the individual's future is realised in union with Christ, and this though the battle of the counter forces sometimes rages. Yet, while the eye is directed to Jesus as the sinner's friend, the renewed soul is sure to conquer.

Thus modern science enables us to see our strength and our weakness, as we follow the Master, and get at the Lord's meaning in His saying, “Ye must be born again". Then we see an entirely new element making itself felt in the process which this implies, being the movement of the Spirit of God, and as I have said the leading features of this movement is the feeling of security attaching itself to the consciousness of being reconciled to God, and for this reason enabled to approach Him with the Abba Father of the Christian God.

CHAPTER IV.

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF PROVING THE EXISTENCE OF A

THE

GOD APART FROM REVELATION.

HE very ground work of Christianity arises from the accepted fact of the existence of a Self-existing Eternal Being defined as God, and revealing Himself in and through Jesus Christ as the objective part of Himself, and arising out of the forces that were from time to time employed in revealing the presence of the Almighty Power in whom the Jews trusted, and from whom they received the law. In the rebellion of the latter from time to time we see the action of the self-regarding instinct manifested in opposition to the commands of God. The action and counter action are clearly manifested in the history of this people, viewed in the light of present knowledge. For amongst them the belief in the existence of a God was a universally accepted fact. But to return to our subject; in the revelation of Christ we see that the existence of the personal God, which constitutes the framework of the whole system, is the very idea that Christianity springs from. Therefore it is an utter waste of time which is often devoted to the fruitless attempt to prove the existence of a God or the immortality of the soul, for that is utterly impossible apart from the revelation that has been given us. For there is nothing representing the object concerned in nature to prove the

existence of either the one or the other. Moreover, the notion of design used for that end is altogether worthless and useless, in as much as it can only point to a God of force, and presents man in the form of body and mind as the grandest display manifested in the action of the forces at work, with an inspiration and craving after immortality. But what have you when the lifeless body of the dearest friend is presented to your view? Where is your evidence now to prove the existence of a God taking care of the self-consciousness of your friend, and binding the forces together by a law that can be traced and demonstrated before you. Higher than the intelligence of man we have nothing, and this intelligence only procures for us an individual existence, while body and mind remains united in the bodily organism. Hence it must appear to every intelligent, conscientious, or honest mind as an utter waste of time to bestow effort on an argument of which there is no objective existence corresponding to the thing. Therefore the question still rests in an utter impossibility to prove the existence of a God apart from revelation. But let it be fully understood that to say we cannot prove the existence of a God apart from revelation, is very different from saying that God does not influence the mind of man apart from revelation (understood as Bible truth). For most certainly God does express Himself, and the man that worships Him through nature is sure to find Him.

Theodore Parker presents the highest form of such I can think of, and the God he found in nature was perceived by him as his father and his mother too. What a devotion gave birth to that thought! What a fount of

love these words include, and what utter loneliness they imply regarding human sympathy, as he finds in God his ultimate. That God he has consecrated his all to, and we call him a sceptic and an outcast. A sceptic we certainly are justified in calling him, for he was an unbeliever, and therefore he did nothing from love to Christ. But see the other marks Jesus would have us judge by, how brightly they stand out (Matthew vii. 20-21) in producing this fruit! Yet he is no Christian, for his fruit springs from self-preservation as the desire of immortality increases. But the Christian's consecrated life is the fruit of his love to Christ as his Saviour and Redeemer, and though in his case much of the same fruit is produced, yet it rises from an entirely different motive. The Christian is saved and one with Christ in God, whom he will or must serve, as being animated by a law which, as faith working by love, must express itself in action. This service to God is the effect of the belief implied in his power to overcome his former bad habits aided by the strength of Christ. The other, on the contrary, is earning eternal life as the fruit of his good works according to the saying, " do this and live." But the believer lays up treasures in heaven in the name of Jesus, and as the reward of service done for his Lord while he strove to attain the perfect state enjoined in Matthew v. 48.

But though man cannot prove the existence of a God, yet those who search will surely find him, as the feeling of the felt expresses the manifestation of the God of nature, which will be seen in the person of Jesus Christ as the objective portion of the Godhead, and as the one

who is to be called the God of the whole earth.

(Isaiah liv. 5.) But this worshipping of a God of nature and finding Him at the end objectised in the Christ of Christianity is wholly different from worshipping Jesus in the Christian form, and earning for ourselves the reward of having witnessed for Him before a sinful world. Hear the words of our Saviour as recorded in Matthew x. 32. "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess before my Father which is in heaven." The honour here implied is the highest conferred on our race, or even possible to man. The idea that seems attaching itself to those who profess to believe in Christianity, and yet avowedly teach the impossibility of perceiving God in consciousness, is at utter variance with the teaching of the originator of Christianity, and cuts at the very root of His doctrine. For there is no point that our Lord more fully maintains than this, namely, His felt presence as a state of consciousness intended to maintain the evidence of His power and presence in the church through the individual believer, as the fruit of the new birth, and the manifestation of the spirit that was ever to witness for Him. (John xv. 26, xvi. 7-13, also John iv. 23, 24. To the individual the felt power is of vital importance, as the counterpart of the truth he receives in his Christian faith, and as the influence that stimulates to action in pulling down the old structure, and rebuilding the conscious mind in the likeness of Christ. Thus it created the new man whom Paul points to, and nothing short of this would enable him to rise above the doctrine of necessity, nothing short of the joy that attaches itself to the reconciled child would satisfy