α

who neither denies, nor affirms, but who is (ãdeos)—— without a God. The letter a in eos is a negative particle, and signifies without, the word eos therefore means without, cós a God-a man who is without a God. This is the mildest term which Mr. Owen's sentiments of the First Cause require, as designating the class to which he belongs. I do not use it disrespectfully or offensively, but simply for accuracy. The phraseology in which he has sometimes spoken of God, would warrant the stronger term of Antitheist.

Before I proceed, I must refer to the sources of illustration and argument about to be adduced. It is important, if not absolutely necessary, to have some common ground, or points of agreement from which we may proceed, with any person who may differ from us. If a Christian, acknowledging the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures, differ from me, we at once refer to the Bible, and the question is decided by the legitimate meaning of its phraseology, and of its statements. If a Deist differ from me, though he reject the Bible as the Word of God, he admits that the universe is the work of God, so that while the points of agreement are limited, still there is some accredited authority to which he will allow me to appeal. But he who denies the existence of an all-wise Being, affords me no spot in the universe on which I can stand with him. If I say the Bible is the Word of God, and gather arguments and illustrations from its pages, he denies it;-if I say the heavens and the earth, the sea, and man, are the works of God, he denies it. He does not admit the existence of an intelligent and all-wise Creator, therefore he is only consistent when he says that neither the universe, nor the Bible is the work of him whom we call God. All the sources of argument are, strictly speaking, denied to me, in limine-for if I adduce any of the phenomena of the material universe, I am required to prove that these have originated in the wisdom and power of God, just

as I should have to prove, that the texts I quote from the Scriptures, are truths conveyed from an uncreated, to a created mind.

In these circumstances I can only adduce those arguments and facts which convince me there is a God, and when I have done so, I trust they will not expose me to your censure, either as a fanatic, or a fool; but rather by the blessing of him who made us, incline you all to believe in, to love, reverence, and adore the great Author of our being.

The sources whence I derive the evidence, and the views I entertain, of the existence of God, are two; first, the book of nature; and second, the book of revelation; or, in other language, the works of God, taking the phrase in its largest meaning, as embracing the heavens and the earth, with all that have existence; and the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. The former of these books teaches me the great lesson that there is a First Cause, a Being who is self-existent, eternal, almighty, intelligent, omnipresent, and omniscient: and the latter, besides teaching me this, informs me of his other perfections and attributes, holiness, justice, goodness, mercy, and truth. My ideas of God are fewer and more imperfect from the study of his works than from the Bible, and hence, if I were stating them as a student of nature, my creed must necessarily be shorter, than as a Christian. If I do not overrate the science of natural theology (convinced as I am of its vast obligation even in the works of its most learned advocates to the sacred writings of the Jews and Christians, still), I should say that from the universe alone, I believe in a First Cause, a Being who is self-existent, eternal, intelligent, omnipresent, and omniscient. But as a Christian my creed is larger: I have other and peculiar views of the First Cause, and for which I am indebted exclusively to the pages of the Divine revelation.

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"By the word GOD," says Dr. Barrow (speaking as a believer in revelation), “ we mean a Being of infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, the creator and governor of all things, to whom the great attributes of eternity and independency, omniscience and immensity, perfect holiness and purity, perfect justice and veracity, complete happiness, glorious majesty, and supreme right of dominion, belong: and to whom the highest veneration and most profound submission and obedience are due."* Sir Isaac Newton says, "The Word GOD,' frequently signifies Lord,' but every lord is not God; it is the dominion of a spiritual Being or Lord that constitutes God; true dominion, true God; supreme, the Supreme; feigned, the false god. From such true dominion it follows that the true God is living, intelligent, and powerful; and from his other perfections that he is supreme, or supremely perfect: he is eternal and infinite; omnipotent and omniscient; that is, he endures from eternity to eternity, and is present from infinity to infinity. He governs all things that exist, and knows all things that are to be known; he is not eternity or infinity, but eternal and infinite; he is not duration or space, but he endures and is present; he endures always and is present everywhere; he is omnipresent, not only virtually, but also substantially; for power without substance cannot subsist. He is destitute of all body and all bodily shape, and ought not to be worshipped under the representation of anything corporeal. We have ideas of the attributes of God, but do not know the substance of even anything; we see only the figures and colours of bodies, hear only sounds, touch only the outward surfaces, smell only odours and taste tastes; and do not, cannot by any sense, or reflex act, know their inward substances; and much less can we have any notion of the

*Barrow on the Creed.

substance of God. We know him by his properties and attributes."

I have preferred stating the idea of God commonly entertained by Christians, in the language of one of the acutest reasoners among theologians, and of one of the profoundest thinkers among philosophers, rather than in my own; and it is the existence of this Being from the two sources of evidence just alluded to, that I have to prove in this Lecture.

The necessity of my proving it, arises from the fact that the existence of such a Being is denied. If it were acknowledged, I might immediately dismiss this audience, for our agreement on this fundamental doctrine would render the remainder of this Lecture unnecessary, as betwixt Christians and Socialists. I regret, however, that I have now to read to you passages from the accredited writings of the Socialists, utterly opposed to the passages I have read from Barrow and Newton, as well as to the doctrine taught on this subject by Him, who, in No. 3 of the Social Tracts, published under the sanction of the Central Board, is justly called, "The amiable and beneficent Jesus." In the tract No. 6, entitled "The Religion of the New Moral World," we meet with the following remarks:-" We have been requested also to state our opinion respecting that at present to us mysterious power, which directs the atom and controls the aggregate of nature.' We reply, that human knowledge is not sufficiently advanced to enable us to state upon this subject more than probable conjectures, derived from those laws of nature which have been made known to us. From these laws we deduce the following conjectures as probable truths :

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1st. That an eternal, uncaused existence has ever filled the universe, and is therefore omnipresent.

"2d. That this eternal, uncaused, omnipresent exist

ence, possesses attributes to direct the atom and control the aggregate of nature;' in other words, to govern the universe as it is governed.

"3d. That these attributes being eternal and infinite, are incomprehensible to man." [Thus far Socialists and Christians are agreed: except that Christians regard them as positive truths, and not as conjectures.]

“4th. That these eternal and infinite attributes are probably those laws of nature by which at all times, in all places, the operations of the universe are incessantly continued.

"5th. That it is of no importance by what name men call this eternal, uncaused, omnipresent existence, because such names alter nothing, explain nothing; and man knows the forms and qualities of those existences around him, only so far as his senses have been made to perceive them.

"6th. That if this power had desired to make the nature of its existence known to man, it would have enabled him to comprehend it without mystery or doubt." Here we differ. The terms in which the fourth and sixth of these conjectures are propounded, are vague, indiscriminate, and unsatisfactory, and the conjectures unauthorized and unphilosophical. "Nature" is the eternal, uncaused existence, or it is not: if it be, it is most unphilosophical to confound it with its laws. There can be no laws without a lawgiver; and supposing nature or the material universe to have been the lawgiver possessing the attributes of eternity and omnipresence, it is totally illogical to say that these eternal and infinite attributes of the lawgiver "are probably those laws of nature, by which at all times, in all places, the operations of the universe are incessantly continued."

Nor is it less unreasonable to assert, "That if this power had desired to make the nature of its existence known to man, it would have enabled him to comprehend it without mystery or doubt." If it be mere power, which it cannot be, for power is only an attribute-or if it be merely matter