260 ESSAYS SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL. 



law has two tables. And we have still to learn 

 the lesson that man has nothing which he has 

 not received, that "every good gift and every 

 perfect gift," whether of grace or truth, " is from 

 above," and that even while we think that we are 

 " rich and increased with goods and have need of 

 nothing," we are "wretched and miserable, and 

 poor, and blind, and naked," and that even that 

 which we have is not our own. 



There are two forms in which this claim of man 

 to be sufficient of himself, and his refusal to re- 

 cognize himself as God's minister and messenger 

 to the world, is commonly seen. 



I. We recognize it first in what is called the 

 rationalistic temper. What is rationalism ? If 

 rationalism means the attempt to bring every truth 

 home to the reason and make it intelligible by 

 relating it with everything else, then to rationalize 

 is not only our privilege as thinking men but our 

 duty as Christian men. 



But rationalism is used .as a term of reproach. 

 It is quoted as the typical form of pride of 

 intellect It is, we are told, the " asking for 

 reasons out of place," it is " a forgetfulness of 

 God's power," " disbelief in the existence of a first 

 Cause sufficient to account for facts which to us 

 are extraordinary." Or it is " a limiting the 

 possible by the actual," and " measuring, the credi- 

 bility of things by our knowledge of them." It is 



