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admits, an “ inherent impulse ” spurs men to try and find this 
out ? In the “ cosmical ideas ” which we as Christians hold, 
there is a primary and fundamental one. It is stated in a few 
simple words by John, disciple and apostle of Jesus Christ. 
Conceiving, as best he could, the Supreme and Invisible to 
whom his faith ascribed the “ first beginnings ” of the universe, 
John wrote thus : “ All things were made by Him, and without 
Him was not anything made that was made.”* A similar 
statement is made by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrew 
converts, but suggesting, perhaps, other ideas : “ By faith we 
understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, 
so that things which are seen were not made of things which 
do appear.”! And in repeating these words I may as well 
point out that whether they humanize the conception of the 
Supreme Power or not, they are not chargeable with the notion 
(sometimes urged against them) of creation out of nothing. 
The contradiction involved in that use of the word Creation is 
not to be charged on the writers of the New Testament. 
The Apostles had in their minds (as I contend) the causa- 
tion of the physical universe as we know it, — a sphere of 
life and activity for sentient beings. The already and competent 
cause they affirm, was God. How caused, i.e. by what means 
or by what methods, the Apostles nowhere suggest ; except in 
the simple phrase “ by the Word of God.” J I suppose that 
Dr. Tyndall refuses the supernatural activity of God in the 
universe, as it is conceived of by Christian people, who 
accept, subject to the modifying light of ever-increasing 
knowledge, .the simple confessions of the Apostles and the even 
simpler confessions of the Hebrew book of “ first-beginnings,” 
the book of Genesis. § And yet great and good men, like 
Newton and Boyle (as he reminds us), lived and worked 
under the conception of the Godhead with which the Bible 
furnished them. Dr. Tyndall calls the idea of his great pre- 
decessor in scientific research, Sir Isaac Newton, that of a 
“ detached Creator,” like a human agent moving the wheels 
and handling the levers of nature. This is anthropomorphism, 
of course. But I venture to doubt if Sir Isaac Newton, or 
later, Dr. Faraday, would consent to allow Dr. Tyndall to state 
this conception for them. Even an unscientific person, of 
humble attainments, would object. You have only to meditate, 
for a few minutes, on your idea of God, to see reasons of a 
* John i. 3. t Hebrews ii. 3. 
+ See a fuller consideration of this view in Sermon IX. of my published 
discourses. , § Note II., Appendix. 
