174 
or corporeal, but in a manner wholly unknown to us, therefore 
not to be worshipped under any corporeal representation.” 
This whole truth seems to be embodied in the declaration 
of Christ. “ G-od is a Spirit ; and they that worship Him, must 
worship Him in spirit and in truth.” 
Ilveu/xa 6 Oeoq, God is Spirit, not, I presume, a Spirit, but 
absolutely the Spirit; which truth removes the knowledge of 
His essence from all cognizance of our senses, and consequently 
from all scientific inquiry. 
I have said that the Greeks had no exact knowledge of 
God ; but there is a certain sense in which they and all man- 
kind are responsible in this matter, “ for the invisible things of 
Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being 
understood by the things that are made, even His eternal 
power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.” If 
men choose to assume a bestial character, and to put away 
this knowledge from them* {rrjv aXiiOeiav ev aSiKia kcitexovtcov), 
they do so at their own responsibility, and in the exercise of 
their own free will. 
At the same time, as we are instructed in the celebrated 
speech of the Apostle at Athens, men are so set in this world 
as that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel 
after Him, and find Him. The word i/^Aa^ijcmav exactly de- 
scribes the “ groping like a blind man, or in the dark ” t which 
results in worshipping, after all, “ an Unknown God,” though 
He be not far from every one of us, for we are also His 
offspring ; and the darkness in which we find ourselves arises 
from the condition of our own hearts. 
To this condition both of mind and heart I can revert 
with much appreciation and sympathy. I look back with no 
regret to the somewhat austere discipline of my youth, and to 
the innumerable hours of enforced silent meditation required 
by my then religion ; which, together with its outward indica- 
tions, was relinquished when 1 found something better. It 
appeal’s that Justin Martyr did not lay aside his philosopher’s 
cloak when he became a Christian ; and it is not difficult in 
studying his writings to find that his Christian philosophy, 
though it enabled him to die manfully for the frith, was less 
ritualistic, less mixed up with Judaism, and certainly more sim- 
ple and more philosophical, than that of some of his successors. 
My education has, I find, in like manner indisposed me to 
some prevalent views, and has predisposed mo to sympathize 
with those who are under the teaching of the philosophy of 
* Kora. ch. i. 
f See Liddell and Seott, Lex, in loco. 
