conscience, is independent of our sense of having kept it, and stands absolute and what in itself it is; even, therefore, though I may know nothing against myself, yet this is not enough, I may still not be just.[39] Finally, Paul knew that merely to know all this and say it, is of no use, advances us nothing; 'the kingdom of God is not in word but in power.'[40] [Footnote 36: _Ps._ xl, 12.] [Footnote 37: _James_, ii, 10.] [Footnote 38: _Rom._, ii, 29.] [Footnote 39: I _Cor._, iv, 4.] [Footnote 40: _Ibid._, 20.] We have several times said that the Hebrew race apprehended God,--the universal order by which all things fulfil the law of their being,--chiefly as the moral order in human nature, and that it was their greatness that they apprehended him as this so distinctly and powerfully. But it is also characteristic of them, and perhaps it is what mainly distinguishes their spirit from the spirit of mediæval Christianity, that they constantly thought, too, of God as the source of life and breath and all things, and of what they called 'fulness of life' in all things. This way of thinking was common to them with the Greeks; although, whereas the Greeks threw more delicacy and imagination into it, the Hebrews threw more energy and vital warmth. But to the Hebrew, as to the Greek, the gift of life, and health, and the world, was divine, as well as the gift of morals. 'God's righteousness,' indeed, 'standeth like the strong mountains, his judgments are like the great deep; he is a righteous judge, strong and patient, who is provoked every day.'[41] This is the Hebrew's first and deepest conception of God,--as the source of the moral order. But God is also, to the Hebrew, 'our rock, which is higher than we,' the power by which we have been 'upholden ever since we were born,' that has 'fashioned us and laid his hand upon us' and envelops us on every side, that has 'made us fearfully and wonderfully,' and whose 'mercy is over all his works.'[42] He is the power that 'saves both man and beast, gives them drink of his pleasures as out of the river,' and with whom is 'the well of life.'[43] In his speech at Athens, Paul shows how full he, too, was of this feeling; and in the famous passage in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, where he asserts the existence of the natural moral law, the source he assigns to this law is not merely God in conscience, the righteous judge, but God in the world and the workings of the world, the eternal and divine power from which all life and wholesome energy proceed.[44] [Footnote 41: _Ps._ xxxvi, 6; vii, 11.] [Footnote 42: _Ps._ lxi, 2; lxii, 6; cxxxix, 5, 14; cxlv, 9.] [Footnote 43: _Ps._ xxxvi, 6, 8, 9.] [Footnote 44: _Rom._, i, 19-21.]