And they are wise, doubtless, in their generation.  The news that Christ is the King of men and of the world must be unpleasant, even offensive, to too many, both of those who fancy that they are managing this world, and of those who fancy that they could manage the world still better, if they only had their rights.  It must be unpleasant to be told that they are not managing the world, and cannot manage it:  that it is being managed and ruled by an unseen King, whose ways are far above their ways, and His thoughts above their thoughts.

For then:  Prudence might demand of them, that they should find out what are that King’s ways, thoughts and laws, and obey them—­an enquiry so troublesome, that many very highly educated persons consider it, now-a-days, quite impossible; and tell us that, for practical purposes, God’s laws can neither be discovered, nor obeyed.

Moreover, their scheme of this world is one which would work—­so they fancy—­just as well if there was no God.  Unpleasant therefore it must be for them to hear, not merely that there is a God, but that He has His own scheme of the world; and that it is working, whether they like or not; that God, and not they, is making history; God, and not they, appointing the bounds and the times of nations; God, and not they, or any man or men, distributing good and evil among mankind.

They do not object, of course, to the existence of a God.  They only object to His being what the Hebrew prophets called Him—­a living God; a God who executes justice and judgment by His Son Jesus Christ, to whom He has committed all power both in heaven and earth.  They are ready sometimes to allow even that, provided they may relegate it into the past, or into the future.  They are ready to allow that God and Christ exerted power over men at the first Advent 1800 years ago, and that they will exert power over men at the second Advent—­none knows how long hence.  But that God and Christ are exerting power now—­in an ever-present and perpetual Advent—­in this nineteenth century just as much as in any century before or since—­that they had rather not believe.  Their creed is, that though heaven and earth have not passed away; though the laws of nature are working for ever as at the beginning:  yet Christ’s words have passed away, and fallen into abeyance for many centuries past, to remain in abeyance for many centuries to come.

In one word—­while they believe more or less in a past God, and a future God, yet as to the existence of a present God, in any practical and real sense—­they believe—­how little, I dare not say.