126 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1868- 



person by an exertion of his own mental powers. Thus 

 the first step in revelation must come to man from 

 without. God must manifest himself to man in external 

 events of such a kind that man is constrained to see 

 God in these events just as I see a person in his actions. 



All the phenomena of nature are of course a mani 

 festation of God ; but this manifestation cannot suffice 

 for the purpose in hand. A true consciousness of God 

 must embrace a right conception of God s moral and 

 personal character, and must therefore be based on an 

 historical manifestation of God. We must learn that 

 God is ready to enter into deeper relations with man 

 than those of nature. We must know God as coming 

 nearer to man than nature brings him. God must enter 

 as an actor into human history so that even the eye 

 dimmed by sin cannot fail to recognise His presence. 

 The essential point here is, of course, that revelation is 

 no mere organic process, no mere evolution of energies 

 naturally existent in the world, but a new and specifically 

 divine history let down into human history. Now it is 

 not of course impossible for a man to maintain that this 

 is possible without any disturbance of the laws of nature. 

 At all events we cannot directly characterise such a 

 statement as unchristian. In fact, it is not uncommon 

 to find orthodox writers speaking of miracles as products 

 of a higher law of nature, which is in fact to concede all 

 that men like Bunsen would ask. Only, of course, the 

 orthodox writer, believing in the infallibility of Scripture, 

 would say that all the miracles of the Bible must be 

 instances of this ; while Bunsen would allow himself 

 to apply a detail criticism to many of the recorded 

 miracles. 



At the same time, I think that a clearer consideration 

 of what is involved in revelation as above determined 

 will show that no mere adjustment of the laws of nature 

 will serve the purpose of a divine revelation. For any 

 such adjustment whereby God manifests Himself in a very 



