THE EXCELLENCE OF GOODNESS.

A SERMON PREACHED IN THE CHURCH OF THE DISCIPLES, IN BOSTON, ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 1845.

"And the king said, He is a good man."-2 SAM. xviii. 27.

AT the bottom of all things there is a law. Kings are made to act in a certain manner, and not otherwise. Thus the rock is made to be solid and the water to be fluid, under certain conditions, and not the reverse. This law, here and everywhere, is perfect. It is the work of God. All law is the will of God; it is God in action, for God is not a mere abstraction, but is concreted in part, so to say, in the world we look upon. He is not only the other side of the universe, but here; here and now; as much here as anywhere. He is immanent in creation, and yet transcends creation. Suppose all created worlds were struck out of existence, God does not cease to be; does not cease to be here, for He transcends all the created worlds. But they cannot exist without God. You cannot, without a contradiction, conceive of them devoid of God, for He is immanent therein. Without His continual presence to preserve, as well as His transient presence to create, they would cease to be. Indeed the existence of these things is, as it were, but a continual creation.

This being so, God being in all, in essence no less than in power, active in each-smallest and greatest-and active too with no let or hindrance of His Infinity, the world becomes a revelation of God, so far as these material things can disclose and reveal the Infinite One. But these are to us only a revelation of something kindred to qualities that are awakened in ourselves. Hence all men do not see the same things revealed therein. The world, or the smallest particle thereof, reveals God's Power, His Wisdom, and His Goodness. It reveals these attributes in just that order to mankind. In the history of our consciousness, we come,

in the order of time, to understand Force sooner than Wisdom, and that before Goodness. The natural man is before the spiritual man. Mankind represents in its large process the same things which you and I represent in our smaller story. In a few years of our early life we must climb through all the stages which the human race has passed by in its sixty centuries; else we are not up to the level that mankind has reached in our day.

Watching the progress of ideas in history, we see that mankind began as we do, and goes on as we have gone; and first became conscious of God's Power; next of His Wisdom; of His Goodness last of all. We see out of us only what we are internally prepared to see; for seeing depends on the harmony between the object without and your own condition within. Hence no two of us see the same things in the sun and moon and stars; hence some men see only God's Power in the world; others, His Wisdom also; and others still His Goodness crowning all the

rest.

Had we some active quality as much transcending Goodness as that surpasses physical force, we should see in the world, I doubt not, still further revelations of God; qualities higher than Goodness. In Him there may be, must be, other qualities greater than Goodness, only you and I can now have no conception thereof, not having analogous qualities active in ourselves. It is by no means to be supposed that our ideas of God exhaust the character and nature of God; nor even that the material world reveals now to us all of Him which it might reveal had we a higher nature, or a larger development of the nature we have. The limit of our finite comprehension is no bound to the Infinite God. If a bear were to look at a watch, he might notice the glitter of the metal, perhaps attend to its constant click. But the contrivance of the watch he would not see, nor yet its use, not having in himself the qualities to appreciate, or even apprehend, that contrivance or that How inadequate a conception must he have both of the watch and the man who made it! So it is with us in our application of the world, and its Maker. We are all in this respect but as bears.

use.

Now men admire in God what they admire in themselves. It is so unavoidably. You may see three periods

in man's history. In the first bodily force is most highly prized. Here the hero is the strongest man; he who can run the swiftest, and strike the hardest; is fearless and cruel. In that state, men conceive mostly of a God of Force. He is a man of war. He thunders and lightens. He rides on the wind; is painted with thunderbolts in his hand. He sends the plague and famine. The wheels of his chariot rattle in war. What represents Force is a type of Him. In some primitive nations their name of God meant only the Strong-the Powerful.

Then as men advance a little, there comes a period in which intellectual power, or wisdom, is prized above bodily force. Men esteem its superiority, for they see that one wise head is a match for many strong bodies. It can command ten weak men to overcome a strong one, whom singly they dared not touch; but no aggregation of foolish men, however numerous, can ever outwit a single wise man, for no combination of many little follies can ever produce wisdom. In this stage he is the hero who has the most intellectual power; knows the secrets of nature; has skill to rule men; speaks wise sayings: Saul, the tallest man, has given place to Solomon, the wisest man. The popular conception of God changes to suit this stage of growth. Men see His Wisdom; they see it in the birth of a child, in the course of the sun and moon; in the return of the seasons; in the instinct of the emmet or the ostrich God works the wonders of nature. Wisdom is the chief attribute in this age ascribed to God. Who shall teach Him? says the contemplative man of this agewhere the sage of a former day would have asked, Who can overcome Him?

There comes yet another period, in which moral power is appreciated. He is the hero who sees moral truth, walks uprightly, subordinates his private will to the universal law, tells the truth, is reverent and pious, loves goodness, and lives it. The saint has become the hero; he rules not by superior power of hand, or superior power of head, but by superior power of heart-by justice, truth, and love; in one word, by righteousness. Queen of Sheba came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon," said Jesus, "but behold a greater than Solomon is here." In this period, men.

form a higher conception of God. Men believe that He is not only wise, but good; He loves men; He loves justice, goodness, truth; demands mercy and not sacrifice; He keeps His word, and is an upright God. He is no longer regarded as the God of the Mosaic law, jealous, revengeful, exacting; but as a Father of infinite goodness. In one word, God is Love. He is not a man of war, nor a worker of wonders barely, but a Saviour. The Jewish name of God -Jehovah-does not appear in the New Testament! Read the Old Testament and New Testament in connection, you will see this twofold progress in the state of man, and these divergent conceptions of God. However, you will not find them distinctly separated, as in this sketch; you must estimate them by their centre and types, not by their circumference, for in nature and in human affairs there are no classes of things, but only individuals, which we group into classes for convenience in understanding their relations one to another. But these facts are suggestive to such as think.

It was said there is a law at the bottom of all things; that this law is the will of God, who is immanent in nature, and yet transcends nature; that it is God in action. The same rule holds good in relation to mankind. Here also is a law. God is immanent in man as much as in nature, yet as much transcending man. This is a doctrine of the Bible, and appears in various forms in all the more spiritual sects of Christians. But we are conscious and free, having power to keep the law, or, to a certain extent, to violate it; we are not merely to be governed as the material worldbut to be self-governed. As conscious and free beings, it is our duty to keep this law; to keep it knowingly and voluntarily, not merely because we should as duty, but also, and no less, because we would as desire; thus bringing the whole of our nature into obedience to God. This our duty is our welfare too. Now Goodness is the keeping of this law; the keeping thereof knowingly and joyfully, with the hand, with the head, with the heart. Goodness is conformity with God in the matter of self-government. In its highest form it is a conscious conformity therewith, and so is Religion. The good man puts himself in a line with God; in unison with Him. He accords with God, and works after where God has worked before. In the matter of self

government he is consciously one with God; for God's law acts through him, and by him, with no let nor hindrance.

Now we do not always appreciate the excellence of Goodness. We seldom believe in its power. Mankind has been struggling here on the earth six thousand yearsperhaps much longer,-who knows? Yet even now, few men see more than signs of God's Power and Wisdom in the world. Most men stop at the first. The force of muscles they understand better than the force of mind, and that better than the excellence of justice, uprightness, truth, and love. So it has become a political maxim to trust a man of able intellect, sooner than a just and good man of humbler mind. Most men, perhaps, tremble before a God who can destroy the world to-morrow, and send babes new-born to endless hell, far more than they rejoice in a God who rules by perfect justice, truth, and love, who to-day blesses whatever He has made, and will at last bless them all more abundantly than thought can fancy or heart can wish.

We bow before the man of great capabilities of thought, of energetic mind, of deep creative genius. Yet is the good man greater than the wise man-taking wisdom in its common sense of intellectual power, capacity of thought; -greater and nobler far! He rests on a greater idea. He lives in a larger and loftier sentiment. Yet I would not undervalue intellectual power. Who of us does not reverence a man that has the understanding of things; whose capacious mind grasps up the wonders of this earth, its animals and plants, its stones and trees; which measures the heavens, and tells the wonders of the stars, the open secret of the universe; knows the story of man; is possessed of the ideas that rule the world; has gathered the wisdom of the past, and feels that of the present throb mightily within his heart? Who does not honour that capaciousness of thought, which sees events in their causes; can rule a nation as you your household, forecasting its mighty destinies, and that for centuries of years, and moulding the fate of millions yet to come? Who does not appreciate the man who can speak what all feel, but feel dumbly, and can't express; who enchants us with great thoughts which we know to be our known, but could not