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CHAPTER IV.

SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION.

THE first step in Religion is the Awakening of the attention to the things of God. But this attention, by whatever circumstances roused, cannot be sustained but in proportion as we go on to the Understanding of those things. Feeling is a legitimate and essential means of determining the thoughts towards God, but genuine Feeling can maintain its life and energy only as it is nourished by increasing thoughts. The Illumination of the mind must both deepen and direct the Awakening of the Heart.

ILLUMINATION, therefore, is the next step in the Process of Developement of the Spiritual Life, which claims our attention. And this is so essential a preparative and part of Piety that St. Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews uses the term to express the whole work of Conversion were illuminated ye endured a great fight of afflictions;" and the Scriptures generally, express both the substance of Christianity, of it, by the term "light."

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St. Peter, "the praises of him who hath called out of darkness into his marvellous light." were sometimes," says St. Paul, "darkness, but now are ye light, in the Lord; walk as children of light." All which passages (and there are many others,) clearly showing that true Religion depends on new and constantly enlarging views of God and of his truth, and supplies a remedy for the Ignorance, as well as for the Indifference, of our fallen

nature.

To be convinced of which let us consider, first, that, There may be much ignorance of God even in the midst of outward advantages.

Of this we have an instance in the case of the Apostle Paul before his conversion. He had enjoyed all the advantages which a Jew could possess towards knowing God, and with his characteristic energy he had improved those advantages to the utmost. "Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law a Pharisee;"

one of those therefore, who "knew God's will, and approved the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law, having the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law;" - nay,

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profiting in the Jew's religion above many his equals in his own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of his fathers." And yet,

to this man we find Ananias sent by God, saying, "The God of our Fathers hath chosen thee that thou shouldest know his will and see that Just One and shouldst hear the voice of his mouth." And we find St. Paul himself, though he declared before the Jews "I am verily a man which am a Jew, brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the Fathers, and was zealous towards God as ye all are this day;" yet, intimating in another place, to Timothy, that the only possible excuse for his resistance to the will of God as manifested by his Son was that he "did it ignorantly in unbelief."

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We see then in this instance how great may be the darkness of the soul concerning God, even whilst the understanding has been carefully instructed in religion. We may know about God without knowing God. We may hear of him by the hearing of the and yet our eye may not see him. There is a traditional knowledge of God as "the God of our Fathers," which is not much more efficacious than that which even the Heathen enjoyed who, "when they knew God, glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." It is like the knowledge that we may possess of our forefathers, their names and relation to us, and some dim tradition of their doings; as compared with that

which we enjoy of our immediate parents, whose sentiments and character are every day displayed to us. The Jews of old, with all their manifold advantages, were thus ignorant of God.

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indeed," says Jesus to them, "that He is yet ye have not known him:—he that sent me is true, whom ye know not." Too many, even of the early Christians also, blessed as they were with the fuller light which streamed from Christ, were thus ignorant of God. " They profess that they know God," says St. Paul," but in works they deny him." And St. John solemnly warns all such self-deceivers," He that saith I know God and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." O it is an awful thing to have the intellect instructed while the heart remains dark and cold! To be familiar with the sound of truth, but never to have unclosed our eyes to look upon the truth itself! To be groping at noon-day as the blind gropeth in darkness! "This," says our Lord, "is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil !"

But more than this. There may be even some practical, as well as theoretical, knowledge of God, and yet this may extend only to some parts of his

character, and still leave much darkness on the mind concerning its most essential features. St.

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Paul, before his conversion, was not like those worldly and ungodly Jews who shut out the truth by their unrighteousness. He could declare before them all "I have lived in all good conscience before God unto this day," and assures Timothy that he "served God from his forefathers with a pure conscience." And yet this very Paul, as regarded the most essential attribute of God, and the most important conceptions of His will, was dark and blind; so much so, that the knowledge which broke in upon him at his conversion he speaks of as a new revelation.* Never, then, let men be satisfied with dim conceptions of the character and will of God; with half-truths only in Religion. Happy, truly, is the man who is practically affected by any thoughts of God, however obscure; far happier than he who with his understanding open has his heart still closed. An ignorant and even a superstitious Piety is better than no Piety at all. A mistaken endeavour to please God is far superior to cold indifference to Him. A zeal, even without knowledge, is better, so far as regards the man's own mind and state,-than no zeal at all. And we would rather see a man like Saul, even "exceedingly mad against the saints," provided that like him "he verily thinks he ought to do many things contrary to them;" than a man like Gallio "caring

* Gal. i. 16.

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