104 PANTHEISM. 



It by no means follows that because we claim that the Creator 

 works according to an order of things, by a method, or law, and 

 that his existence is involved in, or implied from the evidence 

 of a plainly operating law, which must of necessity, to our 

 minds, have an intelligent thought and power to guide it, I 

 say it by no means follows, from this idea, that the Pantheist 

 can step in to claim that the law-giving Creator must have 

 derived his law from a previously existing idea of law, which he 

 received from a still higher power, and that that power received it 

 from one yet beyond ; such a thought kills itself, for its demands 

 have no end, and leaves its pursuer groping about in a mist of 

 infinities. The one God, that infinity of power encircled and 

 concentrated within himself, the God of reasoning, intelligent 

 man, is the more and more highly estimated and reverenced as 

 his works are the better understood ; by so much as every newly 

 discovered law, or the extension of one already known, helps to 

 explain the so-called mysteries of nature. 



The science of Theology is not now what it was only a few 

 years ago. How largely Natural History is at present drawn 

 upon by the theologian, not only to prove the existence of a 

 Supreme Being, but even to show the nature of his moral qual- 

 ities, his goodness, his benevolence, and his power ! Year after 

 year Theology continues to add to its store even those facts of 

 science which have at one time been looked upon as dangerous 

 to the faith. 



Geology was in former times shunned as the worst form of 

 atheism, because it taught that there were animals, buried in 

 the earth, which lived at periods long anterior to the creation of 

 man and the hosts of creatures which crowded about Adam in 

 the garden of Eden. But now how changed. We have seen 

 one of the most orthodox of theologians, Hugh Miller, peace 

 to his ashes! writing whole volumes to prove the existence of 

 animals, with a backbone, as far anterior to man's creation as 

 possible ! Paley's " Natural Theology " abounds in instances of 

 secondary causes. This was and is the natural history text- 

 book of the theologian. I do not think it is difficult to see 

 which way the current runs in this matter. 



