But it is none
the less an error, and a grievous one. God's power and wisdom are
glorious only in as far as they are used (as they are utterly) for good
ends; only, in plain words, as far as God is (as He is perfectly) good.
And the true glory of God is that God is good. So says the Scripture;
and so I bid you all remember, for it is a truth which you and I and all
mankind are perpetually ready to forget.
Let me but ask you one question as a test whether or not I am right. If
the Supreme Being used His power, as the Roman Caesar used his; if He
used His wisdom as the Greek sophist used his, would He be glorious then
and worthy of admiration? The old heathen AEschylus answered that
question for mankind long ago on the Athenian stage. I should be ashamed
to answer it again in a Christian pulpit. And when I say GOOD, I mean
good, even as man can be, and ought to be, and is, more or less, good.
The theory that because God's morality is absolute, it may, therefore, be
different from man's morality, in KIND as well as in DEGREE, is equally
contrary to the letter and to the spirit of Scripture.
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