To be near unto God - pagina 56

mystical background. For this knowledge of God has more than one significance. He who knows nothing of the Divine Being, attributes and works, can not be said to know the Lord. But neither can he be said to know him, who has not learned to worship him in his Holy Trinity. In connection with this, moreover, the saying of our Redeemer should never be lost from sight: "No man knoweth the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him (Matth. 11:27). This revelation must include, without doubt, the light that shines forth upon us from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But as readily as this is granted, it is maintained with equal emphasis, that this does not constitute the whole knowledge of God. True knowledge of God includes a spiritual reality which far exceeds mere intellectual acumen, and which merely employs the abstractions of dogma and doctrine as means by which to clarify impressions that are received and to explain sensations of soul and inner experiences. And this has gradually been forgotten. Knowledge of God in the abstract has been retained. It has come to consist largely of the studies of formal and doctrinal expositions. the man who can most cleverly explain some point of dogma is deemed to be best grounded in knowledge of the Lord. This could not permanently satisfy. And so the experience of grace in the heart has gone over into the other extreme and mysticism has begun to interpret religion altogether, or nearly so, from the work of redemption by Christ, in connection, of course, with personal experience of grace. This was undoubtedly a partial gain.

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