When he is vouchsafed a glimpse of the high counsels of God, he exclaims, as one dazzled—­“Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!  For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counsellor?”—­While of himself he speaks in a very different tone—­“Even though he have been,” as he says, “caught up into the third heaven, and heard words unspeakable, which it is not lawful for a man to utter,” yet “he knows,” he says, “in part; he prophesies in part; but when that which is perfect comes, that which is partial shall be done away.”  He is as the child to the full-grown man, into which he hopes to develop in the future life.  He “sees as in a glass darkly, but then face to face.”  He “knows now in part.”  Then—­but not till then—­will he “know even as he is known.”  Nay, more.  In the ninth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, he does not hesitate to push to the utmost that plea of God’s absolute sovereignty which we found in the book of Job.

“He has mercy on whom He will have mercy; and whom He will He hardeneth.”  And if any say, “Why doth He then find fault?  For who hath resisted His will?” “Who art thou that repliest against God?  Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?  Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour?”

What those words may mean, or may not mean, I do not intend to argue now.  I only quote them to shew you that St Paul, just as much as any Old Testament thinker, believed that there were often mysteries, ay, tragedies, in the lives, not only of individuals, nor of families, but of whole races, to which we shortsighted mortals could assign no rational or moral final cause, but must simply do that which Spinoza forbade us to do, namely—­“In every unknown case, flee unto God;” and say—­“It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good;”—­certain of this, which the Cross and Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ shewed forth as nothing else in heaven or earth could shew—­that the will of God toward man is an utterly good will; and that therefore what seemeth good to Him, will be good in act and fact.

It is this faith, and I believe this faith alone, which can enable truly feeling spirits to keep anything like equanimity, if they dwell long and earnestly on the miseries of mankind; on sorrow, pain, bereavement; on the fate of many a widow and orphan; on sudden, premature, and often agonizing death—­but why pain you with a catalogue of ills, which all, save—­thank God—­the youngest, know too well?

And it is that want of faith in the will and character of a living God, which makes, and will always make, infidelity a sad state of mind—­a theory of man and the universe, which contains no gospel or good news for man.