THE KING'S BUSINESS
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reveals God’s love to them. It is as if the warm streams of the .love which have their foundation in the depths of His infinite life were flowing round them and into them. They are conscious of that love for them of which God is conscious. A COMMON INHERITANCE And this blessedness is not the preroga tive of elect saints, or of those who may be said to have a natural genius for spirit ual thought. It is the common inheritance of all that are “in Christ,” although there is reason to fear that many Christian peo ple rarely reach the height of its joy. But among those who reach it are men of every degree of intellectual rank and every vari ety of moral and spiritual temperament. It is reached by ignor,ant men, whose thoughts are narrow and whose minds are inert, as well as by men with large knowledge and great powers of speculation; by men destitute of imagination, as well as by men whose imagination kindles as soon as it is touched by the splendors of nature or by the verses of poets. Men whose life moves slowly and sluggishly reach it, as well as men who are impulsive, ardent, and adventurous. And where this expe rience is known, it becomes an effective force in the moral life. Peter, writing to slaves, says, “For this is acceptable, if through consciousness of God a man endur- eth griefs, suffering wrongfully.” I have said that “in Christ” men know God—not merely through Christ- It is true that during His earthly ministry He revealed God; so that, in answer to the prayer of one of His disciples, “Show us the Father, and.it sufficeth us,” He said, “Have I been so long time with you, and dost thou not know me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” That revelation has eternal power and value; but there are other words spoken by Christ that same night which suggest that it is not merely by the revelation of God dur ing His earthly ministry that Christ has made it possible for men to know the Father. He said: “I am the true vine, and ye are the branches . . . Abide in
eternal and divine order. He belongs to two worlds. He is just as certain that he is environed by things unseen and exter nal as that he is environed by things seen and temporal. In the power of the life given- to him in the new birth he has entered into the kingdom of God. He is conscious that that diviner region is now the native land of his soul. It is there that he finds perfect rest and perfect free dom. It is a relief to escape to its eternal peace and glory from the agitations and vicissitudes, the sorrows and successes, of this transitory world. It is not always that he is vividly conscious of belonging to that eternal order; this supreme blessedness is reserved for the great hours of life; but he knows that it lies about him always, and* that at any moment the great,Apocalypse may come. And even when it is hidden, its “powers” continue to act- upon him, as the light and heat of the sun pass through the clouds by which the burning splendor is softened and. concealed. GOD HIMSELF Further, “in Christ” Christian men know God; they know Him for themselves. The mere conception of God is as different from the immediate knowledge of Him as the mere conception of the Matterhorn from the actual vision of it as an external' objec tive grandeur; and it is not the concep tion of God, but God Himself, that fills them with awe and wonder, and with a blessedness which trembles into devout fear. Sometimes the “exceeding weight of glory” is too great to bear, and human infirmity is relieved when the vision passes. At other times God is more than a tran scendent glory to be contemplated and adored. His infinite love, to use Paul’s words, is shed abroad in their hearts, like the sun’s heat under tropical heawens; it is immediately revealed. How, they can not tell, any more than they can tell how the material world is revealed to sense; they only know that, apart from any self- originated effort, apart from any move ment of their own towards Him, the eter nal Spirit draws near to their spirit and
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