34 



REV. G. F. WHIDBOENE, M.A., F.G,S._, ON 



limitation suggested, which it may be simpler to consider at the 

 outset, although in doing so we may have to use by anticipation 

 some of the evidence about God, which we shall presently draw 

 from the sacred storehouse of Scripture. 



Eirst, then, it may be asked, " is the God whom we have 

 found from Nature the same God whom we find in the Bible ?,"^ 

 rt might be conceived, that, after all, they might be different 

 beings. Gnostic notions might be brought in to suggest a 

 relationship with a difference. But to answer this we have only 

 to compare the two conceptions of God, given to us respectively 

 by Nature and by Scripture. We look in brief to the view of 

 the Being of God which is presented to us in Holy Writ. He 

 is described (to take but three places out of many) as, the King 

 Eternal, immortal, invisible, tlie only wise God," " the Lord God 

 omnipotent," " the Creator of the ends of the earth " ; and 

 everywhere throughout Scripture the same view of His peerless- 

 ]\Lajesty is given. If Scripture be true, He is God supreme and 

 God alone. But we have already seen that the God about 

 whom we learn in Nature is single and supreme, its one first 

 cause. Therefore, the God of Nature and the God of the Bible 

 must l)e one and tlie same. There is no room in the universe for 

 more than one God, whether as revealed by nature or by 

 Scripture. Therefore, whatever we learn of God in nature is- 

 knowledge of the God of the Bible ; and whatever we learn of 

 God in the Bible is knowledge of the God of Nature ; and,, 

 therefore, whatever we know about God is knowledge which 

 applies to either sphere ; and more particularly for our present 

 purpose, whatever we discover of the character of God from the 

 Bible may be scientifically used to explain the ways of God in. 

 the realms of Nature. 



5. Tlie Bible not a scientific text-hook, hut authoritative about 



God 



Secondly, the limitation may be suggested that the Bible,, 

 however true as a revelation, has no scientitic purpose, and 

 therefore cannot be consulted as a compendium of Science. It 

 may be said, and very often is said, that its expressions are 

 those of the current state of science at its time, and that later 

 discoveries have accumulated vast stores of natural knowledge- 

 of which its human authors were entirely ignorant. We may 

 freely grant all this. We have no wish to turn the Bible into 

 a scientific text-book. Its purpose was certainly not to record 

 philosophic theories, or to chronicle natural research No one 

 supposes that its ancient writers were versed in the scientific 



