have been once imparted to matter and it then left to act of itself, any more than the child of God is left to struggle along with the supply of divine grace which was imparted to him at his conversion.  The Christian feels his constant dependence upon his Creator for overcoming power day by day, and he sees the whole universe just as momently dependent upon the tireless watchcare of the great Sustainer of all.  The Christian alone delights to look upon the ceaseless service of his Father’s love, perpetually ministering to the needs and even to the whims of His creatures.  But if this tireless ministry reminds man of his own spiritual nakedness and insular selfishness, it serves also to remind him that it is only the free gift of a righteousness not his own that can clothe the ashamed soul cowering beneath the eye of infinite Purity and unselfish Love.

In our natural state we are like the dead, inorganic matter.  Only by a new life that must be imparted to us from above, a real, individual, new creation, can we become alive spiritually.  And then only by constant dependence for spiritual life and growth upon the word of the One who first created us can we hope to develop into His true sons and daughters, whose continuous care is momently exercised in controlling every particle of our bodily frame, and by whose continuous guidance in the development of character we hope to become worthy of a place in His presence forevermore.

V

Our Lord Jesus once said to the leaders of the Jews, “If ye believed Moses, ye would believe me; for he wrote of me.  But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?” (John 5:  46-47).  In our days is certainly consistent and appropriate that those who have had their faith revived in the first chapters of the Bible should also have renewed confidence in the last part of the Bible.  A belief in a real Creation of the world, as recorded in the book of Genesis, naturally implies a belief in the end of the world as predicted in the book of Revelation.  A belief in the former destruction of the world by water is in accord with a belief in its coming destruction by fire, each of these destructions being not absolute but regenerative.

This is in fact the line of argument used in that remarkable prophecy of 2 Peter 3:  3-7: 

“In the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming?  For, from the days that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.  For this they wilfully forget, that there were heavens of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God; by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished; but the heavens that are now, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.”