God. One may say that God predetermined and then foresaw what He had
ordained; another that He foresaw and then resolved to effect what he
had foreseen. Neither is correct, or at least neither can know that he
is correct. God is not subject to our conditions of time and space. It
is impossible that He, whose knowledge and will encompass all things,
should be affected by our notions of order and sequence; there is with
Him no before and after. The whole universe, with all its farthest
extended history, stood before Him from all eternity as one conception
and as one purpose; and the conception and the purpose were one. The
too frequent mistake of human formulas is that they undertake to reason
out infinite mysteries on our low anthropomorphic lines, one in one
extreme and another in another. We cannot fit the ways of God to the
measure of our logic or our metaphysics. What we have to do with many
things is simply to believe and trust and wait.[204] On the other hand,
there are many things of a practical nature which God has made very
plain. He has brought them down to us. The whole scheme of grace is an
adaptation of the mysteries of the Godhead to our knowledge, faith,
obedience, and love.

And this leads directly to the chief differential which Christianity
presents in contrast with the fatalisms of false systems, viz., that
while sin and death abound, as all must see, the Gospel alone reveals a
superabounding grace. It is enough for us that the whole scheme is one
of Redemption, that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the
world--nay, that He made the world, and made it for an infinitely
benevolent purpose. If dark mysteries appear in the Word or in the
world, we are to view them in the light of Calvary, and wait till we can
see as we are seen; for this world is Christ's, and will surely subserve
His ends, which are those of infinite compassion.

Our position, therefore, as before the abettors of heathen or agnostic
philosophy, is impregnable: the fatalism is all theirs, the union of
sovereign power with infinite love is ours. We have reason as well as
they. We realize the facts and mysteries of life as fully as they, but
are not embittered by them. We see nothing to be gained by putting out
the light we have. We prefer faith to pessimism, incarnate love to the
tyranny of "unconscious will."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 184: Quoted in Fiske's _Destiny of Man_, p. 117.]

[Footnote 185: See _Indian Wisdom_, p. 82.