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eternally with God, and the authors contend for nothing beyond. They say, 
how can you argue from the doctrine of continuity, that there is no God 
behind the visible framework of creation ? They say the world has come 
into being somehow. How ? Science can tell you nothing about it. Again, 
they say that science can tell you nothing about the origin of life. The doc- 
trine of biogenesis is discarded by many of the greatest scientific men, 
including Huxley and others. Life is not to be accounted for by any scientific 
theory. But these writers say, Here are old records wonderfully in agreement 
with the conclusions of physical science. They tell us the time is coming 
when the stars shall fall from Heaven. That is now considered probable as one 
of the conclusions of astronomical science. It is conjectured that the sun and 
the attendant planets may fall into each other, and then into other suns, and 
that then the universe may be resolved into luminiferous ether. They do 
not call it physical immortality from beginning to end. They say the atoms 
are developed by an infinitely powerful Being out of an unseen substance. 
We must recollect that great liberty is claimed by the great Doctors of the 
Church. I might refer some of those who are here to-night to St. Augustine, 
who said “ If God is Lord, He always had creatures obeying His do- 
minion. He was before His creation, though at no time without it ; pre- 
ceding it, not in point of time, but by an abiding perpetuity. ’ I admit 
that there are things in the book that I do not quite agree with. 
In sec. 36, in reference to the question of moral evil, Dr. Irons quoted the 
authors as saying, that “ Evil is woven into the essential texture of the 
garments with which the Eternal God, our Father, has clothed Himself. 
But what do the authors say “ We are thus drawn, if not absolutely 
forced, to surmise that the dark thread known as evil, is one which is very 
deeply woven into that garment of God which is called the Universe.” This 
is not the same thing as saying, “Evil is woven into the essential texture of 
the garments with which the Eternal God, our Father, has clothed Himself. 
From the sense in which they use the phrase “ eternity of evil,” I cannot 
understand whether they apply it to the commencement as well as to the 
future : the paragraph on the subject does not clearly show this. I rather 
think it means the eternity of evil in the period that is to come, and not as 
applicable to the past from the beginning, though they say, in a parenthesis, 
that the New Testament points to a time when evil will come to an end ; 
but they do not say this themselves. With regard to the statement, as to 
God being unconditioned, I should like to make one remark. Both Dr. 
Irons and Mr. Oxenham lay great stress on the authors calling God uncon- 
ditioned, and incapable of being approached by His creatures ; but theolo- 
gians have asserted at all times, that we shall never know the Father, except 
through the Incarnation of the Son, and the Bible asserts the same thing. 
Now, I do not take the authors to mean what Dr. Irons seems to suppose in 
this passage, sec. 45 of his paper : — 
“ The Eternal Father, ‘ Whom to know,’ we think, is ‘ life eternal,’ (and 
Whom we do ‘ know by faith,’ even now,) is placed, as they observe, ‘ as far 
