**

or metaphysical speculation. He is no more like the Taaroa of Polynesia, or the guardian deity of the Finns, than He resembles the Final Cause of theologico-scientific thinking or the Absolute Infinite of metaphysics. The argument from design is as good as the arguments from eternal truths and necessary existences to an eternal necessary existing Mind, but none of them demonstrate God. It is very doubtful, as was before shown, whether design, as commonly understood, is the proper expression for the world-plan, and many would object to the metaphysics that rests upon intelligible natures, species, or ideas, which are the subjects of immutable science. Such processes bring us no nearer the object of our search. There are few, I am persuaded, who can really feel much force in another argument which is sometimes used in this connection, and expressed in something like the following form: "That which transcends our capacity to comprehend must therefore be above our ability to invent." If this were accepted as an argument, it would prove too much, and might bring in with it a whole brood of metaphysics— imaginative beings, many of whom are evident inventions, although for a long while they resisted any explanation.

There has been a singular fatality even in the case of Christian men in their search after God in nature and in abstract thought. If at any time they can hear God's voice there or discern His shape, let them cherish the vision and the sound for ever; but let them see to it that is the voice and form of God and not the echo and phantasm of man. The highest manifestation which we have of God's nature is that of love, the sum of all moral and spiritual perfections. This love, as it includes the desire for the best interests of the objects of its love, has holiness as its primary element. If the manifestation be thus essentially spiritual, it can only address itself to what is spiritual in us. We may see in Christ what was the method of His intercourse with the Father. It was through that which He came to give to us-a pure and holy will.

The first

* These deities are very like each other in nature as well as origin. Taaroa, the uncreate Creator, is no unique personage in barbarous tribes, and Christians may profitably compare the Finnish notion of creation and Creator, with some of our notions on the same subject, drawn from external observation of the world, and supplemented by speculation and otherwise. We have, of course, generalised our notion more than these rude peoples could do theirs, and instead of having a guardian deity or genius for every object or every species, we have a kind of guardian for the whole round of nature: like their deities, independent of it, yet in it, not affected by its decay, yet affecting and controlling it in every part.

step to personal knowledge of God manifested to us is the partaking of the life which we have in the Son. All other knowledge, although it may boast itself a knowledge of God, is but a subjective knowledge intellectually created by us. As we see in Christ on many occasions how clear a head comes from a large, well-loving, acting heart, how far above all knowing of a thing is living it, so we may be certain it is only in like manner that the same intimate and certain knowledge of the Father can be attained by us. If the heart be at the mercy of some sinful pleasure, it will be dark to all these higher things; but if it be at the beck of what is pure and holy and Christ-like, we may have the image of the heavenly reflected there continually, and with greater clearness the more we are not hearers of the word only but doers of it. This world lies as open to what is spiritual in us as the world with which we are so familiar lies open to its appropriate faculties. As many are blind to all but a fraction of the latter, so are many equally blind to much of the former, which is only to be gained by the inner workings of a spiritual life. The highest and deepest religious experience produced either by revealed truth or otherwise comes not so much from mere mental effort as through a spiritual life, which has shown its attachment to Christ by keeping His commandments, and in which the Spirit of truth as a consequence dwells. Without a life of purity in the Spirit, without being free in some measure from pollution, without having our supreme delight in God, and in this way having our affections purified through the perfect purity of their object, and all the spiritual impulses of the new life excited, holy desires and appetences awakened in us, we never can possess any true knowledge of God as He is revealed in His word. One may know all that metaphysics can teach about a God, or that intellect working on nature, or through the contents of the Bible even, can extract from these sources, and still be very far from the real vision of one's spiritual life. One may travel through the ages of the past in search of proof of God's providential dealing with the race, or scan futurity for probable hopes of His action in the coming times, or listen to the untraversed sea of thought that metaphysicians tell us is ever sounding round the utmost verge of knowledge, and yet miss the real knowledge of God, if the heart be impure. Speculatively one may imagine one knows God, as one may speculate without data in other things; but one can never know Him until one has become in some degree assimilated to this object of knowledge, and so come to it with a sympathetic life.

The method that places a life elevated and sanctified through Christ's love as the only means of knowing God is no vain rhapsody of religious superstition, nor is it prompted by any wish to elevate what is mystically called the inner light, at the expense of reason, but is based upon fact and the representations of Scripture, as well as upon the experiences of Christ and His followers, both ancient and modern. Nor in thus representing the spiritual contents of Scripture, as spiritually discerned, are we moved by any desire to narrow culture, rather are we influenced by a desire to widen it. We do not see any reason why culture should be confined chiefly or exclusively to what is intellectual in man, and the relations perceived thereby, nor why this or any other individual element of our nature should appropriate the name. There must surely be some training and discipline of our spiritual nature, the well-spring of our best actions. No one can wish that intellectual improvement should eclipse what we may call spiritual education. Culture, as it is generally, and with too much limitation understood, is a great boon to man, a sweet solace, often a refining power; but we need not therefore think the limited conception of it to be the end of beings who are spiritual as well as mental. A more intimate knowledge of the external world, scientifically and aesthetically, is the result of the culture generally included in that name; the vision of the spiritual-the godlike-God Himself, is the fruit of the one we speak of. This last kind of culture is the gateway to a knowledge of the highest life we have any conception of, by allying our own spiritual life with all that is distinctive of it, that is, by having an element instilled into the vital forces of our spirits that will gradually purge our hearts from all impurity, and make them the home of holiness, and the abode of God; "if a man love Me . . We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him."

One test of the truth of this method lies in the fact that those who are conscious of this knowledge are likewise conscious that it is always dependent on the state of their spiritual life, and feel with Paul that the fulness of it is only possible in the future. While the battle wages between sin and holiness, while stains of sin soil our pure affections, the vision must be proportionately dim, the reflection must be in that degree marred. The glass through which we look now may ever and anon be darkly clouded by the unsightly breath of impure desires and sinful emotions. But even now, if we, by the constant habit of our life, cherish God's presence in our soul, and control the movements of our inner life, we shall see clearer and clearer, and

at last behold the unspeakable glory face to face. And this, as it is the supreme joy of a spiritual life, and its sum of knowing, is also the consummation of its perfection. The clouds that hide the vision now are not the conditions of consciousness, nor the limitations of logical thought, but the clouds of impurity. The only barriers that hinder our progress to our destined goal of union with God, and knowledge of Him in that union, are not the barriers of inherent incomprehensibility, but the barriers of a sinful and rebellious will, which like mountains stand between us and our highest good. This method of knowledge through internal similitude of life may be thought by some to be open to the objection usually urged against spiritual knowledge through feeling, viz., that it renders religion subjective in character, uncertain in its doctrine, and individual in its constitution; since, it is argued, feeling is only individual, and conveys no information beyond itself and its mode of affection. But, this method of knowledge is different from knowledge by feeling, and which is usually described as intuitional consciousness. It is not a knowledge through any one sense, but through the concurrent action of the spiritual life, and is no more individual than that life itself is; and this by its nature is of the widest generality, being God's life in Christ. This method does not, as we saw, admit of the least uncertainty in its doctrines, it provides a sure test whereby we may know that we know God, viz., by the fact that we keep His commandments; its objectivity is unquestionable, inasmuch as both the life and the knowledge have their source external to ourselves.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE BIBLE AND THEOLOGY.

“Divine truth is better understood as it unfolds itself in the purity of men's hearts and lives than in all those subtle niceties in which curious wits may lay it forth."

IT has not been possible to tabulate the organon of spiritual truth as one can an ordinary scientific organon. There has been brought into one view, however, the various expressions of it given by the different writers in the Old and New Testaments, to whom a spiritual experience was familiar; and these have been found to agree in their method of Divine knowledge, as both a new and living way; new with respect to other methods, which have been tried, and living with respect to itself. The apostolic writers are more frequent in their statements regarding this Divine philosophy than regarding many other matters. They tell us that without holiness no man shall see God, that love alone can apprehend Him whom we call infinite love. Their exhortations are in harmony with the statement that the new man is renewed in knowledge: "be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." That which was the method of those whose experiences compose the Bible, and of Him who is the sum of its teaching, must in principle be our method. Any radical alteration cannot be attended with fruitful results. The history of thought is a luminous illustration of the futility of erroneous methods. For investigation of any kind the wise teacher would say, First, method; and second, method; and again, method. There will never be any permanent advancement in Divine knowledge until its method be clearly seen, and fully acted upon. It need hardly be said that this is the first step towards any satisfactory agreement among Christian thinkers. They may, as they have hitherto done, split upon subordinate questions in theology without any chance of union, so long as no true point of departure is fixed, from which every question alike must be taken up. That this point has not yet been decided upon with any unanimity is perfectly plain to all who will take the trouble to look at the present and past state of religious thought. It is always said that differ