f God as, through
amazing grace, it offers itself to man in the desperate straits of his
life. Man is so made that he perpetually seeks some desired satisfaction
and, in his restless search for this unattained good, he tries many false
and specious trails, is endlessly baffled and deceived, and finally
discovers, if he is fortunate enough to come to himself, that he is like
a shipwrecked man on a single plank with sea everywhere about him and no
haven in sight. In this strait the Light, which he has not noted before,
breaks in on his darkness, and the way of Grace is presented to him in
{110} Christ. He feels himself called to a strange way of finding his
desired satisfaction--no longer the way of flesh and worldly wisdom, but
the way of the cross, of suffering, and of sacrifice. Reason,
enlightened by the Word of God, prompts him to assent; the Scriptures,
laden with promises, bear their affirmative testimony, and thus he makes
his venture of faith, takes the risk of the voluntary sacrifice of his
own pleasant desires, his preference for ways of ease and comfort, his
self-will, and makes the bold experiment of trusting the Word of God, as
it reveals itself to him, and of following Christ. He finds that his
faith verifies itself at every step, his experiment carries him on into
an experience, his venture brings him to the reality he is seeking.
Every stage of this pragmatic faith, which in a word is _obedience to the
Light_, makes the fact and the meaning of sin clearer, at the same time
makes the knowledge of God more real and the nature of goodness more
plain, and it leads away from a superstition of fear to a religion of
love and of joy.[9]

All other religions, besides this true and inward religion of the spirit,
called by Coornhert "outer or external religions," are considered of
value only as preparatory stages toward the one true religion which
establishes the kingdom of God in man's heart. With this fundamental
view, he quite naturally regards all external forms and ceremonies as
temporary, and he holds that all of them, even the highest of them, are
nothing else than visible signs, figures, shadows, symbols, pointing to
invisible, spiritual, eternal realities, which in their nature are far
different from the signs and symbols. The signs and symbols can in no
way effect salvation; they can at best only suggest to the quickened soul
the true realities, to know which is salvation. The real and availing
cir