we
breathe. The very conception of the spiritual is enshrined in the bosom
of God's word. Revelation has separated between the life of heathenism
and the life of the Church, between the natural man and the spiritual,
between the darkness that comprehended it not and the children of the
light who received it and thus became children of God. Further, the word
of God pierces to the joints that connect the natural and the
supernatural.[59] It does not ignore the former. On the contrary, it
addresses itself to man's reason and conscience, in order to erect the
supernatural upon nature. Where reason stops short, the word of God
appeals to the supernatural faculty of faith; and when conscience grows
blunt, the word makes conscience, like itself, sharper than any
two-edged sword. Once more, the word of God pierces to the marrow.[60]
It reveals to man the innermost meaning of his own nature and of the
supernatural planted within him. The truest morality and the highest
spirituality are both the direct product of God's revelation.

But all this is true in its practical application to every man
individually. The power of the word of God to create distinct
dispensations and yet maintain their fundamental unity, to distinguish
between masses of men and yet cause all the separate threads of human
history to converge and at last meet, is the same power which judges the
inmost thoughts and inmost purposes of the heart. These it surveys with
critical judgment.[61] If its eye is keen, its range of vision is also
wide. No created thing but is seen and manifest. The surface is bared,
and the depth within is opened up before it. As the upturned neck of the
sacrificial beast lay bare to the eye of God,[62] so are we exposed to
the eye of Him to Whom we have to give our account.[63]

FOOTNOTES:

[38] Chap. iii. 2.

[39] 1 Cor. iv. 2.

[40] Chap. iii. 4.

[41] =poiesanti=.

[42] Chap. iii. 5.

[43] Ps. xcv. 7, sqq.

[44] Chap. ii. 13.

[45] =ta kola=. Cf. chap. xii. 12.

[46] =ouk edynethesan= (iii. 19).

[47] =euengelismenoi= (iv. 2).

[48] Reading =synkekerasmenos=.

[49] Chap. iv. 3.

[50] Chap. iv. 8.

[51] Ps. xxvii. 4.

[52] Gal. vi. 16.

[53] Chap. iv. 10.

[54] Matt. v. 17, 18.

[55] Matt. xxiv. 35.

[56] Chap. iv. 12.

[57] =energes=.

[58] =merismou=.

[59] =harmon=.

[60] =myelon=.

[61] =kritikos=.

[62] =tetrachelismena= (iv. 13).

[63] =ho logos=.

CHAPTER IV.

_THE GREAT HI