To be near unto God - pagina 53

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. And 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. This inward state of soul warmly delights itself in the work of Christ's redemption, and glories in the way of salvation and is far better than a kind of Christianity that merely weaves webs for itself out of doctrinal intricacies.

But this is not yet the highest. The oldtime worthies were far more correct when they interpreted the knowledge of God to be both doctrinal and mystical. At this viewpoint God himself was always the central object of interest and religion (i. e. the service of God) came to be better understood. As we have been created after God's Image, it is only natural and indeed necessary, that in relation to God, our experiences should be as nearly as possible like those which we have in our relation of man to man. 49

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