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Spencer is advancing one of tlie grandest truths of the Bible. Mr. Lias has 
quoted those passages as to how we cannot find out God by searching ; how 
man by wisdom knows not God ; and how no man knoweth the Father save 
through the Son, and him to whom the Son is revealed. Therefore, we are 
brought face to face with this fact — that science, after thousands of years of 
investigation, has put its foot on one of the first and foundation truths of 
the Bible. This is a grand thing, and not to be roughly handled or accepted. 
We all, as Christians, acknowledge it as a fundamental thing, that no know- 
ledge of God is real doctrine beyond that which St. Paul speaks of in Bomans, 
and which puts forward what Herbert Spencer says himself. We have know- 
ledge of God’s power and eternity, but not of Himself. But I think we might 
go far, very far, with Herbert Spencer. Mr. Lias has said there are no words 
in the Bible which speak of the infinity of God. He might have remem- 
bered that there is the Hebrew word to which Eusebius alluded, which 
expresses the infinity and eternity of God ; and that, if you say that God is 
not infinite or unconditioned, you might go on and say He is not Almighty. 
But the Lord God is Almighty, and Infinite, and Eternal. These things we 
cannot fully understand ; but we do understand that He can reveal and 
make Himself known to us. I was thinking just now that we sometimes 
meet men who tell us : “I am not going to church ; I can go out into 
the fields and woods and meditate about God.” We also find men who 
say: “We know nothing about God”; and if any one should say this 
to Spencer, Spencer would merely say : “You cannot find Him.” But if 
he went to the pastor, and said : “ How can I find Him ? ” the answer would 
be : “ If you seek Him He will reveal Himself to you.” The Bible says : 
“ To know Him is eternal life ” ; so that if you could get a knowledge of 
God from the outside world, that would give eternal life. But you cannot 
do this, and it is this external knowledge that Mr. Spencer tries to teach. 
Kev. C. L. Engstrom. — It has occurred to me that, speaking of the un- 
knowable, it would be a good plan to dwell upon that which is akin to 
knowledge in a lower sphere, because we are better able to understand things 
beneath us than those above us. We cannot, indeed, speak of a particle of 
matter having knowledge of an adjoining particle ; but if we bring two par- 
ticles into contact, that contact is in those particles something corresponding 
to knowledge. Let us take the old comparison of a child filling its cup from 
the ocean. There can be no harm in using so trite an illustration. The cup 
is brought into contact with the ocean, and if you could conceive such a thing 
as that both were gifted with intelligence, you would say that the two things 
in contact knew each other. But, coming to higher things, we do not think 
that the knowledge of God is nothing more than that. It must be much 
higher ; because the knowledge of God is necessarily a far greater thing than 
a knowledge of matter. Let us take something with life in it. Let us 
consider the plant as it grows up from the tiny seed which gives it birth, 
and we shall perceive that, as it passes through its various stages of develop- 
ment and evolution, it comes every moment into new contact with its varied 
and varying environment ; then, if we could suppose it to be possessed of 
