Page:God Manifest.djvu/188

178 from God Himaself, His written Word, we should be in darkness concerning all spiritual things. We could neither find the way to heaven, nor indeed should we know of any heaven to be sought. We should neither address a prayer to the God above, nor should we, in fact, know of the existence of any God to be addressed. Without Revelation, we should neither know the way to save our souls, nor indeed that we had immortal souls to be saved. Let those, therefore,—in this reasoning age, so inclined as it is to be faithless and self-dependent—who, though professing a belief in religious things, in God and heaven, are yet beginning to think slightingly of written Revelation, and are disposed to reject or overlook that express Word, and trust to an inner light, which they fancy and call a "direct revelation" from God bestowed upon all men—let such beware: they are treading on dangerous ground: they are leaving the bright fixed light, which, let down by God Himself, shines full and clear on the pathway of life, and are following an ignis fatuus which will assuredly lead them astray.

And now we are brought to our third and last point, the consideration of the Goodness of God, as affirmed in the pages of Divine Revelation. And is it in the power of language, to speak with more directness and positiveness, or in terms stronger, or with illustrations more apposite and touching, than are presented in the Holy Scriptures, in reference to the goodness and love of our Heavenly Father? Hear this! listen to God Himself describing His own love and tenderness toward men His creatures! "But Zion said, the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a