Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 390

366

§ 69.

THE RELATION BETWEEN

[Div. Ill

ceivable that there has ever been one single believer to

whom

the entire Scripture has been the possession of his heart.

This may even be maintained of those who have literally covered the entire Bible, and have served the Church of God with an exposition of its entire contents. Just because the Divine character of the Scripture rests for us exclusively on faith, the richest exposition can never constitute

anything for us a

Word of God. The distinction must What God Himself does not bear

clearly be maintained.

witness to in your soul personally (not mystic-absolutel}^ but through the Scriptures) can never be known and conFinite reasoning can never obtain fessed by you as Divine. the infinite as if

in the soul of

of His

men He

God then withdraws

bear no more

Word, men can no longer

however

Himself,

witness to the truth

believe,

and no apologetics,

be able to restore the blessing of Faith, quickened by God Himself, is

brilliant, will ever

faith in the Scripture.

invincible is

If

its result.

;

devoid of

pseudo -faith, which rests merely upon reasoning, all

spiritual reality, so that

it

bursts like a soap-

bubble as soon as the thread of your reasoning breaks. The relation between the principium of Theology and our consciousness can therefore be nothing else than immediate. Not immediate in the sense that God could not be pleased to make use of all kinds of transmissions, arrangements and

by which to reach man's inmost soul; but such that at no single point of the line the natural principium can come in between to fill up the void, which might remain processes,

open in the going out of the principium of grace to our The principium gratiae operates from the side of God right through the periods of Revelation, the Scripture, the mystical union, etc., till our heart has been reached and heart.

and our heart gives itself captive, not because and approves the approach of God but offer no resistance, and must give itself captive because it can to the operation which goes out from God. All faith in the Scripture quickened by God, and in God quickened by the Scripture, which does not bear this immediate character, and would borrow its assurance from any touched

;

critically it allows

;

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