This thought of the essentially private and individual character of spiritual processes in the human heart deepens our responsi- bility and makes the spiritual life altogether a more solemn thing Somehow the ordinary views of the Christian life often leave ua too easily satisfied. When we take it as involving the possession of certain feelings, as requiring the employment of certain phrases, we force ourselves into the use of the conventional words, we persuade ourselves that the necessary emotions have taken posses- sion of our hearts, and we rest content with these utterly trivial matters, forgetting the more important aspects, the deeper and weightier concerns, of the spiritual life. But let us once realize that God's call to us is something we have to face absolutely alone ! Solemn indeed is it to know that we are shut away with the ministries which God exercises upon us, and have to give our- selves up to their working and derive unaided from them the good they are meant to bring ; that impassable lines are drawn round the place where God meets us and summons us to stand face to face with Him ; that, as we bow before that majestic Presence, waiting for the sacred commands, all human companionships have to be left far away.
^ I think you have rather confused the " inward motion of the Spirit " with the " call," which are not exactly coincident, though they mufit be mostly considered together. First observe the
GAL. I. 15, 16 339
distinct phrase used by the Church, " Do' you trust that you are inwardly moved ? " etc. The matter is frankly set forth as one of faith, not of sensible consciousness. The motion of the Spirit is to be inferred from its effects in and on our spirit ; any other view is likely to degrade and carnalize our apprehensions of spiritual operations, not to exalt them. Now I do not think it possible for one man to lay down absolutely for another what in- ward thoughts and aspirations are or are not trustworthy indices to a genuine motion of the Holy Ghost ; but the Church's words do themselves suggest some necessary elements of them — a direct and unmixed (I mean, clearly realizable and distinguishable) desire to be specially employed in promoting God's glory and building up His people. If a man does not feel a clear para- mount desire, — often interrupted and diluted and even counter- acted, but still distinctly present whenever he is in his right mind, — to tell men of God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, — in a word, to preach the Gospel, that is, announce the Good Tidings, — I very much doubt whether he has a right to "trust that " he is " inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost." ^
III.
A Eevelation. "It pleased God ... to reveal his Son in me."
This should be read along with the fuller narrative in the Acts. So read, it will be found quite intelligible. We learn from that narrative, that, for three days after Saul's arrest on the way to Damascus, he lay in the city without a ray of light — bound, as it were, in chains of darkness : there were scales on his eyes and a cloud on his heart. It was dark without and dark within ; and he could neither eat nor drink. At length, on the third day, the cloud was taken away, he received his eyesight, and the peace of God filled his soul with light. Such is the account given in the Acts. Mark the secret history of the same blessed deliverance as it is given here.
He says that it pleased God to reveal His Son in him. Why in him ? Why does he not say, " It pleased God to reveal His Son to me " ? Was not the light which he saw an outer vision ? * Life and Letters of F. J. A. Sort, i. 278.
340 THE INNER REVELATION
Did it not arrest him at midday with a glory above the brightness of the sun ? Did it not bar the way to his old nature, and bid his life pause in the midst of his journey ? Surely that picture of his Lord was a vision to his eye. But can any picture be a vision to the eye ? Can a thing be revealed to me which has not been revealed in me ? Is the landscape on which we gaze re- vealed only to the outward vision ? No, or it would not be revealed at all ; there could be no beauty without if there were not a sense of beauty within. Is the music to which we listen re- vealed only to the outward ear ? No, or we should be deaf to it for evermore ; there could be no harmony without if there were not a sense of harmony within. So is it with the beauty of Him who is fairer than the children of men. Often have we envied the lot of those who were permitted to gaze upon His outward form, to see the beam on His face, to hear the thrill in His voice. Yet was it not the very chief of these to whom the words were spoken, " Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee " ? It was not the eye that saw the beam, it was not the ear that heard the thrill ; it was the soul, the heart, the life, the responsive spirit bearing witness with His spirit, the kindred sympathy that ran out to meet its counterpart, and found in Him all its salvation because it found in Him all its desire.