nters and reveals Itself to the inward Eye that
is prepared for it."[48] "Things that are connatural in the way of
Religion," he once said, "the Illapses and Breakings in of God upon us,
require a mind that is not subject to Passion but is in a serene and
quiet Posture, where there is no tumult of Imagination. . . . There is
no genuine and proper effect of Religion where the Mind is not composed,
sedate and calm."[49]

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There is no tendency in Whichcote to undervalue Scripture. Inward
revelations are for him not a substitute for the Bible nor an appendix to
it. Through the Divine Light in the soul and through Scripture, Divine
communications are imparted to men. These he calls respectively "truth
of first inscription" and "truth of after-revelation,"[50] and they no
more conflict than two luminaries in the physical world conflict.
"Morals," he says, "are inforced by Scripture, but they were before
Scripture: they were according to the nature of God,"[51] and, as he
always claims, according to the deiform nature in man's reason.[52] As
soon as a person interprets the Light within him--the candle of the Lord
in his own heart--by the Light of revelation his inward illumination
becomes clearer; and contrariwise, as soon as one brings an enlightened
spirit to the Bible its message becomes clarified--"the Spirit within
leads to a right apprehension of those things which God hath
declared."[53] But Truth is always vastly more than "Notions," or
conceptual formulation of doctrine. "Religion," as he says in his
wisdom-proverbs, "is not a System of Doctrine, an observance of Modes or
a Form of Words"--it is "a frame and temper of mind; it shows itself in a
Life and Action conformable to the Divine Will"; it is "our resemblance
to God."[54] Bare knowledge does not sanctify any man; "Men of holy
Hearts and Lives best understand holy Doctrines."[55] We always deceive
ourselves if we do not get beyond even such high-sounding words as
conversion, regeneration, divine illumination, and mortification; if we
do not get beyond names and notions of every sort, into a real holiness
of life that is a conformity of nature to our original. His most
important passage on this point is one which is found in his Sermon on
the text: "Of this man's seed hath God, according to His promise, raised
up unto {301} Israel a Saviour, Jesus" (Acts xiii. 23). "Religion," he
says in this passage, "is not satisfied in Notions; but doth, in d