Milford chronicle., 1906-04-20


seen nothing. We recOil in terror. We
might fall in a straight line during a
whole eternity, nor ever reach the bot
tom. 1t is Infinite in all directions"
So wherever we go into the past let
us always think of God as farther back.
Not only must we amplify our ideas
in reference to Gods eternal existence,
but we must also amplify them In ref
erence TO Gods personal presence. The
Bible tells us that we are made after
Gods image. $50 God created man In
his own image, in the image OF God
created he him, male and female ere
ated he them" Does this imply that
Cod is like unto us physically-that he
s.as two eyes, two hands, two feet and
a beating heart? Just as md Queen
Victoria's face stamped upon the Eng
lish shilling, so some people think Gods
face. in a physical sense, is stamped
upon us. But is this true2 Nay. Am
plify! Amplify your idea Of Gods per
sonality. In the One Hundred and
Thirty-nlnth Psalm I read these words:
''WhIther shall I go from thy spirit
or whittier shall fee from thy pres
ence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou
art there; II make my bed in he'll
behold, thou art thereS If take the
wings OF the morning and dwell in the
uttermost parts of fhe sea, even there
thy right hand shall mold me. Yea, the
darkness hIdeth not from thee. but the
night shineth as the day. The darkness
and the light are both alike to thee"
In other words, God is here, God is
| there, Cod is everywhere at once. How
can all this be and vet God be ike
ourselves in a physical sense? Men In
capable of conceiving pure spirit have
supposed that God has human form,
as did the ancient anthropomOTphites,
or an animal form. as did the ancient
idDlaters, but the Bible doctrine as ex-
pounded by Jesus is, God is a spirit,
and they that worship him must FVOr-
ship him in spirit.
ut EauHeH COmprehensiO1-.
Net only does the Omnipresence of
| God pass all human conception and
explanation. but his personality, called
the Trinity, also passes human ex-
PLANTATION. Here we have God the Fa-
ther, God the Son and God the holy
Spirit. How can you interpret 3t2 "A
dear friend of mine told me how AN
old Spanish artist once tried to explain
it. Above one of the affairs of a Mexi-
can cathedral was a picture amid
clouds. Out of these clouds appeared
the faces of three men. These three
faces were all the same. Uoder the
picture, in Latin, were the words, 1.-The
Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost" !"
These three faces were all alike; they
were like three photographs of one
face taken from the same negative.
But had that artist caught a true con-
ceptiOn of the Trinity? No He no
more pictured the true God Than did
the artist who tried to picture the face
Of the Trinity as that of one man. The
full conception of Gods eternal exist
ence and of Gods personality passes
all human grasp. Therefore I say to
4 YOU, as Michael Angelo said to Raphael,
when thou art trying to reach Out after
the personality of God, amplify and
keep on amplifying. God is a Spirit
infinite That means no fiightot human
Imagination can reach the heights or
NUMB the depths OF touch the bounds
of the realms of his presence. We
must accept Gods personality as in
ffnftely more comprehensive than we
can prove him to be or else we shall
never accept him at all.
But, though l have dwelt long upon
nv first point, l believe it is the least
important of any STALL present, for 1t
is almost an impossibility fOrsany one
Of us to get away from our belief in an
overruIing God who was the creator or
the universe after we have studied the
wonderful harmonies Of the natural
world. We are like the student Of skep-
tical tendencies who was seated at the
feet of that master of anatomy, Dr.
Marshall The great professor was 'eX-
Dlaining to his class the marvels OF the
Doints of the knee or of the hand. Aft
er he had finished his talk this student
exclaimed, "a man must be fool in
deed who, after duly studying his own
body. can remain an atheist" So we
say. "a man must be a fool who can
study the harmonies of nature and not
believe that master mlnu, caileu lhe
Creator and the Ruler, is molding and
influencing all" But, after we have
studied the signs and the wonders OF
the heaven and the earth and have ac-
cepted n belief in God, the next ques-
tion which naturally confrOnts us is
this: "How do we know that this Gou
the Creator is the God who is the
author of the book we call the Bl-
BILE. in which the coming of Christ
is foretold and the promises OF for
giveness of sin in Christ's blood are
made to a dying human race| How
do we know that God is the author
of the Bible? Why, by the testimo-
nv of the Bible itself. The internal
evidences of manuscript carry their
own proof Of genuineness. For centu-
ries upon centuries the Bible has had
4ba +as+ of internal criticism applied to