but it
does not live in a purely personal relation, nor does it operate as a
personal existence. His spirit and example are with us, but he is not
here himself. The good man is favored with the influence imparted to
humanity by Christ's exemplary life, but he is nowhere actually present
in the world.

GOD AND HIS MIRACLES. No miracles, in the orthodox sense of the term,
have ever occurred. The scientific examination of the Scriptures
banishes them altogether. Neither are miracles possible, otherwise we
should see them every day. They would be acts of arbitrary authority on
God's part; and if he performed them he would destroy the harmony and
connection of natural laws. Christianity was not introduced by miracles.
It was inaugurated, and even originated, by underlying causes of a
purely natural character. Miracle is only a creation of the imagination,
and should be discarded as a human error.

The personality of God is freely spoken of, but his self-consciousness,
in the strictest sense, is not allowed. Hence God is really deprived by
them of all plan, aim, love, and favor. He is a spiritual being, but he
is not a spirit. He is spirit, yet not a real, thinking, self-conscious,
willing spirit. He is not a personality or individuality. "A person,"
these men appear to say, "must have a place to stand upon, and surely we
would not say this of God? The fact is, we grossly misrepresent the
great All-Father. We picture him in our sensuous forms, and almost
imagine him to be like one of ourselves."

IMMORTALITY. The Speculative Rationalists attach less importance to
individual immortality than their predecessors conceded. We might infer
this, however, from the Hegelian point of view adopted by the former.
They profess adherence to Schleiermacher's dictum: "In the midst of the
finite to be one with the infinite, and to be eternal every moment." But
they adhere to the doctrine of "eternal life," by which term they mean
an existence commencing and terminating with faith. It is a life of such
value that it should be called "eternal" life, although it ends with our
last breath in this world. It consists in the attainment of the end of
our existence and of conquest over sin. Thus, they reduce the eternal
life of which the gospel speaks to a mere method and duration of stay in
this world. This life, with them, exhausts life; the kingdom of God has
not an eternal, but a present and temporal existence; there is,
therefore, no new heav