THE GENESIS OP NATURE. 



37 



ception of divinity as it is unrolled before us from the lines of 

 Holy Writ. Can anyone form a conception of God from these 

 descriptions without confessing that it is clear in its fulness, 

 but that at the same time it is infinitely above the mental 

 capacity of any finite intellect to gras}). It is a mathematical 

 truism that the finite cannot measure the infinite. So can no 

 human intellect measure God. Man may know God, but he 

 cannot measure God. 



And, not only in Himself, but in His attributes, is God above 

 the measure of a man. Take one fact of revelation alone. We 

 have seen that matter must have had a beginning. But God is 

 eternally self-existent. In the presence of Jehovah, time itself 

 and duration becomes an episode. Herein to human under- 

 standing tlie things of God have reached the immeasurable. 



But there is another side of the revelation of God in 

 Scripture, which v.-'e have as yet hardly touched. Revelation 

 is given us, not only of the Being and the Character and the 

 attributes of God, but of the ways of God and His methods of 

 working. 



This, too, is a stupendous subject; one which transcends our 

 powder to measure or describe. But yet of it a few things 

 may be said. He works with a purpose, an eternal purpose 

 (Eph. iii, 2). He w^orks and controls by the method of law 

 (Deut. xxxii, 4) and order (Gen. i). His ways and thoughts 

 are superhuman (Is. Iv, 9). He has perfect knowledge in, and 

 of His works (Acts xv, 18). His conscious care extends, not 

 only to the vastly great, but to the minutest details (St. Luke 

 xxi, 18). There can be no shadow of ground for attempting 

 to explain aw^ay as allegories the plain and precise statements 

 of our Lord : " even the very hairs of your head are all 

 numbered," and "not one sparrow shall fall on the ground 

 vvithout your Father." These are quantitative statements of 

 value, used by our Lord to prove an important truth, which 

 He desired His disciples to believe and realize ; and if they 

 were only allegorical. His conclusion would be invalidated. 

 Our Lord was not given to loose reasoning. We are obliged, 

 therefore, to take these statements as meant to literally 

 describe our Lord's view of the minuteness of the care and 

 governing oversight of the Almighty ; and one thing is certain, 

 that, whether He knew the conclusions of modern science or 

 not, He knew^ God. We have, therefore, no option but to 

 conclude that the revelation of God, as to His ways, in the 

 Bible is that of a God, who works by law and in order and 

 consistently indeed, but who yet controls with individual 



