reality-is GOD.* The idea of moral good, that idea is the feeling in our hearts of that which is in us or others like in quality to the absolute moral good, and the knowledge of the qualities of that likeness. This comes to us in no other way than from GOD

Himself.

When we wish to know what is the Highest Good, then, if we mean absolutely, the only answer is, "GOD." If we refer to man and his conduct, "that which is likest God." It is not Nature, it is not Utility, it is not Moral Beauty, nor Conscience, nor any one of these moral feelings and moral duties that is to be made the rule of action, and is the Supreme Good—it is GOD.

Men will say, "that is no practical rule; to try to be benevolent is a practical rule, or to try to be useful, or to live according to nature, all these are practical rules; but to make GOD at once the Supreme Good and the Highest Rule is not practicable !"

I do not much like answering objections when the further development of the subject will put aside the objection, and render it unnecessary to make it as well as to answer it. But this I will say; do you take for your practical rule the Heathen Ethics of Paley, that make "enlightened self-interest" the Supreme Law of Action, or the equally Pagan morality, that makes Benevolence the Supreme Law, or this that makes Justice, Veracity, or anything else the Supreme Law of Action? Take it, act upon it consistently, and be endowed with all the gifts of nature and knowledge, and I shall take a poor uneducated Christian, who never thought of Ethics, but has taken the Bible in the Church, and by them has cultivated his natural feeling of conscience, and other parts of his moral being, and to ten thousand times more moral perfection than you shall he have arrived.

For all these are from GoD directly, and by conveying to us

* "I AM."-IIe doth not say, I am their light, their guide, their strength, or tower, but only I Aм. He sets as it were his hand to a blank, that his people may write under it what they please that is good for them. As if he should say, Are they weak? I am strength? Are they poor? I am riches. Are they in trouble? I am comfort. Are they sick? I am health. Are they dying? 1 am life. Have they nothing? I am all things. I am wisdom and power. 1 am justice and mercy. I am grace and goodness. I am glory, beauty, holiness, eminency, super-eminency, perfection, all-sufficiency, eternity! Jehovah, I am. Whatsoever is amiable in itself, or desirable unto them, that I am. Whatsoever is pure and holy—whatsoever is great or pleasant-whatsoever is good or needful to make men happy, that I am.-Bishop Beveridge.

Himself, or a knowledge of that action that is likest Him, they are our established guides. Whereas, you have taken an idea! a notion! for your guide.

This is true, if we believe that God made Nature, and that He made it good, and that man, although fallen, is not a beast, so as to do the evil that he does naturally, or a devil, so as to do nought but evil, and that consciously. It is true, if the Bible be a revelation from God, and not "a collection of Hebrew Poetry of the sublimest kind."* It is true, if the Church be a divinely constituted body, to lead men in the way of Religion. If all this be true, then have we the means of ascertaining God, and that which is Godlike, clearly, plainly and distinctly. If it be not true, then you may take anything else you please, and rear up any system you please, make anything the "Highest Good" and the "Highest Object of Pursuit," and your system shall be a system of Heathen Ethics, but certainly not of Christian Morality. And your fame may spread, and your influence may extend, and your eloquence and learning be extolled to the ends of the earth; and the old woman in the chimney corner, going by her nature, her natural sense of right and wrong, as called out by God's revelation, interpreted by His Church, and applied by His Spirit, she shall have higher truth, and more of Ethics than you. For to a Christian the Supreme Good is GOD, the Supreme Law of Action is the revelation of God; "the Pillar and ground of it is the Church," that which applies it the Spirit, and that which receives it the Nature of Man. Any morality that knows not this is Heathen.

Having made this statement as to "Good," the Supreme or Highest Good, and the Highest Law of Action, we go on to obviate several objections that might be made to it, from our ignorance or incapability. This shall be the object of the next chapter.

*German Rationalistic Criticism.

CHAPTER III.

God the Supreme Good, and the only Standard of Good. It must have been so to Christ and to Adam.-The case of Adam.-Adam's Moral Perfection -first, by his nature-secondly, by the gift of the Presence of God, as a Supreme Rule actually. Our fallen nature differs, first, in the withdrawal of that gift; secondly, in disturbance and insubordination of faculties. Still, as a matter of each man's experience, and also of History, God is the Law and Standard of Moral Good to the Natural Man.

HAVING gone so far as to define that "God is the Supreme and Absolute Good, and the sole measure of Good," the question at ɔnce comes up, "But is not God afar from nature and from us, ruling us by law, and Himself absent, so that we cannot make of him the measure of Good, or discern its likeness to him?"

To this we answered in the last chapter, "Thy nature is of God and good, made in his image, and although fallen, still rot brutal or fiendish, but in his image, although that image be impaired. Still, then, thy nature has a feeling for good, and applies the image as a measure of it. The Bible, and that is the Word of God-the Church of God, and that is his organization—and lastly, the Spirit of God, all these thou hast, or canst have, and all these are nearer to thee, bring the being, and will, and feeling, and nature of God, closer to man than any other fact can come; so close, that none in truth ever disbelieved the being and attributes of God; they that say so are only self-deceivers or vain boasters, trying to deceive others, not Atheists."

But perhaps, in addition to this, our answer to objections, we had better enter a little more closely into the centre of this matter, and view it in another light. We have seen that there is an Animal Nature, one perfectly indifferent. Again, we see that a nature perfectly evil is possible. And neither of these natures is that which man has.

Now it is manifest, that a perfect Human Nature would be that which did good consciously and perpetually, and never did or had even the experience of an act of evil. This consciousness of doing good constantly, and of not knowing by self-experience what evil is but by its effects upon others, this is manifestly the character given of our Saviour, as shown in the whole of the New Testa

ment. It is as manifestly the character given of Adam, our first father, in Paradise.

And as manifestly it is the ideal image of perfection, after which each man is led by his nature to aspire. It is manifest, that in this aspiration we desire not an animal nature which is not good or evil, but indifferent; nor a mere innocent nature, whose quality is doing good unconsciously, but one that does good consciously, and that consciously abstains from evil. It is also manifest that this desire of our moral nature is no desire purely imaginary, no image of perfection that never was realized, but one that of itself has had two actual and real exemplars in our LORD JESUS CHRIST, and in Adam in Paradise, the father of the human race.

To examine, therefore, these exemplars of perfection in reference to that which is the Highest Good of man is to bring the definition we have given of Good, and of the Highest Good, to the actual test of historical experience, and both to confirm it, and also to hold out the very highest model, not as imaginary, but as realized. And we beg the reader to pay a close attention to this part of our discussion, inasmuch as the examination of these models not only will illustrate the nature of Moral Good, but also the nature of man, both as fallen and as in Paradise.

Now, with regard to our LORD-HE was a man; this is fully and plainly manifest. Human Nature cannot, therefore, be morally indifferent in the same condition as the beasts are, or fiendish essentially, else God could not have taken it; but it must have been Good in its nature.

Again. He was Morally Perfect from birth to death. He did no sin in thought, word or deed: for thought is action, word is action, deed is action. Now seeing that manifestly, therefore, we must call him perfect, what is the idea of Moral Good presented to us by Him as the perfect man?

Manifestly it may be put in not sinning, that positively our blessed Lord, as a man, in everything did that which is according to the will of GOD, and negatively he abstained from doing that against his will.

This is the plain fact, both from his own words and the account we have of his life; for of all other men, whatsoever height of character they have attained, it is an historical fact, there are none who have not been faulted for sin, either positively or negatively, and that He alone was uncensured both by his friends and

cotemporaries, and by all since then. That, therefore, by which he was perfect morally, must be the Highest Good, and that which he counted Good must have been Good, and his method of attaining to it the method. And no definition of Moral Good, or of the Highest Good, or of man's supreme rule in life, by whatsoever philosopher it be brought forward, is true but this, that "God is the Supreme Good, and the Supreme Law of man His Will, and the Supreme Happiness and Perfection of man a resemblance unto him."

It is manifest, that to our Lord, the exemplar and model of Perfect Humanity, the Supreme Good was God the Father. His perfection was in his being "the express image of God." And the highest and completest object of his existence to do the will of God. And we can see that he fulfilled the notion of a perfect Humanity, a Human Nature of itself Good, and consciously doing no evil, but all good.

But we see that he was aided towards this; the Human Nature was, as it were, upheld and enabled to effect this, and to be raised to its highest possible perfection, by the union of the Divine Nature with it.

But it will be said, "to Him this was the Highest Good, because being God the Word, the will of the FATHER was immediately known to him, but to us that can be no true standard.”

To this we may at once say, "He is the express image of His person, the manifestation of His glory;" and "he that hath seen him, hath seen the Father also."

But we go on to another consideration, which will be found to tell upon this part of the subject in a very important way; that is, to consider the moral condition of the other perfect man, Adam; and this we shall find to give us great light upon the

matter.

Now, when we look at the situation of Adam, we find enough tc lead us to consider that as our nature is good, even although it is injured by the Fall, so was the nature of Adam good, without that injury.

Next we find that Adam, as Christ, continuously thought, and spoke, and did no evil, and that not as a mere innocent, or as a righteous animal, barely without consciousness, but consciously and knowingly. This is expressed by the declaration that God made Adam in the image of God, in the image that is of GOD the