Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

406 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH ANDafter- world, while already in this life as a rule inthe end the upright goes not without recognitionand thanks, nor the transgressor without universalhate and detestation. As to the general fact thatthere is evil in the world, it seemed to him so inevitablethat it was not requisite expressly to defendthe Godhead on that score. All these statementscarry us back at last to one and the samepoint. It is the Idea of the Good by applyingwhich Plato produces so exalted a doctrine ofGod. In the like spirit he will consider only themoral intention in acts of worship. He alone canplease the Godhead who is like it, and he alone islike it who is pious, wise, and just. The gods cannotreceive the gifts of the wicked ; the virtuousalone have a right to invoke them. God is goodness;' and he who bears not the linage *-of thatoodness in himself stands in 110 communion withhim.The doctrine here set forth is the highest everreached by purely heathen Greek speculation; butwe must remember that it is not thus collectedinto a head by Plato himself, still less is it putinto such a relation to his physical, his logical, andhis moral system as such a doctrine ought to bear.A man who had reached so lofty a conviction ofthe divine unity and moral perfection as this must,if he would make it effectual, give to it in his systemthe place which it really holds in the world.If there be indeed a Maker and Father of the