original doctrine of the Jerusalem Church. When that Church perished corporately with Jerusalem in the war of Titus, no authoritative protest remained among Jewish Christians against the notions which prevailed with the Gentile churches.

It is a remarkable fact, that in the modern Evangelical Creed this most untenable and most unspiritual doctrine of Human Sacrifice is made paramount. The Divinity of Christ is chiefly valued, because without it "the Atonement" cannot be sustained. But nothing can sustain "the Atonement." It must be thrown over, equally with Eternal Punishment and Vicarious Sin, to make Christian doctrines even plausible to deliberate and impartial thought.

THE PRESENCE OF GOD.

[1875.]

"Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and the heart of those that are contrite."-ISAIAH lvii. 15.

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TO undervalue knowledge and learning never can be wise; nor do we undervalue them in saying that moral qualities and strong common sense are of more avail for religious wisdom than any special or scholastic attainments. How indeed could religion be an affair for all men on any other condition? Nevertheless, as the mind of nations has grown, so has the grandeur of their ideas concerning God. The eye of man takes in at a glance the vast interval from this earth to a brilliant star; hence it is easy for a savage to conceive of God as sitting in the heavens, and yet seeing and watching the deeds of mankind. The early Hebrews had not reached the idea that God is present here, and everywhere on earth, as much as in heaven. They certainly supposed him to have a peculiar dwelling-place in the sky. But the master of a house, who sits in the principal chair and can give orders to all who sit or stand in the same room, may be said to be present in every part of that room, in which nothing escapes his eye or his authority. In the same manner, ancient men represented to themselves the universal presence of God, without resigning the imagination that he has a local throne and is surrounded by a special circle of ministering spirits. The moral effect of such belief is nearly the same as that which we now regard as more correct. If the Supreme Spirit knows everything that goes on everywhere-if, also, his power (or, as the ancients called it, his hand) reaches to every spot, the result to us is just that of his universal presence.

All ancient peoples imagined the Heaven in which God dwelt to be aloft, over our heads. Locally, as well as morally, he was to them the High and Lofty One. The grosser idea that he had some definite shape was at an earlier period effaced among the Hebrews by the belief that he was ever shrouded in a luminous cloud. To this the Apostle Paul alludes, when he entitles God "the Blessed and Only Potentate, who only hath immortality,

dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see." This is a splendid advance on the mean ideas of God set forth in Genesis and Exodus, and in every moral aspect is as noble and pure a representation as any that we can now attain. Yet a modification has been made inevitable by the discoveries of modern science. We know, beyond contradiction, that we are living on the surface of a globe; that, when a ship sails from England to the South direct, the stars overhead change, week by week; the mid-day sun rises higher and higher, being at first to the south, but at length right overhead, and afterwards is left to the north; also, that if the voyage be continued to Australia and New Zealand, the opposite side of our globe is at length reached. The stars which are above our head are beneath their feet. If Tartarus, or the region of the Dead, were, as the ancients supposed, immeasurably deep, then our Tartarus would be to the dwellers in New Zealand Heaven, and their Heaven would be our Tartarus. Thus, to mankind at large, no one direction is up or down, and it becomes an arbitrary fancy to fix the divine abode in one part of the heavenly vault rather than in another. Moreover, Science has discovered that the stars are at distances from us vastly diverse ; that the nearest star is prodigiously more remote from us than is our own sun; and that the idea of a blue crystal vault in which sun and stars are fixed is a mere illusion of the eye. We now understand that God is not more immediately present in one point of space than in another, but, wherever we are-in this chapel or in a private chamber-we are for ever in God's immediate presence, for ever in God's own Heaven.

There are many who speak with shuddering of Death, as a passing into the immediate presence of God. Dear friends, the shudder is certainly needless. Solemn the thought must be, happy it ought to be, that God is here, and that you cannot get nearer to him by dying. Many talk of the flesh as a curtain that hides him from us. Only in so far as the flesh is able to distract, to dull, to defile the spirit, can that statement be true. But God certainly is not the less present when our eyes are blinded to the fact of his presence. Man differs from man, and each of us differs from himself, in vividness of conception that God is present; and on this vividness largely depends the energy of spiritual life. In the Sermon on the Mount, according to Matthew, Jesus is reported to say, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God;" but in the Arabic translation (which of all modern

tongues comes nearest in genius to the Hebrew in which he spoke), the verb is in the present tense: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they have vision (or insight) of God;" and to me this carries conviction. Akin to this thought, though not identical, are the epithets in the passage with which I opened, where the prophet makes the High and Holy One say, "I dwell with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit." Moral conditions are primarily needed by those who believe in a Holy God, that they may be able to live in a realization of his presence. Hebrew prophet seems to have believed, on the one hand, that God sympathizes with those who are crushed in body or soul, and, on the other hand, that the consciousness of his presence is not a terror, but a comfort, to the afflicted. It revives their heart. And, without further discussing what he meant by contrite, we may from this point of view examine the subject.

The

What makes the thought of a Holy God terrible? Perhaps it will be replied, The consciousness of sin. That is partly true, yet it is not the whole truth. If sin mean only moral imperfection, sin is our state for ever. "God putteth no trust in his servants, and his angels he chargeth with folly "-says the poet in the Book of Job. Surely it is not a sense of imperfection, but a sense of hostility, that makes the nearness of a mighty superior painful. The humble man may perhaps think himself not only lower than the lowest of all saints, but guiltier than many a profligate; nevertheless, if he be contrite in heart, he hates his own iniquity, he longs for holiness, while he knows himself unholy; hence the thought of the Holy God revives his heart, and the consciousness of that purifying presence is a delight. With this harmonizes that utterance of Jesus, "The pure of heart have vision of God." We see most distinctly that for which we look eagerly.

The life of religion is not opposed to nature; rather, it is in fullest accordance with our best normal state. Yet it certainly is not natural, in the sense of coming easily or without effort to the individual or to the race. Mankind through long ages had a dim perception of the superior Power in which it unhesitatingly believed, and went through various forms of absurd opinion and wild fancy; the vulgar through ignorance, or the poets through wilfulness, spoiling the best thoughts of more earnest meditators. Thus numerous fantastic religions, which we now call Pagan, arose, some with many noble elements predominant; but in most the baser and sillier fancies swamped the better thoughts.

Very slowly indeed has mankind collectively moved towards more reasonable notions of the divine existence and character. Moreover a constant tendency displays itself to degeneracy and retrogression into old error, so that the latest stages of each creed are apt to be the worst. These facts have occurred on a very wide scale, and scarcely can be mistaken. Maturity of mind, which combines sobriety with active thought, is needed as an intellectual condition for a reasonable theology; also, if national morals be in a degraded state, the same degradation will appear in the religious notions. We now inherit the net results of at least four thousand years' mental history; yet not very many among us can wholly avoid the puerile errors of the past. At the same time, individuals often pass through a special history of their own, ere they can attain for themselves practical results from the notions which they theoretically receive. I do not speak of those who are content with a religion that rests in the head; nor may I digress concerning others who are disquieted by superstitious error. But, apart from all these, some of us are strongly impressed with the conviction, that, if man alone of earthly beings has a discernment of God, man cannot be without moral relations to God. Then follows the question, What are those moral relations? and the individual perhaps asks, "Wherein does my perception that God is my God, affect my life?" I call your close attention to this deeply practical question.

No two human minds are quite alike, and the richer the soil the more various is the plant. But though the course by which religion is developed and practically established probably differs in all, yet all these have in common a deep sense that religion is not a mere theory of the intellect, but is a state of heart pervading the whole life. Many go through a process which the old divines call, "Seeking after God," while the heart is inwardly striving to ascertain its due moral relation to him, and keep up a happy perception of his near presence. Each of us can but guess at the pains or pleasures in other souls; nevertheless it is reasonable to believe, that unless some moral frailty darken and distort the inward actions, this solemn seeking after God will have its appropriate delight. A Hebrew Psalm seems to allude to it with beautiful simplicity. "O Lord, when thou saidst, ‘Seek ye my face,' my heart replied, Thy face, Lord! will I seek.'' How childlike and straightforward! No artificial straining, no distraction by bashfulness, no alarm at God's immeasurable