37 



putting before the people the argument so well urged by the author of 

 the paper, that God is not the abstract idea of Herbert Spencer that He 

 is not the metaphysical Absolute, Unconditioned, and Infinite of those who 

 adopt Herbert Spencer's views. According to the metaphysical idea of 

 these men, it is impossible to think of such a being as God. With them 

 God becomes "unthinkable"; without attributes, relations, thought, or 

 action, and, therefore, as the author has put it, "without being." I 

 assert that God has relations, as He is our Father, and our King ; 

 and we are equally related to Him as His creatures, for whom He 

 framed laws, and for whose wants He makes provision. As opposed to the 

 God of Herbert Spencer, the God of the Bible is a Being of infinite 

 love and compassion ; One with whom we can have conscious intercourse, 

 for He is a person a God, whom we have the power to realise and come 

 into contact and communion with, and is not the metaphysical abstract of 

 the Spencerian philosophy. In opposition to the theory of evolution, I 

 would stand out for the grand principle that God made all His creatures 

 perfect in their order, leading up by various gradations to man, the crown- 

 ing work of all, a being formed in His own image, able to worship Him, 

 and capable of personal contact with Him. 



Kev. W. C. BARLOW. In regard to " the terrible charge of being 

 anthropomorphic," page 15, I have never found anything in that term at all 

 like what is described in Austin Caxton's book. What is there regarded as 

 the terrible resonance of the Greek, has not, in reality, any alarming power, 

 Indeed, the word quoted by the author seems to me a most valuable word, 

 and one that we have no need to apologise for. On the contrary, I think 

 we ought strongly to insist on its being the correct word. We are talking 

 everywhere about God as He is known, or can be, or ought to be known to 

 us ; and all human knowledge must come under human forms of thought. 

 There must, therefore, be, as I understand Mr. Blencowe to say, an anthropo- 

 morphic character in all our knowledge of God. Besides, a word like this 

 has the merit of suggesting a correlated word. It is one of the words which 

 must come with another word in order to complete the meaning, and on 

 page 15 the word is treated of in relation to the question of the probability 

 of a revelation from God to man. That revelation begins almost by an 

 affirmation that man is theomorphic, for " God said, Let us make man in 

 our image," the correlative being that God must be known to man in an | 

 anthropomorphic way. That is a point which I think justifies one in saying 

 henceforth we may glory in the reproach which is conveyed in the censure 

 put upon the word anthropomorphic. We need that word to enable us t 

 declare the whole of the idea, which we hold is only true when it is taken 

 as a whole. (Hear.) 



The meeting was then adjourned. 



