constitutes man a moral being, and separates him by infinite distance from the lower animals.  To the beasts that perish there is nothing right or wrong.  They live altogether according to nature, and have no responsibility.  Man stands in a different relation to the Lawgiver who bestowed on him the faculty of conscience and impressed on his soul a conviction that he will have to give account for all his actions.  The Being to whom he must give account is God.

(b) (Order) Another ground of this belief is the order manifest in the universe.  There is a symmetry that pervades all material things of which we have knowledge.  Part is adapted to part; objects are accurately adjusted to each other; “wheels within wheels” move smoothly; every portion fits into and works in harmony with every other portion without discord or jarring.  It is unthinkable that these effects should be due to chance or to a cause that is without intelligence.  The perfect arrangement of parts that work together must have been planned by a living Being of infinite wisdom, knowledge, and power.  This Being, whose creatures they are, must exist.  Behind the pervading order there must be personality, purpose, and action.  The fool may say in his heart, “There is no God,” but, as nature bears testimony to the existence of an omniscient and omnipotent Creator, reason calls for another conclusion.

(c) (Scripture) There is a limit to the knowledge of God which the consciousness of man and the order and design in the universe impart.  These serve to establish the truth that God is, but they do not convey the intimation that He is a moral Governor and the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.  They declare little of His character, and are silent as to many of the duties which He requires.  To make God known, the teaching of conscience and of reason must be supplemented by revelation.  It is in the Bible that the believer finds the strongest proofs of the existence of the Divine Being, and from the Bible he obtains also the most comprehensive and satisfying view of the Deity and of man’s relation to Him.  He there finds that what he has to believe concerning God is, that He is Jehovah—­the Being infinitely and eternally perfect, self-existent, and self-sufficient; the only living and true God, there being none beside Him.  The heathen believed in and worshipped many gods.  The untutored savage peopled the groves with them, and the pagan philosopher built innumerable temples in their honour.  The Pantheons of Greece and Rome were crowded with the statues of favourite deities.  The doctrine of one living and true God was prominent in the revelation given to Israel.  God’s message by Moses had its foundation—­truth in the proclamation:  “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord."[018] His glory and His work are shared by no other being.  He is the absolute Sovereign and Lord of all creatures.  In the Bible, too, man learns that God is his own personal God who cares for him, and to whom he owes love, allegiance, and obedience.  All who refuse to believe in the existence of God reject the testimony of Scripture regarding Him, but to such as acknowledge its claim to be the Word of God, the evidence it supplies is convincing and all-sufficient.