HOW TO LEARN ABOUT GOD. “Thus saith the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord."-Jer. ix. 23, 24. It is not to be understood that one is to have no satisfaction in the consciousness of learning, of skill, of power in its various kinds, or of riches, but that these are not to be regarded as the highest enjoyments, nor as the consummation of our ideas of good fortune. We are to have our distinctive pride and gladness far higher than in such matters as these. A correct and personal knowledge of God is a source of more happiness, of more power, of more beauty, and is therefore a subject more fit to glory in, than any other a proposition which you do not believe, but which is thoroughly true. Some may know it; but the most of those who call themselves Christians do not. We shall come back to a consideration of this practical aspect after some foregoing consideration of the human knowledge of God. In every age of the world of which we have any record, the best ideas of that age have been grouped together and called God. It is said that God has revealed himself to men, and that there has been, from the earliest periods, a divine representation which transcended the measure of human faculty. In some sense this is true; for the passage which I read to you in the opening service this morning, and which dates far back-almost to the beginning of literature contains a representation of God in his goodness, in his domestic relations, if I may so say, as well as in his justice, and in the administration of pain and joy as instruments of government. There is nothing to be added and nothing to be subtracted from this picture of the divine nature which hangs back in the vista of time at the very opening of things. Preached in Steinway Hall, New York, (temporarily occupied by the church of the Rev. Geo. D. Hepworth) Sunday Morning, Mar. 17, 1872. Nevertheless, in regard to the world at large, and all its races, it is true that in every age the best things which men conceived of were wrought together, and constituted the popular or theological idea of God. When men lived in their basilar nature, when power meant control over the brute beasts and over men, and when the warrior was the type of the highest manhood, then God was the god Thor, or his equivalent. The God of that time was some thundering Jupiter. The presentation of Jehovah which was then most common, was one which represented the force-side of divinity. But as, with the progress of life, society became more dependent upon law and moral influence than upon absolute force, and men began to be knit together in communities, a new conception arose; and you shall find that then all these ideas were transferred to the popular conception of divinity, and that God was represented no longer as a mere absolute sovereign, doing what he would, but as one who governed by law and motive. As, looking at men comprehensively, civilization and religion still wrought upon the human mind, and the sweet amenities of the household began to increase, and home began to blossom like the orchard, and to bear on every bough fruit good to the eye and to the taste, so there began to creep into the notion of God the domestic elements. Tenderness and pity and compassion began to be represented in it. But as in the household there breaks out in every mother's life vicarious suffering; as every parent in some sense uses his life, gives it, for the benefit of the helpless and the ignorant; as in exigencies the great drama of life is enacted in every house; as all that are good in the family wait patiently upon the wandering and the lost, yielding up their several good, as it were, in order to reclaim them; so, at last, in the later days of divine disclosure, there came to be the conception of a suffering God: not one who in his original nature was constructed to suffer, but one who was so full of love and pity that he was the type and original of that sacrifice which we see manifested in detail, and imperfectly, in the household for the reclamation of children. The nearer a man is to the fruit-to maturity-in his spiritual condition, the more he inherits that nature by which he suffers to make others happy. The nearer a man is to the ideal of manhood, the more willing he is to suffer himself to save others from suffering. The law of suffering runs through the universe; but it changes just at the point which divides between true manhood and that animalhood on which manhood is grafted in this mortal state. On one side, the law of suffering is a law by which men make themselves oppressors, treading down their fellowmen, as the vintner treads the grapes in the wine-vat; it is a law of selfishness by which men grab and gather in, acting centripetally, and cause all things to rush to themselves. But at that point where man begins to approach the other side, or the divine nature, the reverse takes place, and the law of suffering becomes a law by which men give themselves for the sake of others. The mother is willing to watch with the child night after night; she is willing to work with the child; she is willing to toil for the child; she is willing to suffer that the child may be made happy. There are thousands and thousands who are gladly spending their lives, and taking only the remunerations of love from day to day, in the hope that they may put their children where they will not be narrowly shut up, restrained, burdened with toil. And as this conception of manhood develops, it begins to appear in the notions of God which men entertain. I shall now, perhaps, be better understood than if I had stated it at first, when I say that the knowledge of God is not a thing which can be fixed in the beginning, except in words; that in its very nature, the knowledge of God among men must, to a large extent, be progressive; and that it must follow the development of the race itself. As our knowledge of God consists in the inclosure by that name of the noblest qualities of which we have any conception, or which fall out in human experience; as we gather these qualities, and group them, and then lay on them the scale of the infinite, and exalt them to the sphere of government, and call them God; so the knowledge of God goes on increasing with the development of the race of mankind. Especially it augments as men grow wiser, purer, more self-denying, more heroic. Then they transfer these interpreting elements to the divine character; which to their eyes begins to glow in a wider sphere, with beams more full of light, and less filled with heat that smites or destroys. The character of God, in our apprehension of it, ameliorates, and grows more beautiful, more attractive, and richer in every element, just in proportion as the race from which we get our notion of moral excellence increases in moral excellencies. There has been, and there is recognized in the Word of God from beginning to end, a steady progress in the disclosure of the divine nature; and we see that in the thoughts respecting God among men there has been a gradual augmentation of the conception of the divine character, arising from the process which I have already delineated. If it should seem to any of you that this view would set aside your accustomed notions of the disclosure of God-those which you have derived from the Bible; if you should say, as many of |