THE FIRST CAUSE AS PERSONAL.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Issue 39, 29 June 1878, Page 2

THE FIRST CAUSE AS PERSONAL.

[DY REV. JOSEPH COOK, BOSTON.]

1. Whilo it is admitted by the highest authorities that Conscience beaohes that God is a person, it is affirmed by a few of these authorities that reason teaches that He is not.

2. It is affirmed that to oill God a person is to limit Hit infinity ; and that an infinite personality is a contradiction in term*.

3. In this state of the discussion concerning Conscience, if iteorganio instincts as to its obligations to God as a porson are to be justified intellectually, it becomes of the utmost importance to show that reason an well as Conscience teaches that is u person. 4. For the purposes of such proof it is highly advisable now to seporalo the whole topi, of Theism into three parte,

namely, the demonstration that tbocauae of the universe possesses intelligence ; the demonstration that it possesses unity : and the demonstration that it possesses inrin-

The question at the outset h>, not whether God was infinite or finite, hut whether intelligent or not. It is my object to establish the proposition that Conscience reveals not merely a Somewhat but a Someone; and, having proved from the point of instinct that it does, I most now justify the proof by showing that reason can make objection* to that conclusion.

While we are considering intelligence as cause, I leave out of view entirely the inquiry as to its infinity. The question is not even raised in the opening of an argument such as I am presenting to you, whether God is infinite or not. Can we prove that he is Bomeone ? That is the initial inquiry. Can we demonstrate that there exists in the universe an intelligence not ourselves ? After demonstrating that the cause, which stands before the present universe, has intelligence, wo must ask whether it has unity. After having proved the intelligence, and the unity, we must treat the infinity as a wholly different thing. Separate proofs are adapted to these several traits. Do not overload the definition of God when you bring your argument from reason for his existence as a person. 5. The universo exhibits thought. There 'jannot bo thought without a thinker. The cause of the universe, therefore, is a thinker ; and a thinker is a person.

0. But the universe exhibits, so far as humcn observation extends, perfect unity of thought. Gravitation is tho same everywhere, and bo are light, heat, and t:;o other natural forces.

7 The universe, therefore, exhibit", one thought—an>i but one. 8. Ita cause, therefore is one Thinker, and bat One; that is One Personal Intelligence, aad but One. The philosophy dominant at Yale Collego and at Harvard, and Berlin and Halle, at Edinburg and Oxford and Carnbridge, is well represented by these incisive :.f!ntencßs from the ablest book on methaphysics Yale College has given to the world : " The universe," says President Porter, " is a thought as well as a thing. As fraught with design, it reveals thought as well as force. The thought includes the origination of the force and their law as well as tho combination and use of them. These thoughts mu6t include the whole universe; it follows, then, that the universe is controlled by a single thought, or the thought of an individual thinker." (The Human Intellect, r 661.)

Lot us pause and cast ourselves aboard on the wing of imagination, through some small portion, at least of, the range of truth disclosed by the fact that thought implies a thinkor, and that the thought of the universe is one. Take in your hand the mystic instrument called the spectroscope, and briug down light from the two planets which last evening I saw near each other in the infinite azure. Here arrives a far-travelled ray from Mars; here one from Saturn ; here one from Sirius; here one from the North Star. It left that orb fifty years ago, and has not paused, and is here at last. Certain metals, when burned, always produce definite dark lines in the coloured lights of the spectroscope. We know that zinc produces a line in particular place, lead in another place, iron in another placo;and we bring down this light of Mars, of Saturn, and of North Star, and here are the very lines of zinc and iron and load. Matter yonder, fifty years distant for light, we thus know to be much what it is here. Meteors have fallen on this earth ; the dust of meteors has been absorded into plants ; and, for augbt I know, in your anna there are particles that come from Sirius. Tho universe has light in it; and the laws of light are the sanio here and at the farthest point visible to the telescope. Light moves in straight lines there. Gravitation is the same thing here and yonder. We cannot imagine a spot in the universe where the whole is less than a part, or where two straight lines can inclose a space, or where any self-evident truth is false. Thus, we fell that the universe exhibits not only apian, but an uniform plan ; it exhibits not only thought, but harmonious thought Adhere, without a particle of wavering, to the proposition that there cannot be a thought without a thinker. This is Des Carte's fundamental axiom, the cornerstone on which he placed himself face to face with all sceptism and unrest, and which is the one point of philosophy where certainty is firmest up to this hour. There cannot be thought without a peison I think, therefore, I am a person There is thought not our own in the universe ; therefore there is a Person in the universe not ourselves. The thought is one; the Thinker, therefore is one. Sometimes, whou 1 Btand under the dome of that truth, I am moved as tho constellations never stir me. The old songs, onoe sung in the Temple yonder on a mil that has influenced the ages more than Athens or Rome, come into my thoughts; but these calls are altogether to feeble to start tho enthusiasm which bursts up face to face with tho scientific method in our day. Wc must expand David's outlook upon the universe. No doubt ho held the moral law raoro vividly than we do ; no doubt he had interior insight such as belongs to that Btrauge raoe of which no was a representative. The Greek know art better than wo do; compared witA him wc are uncouth. Compared vi'th tho Hebrew in his best esUti • < morally Imperceptible, i',ii; tin dean of law which U ■ 1 i a< i /■ •.

'e«l to us th« Aryan nee i , urs of eo-ordinati n which make our I'ragmcntariness of endowment. sometime* almost content with a mere Cosmic Deity, without much thought of a person—we must unite them ail, the modem with the Greek and Hebreworgan pipes : But the musio proceeding from them all together, falling, expanding, tilling the dome of the universe—that is but a shepherd's pipe compared with the !:: r !odics that rise in any full-orbed souls wncnever we look aloft into the azure represented by the simple certainty that there cannot be in the universe thought r.c* our own, without a poison not ourselves ; and that, as the thought is one, so that personality is ono. Let us bo glad I Let us lift up our hearts ! Let us say to :.;e eternal gates of science : " Lift up your heads, that the King of Glory may come in." The day is coming when another age will say this to the gates that have foundations. The day is coining when our transitory stage of thought—dimply the sophomore year in human investigations, in which we can ask more questions than we can answer—will be looked back upon with disdain. The day is coining when .the iron lips of science will utter the words of the psalmist and the words of all natural law: " Lift up the gates on which : he Pleiades are but ornaments ! Lift up the gates on which all the immensities and the infinities and the eternities are but so much filagree ! lift up these gates, and the King imuiort il, eternal, invisible, not ourselves, and

who loves truth, beauty.and righteou:ness will come iu."