130 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1868- 



man is enabled to see God in manifestation. Clearly such 

 an inspiration without a manifestation would be meaning 

 less and void of all power to save mankind. To say 

 that a spiritual renewal of man s consciousness of God is 

 possible except as attaching to and dependent on a 

 supernatural activity of God in history, is equivalent to 

 saying that regeneration is not dependent on an objective 

 redemptive work. And this is to sink back into the 

 Socinian doctrine which makes our Lord only an inspired 

 teacher. 



In revelation then we must distinguish and yet regard 

 as inseparable two sides. The outer and objective side 

 is manifestation, the inner and subjective inspiration. 

 The manifestation becoming part of history must neces 

 sarily have men as its organs. In all the miracles of 

 Scripture human agencies are more or less directly 

 engaged. It is among these agents then that we must 

 specially look for inspiration. If the manifestation re 

 mained unintelligible to these it could never enter into 

 human history at all. Only by being rightly, though 

 not necessarily exhaustively, comprehended by those 

 who are in actual contact with it does the supernatural 

 event become a permanent force in the world ; for all 

 redemptive activities must flow through personal 

 channels. And so side by side with the stream of miracle 

 we have a stream of inspired prophecy. The develop 

 ment of this side of revelation would demand an essay 

 for itself, and it is the more necessary that I should pass 

 over this topic because I have had on a former occasion 

 an opportunity of directing the attention of the Society 

 to the manner in which prophecy and history are inter 

 woven so that each new step in redemptive history is 

 in prophecy truly interpreted under the inspiration of 

 God s Spirit, and so interpreted becomes at once a power 

 to shape history and a key whereby the prophet is enabled 

 more and more fully to unriddle God s eternal purpose in 

 history. Especially important is it to understand that 



