Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 389

Chap.

THIS PRINCIPIUM

II]

AND OUR CONSCIOUSNESS

365

most fully and enjoyed it most richly, has ever been that it was God who brought them to the Scripture and the Scripture that He opened their eyes, so that they might unto them derstand the Scripture; and that only by the light which shone on them from the Scripture, light has appeared in their own ;

person and the

At no

life

round about them.

single point of the

way

is

there place, therefore, for

There a support derived from demonstration or reasoning. and Scripture, the finds seeking is no man that seeks, and from rather But with its help turns himself to his God. beginning to end it is one ceaselessly continued action which goes out from God to man, and operates upon him, even as the light of the sun operates upon the grain of corn that lies hidden in the ground, and draws it to the surface, and causes In God, therefore, is the principium it to grow into a stalk. from which this entire action proceeds. This principium of grace in

God

brings

established in and

it

to pass that a central Revelation

for our sinful race.

is

That same principium

the agent by which the image of that Revelation is reflected And it is again that same principium of in the Scripture. is

power of which goes out to the soul of the by the Scripture it may bind him personally to that Revelation, and by that Revelation back again to his

grace, the motive sinner, that

From

God.

this it follows of itself that

with each one per-

you must distinguish between his experimental (netto) and purely intellectual (bruto) faith in the Scripture, i.e. between that in the Scripture which has been personally assured to his heart by the living God, and all the rest, which still lies outside of the life of his soul, and

sonally

only bears a holy character for the sake of

its

connection with

The proporit is as yet unknown to him. experimental and intellectual faiths will be different with every individual according to the depth of It will be conhis inner life and the flight of his wings. the

first,

tions

though

of these

stantly modified with each person

whose

life

of

faith ad-

vances, so that the experimental and intellectual faith will

But however this proportionately decrease and increase. purely intellectual (bruto) faith may diminish, it is not con-

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