THE INNER LIGHT.
The one corner-stone of belief upon which the Society of Friends is
built is the conviction that God does indeed communicate with each one
of the spirits He has made, in a direct and living inbreathing of some
measure of the breath of His own life; that He never leaves Himself
without a witness in the heart as well as in the surroundings of man;
and that in order clearly to hear the Divine voice thus speaking to us
we need to be still; to be alone with Him in the secret place of His
presence; that all flesh should keep silence before Him.
This belief may be more precisely stated, explained, and as we think
justified, by those who are competent to deal with it in a philosophical
manner. The founders of our Society were not philosophers, but spoke of
these things from an intense and abundant personal experience, which led
them with confidence to appeal to the experience of all sorts and
conditions of men for confirmation of their doctrine as to the light
within. And they were not disappointed. The history of the sudden
gathering of the Society, of its rapid formation into a strongly
organized body, and of the extraordinary constancy, zeal, and integrity
displayed by its original members, is a most impressive proof of the
trueness of their aim.[3]
I have no ambition to clothe the fundamental doctrine of our Society in
any less popular language than that in which it was originally preached.
I would rather, even did necessity not compel me, be content to appeal,
as did the early Friends, to common experience. My aim is to explain for
practical purposes, and in modern as well as simple language, the way in
which our whole constitution as a Society, and our various special
testimonies, have resulted from this one main principle.
When questioned as to the reality and nature of the inner light, the
early Friends were accustomed in return to ask the questioners whether
they did not sometimes feel something within them that showed them their
sins; and to assure them that this same power, which _made manifest_,
and therefore was truly light, would also, if yielded to, lead them out
of sin. This assurance, that the light which revealed was also the power
which would heal sin, was George Fox’s gospel. The power itself was
described by him in many ways. Christ within, the hope of glory; the
light, life, Spirit, and grace of Christ; the seed, the new birth, the
power of God unto salvation, and many other such expressions, flow forth
in abundant streams of heartfelt eloquence. To “turn people to the light
within,” to “direct them to Christ, their free Teacher,” was his daily
business.
For this purpose he and his friends travelled continually up and down
the country, holding meetings everywhere, and finding a never-failing
response to their appeal, as is proved by the bare numbers of those who,
within a very few years, were ready to encounter persecution, and to
maintain their testimony through long years of imprisonment and
sufferings. In the earlier days of the Society the doctrine of the inner
light was clearly one readily understood and accepted by the ordinary
English mind. In our own day it is usually spoken of as a mysterious
tenet, springing up now and again in the minds of isolated enthusiasts,
but indigenous only in Oriental countries, and naturally abhorrent to
the practical common sense of our own people.
The difference arises, I think, from the fact that there are circles
within circles, or spheres within spheres, and that the light to which
the early Friends bore witness was not confined to that innermost
sanctuary of whose very existence, perhaps, none but a few “mystics” are
conscious; but that, while proceeding from those deepest depths, it was
recognized as also lighting up conscience, and conduct, and all the
tangible outer framework of life; and that it was called “within” not
alone in the sense of lying nearer the centre of our being than anything
else, but also in the (to ordinary minds) more intelligible sense of
beginning at home—of being the reward of each man’s own faithfulness, of
being independent of priests and ordinances. The religion they preached
was one which enforced the individual responsibility of each one for his
own soul; it was a portable and verifiable religion—a religion which
required truth in word and deed, plain dealing and kindness and
self-control, and which did not require ceremonial observances or
priestly guarantees; a religion in which practice went for more than
theory, and all were expected to take their stand on one level, and
their share in the worship and the business of “the Church.” It is easy
to see how such preaching as this would commend itself to English
independence. It surely commends itself to the unchanging sense of truth
in the human heart, and will be welcomed whenever it is preached from
first-hand experience of its power.
“That which you seek without you have already within you.” The words
which changed the life of Madame Guyon will never lose their power while
human nature is occupied with the struggle for a state of stable
equilibrium. The perennial justification of Quakerism lies in its
energetic assertion that the kingdom of heaven is within us; that we are
not made dependent upon any outward organization for our spiritual
welfare. Its perennial difficulty lies in the inveterate disposition of
human beings to look to each other for spiritual help, in the feebleness
of their perception of that Divine Voice which speaks to each one in a
language no other ear can hear, and in the apathy which is content to go
through life without the attempt at any true individual communion with
God.
“The kingdom of heaven is within us.” No Christian, surely, can dispute
the truth of this deep word of Christ Himself. But its interpretation
has a wide range. In his own lips it was used in opposition to the “Lo
here! and lo there!” for which he was preparing His disciples. They were
not to be hurried away into a search for Christ in all directions, but
were to remember that His kingdom (surely implying His living presence)
is in the hearts of His people. He Himself makes none of those abstruse
distinctions between consciousness and being, accident and essence,
subject and object, or even superficial and profound, and so forth,
which it has been the delight of many of His most devoted followers to
interweave with this simple expression “within you.”
I think it is inevitable that the more deeply we penetrate into the
recesses of the human mind, the more we should have a sense of
approaching an inner sanctuary, and that there is a very real and deep
sense in which this word “within you” may be understood as meaning
“above all in your inmost depths.” But this is not its original or its
obvious meaning. In the teaching of our Lord there is a frequent
reference to the distinction of inward or outward, but the distinction
is drawn in a broad and simple manner. It is oftenest a demand upon our
sincerity and thoroughness, not upon our powers of introspection—an
appeal on behalf of the weightier matters of the Law as compared with
trivial and ceremonial observances. It would scarcely, I think, be true
to say that the doctrine of an “inner light,” as we understand it, is
explicitly laid down in the Gospels, although, to my own mind, that
doctrine appears to be an almost inevitable inference from their
teaching. I am not, however, attempting to deal with the question on its
merits. I only wish to draw attention to the wide range of meaning
covered by such expressions as “the light within,” and “the inner
light.”
Both by our Master Himself, and by the Friends who originally preached
Him as the Light, the figure of light was used in a broad and popular
sense. Light is the most obvious and the most eternally satisfying
figure for Divine truth. It is, however, hardly more obvious or more
satisfying than the other figure so commonly, and almost
interchangeably, used by the same teachers, of breath—inspiration. I
scarcely know whether it would convey most truth to say that the
cornerstone of our Society was a belief in “the light within,” or in
“immediate inspiration.” I doubt whether the two ideas are in all
respects altogether distinguishable. Belief in the fact to which they
both refer, of an actual Divine influence communicated to every human
spirit, is our real corner-stone.[4]
The fact of inspiration is denied by no Christian—the full recognition
of its present and constant operation is in some degree a peculiarity of
Friends. It is not uncommon outside the Society to hear expressions
implying that Divine inspiration is a thing of the past; a quite
exceptional gift, familiar only in apostolic times. It seems to me that
this limitation of its range amounts almost to a denial of its reality.
I can hardly understand the idea that God did occasionally long ago
speak to human beings, but that He never does so now. It seems, at any
rate, inconsistent with any worthy sense of His unchangeableness.
Many of us have come to believe that one of the greatest hindrances to a
real belief in or recognition of inspiration has been the exceedingly
crude and mechanical conception of it as attributed to the letter of
Scripture. From this hard and shallow way of thinking about inspiration,
Friends have generally been preserved in proportion as they have held
firmly the old Quaker doctrine of the inner light. Some, no doubt, have
gone too far in the direction of transferring the idea of infallibility
from the Bible to themselves. But, on the whole, I believe the doctrine
of Fox and Barclay (_i.e._, briefly, that the “Word of God” is Christ,
not the Bible, and that the Scriptures are profitable in proportion as
they are read in the same spirit which gave them forth) to have been a
most valuable equipoise to the tendency of other Protestant sects to
transfer the idea of infallibility from the Church to the Bible.
Nothing, I believe, can really teach us the nature and meaning of
inspiration but personal experience of it. That we may all have such
experience if we will but attend to the Divine influences in our own
hearts, is the cardinal doctrine of Quakerism. Whether this belief,
honestly acted on, will manifest itself in the homespun and solid, but
only too sober morality of the typical everyday Quaker, or whether it
will land us in the mystical fervours of an Isaac Penington, or the
apostolic labours of a John Woolman or a Stephen Grellet, must depend
chiefly upon our natural temperament and special gifts. The range of the
different forms taken by the doctrine is as wide as the range of human
endowment and experience. A belief which is the common property of the
prophet and the babe will, of course, yield every variety of practical
result.
It is a belief which it is hardly possible to inculcate by anything more
or less than a direct appeal to experience, to the witness within; and
there is the further difficulty, that the experience to which we can
appeal only as sharers in it, must be expressed in language very often
and very naturally misunderstood. The assertion, however guarded, that
one has actual experience of Divine inspiration in one’s own person, is
very apt to sound like a claim to personal infallibility. Yet in reality
nothing can be further from the mark. The first effect of the shining of
light within is to show what is amiss—to “convince of sin.” It is not
claiming any superiority to ordinary human conditions to say, in
response to such an appeal as that of the Friends just referred to,
“Yes, I have indeed been conscious of a power within making manifest to
me my sins and errors, and I have indeed experienced its healing and
emancipating power as well as its fiery purgings and bitter
condemnations. That which has shown me my fault has healed me; the light
has led and is leading me onwards and upwards out of the abyss, nearer
and nearer to its own eternal Source; and I know that, in so far as I am
obedient to it, I am safe.” What is such a reply but an acknowledgment
that “the light, the Spirit, and grace of Christ” have indeed been an
indwelling, inbreathing power in one’s own heart? If it be a claim to
inspiration, it is a claim which implies no merit and no eminence in him
who makes it; it is made on ground common to the publican, the prodigal,
and the sinner, to Magdalen and to Paul. It is the history of every
child returning to the Father’s house.
But it is not every one to whom it would be natural to describe this
experience in language so mystical as this, nor would the mystic’s
experience be likely to stop short at anything so simple and elementary
as the process just described. And here we are confronted with the real
“peculiarity” of Quakerism—its relation to mysticism. There is no doubt
that George Fox himself and the other fathers of the Society were of a
strongly mystical turn of mind, though not in the sense in which the
word is often used by the worshippers of “common sense,” as a mild term
of reproach, to convey a general vague dreaminess. Nothing, certainly,
could be less applicable to the early Friends than any such reproach as
this. They were fiery, dogmatic, pugnacious, and intensely practical and
sober-minded. But they were assuredly mystics in what I take to be the
more accurate sense of that word—people, that is, with a vivid
consciousness of the inwardness of the light of truth.
Mysticism in this sense is a well-known phenomenon, of which a multitude
of examples may be found in all religions. It is, indeed, rather a
personal peculiarity than a form of belief; and therefore, although from
time to time associations (our own, for one) have been based upon what
are called mystical tenets, there can scarcely be anything like a real
school of mysticism—at any rate, in Europe. Mysticism, as we know it, is
essentially individual. It refuses to be formulated or summed up. In one
sense it is common to all religious persuasions; in another, it equally
eludes them all. We can easily understand what constitutes a mystic, but
the peculiarity itself is incommunicable. Their belief is an open
secret. They themselves have ever desired to communicate it, though
continually feeling the impossibility of doing so by words alone. It is
the secret of light—an inward light clothing itself in life, and living
to bring all things to the light.
Mystics, as I understand the matter, are those whose minds, to their own
consciousness, are lighted from within; who feel themselves to be in
immediate communication with the central Fountain of light and life.
They have naturally a vivid sense both of the distinction and of the
harmony between the inward and the outward—a sense so vivid that it is
impossible for them to believe it to be unshared by others. A true
mystic believes that all men have, as he himself is conscious of having,
an inward life, into which, as into a secret chamber, he can retreat at
will.[5] In this inner chamber he finds a refuge from the ever-changing
aspects of outward existence; from the multitude of cares and pleasures
and agitations which belong to the life of the senses and the
affections; from human judgments; from all change, and chance, and
turmoil, and distraction. He finds there, first repose, then an awful
guidance; a light which burns and purifies; a voice which subdues; he
finds himself in the presence of his God. It is here, in this holy of
holies, that “deep calleth unto deep;” here that the imperishable,
unfathomable, unchanging elements of humanity meet and are one with the
Divine Fountain of life from whence they flow; here that the well of
living waters springeth up unto eternal life.
“The kingdom of heaven is within you.” Personal religion is a real and a
living thing only in proportion as it springs from this deep inward
root. The root itself is common to all true believers. The consciousness
of its “inwardness” is that which distinguishes the mystic. How it
should be that to some minds the words “inward and outward” express the
most vivid and continuous fact of consciousness, while to others they
appear to have no meaning at all; how it comes that some are born
mystics, while to others the report of the mystic concerning the inner
life is a thing impossible to be believed and hardly to be
understood;—these are psychological problems I cannot attempt to
unravel. If, however, a certain correspondence between the inward and
the outward do really exist (and this, I suppose, will hardly be denied,
whatever may be the most philosophically accurate way of expressing it),
the faculty of discerning it must needs be a gift. I believe, indeed,
that the power in this direction which distinguishes such mystics as,
_e.g._, Thomas à Kempis, Jacob Boehme, Tauler, Fénélon, Madame Guyon,
George Fox, William Law, St. Theresa, Molinos, and others, is
essentially the same gift which in a different form, or in combination
with a different temperament and gifts of another order, makes poets. It
is the gift of seeing truth at first-hand, the faculty of receiving a
direct revelation. To have it is to be assured that it is the common
inheritance, the “light which lighteth every man that cometh into the
world.” Preachers like those I have just mentioned always appeal to it
with confidence as to a witness to be found in every heart. And surely
experience confirms this conviction of theirs. It is in degree only that
their gift is exceptional. They may have the sight of the eagle, but
they see by the same light as the bat.
Now, the obvious tendency of a vivid first-hand perception of truth, or
light, is to render the possessor of it so far independent of external
teachers. And we all know that in point of fact such _illuminati_ always
have shown a disposition to go their own way, and to disregard, if not
to denounce, traditional teaching, which has brought them into frequent
collisions with ecclesiastical and other authorities. Those of the
Church of Rome have, with their wonted sagacity, as much as possible
sought to turn this strange power to account, while providing
safety-valves for the unmanageable residue.
It is the easier to do this because of the two marked characteristics of
mystics—quietness and independence. Mystics are naturally independent,
not only of ecclesiastical authority, but of each other. This is
necessarily implied in the very idea of first-hand reception of light.
While it must always constitute a strong bond of sympathy between those
who recognize it in themselves and in each other, it naturally
indisposes them to discipleship. They sit habitually at no man’s feet,
and do not as a rule greatly care to have any one sit at theirs.
Mysticism in this sense seems naturally opposed to tradition. No true
mystic would hold himself bound by the thoughts of others. He does not
feel the need of them, being assured of the sufficiency and conscious of
the possession of that inward guidance, whether called light, or voice,
or inspiration, which must be seen, heard, felt, by each one in his own
heart, or not at all. But the duty of looking for and of obeying this
guidance is a principle which may be inculcated and transmitted from
generation to generation like any other principle. Its hereditary
influence is very perceptible in old Quaker families, where a unique
type of Christian character resulting from it is still to be met with.
Quietness naturally accompanies the belief in this inward guidance, not
only because in the Divine presence all that is merely human necessarily
sinks into silent insignificance, but also because it is instinctively
felt that it is only in stillness that any perfect reflection from above
can be formed in the mirror of the human spirit. The natural fruit of
mysticism is quietism.
I have no means of estimating the actual prevalence of mystical and
quietist principles in the Society of Friends at the present time. But I
am sure that our Society is the natural home for the spirits of all
those who hold them, for it is the one successful embodiment of these
principles in a system of “Church government.” Every arrangement is made
to favour and to maintain the practice of looking for individual inward
guidance, and to give the freest scope to its results. Everything which
tends to hinder obedience to it is abandoned and discouraged. I shall
endeavour to trace the working of this aim in various special directions
hereafter. I must now endeavour to explain as well as I can what it is
precisely that I understand by that inward light, voice, or Divine
guidance which we Friends believe it our duty and our highest privilege
in all things to watch for.
I do not, indeed, claim that my own share in this deepest region of
human experience amounts to more than a faint and intermittent
glimmering of what I know to be possible. I earnestly desire to explain
to others what to myself has been especially blessed and helpful in the
deepest unfoldings, whether by word or in life, of Quaker principles;
but I feel that the task would demand for its full accomplishment not
only greater powers than mine, but also the assistance which can be
given only by something more than candour in the reader—by a real desire
to help out the stammering utterance, and to supply the gaps left by
individual shortcomings. To such a helpful auditor, therefore, I will in
imagination address myself.
Faithfulness to the light is the watchword of all who hunger and thirst
after righteousness—of all seekers after the kingdom of heaven. Is this
merely an equivalent for the more commonplace expression, “obedience to
conscience”? Surely not. Conscience, as we all know, is liable to
perversion, to morbid exaggerations, to partial insensibility, to twists
and crotchets of all sorts, and itself needs correction by various
external standards. Conscience, therefore, can never be our supreme and
absolute guide. Whether it can ever be right to disobey it, must depend
on the precise meaning we attach to the words “conscience” and “right,”
and into this puzzle I have no intention of entering. In a broad and
practical sense, we all know that if there were nothing above
conscience, conscience would assuredly lead many of us into the ditch;
nay, that, for want of enlightenment from above, it actually has led
many there. The light by which our consciences must be enlightened, the
light in obedience to which is our supreme good, must be something purer
than this fallible faculty itself. It must be that power within us, if
any such power there be, which is one with all the wisdom, all the
goodness, all the order and harmony, without us; one with “the power,
not ourselves, which makes for righteousness;” one with “the eternal
will towards all goodness.” It must be a power as all-pervading and
immanent in the spirit of man as is the power of gravity (or whatever
yet more elementary force gravity may be resolved into) in the outer
world he inhabits. It must be the power in which we live and move and
have our being—the power and the presence of God.
I do not attempt—idle indeed would be the attempt in such hands as
mine—to contribute anything towards the arguments in favour of Theism.
To those who do not believe in the existence of the living God, the
whole subject upon which I am engaged must be without interest or
significance. And I leave it to others to reconcile, or to show that we
need not attempt to reconcile, the existence of evil with the
omnipotence of God. The mystery in which all our searchings after a
complete theory concerning the Author of our being must needs lose
themselves need not perplex, though it may overshadow, those practical
questions as to our own right attitude towards Him with which alone I am
concerned. I assume faith in Him and allegiance to Him as the very
ground under our feet; if this be not granted, it is idle to go further.
My reason for going so far even as I have done in this direction (the
direction, I mean, of inquiring into our fundamental assumptions) is
that I cannot help thinking that our Quaker faith respecting immediate
Divine guidance rests upon a wider basis of common conviction than is
usually supposed. I believe it to be the legitimate, though by no means
the frequent, result of any sincere belief in God, however attained—not
merely an outgrowth from one peculiar form of Christianity. The coldest
and most cautious Theist can say no less than that God does in some
sense direct the course of this world and of all that is in it. The most
ecstatic mystic can bear witness to nothing beyond the fact that God
does in deed and in truth pervade and sway the inmost recesses of his
own being. Is not this the very same truth, seen under the magnifying
and amplifying power of first-hand experience?
To me it seems idle to attempt to find any resting-place between
convinced atheism on the one hand, and absolute self-surrender to the
indwelling influence of the Divine Spirit on the other; the barrier, if
there be any barrier, is surely not so much a logical as a moral
hindrance. Believing in God, and worshipping Him with one’s whole heart,
trusting Him absolutely and loving Him supremely, seem to me to be but
various stages in the growth of one seed. I know, alas! but too well,
that this growth is slow, and that it meets with obstacles and checks at
every moment. I know that our faith has not only to struggle, but to
struggle through the darkness, and that it may be challenged at every
step by difficulties which it cannot solve. But I cannot admit that
there is any consistency or reason in treading the path of faith
half-way. I cannot admit that it is reasonable to believe in God as the
Supreme Being, and unreasonable to seek His living presence and
direction in the minutest details of our everyday life. With Him,
surely, our distinctions of great and small disappear, and “the darkness
is no darkness at all.” “Whither shall I go then from Thy presence? If I
go down into hell, and remain in the uttermost parts of the earth, even
there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me.”
But many will say, This may all be quite true, but how are we to
distinguish between the voice of God and the many other voices which
distract our attention from it? How, if God is everywhere, does the
practical result differ from His being nowhere? To the full extent of my
ability I recognize this great difficulty. It seems to throw us back for
guidance upon those very powers whose insufficiency we have just
recognized. If I reply, God is to be recognized in “whatsoever things
are true, whatsoever things are pure, and lovely, and of good report,”
you may well retort, And how, except through our fallible consciences,
shall we discern truth, purity, loveliness?
I believe that the difficulty of distinguishing between the will, or the
voice, or the light of God, and the wills and voices and lights of a
lower kind from which it is to be distinguished, is not only not to be
ignored, but that the very first step towards learning the lesson is to
recognize that it is a lesson, and a hard one—nay, a lifelong
discipline. But just as the child trusts instinctively, absolutely,
helplessly, before it has even begun to attempt to understand its
parents, so, surely, we may and must trust God first and unreservedly,
before we begin slowly and feebly, yet perseveringly, to acquaint
ourselves with Him. And as the trust of the full-grown son or daughter
is a nobler thing than the trust of the infant, so the experience of
wisdom and prudence has doubtless a revelation of its own—a precious
addition to that essential revelation which is made in the first place
to babes, and to the wise only in so far as they too have childlike
hearts. To have our senses exercised to discern between truth and
falsehood, light and darkness, order and disorder, the will of God and
the will of the flesh, is, I believe, the end and object of our training
in this world. There is no royal road to it. Yet can we honestly say
that it is impossible?
If, then, it is only by a slow and gradual process that we can rise to
anything like a true knowledge (even according to our human measure) of
God, must it not be by a slow and gradual process alone that He can make
His voice and His guiding touch distinguishable by us and intelligible
to us? Is it any wonder if those who do not attribute to Him so much as
the broad obvious laws by which we are all hedged in from gross
wrong-doing and error, should fail to recognize the reality or the
significance of those delicate restraining touches by which the spirits
which yield themselves to His care are moulded into some faint likeness
to the Son of His love? Must not the first step towards entering into
the meaning of that which is personal and individual be the acceptance
of what is equally applicable to all?[6]
That individual and immediate guidance, in which we recognize that “the
finger of God is come unto us,” seems to come in, as it were, to
complete and perfect the work rough-hewn by morality and conscience. We
may liken the laws of our country to the cliffs of our island, over
which we rarely feel ourselves in any danger of falling; the moral
standard of our social circle to the beaten highway road which we can
hardly miss. Our own conscience would then be represented by a fence, by
which some parts of the country are enclosed for each one, the road
itself at times barred or narrowed. And that Divine guidance of which I
am speaking could be typified only by the pressure of a hand upon ours,
leading us gently to step to the right or the left, to pause or to go
forward, in a manner intended for and understood by ourselves alone.[7]
When I say I have been “rightly guided” to this or that step, I mean
that, being well within the limits prescribed by morality, by personal
claims, by the closest attention to the voice of conscience, I have yet
felt that there was still a choice to be made as between things equally
innocent but probably not equally excellent—a choice, perhaps, between
different levels almost infinitely remote from each other—and that in
making that choice I have acted under an impelling or restraining power
not of my own exerting. I generally mean, further, that in making the
choice I have looked, and probably asked, for light from above, and that
the results of such choice have tended to confirm the belief that my
action has been prompted by One who could see the end from the
beginning, who knew things hidden from myself, and “understood my path
long before;” in short, that I have been led as the blind by a way I
knew not. Is not such experience as this witnessed to by multitudes of
Christians, especially as they advance in life? For it may take long
years of patience before the last pieces are fitted into the puzzle, so
as to enable us to judge of the intention of the whole.
I am well aware that I am speaking of a region of experience in which
there is abundant room for self-deception. I know that those who, out of
the abundance of the heart, speak very freely of these things with their
lips are apt not only to shock one’s sense of reverence, but to betray a
deplorable want of logic in the inferences they draw from trifling
facts—facts whose significance to themselves cannot possibly be conveyed
to others, and may indeed very likely be in large measure fanciful or
even distorted. I think that we are wrong when we attempt to found any
sort of proof or argument in favour of what is called “a particular
providence” exclusively upon the occurrences of our own lives. People
forget that what is most convincing to themselves, because it was within
the four walls of their own experience that it happened, is for that
very reason least convincing to others—that is, in the way of argument,
though the _impression_ may, of course, be sympathetically shared, and
may rightly have special weight with those who have reason to trust the
speaker. But, as a general rule, I believe that reverence and reason
combine to demand that the personal and intimate dealings of Divine
Providence with each one should be mainly reserved for personal and
intimate use and edification. Proof or argument as to the general truth
that God does guide His people individually must be founded upon a wider
basis than is afforded by any one person’s experience. I believe that
there are abundant reasons, of a far-reaching and deep kind, to justify
each one in looking for the minutest individual guidance. I cannot,
indeed, as I have already stated, understand how those who believe in a
providential order at all can limit it to the larger outlines, or, as is
so often done in practice, to the pleasing results of the Divine
government. If we believe, in any real and honest sense, that the
ordering of all human affairs is in the hands of one supreme Ruler, how
can we stop short of believing that the minutest trifle affecting any
one of us is under the same all-pervading care? It would, I think, be as
reasonable to say that God created animals, but left it to each one to
develop its own fur or feathers. And, again, if we attribute our
preservation from danger to Him, how can we flinch from the parallel
belief that by His ordinance also we were exposed to it; yes, and in
some cases doomed to suffer the worst it can wreak upon us “without
reprieve”?
Therefore I believe that, before we can hope to enter into that intimate
and blessed communion with God which transfigures all life, two great
conditions must be fulfilled. We must have settled it in our hearts that
everything, from the least to the greatest, is to be taken as His
language—language which it is our main business here to learn to
interpret—and we must be willing to face all pain as His discipline.
I know, of course, that these two conditions can be perfectly fulfilled
only as the result of much discipline and much experience of the very
guidance in question. But their roots—docility and courage—are in some
measure implanted in us long before we begin to think about such
questions as the government of the world or the ordering of our lives.
It is, I believe, in the last of these two demands of logic, the demand
upon our courage, that the moral hindrance to a full belief in Divine
guidance mainly lies. People cannot bring themselves to _feel_ that the
infliction of pain can be the act of One whom they desire to know as
Love. Yet this is the very central demand of Christianity. What is
courage but the willingness to encounter suffering, the readiness to
take up the cross?
In the strength of the Spirit of Christ, the everlasting Son of the
Father, we _can_ rise to this victory of trust; we can meet life without
flinching, and read its darkest riddles in the light of the revelation
of Divine love which He has won for us by His own suffering and death.
Seen in that light, it is, according to the universal testimony of the
saints, a gentle, though often most severe, unfolding of depth within
depth of heavenly wisdom—gentle beyond words in its methods, yet
inexorable in its conditions. At every step the fiery baptism must be
encountered. The deep things of God cannot be reached except through the
very destruction of the perishing flesh. It is through death that we
enter into life. But as we do enter into it, we can truly look back and
say that His ordering has been better than our planning—that His
thoughts are high above our thoughts, as the heaven is above the earth.
Our goal must be a heavenly one if we are to judge truly of His
guidance. The home to which, if we trust Him, He will assuredly lead us,
is no earthly home; but Zion—the heavenly Jerusalem; the beautiful city
of peace, which can be entered only through much tribulation. Those who
are looking for smooth roads and luxurious resting-places, may well say
they perceive no sign of guidance at all. The Divine guidance is away
from self-indulgence, often away from outward success; through
humiliation and failure, and many snares and temptations; over rough
roads and against opposing forces—always uphill. Its evidence of success
is in the inmost, deepest, most spiritual part of our existence. It is
idle indeed to talk of it to those whose faces are not set Zion-wards.
It will bring them none of the results in which they have their reward.
Those who know the voice of the Divine Guide, and those who deny that it
can be heard, are not so much contradicting each other as speaking
different languages—or rather speaking in reference to different states
of existence.
I have been speaking of “light,” “voice,” “guidance,” as almost
equivalent and interchangeable expressions for our consciousness of the
presence of God with us and in us. In the expression “inspiration” we
have further the symbol of His power—of the upbearing, purifying,
energizing gift of His own Spirit. Here words almost fail; and fresh
care is needed, whether in speaking or in hearing, as we draw near to
those depths which “cannot be uttered.” I pause on the threshold of the
inner chamber of the heart, the holy place of true worship.