arenthood is the only
rational guarantee of that human brotherhood which is being so
strongly--or, at least, so loudly--insisted on to-day. Man, that is to
say, is not identical with God, any more than a son is identical with
his father; but man is consubstantial, homogeneous, with God, lit by a
Divine spark within him, a partaker of the Divine substance. As in
nature we discern God revealed as Power, Mind, Will, Purpose, so in
man's moral nature, and his inner satisfaction or dissatisfaction
according as he does or does not approach a certain moral standard, we
discern Him as Righteousness; and, more than all, since men, beings in
whom "the Spirit of God dwelleth," are persons, it follows that God
also is at least personal, since there can be nothing in an effect that
is not in the cause producing it. Thus the doctrine of Divine
immanence throws at least a ray of light upon one of the problems which
press with peculiar weight upon many modern minds--and which we shall
consider at greater length hereafter--_viz._, the Divine Personality.

There remains, however, a still further step to be taken along the line
which we have been pursuing. We are not fully satisfied when we know
God even as personal, even as righteous; the assurance which alone will
satisfy the awakened human spirit is that which tells us {20} that God
is Love, and that His truest name is that of Father. How could such a
culminating assurance come to us? We conceive that this end could only
be achieved through a complete manifestation of the Divine character on
a finite scale, _i.e._, through His indwelling in an unparalleled
measure in a unique and ethically perfect being; and such an event, we
hold, has actually taken place in what is known as the Incarnation. In
the words of Dr. Horton, "the doctrine of the immanence of God, the
idea that God is in us all, leads us irresistibly to the conclusion
that 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.'" "This
argument," he says--_viz._, from Divine immanence--"becomes more and
more favourable to the doctrine of Christ's Divinity." [2] The
highest and truest knowledge of God, that which it most concerns us to
possess, could have become ours only through One in whom the fulness of
Godhead dwelt bodily, in whom we saw Divinity in its essence and
without alloy. To bring us this perfect revelation was, indeed, the
very reason of Christ's advent. We come to the Father through the Son,
because