The somewhat peculiar form of the clause seems certainly to suggest that the Apostle ascribes the origin of the universe, not only to a personal Creator, but to that personal Creator acting through the ideas of His own mind. “The visible came into being, not out of things that appear.” We catch ourselves waiting till he finishes the sentence with the words, “but out of things that do not appear.” Most expositors fight shy of the inference and explain it away by alleging that the negative has been misplaced.[257] But is it not true that the universe is the manifestation of thought in the unity of the Divine purpose? This is the very notion required to complete the Apostle’s statement concerning faith as a proof. If faith demonstrates, it acts on principles. If God is personal, those principles are ideas, thoughts, purposes, of the Divine mind. So long, therefore, as our spiritual nature can trust, can unfold a morality, can pray, the simple soul need not much bewail its want of logic and its loss of arguments. If the famous ontological argument for the being of God has been refuted, we shall not, on that account, tremble for the ark. We shall not lament though the argument from the watch has proved treacherous. Our God is not a mere infinite mechanician. Indeed, such a phrase is a contradiction in terms. A mechanician must be finite. He contrives, and as the result produces, not what is absolutely best, but what is the best possible under the circumstances and with the materials at his disposal. But if we have lost the mechanician, we have not lost the God that thinks. We have gained the perfectly righteous and perfectly good. His thoughts have manifested themselves in nature, in human freedom, in the incarnation of His Son, in the redemption of sinners. But the intellect that knows these things is the good heart of faith. FOOTNOTES: [246] Chap. iii. 12. [247] Chaps. iii. 19; iv. 11. [248] Chap. vi. 12. [249] Chap. x. 19. [250] 2 Cor. iii. 17; 1 Cor. ii. 16. [251] James ii. 17, 18. [252] παρρησία. [253] πληροφορία. [254] ὑπόστασις. [255] ἔλεγχος. [256] Gen. i. 1, 3. [257] As if μὴ ἐκ φαινομένων were for ἐκ μὴ φαινομένων. CHAPTER XI. _THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM._