The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-02-25

very next Dreatn ne afflrmeu UnaU GOu
is infinite, and unless we make haste
to secure certain terms Of peace with
him before death, we shall have him
for our infinite enemy in eternity. This
advocate was consistent with the creed.
He spoke according to his Arminian
platform but his denial of the infinite
selfshness and cruelty of God as logic
ally involved in the creed goes for moth
ing. 1t is there, all the same, in spite
of the denial.
And so, instead of revealing God to
the rational understanding, the creeds
only give us a caricature, and by this
they hide the real divinity from the
SOULS view, and as result, thousands
declare their unbelief, because they are
persuaded that no such God can exist,
and they have not learned with certain
ty of any other. They think they
know that the universe were better off,
thousand times, without any personal
hand to guide it, than it possibly could
be under the rule of such being as the
creeds and the champions of the creeds
represent the Almighty to be. There5
fore, they declare themselves atheists,
unbelievers, and some of them tax their
thought with a vain endeavor to
account for all life and mind as only a
result of the organization of matter,
such organization being only the natu
raj effect of the attribute of unintelli
gent motion in matter.
Others take the ground that. God s
unknOwable-that we cannot know
whether there is a God or not, while
they admit and believe that there still
is in and through and over all a power
that makes for righteousness. But
this is in effect an acknowledgment Of
God, after all, though not of the God
represented by the creeds. That power
in and through and over all which
makes for Righteousness must be the
real God, the eternal spirit, the infinite
life and mind within which (uncompre-
hended though the fact isl our finite
life and mind, our individual being
(uncomprehended as to it's essence
though it also is), is contained. :.
There is in the inmost of our being a
longing for God. This leads men of
science to search for his presence and
for the evidences of His existence; but
in their search they find no such being,
nor any evidence of such being as the
world through unscientific teaching has
been taught to fear and worship. There
fore they have grown skeptical, but
not really atheistical. The hunger. of
their souls for the living God remains,
and the impulses Of the divine spirit
within them still urge them to pursue
knowledge.
When they extend their researches
to wider fields and take in other mat
ters besides their own specialties, they
will find the fact that not matter but
mind is dominant; not death but life is
eternal, and that the eternal life and
mind is God, whose presence is in all
being, and especially regnant in the
soul of man as a chastening, purify
ing, a communing, strengthening and
an exalting presence of universal, i'm
mutable and undying love. They are
l, I~,,E Gk,,,
a God that is real, and not figment of
a superstiUious imagination; and the
real God they are bound to find so soon
as they with pure and reverent heart
and mind turn to the world within and
listen to the holy voice there forever
uttered; for they will soon understand
it as the voice of the Father saying,
"My son, give me thy heart.'