t in a degree
inconceivable to us, I am informed that the world is ruled by a being
whose attributes are infinite, but what they are we cannot learn, nor
what are the principles of his government, except that 'the highest human
morality which we are capable of conceiving' does not sanction them;
convince me of it and I will bear my fate as I may. But when I am told
that I must believe this, and at the same time call this being by the
names which express and affirm the highest human morality, I say in plain
terms that I will not. Whatever power such a being may have over me,
there is one thing which he shall not do: he shall not compel me to
worship him. I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I
apply that epithet to my fellow creatures."

That St. John would have assented to these bold and honest words, that
such is St. John's conception of human and divine morality, the story in
the text shows, to my mind, especially. It is, so to speak, a crucial
experiment, by which the truth of the Scripture theory is verified. The
difficulty in all ages about a standard of morality has been--How can we
fix it? Even if we agree that man's goodness ought to be the counterpart
of God's goodness, we know that in practice it is not, as mankind has
differed in all ages and countries about what is right and wrong. The
Hindoo thinks it right to burn widows, wrong to eat animal food; and
between such extremes there are numberless minor differences. Hardly any
act is conceivable which has not been thought by some man, somewhere,
somehow, morally right or morally wrong. If all that we can do is, to
choose out those instances of morality which seem to us most right, and
impute them to God, shall we not have an ever-shifting, probably a merely
conventional standard of right and wrong? And worse--shall we not be
always in danger of deifying our own superstitions--perhaps our own
vices: of making a God in our own image, because we cannot know that God
in whose image we are made? Most true, unless "we believe rightly the
incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ," "perfect God and perfect man." In
Him, says the Bible, the perfect human morality is manifested, and shown
by His life and conduct to be identical with the divine. He bids us be
perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect; and He only has a right-
-in the sense of a sound and fair reason--for so doing; because He can
say, and h