82

The signs interpreted by

are not identical with the external phenomena through which we are made acquainted with them. They are, as is obvious in the case of the Resurrection, an interpretation of the phenomena. The outward facts become facts in this higher sense, truths without ceasing to be facts.

ii. How then can we be assured that these facts are facts not only in their historical but also in their spiritual aspect? The law of testimony will carry us to a conclusion as to the outward phenomenon. How can we be sure of its divine import? I do not hesitate to reply that we are by nature made capable of judging on this point also.

Nor is the assumption of the existence of such a power of recognition, of apprehension, of interpretation of the divine, at variance with what we have noticed hitherto. So far from this being so, the assumption corresponds with what we have actually seen in the case of induction and testimony, which serve as the foundations of physical and historical certainty. It is in no way more surprising that I should say when a moral principle is presented to me, I acknowledge this as of absolute obligation, or when a unique occurrence is related to me, I acknowledge this as a

spiritual judgment.

83

divine message, than that I should say such an event has happened so many times, and therefore it will happen again, or so and so told me and therefore I believe him. The conclusion in each case seems to answer to our ultimate constitution. And though the term Faith is properly applied to the power by which we gain data as to the unseen and eternal order, there is something directly corresponding to Faith in the power by which we accept general conclusions as to what we call 'laws' of Nature and special conviction as to events of history which are equally removed from the test of sense (comp. p. 28).

The proof of Revelation is then primarily personal. It springs from a realised fellowship with the unseen which we are enabled to gain. The two complementary statements credo ut intelligam (fides præcedit intellectum) and intelligo ut credam are both true at different points in the divine life. The one applies to the groundwork; the other to the superstructure: the one describes the apprehension of the fundamental facts; the other describes the expression of doctrines. Faith obtains the new data for reasoning, but when the data are firmly held, then the old methods become applicable. Historical facts convey new lessons when regarded in the light of the revealed

84

The personal proof

relation of GOD to the world; and, within certain limits, we can express conclusions in human language which present the truth adequately for us. The data do not modify these methods, but increase the materials to which they are applicable.

Revelation, in a word, which gives us the characteristic data of Theology in a history, inasmuch as it comes from without us, and our being is one, presupposes and rests upon the deductive laws which express the limitation of our thoughts, and the inductive laws which express our apprehension of the phenomena of life and nature, and the laws of historical criticism by which we investigate the records of the past, though it has also its own peculiar method of proof. Nor is the additional process, if we may so call it, by which we gain assurance in this region of knowledge through faith more different from the inductive process by which we gain moral certainty in regard to the outward world of sense, or the process of historical criticism by which we gain moral certainty as to fresh events, than the latter processes themselves are different from the deductive process which establishes demonstratively the consequences of the constitution of our own minds. The four or (three) processes correspond to four (or three) different orders of

receives wider confirmation.

85

existences; and that which extends farthest includes the results of those which deal with more limited ranges of thought.

And though the proof of revelation is finally personal, the correspondence of the character of the revelation with the general instincts and tendencies of humanity, with what the experience of life on a large scale teaches us as to the constitution of the individual and of the race, gives a certain universality to the proof. At the same time the 'signs' of revelation do not stand as isolated events in the history of the world. They also are above all things interpretative events. They illustrate what was before dark, and combine what was before scattered. They let in light to our order in such a way as to convey the conviction that there is an order of perfect light which is not inaccessible by us.

These considerations meet the difficulty which comes from the variety of the interpretations of the subject-matter of revelation. The conviction which is primarily personal is brought to a social trial. We cannot reduce the propositions in which it is expressed to elements of which the opposite is unthinkable. We cannot bring them to a definite experiment. We must try them finally

86

Each higher Science

by the test of life. And that may be justly accepted as the highest truth for man, which is shewn to be capable of calling out, disciplining, sustaining, animating with the noblest activity all the powers of man in regard to self, the world and GOD, under the greatest variety of circumstances. If anything human lies without the scope of a revelation to man, that revelation cannot be final.

iii. We have seen that while the characteristic element in the facts which form the basis of Theology does not fall within the range of historical investigation, the same law holds good in the case of Theology which we have observed before. The higher science includes all that precede, as being at once subordinate and preparatory to it. The science for example which deals with the action of bodies one upon another assumed to be unchanged in themselves, is included in that which deals with the action of body upon body when both are supposed to be undergoing change. The science of life, to rise upwards, which takes account of phenomena peculiar to itself, treats of them in accordance with all the laws observed in inorganic bodies. When again we pass to that more complex form of human existence which for the want of a proper word we call the life of nations, and at last the life