^ As there is an external call and an internal — the former universal, but often ineffectual ; the latter personal, but always efficient — so there is an outward revelation of Christ and an internal, of which the understanding and the heart are the seat. Hence it is, with the utmost propriety, said to be a revelation " in us." The minds of men, until they are renewed, resemble an apartment shut up and enclosed with something which is not transparent; the light shines around with much splendour, but the apartment remains dark, in consequence of its entrance being obstructed. Unbelief, inattention, love of the world and of sin, and hardness of heart, form the obstructions in question. Let these be removed, and the discoveries of the word penetrate and diffuse a light and conviction through the soul: "The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." Thus it was with St. Paul before his conversion: his prejudices against the gospel were inveterate, his animosity violent and active ; but no sooner was Christ revealed in him, than all was changed.^
> Rob«rt Hall, Works, v. 204.
GAL. I. 15, 16 341
^ George Fox has given a very simple and impressive account of the experience which ended his long search for somebody who could " speak to his condition " and give him authoritative dii-ec- tion to a religion of verity and reality. " When all my hopes in men," he says, " were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then, 0 then, I heard a voice which said, There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition; and when I heard it my heart did leap for joy. I knew experimentally that Jesus Christ enlightens, gives grace and faith and power. I now knew God by revelation, as He who hath the key did open." This is a typical piece of early Quaker biography. The testimony of the Yorkshire yeoman William Dewsbury is not so well known as that of Fox, but it comes up out of actual experience, and it, as well as that of Fox, has the power of a pure and sincere life behind it. His spiritual travail was long and hard, beginning when he was a boy of thirteen. " I heard," he says, " much speaking of God and professing Him in words from the letter of the Scripture, but I met with none that could tell me what God had done for their souls." At length all his "fig-leaf coverings were rent," the Lord "manifested His power " to him, and brought " the immortal seed to birth " within him, and he bears this personal testimony : " I came to my know- ledge of eternal life not by the letter of Scripture, nor from hear- ing men speak of God, but by the Inspiration of the Spirit of Jesus Christ who is worthy to open the seals." ^
1. This inner revelation meant the translation of the historical Christ into the present Christ; of the Christ according to the flesh into the Christ of spiritual consciousness. What is transla- tion? It is (1) the extracting of a thought from its visible or representative envelope, and then (2) it is the recasting of this thought into another form of our own intelligent selection. By this process, faithfully carried out, we make the thought our own. We bring it out of its mere external relation to the mind as an object, and make it a part of our mind as subject. It is no longer something that we contemplate merely with the mind's eye, and which passes from memory when our attention is with- drawn, but it is now bound up with our mind, and must remain part of our conscious being.
St. Paul had never seen the Lord veiled in the flesh. He was not required to grope his way through preconceptions and pre- * If. 0. Braithwaite, The Beginnvngs of Qnakerism, xxxv.
342 THE INNER REVELATION
judices to a slowly maturing revelation. He learned with all the suddenness of a surprising and blinding vision what his fellow- Apostles had learned with dull, reluctant, and hesitating recep- tivity. The Divinity of the Lord came upon him almost as the dawning of a glorious summer morning after the deep darkness of the night, and he was able to grasp moreover the larger, deeper meaning of the Saviour's death and resurrection with a quickness and breadth of apprehension which had not been given to the rest. The spiritual significance of Calvary and of the empty sepulchre was read more promptly, if not more intelligently, by one who, with a richly inspired mind, looked at these things from afar than by those who had seen them with all their disguising surroundings ; and it is to St. Paul that we owe the fullest ex- position of these great facts and mysteries.
2. There was something deeper than this process of translation, there was actual identification with Christ. It seems no strain of language to say that in the consciousness of St. Paul, Christ was inseparable from himself. He could not abstract the ego, as metaphysicians would say, from a non-ego. He could not think of himself without thinking of Christ. " I am crucified with Christ."
St. Paul applies the same mode of thought to his converts and disciples. When, by the act of their own will, they became Christians, they were in spirit buried with Christ. At the same time, by realizing the Divine energy in themselves which raised Him from the dead, they were in spirit raised up along with Christ. It is upon this basis, thus firmly laid in the Christian consciousness, that St. Paul builds his system of conduct. The Christian conduct is a perpetual self-renunciation, a perpetual self-identification with the Spirit of Christ. It is the mind dying out of the earthly passions rooted in egoism, and living into the new ideal of manhood, the new creation. And so through the whole series of the historical events. They are renewed. They become history once again in the mind of the Christian. The selection of Christ as God's Beloved includes the selection of the Christian in Him; the exaltation of Christ to external glory means the present inward exaltation of the Christian to the heavenly regions.