This revelation, it is to be understood, is per- manent and universal. It is not to be supposed that the spiritual activity of man, which seeks God in nature, history, self, summons into activity the spiritual self-revealing function of God; but all these media of Revelation are to be conceived as permanently and universally so related to God that they constitute His manifestations, and man is so made that he interprets them as such when in religion he seeks God. But man’s receptivity does not always and everywhere respond to this activity of God. While he is made for intercourse with God, he does not maintain it unbroken; nay, he may even suffer it altogether to cease. God is still active, but man is not responsive. The conscious- ness of self and of the world are raised into a false independence of the consciousness of God ; and, it may be, ultimately exclude it, or so pervert it as tomake it but the expression of spiritual deformity. Man’s responsiveness to this permanent and uni- versal Divine activity must not only be stimulated and sustained, but the consciousness of self and the world must be put in their true and right relation to the consciousness of God. But since, as the history of heathenism has shown, this con- sciousness of God has not been mediated, but per- verted by the consciousness of self and the world, God must in thought be first detached from self and the world, that the right and true relation may at last be apprehended and appreciated. In other words, God’s transcendence must be asserted, in order that His immanence may be understood. The spiritual vision, so to behold God as above and beyond nature and history, is lacking to man, as neither his inner nor outer experience can stimu- late or sustain it, and therefore God, who is Him- self the Zight, must bestow on men the sight to
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behold Him. These objective and subjective re- quirements have been met in that special revela- tion of God, the literature of which lies before us in the Holy Scriptures.
4, Revelation and Inspiration.—In passing from general to special revelation, we must take note of a certain ambiguity which attaches to the common use of the term ‘revelation.’ The sense in which the term has been used in the previous discussion is this. Nature, history, conscience, reason, are so consti- tuted that they show what God is; but man has not received this knowledge in its purity and com- pleteness, for he does not know God as He makes Himself known. His receptivity to the Divine revelation must be restored, so that his conscious- ness of God, obscured and perverted, may be purified and perfected. God must, on the one hand, so act on him as to make him capable of this purified and perfected consciousness ; and, on the other hand, that there may be continuity in his spiritual development, this consciousness of God must be mediated by a progressive purifying and perfect- ing of his consciousness of self and the world. This action of God on the nature of man we call ‘inspiration’; its result, the perfected and purified consciousness of self and the world and God, is ‘revelation.’ The latter term is sometimes loosely used for the subjective process as well as the objective product, but it is desirable that the method and the purpose of God’s action be thus distinguished, and the term Inspiration be re- served for the one and the term Revelation for the other. While the essential content of this revelation is the character and purpose of God, the contingent form is the consciousness of the self and the world of the inspired agent. It is quite possible to imagine that this Divine action might have been universal; and yet, if we consider what is God’s method in the progress of the race, we shall recognize that this restriction of inspiration to individuals is not contrary to but in accord with it, Although the form of St. Paul’s argu- ment raises great difficulties for our thought, yet the fact must be admitted that there is a Divine election of individuals and nations. God deals with mankind as one body, of which the several members have not one function, but are mutually dependent. Science, art, philosophy, culture of many kinds, is the Greek’s contribution to the treasures of mankind. From the Roman the nations have learned law, order, government. The speciality of the Hebrew was religion. Each function was assigned to each people, not for self- enrichment only but also for mankind’s greater good. As limitation of effort and concentration of energy are the necessary conditions of the greatest efficiency and fullest service, it would seem that in no one people could all the functions of a com- plete humanity be developed: to each must be assigned the development of one function, the results of this development in each being in course of time made the property of all. If we compare the historic peoples with the savage races, we may ask, Why has God made them so to differ? Surely the answer is, that to the historical peoples may be given the generous task of imparting the treasures of thought and life, which they have won by ages of toil and struggle, to the savage races, who may have been incapable of gaining them for themselves. The Parable of the Labourers has an application to the history of the world. The labourers hired at the eleventh hour also received a penny. It is to be remembered that God’s election is to service through sacrifice, as the world’s saviours are also its sufferers. As the Hebrew people was chosen to be the school of the knowledge of God for the world, the lessons were taught in national pain, loss, ruin. This revela-