There is an internal work of the divine Spirit by which the outer word is made an inner word, and its truth and power are manifested to the heart. Scripture represents this work of the Spirit, not as a giving of new truth, but as an illumination of the mind to perceive the fulness of meaning which lay wrapped up in the truth already revealed. Christ is “the truth”_ (John 14:6)_; “in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden”_ (Col. 2:3)_; the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, “shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you”_ (John 16:14)_. The incarnation and the Cross express the heart of God and the secret of the universe; all discoveries in theology are but the unfolding of truth involved in these facts. The Spirit of Christ enables us to compare nature with Scripture, and Scripture with nature, and to correct mistakes in interpreting the one by light gained from the other. Because the church as a whole, by which we mean the company of true believers in all lands and ages, has the promise that it shall be guided “into all the truth”_ (John 16:13)_, we may confidently expect the progress of Christian doctrine. Christian experience is sometimes regarded as an original source of religious truth. Experience, however, is but a testing and proving of the truth objectively contained in God’s revelation. The word “experience” is derived from _experior_, to test, to try. Christian consciousness is not “norma normans,” but “norma normata.” Light, like life, comes to us through the mediation of others. Yet the first comes from God as really as the last, of which without hesitation we say: “God made me,” though we have human parents. As I get through the service-pipe in my house the same water which is stored in the reservoir upon the hillside, so in the Scriptures I get the same truth which the Holy Spirit originally communicated to prophets and apostles. Calvin, Institutes, book I, chap. 7—“As nature has an immediate manifestation of God in conscience, a mediate in his works, so revelation has an immediate manifestation of God in the Spirit, a mediate in the Scriptures.” “Man’s nature,” said Spurgeon, “is not an organized lie, yet his inner consciousness has been warped by sin, and though once it was an infallible guide to truth and duty, sin has made it very deceptive. The standard of infallibility is not in man’s consciousness, but in the Scriptures. When consciousness in any matter is contrary to the word of God, we must know that it is not God’s voice within us, but the devil’s.” Dr. George A. Gordon says that “Christian history is a revelation of Christ additional to that contained in the New Testament.” Should we not say “illustrative,” instead of “additional”? On the relation between Christian experience and Scripture, see Stearns,