Westminster Sermons | Page 8

I think it a most important rule in Scriptural exegesis, to
be most cautious as to limiting the meaning of any term which
Scripture itself has not limited, lest we find ourselves putting into the
teaching of Scripture our own human theories or prejudices. And
consider--Is not man a kind? And has not mankind varied, physically,
intellectually, spiritually? Is not the Bible, from beginning to end, a
history of the variations of mankind, for worse or for better, from their
original type? Let us rather look with calmness, and even with hope
and goodwill, on these new theories; for, correct or incorrect, they

surely mark a tendency towards a more, not a less, Scriptural view of
Nature. Are they not attempts, whether successful or unsuccessful, to
escape from that shallow mechanical notion of the universe and its
Creator which was too much in vogue in the eighteenth century among
divines as well as philosophers; the theory which Goethe, to do him
justice--and after him Mr Thomas Carlyle--have treated with such
noble scorn; the theory, I mean, that God has wound up the universe
like a clock, and left it to tick by itself till it runs down, never troubling
Himself with it; save possibly--for even that was only half believed--by
rare miraculous interferences with the laws which He Himself had
made? Out of that chilling dream of a dead universe ungoverned by an
absent God, the human mind, in Germany especially, tried during the
early part of this century to escape by strange roads; roads by which
there was no escape, because they were not laid down on the firm
ground of scientific facts. Then, in despair, men turned to the facts
which they had neglected; and said--We are weary of philosophy: we
will study you, and you alone. As for God, who can find Him? And
they have worked at the facts like gallant and honest men; and their
work, like all good work, has produced, in the last fifty years, results
more enormous than they even dreamed. But what are they finding,
more and more, below their facts, below all phenomena which the
scalpel and the microscope can show? A something nameless, invisible,
imponderable, yet seemingly omnipresent and omnipotent, retreating
before them deeper and deeper, the deeper they delve: namely, the life
which shapes and makes; that which the old schoolmen called "forma
formativa," which they call vital force and what not--metaphors all, or
rather counters to mark an unknown quantity, as if they should call it x
or y. One says--It is all vibrations: but his reason, unsatisfied,
asks--And what makes the vibrations vibrate? Another--It is all
physiological units: but his reason asks--What is the "physis," the
nature and innate tendency of the units? A third--It may be all caused
by infinitely numerous "gemmules:" but his reason asks him--What
puts infinite order into these gemmules, instead of infinite anarchy? I
mention these theories not to laugh at them. I have all due respect for
those who have put them forth. Nor would it interfere with my
theological creed, if any or all of them were proven to be true
to-morrow. I mention them only to show that beneath all these theories,

true or false, still lies that unknown x. Scientific men are becoming
more and more aware of it; I had almost said, ready to worship it. More
and more the noblest-minded of them are engrossed by the mystery of
that unknown and truly miraculous element in Nature, which is always
escaping them, though they cannot escape it. How should they escape it?
Was it not written of old--"Whither shall I go from Thy presence, or
whither shall I flee from Thy Spirit?"
Ah that we clergymen would summon up courage to tell them that!
Courage to tell them, what need not hamper for a moment the freedom
of their investigations, what will add to them a sanction--I may say a
sanctity--that the unknown x which lies below all phenomena, which is
for ever at work on all phenomena, on the whole and on every part of
the whole, down to the colouring of every leaf and the curdling of
every cell of protoplasm, is none other than that which the old Hebrews
called--by a metaphor, no doubt: for how can man speak of the unseen,
save in metaphors drawn from the seen?--but by the only metaphor
adequate to express the perpetual and omnipresent miracle; The Breath
of God; The Spirit who is The Lord, and The Giver of Life.
In the rest, let us too think, and let us too observe. For if we are
ignorant, not merely of the results of experimental science, but of the
methods thereof: then we and the men of science shall have no
common ground whereon to stretch out kindly hands to