nly be a
surprise. In the great machinery of the Universe it constantly happens
to us to find that that which is made indispensable, is nevertheless not
the highest. The chosen people were not the highest in all moral or even
in all spiritual characteristics; if we refuse the explanation given by
Goethe that they were chosen for their toughness, yet we have no better
to give. The eternal moral law is of all we know the highest and
holiest. Yet the religious instinct seems to have been more
indispensable for the development of humanity according to the Divine
purpose than the observance of that moral law in all its fulness. It
would never have occurred to us beforehand to permit in Divine
legislation any concession to the hardness of men's hearts; yet we know
that it was done. Science now tells us that Order takes a rank in God's
work far above where we should have placed it. It is not the highest; it
is far from the highest: but it appears to be in some strange way the
most indispensable. God is teaching us that Order is far more universal,
far more penetrating than we should have supposed. But, nevertheless, it
is not itself God; nor the highest revelation of God. It is the stamp
which, for reasons higher than itself, He appears to have put on His
works. What is the limit to its application we do not know. There may be
instances where this Order is apparently broken, but really maintained,
because one physical law is absorbed in a higher; there may be instances
where the physical law is superseded by a moral law. But we shall
neither refuse to recognise that God has stamped this character on His
works, nor let it on the other hand come between us and Him. For we know
still that He is greater than all that He hath made, and He speaks to us
by another voice besides the voice of Science.

LECTURE II.

THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF.

The voice within. The objection of the alleged relativity of knowledge.
Absolute knowledge of our own personal identity. Failure to show this to
be relative; in particular by Mr. Herbert Spencer. The Moral Law. The
command to live according to that Law; Duty. The command to believe in
the supremacy of that Law; the lower Faith. The Last Judgment. The hope
of Immortality. The personification of the Moral Law in Almighty God;
the higher Faith. The spiritual faculty the recipient of Revelation, if
any be made. The contrast between Religion and Science.

LECTURE II.