God bears Himself out of Himself into Himself; the more perfect the birth, the more is born. I say, God is at all times one. He takes cognition of nothing beyond Himself. Yet God in taking cognition of Himself must take cognition of all creatures.

MEISTER ECKEHART, Pfeiffer, Deutsche Mystiker, II. 254.

Deus est in Rebus, sicut continens res.

S. THOM. AQ., Summa Theol., I. 1a. 1. 8.

In tutte parti impera, e quivi regge,

Quivi è la sua città, e l'alto seggio.

DANTE, Inferno, I. 127.

Raise thyself to the height of religion, and all veils are removed; the world and its dead principle pass away from thee, the very Godhead enters thee anew in its first and original form, as Life, as thine own life which thou shalt and oughtest to live.

FICHTE, Anweisung.

The conception of sin, it is sometimes said, is at the root of Christianity. That is a false statement of a truth. For sin only becomes sin, and is only known to us as sin, in the light of that which is the heart and centre of Christianity, the belief in a Personal God, Who is a God of Infinite Love. All other truths of Christianity grow out of and gather around that central truth-the doctrine of the Trinity, which safeguards the eternal truth that God is Love.

AUBREY L. MOORE, From Advent to Advent.

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Was wär' ein Gott, der nur von aussen stiesse,

Im Kreis das All am Finger laufen liesse !
Im ziemt's, die Welt im Innern zu bewegen,
Natur in Sich, Sich in Natur zu hegen,
So dass, was in Ihm lebt und webt und ist,
Nie Seine Kraft, nie Seinen Geist vermisst.

GOETHE.

For so the light of the world in the morning of the Creation was spread abroad like a curtain, and dwelt no where, but filled the expansum with a dissemination great as the unfoldings of the air's looser garment, or the wilder fringes of the fire, without knots, or order, or combination; but God gathered the beams in His hand, and united them into a globe of fire, and all the light of the world became the body of the sun, and he lent some to his weaker sister that walks in the night, and guides a traveler and teaches him to distinguish a house from a river, or a rock from plain field; so is the mercy of God; a vast expansum and a huge Ocean, from eternall ages it dwelt round about the throne of God, and it filled all that infinite distance and space, that hath no measures but the will of God. And the mercy which dwelt in an infinite circle, became confirm'd to a little ring and dwelt here below, and here shall dwell below, till it hath carried all God's portion up to Heaven, where it shall reigne and glory upon our crowned heads for ever and ever. Bp. JEREMY TAYLOR, Sermon, The Miracles

of the Divine Mercy. Works, II. 314.

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SYNOPSIS.

INTRODUCTION:

I.1. The Idea of God is innate in its form, but not in

content.

2. Its Content determines the character of Theology and

of Religion.

3. Evolution in folk-faith of the content of the Idea

of God.

COMPARATIVE RELIGION :

a. In the Animistic stage.

b. In the Fetishistic and Shamanistic.

c. The Polytheistic.

d. Monotheism, not a result of evolution; in its bare form, not a fixed concept,

in Islam, Brahminism,

Buddhism, Judaism, Modern Deism, . . nor is

e. Pantheism, a fixed concept of God in ancient and in modern times.

BIBLICAL THEOLOGY:

II. The Revelation of the true content of the Idea of God is

in and by Jesus Christ.

a. Neither Jesus nor His religion a result of evolution.

b. Jesus, Himself, the Revelation of the Unseen God.

c. God thus revealed as essential Love.

d. The identity of Love, Sacrifice, and Life in God.

e. This obscured by survivals of folk-faith,

f. Which have given rise to Sectarianism,

g. And itself has arisen through various degrees of

receptiveness;

h. Yet receptiveness is the condition of the endless progress of man, and is conditioned by personal righteousness.

i. This implies that humanity is a medium of revelation

of the Unseen God,

j. Who is immanent, explicitly,

k. According to the New Testament Theology

of St. John,

of St. Paul,

7. And implicitly, according to Old Testament Theology.

TRADITIONAL THEOLOGY:

III. — Survivals of Folk-faith in development of the revealed

Idea of God.

a. The tardy reception of the Idea of the Trinity,

b. Which nevertheless is rationally true,

c. As is also the traditional Theology of the personality

of the Holy Spirit.

d. The rational Theology of God as Immanent is not

wholly without traditional testimony;

e. But survivals from Folk-faith have hindered the

general acceptance of this truth.

IV. The practical import of the true Idea of God as the

Immanent Triune.

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