Philosophic Evolution* 203 



wrong, which is Himself. I mean, moreover, that He 

 created all things out of nothing, and preserves them 

 every moment, and could destroy them as easily as He 

 made them ; and that, in consequence, He is separated 

 from them by an abyss, and is incommunicable in all His 

 attributes. And further, He has stamped upon all things, 

 in the hour of their creation, their respective natures, and 

 has given them their work and mission and their length 

 of days, greater or less, in their appointed place. I mean, 

 too, that He is ever present with His works, one by one, 

 and confronts everything He has made by His particular 

 and most loving Providence, and manifests Himself to 

 each according to its needs ; and on rational beings has 

 imprinted the moral law, and given them power to obey 

 it, imposing on them the duty of worship and service, 

 searching and scanning them through and through with 

 His omniscient eye, and putting before them a present 

 trial and a judgment to come. 



"Such is what theology teaches about God, a doctrine, 

 as the very idea of its subject matter presupposes, so 

 mysterious as in its fulness to lie beyond any system, 

 and to seem even in parts to be irreconcilable with itself, 

 the imagination being unable to embrace what the reason 

 determines. It teaches of a Being infinite, yet personal ; 

 all blessed, yet ever operative ; absolutely separate from 

 the creature, yet in every part of the creation at every 

 moment ; above all things, yet under everything. It 



