60 REV. CHANCELLOR LIAS, M.A., ON 



gives place to that of a mighty energy operating by its laws 

 of evolution, steadily, tirelessly, nniutermittently, onward and 

 upward. From the formless void to the universal cosmos, 

 from the ascldian to man, from the psychical body to the 

 spiritual body, from the psychical man to the spiritual man, 

 from tlie Fall to the day when even the Head of humanity 

 Himself shall yield up His Empire " to Him that did put all 

 things under Him that God may be all in all," there has been 

 a triumphal forward march of the Divine order from one 

 conquest to another, from one achievement to another, up 

 to the restoration of all things, when there shall "be no more 

 anything accursed; when the throne of God and of the 

 Lamb shall be in the heavenly city where He dwells, and 

 where His servants do Him service ; where there shall be 

 night no more " because the Eternal Light is ever shining ; 

 and where His servants " shall reign for ever and ever in 

 the light which He is giving." 



Here, perhaps, I might well stop. But as it is by no 

 moans probable that I shall again address the Institute upon 

 this great and fundamental topic, 1 may ask permission to 

 offer some cautions Avhich my meditations on this matter 

 have suggested to me. In the first place I Avould remark 

 that, as Mr. Balfour has told us in his Foundations of Beliefs 

 theological propositions require a new " setting," if they are 

 to meet with a ready reception in the present age. And in 

 no point is this fresh setting more urgently required than in 

 our conceptions of the Divine Being Himself. The old 

 " potentate " theory need not, it is true, be abandoned. But 

 it needs to be qualified according to tlie " analogy of the 

 faith."* It needs to be subordinated to ideas yet more 

 primitive and fundamental. That offences against the 

 great Ruler of the universe are matters of grave import, 

 and that they need adequate punishment and call for 

 adequate atonement, need not be disputed. But above and 

 beyond these propositions, we must also look upon God as 

 the great Force Avorking through and in nature and man, 

 for the evolution of a great moral purpose, tlie perfection of 

 rational beings. In the second place I would suggest that 

 it has been a serious mistake on the part of some thinkers to 

 imagine that the idea of God is a simple one. As God is at 

 the root of everything that is, as He touches us at every 



* Eom. xii, G. 



