Whatsoever is gross in words must be laid aside and the inner spirit only regarded: God, in eternity, eternally sees time, space, the world. In time, He sees the expression of His eternity; in space, the expression of His Infinity; in the world, the expression of the communicable powers of His Infinite Being. Our happiness consists not, nor will it ever, of full enjoyment-nothing further to know, no more to desire continual progress will find new pleasures, and ever discover new perfections in the Infinite and Eternal.

The Studies of Divine Operation in the various creative

Works of the Days, evidenced the reality, definiteness, comprehensiveness, simplicity and complexity of the Scripture narrative. In the Study, "Variety in Nature," a view was given of the endless versatility in Nature: Law is not bound with links of Fate, but beautiful in her freedom. In the Study of "The Invisible Universe," worlds were regarded as a vast procession from the unseen to the seen; to return in due order from the House of Time to the Eternal Dominion. By Follies of the Wise, we learn that there is a wisdom of the world which by its ignorance of God is proved to be folly. The argument, in all the Studies, has been variably and variously conducted; the inquiry unrestrainedly progressed along many lines of thought, that through intelligent intercourse with ourselves and nature we might see by reason, by conscience, by science, that the Bible, in giving a true account of creation, proves itself to be the Book of God: not an evolution-as a product of unaided human intellect; but a Revelation, by Divine Inspiration to man, of things wholly unknown by man.

man.

We consider, from the whole argument, that our spirit and its laws of thought, our soul and its inspirations, our heart and its wants, testify that the Divine existence, giving reality to the Universe, bestows moral and spiritual personality on We are not things, but persons. Godless, we are an inexplicable enigma: possess neither mission on earth, nor hope in Heaven. Godly, we rank as chiefs on earth, and are free; being free, we are responsible. Regarding natural laws as ordinances of God, we distinguish concerning these ordinances: some we obey, some we resist; and our disciplined freedom seems to be a gleam of some more glorious Freedom, some greater Reality.

"The Kingdom of God," our present study, has several times and meanings allotted to it: 1. The Gospel period; 2. The kingdom for which we pray-" Thy Kingdom Come;" 3. The kingdom of Glory. Not in any of these senses, but in the large meaning of God's Providence and Spiritual Rule amongst men, is it now to be considered. Our investigation, therefore, as to Religion in the world generally, and will aim at the