Theological Considerations. 1011 



considered as a miracle, and the substitution for it of a aogma founded 

 ; on observations of nature, must logically and necessarily lead to the 

 overthrow of the idea of God being a person, and finally to the aban- 

 donment of worship and adoration. But in some of the Liberal churches, 

 Peoples churches, &c.. , the old habit of worship not easy to be got rid 

 of at once, has curiously and absurdly become transferred to a vaguely 

 imagined power, essence, or creative energy which is somehow supposed 

 to be at the head of affairs. But if any abandon the personal God of 

 revelation they will not, by searching, find God in any place accessible 

 to human wit. 



Men's conception can by no possible means get above the natural; 

 as shown elsewhere a conception of a supernatural is not possible. Not 

 only so, but we must always fall far short of a full comprehension of 

 nature. Natural phenomena ma}^ be divided into two classes; things 

 we know, and things we do not know. We do not worship anything 

 we understand. The phenomena not understood are those which have 

 always been attributed to supernatural agency. Plagues, famines, 

 storms, earthquakes, eclipses, lightning, and other such unmanageable 

 or inscrutable phenomena have at one time or another belonged to this 

 catalogue. It has been considered impious to clean up for the purpose 

 of warding off a pestilence; or to put up a lightning rod for the pur- 

 pose of steering the thunderbolt; or to take medicine to cure sickness; 

 under the belief that pestilence, lightning, and sickness were the per- 

 sonal weapons of a supernatural power, an attempt to thwart which 

 was deadly sacrilege. Our knowledge is like a clearing in the midst of 

 a dense and interminable forest. Originally very small, every genera- 

 tion has industriously and painfully widened it until a man at this close 

 of the 19th century finds himself unable to see across it. Within 

 these wide and constantly widening limits, no phenomenon has been dis- 

 covered which can be referred to a supernatural source. Every discov- 

 ery has shown the connection between phenomena and natural causes; 

 and reasoning from analogy, which is our only resource, we are bound to 

 conclude that there is no warrant for supposing that in the parts of na- 

 ture yet unexplored we shall ever find a clew that leads to the super- 

 natural. The causes which remain as yet undiscovered we may reason- 

 ably conclude are of a piece with those which have been found out. 

 The civilized and enlightened Liberal Christian of this closing decade 

 of the 19th century, who has found out that light, heat, and electricity 

 are not caused by a worshipful personality, but who yet bows down be- 

 fore the phenomena of consciousness and mentalit}^ and invokes super- 

 human agency in the regulation and rectification of the human "heart," 

 and the illumination of the human "mind," is like the Idolater ridi- 

 culed by the Prophet Isaiah in his chapter 44, verse 15, who burnt part 



