THE
MUTUAL RELATIONS
OF
NATURAL SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY.
AN ORATION
PRONOUNCED BEFORE THE
CONNECTICUT BETA OF THE PI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY,
IN CHRIST CHURCH, HARTFORD, CONN.,
JULY 7TII, I868,
BY THE
REV. WILLIAM RUDDER,
RECTOR OF ST. STEPHIEN'S CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA.
PHILADELPHIA:
HENRY B. ASHMEAD, BOOK AND JOB PRINTER,
Nos. I02o    & IIo4. SANSOM STREET.
I 8 6 9.








TO
WILLIAM D. LEWIS, Es+%,
OF PHILADELPHIA,
THIS ORATION
IS,
WITH AFFECTION AND RESPECT,
INSCRIBED.












"Ut semel dicam, nemo male applicatoe sobrietatis moderationisque
famam  captans posse nos nimium  progredi in libris sive creaturarum,
theologia aut philosophia, existimet: quinimo excitent se homines, et infinitos profectus audacter urgeant utrobique et persequantur; caventes tantum
ne scientia utantur ad tumorem, non ad charitatem; ad ostentionem, non
ad usum; et rursus, ne distinctas illas theologiae philosophizeque doctrinas,
earumque latices, imperite misceant ac confundant."
BACON. De A.ugmentis, L. I.
"There are two sorts of ignorance: we philosophize to escape ignorance, and the consummation of our philosophy is ignorance; we start from
the one, we repose in the other; they are the goals from which, and to
which, we tend: and the pursuit of knowledge is but a course between two
ignorances, as human life is itself only a travelling from grave to grave.'TiL 3(tSo;'-EK TV7I1,oto Oopwv, em. T6rLPOV 4 8ewtW.'
"The highest reach of human science is the scientific recognition of
human ignorance;'Qui nescit ignorare, ignorat scire.' This'learned
ignorance' is the rational conviction by the human mind of its inability to
transcend certain limits; it is the knowledge of ourselves-the science of
man."
SIR WILLIAM  HAMILTON. Discussions, p. 591.




OR A T I 0O N.
MR. PRESIDENT, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE
PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY:
It is with very mingled feelings that I come
before you to-day to discharge the honourable trust
which you have assigned to me. Since last I appeared in this city in any connexion, direct or
indirect, with Trinity College, twenty yearshow large a part of the working life of man!have glided swiftly by, and recorded themselves
in the past. The lapse of such a period of time
cannot have been without marked and important
effects. We are changed, and all about us is
changed. And yet, under the magic influences of
the time, the place, and the occasion, these twenty
years seem, here and to-day, but "as a dream when
one awaketh," or as if their history had never been
written. The gathering of these, our younger
brothers, around the knees of their Alma Mater
before they too go out to the dread experiences
and responsibilities of life; these walls that heard
my first youthful utterances, and then, afterwards,
listened as I spake the most solemn vows that can
bind the soul of man; these familiar faces, the




same, and yet not the same, kindling now, as in
the days gone by, with generous sympathy and
kindly interest, and, like lingering memories,
bringing back all the scenes and associations that
surrounded them in the olden time; all these things
obscure the present to consciousness, and make the
past, once more, a living fact to our hearts and
eyes. Once more, beneath this consecrated roof,
are gathered around us, rising from the silent
chambers where they have slept till now, or coming
from various fields of labour scattered throughout
the land, the Instructors, the Friends, the Companions of our youth. Once more, the ardent
boy, his heart swinging in swift oscillation between hope and fear, ascends-" Ascendat Discipulus"-to perform  his last College duties in this
place; and hence, from the height of the occasion
and under the inspiration of it, looks eagerly and
confidently forward over the coming years which,
he is certain, are to be the scenes of his heroic
labours and supremest enjoyments, his certain
victories, and his no less certain honours and
rewards. Oh, that bright forward glance of youth!
that wondrous mist-tinted vision of the illimitable
Elysian Fields, all sparkling with Hope's undried
dew, and golden with morning! that marvellous
landscape filled with the far mysterious murmur of
wind-stirred forests, and bee-thronged gardens, and
plashing fountains in romantic groves; lit with the
shimmer of lilied lakes and winding streams; vocal




9
with the songs of glancing, many-plumaged birds,
and fragrant with the incense of perennial flowers!
Oh, that bright, too brief vision!  Its rosy atmosphere seems once more to fill this place; and,
through it, there come out to me the faces of the
revered and the beloved.  I see before me one
venerable head, not more adorned by, than adorning by his Christian simplicity, his perfect urbanity,
his unvarying gentleness, the honoured Mitre which
he wears-the Chancellor of our College, whose
very smile is Benediction, and whose every word is
Love.*  I see another standing by this Altar-my
Pastor, my gentle Critic, and my Friend; learned,
yet humble-so humble that men guess not half
how learned he is; meek, yet firm-so firm in
what he believes to be the right that they cannot
imagine even the wells of utter tenderness that are
forever springing in his breast; the man who, of
all I have ever known, seems most constantly to
live in an atmosphere of Heaven; the Christian
Scholar, the Christian Poet, the Christian Priestsoon to be the Bishop labouring, as such an one as
he must labour, through his allotted time, and
then, from the calm surface of the summer seas,
mounting upward to his rest in the fiery chariots
of the tropic sun.t I see sitting here among his
* The Rt. Rev. Thomas Church Brownell, D.D., LL.D.,
Bishop of Connecticut, and first Chancellor of Trinity College.
t- The Rt. Rev. George Burgess, D.D., Bishop of Maine,
and, before his elevation to the Episcopate, Regtor of Christ




10
colleagues the most learned of the Governors of
the College —the Historian of the Church, profoundly versed in sacred and profane letters, whose
very connexion with the Institution adds strength
to its position, and lustre to its fame.*  I see another venerable form, erect even in old age, like
some grand old pine that will not bow beneath the
burden of its snows, the second President of the
College, the architect of this Te ple —" Si momentum requiris, circumspice"-retired now from
active labours into a quiet retreat where his honourable life is slowly burning away like a summer
evening  into  summer night.-    All these  and
others —friends, acquaintances, companions —the
living, and those we had supposed were dead, are
gathered about us here to-day.  Surely, Sir, it is
the present and the seeming actual that are the
illusions:! Surely it is not  1868, but I 848 1
And yet how vast and how important a period
of accomplished history do these two dates enclose!
What wonderful changes in the life within us, and
in the life without us, does their history record!
Whether we look abroad or at home, at society
Church, Hartford, Conn. Bp. Burgess died at sea, off the
Island of San Domingo, April 23, I866.
The Rev. Samuel Farmar Jarvis, D.D., LL.D.
T- The Rev. Nathaniel S. Wheaton, D.D., President of Trinity College from A.D. I83I to A.D. 1837. Dr. Weaton
had previously been Rector of Christ Church, Hartford, and,
during his Rectorship, and according to plans prepared under his
diegiQ1t.the: present Church Edifice was built.




II
or at the individual man, at the world of action or
the world of thought; at the political events that
mark their course, at the history of philosophical
ideas, at the changes in religious thought and feeling; we shall scarcely find, I think, in all the
chronicles of time, a period of the same limited
extent more full of events pregnant with subtle
influences and far-reaching effects. The Empire
of the third Napoleon, which in I848 was just
cementing its foundations in the blood of the
"coup d'etat," standing to-day, and wielding an
influence wider and deeper than ever was exercised by Napoleon the First; California grown up
into an American Empire on the Pacific, and
throwing wide its golden gates for the passage,
eastward and westward, of the traffic of the
world; the Ottoman Power sustained in Europe
by Christian swords wet with Christian blood;
China and Japan more fully opened to commerce,
and to the Christianity that is sure, sooner or later,
to follow in its track; India, springing like an
enraged tiger at the throat of its master, and
crushed again to submission by the indomitable
energies of British courage and British will; Italy
freed from her old oppressors, with the Austrian
driven from Venice, and the Pope confined almost
to the walls of Rome; our own country deluged
with fratricidal blood; Germany united; Mexico
beginning to be the seat of a revived Latin influence upon this Continent, and leaving us, at last,




i2
only the sad story of Maximilian's death, and
"cpoor Carlotta's" fate; —these are some of the
larger way-marks that show us how vast and rapid
have been the world's strides, and the general
direction moreover in which its present movements tend.
Nor have the events and changes in the department of Ecclesiastical History, and of philosophic
and religious thought, been less marked or important. Confining our attention to our own Englishspeaking race, and to whatsoever exercises an
influence within its bounds, we find the catalogue
ready to our hands. Within these twenty years
we have seen the Romish Hierarchy re-established
in Britain; the dogma of the Immaculate Conception declared to be "of Faith;" the culmination of the so-called Oxford movement, with all
its evil and its good; Convocation somewhat less
straightened in its bonds; the Universities subjected
to a criticism such as they have never known before,
and evidently, with the great Public Schools, soon
to be reformed; a revival of the desire for intercourse, if not for intercommunion, with the great
Church of the East; the Churches of the Anglican Communion assembled, for the first time, in
Council; the Irish Establishment in imminent
danger of being overthrown, in order to cure the
stupidities of Fenian ambition, and to appease
Fenian hatred of England, in America; the rise
of the Ritualistic Movement; Oxford ceased to be




13
Puseyite, and become largely leavened with unbelief; and, finally, a marked change in the whole
tone and temper and method of unbelief itself.
In regard to this last particular, let this much
more be said.  It is not meant, of course, that,
during this time, the general character of the
attack upon Christianity has changed, for this is
not the fact; but that, even during these few years,
and, one might almost say, with the passage of
each successive year, there has been witnessed a
most marked and peculiar alteration in the whole
manner and temper in which the attack has been
made. The method has become continually m ore
subtle; the purpose more discriminating; the tone
more conciliatory, and so more full of peril to the
cause of Truth.  We all know how different in
character and temper was the Infidelity of the
Eighteenth  Century from  that of the middle
of the Nineteenth.  The wholesale contemptuous denial, the clumsy and superficial argumentation, as, by comparison, it seems to us today, the coarseness of the earlier period, had all
well-nigh passed away from the later one. And
so the same process of refining in its instruments
and methods and manner, and of energizing
through such refinement, has gone on, only in an
almost greater ratio, during the period we are considering. Unbelief, to-day more than ever, does
not deny, but it explains; it does not reject, but it
selects; it does not scoff, but expresses even osten



I4
tatiously its admiration and praise. Thus, as, in
regard to the authority of the Gospels and the
possibility of Miracles, the argument of Hume
yielded, through  many transmutations, to the
theory of Strauss; so, in these later days, we have
seen the mythical theory of Strauss giving way to
the still more subtle legendary theory which Renan
has proposed. So too, the argument against Revelation supposed to be furnished by the advance
of scientific discovery has been drawn more and
more from remoter regions of research, until not
only Geology and Physiology, but Biology, Ethnology, Philology, and Mythology itself are used,
or endeavoured to be used, as witnesses against the
Truth.  Moreover, during the last few years, and
especially through the influence of such men as
Buckle and Mill, a vast extension has been given
to the doctrine of the possible scientific regeneration of mankind. The former, too, has taught a
most distinct and subtle materialism; endeavouring
to establish the old metaphysical argument by the
facts, or supposed facts, of Nature and Providence.
While the so-called scienti~c method and spirit, in
the strictest sense of the term, have been applied
to the study of the Sacred Records themselves,
and, in their misuse, have given birth to a new
race of unbelievers within the limits, and, alas, in
the very highest places of the Church. I cannot think it then too much to say, that, in
these several respects, no similar period has wit



I5
nessed more radical or more important changes in
the Character and Method and Temper of Unbelief, than that measured by the twenty years just
drawn to a close.
And now, as we glance backward over the large
array of these various changes and events, political,
ecclesiastical, scientific; in the departments of
Philosophy and Theology; Revolutions finished or
begun, national advances or retrogressions, new
discoveries of Science and new pretensions; new
dognmas, and new denials; aspirations, seekings,
attempts, successes, failures; and as we consider
the inner life of the world, the moral principles
that underlie them  all, and out of which they
spring; the eye of the Christian Student detects,
at once, under the multiplicity of their shapes and
appearances, their confusions and their contradictions, the constant on-going of the same old conflict that runs through, and is illustrated in, all the
history of the World-the conflict between the hostile Kingdoms of Righteousness and Sin, of God and
of all that is opposed to God. The forces may be
mingled upon the field, but they fall ultimately
under one or other of these two allegiances; and
it needs no very close scrutiny to detect upon them
the distinctive colours of the party to which they
belong.  But as the real source of all History is
in the moral life of mankind out of which it is
evolved, and which it represents, and, above all, in
the Beliefs which lie at the root of this moral life;




i6
so, as the great conflict goes on, we find the great
principles on either side becoming more and more
manifest, until, at length, we are enabled to construct certain "Formula," or to adopt certain terms
representing them, which completely cover and
express the diverse and conflicting facts. The
really philosophic study of History, you will remember, begins at a very modern date.  Now
among these terms we have, as opposed to each
other-" Authority" and "Liberty;" and these as
applying not only in the sphere of action, but in
the interior sphere of thought.  Fallen man requires not only that he shall be free to act, but
that he shall be free to think; that he shall be at
liberty not only to do what he pleases, but to believe what he pleases.* The foundation of this
latter liberty rests, of course, upon pride of Intellect; upon the assumed infallibility of the human
uiderstanding; and upon the extent and completeness of human knowledge. Its scientific expression is SCIENCE itself.  The opposite principle of
" Authority" rests ultimately —so far as it is applied
to action, upon the Divine Will; so far as it is applied to Thought, upon the Divine Wisdom, expressed, of necessity, in a Divine Revelation-the
scientific expression of which is THEOLOGY. SO
that, leaving out the class of the ignorant and
self-willed-who, however worthy of attention
and care from another point of view, cannot come
* See Preface to Farrar's Critical History of Free Thought.




17
within the scope of such a discussion as is now
proposed —we find SCIENCE and THEOLOGY to be
the formal foundations, on the one hand, of " Liberty," and on the other, of "Authority."  The
motive power of the Will is always conviction of
some sort or other; and here it is, in the one case,
conviction of the sufficiency of our own understanding, or, in the other, of the alone sufficiency
of the wisdom  of God.  These, passing out into
action, become, on the scale of the world, "History," on its human side, and in its human elements.
Now  as the conflict between these opposed
principles goes on, and as scientific discovery progresses, while Theology, by its very nature, remailns
unchanging and permanent, it comes to pass that
there is an ever increasing restlessness under, and
breaking away from, what are felt to be the restraints
which Theology, in simpler and less scientific ages,
was, it is said, able to impose. The successes of
science increase this feeling by increasing the pride
of intellect out of which it grows, and so creates,
more and more, the delusion which confounds false
progress with true, and which regards every breaking away from old convictions as necessarily an advance.'"History," says Prof. Huxley,* "shows that
the human mind, fed by constant accessions of
knowledge, periodically grows too large for its
theoretical coverings, and bursts them asunder to
* Evidence as to Man's place in Nature, p. 72.
2




i8
appear in new habiliments, as the feeding and
growing grub, at intervals, casts its too narrow skin
and assumes another, itself but temporary.  Since
the revival of learning, whereby the Western
races of Europe were enabled to enter upon that
progress towards true knowledge which was commenced by the Philosophers of Greece, but was
almost arrested in subsequent long ages of intellectual stagnation, or, at most, gyration, the human
larva has been feeding vigorously and moulting in
proportion. A skin of some dimension was cast
in the Sixteenth Century, and another towards the
end of the Eighteenth, while, within the last fiftyJ
years, the extraordinary growth of every department of physical science has spread among us
mental food of so nutritious and stimulating a
character that a new ecdysis seems imminent;"an ecdysis, let me say, in Prof. Huxley's meaning,
from  everything which has heretofore been regarded as resting upon the authority of the Word
of God.
Surely then it will be in accordance with the
sanctity of the place, the spirit of the occasion,
and the character of the audience composed, as it
professedly is, of persons pledged to Science, and
of persons pledged to Theology, if I ask your
attention, for a little while, to a consideration of
the General Relations which bind these two,
SCIENCE and THEOLOGY, together, and which, if
I may so speak, should regulate their feelings and
their conduct toward each other.




I9
It seems to me that in this, as in so many other
cases, a vast amount of misunderstanding arises
from a failure to begin with a clear definition of
terms.  What then is SCIENCE-" Science" itself,
in the strictest meaning of the term? What is its
scope?  What are the conditions of its being?
I need  not remind  you, Gentlemen, that'Science" does not precede, but is the result of,
the observation of known facts or phenomena.
The facts in any department of the study of Nature must be thoroughly established, and must be
accepted as so established, or else "Science" in
that department is impossible. For doubt cannot
exist in Science.  Just in so far as there is any
question as to the facts, and so any doubt touching
our generalizations upon them, our knowledge
halts below the level of Science properly so called.
Incomplete Science is, strictly speaking, no Science;
for Truth, which is the subject matter of Science,
to be Truth must be absolute.  We sometimes
speak indeed of certain on-going discoveries and
conclusions in any department of the study of
Nature as Science; but this is only, as it were, by
courtesy, in as much as the object of the investigation, whatever it may be, is scientific, or it is
carried on by scientific methods, or for scientific
ends. But "' Science," like " Truth" itself, is absolute; and there is no proper Science without the
absoluteness of Truth. Thus it comes to pass in
the evolution of each particular Science, that there
is confessedly a period, longer or shorter, when the




work is simply tentative, and when the instrument
used is not the Understanding which judges and
determines, but the Imagination which forecasts
and theorizes, and deals in hypothesis. Take one
or two illustrations.  The diurnal revolution of
the earth around its axis existed as an " hypothesis" in the human mind long before the invention
of the telescope had established its truth.  So far
back as the time of Pythagoras the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies had been thus explained; and even after the idea had again, in the
second dawn of Science, beamed on the mind of Copernicus, it was still held as a mere theory by more
than one Astronomer up to the day when Galileo
finally removed it from the region of speculation to
that of ascertained and accepted fact. A similar
history belongs to the Law of Gravitation. This
Law existed, for a long time, simply as an hypothesis in the mind of Newton himself;* and so
strictly was this the case, that he actually abandoned it because of the wrong results brought out
in his calculations by his adoption of the then
received length of a degree on the earth's surface.t  The suppositions of "a force tending to
the Sun and varying inversely as the square of the
distance; of a mutual force between all the bodies' That very excellent and divine theorist, Mr. Isaac Newton."-Dr. Bentley's Boyle Lectures, Serm. vii., 22I. These
Lectures were delivered in London, in I692.
t Brewster's Memoirs of Sir Isaac eTewton.-Vol I., p. 290.




of the Solar System; of the force of each body
arising from the attraction of all its parts;" were
all hypotheses both with Newton and with Kepler
before him, and continued to be so, until by the
subsequent measurements of Picard they were enabled to be verified and proved. There are, indeed, at this very day, teachers of Philosophy of
great and wide influence, who, as did Hegel of
Berlin, entirely reject the doctrine of Newton in
this matter, and deny the validity of the proofs
that are commonly adduced in support of it.*
Thus, in the progress towards the establishment
both of the doctrine of the diurnal revolution of
the Earth, and of the Law of Gravitation, we find
a period, even of considerable extent,t when each
of them is held confessedly as a mere hypothesis,
and when indeed only hypothesis in regard to them
is possible. And this holds generally true. When
Newton was once asked why it was that he saw so
much more clearly than other men into the laws
of nature, he replied, that, if it were so, it resulted
from his keeping his thoughts steadily occupied
upon the subject which was to be thus penetrated.
But " what," asks Whewell, "is this occupation of
* See Whewell On the Philosophy of Discovery. Appendix H.
t Newton conceived the idea of the Law of Gravitation in
the autumn of i665. Picard's measurement of the earth was
executed in 1670, and the method and result of it were communicated to the Royal Society in January, 1672. Newton
did not "resume his former thoughts concerning the moon" till
i684..-See Brewster's M7emoirs of XNewton, I. 291, 292.




22
the thoughts, if it be not the process of keeping
the phenomena clearly in view, and trying, one
after another, all the plausible hypotheses which
seem likely to connect them, till at last the true
law is discovered?"  Hypotheses are thus a necessary, and a confessedly necessary element of discovery; but our knowledge, or supposed knowledge,
does not become " Science" until it has passed beyond and above this lower level of theory and
guess. Let then these two things be observed:that the evolution of Science itself leads through
a period of question and contradiction; and, above
all, that Science, as Science, is based upon, and
grows only out of, the absolute certainty of facts.
Natural Science then-and all Science is, in the
last analysis, either natural or supernatural*-i. e.
it concerns itself with the natural or the supernatural-is thus based upon known facts in nature,
and is occupied with their Laws and Relations.
It is the Science of Nature.  It concerns itself
with, and, in so far as it is complete, as it is
" Science," expresses, the Laws of Nature in each
and all of her departments; of man physical and
intellectual; of the animal, mineral, and vegetable
kingdoms; of matter in all its varieties of form
and existence, and of the forces that shape and rule
the world.
* This old division is, of course, sneered at by some of our
modern Philosophers. See some very striking remarks on this
subject in Bushnell's Nature and the Supernatural, Ch. II.




23
"Theology," which at once carries us up into
the region of the Supernatural, is, of course, in its
simplest literal definition, the'Science of God."
It is evident, however, that, in our present work,
we shall need a fuller and more complete definition than this.  But observe, before going further,
that Theology is a SCIENCE.
We must accept this doctrine, unless we are
prepared to reject entirely the human Understanding as a legitimate and most valuable instrument in our search after the knowledge of God,
and so to sink into utter Philosophic Scepticism.
It is true, that the facts of the Divine Revelation
must be taken hold of by Faith; but it is also
true, that this Faith must itself rest upon a rational basis-that is, we must be able to give a
reason for the faith that is in us-or else, as Archbishop Whately observes, " our Faith would be no
whit better than that of a heathen." Undoubtedly,
Faith may be viewed simply on its moral side,
and so may fulfil the definition of Pascal, that' Faith is God sensibly realized by the heart;" but
it is no less certain that it may be, and at times
must be, viewed from the stand-point of Philosophy.  If proof of this be wanting, we have it in
the fact that Faith, even in its strictly moral sense,
has been, and often is, led up to and reached by
a pathway of strictly scientific convictions.  It is
indeed part of the wealth of God's mercy, that
He has placed Faith within the reach of all, in




24
permitting it to take its origin from any one of
the moral elements that constitute it; not only
through an absolute submission to Authority, as
the Romish Doctors teach; nor only by the
prompting of the emotions, according to the
Mystics; but also by a proper use of the Understanding exercising itself upon the evidences of
Revelation, of whatever sort, with which evidences
it builds the foundation for Faith in those Facts
of the Revelation which it is not competent to
consider, nor able, in any way, to comprehend.
Theology then is a " Science," and it is " The
Science of God."
In order to reach the fuller definition which
we seek, let us observe —What Theology is not;
which will best open the way to the positive question —What Theology is.
Theology then is not, or rather it is more than
what is commonly known as " Natural" or, sometimes, as "'Physical Theology;"-the knowledge,
that is, of God derived from His works, and which
many persons desire to substitute for Revelation.
One would think that it hardly needed to be
shown, that the study of nature, in any or in all
of its parts, cannot, by itself, teach us either a
certainly true, or a complete doctrine of God. It
is true that man is so created in the image of his
Maker, that he is prepared to believe in a God, to
feel after lHim,~ to recognize Him  when disA: cts xvii. 27.




25
covered; but it is no less certain that, by himself,
he cannot find Him. We may believe, with Plato
and Augustin, with Kant and Coleridge, in the
existence in man of an intuitive faculty by which
he is able to apprehend the Eternal and Absolute
Truth —the True, the Beautiful, and the Good;
allowing the distinction between the " Reason"
(vove) and the " Understanding" (2oyoc or Jdrvota); but
we must remember that the office of this faculty
is simply to guarantee. Man cannot, through this
instrument, excogitate a God.* Nay more, he cannot, before hand, determine anything concerning the
being or character of God; any more than through
the faculty of sight, one, deprived of the organ of
vision, or of illumination from without, can become informed concerning the varied appearances,
the endless diversities of light and shadow, that play
upon the surface of the external world. The office
in the case of either capacity is simply to recognize
its object when that object is put before it; or, at
most, to detect and interpret the evidences of the existence of that object among the facts with which it
may be acquainted. So Nature, in its consecutive
developments, in the order of its operations, may
suggest a "First Cause;" its design, an " Intelligent Ruler;" Conscience in man, a "Moral Governor."  Doubtless man, as a being endowed with
Understanding and Conscience, would be competent to such a realization.  But all this furnishes
See Garbett's Bampton Lectures, Sect. iv.




26
us with no satisfactory idea of God.  God must
be more  than  an Abstraction; more than  First
Cause; more even than Moral Ruler. To see the
extent and value of the knowledge of God derivable from the sources referred to, we need only
look at the Gods of the most acute and cultivated
nations of antiquity-Gods with whom, whether
viewed intellectually or morally, there is probably
not one of us who would be willing to associate.:::
The fact is, that with our faces turned to nature
alone, there are only two possible positive modes
of knowing God-the first, as has been said, by an
intuition of His infinity-this intuition, however,
being wholly, and, of necessity, destitute of attributes, and so, prior to experience, wanting in the
clearness and definiteness of an intellectual conception; and the second, by apprehending His infinity
antecedently to the application of limitations to itwhich is simply Pantheism. We come, therefore, as
it seems to me, to the inevitable conclusion, that if
* Mr. Gladstone, holding the view that even the dimmed and
imperfect elements of Truth in the Religion of the Homeric Age,
were the remains of a primitive tradition, remarks that-" The
stream darkened more and more as it got farther from the source.
The Pagan Religion could boast of its unbroken traditions; like
some forms of Christianity, and like the government of France
until 1789.  But its uninterrupted course was really an uninterrupted aberration from the line of truth; and to boast of the
evenness of its motion was in effect to boast of the deadness of
the conscience of mankind, which had not virtue enough even
to disturb progressive degeneracy by occasional reproach."Homer and the Iomneric _Age, Vol. II., p. 17.




7
we are to have any knowledge, any Science of
God, it must come, and can only come to us
through a DIVINE REVELATION. A true Theology,
therefore, must rest upon Revelation, and upon the
facts made known to us by Revelation. If you
reject the Revelation, or the revealed facts, there
can be no "Theology."'Theology" then is not
Natural Religion.
And now wve come to the positive question,
and ask-," What Theology is."
In its simplest definition, as we have seen, it is the
Science of God."  But here comes before us another, and the most important term of all-" GOD."
And here I shall not hesitate to borrow, so far
as it applies to my present purpose, I will not impiously any the definition, but the language expressing some of the particulars necessarily included in any definition of this awful term-the
exact and eloquent language of John Henry Newman.  "When," he says, "I speak of God, I
mean the Creator, Upholder, Governor, and Sovereign Lord of the World. I mean one who is
simply self-dependent, and the only Being who is
such; moreover that He is without beginning or
Eternal, and the only Eternal; that in consequence
He has lived a whole eternity by Himself; and
hence that He is all-sufficient, sufficient for His
own blessedness, and all-blessed, and ever-blessed.
I mean one who is sovereign over His own will
and actions, though always according to the eternal




28
Rule of right and wrong, which is Himself  I
mean moreover that He created all things out of
nothing, and preserves them  every moment, and
could destroy them  as easily as He made them;
and that, in consequence, He is separated from
them by an abyss, and is incommunicable in all
His attributes.  I mean too, that He is ever present with His works, one by one, and confronts
everything He has made by his particular and
most loving providence, and manifests Himself to
each according to its needs; and has on rational
beings imprinted the moral law, and given them
power to obey it, imposing on them the duty of
worship and service, and putting before them a
present trial and a judgment to come. His are
all beings visible and invisible, the noblest and the
vilest. His are the substance and the operation
and the results of that system of physical nature
into which we are born. The laws of the universe, the principles of truth, the relation of one
thing to another, their qualities and virtues, the
order and harmony of the whole, all that exists,
is from Him.  All we see, hear, and touch, the
elements which compose all things and the ordinances they obey, are His. The primary atoms
of matter, their properties, their mutual action,
their disposition and collocation, electricity, magnetism, gravitation, light, and whatever other subtle
principles or operations the wit of man is detecting or shall detect, are the work of His hands.




29
And so in the intellectual, moral, social, and political world.  Man with his motives and works,
his languages, his propagation, his diffusion, is
from  Him.  Agriculture, Medicine,  and the arts
of life are His gifts. Society, Laws, Government,
He  is their sanction.   Peace  and  civilization,
commerce and adventure, wars when just, conquest when humane and necessary, have His cooperation, and His blessing upon them.. The
course of events, the revolution of Empires, the
rise and fall of States, the periods and eras, the
progresses and retrogressions of the world's history,
not indeed the incidental sin, overabundant as it is,
but the great outlines and the issues of human affairs, are from  His disposition.  All that is good,
all that is true, all that is beautiful, be it great or
small, be it perfect or fragmentary, natural as
well as supernatural, moral as well as material,
comes from  Him."*
This then is the doctrine of God, chiefly in His
relations to Nature and Providence-for it is with
these that we are now especially concernedwhich Theology teaches.-t It puts these several
points before us as Facts, and on these Facts, it
rests its claims to be, and to be regarded as a
TS he Scope and Natzure of University Education, p. 80.
t The argument, I need scarcely say, while here, for the sake
of brevity, limited to the doctrine of God the Creator and Ruler,
applies equally to the whole Revelation of God contained in
Holy Scripture.




so
"6 Science."  If you reject its authority, and so its
claim, then you can be certified of these vast and
necessary facts from no other source, by no other
Teacher; and you break, moreover, the fundamental principle of all scientific inquiry, that the
Theory which covers, combines harmoniously,
and so explains the greatest number of facts, must
be regarded as at least hiypothetically true, until by
experiment, or by further knowledge, it is proved
to be false.  But the believers in Revelation claim
that it covers all the facts.  The unbeliever or the
Sceptic, therefore, who cannot, and indeed does
not deny that it covers, or seems to cover, a vast
array of them, must be prepared, in order to his
own philosophic just fcation, not only to show that
it does not cover all the facts, but, further, to give
us a theory which does cover and explain a confessedly still greater number of them.  If the very
lowest ground be taken, still Theology is as much
a Science as Geology, or indeed, any other admitted Science; for these are each and all in precisely the same predicament. Theology, therefore, in any case, is a "'Science;" and it is the
"CScience of God," or of divine facts and relations.
I have heretofore, you will observe, adopted the
common, loose forms of speech, and spoken of
"'Science" and "Theology."  The exclusive assignment of the word "Science" to the results of
the study of the facts of the natural world, indi



cates the unquestionably common belief, that precision of knowledge, or any knowledge based upon
ascertained facts, belongs to, and is only possible in,
the department of nature.*   The natural alone is
the knowable.  But we have seen, I think, that
Theology is a Science, or claims to be a Science.
The true expression, therefore, is "The Science of
Nature," and  "The Science of that which  lies
back of Nature, above it and  apart from  it, and
yet absolutely shaping and ruling it-of God, or of
divine facts and relations."
But if both of these branches of knowledge are
thus "6Sciences," then they will have certain  necessary relations to each other, and will —be* " Science, however, can take no note of the Supernatural,
unless it becomes natural, and takes the oath of allegiance to
nature.  Nature itself is too Supernatural to require any additions from the realms of human ignorance." —)lan's Origin and
Destiny, by J. P. Lesley, p. I64.
" WV7hat this or that man may understand by a governing Reason, an absolute power, a universal soul, a personal God, etc., is
his own affair. The Theologians, with their Articles of Faith,
must be left to themselves; so the Naturalists with their Science;
they both proceed by different routes. The province of Faith
rests in human dispositions which are not accessible to Science;
and even for the Conscience of the individual, it does not appear impossible to keep Faith and Science separate. A respectable Naturalist lately gave the ingenuous advice that we should
keep two Consciences, a Scientific and a religious Conscience,
which for the peace of our mind we should keep perfectly separate, as they cannot be reconciled. This process is now known
by the technical expression of " book-keeping by double entry."Buchner's ]Kraft und Stojf, p. 43.




32
cause, as such, they must-exercise certain necessary influences upon each other, and will, moreover, have certain principles or Laws in common.
This is characteristic of all Science, and of all
the Sciences. There is not only a general connexion and mutual influence between them, as
both Plato and Cicero long ago observed; but, besides this, they constantly —to use the word of
Herbert Spencer-" inosculate,"-that is, the very
life-blood, as it were, of each science flows into,
and becomes part and parcel of the life of every
other Science.*
In the first place, then, since the subject matter
of Science is uziversal Truth-th e knowzable however
to he known-Science must recognize and embrace
"'Theology" as part of that "Truth" or "knowledge" with which it professes to be concerned.
Even if it be claimed that Science is concerned
only with Nature, and with man as part of Nature,
this still follows; for "Man" cannot be known
apart from his relations to God.  Nay, more than
this may be said.  "No philosophy of Science
can be complete," as Whewell observes, "which is
not also a philosophy of the universe; and no philosophy of the universe can satisfy thoughtful men,
which' does not include a reference to the power
by which the universe came to be what it is."
As matter of fact, admitted up to a certain
* See Prof. Baden Powell's Unity of Worlds, for some
striking illustrations of this truth.




33
limited and superficial extent, Theology, even in
the present day, has a manifest influence upon natural Science, and natural Science, on the other
hand, an unquestioned and unquestionable influence
upon Theology.  The former, as might be anticipated, holds true especially in regard to the Science
of man; for it is not too much to say, that any Anthropology framned without the assistance of Revelation would involve itself in hopeless absurdity
from the very start. The illustrations of the latter
fact are abundant enough. To say nothing of the
influence of the Aristotelian Philosophy upon the
Theology of the middle ages, and of the introduction of its very phraseology into the technical
language of the Church; we know that the meaning of large and important parts of Scripture is
influenced or determined by the researches of the
Antiquary, the explorations of the Traveller, the
discoveries of the Astronomer and the Geologist;
and we may still further believe-as, I think, Prof.
Max Muller has shown-that yet newer assistance
is to be derived from the adult powers of the
now infant Sciences of Ethnology and Philology,
and even of Scientific Mythology.*
In the first place, unless we are prepard to cast
out Theology entirely from the circle of the
Sciences, or-which, as we have seen, amounts to
the same thing-to deny wholly the truth and authority of the Revelation on which it rests, and
Chips from a German Workshop.




which it represents-and few persons, I think, even
among professed Sceptics, will be willing to go
quite to this extent-such a science, not only because it treats of the very foundation of things,
but because it has thus confessedly, even though it
be but in a very limited degree, a certain divine sanction and authority, must have, of necessity, a very
important place in any plan of the study of the
universe. Give to Theology the very lowest place
that you can or will, still, as concerned with God,
and with man in his spiritual parts and relations,
it is the highest Truth-higher than any philosophy of the material Creation, and, as such, must,
of necessity, affect every other branch of knowledge which is, as all are, inferior to itself.  It will
not be denied that there is such a scale of relative importance even in the purely Natural Sciences.
Navigation, for example, is subordinate to Astronomy; Astronomy to the Science of the pure Mathematics; and the Astronomer himself, in his
work, is debtor to the Metaphysician. And so it
is but natural to anticipate, that each and all of
the Sciences should, in some way or other, direct
or indirect, and in some degree or other, be influenced by Theology, which ranks higher than them
all.  At all events, until its claims are entirely
broken down; until the Bible is proved to be a
work of fiction, and the idea of Revelation a dream;
it is not only rash, but unphilosophic, to assume,
as is so often done, that it can have, and more



35
over that it ought to have, no respectful recognition from scientific men.  It is true that the Bible
is not a volume of natural Science; but if Theology
be a Science at all, there must be between it and
the natural Sciences a certain general concordance
and harmony-the absence at least of any permanent and irreconcilable contradictions between
them; and it is a wise prudence, to say no more,
not absolutely to reject its authority, and treat its
assertions with contempt.
There is another reason too why Science, in the
interest of Science itself, should not only be willing to allow to, but should persistently claim for
Theology, its proper place in the circle of Truth.
Nothing has been more clearly established than
this-that if any one Science is deposed from its
proper throne, the others, by a sort of natural impulse, usurp its place, and, causing universal detriment, attempt to give laws in a region where they
have no rightful authority. We all know how this
has been the case in former times, when Theology
has exceeded her proper functions, and, denouncing
Science, has ventured to dogmatize in regard to
physical truth.  It is to this cause more than to
any other, brought about, as he says, by "the ignorance of divines," and by what he justly calls "a
blind and immoderate zeal for religion," that Lord
Bacon, in the "Novum  Organum," ascribes the
marvellous intellectual torpor of the middle ages,
and the absence of everything like Scientific dis



covery.* How indeed could it be otherwise in a
period "when innovation of every kind was regarded as a crime, and superior knowledge excited
only terror and suspicion; when speculation was
heresy, and the study of nature was magic; when
not even the dignity of the Popedom was able to
save Sylvester I. from the perilous reputation of a
magician, and when the magnificent labours of
Roger Bacon were repaid by fourteen years of imprisonment, and many others of less severe but unremitting persecution."- The effect of this intrusive and cruelly dogmatizing temper of the old
Theology has been conspicuously shown upon more
than one occasion. Had the doctrine, for example,
of the "Antipodes," proposed as early as the close of
the fifth Century, and opposed and denounced, at
that time, as Manichban heresy, and again announced by Virgilius in the eighth Century, been
left to take care of itself as a part of natural Science,
who shall say that the shape of the earth might
not have been established at a far earlier period,
and that its establishment might not have opened
the way for the entrance of much related and
most important truth.  Or if, in a later age, the
revolution of the earth around its axis had been
recognized as lying beyond the proper bounds of
theological authority, who shall deny that the great
discoveries of Galileo might not have been ante* Novum Organum, lxxxix.
X Lecky's Rationalism in Europe, Vol. I., pp. 282, 283.




37
dated, and  mankind made rich with  this knowledge long before the time of the Florentine Astronomer? Certainly it is a fact, that Tycho Brahe,
although he adopted the Copernican  doctrine of
the motion of the planets about the sun, refused,
precisely on the ground of the declared hostility
of Theology to that truth, to acknowledge the annual and diurnal revolutions of the earth. And in
the  case  of  Galileo  himself-the  Cranmer of
Science-we see the retarding and damaging, if
not the destroying influence of this mistaken and
ignorant zeal on the part of Theology.*
No one whose fortune has led him to Florencenext to Rome the world's great capital of Arthas failed to visit the Basilica of Santa Croce;
and no one who has wandered among the splen* It was only in 1818 that the writings of Galileo were removed from the Index Expurgatorius; nor even then without
opposition..The saying of Cardinal Baronius will be remembered, that "the intention of the Holy Spirit was to teach how
to go to heaven, not how heaven goes.'Come si vada al Cielo,
e non come vada il Cielo.' "
The kind of argument with which Galileo was met, is well
illustrated in the following extract from one of his letters, quoted
by Tiraboschi —"En chemin, il (P. Lancio, commissaire du
Saint-Office,) me fit diverses questions, et me montra un grand
desir que je reparasse le scandale que j'avais donne a toute
l'Italie, en soutenant l'opinion du mouvement de la terre; et a
toutes les raisons mathematiques que je pouvais lui opposer, il
ne me repondait pas autre chose, sinon: Trerra autem in esternum
stahit, quia terra in erternum stat, comme dit l'Ecriture."-Biographie Universelle.  Art. Galileo.




3,~
dours of that noble shrine, at once the Pantheon
and the Westminster Abbey of medimval and
modern Italy, has failed to linger long and thoughtfully before the monument of Gallileo Gallilei.
On every side of the spectator are crowded the
treasures of Italian art: the Church itself-its
walls and pillars and arches glowing with costly
marbles, and rising, amid all their exuberance of
ornament, in such exquisite proportion to meet
the vast width and height of the surmounting
dome, that they seem to inclose him, as it were,
within the petrified harmonies of some grand
Anthem suddenly arrested in its ascent, and changed
to stone; pictures, by whose magic power he is
carried back into the heroic ages of the Church,
and made a witness of the great deeds and sufferings and devotions of multitudes of Martyrs and
Saints; -statues, which, reversing the story of Niobe,
seem to be transformed into living women and
men, and to weep unceasingly the bitter tears of
the world's great loss over some of the noblest and
greatest of her sons-Scholars, Poets, Patriots,
Statesmen, Artists, Priests, whose gathered dust
adds a lesser consecration to the place;- all these
things are around, and above, and below  himtheir fascination breathes upon him in the very
air; and yet among them all —through the colossal memorials of Dante and Alfieri are within his
sight-there is no spot more attractive, none that
possesses a stronger or more lasting hold upon the




39
mind, the imagination, and the heart, than that
where, beneath the marble floor, sleeps the great
"Tuscan  Artist."   Persecuted  through life, imprisoned, possibly tortured,* because, as Milton
says, "he dared to think in Astronomy otherwise
than  the  Dominican  and  Franciscan  licencers
thought,'"t' the sculptured marble which personal
friendship has erected to his memory stands, today, not only a monument to himself, but a witness,
and a prophecy moreover, of the certain ultimate
triumph of Science, acting within its proper
bounds, over the interferences and oppositions of
an ignorant and conceited Theology-nay, more
than this, utters, in every hour, to crowds of passing Priests as ignorant and as cruel too, if they
dared  to be, as any of their predecessors, that
Theology, passing beyond the limits which her
divine Author has evidently set to her, and intruding with arrogant dictation into any other department of His Empire, becomes, in so far, an
instrument of evil, paralyzing the intellect, and
hindering the wholesome progress of mankind.
But, while this is so, let us not forget that there
* The opinion that Galileo was subjected to bodily torture is
founded upon the following passage in his Sentence: "Cum
vero nobis videretur non esse a te integram veritatem pronunciatam circa tuam intentionem; judicavimus necesse esse venire ad
rigorosum examen tui, in quo respondisti catholice."-The question is discussed in the Biographic Universelle. Art. Galileo.M. Biot, the author, takes the negative.
t lireopagitica. Prose Works, Vol. IT., p. 82.




40o
is another side to this matter.  If the influence of
Theology thus interfering in the department of
Natural Science is so hurtful, the effect of the intrusion of Natural Science into the province of
Theology, and the application of its laws and
principles to the supernatural facts of Revelation,
is ten thousand times more disastrous. And yet
the tendency to this is as constant as the opportunities, especially in our own day, and, alas, the instances of it, are numerous.  There is scarcely a
Science which the pride of man may not, or does
not, make guilty of such intrusion.  Abelard, the
great representative of the dialectical tendencies
of the twelfth century, applies the nominalist philosophy to the doctrine of the Trinity, and the
result is, that, by this misapplication of Logic, he
is betrayed into the denial of that doctrine.* Philology, in many hands, is being made to-day, what
John Horne Tooke made it in the last century,
an instrument and an agency of unbelief. Jeremy
Bentham makes a treatise on Judicial Proofs a
covert attack upon the miracles of Revelation.jHistory and Physiology deny moral evil and human
responsibility.  Geology, Ethnology, Arithmetic
overthrow Moses. Even Architecture, in its archaic
forms, casts suspicion upon the history of Genesis.
* See Neander. History of the Christian Religion and Church,
Vol. IV., p. 371.
t- See Newman's University Education, from which some of
the instances given above are taken.




41
Perverted Science has thus been, in every age, alike
the cause and the instrument of unbelief and misbelief, from Paulus of Samosata, a Sophist by profession, down to the last of the European or British
Sceptics, or of their limping American imitators.
And the terrible consequences of this perversion
or degradation, it certainly will not be necessary
for me to enlarge upon-the breaking up of the
very foundations of Society, the quenching of every
high hope and aspiration in the heart of man, the
loss of the soul.
These then, as it seems to me, are the general
relations in which Theology and Natural Science
stand to each other. This conclusion then appears
to be evident-that, as we should naturally anticipate harmony between them, so the absence of it
must arise either, first, from the improper interference of the one with the other; or, secondly,
from a confusion of their subjects brought about
by ignorance of each other; or, thirdly, from distinctly moral causes.
I fear, Mr. President and Gentlemen, that I have
severely taxed your good nature, and exhausted
your patience. Permit me, however, very briefly
indeed to indicate one or two principles which
Science and Theology, because of their relation
as Science, seem to have in common.
In the first place, it is an admitted principle in
the Philosophy of Science, that the human mind
is not to be made the measure of Nature.  Take




a single illustration.  In the philosophy of M.
Comte, the natural Sciences are disposed in a linear
arrangement; that is, they are viewed as being
evolved one from the other in what he calls " the
true f/iation of the Sciences."  Herbert Spencer
overthrows the position of the French philosopher
in this particular, by simply showing that this
theory is not a conclusion from the study of nature, but a purely metaphysical conception; and
proves that his error arises from making the laws
and conditions of the human mind the absolute
measure of the world which is outside of it. Here
is the fallacy-" We are obliged to think in sequence, it is the law of our minds that we must
consider things separately, one after another; therefore nature must be serial, and therefore the Sciences
must be classifiable in a succession."* Unquestionably, the doctrine of Comte is a philosophical
one, viewed simply from the stand-point of the
mind; so much so, that, as Spencer has shown, it
contains a considerable element of truth; but the
moment it is brought out of the mind, and made
a Law for the interpretation or' Nature, the 5facts
of nature, which cannot, like those of Revelation,
be denied or resolved into myths or legends, prove
it to be false. Now, if this principle holds true in
nature; if the human mind is not to be made the
measure of nature; must it not hold true, true as a
scientic prizcilple, only in a far higher degree, in
regard to Revelation?
* Herbert Spencer's Illuzstrhltioss of Ulivesersal Arogress, p. 144.




43
Again; I would have you notice this peculiarity
in the history of scientific discovery. The mind
of man, with each fresh discovery of Science,
passes upward from one level of possessed ideas,
and so of intellectual capacity, to another that is
wider and higher; which two conditions however,
prior to experience, could not have been conceived
of as naturally or logically connected-and simply,
because the intermediate steps connecting the two were
not known. Often indeed the two seem not merely
unconnected, but impossible  to be connected.
Take the illustration nearest to hand.  There is
no difficulty for any of us to-day in conceiving the
truth of the heliocentric theory of our system;
and yet, before Astronomy had revealed to the
mind the numerous intermediate steps that lead
up from the natural view to this truth, some of
the acutest intellects rejected it as impossible, contradictory alike to logical conclusions based on the
then known facts of the case, and to the evidence
of the senses.  And there is not a branch of science
that does not furnish us with similar illustrations.
Is not the inference then plain? Would it not be
wise, would it not be scientifc, for men to pause
before they determine that any declared fact of
Revelation can not be true, because, rising above
the present limnits of knowledge, above therefore
the present capacity of though/t, it contradicts, or
seems to contradict, their present formulas and
conclusions, and so to be impossible.




44
Once more, observe this characteristic of the
progress of discovery.  Every great fact, when it
has been finally reached, proves itself true by
" furnishing a solution to so many problems, and
harmonizing with so many other facts, that all
other data, as it were, crystalize at once about it."
Thus-to take a single illustration- the discovery
of the Law of Gravitation systematized and illuminated at once all the Sciences which involve,
directly or indirectly, the laws of Motion and
Force.* Surely then Theology proves its truth by
answering to this test?  What law or principle of
Natural Science gathers about it, in the beautiful
order and harmony of Truth, so vast an array of
facts not only moral and spiritual, but-I will not
hesitate to say-even natural, as the "Divine
Science" which is contained in the Word of God?
The whole universe of Truth, planet within planet,
each vivified and glorified with its light, moves
around it as its central source of energy and illumination. Take away that central volume; blot
out its truth from the heaven of human thought;
and you have removed its Sun from the universe
of mind.  All things-the truest, the best, the
most beautiful-become confounded in a chaos of
perplexity and night.  No mere Philosophies can
supply its place.  Man can live purely and nobly,
doing his proper work in the world, without the
* See another remarkable illustration of this fact in Prof.
Baden Powell's Unity of Sciences, p. 44.




45
the revelations of Geology. His mind can be enlarged, his heart purified, his whole nature disciplined and ennobled, without a knowledge of the
secrets of Chemistry.  He can become fitted to
be enthroned above the stars without comprehending at all the science of the stars.  But he
can neither live worthily, nor die worthily; he can
neither know himself here, nor God hereafter;
without the instruction and guidance of the Oracles of God. Without the Bible, everything in
the world, in life, in man, is unexplained and unexplainable.  Existence is a mass of incoherent
details  Man himself is a riddle, and the saying of
the elder Pliny is true-he is a creature "full of
contradictions, and his nature is a lie."
Gentlemen, I have done.  Each of us, in his
place and degree, must feel upon him  the forces
of this time-long and world-wide battle between
the evil pride of man's intellect, and the Truth of
God which would save him from the consequences
of that pride. No one of us can escape. The
suggestions of doubt come to us every day,
and under all disguises-in our commonest books,
our magazines, our newspapers. Every starveling
scribbler, every smatterer in natural Science, must
have his sneer at the Word and Doctrine of God.
With shallow  and poorly furnished Wits, it has
come to be regarded as the sign of superior insight,
and large research.  Yea; too often, alas, the




Prophets thus prophecy; and, what is sadder still,
the people love to have it so. Theology, it is said,
is too dogmatic; Theology is too mysterious;
Theology is too unprogressive; for this critical,
enlightened, advancing age. Yes; Theology is
dogmatic,-for she knows there can be no teaching, not even of physical Science, without some
dogma, and she deals moreover, not with man's
progressions in knowledge, but with the divinely
declared Truth of the Eternal God, eternally true.
Her truths are mysterious; but whither shall we fly
to escape from mystery? Not alone the feet of the
Theologian, but those of the Philosopher, tread
forever on the twilight border of the incomprehensible and unknown. Mystery is within, and
around, and above, and below us, each and all
without exception, everywhere and always. We
live amid mysteries. They enfold us, as with a
cloud, in all our ways. We come out of them,
and walk over them, and move into them, in every
moment of our lives. Birth is a Mystery; Life is
a Mystery; Death is a mystery. Mystery touches
upon us, and moulds us, on every side. It kindles in
the sunlight, sparkles in the dew, whispers benediction in the rain, hides in every wayside flower,
glorifies the common dust on which we tread.
Nor can it be otherwise, till that time when we
shall know even as we are known. Around him
who stands in the presence of God all Truths




47
revolve full-orbed; and then shall we know that
there is but ONE SCIENCE-the knowledge of the
eternal WISDOM of God, "by whom are all things,
and for whom they are and were created." And,
finally, Theology is unprogressive. Surely it is well
that this is so. Surely, amid the world's constant
agitations, amid the painful perplexity of human
opinions, we need something that is fixed and
stable-a Rock in the wilderness on which our
hopes may be fastened, by which our course may
be guided, from which our thirst may be satisfied.
Brethren of the Clergy, let us especially remember
our duty in this matter. The Truth of God remains the same throughout all generations, but it
is filled with living energies to meet the wants,
and work the good of every age. " If in its solidity, its firmness, its sharpness of outline, it be a
Rock, it is our office," remember, "to smite the
Rock that the living waters it contains shall gush out
to satisfy the thirst of the age. May we have wisdom rightly to discharge our double task-guardians of the Rock, dispensers of the stream. If
we are thus faithful to our mission, that stream
will follow still the Church's pilgrimage, weary
and difficult, nay, dangerous even, as that pilgrimage may be. And if in our day cold shadows
of doubt, or the darker night of unbelief, settle
down more completely around us, still along the
course of those waters, "deepening still their voice




with the deepening of the night," shall come to
us the voice of the dead past and yet of the living
present-the voice of the one unbroken stream of
undying Catholic Truth."