|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 9
It shall go hard,
But I will delve one yard below their mines.
As an experience, God is a discovery which each must make for himself.
Religion comes to us as an inheritance; and at the outset we can no more
distinguish the voice of God from the voices of men we respect, than the
boy Samuel could distinguish the voice of Jehovah from that of Eli. But
we gradually learn to "possess our possession," to respond to our own
highest inspirations, whether or not they inspire others. Pascal well
says: "It is the consent of yourself to yourself and the unchanging
voice of your own reason that ought to make you believe." So far only
as we repeat for ourselves the discoveries of earlier explorers of Him
who is invisible have we any religion of our own. And this personal
experience is the ground of our certainty; "as we have heard, so have we
seen in the city of our God."
Religious experience, and even Christian experience, appears in a great
variety of forms; and there is always a danger lest those who are
personally familiar with one type should fail to acknowledge others as
genuine. The mystics are apt to disparage the rationalists; hard-headed,
conscientious saints look askance at seers of visions; and those whose
new life has broken forth with the energy and volume of a geyser hardly
recognize the same life when it develops like a spring-born stream from
a small trickle, increased by many tributaries, into a stately river.
The value of an experience is to be judged not by its form, but by its
results. Fortunately for Christianity the New Testament contains a
variety of types. With the first disciples the light dawns gradually; on
St. Paul it bursts in a flash brighter than noonday. The emotional
heights and depths of the seer on Patmos contrast with the steady level
disclosed in the practical temperament of the writer of the _Epistle of
James_. But underneath the diversity there is an essential unity of
experience: all conform to that which Luther (as Harnack summarizes his
position) considered the essence of Christian faith--"unwavering trust
of the heart in God who has given Himself to us in Christ as our
Father."
Religious experience has been defined as man's _response_ to God; it
often appears rather his _search_ for Him. But that is characteristic
only of the beginning of the experience. The experienced know better
than to place the emphasis on their initiative in establishing
intercourse with the Divine. "We love, because He first loved us," they
say. The Apostle, who speaks of his readers as those who "have come to
know God," stops and corrects himself, "or rather _to be known of God_."
Believers discover that God was "long beforehand" with them. Their very
search is but an answer to His seeking; in their every movement towards
Him, they are aware of His drawing. The verse which begins, "My soul
followeth hard after Thee," continues "Thy right hand upholdeth me."
Religious experience, like all other, is limited by a man's capacity for
it; and some men seem to have very scant capacity for God. It is not
easy to establish a point of contact between a Falstaff or a Becky Sharp
and the Father of Jesus Christ. There is no community of interest or
kinship of spirit. "Faith is assurance of things _hoped for_;" and where
there is no craving for God, He is likely to remain incredible.
Prepossession has almost everything to do with the commencement of
belief. It is only when circumstances force a man to feel that a God
would be desirable that he will risk himself to yield to his highest
inspirations, and give God the chance to disclose Himself to him. It is
a case of nothing venture, nothing have. Faith is always a going out
whither we know not, but in each venture we accumulate experience and
gradually come to "know Whom we have believed." Without the initial
eagerness for God which opens the door and sends us out we remain
debarred from ever knowing. As the _Theologia Germanica_ puts it, "We
are speaking of a certain Truth which it is possible to know by
experience, but which ye must believe in before ye know."
The capacity for religious experience can be cultivated. Faith, like an
ear for music or taste in literature, is a developable instinct. It
grows by contagious contact with fellow believers; as "the sight of
lovers feedeth those in love," the man of faith is nourished by
fellowship with the believing Church. It is increased by familiarity
with fuller and richer experiences of God; continuous study of the Bible
leads men into its varied and profound communion with the Most High. It
is enlarged by private and social worship; prayer and hymn and message
were born in vital experiences, and they reproduce the experience.
Browning, in characteristic verse, describes the effect of the service
upon the worshippers in Zion Chapel Meeting:
These people have really felt, no doubt,
A something, the motion they style the Call of them;
And this is their method of bringing about,
By a mechanism of words and tones,
(So many texts in so many groans)
A sort of reviving and reproducing,
More or less perfectly (who can tell?),
The mood itself, which strengthens by using.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|