Or, more beautiful and more sacred than all,—‘He that spared not His own Son ... how shall He not with Him freely give us all things?’ The form of reasoning that St. Paul did not disdain to use need hardly be a reproach to Colenso. God Himself _does_ give us minds and does bid us use them,—_He_ is not afraid of His truth standing in the sunlight, though some of His people are. Robertson draws out very beautifully how the Christ never sought blind credence,—superstitious belief even in His words because they were _His_. He never said ‘I say so,—there’s an end,’ (as so many of His followers like to put in His mouth). ‘If I say _the Truth_, why do ye not believe me?’—again, more exquisite still in its loving humility,—‘Though ye believe not me, believe the works’,—‘Search the Scriptures’ etc. etc.,—always praying them to test Him by His works, by the voice of their own conscience, by the testimony of their sacred books,—continually protesting against the idea of His own assumption of sovereign power, ‘I know nothing of Myself.’ But here I’m getting on another subject, and I’ll stop. But I always get greatly interested in a discussion about the Bible,— people seem to me often so hopelessly superstitious and illogical about it, and so to miss its truest, most blessed meaning. It always seems to me that the question divides itself into two perfectly distinct parts,—regarding, so to speak, the spiritual and temporal part of the Bible. The first is entirely without the province of the intellect or the reason,—‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, ... but God hath revealed them unto us by His spirit.’ As Colani says (I think, indeed, it was him I quoted before) it is not a question of logic or of evidence whether we believe ‘the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God Thou wilt not despise!’,—the _certainty_ of its truth is self-evident to us; we are absolutely sure the moment we hear the words that the All-Good rejoices in repentance and not in blood. It is the word of God from without speaking to the Spirit of God within us ‘whose temples we are.’ In Coleridge’s forcible words, ‘it _finds_ us’,—it pierces through ear and brain irresistibly to the spirit of every man. Yes, _every_ man; there is not one in the world however debased who _could_ doubt whether God preferred a broken heart or a costly gift. He may not think about it, he may let the words pass by him, but, receiving them at all into his mind, he _cannot_ doubt.... Feel,—suffer, and words like those bring their own proof; let them once _enter_ and you need not ask whether their truth is received or not. ‘Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.’ We _know_ it is so; no one in the world could really doubt for one second whether holiness or impurity brings the man to God,—to _see_ Him....