THE TEACHINGS OP THE BIBLE 259 



He gets enough to make him a king, but this does not 

 begin to exhaust the promise. It is inexhaustible. 

 This is the experience of anyone who will faithfully 

 try it. And this experience is the grandest argument 

 for immortahty. 



Therefore, " giving all diligence, add to your faith 

 virtue (dperrj, strength), and to virtue knowledge, and 

 to knowledge temperance {eyKpareia, self-control), and 

 to temperance patience (virofieinj, endurance), and to 

 patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kind- 

 ness, and to brotherly kindness charity " (love). 



And what of prayer ? How can it be answered in 

 a universe of law ? We certainly could have no con- 

 fidence that our prayers could or would be answered 

 if ours were not a universe of law. God's laws are, as 

 we have seen, his modes of working out his great plan. 

 And the last and highest unfolding of God's plan is 

 the development of man. And man is to become con- 

 formed to his environment, and conformity of man's 

 highest powers to his environment is likeness to God. 



The laws of nature, then, are in ultimate analysis 

 and highest aim the different steps in God's plan of 

 man's salvation from the disease of sin, not merely or 

 mainly from its consequences, and his attainment of 

 holiness. For this is the only true and sound man- 

 hood. Salvation is spiritual health, resulting also in 

 health of body and of mind. If God's laws are his 

 modes of carrying out his plan for godlikeness in man, 

 then they are so thought out as to be the means of 

 helping me to every real good. 



The Bible declares explicitly that the aim of prayer 

 is not to inform God of our needs. For he knows 

 them already. It is not to change God's purpose. 



