self in the world of phenomena. And He has given
proofs of His existence and His character precisely corresponding to
the conception which He has enabled, and indeed commanded, us to form of
Him. And it is because the proofs that He has given are of this nature
that we are tempted to ask for more proofs of a different kind.

For it is undeniable that believers and unbelievers alike are
perpetually asking for proofs that shall have more of the scientific and
less of the religious character, proofs that shall more distinctly
appeal to the senses. Believers in all ages have longed for external
support to their faith; unbelievers have refused to believe unless
supplied with more physical evidence. Believers shrink from being thrown
inwards on themselves; they fear the wavering of their own faith; they
are alarmed at the prospect of the buttresses of their belief being
taken from them. They find it easier to believe the spiritual evidence,
if they can first find much physical evidence. They wish (to use the
Apostle's words) to walk by sight and not by faith. And unbelievers want
a tangible proof that shall compel their understanding before it awakes
their conscience. They demand a Revelation, not only confirmed by
miracles at the time, but confirmed again and again by repeated miracles
to every succeeding generation. They want miracles in every age adapted
to the science of the age, miracles which no hardness of heart would be
able to deny, which would convince the scientific man through his
Science independently of his having any will to make holiness his aim
when he had been convinced. This kind of evidence it has not pleased God
to give. It is not the scientific man that God seeks as such, any more
than it is the ignorant man that He seeks as such. And the proofs that
He gives are plainly in all cases conditioned by the rule that the
spiritually minded shall most easily and most keenly perceive their
force.

And, as far as unbelievers are concerned, I do not see that more need be
said except to tell them that this rule is inflexible, and that it is by
another way that they must look to find God, and not by the way that
they insist on choosing. But believers who are in the same case need to
be warned of some very real dangers that always attend a faith which
makes too much of things not spiritual.

For, first, there is a real and great danger that the spiritual may be
altogether obscured by the literal and the physical.