Van Til and His Rollie

"When I think what an aid tobacco is to friendship and Christian patience, I have sometimes regretted that I never began to smoke." (J. Gresham Machen)

Seems Cornelius Van Til didn't suffer through such a regret.

(click to enlarge)

Why Is Doc Bill E. a Presuppositionalist?

From the New Horizons (May 1995) magazine of the OPC.

Click on pic to enlarge.

Joel Beeke on Cornelius Van Til

From the New Horizons (May 1995) magazine of the OPC.

Click on pic to enlarge.

Who is Cornelius Van Til?

Thomas Sullivan presents:




And O.T. scholar, Tremper Longman III, discusses how CVT shaped his thinking and spiritual life:

The Decalogue of Covenantal Apologetics

1. The faith that we are defending must begin with, and necessarily include, the triune God— Father, Son, and Holy Spirit— who, as God, condescends to create and to redeem.

2. God's covenantal revelation is authoritative by virtue of what it is, and any covenantal, Christian apologetic will necessarily stand on and utilize that authority in order to defend Christianity.

3. It is the truth of God's revelation, together with the work of the Holy Spirit, that brings about a covenantal change from one who is in Adam to one who is in Christ.

4. Man (male and female) as image of God is in covenant with the triune God for eternity.

5. All people know the true God, and that knowledge entails covenantal obligations.

6. Those who are and remain in Adam suppress the truth that they know. Those who are in Christ see that truth for what it is.

7. There is an absolute, covenantal antithesis between Christian theism and any other, opposing position. Thus, Christianity is true and anything opposing it is false.

8. Suppression of the truth, like the depravity of sin, is total but not absolute. Thus, every unbelieving position will necessarily have within it ideas, concepts, notions, and the like that it has taken and wrenched from their true, Christian context.

9. The true, covenantal knowledge of God in man, together with God's universal mercy, allows for persuasion in apologetics.

10. Every fact and experience is what it is by virtue of the covenantal, all-controlling plan and purpose of God.

(K. Scott Oliphint, Covenantal Apologetics: Principles and Practice in Defense of Our Faith [Illinois: Crossway, 2013])




You can find Dr. Oliphint discussing covenantal apologetics at Reformed Forum here.

More apologetics posts:

Machen on the Perichoresis Between Evangelism and Apologetics

John Calvin's Influence on Reformed Apologetics

Van Til and the Perichoresis of Apologetics and Evangelism

The Voice of the Gospel in Nature and the Organic Unity of God's Revelation

Endemic to the current discussion on 2K theology is the issue of whether special revelation bears equally upon both believer and unbeliever. I have touched upon this in these two brief posts: The Antithesis a New Species Doth Not Make and Bavinck Contra NL2K/R2K

What follows is a masterful exposition of the organic unity of God's revelation as manifested in its two, but perichoretic, forms (natural and special). This should prove helpful in the navigation of a better stream, a Vossian-Van Tillian path, amidst Transformationalist Neo-Calvinism and Radical/Natural Law Two Kingdoms avenues.

[Kerux:NWTS 21/2 (Sep 2006) 13-34]
Natural and Special Revelation: A Reassessment1
William D. Dennison, Ph. D.

Introduction: Raising the Issue

"Then God said, `Let there be light;' and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning the first day" (NKJ Gen. 1:3-5).

As God created the light on the first day of creation, and he separated the light from the darkness, I ask you, should we understand the creation of the light as natural revelation or special revelation? I think we tend to say, natural revelation.

Let us move quickly ahead and glance at the dawn of the new creation! "All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him" (NKJ Jn. 1:3-10).

Later in John's gospel, the Light in John's prologue speaks to us—our Savior Jesus Christ affirms: "I am the Light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life" (Jn. 8:12; cf. Rev. 21:23).

As the new creation dawns by the coming of the Light of life into the world (Jesus Christ), should we understand Christ's redeeming work in the world as natural revelation or special revelation? I think we tend to say that Christ's redeeming work is special revelation.

It seems that we understand the distinction—right? God's creation of light on the first day of the original creation is an expression of natural revelation, whereas God sending the divine Light, Jesus Christ, to usher in the new creation is an expression of special revelation.

The boundaries and the limits of natural revelation and special revelation are set. Natural revelation is a distinct and separate revelation, communicating God's imprint upon the created universe; special revelation is a distinct and separate revelation, communicating God's saving activity to humanity. Although distinct and separate, the two revelations are complimentary and do not contradict each other. Indeed, we have an efficient, tightly defined system that distinguishes both revelations. It has been said, therefore, that natural or general revelation provides the "evidences that a supreme being has created the universe, but we do not see that the being is triune, nor do we see a plan of redemption anywhere in the created order."2 Rather, for humanity to see that the Supreme Being is triune (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), and for us to see God's plan of redemption, we need special revelation.3 Hence, special revelation communicates the triune God of the Bible and the plan of redemption focused in Christ.

With this typical distinction between natural and special revelation before you, permit me to ask this question: does the Bible present natural revelation and special revelation within such rigidly defined boundaries? In order to stimulate your thinking, permit me to set before you a few observations from the twentieth century Reformed apologist, Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987). Van Til questions whether nature reveals nothing about God's grace.4 In fact, he writes: "Saving grace is not manifest in nature; yet it is the God of saving grace who manifests himself by means of nature."5 It is not entirely apparent what Van Til means by the first phrase, but as one wrestles with the entire statement in the context of his apologetic, it becomes clear that Van Til holds the position that God displays his saving grace upon the landscape of nature. Perhaps, it can best be said in this manner: saving grace is not nature itself, but saving grace is always displayed by the free and sovereign action of God upon the natural terrain of created history. For this reason, Van Til does not speak of two distinct and separate revelations—natural and special; rather, he understands revelation as a unity that is disclosed in two forms—natural and special. Van Til writes:

Van Til the Street Preacher

These images of Cornelius Van Til street preaching may seem uncharacteristic of a Reformed apologist and churchman like himself. The stereotype is that numbers are added to the church through the procreation of covenant children by believing parents. While this is certainly true and not something to be embarrased about, there is also nothing un-Reformed about what Van Til did. He simply made the antithesis hit hard. What does this mean?

It means every human being is guilty and is aware of this guilt to one extent or another by virtue of being made in the image of God. Even Francis Turretin posits that there is actually no such entity as an absolute, theoretical atheist, though practical ones abound. The voice of conscience is strong in every man, condemning imperfect obedience to the Law. While the unbeliever tries incessantly to suppress this voice, the Holy Spirit uses the means of the declaration of the Law and the guilt it brings, followed by the Gospel with its attendant grace, to effect the faith that justifies. When the unbeliever is translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, he passes from one side of the antithesis to another.

So, in fact, Van Til was merely being a good agent of divine concursus!

The Underdogism of Geerhardus Vos

The following short bio on Vos once again brings to the fore the fact that the greats were Underdogs.


Geerhardus Vos: Life Between Two Worlds by James T. Dennison, Jr.

There were not many present that Wednesday afternoon; not many present at all. No one was there from his denomination; no one was there from the institution he had served for nearly thirty-nine years. Only one person from his family appears to have been there. A man and a woman from the local Methodist Church were there. They sang a hymn. Ironically, the institution to which he had declined to transfer at its formation in 1929 was there—in the person of her most noted Dutchman; no antithesis here—Dutchman paying tribute to Dutchman. Cornelius Van Til was there with his Dutch friend, Rev. John De Waard; John De Waard, pastor of Memorial Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Rochester, New York. Van Til of Westminster Seminary and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church; De Waard, graduate of Princeton Seminary and member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Two Dutchmen were there to bury their countryman, conducting his casket from the village Methodist Church to a simple hillside cemetery. Van Til, De Waard and the casket of Geerhardus Vos in the tiny village of Roaring Branch, Pennsylvania on Wednesday, August 17, 1949. And there in that grassy cemetery, they laid his remains next to those of his wife, Catherine; Catherine Vos who had died September 14, 1937. Geerhardus interred in the mountain village not far from the summer house where Catherine and he and their four children passed so many pleasant hours between May and September. Pleasant morning hours of study followed by the mile-long walk to the post office in town. Afternoon reading on the porch with the children followed by another walk to the post office. And evenings in the study once more, surrounded by his books and journals and papers. And on Sunday? the walk to the Methodist Church for worship—the only church in the village. The ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. worships in a Methodist Church; the Professor at the premier Old School Reformed Theological Seminary passes his summer Sabbaths in an Arminian church. And as ironic and incongruous as his church life in Roaring Branch is the surreal photograph of his open casket on that August afternoon in 1949—his open casket flanked by Van Til and De Waard. Geerhardus Vos buried in an obscure mountain village, in an obscure mountain cemetery—all but forgotten by the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., all but forgotten by Princeton Theological Seminary, all but forgotten by the evangelical and Reformed world of post-World War II boomers. At his graveside, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and Westminster Seminary. But fifty years later, he remains obscure not only in the Presbyterian Church (U. S. A.) and Princeton Theological Seminary; fifty years later, he remains an enigma to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and Westminster Seminary.

But not to Cornelius Van Til fifty years ago; not even to the Cornelius Van Til of his own student days at Princeton Seminary 1924-25. "Dr. Vos was the greatest pedagogue I ever sat under." That is what Dr. Van Til told me in 1981 when he visited Westminster in California for his first and only time. And yet, even at Princeton, Vos was an enigma. Never active in Presbytery; not easily understood by the majority of his students (though J. Gresham Machen said, "if I knew half of what Dr. Vos knows"); ever in the background of the seminary culture—his only prominence (besides his profound scholarship) the regular walks with his friend, B. B. Warfield. Yet after the First World War, that profound scholarship virtually disappears from the pages of the journal of the Seminary he served. And his most penetrating work, The Pauline Eschatology—privately published by the author in 1930. Imagine that—no major publisher interested in a book that revolutionized Pauline Theology for all those who penetrated it—indeed for all those who found Vos's exegesis of the mind of Paul a Copernican revolution. Was Vos marginalized because of his thick Dutch accent and his intricate Germanic style? Was Vos isolated even at Princeton after 1918 because of his sympathies for the German Kaiser during World War I? What did he do to be placed on the periphery; what didn't he do to attain a place in even Princeton's tiny spotlight? Was it too hard to follow his lectures? Was it his distinctive approach to the organic character of revelation? certainly unpopular with students demanding Sunday School level instruction at a Theological Seminary. Was it his fragile health? a metabolism racked easily by fatigue, insomnia, nervousness? Was it his retiring personality? a personality which passed up appointment to Abraham Kuyper's Free University in Amsterdam out of deference to his parents; a personality which rejected William Henry Green's initial pleas to leave the backwater of Grand Rapids and join the faculty of his Princeton alma mater in the critical year before the Briggs heresy trial reached its climax; a personality which saw him rarely invited to speak beyond the chapel of Princeton Seminary; a personality which could not move out of Princeton in 1929, nor out of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A. in 1936; a personality which led him to board a train in Seattle, Washington in 1926, leaving his wife and children to make their way by car from Seattle to Princeton without him.

The Antithesis a New Species Doth Not Make

Man, as made in the image of God, is intrinsically (by default) "wired" as a covenantal being. He knows of himself as a covenantal being and, though after the Fall, the sinner lives and moves in suppression of this fact, still he cannot escape it in the voice of his conscience and in the testimony of creation all around him.

What this covenatalism further presupposes is that both natural and special revelation bear upon man's conception of anything. Natural revelation both reveal the grace and wrath of God in the consistency of life-support systems in creation as well as the death dynamic that is at work in it, just as special revelation reveal the grace and wrath of God in the person and work of Christ and in the final, eschatological death that is alluded to by physical, temporal death. Man, as man, needs both natural and special revelation.

This realization has given me pause about NL2K (Natural Law Two Kingdoms Theology, or sometimes R2K). Sure, the baker does not need special revelation in order to engage in his baking, but this is merely speaking at a practical level. The baker, as an ontological human being made in the image of God, has upon himself the covenantal duty to reckon with both God's natural and special revelation at every turn. Is there an occasion wherein the baker does not bake as a human being? If not, then even in his baking, special revelation is required if he is to bake as a human being. What NL2K seems to imply is that there are two species of human beings, one for whom both natural and special revelation are of import and another wherein natural revelation will do. But the Fall did not create two different ontological classes of human beings but two different covenant relations to God in which man could either be a covenant-keeper or covenant-breaker (the antithesis). So when the baker bakes unmindful of God in special revelation, he bakes as a covenant-breaker and in fact sins in his baking.

To be sure, God uses the covenant-breaking baker to provide carbohydrate energy to both sinner and saint alike, but this is merely an outworking of His patience, intending the order and consistency in the present age to facilitate the smooth unfolding of redemptive history that will culminate in the age of glory characterized by revelational integrity.

Westminster Wednesday: Intrusion Ethics

The Decalogue is Moral Law (henceforth, "Law"). It is the expression of God's moral will and is binding on every human being by virtue of the Covenant of Creation. When the reprobate is judged on the Last Day, he will be judged by virtue of his inability and failure to keep the Law perfectly, whereas the elect will be judged as righteous (keeper of the Covenant) by virtue of his union with Christ (the One who obeyed the Law perfectly for the elect and bore the penalty of their failure to keep it in the same way).

Given the binding nature of the Law (as an agent of damnation for the reprobate and as the means of manifesting existentially one's union with Christ through obedience for the elect), the particular instances in the Old Testament of seeming contraventions to it may cause confusion to some. What of the Canaanite genocide? Rahab's lie? Etc. Aren't these instances of the Law being broken, with God giving approval? This is where Meredith Kline's notion of "intrusion ethics" comes into play.

Developing on Geerhardus Vos' biblical theology (notably its deeply eschatological character) and Cornelius Van Til's ethics (notably "common grace"), Kline proposes that these instances of seeming law-breaking in the O.T. were actually in-breakings of the consummation (future kingdom) in the context of redemptive history that was functioning typologically.

So, in fact, the massacre of the Canaanites was a type of the future judgment and destruction of all the reprobate in hell.

Dr. Jeong Koo Jeon, in his essay entitled Covenant Theology and Old Testament Ethics: Meredith G. Kline's Intrusion Ethics, explains :

Van Til on Driscoll

Mark Driscoll's rejection of the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son of God (declared in ecumenical creeds and Reformed confessions) is discussed here (Part 1), here (Part 2), here (Part 3), and here (Part 4).

It appears Cornelius Van Til was on the mark once again when he said:

It is sometimes contended that ministers need not be trained in systematic theology if only they know their Bibles. But "Bible-trained" instead of systematically trained preachers frequently preach error. They may mean ever so well and be ever so true to the gospel on certain points; nevertheless, they often preach error. There are many "orthodox" preachers today whose study of Scripture has been so limited to what it says about soteriology that they could not protect the fold of God against heresies on the person of Christ. Oftentimes they themselves even entertain definitely heretical notions on the person of Christ, though perfectly unaware of the fact. (An Introduction to Systematic Theology [New Jersey: P & R, 2007], ed. William Edgar, 22)

Westminster Wednesday: Some Big Van Tillian Words

References:
(Bahnsen = Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1998).

Frame = John M. Frame, Cornelius Van Til: an Analysis of His Thought (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1995).

VT= Van Til)


Absolute Personality: VT's basic characterization of God. Unlike any non-Christian view, the biblical God is both absolute (a se, self-existent, selfsufficient, self-contained) and personal (thinking, speaking, acting, loving, judging). See Frame, 51ff.

Ad hominem: Argument that exposes deficiencies in the arguer rather than deficiencies in the proposition under discussion. Thus, a logical fallacy. But often ad hominem argument is appropriate. See Bahnsen, 116ff, 468, 492, Frame, 153.

All-conditioner: VT's characterization of God in "Why I Believe in God" (see Bahnsen, 121-143). God is the one who ultimately influences all reality, including our own thinking and reasoning about him.

Analogy, analogical reasoning: (1) (Aquinas) Thinking in language that is neither literally true (univocal), nor unrelated to the subject matter (equivocal), but which bears a genuine resemblance to that subject matter. (2) (VT) Thinking in subjection to God's revelation and therefore thinking God's thoughts after him.

Antithesis: The opposition between Christian and non-Christian thought. See Frame, 187ff.

Apologetics: That branch of theology that gives reasons for our hope. VT saw it as involving proof, defense, and offense.

A priori: Knowledge acquired prior to experience, used to interpret and evaluate experience. Contrasted with a posteriori knowledge, knowledge arising out of experience. See Bahnsen, 107n, 177.

Authority of the expert: Submission to the knowledge of someone better informed, rather than absolute submission to God as the very criterion of truth. To VT, this is the only kind of authority the unbeliever will accept.

Autonomy: The attempt to live apart from any law external to the self. To VT, this is the paradigm attitude of unbelief. See Bahnsen 109, n.

Great Minds Reject Univocity

Contra Gordon Clark, Carl Trueman, speaking of the archetypal/ectypal distinction in epistemology, indicates how the Reformed have always thought of this distinction:

"In Reformed theology, the distinction functions in such a way as to delimit human knowledge of God and to underline the fact that theology is utterly dependent upon God's act of condescending to reveal himself. This acknowledgement ensures that theological statements are only apprehensive, not comprehensive, of the truth as it is in God. Language can thus be referential, but there is no simple one-to-one correspondence between human words and divine realities as they exist in God himself. The presence and function of this distinction in, say, the Leiden Synopsis, or Francis Turretin or, later, in Herman Bavinck, denotes a theological sensitivity to the innate weakness of human language when talking of God; and it roots such God-talk not in any true rationalism but in the free, condescending, revelatory acts of God himself. Such language is still referential; and truth still has a non-negotiable objectivity; but it is not rationalism in any recognizable Enlightenment sense." (Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light, WTJ 70 [2008]: 10, 11)

I can imagine Trueman and Van Til sharing beer over this.

Was Man's Reason Unaffected by the Fall? Turretin Denies

Gordon Clark and his followers believe and proclaim the affirmative. They assert that the human intellect remained in its pristine condition even after man's descent into sin and that the sin problem is one solely of an ethical nature.

While the sin problem is indeed ethical, an immediate observation is the undue and coerced bifurcation made between reason and the will (an assumed independence). What the position seems to be saying is that the will can act independently of what the mind deems as good and fitting. Even in the case of addictions, where it seems that the will and emotions are acting in rebellion against the mind, the intellectual involvement is ever present in its estimation of the pleasure to be derived from engaging in the illicit act.

But what does one of the prime exponents of Reformed Orthodoxy have to say about the state of reason in unregenerate man? Let us reckon with Francis Turretin's words:

My Credo, by Cornelius Van Til

If you want to know what Cornelius Van Til was all about and where he was coming from, as narrated by the man himself, and be thoroughly refreshed and inspired in the process, then read on.


How can I express my appreciation adequately for the honor you have conferred on me by your contributions to this Festschrift? I shall try to do so first by setting forth in this, my "Credo," a general statement of my main beliefs as I hold them today. Then I shall deal separately with the problems and objections some of you have raised in respect to my views in separate response to the essays themselves. I hope that by doing this we may be of help to one another as together we present the name of Jesus as the only name given under heaven by which men must be saved.

The Coolest of the Reformed Cats

Notice the prominent foreheads? A chief requirement of Reformed coolness.

Turretin was probably wearing a wig or decided on the "heavy metal" look—still within the bounds of cool. LOL.

Westminster Wednesday: What Is the Most Satanic Philosophy?

According to Cornelius Van Til, it is Karl Barth's:

"Total depravity. That means the whole glass is poisoned. It's not as poisoned as it could be, but it's all poisoned. The faculties of soul are all turned against God by nature. All are poisoned by sin. Wherever there is evidence of God, which is everywhere, man will deny it. You see, God must reach down and save dead men in their trespasses and sins. You do not heal a dead man. You resurrect him. Man is not sick, not drowning, but dead. Dead is dead. You can't throw him a rope. A dead man can't grab anything. Your mother is dead without Christ. Your culture is dead without Christ. This is the problem with Karl Barth, there's no space-and-time redemption by Christ. There's no change of the unbeliever to believer. There's no challenge to the natural man. That's why Barth is poison. Water and sulfuric acid look the same, right? If you drink sulfuric acid, it will kill you. Barth has placed sulfuric acid in our water bottles and told us it is water. Barth has created the systematically most satanic philosophy ever devised by the mind of man. Salvation is like cleaning a bad tooth. It's no good if your dentist tells you your tooth is okay when it's rotten. The dentist has to go down, drill out the decay and replace it with gold. This is what salvation is." (Van Til Made Me Reformed by Eric H. Sigward, emphasis mine)

For Van Til's essay in the Westminster Theological Journal entitled, "Has Karl Barth Become Orthodox?", click here.

For a PDF copy, email me.

Biblical Counseling is Van Tillian

"I would say that if you were to look at primary sources for what biblical counseling is, that Scripture, orthodox theology are gonna be what you'd first say. But from a deep structure standpoint, it is Van Tillian utterly from beginning to end." (David Powlison)

More here.

Covenantal Apologetics: Waking Up the Already Awake

It is virtually impossible to wake someone up who is feigning sleep. It is also futile to attempt to convince the natural man of the existence of God because He already knows that God exists by virtue of being created in God's image. Romans 1:19-21 states:

"For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened."

While classical apologetics has sought to wake up the already awake, covenantal apologetics realizes that man's problem before God is not intellectual/epistemological but moral/covenantal. The natural man denies God's existence, not because of a lack of proof, but because of the desire to live autonomously, apart from the rule of God and creaturely dependence on Him. The love of sin and the love of God are mutually exclusive, and up until the Holy Spirit regenerates the sin-hardened heart in order that, through repentance and faith in Christ, man might be in the favorable side of the covenant, man will never wake up from his fake slumber.

Evangelism and apologetics stand in perichoresis to each other, and the way to engage the unregenerate is as follows:

"Here then are the facts, or some of the main facts that the Reformed apologist presents to the natural man. There is first the fact of God's self-contained existence. Second, the fact of creation in general and of man as made in God's image in particular. Third, there is the fact of the comprehensive plan and providence of God with respect to all that takes place in the universe. Then there is the fact of the fall of man and his subsequent sin. It is in relation to these facts, and only in relation to these facts, that the other facts pertaining to the redemptive work of Christ are what they are. Their very factness as facts would not be what it is unless the facts just mentioned are what they are." (Cornelius Van Til, Christian Apologetics [New Jersey: P & R, 2003], ed. William Edgar, 193)

More on covenantal apologetics here.

Calvin the Van Tillian

In his letter to Martin Bucer entitled, Consolations to Be Found in the Study of Divine and Everlasting Truth, dated February 1549, Calvin shows himself to be the Van Tillian that he truly is (barring the anachronism):

"As truth is most precious, so all men confess it to be so. And yet, since God alone is the source of all good, you must not doubt, that whatever truth you anywhere meet with, proceeds from him, unless you would be doubly ungrateful to him; it is in this way you have received the word descended from heaven. For it is sinful to treat God’s gifts with contempt; and to ascribe to man what is peculiarly God’s is a still greater impiety. Philosophy is, consequently, the noble gift of God, and those learned men who have striven hard after it in all ages have been incited thereto by God himself, that they might enlighten the world in the knowledge of the truth. But there is a wide difference between the writings of these men and those truths which God, of his own pleasure, delivered to guilty men for their sanctification. In the former, you may fall in with a small particle of truth, of which you can get only a taste, sufficient to make you feel how pleasant and sweet it is; but in the latter, you may obtain in rich abundance that which can refresh the soul to the full. In the one, a shadow and an image is placed before the eyes which can only excite in you a love of the object, without admitting you to familiar intercourse with it; in the other, the solid substance stands before you, with which you may not only become intimately acquainted, but may also, in some measure, handle it. In that, the seed is in a manner choked; in this, you may possess the fruit in its very maturity. There, in short, only a few small sparks break forth, which so point out the path that they fail in the middle of the journey, — or rather, which fail in indicating the path at all — and can only restrain the traveler from going farther astray; but here, the Spirit of God, like a most brilliant torch, or rather like the sun itself, shines in full splendor, not only to guide the course of your life, even to its final goal, but also to conduct you to a blessed immortality. Draw then from this source, wherever you may wander, and as soon as he finds you a settled abode, you ought to make that your place of rest..."