andle, and become as the beasts that
perish. How then did man, who now is continually forgetting God,
contrive to remember God for himself at first? How, unless God
himself showed himself to man? I know some will say, that mankind
invented for themselves false gods at first, and afterwards cleared
and purified their own notions, till they discovered the true God.
My friends, there is a homely old proverb which will well apply
here. If there had been no gold guineas, there would be no brass
ones. If men had not first had a notion of a true God, and then
gradually lost it, they would not have invented false gods to supply
his place. And whence did they get, I ask again, the notion of gods
at all? The simplest answer is in the Bible: God taught them. I
can find no better. I do not believe a better will ever be found.

And why not?

Why not? I ask. To say that God cannot appear to men is simply
silly; for it is limiting God's Almighty power. He that made man
and all heaven and earth, cannot he show himself to man, if he shall
so please? To say that God will not appear to man because man is so
insignificant, and this earth such a paltry little speck in the
heavens, is to limit God's goodness; nay, it is to show that a man
knows not what goodness means. What grace, what virtue is there
higher than condescension? Then if God be, as he is, perfectly
good, must he not be perfectly condescending--ready and willing to
stoop to man, and all the more ready and the more willing, the more
weak, ignorant, and sinful this man is? In fact, the greater need
man has of God, the more certain is it that God will help him in
that need.

Yes, my friends, the Bible is the revelation of a God who
condescends to men, and therefore descends to men. And the more a
man's reason is spiritually enlightened to know the meaning of
goodness and holiness and justice and love, the more simple,
reasonable, and credible will it seem to him that God at first
taught men in the days of their early ignorance, by the only method
by which (as far as we can conceive) he could have taught them about
himself; namely, by appearing in visible shape, or speaking with
audible voice; and just as reasonable and credible, awful and
unfathomable mystery though it is, will be the greater news, that
that same Lord at last so condescended to man that he was conceived
by the Holy Ghost; born of the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius
Pilate; was crucified,