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The Truth About God And The Bible
By Robert Roberts

Chapter 13: "That They Should Seek The Lord" (Acts 17:27)

It is proved by the facts accessible to all men that God exists, and that the Bible is His revelation to us of the fact; that He has a glorious purpose with the earth and with man upon it, involving immortal life and perfect well-being to all who may become beneficially related to it in the way revealed by Christ. Is there no antecedent presumption in favour of such a conclusion in our own constitution and in the spectacle of heaven and earth around us? Is it reasonable to suppose that the stupendous system of the universe exists for no higher end than the feeble gratification of an ephemeral and decaying race of animals? Is it reasonable to suppose that the aspirations of the noblest of mankind are without a counterpart in the region of the possible? Is it reasonable to suppose that the earnest uplifting of the human heart in agonising desire towards a Higher than man are without a meaning in the universe of being? The vibrations of the needle pointed to the Pole long before the existence of such a point on the earth's surface was known. So, in true philosophy, do our fervent longings point to the Almighty Father and Disposer of all things, even if He had not chosen to reveal Himself.

The higher minds of the world are on the side of this argument. MR. GLADSTONE has told us that the unbelief growing so common is calculated, if generally received, to disintegrate society in the next generation [Robert Roberts died in 1898] though its present advocates, through the bias of inherited principles, might continue subject to moral restraint. PROFESSOR TYNDALL, in the preface to his published addresses, says that mankind requires the lifting power of a noble ideal. Even JOHN STUART MILL, born and bred a sceptic, in his last days assumed an attitude indicative of some thing higher than his atheistic proclivities. The Daily News says:

"Mr. Mill was so far true to his early training that he tried hard to show how small was the intellectual warrant for the misty aspirations; but the 'Time-Spirit' led him again and again to the brink of the abyss after logic had made its final declaration; and his last book reveals him in the attitude of one looking across the ocean of eternity with wistful eyes and something of a fond expectancy. Thus he presents one of the most pathetic figures in all the literature of negation. His aspiration for something to believe in beyond this petty life will speak to doubting intellects with intense force. He and such as he testify not that this age is sceptical, but that even sceptical minds hunger for a religion in which they can believe. The last century tried to feed the mind on the husks of dry and negative logic, but again has come that yearning for something higher which has often before been the harvest of new faiths. When essentially scientific intellects like Mill and Tyndall link reverential hopes to strict deduction of the reason, the most careless observer may detect an immense transformation of opinion, and the most timid heart may take comfort."

All these utterances point in the direction of a need which the Bible supplies. The Bible gives us the purifying and reforming restraint which Mr. Gladstone sees human society needs. It gives us the uplifting ideal which Professor Tyndall declares to be necessary. It gives us an ideal glorified man -- the manifestation of the Eternal invisible Father of all -- a man who once lived in our weak and afflicted state, whose work has already filled the world with light compared with the darkness that reigned before his appearance; a man who now exists in an incorruptible, immortal, omnipotent nature; whose re-appearance in the world will take place at an appointed time for the assumption of human government, and the blessing of all mankind, on the foundation of glory to God, with whose appearance there is associated this glorious prospect of every friend of his, that he will use the power God has given him to recall them from the oblivion of the grave, or transform them from their physical weakness to an immortal state identical with His own, and associate them with Himself, with every circumstance of honour and renown, in the perfect order of things He will establish and administer among men in that blessed day of promise, when there shall be no more curse, and no more pain and sorrow, and sighing shall flee away.

THE END

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