133 
tinctive basis of membership of the Victoria Institute), it 
is submitted, not as an exhaustive, but rather as a suggestive 
tractate, tentative rather than complete, and seeks to awaken 
a dispassionate consideration of its subject, assuredly well 
worthy of being calmly and philosophically weighed by men 
anxious to discriminate between the true and the false; to 
give to all true science its legitimate status, and eliminate 
whatever has only the name or semblance of science, by 
whomsoever installed, and how widely soever retained within 
the honourable and charmed circle. 
I will add one more preliminary remark, with more especial 
reference to the mere Theist. Surely, once admit the exist- 
ence of a personal God — not an abstraction, not matter, not 
nature, not law, not force — a living personal God, and His 
utterances, however conveyed, by seer or by vision, by audible 
voice or inward illumination, by a spiritual afflatus from with- 
out or a spiritual witness within, — His utterances, if only con- 
veyed in a mode worthy of Himself and worthy of the ends to 
be compassed, ought to be implicitly received. And this, 
both on rational and moral grounds. For the very notion of 
a personal God involves the idea of perfection ; and perfection 
in Deity is nothing less than infinite perfection. Is it, then, 
conceivable that the Deity should act towards the works of 
His hands as no mere impotent and fallible artificer would 
act towards his perishing products — make them, and then 
fling them unheeded to be a sport to every passing and 
destructive agent ? Is this conceivable of any intelligent 
being ? Does the parent neglect, forsake, disown his offspring, 
cast him upon the world, expose him to the world’s ill, and all 
without one warning word, one directing maxim ? How 
utterly inconceivable, then, is all this on the part of a 
personal, living, perfect God. Better, methinks, ignore His 
existence than degrade His character. Better not believe 
that there exists a God of perfect attributes, perfect in His 
works and in His ways, than believe that He is, and yet heeds 
not, hath never spoken to, deserts His own intelligent creature. 
A God less reasonable in administration than the rudest 
artisan ! more heartless than many of the most abandoned 
of our race, yea, of the very abjects ! 
And now we approach our immediate subject — Theology as 
a science. And at the outset I feel deeply impressed that this 
paper cannot adequately or even approximately do justice to 
it. A large and comprehensive subject, sufficiently treated, 
demands a large and comprehensive intellect and correspond- 
ing scholarship — very much larger than I venture to lay claim 
to. I aspire, then, to no more than the lowliest pioneer work, 
l 2 
