THE INSPIRATION i ^■» ^.^ OF SCRIPTURE Ot PRINCETON, N. J. 1 Shelf. Sectmn V. Jj.oS....... Nicttiber THE iNSPiiiATiON OF Holy Scripture: BEING AN ESSAY. BY RT. REV. EDWARD HAROLD 'BROWNE, D.D., A PORTIOlSr OF AI^ ESSAY, BY RT. REV. CHAS. JOHN ELLICOTT, D.D. PRINTED FOR THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF EVANGELICAL KNOWLEDGE. NEW YORK: 2 Bible House. 1«79. [The followinp^ Essays were originally published in a series of Theological Essays entitled, " Aids to Faith." S. W. Green, Printer, 16 and 18 Jacob Street, New York, IT^SPIEATIOJN". CONTENTS. 1. iNTEODtrcTiON— All Spiritual enlightenment derived from the Divine Spirit ; but is all derived in the same way? 2. A Divine and human element in all inspiration— How co-existing? 3. History of the question— Jewish opinions— Patristic opinions. 4. No argument against a high view to be deduced from the patristic belief in the inspiration of others besides the Apostles. 5. Middle ages— Mysticism. 6. The Reformation favorable to a very high esteem of Holy Scrip- ture, but favorable also to freedom of thought. 7. Tendency of thought in Germany in the eighteenth century. 8. Deism passed from England, through France, to Germany— Doc- trine of the English Deists. 9. Causes leading to the controversy on inspiration in the present day. 10. English writers of the present century and their theories. 11. Christian Evidence in a measure independent of theories of inspi- ration. 12. Definite theories not desirable. 13. Objections to inspiration closely connected with objections to mir- acles. 14. Origin of doubts about miracles. 15. Miracles not improbable, if there be a spiritual world connected more or less closely with the physical world, and a Personal Ruler of the world. 16. If miracles ever should occur, we should most naturally expect them to be connected with some special communication of God's will to man. 17. The common course taken by philosophical scepticism. 18. As to inspiration: we have first certain phenomena in the Bible, proving the existence of a human element— The manifestation of that human element most valuable in the matter of evidence^ We have next certain phenomena manifesting a Divine element— (a) Prophecy— Question as to the existence of true predictive prophecy in the Old Testament— Objection— Nihil in scripto quod non prius in Scriptore— Objection 'replied to— Cases of Balaam ■ and Caiaphas— (6) Types. 19. How far all this proves the special inspiration of the Old Testa- ment—Coleridge's view considered. 20. Argument a fortiori for the inspiration of the New Testament— Mr. Maurice's question replied to. 21. Mr. Morell's theory of the intuitional consciousness considered. 22. Latitude of opinion on some points may be allowable. 23. The Scriptures an infallible depository of religious truth. 24. Questfon coHcernlng physical science. 25. Conclusion— Some trials of our faith ought not to stagger us— The proper condition of mind in the present day. OSPIIIATION. 1. As in the natural world wisdom and intel- ligence are among the signs of life in an intelli- gent being, so in the spiritual world a spiritual understanding follows on the possession of spir- itual life. As the Divine Spirit gives life, so He inspires ^dsdom. Indeed all spiritual gifts flow equally from the same Spirit. St. Paul says that ^' there are diversities of gifts, hut the same Spirit," who gives to one the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, to another faith, to another miracles and gifts of healing, to another prophecy, to another di- vers kinds of tongues, to another the interpre- tation of tongues. So he describes the influ- ence of that one and the self -same Spirit on the early disciples in the Church of Corintli. Are we to take this literally ? Are we to be- lieve that, wliilst some had spiritual Avisdom 6 mSPIBATTON. and understanding — and that in larger or less degrees — others were enabled to work miracles, others to proj)hesy ; that whilst to some there was only the common understanding of sj^ir- itual truths and mysteries, such as an enlight- ened mind among ourselves could penetrate, to others there was given an infallible knowl- edge of future events or of Divine truths otherwise unknown to man ? Or, on the other hand, shall we think no more than this — that the Holy S]3irit, who is the inspirer of all wis- dom, by regenerating the heart, purifying the soul, exalting the affections, and quickening the intuitions of the mind, gives to some men more than to others an insight into things heavenly, and so enables them in all times and in all ages of the Church to be exponents of the Divine will ? — that He reveals God and Christ in their inmost consciences, inspiring them with all high and holy thoughts, and that thus they can utter things which would be deep mysteries to other men, and which are, indeed, the oracles of God ? 2. This is pretty much the question con- cerning inspiration so much agitated now. When welcome to consider it, there can be no doubt but that we must admit a human and a Divine element. There is the mind of the INSPIRATION. 7 Prophet or Apostle to be enlightened, and the Holy Spirit, the inspirer or enlightener. The qnestion will be, in what manner and in what proj^ortion these two elements coexist. We may suppose the human mind perfectly passive, acting simply under a mechanical in- fluence of the Holy Spirit, speaking or writing not its own thoughts or its own words, but only the thoughts and words of the Sj)irit of God. Or we may suppose the mind of the writer or speaker acting altogether freely, speaking entirely its own thoughts and words, but having derived from Divine communion and enlightenment a liigher tone, having ac- quired a correcter judgment, and, from a deep spiritual insight, able to speak spiritual things such as the natural man receiveth not. These are the two extremes. The one is ver- bal inspiration, simple dictation, so that the lips of the Prophet and the pen of the Evan- gelist are but mechanical organs moved by the Spirit of God. The other is no more than an exaltation of the natural faculties by the influ- ence of the same Spirit, such an exaltation as we must believe all wise and holy men to have received, an inspiration such as that by which a Hooker or a Butler wrote the works which bear their names. There are many interme- r 8 INSPIRATION. diate steps between tliese two, but no one can exceed either of these extremes and yet call himself a Christian. 3. Many causes have brought this subject into controversy at present. It has, how- ever, occupied the thoughts of thoughtful men, and has been debated and disputed on in earlier times ; and a rapid' glance at the history of the question may be a help to giving it its true place, and perhaps to finding its true solution. The reverence which the ancient Jews felt for the Jewish Scriptures must have sprung from the highest theory of verbal inspiration. Their care to count every verse and letter in every book of the Old Testament, to retain every large or small letter, every letter above or below the hne, their belief that a mystery lurked in every abnormal state of letter, jot, or tittle, cannot have resulted from any lower principle. Later Jews, like the Cabalists or Maimonides, may have become Pantheists, or Rationalists ; but the more ancient have left us the clearest proof that they esteemed the Scriptures as the express word of God Him- self. The well-known tradition amongst the Alexandrian Jews concerning the verbal agreement of all the LXX. translators, though working in seventy se]3arate cells, looks the INSPIRATION. 9 same way. There is considerable reason to be- lieve that the distinction between the differ- ent books of Scripture — the Hagiographa being esteemed inferior to the Prophets, and the Prophets inferior to the law — was at least much magnified, if not wholly invented, by the later Jews. So far, however, as such a distinction and such difference of estimation existed at all, so far we must perhaps believe that there was a notion of something like de- grees of inspiration. The earlier Christian Fathers seem to have followed much the same course as their Jew- ish predecessors. Clemens Romanus calls the Holy Scriptures '' the true words of the Holy Ghost" (c. 45). JNo definite theory of inspi- ration would be likely to be j)ropounded ; but the generaj reverence for the words of Holy AVrit, and the deep significance believed to exist underneath the letter, prove the belief in inspiration to have been very strong and universal. Justin Martyr and his Jewish op- ponent seem fully agreed in tlieir apprecia- tion of the Old Testament. ''No Scripture can be opposed to any other Scripture. ' ' (' Di- alog. ' p. 289.) Irenjeus saw in our Lord's promise to his Apostles — " He that lieareth you, heareth Me" (Luke x. 16) — an assurance 10 INSPIRATION. of their infallibility in the Gospel. " After the Lord's resurrection they were indued with the power of the Holy Ghost, and had per- fect knowledge of the truth. He, therefore, who despises their teaching despises Christ and God. ' ' (Iren. iii. 1.) Still it may be fairly said that Iren^ens, in his accounts of the composi- tion of the Gospel, seems to combine a human element with the Divine. (See Iren. iii. 11.) Tertullian embraced the Montanist belief, that Divine communications were made to man by means of a condition of trance or ec- stasy. In this trance the prophet was sup- posed to lose all sense, like a Pythoness under the influence of the Divine afflatus, (c. Mar- cion. iv. 22.) This was the highest kind of inspiration. Yet he seems to have thought that the Apostles were at times allowed to speak their own words, and not the words of God, as where St. Paul (1 Cor. vii. 12) says, '' To the rest speak I, not the Lord." (' De Monogam.' c. 3.) The Alexandrian Fathers, Clement and Origen, though adopting somewhat of the ISTeo-Platonic views of the soul, as receiving an enlightenment by communion with the Di- vine Logos, appear to have held firmly the in- fallibility of every word of Scripture ; and the INSPIRATION. 11 Mystical sense wliicli tliey attacli to the his- tory and the language of the Old Testament seems to point even to verbal inspiration. (See Lnmper, ' Historia Theologico-critica, ' vol. 9. c. 4. § iii. art. 2.) Origen was, how- ever, the first great Biblical critic : few things have tended more than Biblical criticism to modify the theory of verbal inspiration : and this appeared even in the jDatristic ages and among some of the most illnstrions of the patristic writers. The critical labors of Cliry- sostom and Jerome, in tlie beginning of the fifth centnry, made them f)bserve the apparent discrepancies in the account of the Evangel- ists, and other like difiicnlties in Holv Writ. Such observations led to a greater appreciation of the human element in the composition of Scripture. St. Clnysostom could see that some slight variations in the different narratives of i^ the same event were no cause for anxiety or unbelief, but rather a j^roof that the Evangelists were independent witnesses. And St. Jer- ome could discern in the ]^ew Testament writ- ers a dialect inferior to the purest Greek, and even at times a mixture of human passion in the language of the Apostles." All this, * Neander, ' History of Doctrines,' i. 280. (Bohn.) 12 INSPIRATION. • however, these Fathers clearly held to be sub- jected and subordinate to the general Divine influence of the guiding and overruling Spirit. 4. No argnment against a high doctrine of inspiration, as held by the Fathers, can be fairly deduced from the fact that they were disposed to admit the inspiration of other writings besides the Canonical Scriptures. Many of them knew the Old Testament only in the Greek translation, and were inclined to pay the same reverence to that which may have been due only to the Hebrew original. The writings of Clement and Hermas were at first received as canonical, though more care- ful inquiry excluded them from the Canon of the !New Testament. This may be an argu- ment against the criticaLaccnracy of the Fath- ers, but is none against their belief in the in- spiration of the Bible. Nor, again, are we warranted in thinking that they confounded natural enlightenment with spiritual inspira- tion, because some of them speak as if pro- phetic powers and supernatural illumination were vouchsafed to others besides the Apostles of Christ. There can be no question that the earlier Fathers believed in the continuation of the miraculous powers of the Apostolic age down to their own times, and hence they INSPIRATION. 18 looked themselves for a special illumination from the Holy Ghost. Yet, even so, they dis- tinguished carefully between the gift of infal- libility in things spiritual vouchsafed to the writers of the Xew Testament, and the gift of Divine illumination to themselves and their own contemjDoraries.* 5. The Church of the middle ages had, for the most part, a belief similar to that of the earlier Fathers. Visions, and dreams, and sensil)le illuminations were still expected. Miraculous powers and Divine inspiration were still Ijelieved to reside in the Church ; but the Scriptures were not the less esteemed as spe- cially, and in a sense distinct and peculiar, the lively oracles of God. Still the bold specula- tions of Abelard, in the twelfth century, * Ignatius claims for himself that he knew the doc- trines which he taught, not from man, but from the tes- timony of the Spirit (' ad Philadelph.' 7) ; but then he clearly distinguishes between himself and the Apostles. "I do not enjoin you as Peter and Paul ; they were Apostles, I a condemned man." (' Ad. Eph. ' 15.) And Tertullian, who took a peculiarly high view of the Divine illumination of the true Christian, says distinctly that " all the faithful have the Spirit of God, but all are not Apostles." " The Apostles have the floly Spirit in a peculiar sense." (' De Exhortatione Castitatis,' 4.) See Westcott, * Introd. to the Gospels, ' pp. 386, 400. 14 INSPIRATION. reached the doctrine of inspiration as well as other deep questions of theology. The Proph- ets, as he taught, had sometimes the gift of prophecy and sometimes spoke from their own minds. The Apostles too were liable to error, as St. Peter on the question of circumcision, who was reproved by St. Paul.* Abelard's tendency was rationalistic. But here a very important phenomenon, not confined to the middle ages, but very apparent then, deserves our careful attention. In all ages of the Church we find frequent tendencies to mysti- cism. The desire for a kind of ecstatic vision of things Divine, of abstraction from the ex-, ternal world, and an absorbed contemplation of the Deity, is natural to enthusiastic tem- peraments, and is not uncommon in times of dogmatic controversy. .The state so sought after seems to offer a refuge from the strife of tongues, from the din and noise and unchari- tableness of the world and the Church with- out. Those who have taken this line, indulged in this spirit, have, of course, a firm belief in the communion of the Christian soul with the Spirit of God, and look for constant re vela - * ' Sic et Non. ' Ed. Hencke, p. 10. See Neander, ' Hist, of Doctrine,' vol.'ii. p. 492. INSPIRATION. 15 tions from tlie Divaiie to tlie human intelli- gence. The mystic is transported out of self, and aims at frequent supernatural communion with God. To such a person the condition of the devout soul is a condition of constant in- spiration. It is very true that the Holy Spirit is ever present with the Church, ever dwells in the souls of Christians, is our teacher and guide in all things, is ever ready to enlighten our understandings, as well as to convert our hearts. But this truth of Scripture, pressed to the extent of mysticism, breaks down the boundary between the insj^iration of Prophets or Apostles, and the enlightenment of the Christian soul. The genuine mystic is himself in a state of the highest inspiration. The intu- itions of his spirit enable him to see things in- visible. High doctrine concerning the Church is favorable enough to such a view of things. Belief in the infallibility of the existing Church, in its miraculous powers, and in fre- (pient revelations to the higher Saints, looked all this way. Again, it is well known how mysticism tended to Pantheism. Striving after absorption in God, men learned to iden- tify their own minds, more or less, with Deity. The Divine Spirit was believed to dwell in all human souls, and needed only to 1 6 INSPIEA TION, be stirred up within tliem. The inclination to look wholly within, neglect of the objective, cultivation only of the subjective — all this too readily takes a pantheistic direction. And so we find many sects of medieval mystics lapsing at length into pure Pantheism — a state of be- lief in w^hicli it is plain enough that anything like the Christian doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures is impossible, as it cannot be distinguished from the illumination of any de- vout mind, or from the inspirations of genius. This is a thing of great importance to observe, as it shows itself in subsequent ages of Church History. Mysticism and extreme spiritualism destroy any definite doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture, and they very readily glide into Pantheism. 6. The Reformation, of course, introduced much thought and controversy about Scrip- ture. ^' The sufficiency of the Scriptures for salvation" became a Peformation watchword : Scripture, the written word of God, — not the unwritten record of the Church, Tradition. The natural inclination was to a very high es- teem of the Bible, as the definite deposit of Christian truth, in contradistinction to the in- definiteness of the traditions of the Church, and of that teaching of the Holy Spirit ever pres- INSPIRATION. 17 ent with the Clmrch, on which the Roman di- vines insisted. IS'evei'theless, the tendency of the Reformation was to boldness of thought and freedom of inquiry. Erasmus, the great forerunner of Luther, had from liis critical investigations been led to a somewhat freer view of inspiration than had been common be- fore him. He thought it unnecessary to attrib- ute everything in the Apostles to miraculous teaching. Christ suffered the Apostles to err, and that too after the descent of the Paraclete, but not so as to endanger the faith.* Even Luther, the great master mind of the age, w^ith his strong subjective tendency, and with his indomitable boldness, ventured to subject the books of the New Testament to the crite- rion of his own intuition. The teaching of St. Paul penetrated and convinced his soul ; St. James seemed to contradict St. Paul ; and his Epistle was rejected as an Epistle of straw. There is reason to believe that he afterwards regretted and retracted ; but words once spo- * Non est oecesse ut quicquid fuit in Apostolis pro- tinus ad miraculum vocemus. Passus est errare suos Cliristus, etiam post acceptiim Paracletum, sed non usque ad fidei periculum. — Erasm. Epistt, lib. ii. toni. iv. Edit. Basil. 2 18 INSPIRATION. ken reach far and wide, and can never be un- said again. The tendency of Calvin and the Calvin- ist reformers was less subjective and more scholastic than that of Luther and the Luther- ans. Their distinct and definite system of doctrine, Kke that of their forerunners Augus- tine and Aquinas, naturally found a place for the plenary and even verbal inspiration of the ScrijDtures, so that some of the Swiss Confes- sions speak of simple dictation by the Holy Ghost. The Remonstrants or Arminians, on the other hand, were more disposed to Ration- alism than the generality of the reformed ; and writers, like Grotius and Episcopius, made clear distinctions between the Divine and the human element in the writers of the Old and New Testaments.* The Socinians were, of course, the most ra- tionalizing sect of those which early sj^rang from the Reformation, a fungus-growth, rath- er than one of the natural branches. At first, however, they took the same view as other Protestant writers of the authority of Holy Writ, only they were less sensitive about * E.g. A Spiritu Sancto dictari historias non full opus. Satis fuit scriptorem memoria valere. — Grotius, Vot. pro pace JSccles. , torn. iii. p. 672. Lond. 1679. INSPIRATION. 19 difficulties and apparent discrepancies in Scrip- ture, and more dis])Osed to cut and square it so as to accord with what appeared to tlieni to be reason and common -sense. This tendency more and more fully developed itself. The modern Unitarian is a genuine Rationalist, often little different from a Deist. The mystical spirit, which had long been swelling up under the weight of the Medieval Church, sometimes wholly within it, some- times bursting forth from the pressure, showed itself in many places and many forms, after the triumph of the Reformation. Its eleva- tion of the subjective over the objective, of the inward life over the outward letter, led in- sensibly to a disregard of the Bible in compar- ison with the internal testimony and the intui- tion of the soul. The Anabaptists of Germany were of the coarsest class of mystics. Among the best have been the Quakers in this coun- try. The leading j^rinciple of George Fox, their founder, was the doctrine of the Inward Light. This is the true principle of all knowl- edge of religion. The outward Word is chiefly valuable as it stirs up the Word within. The highest source of knowledge is this inward illumination. All outward forms, all outward tests, all creeds and confessions, are strict! v 20 INSPIRATION. forbidden. Even the Bible must be subordi- nated to tlie light of God within. It is evident that, on this princijDle, there can be no distinc- tion between the inspiration of Prophets and Apostles and the inspiration of every devont soul. It is also observable how this theory produces results like those which s^^ring from the Koman doctrine of tradition. The written Word of God is no longer the final court of appeal in controversies of doctrine. The Church of Rome finds an infallible interpreter" in that Divine Spirit which ever dwells in and guides the Church. The mystic has an infal- lible interpreter in his own bosom, who not only opens his understanding that he may un- derstand the Scriptures, but communicates di- rectly and sensibly truth to the soul. It is also very deserving of remark, however pain- ful it may be, that at one time the Quakers were rapidly hurrying into Kationalism, and even Socinianism — the coldest forms of un- belief — from the warm mysticism of their first founders. 1. To come nearer to our own times, the whole spirit of the last century in Germany was subjective. There seemed a reaction from the positive spirit of the seventeenth century, which has been called the middle age of the INSPIRATION. 21 Reformation. Pietism was the form takea by the ]*eligious revival, a form which was eminently subjective, and which jDartook much of the mystical. The philosophical spirit was of the same character. The very principle of illuminism (anfklariing) was, that there is in man's, inmost consciousness an intuitional knowledge of truth. Its motto — " Wahr ist was klar ist," '' fhat is true wiiich is clear" — sufficiently indicates its character. Proceed- ing from such a ground, and raising Natural Peligion to the rank of a Kevelation, Tullner, the disciple of Wolif , reduced Scripture to the level of a natural light.* At the same time, the Pietists used the Bible, not so much to be the source of truth and the fountain of faith, as for a book of devotion and to raise pious emotions, t In both ways there was a move towards the confounding of the light of Na- ture with the light of Kevelation, of the light of the Spirit in the devout or illuminated soul with the light which had been specially voucli- safed to Prophets and Apostles for communi- cating God's truth to the w^orld. 8. In the latter half of the eigliteenth cen- * See Kahnis, ' Hist, of German Protestantism,' Eng- lish Translation, by Meyer, p. 110. t II)., pp. 100, 110. 22 INBPIRATION. tury, the Deism wliicli had been troubhng England had passed through the alembic of French scepticism, and now settled down in a shower of Rationalism on Germany. The Ra- tionalism of Panlus, the Pantheism of Hegel, the historical myth of Stranss, derive their pedigree from the writings of Lord Herbert of Cherbnry, Toland, Tindall, and other Eng- lish Deists of the seventeenth and early eigh- teenth centuries, through the school of Rous- seau and Yoltaire.^ The special principle of Lord Herbert and his followers, the Deists, was that there were several positive religions — Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism, etc. In the main all these are the same. The gen- eral religion is at the bottom of all of them, i. e. , the Religion of ^Nature, a religion founded in the natural j)erception of truth, the intui- tional consciousness of the human mind. Posi- tive religions may be very good for practical purposes ; but all that is positive in them is evil, or at the best worthless ; the valuable part being that which they hold in common of the general religion. It was this principle which passed through the various forms of French infidelity, German Rationahsm and Panthe- * See Kahnis as above, p. 31, etc, McCaul's ' Ration- alism and Deistic Infidelity, ' passim. INSPIRATION. 23 ism, and wliicli has been brought back to us, as the highest result of modern discoveries in science and mental philosophy. How it was calculated to act upon the theory of inspira- tion, and to unsettle it even with those who had not become either Rationalists or Deists, it is needless to remark. Where a shadow of in- fidelity is obscuring the light, many, who are not wholly under its darkness, w^ill yet pass through the penumbra that surrounds it. E ven the apologist in the last century, from the wish to take positions which were im^^regnable, sur- rendered, at least for argument's sake, the higher ground of their forerunners in the faith. And, in the like manner, among the German divines, who still held Christian and orthodox opinions, there was a tendency to de- part from the higher doctrine of inspiration held by the Church and the Reformers ; to speak of degrees of inspiration, of falhl)ility in things earthly, of a Divine influence elevat- ing the mental faculties of the sacred writers ; not simply to ascribe all to the direct teaching of the Spirit of God.* 9. Distinct theories of inspiration were in old times seldom propounded, even where * See Kahnis, pp. 116, 117. 24 INSPIRATION. some attention was directed to the question. Definite controversies upon it scarcely arose. The present century has been rife in both ; and they have prevailed not a little among ourselves. Several causes have contributed to call them forth. First, and chiefly, the sj)read of rationalizing speculations, and the conse- quent unsettling of faith.* Next, the greater attention which has been paid to the criticism of the Bible, and especially of the ]N"ew Testa- ment, has exposed to view some of the difficul- ties concerning the origin of the books of the Bible, concerning the historical accuracy of some statements, concerning the slight a]3par- ent variations in the testimony of the Evangel- ists. In ordinary historians these would Jpuz- zle no one. The strictest integrity is conqDati- ble with slight inaccuracy or divergence of testimony ; but if all was the work of God's Holy Spirit, speaking through human agents, the least discrepancy is formidable. Hence the * It is important to ol3serve, that tliis was first in time as well as in importance. Dr. McCaul has shown clearly (' Kationalism and Deistic Infidelity ') that the spread of unbelieving opinions in Germany was first, the ^ , criticism came afterwards. Faith in Revelation was shaken by Deism and Rationalism, and then the un- friendly criticism was brought to bear upon the records of Christianity. INSPIRATION. 25 human element has been thought more of among modern critics, and by some has been elevated above the Divine. Thirdly, the rapid discoveries of modern science have been sup- posed to contradict the records of the Old Tes- tament Scriptures ; and, in order to account for such a contradiction, efforts have been made to interpret anew the words of Moses ; and, where these have proved unsatisfactory, many have more or less believed that the writ- ers of the historical books were merely chron- iclers of historical events or collectors of an- cient records, the providence of God having watched over the preservation of such records, but the Spirit of God having in no sense dic- tated them. Still freer views have been pro- pounded ; but this may suffice as the expres- sion of the thoughts of serious men. 10. One of the Urst among ourselves to put forth a bold theory of inspiration was Cole- ridge. Ilis ' Confessions of an Enquiring Spirit ' was indeed not published till after his death ; but the tone of many former writings is much the same. In the posthumous work just mentioned he unfolds his theory pretty freely. Of the Bible he speaks as a library of infinite value, as that which must have a Divine Spirit in it, from its appeal to all the 26 INSPIRATION. hidden springs of feeling in our hearts. '' In shoi-t," he writes, '' whatever fiiuls me bears witness that it has j)roceeded from a Holy Spirit." (Letter i.) '^ In the Bible there is more that finds me than I have exj)erienced in all other books put together ; the words of the Bible find me at greater de^^ths of my being ; and whatever finds me brings with it an irresistible evidence of its having proceeded from the Holy Spirit." (Letter ii.) But then he protests against ' ' the doctrine which requires me to believe that not only what finds me, but all that exists in the sacred vol- ume, and which I am bound to find therein, was not only inspired by, that is, composed by men under the actuating influence of, the Holy Spirit, but likewise dictated by an In- fallible Intelligence ; that the writers, each and all, were divinely informed, as well as inspired." The very essence of this '^doc- trine is this, that one and the same Intelligence is speaking in the unity of a person, which unity is no more broken by the diversity of the pipes through which it makes itself audi- ble, than is a tune by the difiPerent instruments on which it is j)layed by a consummate musi- cian equally jDerfect in all. One instrument may be more capacious than another, but as INSPIRATION. 27 far as its compass extends, and in what it sound>s forth, it will be trne to the conception of tlie master. ' ' Such a doctrine, he conceives, must imply infallil)ility in physical science and in everything else as much as in faith, in things natural no less than in spiritual. He expresses a full belief '' that the word of the Lord came to Samuel, to Isaiah, to others, and that the words which gave utterance to the same are faithfully recorded." But for the recording he does not think that there was need of any supernatural working, excej)t in such cases as those in which God not only utters cer- tain exj^ress words to a prophet, but also enjoins him to record them. In the latter case he ac- cepts them '' as supernaturally communicated and their recording as executed under special guidance." The arguments of Coleridge are calculated rather to pull down than to build up. He brings many reasons against a rigid mechanical theory, against a belief that the Bil)le is simply the voice of God's Holy Spirit uttered through different organs or instru- ments ; but he does not fix any limit, he does not say how far he admits Divine teaching or inspiration to extend, nor does he apparently draw any line of distinction between the in- spiration of Holy men of old and the 8])iritual 28 INSPIRATION and providential direction of enlightened men in every age and nation. Wherever Coleridge has trodden Mr. Man- rice follows him ; not that he is a servile im- itator, bnt he is a zealons disciple, and one who generally outdoes his master. In his ^ Theological Essays ' he begins to speak of the inspiration of poets and projDliets among the Greeks ; he sj^eaks again of the quickening and informing spirit, to which all good men ascribe their own teaching and enhghtenment ; he quotes the language of our Liturgy as as- scribing to " God's holy inspiration" the jDOwer of "thinking those things that be good;" and then he asks the question, '' Ought we in our sermons to say, ' Brethren, we beseech you not to suppose the inspiration of Scripture to at all resemble that for which we have been praying ; they are generically and essentially unlike ; it is blasj)hemous to connect them in our minds ; the Church is very guilty for having suggested the association ' ?" Pro- ceeding in this course he naturally arrives at the conclusion that all which is good and beautiful comes from the inspiration of the Spirit of God, and that the sacred words of Scripture came in the same manner from the same S23irit. (See Essay xiii.) In some of his INSPIRATION. 29 writings, especially in liis work on ' Sacriiices, ' he appears to have carried his disbelief of a more special inspiration of Holy Scripture to a greater length than in his ' Theological Es- says,' as where God's tempting of Abraham to slay his son is attributed to a horrible thought coming over him and haunting him. A very able and interesting writer on the same side of the same subject is Mr. Morell in his ' Philosophy of Keligion. ' The work is one of considerable acuteness and philosophical power. The writer's theory of inspiration is based on his theory of tlie human mind. The different powers of consciousness he classes thus : Powers of Consciousness .. to which correspond. .Emotions. 1. The Sensational " " The Instincts. 2. The Perceptive " '' The Animal Pas- sions. 3. The Logical " " Relational Emo- tions. 4. The Intuitional " " ./Esthetic, Moral, and Religious Emotions. Now, the intuitional consciousness, he con- tends, is that which alone is properly suscep- tible of religious imjDressions and religious tniths. Kevelation he considers to involve an immediate intuition of Divine reahties. All revelation imj^lies an intelhgible object pre- sented, and a given power of recipiency in the r 30 INSPIRATION. subject, which power is lodged in the intui- tional consciousness. In distinguishing reve- lation and inspiration, he defines '^ revela- tion, in the Christian sense, as that act of the Divine power by which God presents the re- alities of the spiritual world immediately to the human mind, while inspiration denotes that especial infi.uence wrought upon the facul ties of the subject, by virtue of which he is able to grasp these realities in their perfect fulness and integrity" (p. 150). '^ God made a reve- lation of Himself to the world in Jesus Christ ; but it was the inspiration of the Apostles, which enabled them clearly to discern it." Mr. Morell argues that ^' the canonicity of the New Testament Scriptures was decided upon solely on the ground of their presenting to the whole Church clear statements of Ajjos- tolical Christianity. The idea of their being written by any special command of God, or ver- bal dictation of the Spirit, was an idea al- together foreign to the primitive Christians" (p. 165). " The proper idea of inspiration, as applied to the Holy Scrij)tures, does not include either miraculous powers, verbal dictation, or any distinct commission from God. ' ' {Ih. ) On the contrary, it consists ^' in the impartation of clear intuitions of moral and spiritual truth to INSPIRATION. 81 the mind by extraordinary means. According to this yiew of the case, inspiration, as an in- ternal phenomenon^ is perfectly consistent witli tlie natural laws of the human mind — it is a higher kind of potency, which every man to a certain degree possesses" (j3. 166). This view, he thinks, " gives full consistency to the progressive character of Scripture morality" (p. 167). '' It gives a satisfactory explanation of the minor discrepancies to be found in the sacred writers" (p. 170), whether those dis- crepancies be between Scripture and science, or in statements of facts, or in reasoning. In every case in which the moral nature is highly })urified, and so a harmony of the spiritual l)eing with the mind of God produced, a re- moval of all outward disturbances from the heart, " what," he asks, " is to prevent or dis- turb the immediate intuition of Divine things ? ' Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God ' " (p. 186). It is clear that tliis theory makes great purity of heart, or high sanctification, equiva- lent to, or the unfailing instrument of, inspi- ration. If one man is a better Christian than another, and so has a purer heart, he must l)e more inspired than the other. Hence, if a man of modern times could be found of a S 2 IN8PIBA TION. higher religions tone and character than an Apostle, he wonld have a higher intuition of Divine things, and therefore wonld know Christian trnth more infallibly. Moreover, it appears that tlie value of the Scriptures con- sists, not in their proceeding from any direct command of God, or from any infallible guid- ance of His Spirit, but in their embodying the teaching and experience of men whose hearts were elevated, and so their understand- ings enlightened ; to this it being added, in the case of the N^ew Testament, that the wTit- ers were such as were specially qualified to represent the Apostolical Church, and so to transmit its spirit and teaching to us. A writer of less ability, but more boldness, Mr. MadSTaught of Liverpool, has carried the same theory to its furthest limits. He defines inspiration to be '^that action of the Divine Spirit by which, apart from any idea of infal- libility, all that is good in man, beast, or mat- ter is originated and sustained" (p. 136, Second Edition). He denies all distinction between genius and inspiration. He doubts not that *' David, Solomon, Isaiah, or Paul would have spoken of everything, which may with propriety be called a work of genius, or of cleverness, or of holiness, " as " w^orks of the INSPIRATION 33 Spirit of God, written by Divine inspiration" (p. 132). 11. The historical sketch thus rapidly given seems to show that there have always been some slight differences of tone and opinion tonching this important question, but that these differences have never so markedly come out as in the nineteenth century. The subject at present causes great anxiety, and not with- out reason. Many feel that, if they must give up a high doctrine of insj^iration, they give up Christianity ; and yet they think that a high doctrine is scarcely tenable. Such a feeling is not unnatural, and yet it is not wholly true. All the history, and even all the great doc- trines of the Gosepl, might be capable of proof, and so deserving of credence, though we were obliged to adopt almost the lowest of the modern theories of inspiration. For instance, all, or almost all, the arguments of Butler, Paley, Lardner, and other like authors, are independent of the question, " What is the nature and degree of Spiritual inspiration ?" Paley, for instance, undertakes to prove the truth of Christ's resuiTection and of the Gos- pel history, and thence the truth of the doc- trines which Christ taught to the world. But this he argues out, for the most part, on priii- 3 34 INSPIRATION. ciples of common historical CAddence. He treats the Apostles as twelve common men, of common honesty and common intelligence. If they could not have been deceived, and had no motive to deceive the world, then sm-ely we must accept their testimony as true. Bnt if their testimony is trne, Jesus Christ must have lived, and taught, and worked miracles, and risen from the dead, and so in Him we have an accredited witness sent from God. His teaching, therefore, must have been the truth ; and if we have good grounds for be- lieving that His disciples carefully treasured up His teaching, and faithfully handed it on to us, we have then in the New Testament an unquestionable record of the will and of the truth of God. Even if the Apostles and Evan- gelists had no special inspiration, yet, if we ad- mit their care and fidelity, we may trust to their testimony, and so accept their teaching as true. " So, then, even if we were driven to take the lowest view of insj)iration, we are not bound to give up our faith. External evi- dence must almost of necessity begin by taking low ground. It must treat nothing as certain until it is proved. It must not, therefore, even presume that witnesses are honest till it has INSPIRATION. 35 found reason to think them so ; and, of course, it cannot treat them as inspired till it meets with something which compels an acknowl- edgment of their inspiration. This is taking the extremest case, one in which we altogether doubt the inspiration of the Apostles. A for- tiori, we need not throw away all faith, if we should be led to think that some books of the Old Testament are only historical records, col- lected by Jewish antiquarians, and bound up with the writings of prophets, as venerable and valuable memorials of the peculiar people of God. All this might be, and yet God may have spoken by holy men of old, and after- wards more fully by His Son. Some Christian controversialists, who take high ground themselves, write as if they thought that Christianity was not w^orth de- fending, unless it was defended exactly on their principles. The minds of the young more especially are sometimes greatly en- dangered by this means. The defender of the Gosj^el may be but an indifferent reasoner. He fails to make his ground sure and strong. His reader finds more forcible, at least more specious, arguments elsewhere. He thinks the advocate he rested on defeated, his arguments answered and upset, and Christianity itself 36 INSPIRATION. seems lost. Now, we may surely begin by saying, that the question of inspiration is, within certain limits, a question vritemal to Christianity. E'o doubt, it may materially affect the evidences of Christianity ; but the questions of verbal inspiration, mechanical inspiration, dynamical insj)iration, and the like, are all questions on which persons believing in the Gospel may differ. There is a degree of latitude which must be fatal to faith ; but within certain limits men may differ, and yet believe. We shall be wise to take safe ground ourselves, and to bear as charitably as we can with those who may take either higher or lower. Only it cannot be concealed that the temper of mind which disposes to a very low doctrine of inspiration is one that ma^ not im- probably lead in the end to the rejection of many religious truths — to scepticism, if not to unbeHef. 12. It seems pretty generally agreed among thoughtful men at present, that definite tlie- ories of insj)iration are doubtful and danger- ous. The existence of a human element, and the existence of a Divine element, are generally acknowledged ; but the exact relation of the one to the other it may be difficult to define. INSPIRATION. 37 Yet some thoughts may aid us to an approxi- mation to the truth, perhaps sufficiently clear for practical purposes. 13. In the iirst place, then, let us consider for a moment what is the real princij^le which seems to actuate those writers and thinkers, of the present day especially, who endeavor to root out all distinction between the inspiration of the Apostles and Prophets, and the ordinary illumination of good and wise men. Is it not that morbid shrinking from a belief in any- thing miraculous in religious history, now so commonly prevalent ? that fear to admit the possibility that the Creator of the universe should ever specially interfere with the uni- verse which He has created ? There can be no question l)ut that that inspiration of Holy Scripture in which the Church has generally believed is of the nature of a miracle ; and so its rejection follows upon the rejection of mir- acles in general. Many marvellous things exist in nature, things at least as marvellous as any miracles recorded in Scripture. It is marvellous that the worlds should have come into being, and should all be under the gov- ernment of the strictest laws and the most un- deviating rules — that life should exist at all — that new life should be constantly bursting 38 mSPIBATION. forth — that eyes should open curiously formed to see, and ears cnrionsly constnicted to hear ; — all this, and much beside, is as marvellous as the suspension of a natural law, as the re- storing life to the body from which it had gone forth, as the giving sight to the blind, or hearing to the deaf. But the latter startles us into conviction that some living personal being of creative power has newly put forth his strength ; the former state of things is so gen- eral, uniform, and constantly recurring, that we can go on as usual without much thinking of it, call it nature, or perhaps Deity, or any other abstract generality, and so rest satisfied. 14. Without doubt we witness in the uni- verse the constant prevalence of general laws, and the regulation of all things by them. In proportion to this general constancy is our natural expectation that it will continue. And, moreover, even though we may be led to be- lieve that the whole must have been framed, and that the laws must have been' given by a creative intelligence ; still the uniform opera- tion of those laws disposes us to doubt the probability that they will ever be interfered with by the hand that first ordered them. This doubt is strengthened by the belief tliat the wisdom, which first gave being to an universe, INSPIRATION. 39 could never have wrought so imperfectly as that its active interference should afterwards be needed, to remedy defects or to repair the machinery. And all this might perhaps be probable enough, if we could see but a natural creation, and if there were no moral and ra- tional creation too. But sup230se it to be true, that there is in the physical universe, and more or less connected with matter and the laws of matter, a multitude of intelligent, ra- tional, moral, and accountable beings ; some more powerful than others ; some, the angels, wholly good ; some, tlie evil angels, wholly bad ; some of a mixed character, like man ; all capable, more or less, of communication with each other — those indeed of mixed character closely connected with matter, joined to ]na- terial bodies, whilst the more powerful intel- ligences, good and evil, are freer and more in- dependent of mere physical inHuences : sup- pose, too, that there is one great Intellect, one Sovereign Mind, who made all, and who gov- erns all ; vni\\ premises like these, where is the improbability that there should be occasional interferences with natural laws ? Life does not exist at all without producing some interfer- ence with the mere laws of matter and motion. Where intelligent beings exist capable of acting 40 INSPIRATION, on material substances, they ever do nionid those material substances to their will, and make the laws of nature serve them. If cre- ated intelligences superior to man have any power to act through material instruments, we should expect that they could only act, as man does, by taking advantage of the laws by which matter is guided, and so controlling one law by bringing a more powerful law to bear upon it. Even of the providence of the Su- preme Being, if that providence be contin- ually at work, controlhng the moral and intel- lectual, and upholding the material creation, it is most probable that such providential agency would be exercised in overruling and directing natural causes and laws rather than in displacing or superseding them. But there certainly seems no a priori improbability that the Creator should be also the Ruler of the universe ; that where the creation is moral and intelligent, He should rule and interfere as He might not where it was simply material or animal ; that, where moral, personal beings were acting upon one another, striving to benefit, and striving to ruin one another, He too at times should be at hand, to punish or to protect. And so the doctrine of a special providence seems only consistent with the INSPIRATION. 41 belief in a personal God. But the step from thence to a belief in miracles is no great stride. For, if the great jDcrsonal Creator rules and guides and interferes in the affairs of His cre- ation, though he would be likeliest to do so commonly by mere guidance of natural laws, yet, if there were need or occasion for it, it must be quite as easy for Him to interfere by the entire suspension of those laws, or by a temporary alteration of them."^ 15. Indeed it is hard to see how miracles should appear either impossible or improbable ; but either on the theory that what we see commonly we must see always, or else on the theory that there is no i3ersonal providence of God. And, in short, is it not true, that the natural tendency of those who try to get rid of miracle and special inspiration is to the resolv- ing of providence into law, and of God into * Of course, if the Professor Baden Powell's theory be true, that the physical and the spiritual worlds are so separate that they can never come in contact, then all this is impossible. But then all creation is impossible. The spiritual could never have created the material. In deed, the union of soul and body must ])e impossible ; at all events, all religious knowledge must be impos- sible. It can be founded on no evidence, and can result only from certain convictions of the mind, wholly in- capal)le of being tested as to their truth. 42 INSPIRATION. simple intelligence ? We are all well aware tliat we see the government of law, not only in the physical, but even in the intellectual world ; and there are those, who, from ob- serving this, have been led to a belief in law, and nothing but law. God with them is but law ; and providential or moral government gives place to mere necessity. Of course, this is simple Atheism, and involves all the diffi- culties, as well as all the miseries, of Atheism. And yet, surely it is more consistent and log- ical than the system, which does not deny the wisdom that seems to have planned and still seems to order all things, but which yet shrinks from acknowledging the distinct, individual personahty of the Creator, His personal pres- ence to all the universe which He has created. His superintending providence over it, and His active interference in it. Unquestionably this latter is the doctrine of the Hebrew Bible, and that which Jesns Christ taught in the Ser- mon on the Mount. Bnt philosophic religion talks to us of a general principle of intelligence diffused throughout all things, moving, and breathing in, and animating all beings. !Now this general principle of intelligence sounds philosoj^hical enough ; but how can it be rec- onciled with what Englishmen call common- INSPIRATION. 43 sense ? Wliat, on principles of common reason, can be meant by intelligence where there is no intellect, or a great principle of mind where there is no personal mind at all ? We know what is meant by the intelligence of a man, or the intelligence of a beast — intelligence being the j)ower of perceiving, miderstanding, and reasoning predicable of the mind of that man or that beast. In like manner we can under- stand, that if there be one great infinite mind, then infinite intelligence may be predicable of that infinite mind. But to say that there is any general principle of intelligence separable and distinguishable from any particular mind, is surely to palter with ns in a double sense. We can no more appreciate intelligence as separated from the intellect of which it is a quality or attribute, than Ave can understand agency without an agent, potency withont a power, sight without a seer, thought without a thinker, or life without that which lives. In short, may we not demnr altogether to mere abstractions, except as they may exist in the mind, or in systems of philosophy ? And so, is not the conclusion inevitable, that our real alternative lies l)etween a mere Stoical law, a Buddhist Kharma, blind and inexorable, work- ing in matter, it is nseless to inquire whence 44 INSPIRATION. or how — between this and a belief in a God, personal, present, Maker, Rnler, G aider of all things, and of all men ? 16. Give us this, as the Bible gives Him to US : and though we should never expect Him to be perpetually setting aside the laws which He has made for the universe, yet we need not — rather we cannot^believe, that He should be so inevitably fettered by them, as that He should not continually guide them for the good of His intelligent and moral creatures — guide them as in a less degree those creatures them- selves can guide them, or that, when He may see lit. He should not suspend, or even for a season alter them. And if this latter contin- gency should ever take place, we should natu- rally expect that it would be never so probable as when it was His pleasure to communicate to rational beings some special revelation of His will, and to teach them concerning Himself what they might not be able to learn from mere natural phenomena. Can there be any inconsistency in such a putting aside of the veil of nature, and giv- ing man a somewhat clearer vision of God ? Doubtless, other causes are possible. God might be pleased, instead of making any objec- tive communications to mankind, to breathe IJVSPIRA TION. 4 5 silently into eacli individual spirit, and to teach separately each one of Tlis will and of Him- self. But no one has a right to say that such must be God's plan of action — that such only is consistent with Divine wisdom, or human capacity, or philosophical theology. If God be not the mere pervading intelligence, which informs the universe, but which can exert it- self only through the medium of things in the universe ; if, on the contrary, He is a personal, present ruler and guide, there can be no in- consistency in the belief that He may at times let Himself be heard by those who can hear Him — in other and clearer tones than the voices of mere natural phenomena, or even of the intuitional consciousness. 17. Now, the common course which we see philosophic scepticism taking at present is this : First, there is a doubt about miracles, then about special inspiration. To build our faith in any degree on miracles is unwise. In- spiration is wholly a question of degree. One man has by the teaching or breathing of God's Spirit greater insight into spiritual truth than another. The Apostles, doubtless, had an un- usual brightness of such vision, and so we may truly call their writings inspired ; but the difference between their inspiration and that 4 6 INSPIRA TION. of St. Augustine, or even of Plato, is but a difference of degree. Next comes a doubt or a denial of the existence of personal spiritual beings. The devil, Satan, wicked spirits are but names for a general evil 2^1'inciple, which we cannot but see and feel influencing and pervading ourselves and all things around us. Angels are soon jjlaced in the same category ; and the last step of all reduces God Himself to a principle of intelligence, if it does not go yet farther, and make Him but a law. But in all honesty, is there a middle course ? Does not the Bible at all events — Old Testa- ment and JS^ew alike — speak of a present, j^er- sonal God, of a multitude of personal spiritual beings — some good and others evil — working around us and within us, of miracles wrought by teachers sent from God, of predictions ut- tered before the event, of holy men of old moved by the Spirit of God to speak things, which could be known to none but God Him- self ? It is quite impossible to get rid of all this, and to retain the Bible as in any proper sense true. Let it be said, that good men who wrote books of the Bible were good men, but spoke according to the prejudices of their times. They believed in prophecies and mir- acles, and evil spirits, and so spoke of them. INSPIRATION. 47 Their inspiration quickened their intuitions, but it did not make them infallible, and so in these matters they may have erred. But, if Christianity be Christianity, and not a system of mere morals and philosophy, there was One Man, who was so much more than man, that if we disbelieve Him, we make God Himself a liar. And may we not ask, if His discoui-ses be not so unfaithfully handed down to us that we mia^ht as well or better not have them at all, whether He did not perpetually appeal to miracles, whether He did not continually quote prophecies as fulfilled or soon to be fulfilled, whether He did not speak much of angels and devils, whether He did not in the most signal manner promise to His disciples the guidance and teaching of His Holy Spirit, to bring to their remembrance all that He had said to them, and to lead them into all truth ? Is it possible to reject all this without rejecting Christ ? 18. And so much of miracles and inspiration generally. K^ow let us take a few facts, and see what they seem to teach us. We have a number of different books written in different styles, indicating the different characters of the writers. At times, too, there appear sliglit diversities of statements in trifling matters of detail. Here we mark a human element. If 48 INSPIRATION. God spoke, it is plain that He spoke through man ; if God inspired, He inspired man. Even the Gospel 7niraGles were often worked with some instrumental means ; no wonder, then, that when God wonld teach men. He would teach through human agency. And the difference of style — perhaps the slight dis- crepancies in statements — seem to satisfy us that some portions at least of the Bible were not simply dictated by God to man ; there was not what is called mere mechanical or organic insj)iration ; God did not simply speak God's words, using as a mere machine man's hps to speak them with. Of course, we must not forget the benefit we derive from these differences between writers of the same narrative. The apj)arent or trifling discrep- ancies in the statements of the different Evan- gelists, for instance, convince us that they were independent witnesses, and that the whole story did not arise from some well- concerted plan to deceive the world : the homely and even bar- barous style of some of the writers proves to us that they were really fishermen, and not philos- ophers ; and so we have a convincing evidence that the deepest system of theology, and the no- blest code of ethics ever j^ropounded — the one stirring the depths of the whole human heart, INSPIRATION. 49 the other guiding all human life — came, not from the profound speculations of the wisest of mankind, but either from God Himself, or else from a source more inexplicable and im- possible ; from the poor, the narrow-minded, and the untaught. But whilst we see the ben- efit of all this, and admire the wisdom which so ordered it, we learn from it that there must have been a human element in Scripture ; that God may, nay must, have spoken, but that He dealt His own common dealing with us — that is. He used earthly instruments for giving heavenly blessings, human means for commu- nicating Divine truth. Now, let us look the other way. Scripture is not a mere system of theology, nor is it a mere historical record. If it were either or both of these, and nothing more, of course we could believe that nothing might be needed, beyond the quickening of the intuitional con- sciousness, to enable men to conceive its truths and to communicate them to others. There is, however, as has been already noticed, a distinctly miraculous element in it ; and here, if we admit its existence, we cannot fail to see the working of a present, personal God. Take away the miraculous element, and we may easily get into any kind of philosophical ab- 4 50 INSPIRATION. straction. Admit it, and we are brought back again into the intelKgible region of common, plain sense. If anything in the world can be supernatu- ral or miraculous, it surely must be the infal- lible foreknowledge of future events. No ele- vation of the intuitional consciousness can ac- count for such foreknowledge. I^one can cer- tainly foretell the future, but one who can certainly guide the future. Do we, then, admit that any of the prophets in the Old Tes- tament were enabled to foretell coming events, the events of the Gospel history in particular ? Some modern writers go so far as to deny this in toto. According to them every prophecy of the Old Testament concerned, primarily at least, contemporaneous history, or history so nearly contemporaneous, that it required only common foresight and " old experience" to look into it. Burke early shadowed forth the French Ke volution : Isaiah, on the same prin- ciple, could forew^arn Israel of its dangers, threaten sinners with punishment, and prom- ise protection to penitents. Of course, w^e can understand such a view ; but can we admit it and not reject Christianity ? And let us remember that, in arguing on the nature of inspiration, we are not arguing in proof of INSPIRATION. 51 Christianity ; but tliat, admitting tlie truth of Christianity, we are inquiring into somewhat which, as has been ah'eady observed, is really internal to Christianity. Most Christians are ready to believe that the passages of the Old Testament to which our Lord and his Apos- tles appealed, as proofs of His Divine mission and of the truth of their teaching, were really predictions, and not guesses. This is not the place to enter at length into such a question. But, if we just think of what Jacob said of Shiloh — Moses, of a 2:)ropliet like himself — David and others, of a great Son of David — Isaiah, in his ninth and iifty-third chapters, of a Child born, a Son given, called Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace, and of a righteous Servant, on whom the Lord should lay the iniquity of us all — Daniel, of Messiah the Prince, cut off, but not for Himself, and of one like a Son of Man, to whom a king- dom is given by the Ancient of days, an ever- lasting kingdom, a dominion that shall not pass away — Haggai, of the glory of the second temple, so much surpassing that of the lirst — Malaclii, of the forenmner of the Messiah — and many prophecies of like kind ; we shall feel that the burden of proof must lie with those who deny, not with those who believe. r 52 INSPIRATION. that there were prophets, who bore witness to the coming of the Christ centuries before His birth. * We may remember that these predic- tions have been preserved to ns both in the original Hebrew, and in translations made from the Hebrew before the birth of Christ, made not by Christians, but by Jews — that the more ancient Jews did undeniably inter- pret these prophecies, as pointing forward to a prince who should be sent from heaven to save their own nation, and to bless other nations in them. Comparatively modern Jews have ex- plained some of these prophecies away, be- cause they too manifestly favor the Chris- tians ; but even so, they continue to believe that the Scriptures foretold a Messiah. More- over, we have the clearest testimonies from Jews and Gentiles alike (Jews and Gentiles * It matters little to this argument whether all the books of the Old Testament were written by those whose names they bear ; whether, for instance, the last chap- ters of Isaiah were Isaiah's or some other's ; whether the book of Daniel was written at the time of the captivity, or not collected till some centuries later. It is certain they were all written before Christ ; and if in them there be found prophecies of the Messiah, prophecies, be they many or few, like precious stones imbedded in a rock ; we have then the phenomenon existing, and we have to explain how it came. Idoneum, opinor, testimonium divinitatis Veritas divinationis.^ (Tert. Apolog, c. 20.) INSPIRATION. 53 wlio never became Christians, and so are inde- pendent witnesses) that in the East generally, Oriente toto, and especially among the Israel- ites themselves, there had prevailed an ancient and constant persuasion that by Divine ap- pointment a Deliverer was to arise out of Judea, who should have dominion ; and, more- over, that he was impatiently expected in the reigns of the early emperors of Rome. Jews, who have lived since those times, have con- fessed that the period presignified is appar- ently past. Now, it is quite certain that the most remarkable and most influential religious teacher that ever lived in any nation upon earth did arise and live in Judea, at the time so marked and agreed on. It is undoubted that He declared the predictions in question to have pointed to Him. His followers have al- ways claimed them as fulfilled in Him. Of all religious revolutions, nay, of all revolutions, moral, spiritual, social, or political, ever pro- duced in the world. He has produced the greatest, the most influential, the most exten- sive. As Christians, we, of course, believe that He was the Christ ; and we are justifled in urging on the Jews such considerations as the above, in proof that their own cherished Scriptures pointed to Him. 54 INSPIRATION. Now, if the prophets really did centuries before foresee an event, most unlikely, but which we have witnessed as true, they must have had something more than the inspiration of genius, or than the exalting of their intui- tional consciousness. For, whatever degree of insight into the truth of things spiritual we may attribute to such intuitional consciousness, and whatever communion it may give with the mind of God, it can hardly be said to make us partakers of God's omniscience, or to endue us with His powers of foresight. One of the favorite modes of evading such conclusions as this, and so one of the favorite positions of the low inspirationists is, that Ni- hilin scripto quod non jpriiis inscrijytore / a man can S23eak nothing but what he thinks. In a sense this is true enough ; and, as a gen- eral rule, we may suppose the holy men of old, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, to have been first gifted with the knowledge of the future, and then moved to communicate that knowledge to others. But still, if there be an overruling and over-guid- ing Providence as well as an informing and inspiring Spirit, may not a man be guided to speak unconsciously words of deep import ? "We see this in the Old Testanient in the case INSPIRATION. 55 of Balaam. If the liistorv of liini be not a false legend or a mere myth, the Almighty told him that he was to speak to Balak that word which was put into his month. His will was qnite the other way. He willed to curse Israel, and so to obtain from Balak the w^ages of unrighteousness ; but his own will was over- ruled by the direct command of God. If Ba- laam prophesied, if he proj^hesied, as most Christians have believed, not only of the future fortunes of Israel, but of the future coming of Christ ; it is certain that his extraordinary knowledge could not have been the result of his purity of heart qualifying him to see God, could not have come from the clearing away of those clouds of sin, and therefore of er- ror, which darken the mental vision ; for his heart was set upon covetousness, and he per- ished with the enemies of God. The same, or nmch the same, may be said of Caiaphas, who was altogether bent on evil, and yet of whom the Evangelist testifies that " being High Priest that year he prophesied." If miracles are impossible, of course, all this is impossible. But how miracles can be impossi- ble, unless God is impossible, it seems that we have yet to learn. Though, therefore, we may not generally 56* INSPIRATION. look for a work of the Spirit tlirongh the mere bodily organs of men, without an elevation of their souls ; we surely have no j)ower to limit the operations of God, or to say that He may not, if He will, use the very unconscious words of wicked men as well as the heart service of pious men. 19. But farther, is it not true that Almighty Grod has made even aots and histories to prophesy, independently of any utterance of men's mouths ? Are there not types in the Law, and through all the Old Testament his- tory, which have their antitypes in the New Testament ? There are those, no doubt, who will say that we can find historical parallels in profane, as readily as in sacred, history. But are these really to be compared with the sacri- fice of Isaac typifying the death and resurrec- tion of Christ — with the history of Joseph, sold by his brethren, and then exalted to be their prince and saviour — with the brazen ser- pent, lifted up to heal all that looked on it — with the passage of the Eed Sea, and other parables put forth by the history of the Exo- dus — with the priesthood of Aaron, the j^ass- over, the ceremonies on the day of atonment, and the many Levitical rites forepicturing Christ — with the kingly types, such as David INSPIRATION. 57 and Solomon — with the prophetic parallelism of Elijah and John the Baptist — and the many others, too many to enumerate now ? "^ If there be, as the writers of the New Testament all assert, and as Christians have ever hitherto believed, a complete system of tyj^e and anti- type in the Old and New Testament respective- ly ; to what can we attribute this, but to an overruling Hand guiding the fortunes of the chosen race, and of individuals in that race, and to the continual presence of that Holy Spirit who divideth to every man severally as He will ? Is not all this to be esteemed a special inspiration ? And if all this is in the Old Tes- tament, then, whatever human elements there be in it, there is surely such a Divine element * Professor Jowett thinks we must give up the types appealed to in the New Testament, just as we do not press the patristic appeal to the scarlet thread of Rahab, or the 318 followers of Abraham. That is to say, we must attach no more importance to the language of the Apostles, or of our blessed Lord Himself, than to the language of any Christian writer in the earlier da3's of Christianity. The New Testament has appealed to types of Christ in the Old Testament. The early Christians universally acknowledged such types, but perhaps un- wisely found moreover certain fanciful resemblances unknown to the Apostles and Evangelists. Because the latter were fanciful, must we conclude that the former were false ? 58 INSPIRATION. as to make its books emphatically the ' ' Ora- cles of God," to which we may look as unmis- takably embodying His will and word. We may admit that the word of God so embodied in the ScrijDtnres was designed to communicate to us great moral and spiritual truths, that there was no pur^DOse to give any revelation of physical science or of mere general history. Yet if we have abundant evidence that Al- mighty God chose the prophets and the books of the Bible as channels for communicating His will to mankind, we have surely abundant evidence that they would not be permitted to err in things pertaining to God. It may not be proof that their language will not be po]3u- lar, and so possibly inaccurate, in matters of science, or that their statements will be in- fallible in the matter of a date or in other things immaterial ; but it is surely proof enough that they would never be permitted to mislead us in questions of faith ; for otherwise they would bring us credentials to their faith- fulness from God Himself, and with these cre- dentials in their hands, deceive, and mislead, and delude us. And here may we not see the fallacy of Cole- ridge's view, who accepts Scripture where it INSPIRATION. 59 ^^ linds" liini, but not in its less interesting and merely historical records ? If we go on this principle, where are we to stop ? If we read the second book of Chronicles, perhaps we may discover very little Avhich " finds" us ; where- as, if w^e read Baxter's ' Saint's Everlasting Rest, ' it may ' ' iind ' ' us in nearly every page. To carry out Coleridge's principle, we ought to uncanonize, or reject the inspiration of, the book of Chronicles, and set uj) as canonical the book of Baxter. But, if our former argu- ments be correct, and the general belief of Christians in all ages be true, the whole his- torical record of the Old Testament is part of the great depository of God's revealed will. One part may be more important than an- other. But when we see that God spoke by words of man, and also by acts of man — that even actions were predictions — when we find Christ Himself and His Apostles citing the books of the Old Testament, as the " Scrip- tures," as the '' Oracles of God," as " God- breathed " {SeoTtvevara) — surely w^e have no right to say that one part " linds me" and an- other does not, and to settle our own Canon ac- cordingly. The whole collection of the books of the Old Testament comes to us with Divine (50 INSPIRATION. credentials — prophecies in it fulfilled after tliey were uttered — Christ's attestation to them, that they all testified of Him — St. Paul's testimony to them that they were '^ given by inspiration of God" — and, having such Divine credentials, we cannot suppose that any of these books would mislead us, at least in things heavenly. 20. If all this holds of the Old Testament, it holds, a fortiori, of the ISTew ; for probably no one will contend that the Apostles, mth Christ's own mission, with the gift of tongues and miraculous powers, with the special prom- ise of the Comforter and of guidance by Him into all truth, with the assurance of Christ's own presence, and with the command to preach on the house-tops what He had told them in the ear, — were in a worse position or more liable to error than the ]jrophets of the Old Testament. And, though we may well be- lieve that each individual Apostle, like every Christian man, may have grown in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; yet this belief need in nowise interfere with our acknowledgment that mes- sengers, specially accredited by God to man, would never be permitted to deliver a false INSPIRATION. 61 message, or to mislead those whom they were so signally commissioned to lead.* For Mr, Maurice's question, as to whether * Revelation has all along been progressive, but not on that account self -contradictory. Abel offered the firstlings of his flock ; x\.braham offered a ram instead of his son ; Moses instituted the Paschal sacrifice ; John the Baptist pointed to " the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world ; ' ' St, Paul spoke of ' ' Christ our Passover;" St, Peter of "the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, ' ' There is the same testimony here through a course of at least four thousand years ; but yet the knowledge was pro- gressive. John the Baptist knew more of C'hrist than all that before him had been born of woman, but less than the least in the kingdom of the Saviour, What is true of the knowledge of the Church ma}^ be equally true of the knowledge of the Apostles. If they had not been capable of growth in wisdom, they would not have been human ; but no proof whatever has yet been given that the testimony of one Apostle is, on points of Chris- tian doctrine, in conflict with the testimony of another, or that the more matured knowledge of any particular Apostle ever led him to contradict, in the least degree, his own former witness to the truth. Certainly they themselves always appeal to the consistency of their own teaching, and denounce all teachinir which is inconsistent with their own. " Though we or an angel from heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than that which wc have preached unto you, let him be accursed," (Gal. i. 8.) " If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed." (2 John 10,) 62 INSPIRATION. we onglit not to consider tlie inspiration of Holy Scripture like to that inspiration for wliicli all of ns pray, there seems but little difficulty in the reply. Undoubtedly, the in- spiration for which we pray is the same as the inspiration of the writers of Scripture — that is to say, it is the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit which guides not only into holiness, but also into truth. Probably pious men in gen- eral never begin any work of imj)ortance with- out praying for grace and guidance ; but when they do so,'^they do not expect to be answered with, for instance, the gift of tongues. They ask for the word of wisdom or the word of knowledge, not for the working of miracles ; yet they look for it from one and the self- same Spirit. And surely we may admit tliat that great Teacher of the Church may teach one in one way and another in another. It may be His will to give one a deep insight into spiritual mysteries, but yet not to give him a knowledge of future events. To another, at a particular period of the Church, or under a peculiar dispensation, he may give tlie power of prophecy, or the gift of tongues, or the working of miracles, or such guidance and di- rection as shall render his testimony, as to things heavenly, infalHbly true. Are we to INSPIRATION. 63 deny that God can do so ? Or again — is it im- possible for him to give such a knowledge ex- cept in the way of giving a higher degree of sanctification, purifying the soul from all that may darken the understanding, and so sharp- ening the spiritual insight ? Such a view of things is surely in direct opj^osition to the con- stant record of the Bible. If it be true, it must convict the writers of the books of the Bible of false testimony. Is it not clearly set doA\'Ti that Balaam — that '' the man of God, who was disobedient to the word of the Lord " — that Jonah, who fled from God's presence — that Caiaplias, even when compassing Christ's crucifixion — were all empowered to speak of future things, and some of them sorely against their wills ? Although it is most likely that God would in general use sanctified instru- ments to speak to man of sacred things, yet, if the record of the Bible be true, there may be a revelation to the mind, and so through the mouths of men, which is not the result of •high sanctification, of purifying the heart that it may see God. A man may have " the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, ' ' may ' ^ speak with the tongues of men and angels," and yet lack charity and be nothiilg. 64 INSPIRATION. 21. And so, to pass to another view of the question, Mr. Morell argues that the Divine or religious truth can only be revealed to our highest and deepest intuitional consciousness. It is not to be received by the senses, by the understanding, or by the reason, but deeper down still in our inmost being. There is no reason to quarrel with this statement so far as it goes. Its fault is, that it is one-sided. *' When it pleased God to reveal his Son in" St. Paul, doubtless the revelation was not to the intellect only, but to the very heart of hearts. But there may be abundant head- knowledge without any such revelation to the soul and spirit. And must we not distinguish here between objective and subjective revela- tion ? Of course objective revelation must suppose a subject ; that is to say, if an ob- ject is to be revealed, there must be a subject by which that object may be embraced and con- ceived. But is it not plain to common-sense, setting aside all logical subtilty, that there may be an uotward manifesting {cpavspoDais, if ano- KaXvijns be ambiguous) of God to man, without any inward reception of Him to the soul ? And if so, may not a man be taught, as Dan- iel or St. John, by a vision of God, and yet, like Balaam or Jonah, not have his soul con INSPIRATION. 65 verted to God ? He may '^ see the vision of the Ahnighty, falling into a trance, and hav- ing his eyes open ;" and yet his heart may not be opened to know and to love God. It really seems as if Mr. Maurice, Mr. Morell, and others of similar sentiments, deny the possibility of this.* But on what principle can it be denied, except on a principle which rejects all that is miraculous, and which makes God, not a Per- sonal Being, but an impersonal influence ? 22. Bat if we believe that God has in differ ent ages authorized certain j^ersons to commu- nicate objective truth to mankind, if in the Old Testament history and the books of the prophets we find manifest indications of the Creator, it is then a secondary consideration, and a question on which we may safely agree to differ, whether or not every book of the Old Testament was written so completely un- der the dictation of God's Holy Spirit, that every word, not only doctrinal, but also his- torical or scientific, nmst be infallil)]y correct * Of course, Professor Baden Powell must have held this impossible, l)ecaiise he held that there was no cou- taet point between the spiritual and the physical worlds. The}' lie, according to him, in two distinct planes, which can never come in contact. But to what must such a theory lead short of Materialism and Atheism, in minds of the common stamp ? 66 INSPIRATION. and true. The whole collection of the books has been preserved providentially to the Church as the record of God's early dealings with mankind, and especially with one chosen race, as the collection of the prophecies and of the religious instruction which God was- pleased to communicate to man in the pre- paratory dispensations of His grace : and with these there is a book of sacred psalmody, em- bodying the religious experience of men liv- ine* under the Theocracv, some at least of the hymns contained in it evincing the power of prophecy in their writers. Whatever conclu- sion, then, may be arrived at as to the infalli- bility of the writers on matters of science or of history, still the . whole collection of the books will be really the oracles of God, the Scriptures of God, the record and depository of God's supernatural revelations in early times to man. And we may remember that our Blessed Lord quotes the Psalms as the Scrip- ture, adding, '' And the Scripture cannot be broken. ' ' 23. It has been already observed that what holds good of the Old Testament holds a for- tiori of the New. If the writers of it were the accredited messengers from God to man, taught by Christ, assured by Him of the teach- INSPIRATION. 67 ing of His Holy Spirit, sent to bring to man tlie knowledge of God and of His liigliest truths, we cannot doubt that tliat Spirit, who was to gnide them into all trntli, would never let them err in things pertaining to God. Tliis is really what we want. We want to be as- sured that we have an infallible depository of religions truth. And if w^e are satisfied tliat the Apostles were accredited messengers for delivering God's message and communicating God's truth to the world, clearly we have this assurance. It may, no doubt, be true that all ministers of Christ in all ages are God's accred- ited messengers ; but the difference is this : the Apostles had new truths to deliver direct from heaven ; other ministers of Christ have old trutlis to impress — truths wdiicli may per- haps be new to their hearers, but which are old to the Church. In the one case tliere is a direct commission with a need of infalliljility in things spiritual ; in the other the mission is through the intervention of others, and with the 2)ower of correcting errors by appealing to the authority of the written record. If we can establish this much then, there seems no need to fear tlie admission of a liuman element, as well as a Divine, in Scrip- ture. Tlie Apostles had the treasure of the 68 INSPIRATION. Gospel in earthen vessels. The Holj Spirit taught the Churches through the instrumen- tality of men of like passions with ourselves. The difficulty of enunciating a definite theory of inspiration consists exactly in this — in assign- ing the due weight respectively to the Divine and the human elements. A human element there clearly was. Though in instances like those of Balaam and Caiaphas we seem to have something more like organic inspiration, yet in ordinary cases God was pleased to take the nobler instruments of man's thoughts and hearts through which to communicate a knowl- edge of Himself to the w^orld, rather than to act through the organs of speech moving men's mouths as mere machines. With all the pains and ingenuity which have been bestowed upon the subject, no charge of error, even in matters of human knowledge, has ever yet ^ been substantiated against any of the writers of Scripture. But, even if it had been other- wise, is it not conceivable that there might have been infallil)le Divine teaching in all things spiritual and heavenly, whilst on mere matters of history, or of daily life, Prophets and Evangelists might have been suffered to write as men ? Even if this were true, we need not be perplexed or disquieted, so we can INSPIRATION. 69 be agreed that the Divine element was ever snch as to secure the infallible truth of Scrip- ture in all things Divine. 24. All this, of course, is applicable to ques- tions of 23liysical science. Scripture was not given to teach us science, but to teach us re- ligion ; it may not have been needful that the inspired writers should have been rendered in- fallible in matters of science, nor is it at all likely that they should have been directed to teach to the ancient world truths which would anticipate the discoveries either of Newton or of Cuvier. It would have been almost as strange if they had not used popular expres- sions in writing on such sul)jects, as if they had written not in the tongue of their own people, but in a new dialect more relined and philosophical. But may we not ask, wdiether in this question of physical science, as in many like things, scej^tical writers have not been sharp-sighted on minute discrepancies, whilst they have been blind to the great gen- eral harmony of truth ? It is ever so ; each petty diiference of date, each little inconsis- tency in two concurrent narratives, every, the slightest a])])earance of doubtful morality, any- thing like a supposed re})ugnance to what we consider the necessary attril)utes of the Most 70 INSPIRATION, High, have been dwelt on and magnified, and used as objections to the inspiration of Holy Writ ; whilst the general truth of its history, the j)nrity and holiness of its general moral teaching, the grandeur and sublimity of its doc- trines concerning God, are altogether forgot- ten or concealed. Yet is it not true that, both in moral and in physical science, nothing short of miraculous inspiration can account for the superior knowledge of the writers of the Old Testament com^Dared with the most enlight- ened sages of heathen antiquity ? The Jewish philosophers, like Philo, felt that tlie Scrip- tures of their own prophets had brought in sim- ple language to their unlettered fellow-coun- trymen moral and spiritual truths, after which the Platonists had been " seeking, if haply they might feel after them and find them." Greeks, like Justin Martyr, who had tried one school of philosophy after another, discovered in the Gospel all that was most valuable in the teaching of all schools. And may not we, who have come upon an age of rapid discovery in physical science, confess that the account given of the Creator and His works in the Bible was an anticipation and is an e]3itome of all that has lately come to light ? The telescope has revealed to us worlds and systems of INSPIRATION. 71 worlds rolling in unl)roken order tlirongli in- finity of space ; tlie microscope has shown us living and organized beings so small as to be- wilder the mind with their minuteness as the suns and planets bewilder it with their vast- ness ; the geologist takes us back through countless ao^es, the records of which are in- deliblj engraven " as with lead in the rock foj- ever." And the Bible, but no other an- cient book that is written, had told us that the Being who created all things was such that the Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens could not contain Him, that He was the High and lofty One inhabiting eternity, but that though He had His dwelling so high, yet He humbled Himself to behold the things that are in heaven and earth, that a sparrow did not fall without Him, that the very hairs of man's head were numbered by Him. Infinite great- ness, infinite minuteness, infinity of duration, infinity of action, eternity of past existence and of past operation, as well as an eternity of the future, are all distinctly predicated in the Scriptures of the mind of Him who made us all. And here for the first time, now in the nineteenth century, we find the same infinity in heaven and in earth, and in the sea, and under the earth. 72 INSPIRATION. Why, then, must we be puzzled because some recently discovered geological phenomena seem hard to reconcile with a few verses in one chapter of G-enesis ? Are we to forget the marvellous harmony between God's word and His works, which a general view of both con- vinces us of, because there are some small fragments of both, which we have not yet learned to fit into each other ? Nay ! even here, we may fairly say, that the harmony already found is greater than the as yet unexplained discord. For, putting aside all doubtful inter- pretations and difiicult questions concerning the six days of creation and the like, these two facts are certain ; all sound criticism and all geological inquiry prove them alike ; viz., first, that the original creation of the universe was at a period indefinitely, if not infinitely, distant from the present time ; and secondly, that of all animated beings, the last that came into existence was man. Geology has taught us both these facts ; but the first verse of Gen- esis clearly teaches the first, and the twenty- sixth verse teaches the second. To touch but for a moment on one other subject which has been so strongly pressed of late, the uniform prevalence of law, not only in things inanimate, but where there is life INSPIRATION, 78 and even reason and morality — can an}i;liing be more consistent than this with the whole of the Old Testament ? Indeed its peculiar teach- ing from first to last may be said to have been that God is a God of order ; that He has im- pressed His law on all creation ; that all things serve Plini, all things obey Him ; that to break laws, whether moral or physical, is in- evitably to entail suffering ; and that even ra- tional and spiritual beings, even in their ra- tional and S23iritual natures and capacities, are subject to laws which cannot be broken ; that the sins of the fathers go down in sin and sor- row to the children ; and that even repent- ance, though it may save .the soul, cannot undo the sin or avert the suffering. There is no- where in creation or in history written more plainly the record of order and law. 25. Surely such thoughts as these seem fit to satisfy us, that God's works rightly read are not likely to contradict God's word rightly interjDreted. There will be for a time, per- haps for all time, apparent difficulties. When new questions arise, at first many will feel that it is hopeless to attempt to solve them. Some will despair, some will try to smother inquiry ; some will rush into Atheism, and others will fall back into superstition. Patience is the 74 INSPIRATION. proper temper for an age like our own, which is in many ways an age of transition. The discoveries of Galileo seemed more alarming to his contemporaries than any discoveries in geology or statistics can seem to ns. We see no difficulty in Galileo's discoveries now. Such things, then, are j)robabl3^ the proper trials of our faith. Sober views, j)atience, prayer, a life of godliness, and a good conscience, will, no doubt, keep us from making shipwreck of faith. What now seems like a shadow may only be the proof that there is a light behind it. And even if at times there should come shadows seeming like deej) night, we may hope that the dawn of the morning is but the nearer. SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. CONTENTS. Sect. 1. The Alleged Vaeiations in the Interpbbtation of SCKIPTTJRE, p. 425. 1. Introductory comments and definitions, 2. Present attitude and expectations. 3. Amount of varying interpretations much exaggerated— as shown by firs-t, Ancient and modern versions ; secondly, Comparison of earlier and later expositions. 4- ^^^^f^ ^"^ historical mode of Interpretation adopted from the 5. Recapitulation. Sect. 2. The Chaeactebistics of Sceiptuee, p. 445. 6. Differences of interpretation in details. 7. This diversity in unity to be accounted for-I. By the difference of the Bible from every other Book. II. By the fact that Scrip- ture often involves more than one meaning: as shown bv m Applications of prophecy, (2) Types, (3) Deeper meanings, even in historical passages. III. By the fact that Scripture is divinely 8. Examination of the assertions of opponents concerning the Insni- ration of Scripture, as regard s,,^rs<, the Testimony of Scripture rhnvnf/''?L''*'w*;° i/self; s^co,irt///, the Statements of the Early Church ; thirdly, the Subjective testimony. 9. Affirmative observations upon Inspiration— Considerations con- cerning,. ^r.s«, Its Mode ; secondly, its Limits ; thirdly, its Degree. 10. Recapitulation. Sect. 3. Geneeal Rules op Inteepeetation, p. 480. 11. Preliminary comments-Duty of Prayer— Necessity for candor. 12. Rules for the Interpretation of Scripture— First TMle—hiterwret gramniatically-^-i.&m^\QS. Second B,u\&- Interpret histori- cally-Examples Third Bii\e-l7iteri}ret Contextually-Exam- ples. Fourth F.nle— Interpret minutely— Examples. Failure of these rules in cases of difficulty. Gradual emergence of supple- mentary rules. Fifth Rule -Interpret according to the analogy 13. Concluding observations. Sect. 4. The Application op Sceiptuee, p. 513. 14. Application of Scripture considered in reference to, I. Prophecy aacl lypology. II. Second and deeper meanings. III. Practical and special deductions. Sect. 5. Geammae and the Laws op the Lettee, p. 522, 15. Introductory remarks. 16. General character of the language of the New Testament, as com- pared with earlier and later Greek. 17. Peculiarities as shown in details, especially in reference to (1) the .^j^ticle, (2) Substantives, (3) Verbs, (4) Prepositions, (5) Parti- 18. Conclusion. SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTER- PRETATION. I. 1. It can hardly be considered strange that great differences of opinions honld exist respect- ing the interpretation of Scripture. When we consider the nature of the Sacred Writings, their number, their variety, the different ej^ochs to which they belong, and the vast period of time over which they extend, we can hardly be surprised to find the opinions concerning the interpretation of the Volume into which they are collected not only to be various, but even conflicting. When we turn from tlie outward to the inward, and j^onder over " that inexhausti])le and infinite character" of the Sacred Writings, which even the better portion of our opponents are not unwilling to concede, — when we observe that '' deptli and inwardness," which, it has been rightly con- J 78 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. sidered, require something corresponding in the interpreter himself, — when we reveren- tially recognize throughout the Yohime refer- ences alike to the past, the present, and the fu- ture ; teachings in history only partly realized, lessons in proj)hecy ' ' not yet learned even in theory," germs of truth which, we are told, have yet to take root in the world, — when w^e consider all this, are we to wonder that differ- ences of o]3inion exist concerning the inter- pretation of a volume so ancient, so wondrous, and so multiform ? n would indeed be strange if it had been otherwise ; it would be a phenomenon in the literary or mental history of Christianity not easy to account for, if expounders of Scrip- ture had been found always accordant in their views ; nay, it may even be considered a sub- ject for surprise, though for thankfulness, that the differences of opinion about the interpre- tation of a volume such as we have described are not greater than we find tliem to be. When, however, we are thus speaking of the differences of opinion respecting the inter- pretation of Scripture (and we are using the language of opponents), let us, from the very outset, agree to avoid all ambiguities in lan- guage. Let us be careful not to fall into an SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION, 79 error wliicli we may fairly impute to those witli whom we are contending, — the error, to choose the mildest expression, of using terms of a vague and undefined character, and, as the sequel will show, of a somewhat conven- ient elasticity. What do we mean by differ- ences respecting the interpretation of Scrip- ture ? We may mean two things. Either we may mean that there have been differences of opinion about the meanings of the actual words of Scripture, or we may mean that there have been differences of opinion about the manner in which those meanings have been obtained. We may include both if we choose in the same forms of words, but in so doing let us not fail to apprise ^tlie reader, and in conducting the argument let us act with fairness. Let us be careful to recognize the clear logical differ- ence between these two meanings, and avoid that really culpable method of dealing with a momentous subject which does not scruple to mix uj) illustrations or arguments derived from one of its aspects with those which really and plainly belong to the other. There may liave been from the very first many methods of interpreting Scripture : allegory may have prevailed in one age, mysticism in another ; scholastic methods of interpretation may have 80 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION, been succeeded by rhetorical, and these again ^ may both have given place to methods in which grammar and history may have borne a :■, more prominent part. All this may have been so, but it still does not necessarily follow that the meanings actually assigned to any given text have been as manifold or as discordant as the methods which may have been adopted to obtain them. The modes and principles of interpretation may have been very diiferent, and yet, in the main, they may have led to very accordant results. Such a probabiHty) however, is now somewhat studiously passed over in silence, or mentioned only to be dis- missed as unworthy of serious consideration. The object, we fear, is to create anxiety and uneasiness, to unfix and to unloosen, to awa- ken a general feeling of distrust in current interpretations, and, in the case of doctrinal statements and every form of exposition that involves a reference to the analogy of faith, to arouse even hostility and antagonism. This has been done of late, as we have already im- plied, by a judicious combination of two meth- ods of proceeding, — on the one hand, by calhng attention to the discordances of interpretation in a few extreme cases where such discordance is sure to be a maximum ; on the other, by SCRIP TUBE : ITS INTERPRET A TION. 8 1 dwelling exclusively on the varieties of the different systems and methods of inteq)reta- tion, and leaving it to be inferred that the re- sults arrived at are as various and diversified -as the methods by whicli they have l)een ob- tained. In a word, such a phenomenon as a Catholic interpretation, substantially the same under all systems, but varied only in details or ap])lication, is assumed to be an exegetical im- possibility. The true state of the case we are told is this, — that Scripture has had every pos- sible variety of meaning assigned to it, that it has been understood to say this to one age and that to another, that all hitlierto lias been con- flict or uncertainty. AVe learn, however, that now a better era is dawning ; that a funda- mental principle, viz., that Scripture has one meaning and one meaning only, has at length clearly l)een made out ; and that a little " free handling," a few assumptions, and a free use of a so-called " verifying faculty," will finally adju^st all difficulties and discordances in the interpretation of the Book of Life. There is ()l)viously something very attrac- tive in all this. There is a fascination in the whole procedure that imperfectly disci})lined or willingly sce])tic;il minds find it impossible to resist. There is tlie clmnn of the alleged 6 82 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. disco \^ery that criticism at last has made, the attractiveness of the generahzation, the variety of the modes of applying the principle so as to meet all needs, whether of the reader, the preacher, the missionary, the teacher, or the interpreter, — and then the retrospect, the back- ward look of serene triumph over the accnmn- lated errors and prejudices ^of eighteen ^long Christian centuries, all chased away by the brightness of this second Reformation and the " burst of intellectual life" that is at last becoming visible above the clouded horizon of Scriptural interpretation. One topmost stone, and the monument of our exegetical successes must be pronounced complete. Philosophy and Theology claim of us, we are told, as of value to themselves a history of the past. Be it so. Let us take the pen of the historian and sit down and trace the record of our own men- tal supremacy in a history of the prejudices and errors of the Exegesis of the past. Let us show by this tacit com]3arison how ^ ' gi-eat names must be accounted small," how few ever ' ' bent their mind to interrogate the meaning of words," how men who were ac- counted benefactors of the human race have yet only left to us the heritage of erring fan- cies and party-bias, — let us write the history SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 83 of all this littleness, confusion, and bondage to the letter, and tlie fabric of onr own great- ness, harmony, and intellectual freedom will appear by the contrast only the more stately and unique. Such is the dream of the present. Such, stated in no exaggerated or unkindly terms, is the course which men whose general goodness and high principles we have no cause to doubt or deny are now inviting iis to follow. What are we to say of all this ? The comment rises to the lips, but we suj^press it. We may feel, perhaps, that as in Corinth of old so now in nineteenth-century England, vain knowledge may puff up, yet remembering that " love edi- lieth," we sit by silent and wondering, even though the lire is kindling within, and silence is becoming a pain and a grief to us. At first perhaps we prepare to answer the call to join the wise and tranquil few, who, kn<>wing tliat the Eternal Spirit has been ever present with the Chui'ch, and that what things were writ- ten aforetime were written, not f(>r our con- tempt but for our learning, smile- pensively at these childish exultations and straw-woven crowns, and see in tliem only one more of tlie premature triumplis that have been claimed for some shifting foi-m of the errors or liere- 8 4 SCRIP T URE : ITS INTERPRET A TION. sies of the time. We feel tempted to join this quiet compaiiy, and cahnly to smile as thej alone can smile whose feet stand within the sheltering walls of the City of God, and whose faith is that which was not only delivered bnt handed down to the saints in each age of the Church of Christ. What can we do but smile, when we recognize old quibbles and difficul- ties all mustered up again, disguised in new trappings, and arranged in new combinations, — but yet the same, the very same that have been dispersed a hundred times over, and which the very generation to which we now belong will see dispersed again, though it may be to ally themselves hnally with powers and principles of which at present they are only per- mitted to act as the scout and the courier ? But with this last thought the smile fades away. When we remember that the forms of error which of late have been reappearing among us may belong, consciously or uncon- sciously, to the great apostasy of the future, — when we observe how they instinctively asso- ciate themselves with masked or avowed deny- ings of the Divinity of our blessed Lord, and of the full efficacy of His sacrifice, — when we mark how their vanities and self- confidences bear a strange family likeness to that Pelagian SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 85 pride in the perfectibility of our corrupted na- ture wliicli tears open the wounds of a cruci- hed Lord more lieartlesslj than the liands that first inflicted tlieni, — when we ponder over tliat puffed up and unyoked spirit of the day that is now calling on us to clear away the re- mains of dogmas and controversies, and when we see, as we must see, with a shudder, that it is but the harbinger of him who is to set him- self against everything '' that is called God or that is worshipped " (2 Tliess. ii. 4), — then it does seem our duty to play our part in the great controversy, to quit ourselves like men, and to strive with all Christian earnestness, with stem brow yet wdth true and loving heart, to secure the endangered souls of our own time and age, and to bring them back into the City of God. 2. The position of the defender of the faith in the present day is that of one whose home and citizenship is in the City '' that lieth four-square," whose builder and whose maker is God. The storm of battle has often raged round those massive walls, wild rout and turmoil have often striven to shake those solid gates. Passwords have been tried ; treachery has played its dastardly part, — but all stands firm and sure. The rising sun that smites on 86 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. the broad front of those fair walls and towers, beholds them as stately in their strength and their beauty as they were ever of old ; the shadows they cast when day declines are as many and as lengthened as they were of yore. Who within wonld wish to see a stone dis- placed, who wonld fain see one battlement laid low ? Perhaps none who are really and truly within the circuit of those sheltering walls. But there are voices without that we know full well, voices of those with wdiom we have dwelt as friends, whose God has been our God, and whose Lord has been our Lord, — men who went from among us on strange mis- sions, and are come back to tell us strange tid- ings, and to bid us do strange deeds. That beleaguering host whose flaunting standards we can see on every wooded knoll around, and whose open or covert assaults our fathers and forefathers have experienced so often, and re- sisted so successfully and so long, — that motley eager host they tell us is not composed of foes but of friends and well-wishers, changed by civilization and the glory of human develop- ment, eager to meet us as kindred and brothers if we will but remove the envious barriers that separate us, relics of a religious feudalism, as they term it, long passed away. Shall creeds SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 87 separate brothers ? Shall doctrines divide those whom Tinity of race and shared civilizations plainly declare to be one and inseparable ? Shall we chnrlishlj strive any longer to stint the growth of the ideal man ? Shall the ori- ent and glowing fnture be darkened w^ith jeal- ousies of sects and rivalries of religions ? '' We are couriers," they imj)etnously cry aloud ; ^' ambassadors, friends of both, friends of truth, friends of Christ. Unbar, then, these en^-ious gates ; down with these unfriendly walls ; let us learn from each other the great lesson of mutual concessions, and so at last re- alize the great hope of the future, the fabled restitution of theologians, and at last, all in fra- ternal triumph, merge into the one great fam- ily of Truth and of Love. ' ' Such are the voices now sounding in our ears ; voices that the young and the generous, as well as the godless and the worldworn, give ear to with ready sympathy. Eut shall the tnie defenders of the ark of their God, that ark of the New Covenant wherein lie the written words of life, yield it and themselves up to this stratagem which one '' whose time is short " has put into the hearts of unconscious instruments ? l^ever. God defend us from such fearful, such frantic dis- loyalty ! God indeed forbid that, in any sense, 88 8CRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. however modified, it should hereafter be the boast of the spirits of perdition, that it was- with the City of the liills even worse than it was- with a city of the plain, — that the host wound round it, that sounding brass brayed forth and eager voices shouted, and that, mined by trai- torous occupants, wall and tower fell flat as those of Jericho, and fell never to rise again I Such, it would seem, is the allegory of our own times — such no overdrawn picture of the exact attitude in which true believers now ap- pear to stand. We are called upon by specious- words to give up every defence which the mercies of God have permitted to be reared up around us ; and our reward is to be a bond- age, to which the bondage of the worst age of the Church of Rome would be found light and endurable. There is no bondage like that of scepticism. There is no intolerance more in- tolerable than that of those who are themselves- the servants of a hard master. It may be a bond- age diJSerent to bondages of the past in its mode of being brought about, but it is no less complete and coercive. It is the bondage of contempt and of scorn. Do we doubt it ? Are there not writings of our own times, writ- ings that claim scholars and ministers of the Gospel for their authors, that show, only too SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION, 89 painfully, what we have to expect if we allow snch to be leaders of thought among us, if wall and tower are to be thrown down to let such men come in and have the rule over us ? Granted that there may be numerous excep- tions, that there may be those who, even while we are compelled to number them among our secret foes, we may be free to own have many kindly and elevated sympathies, — granted that there may be silver sounds heard amid all this clanging brass, yet does not common sense, does not history itself tell us, that the voices of this better part will be the first to be si- lenced ; that their kindly idealisms will be rudely swept aside to make room for varied and repulsive forms of aggressive materialism ; that they will themselves be the earliest vic- tims of the Frankenstein their own hands have helped to shape into existence ? Let the thoughtful reader pause only for a moment to muse upon some of the present aspects of mod- em society as revealed by, as commented on, and sometimes even as defended by, our pub- lic papers, and then answer to' his own heart what he thinks must be the issue if laxity of religious thought seriously increase among us. Yice will borrow its excuses from scepticism ; lawlessness of act will become the natural se- 90 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION quel of lawlessness of thought ; and the end will be, no noble, colossal, heavenward-looking, ideal man, bnt a grovelling satyr, the slave of his own appetites, and the vassal of his own abominations. Bnt we must pass on to, or rather return to, the subject which lies more immediately before us. Enough, perhaps, has been said to show that there can be no safe compromise, no over- liberal parleying with those without, be they the kindliest or the most silver-tongued of the children of men. The believer of the present day must put himself in the attitude of an op- ponent, kind indeed it may be, and large in heart and sympathies, ready and anxious to rescue, prompt to spare, — yet an opponent ; one who, when asked to give up old princi- ples, may not, for the sake of others, wholly refuse to hear the nature of the demand, but who hears it with a full knowledge of the true attitude and posture of those by whom it is urged. We are asked especially to give up old principles in the interj^retation of the Word of God. Some concession, we are warned, is al- most imperatively demanded. We ask why. We bid' our opponents state their reasons for a demand so sweej)ing and comprehensive. One of these reasons we have heard already, and we SCRIPTURE: IW INTERPRETATION. 91 have already observed that it involves an am- biguity. We are told that the differences re- specting the interpretation of Scri]>tnre are such that they show that prejudice rather than principle is the true mainspring of Scriptural exegesis. Pictures are held up to us of the successive schools of interpreters, their follies and their fallacies, their bondage to the influ- ences of the age in which they lived, their hos- tihty to all intellectual freedom. Be it so ; but is it proved that the interpretations which they actually advanced are as varied as their methods of procedure are so confidently alleged to be i Whether a great deal too much has not been :said even on this subject, whether the diversities or antagonisms of early systems of explaining Scripture have not been greatly exaggerated, is a quer>tion into which here we will not enter. Our inquiry is simply, whether the differences of interpretation are at all more than the nature and importance of the subject- matter would lead us to expect, and whether a great deal that has been said about the differ- ences of interpretation does not wholly belong to the differences of the modes of procedure. It is, of course, quite nat»^iral and conceivable that the spirit of each age may have swayed teacher and preacher more to this method than 92 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. to that ; that passing controversies may have left their traces, and that declarations which seemed of great moment to one generation may not have been foimd equally so to another. All this may be so, bnt with this we are now only partially concerned. If we were endeav- oring to form an estimate of the variety of deductions that have been made from the words of Scripture in different ages of the Church, or were discussing the varying appli- cations that the same sentiment has been found to bear, much that has been said on the subject might pass unchallenged. We should probably account for these varied forms of application or deduction on different principles to our op- ponents ; we might see, for instance, in all this diversity of application only evidences of " the manifold wisdom of God," and of that hidden life with all its varying aptitudes to human needs which we know to be in the Written Word. Our opponents, on the con- trary, might see in it only evidences of the folly, ignorance, prejudice, or bad faith of successive expositors : we might differ widely in our manner of accounting for these differ- ent applications of •Scripture, but we might to a great extent agree as to their number and variety. This, however, is not the question SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION- 98 between us. What we are now told is not merely that the applications or adaptations of Scripture have been very varied, bnt that the difference of actual meaning assigned to the w^ords of Scripture by expositors of different ages is so suspiciously excessive, that the duty of purging our minds from past prejudices is imperative, and that Scripture must hence- forth be explained on sounder principles. The one true meaning must be discovered and adopted, the many disregarded or rejected. The first question between us, then, is a ques- tion of amount and of degree. Our opponents assert that Scripture has had so many mean- ings, often too so hostile and suicidal, that it presents one meaning to the Frenchman, another to the German, and another to the Englishman. We are asked if this is not in it- self an utter absurdity, and if it is not time to enter upon some more reasonable course. That assumed reasonable course is sketched out ; canons of interpretation are laid down ; ap- peals are not wanting to current prejudices ; disinclination or inaptitude for that wrestling with the Word of Clod which marked earlier and better ages of the Church is dealt gently with ; disregard of the great exegetical writ- ings of the past is not only excused but com- 94 STimP'TUliE: ITS INTERPRETATION.' mended ; we are advised wholly to trust to ourselves, and are cheered by the assurance that '^ if we will only confine ourselves to the plain meaning of w^ords and the study of their context," we may beneficially dispense with all the expository labors of the jDast or of the present. Such is the modem mode of dealing with one of the most momentous subjects of our own times, and with which 23ersonal lioK- ness and man's salvation are more intimate- ly connected than wdth any other that can be specified. Is it unfair to characterize the whole as nothing more than positive asser- tions, resting on ambiguities of language, or on the assumed identity of things, logically different, and supported by covert appeals to the idleness, vanity, and self-sufiiciency of the day? 3. We revert, however, to the preliminary question before us. Are the dijfferences of meaning that have been assigned to Scripture such in amount as they are said to be, and such as to demand the reliabilitation of Scrip- tural interpretation which is now jDroposed ? Are they such that, as it has been asserted, Scripture bears an utterly different meaning to men of different ages and nations ? Assuredly not. No statement seems more completely at JSOMIPTLIBE: ITS INTERPRKJ ATION. 95 vai'iance with our general Cliristiaii conscious- ness ; no assertion can more readily be dis- approved when we come to details. These, however, can never be made palatable to the general reader, nor are they commonly convinc- ing, unless carried out much further than would be possible in an Essay of this nature. To prove clearly and distinctly that there is not this great amount of discordance in the interpreta- tions of Scripture, it would be necessary to compare, and that not in a few selected cases, but in a j)ortion of Scripture of some length, the results arrived at by connnentators of different ages and countries. Less than this would fail to convince ; for in the case of a few prerogative instances, which would be all we should have space for, the feeling is ever apt to arise that lists equally telling and con- rincing could be made out on the other side We have, therefore, as it would seem, lit- tle left us than to meet assertion by counter- assertion, and leave each reader to ascertain for himself on which side the truth lies, — whether the differences in the interpretations of Scrip- ture (exce2)t in a comparatively few cases) have been thus excessive, or whether there has not been a very considerable amount of accordance in general matters, and variations only in de 96 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. tails. Those who are acquainted with the sub- ject, and have had experience in referring to ex- pository treatises belonging to different ages and countries, will have no difficulty in pronounc- ing which is the true state of the case, and whether assertion or counter-assertion is to be deemed most worthy of credit. As, however, the general reader is not always likely to have it in his power to decide between the two state- ments, and as the mere denial of the major in an opponent's syllogism is never satisfactory without some reasons being assigned, we will mention one or two general considerations which, though not amounting to a positive proof that Scrij^ture has not been interpreted as diversely as has been asserted, may yet ren- der it probable that such is the case, and supply some grounds for the counter-assertion above alluded to. In the first place, we may perhaps with jus- tice appeal to the Ancient Versions, especially when combined with some of the best Mod- ern Versions, as tending to show that the amount of variety in interpretation is not so great as has been imagined. Let us take, for example, seven of the best Ancient Versions of the JSTew Testament — the Syriac (Peshi- to), the Old Latin (as far as it has been ascer- SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 97 tained), tlie Yulgate, the Gothic, the Coptic, the Ethiopic (Pell Piatt's), and the Armenian, and with them let us associate the Authorized English Version and Luther's German Version, and then proceed to inquire what general opin- ion a comparison of the characteristics of these Versions leads us to form as to the question of a prevailing unanimity, or a prevailing dis- cordance, of interpretation, as far as it can be evinced bj a Version. Xow, admitting on the one hand that there may be such relations ex- isting between some of these Versions, that each can hardly be considered an independent witness, — that the Vulgate, for example, is but an amended form of the Old Latin, that the Ethiopic sometimes seems to indicate de- pendence on the Syriac, that the Armenian was retouched at a late j)eriod, and possibly that the Vulgate was in the hands of the re- viser, — admitting all this, and making also a deduction for the influence of the Vulgate, and, perhaps, to some small extent, of the Sy- riac over the two modern Versions, we may still most justly point to these nine Versions, of ages and countries so dilferent and distant, as evincing an unanimity in their renderings, not only of general but even of disputed pas- sages, far beyond what could have been ex- 7 98 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. pected a priori^ or can in any way be ac- counted for by the admissions we have ah-eady made. If it be said this must necessarily be the case in Versions which are all strictly lit- eral in their character, these two remarks may be made by way of rejoinder : first, that the very fact that nine Versions of different ages and countries should agree in this im^^ortant featnre, that not one of them should in any respect be paraphrastic,"^ and that some, as for instance the Old Latin, should almost be bar- barous in their exactness, does seem to show that not only in later ages, but even in the earliest, the very letter of Scripture was re- garded as of the utmost importance, and treated with the most scrupulous accuracy. Where versions were so punctilious, it does not seem natural to expect that interpretation would have been very wild or varied, except when it was allowed to degenerate into appli- cations, or busied itself with minutiae and de- tails. Secondly, it may be added, that even the most literal Versions involve interpreta- * It may be noticed that we have specified the Ethiopic Version as that edited by Mr. Pell Piatt. The Ethiopic found in Walton's ' Polyglot ' often degenerates into a .paraphrase, especially in difficult passages. The Peshito is sometimes idiomatically free, but never paraphrastic. SCRIPTURE: ITS mTHRPRETATTON, 99 • tion in tlie fullest sense of the word, especially in the opinions they necessarily express on the connexion of clauses, and in the renderings of words of disputed meaning. A good transla- tion is often the very best of eonnnentaries, and it was a full appreciation of this fact that led a venerated scholar and divine, when asked what he judged to be the best commentary on the Kew Testament, to name the Vulgate. The general unanimity of the early as well as later Versions is thus a testimony, at any rate, of some little weitrht, in favor of the belief that the amount and degree of differences of interpretation in' earlier, when compared with later ages, have been much overstated. Still it may be urged, that whatever may be the case with Versions, it is perfectly certain that, in the results at which commentators of different ages have arrived, there is a vast amount not only of variety but of antagonism. In reference to a certain number of difficult passages tliis may be true ; if, however, this be intended as a general statement referring to Scriptural interpretation at large, it must be regarded as open to considerable doubt. Let us endeavor to show this in the folk^wing way. It is said that there is an increasing agreement between recent German expositors, 100 SCRIP TUBE: ITS INTERPRETATION. and it is also implied tliat the results at which they have arrived are far more consonant witli trnth than any that have preceded. Of these expositors, De Wette and Meyer are often mentioned with resj^ect by modern writers. Let US agree to take them as two fair repre- sentatives of the exegesis of onr own times. Let us now go to a remote past, and choose two names to compare with them as represen- tatives of the interpretation of a former day. Let us take for example Chrysostom and The- odoret. They belonged to an age sufficiently distant ; they shared in its feelings and sym- pathies ; they took part in its controversies. They were not specially in advance of their own times. One of them had, what many will judge to be not always compatible with calmness of interpretation, a strongly rhetori- cal bias ; the other did not escape some suspi- .cion of heresy. Such as they were, or have been judged to be, let us compare them, in some portion of Scripture (St. Paul's Epistles for example), on which all have written, with the two modern commentators above specified, and state what seem to be the general results of the comparison. We naturally set out with the expectation of finding very great diversity. If all that has been said on this subject be SCRIPTURE: ITS mTERPRETATION. 101 true ; if the fourteen centuries wliicli lie be- tween the two pairs of men be as plentiful- ly diversified as they are said to have l)een by changes in methods of interpretation,— changes, too, asserted to have been gradually leading us up to more perfect principles of in- terpretation,— we must expect to find a very great amount of discordance l)etween them. Yet what do we discover Avhen we actually in- stitute the comparison ? To speak very o-en- erally, it would seem to be as follows. There will be found in the first place a considerable amount of variety in matters of detail, the older interpreters more commonly giving what may be termed an objective reference to words and expressions, where the two modern writ- ers will be found agreeing to adopt a more subjective view. In the second place, differ- ences will be observed in the treatment of doc- trinal passages ; the older interpreters usually expounding them with reference to the great controversies of their own times, and to points of polemical detail ; the modern interpreters usually trying to generalize, and not unfre- quently to dilute and explain away, whenever doctrinal statements appear to assume a very distinctive or definite aspect. In a word, the tendency of the two earlier writers is to what 102 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION, is objective and s^Decial ; of the two later to what is subjective and general. These distinc- tions will certainly be observed, especially in the two departments above alluded to — matters of detail and matters of doctrine, and may per- haps be deemed sufficient to justify the recog- nition of some clear lines of demarcation be- tween earlier and more modern interpretation. When, however, these points of diiference are set aside, there w^ill be found remaining in the great bulk of Scrij)ture, and in all general pas- sages, an amount of accordance so striking and so persistent, that it can only be accounted for by the assumption that these four able exposi- tors all instinctively recognized one common and sound principle of Scriptural interpreta- tion. The j^recise nature of that princi]3le w411 become aj)]3arent as we advance further in our investigations. 4. Believing that these remarks are just, and cajDable of being fully substantiated, we may claim to have at least made it probable, that the extent of the alleged differences in the interpretation of Scripture between our own times and the past has been unduly exag- gerated. Here we might pause as far as the present ]3ortion of our subject is concerned. It may be well, however, to take one step fur- SCRIPTURE: ITS INT?JRPRETATION. 103 ther, and show, what fairly can be shown, that from the very earliest times, the literal and historical method of interpreting Scripture, now so often claimed as the distinguishing characteristic of our own times, has ever been recognized in the Church as the true method on man's side of interpreting the Oracles of Ood. On this subject, owing to the small amount of exact knowledge, even among more professed students, and to the currency which a few popular comments readily obtain among those whose acquaintance with these ancient writers must ever be second-hand, many ques- tionable statements are allowed to pass unchal- lenged. It would, perhaps, seem hopeless to at- tempt to say one word in favor of the method of interpretation adopted by Orlgen. Every writ- er of the day uses that great name to illustrate w^iat is to be regarded as wild and fanciful. And yet, what is the opinion which any real student of Origen's exegetical works would certainly give us ? What, for instance, would be the statement of an unl)iassed scholar who had thoughtfully read what remain to us of his commentaries on St. Matthew and St. John ? Would he not tell us that in these por- tions of his works, whatever may have been his theories elsewhere, Origen rarely failed to 104 SGBTPTUBE: IT8 INTERPRETATION. give the first place to the simple and literal in- trepretation, and that his divergencies into al- legory far more often deserve the name of applications than of actual expositions ? Al- legory seems really and j)rimarily to have com- mended itself to Origen as the readiest meth- od of dealing with those difficulties which his acute mind almost too quickly recognized as transcending human reason and explanation. The remark of one who has carefully read and well used one portion of his works — the ex- positor Liicke — is probably not wholly unjust, that a tendency to rationalize, of which Origen himself was unconscious, may to a great de- gree account for his bias to allegory and mys- tical modes of interpretation, whenever the difficulties of the passage seemed to rise above the usual level. Where there was no neces- sity for this, where there were no historical details which seemed at issue with human rea- son, or with received views of morality and justice, Origen shows plainly enough what method of interpreting the Word of God he deemed to be the true and correct one. We may abundantly verify this from his extant writ- ings. We may also further judge from frag- ments preserved in Catenae (his scattered com- ments, for example, on the Epistle to the SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 105 Ephesians) what were really liis leading prin- ciples ; and we may fairly ask if tliey were so very different from tlie principles of inter- preting Scripture which all parties, friends and foes, seem now in the main agreed in re- garding as reasonable and correct. We might extend these remarks almost in- definitely by discussing the true nature of the leading methods of interpreting Scripture — these methods which we are told are so strangely discordant — in the case of each one of the more distinguished expositors of differ- ent ages of the Church. We might show, for instance, that no amount of strong polemical bias prevented Cyril of Alexandria from ex- pounding portions of Scrij^ture (the Gospel of St. John for example) with w^hat, even in our own critical days, must be called felicity and success. We might make it clear that the rhetorical turn of Chrysostom's mind never prevented him from fully discussing verbal dis- tinctions, analyzing the meanings of prejDOsi- tions, estimating the force of compound forms, and so placing before his reader as calm, clear, and persuasive a view of the passage under consideration as we may find in the best speci- mens of modern interpretation. We might turn to the West, and in spite of some grow- 106 SCRIPTURE : ITS INTERPRET A TION. ing disposition to admit more generally those studied distinctions in reference to threefold or fourfold senses of Scripture which Origen bequeathed to his successors, we might still ap]3eal to Augustine as a writer, whose special inter^n'etations can never be sj^oken of without res^^ect, and whose perceptions of the inner mind of Scripture, and of the true bearing of its deeper declarations, remain to this very hour unequalled for their ^perspicuity and truth. Nay, we might even show that the studied recognition of several senses in Scrip- ture was rather a form of application than of deiinite and genuine interpretation. We might even go onward, and pass into those ages which have become very bywords for per- verted interpretation of Scripture — the ages of the earlier and later schoolmen — and even in them, amid subtile and narrow logic on this side, and a wild and speculative idealism on that, we should have no difficulty in showing that there was a via media of sound principles of interj^retation which was both recognized and proceeded on. It is j)erfectly true that at this period not only the earlier threefold and fourfold senses of Scripture were re-as- serted and re-applied, but that even seven- SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 107 fold, eightfold,* and, if we choose to press the words of Ei-igena, infinite senses of Scripture were admitted bj mediaeval interpreters ; but it is also perfectly true and demonstrable, from passing comments and cautions, that the sim- ple, plain, and literal sense was always ad- mitted to be the basis, and that other forms of interpretation were commonly regarded more in the light of deductions and apj^lications. The rule laid down by Aquinas was clear enough, and expresses fairly the general feel- ing of the interpreters of his own time, — '^ In- omnibus quae Scriptura tradit, pro fundamen- to est tenenda Veritas historica, et desuj^er spirituales expositiones fabricandee" {SmnTiia Theol. Pars. 1, Qu. 102, Art. 1) : the literal and historical came first, the rest were forms of application. It is not, however, merely from passing comments, or from asserted, but real- ly neglected principles, but from the general tenor of the better exj^ositions of the time * The enumeration may amuse the reader : (1) Sensus literalis vel historicus ; (3) allegoricus vel parabolicus ; (3) tropologicus vel etymologicus ; (4) anagogicus vel analogicus ; (5) typicus vel exeniplaris ; (G) auaphoricus vel proportionalis ; (7) boarcademicus vel primordialis {i.e. (juo ipsa principia rerum comparantur cum beatitu- dine ieterna et tota dispeusatione salutis) ; see Bibl. Max. Pair. torn. xvii. p. 315 seq. (Ludg. 1677.) 108 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. that tlie full force of the above remarks will best be felt. Let a fair and intelligent reader consent to give a little time to some of the in- terpretations of difficnlt passages in St. Paul's Epistles as put forward by Lombard or Aqui- nas, and then tell us his impressions. We will venture to state Avhat his report would be, — that it was a matter of surprise to him, in an age which has ever been a very byword for subtilties and pedantry, to find such a large amount of reasonable and intelligent interpre- tation of the Word of God. 5. To gather up, then, our preceding com- ments, may we not fairly say, — -JiTst^ that much that has been said about the extent and variety of interpretations of Scripture is exaggerated ; secondly^ that even the various methods of in- terpretation — which, when it serves a purpose, om* opponents regard as meaning the same as the results arrived at — may in many, perhaps most, cases be regarded as modes of applying or expanding the primary sense, rather than of eliciting substantive and independent mean- ings ; thirdly, not only that God has never left Himself without a witness, and that in every age there have been a few faithful repre- sentatives of faithful principles of interpreta- tion, but further-, that there has been from SClilFTUEE : ITS INTERPliETATION. 109 the veiy earliest times, not only in tlieorj but in practice, a plain, literal, and historical mode U of interpreting Scripture ; and finally, that there may be traced s(j great an identity in the results arrived at by suc3essive interpreters, that we have full warrant for using the term Catholic in reference to a far larger portion of what may be considered current orthodox in- terpretations than the mere popular disputant is at all aware of l Let the incpiire be put with all simplicity to those, whether in tliis country or abroad, who have made Ancient Versions and expositors their study, and, however dif- ferent their opinions may be on other points, on this they will be agreed, — that there is such a Concordia disco rs in the results obtained, that in very many passages we can produce in- terpretations which may stand even the test of Vincent of Lerins, and may justly be termed the traditional inter2:>retations of the Church of Christ. We know, of course, how these statements both have been and will be disposed of by the impatient and the coniident. Tt will be said, prol)al)ly, that granting merely for the sake of argument, tliat there is that species of concord of interpretation in many important passages, it has been only the result of traditional preju- 110 SCRIP TURE : ITS INTERPRETA TION. dices from whicli it is now our duty to make ourselves free. It will be added that any form of. such consent is in itself snsjDicions, and that if onr intuitions rnn counter to it we are at once to listen to the voice of reason within us^ and reject the interpretation of every Church and every age of the world, if it does not ap- prove itself to our own convictions. Brave and buoyant in our own self-esteem, we shall perhaps never pause to ask how far the so- called voice of reason may not be the voice of prejudice, — how far convictions may not be merely the results of secret influences within, and of some half-consciousness that what we reject bears aspects or involves conclusions sadly at variance with our habits or our pro- pensions. We may at last perceive that it is the Word of God in its dreaded function of searching the intents of the heart that is now being brought home to us, and in our very dismay and perplexity we may have felt forced to come to the determination that every inter- pretation, be it of Church or of Council, that makes us thus tremble for ourselves, both must be and shall be either rejected or ignored. Thus, perhaps, will all that has been urged be disposed of. Be it so. There is a proud and confident spirit abroad ; there is a love of self, SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPIIETATION. Ill self in its more purely intellectual aspects, above measure painful and revolting ; there are forms l)earing the names of moral good- ness and freedom, and yet involving the denial of the essence of both, that bring an Apos- tle's predictions sadly and strangely to our thouglits, — and we feel it nnist be so, and that there are some whose ears must be and will be turned away from the truth. Yet there are others — especially the young, the ardent, the inex^^erienced — to whom what has been thus far urged may not have been urged in vain. To them our arguments are mainly ad- dressed, to them we are speaking, for them we are pleading. '' Young man, true in heart and earnest in spirit, honest searcher, anxious yet prayerful inquirer, let not thy eyes be holden by proud, unkindly hands, judge for thyself. Beheve not every one that tells thee that the records of the Church are scribbled over with every form of strange, idle, and con- ventional interpretation of the Word of God. Judge for thyself, but judge righteous judg- ment. If there be fuller concords in tlie voices of the past than thou hast believed, close not thine ears to them because as yet they sound not fully harmonious tp thee. Wait, ponder, pray : ere long, perchance thine own voice 112 SCRIPTURE : ITS INTERPRET A TION. will spontaneously blend with what thou hear- est ; thou thyself, by the grace of God, may at length hear sounding round thee, and by thine own experience make others hear with thee, the holy accords and harmonies of the deep things of the Word of God, ' ' § 2. 6. We now pass naturally onward to another portion, or rather to another, and that at first sight an oj^posed, aspect of our present subject. Hitherto we have shown not only that the amount of the differences of interpretation has been clearly over-estimated, but even that the true and honest method of interpreting the Word of God — the literal, historical, and grammatical — ^^has been recognized in every age, and that the results are to be seen in the agreement on numberless passages of impor- tance that may be found in expositors of all periods ; in other words, that the illuminating grace of God has ever been with His Church. This being so, it is but waste of time to con- sider the causes that have been alleged for the existence of the multitude of interiDretations, when that multitude has been proved to a great extent to be imaginary. We will not, then, SCRIPTUR?: : ITS INTERPRETATION, 113 pause to discuss the amount of varying inter- pretations that have been ascribed, whetlier, on the one hand, to rhetoric and desires to edify, or, on the other, to party feeling and efforts to wrest the meanings of Scripture to different sides. We deny not that both have produced some effect on the interpretation of Scripture. We do not deny that the Christian preacher may have often urged meanings that do not lie in the words, and that these may have been adopted by contemporaries and echoed and reproduced by those that have followed. We deny ]iot, again, that the natural meaning of many texts may have been j^erverted by preju- dice on one side or other, and that traces of this may still remain in some of the current inter- pretations of our own times. All this we deny not, but, on the other hand, we confidently as- sert that the effects have l)een limited, and that all the assumptions that the contrary has been the case fall with the fallen assumption, viz., that the discordance of Scripture interpreta- tions is excessive, and that all methods hither- to adoj^ted have been uncertain or untrust- worthy J>ut we now come to wliat at first sight mav appear a reversed aspect of our subject. While, on the one hand, we consider it proved that 8 114 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. there has been from the first a substantial agreement, not only in the mode of interpret- ing Scripture, but in many of its most impor- tant details, we are equally i^repared, on the other hand, to recognize the existence of great differences of opinion about the meanings of individual passages, and even in reference to the methods by which these meanings may be best obtained. N^o one who has had any ex- perience in the interpretation of Scrij^ture can with honesty assert the contrary. It may be true that in the great majority of all the more important passages careful consideration will show that what logic, grammar, and a proper valuation of the significance of words, seem to indicate as the principal and primary meaning of the passage, will be found to have been re- cognized as such ages before, and has substan- tially held its ground to our own times, — still experience teaches us that there is a very large residuum of less important passages in which interpreters break up into groups, and in which the expositor of the nineteenth cen- tury has to yield to the guidance of princi]3les perhaps but recently recognized, yet, from their justice and truth, of an influence and au- thority that cannot be gainsaid. There are, indeed, even a few cases, but confessedly un- SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 115 important, where the modern interpreter has to oppose himself to every early Version and every patristic commentator, and where it is almost certain he is right in so doing. Let the connexion of the concluding portion of Gal. iv. 12 be cited as an example. Such instances are, however, very rare, and need hardly be mentioned save to show that principles can never be dispensed with, and that, though we yield all becoming deference to interpretations in which antiquity is mainly agreed, we yet by no means pledge ourselves unreservedly to accept them. All these differences, then, in the interpretations of individual passages, we frankly recognize ; nay more, we may in many cases admit that there are clearly defined differ- ences in the method of interpreting — perhaj)S an extended context. Last of all, it is not to be supposed that there is a somewdiat large class of passages so far-reaching, so inchisive, and so profound, that not only are all the bet- ter interpretations remarkal)le for their varied character, but for their appearing, perhaps each one, to represent a portion of the true meaning, but scarcely, all of them together, what our inner soul seems to tell us is the complete and ultimate meaning of the w^ords that meet the outward eye. 116 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 7. We are tlius admitting the existence of diversity of inter]3retation, especially in indi- vidual passages and details, as readily and as frankly as we have argued for the existence of a far greater prevailing unity both in the mean- ings themselves, and the methods of arriving at them in all more important passages, than is willingly recognized by jDopular writers. The question then naturally arises, how do we ac- count for these apparently reversed aspects ? How can we in the same breath assert ]3re vail- ing unity, and yet admit diversity ? How do we account for a state of things which in Sophocles or Plato would be pronounced in- credible or absurd ? Our answer is of a three- fold nature. We account for this by ob- serving, First^ that the Bible is different to every other book in the world, and that its in- terpretation may well be supposed to involve many difficulties and diversities. Secondly^ that the words of Scripture in many parts have more than one meaning and application. Thirdly^ that Scripture is inspired, and that though written by man it is a revelation from God, and adumbrates His eternal plenitudes and perfections. On each one of these forms of the answer we will make a few observations. SiJRIPTUHE: ITS INThmPRETATTON. 117 1. On the first, 2)erliapR, little iiioi'e need be said than has been incidentally bronght for- ward in earlier parts of this Essay. It is, in- deed, most nnreasonable to compare, even in externals, the Bible with any other book in the world. A collection of many treatises, writ- ten in many iifferent styles, and at many different ages, can never be put side l)y side with the works of a single author, nor will any canons of interpretation which maybe just and reasonable in the latter case, be necessarily applicable to the former. What, for instance, can realh' be more strange than to lay down the mle that we are to interpret the Scripture like any other book, when, in tlie merest rough and outside view, the Scripture presents such striking differences from any book that the world has ever seen ? The strangeness becomes greater when we look inward, and observe the varied nature of the contents, — prose and poe- try, history and prophecy, teachings of an incarnate God, and exhortations and messages of men to men. How very unreasonable to insist on similar modes of interpreting what our very opponents rightly term " a world by itself " — a world from which foreign iniiuences are to be excluded — and any other documents or records that have come from the hand of 118 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. man ! How can we witli justice require that amount of exegetical agreement in tlie former case that might naturally be looked for and demanded in the latter ? Plow very reasonable, on the other hand, is the supposition that in the inter23retation of a collection of treatises of such varied and momentous import we may have to I'ecognize both unities and diversities, — unities as due to the illuminating grace of the one and self -same Spirit similarly vouch- safed to all meek and holy readers of Scripture in every age of the Church, — diversities as due to the profundity and variety that must ever mark the outpourings of the manifold wisdom of God ! It seems, indeed, idle to dwell upon what is thus obvious and self-evident ; but it has been rendered necessary l)y what we are obliged to term the unfairness of our oppo- nents. At one time, when the argument seems to require it, the Scripture is considered as a single book, to be dealt with like other books, subject to the same critical canons, amenable to the same laws of interpretation : at another time it emerges to view as a collec- tion of records, unconnected and discordant, which it is desirable to keep thus divided, that they may be the more readily disposed of ; and, whenever it may seem necessary, the SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 119 more successfully pitted against one another in contradictions and antagonisms. II. We pass onward to our second form of answer. Here we find ourselves, as might have been foreseen, in undisguised conflict with the sceptical writers of our own time. That Scripture has one meaning, and one meaning only, is their fundamental axiom : it is seen to be, and felt to be, one of the keys of their position. When, however, we pause to ask how that one meaning is to be defined, we receive answers that are neither very intel- ligible nor consistent. If we are told that it is ' ' that meaning which it had to the mind of the Prophet or Evangelist who first uttered or ^Tote, to the hearers or readers who first re- ceived the message," we may justly protest against an answer involving alike such assump- tions and such ambiguities. What right have we to assume that the speaker knew the full meaning which his own words might subse- quently be found to bear ? A very little refiec- tion will sliow the justice of this query. What right, again, have we to assume that the meaning which the Prophet or Evangelist de- signed to convey was identical with that which the hearers or readers who first received the message conceived to be conveyed in its 120 SCBIPTVRE : ITS INTERPRETA TION. words ? Assuming even that it was so, \iovf are we to arrive at this one meaning common to hearer and speaker ? How are we to recog- nize it, when the words before us may bear two or more meanings, each, perliaps, equally prob- able and supj)orted by arguments of equal va- lidity ? It will be said that this is precisely the duty of the Interpreter ; that it is for him to disengage himself from the trammels of the present, and free from the bondage of pre- judices and creeds to transport himself back into the past, to mingle in spirit with those who first heard the words, to feel as they felt, to hear as they heard, to recover the one, the true, and the original meaning, and to bring it back to the hearer or reader of our own times. All this is high-sounding and rhetorical ; it is sure to attract the young and the enthusiastic, and by no means ill-calculated to excite and delude the inex23erienced. But it is rhetoric, and nothing more. No one who has had gen- uine experience in the interpretation of Scrip- ture would hesitate to pronounce such '^ mag- nifyings of an office" as completely delusive, if even not deserving the graver term, mischiev- ous. Delusive they certainly are, because all this self -projection into the past is in reality, and ever has been, unostentatiously practised SCniP TURE : ITS INTERPRET A TION, 121 by all better interpreters — jby all who have sought with humility and earnestness to catch the spirit and inind of the writer whom they are striving to expound. All this has been practised, almost from the first. Chrysostom spoke of it, Augustine commended it, and yet what has been the result of experience ? Why, that passage' after passage has been found to be so pregnant with meaning, so mysteriously full, so comprehensively applicable, that the most self-confident interjD refer in the world could scarcelv be brought to declare his com- •J ~ plete conviction that the one view out of many which he may have adopted was certainly the principal one, much less that it was the only meaning of the words before him. But to give up such attitudes of delusive self-coniidence, and to return to modesty and reason, we may now proceed to illustrate our first assertion, that Scripture has fre(piently more than one meaning, by references to three particulars in which this is very clearly exem- plified, — double meanings, or applications of prophecy, types, and deeper senses of simple historical statements. A few remarks shall be made on each. (1.) On the first so much has been said of late that it might almost seem pure knight-errantry 122 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION, to undertake the advocacy of what (we are told) ought now to be regarded as a mere outworn prejudice. And yet what is more thoroughly consonant with reason, and, we might almost add, experience, than such a belief ? We say experience, — for there must be few calm ob- servers of the course of events around them who can fail to have been struck with the curious re-appearance, nnder unlikely circum- stances, of former combinations, and who have not occasionally been almost startled by the recurrence of incidents in relations and <3onnexions that could never have been reason- ably expected again. It does not seem too much to say that in many instances nations and individuals alike seem moving as it were in spirals, constantly returning, not exactly to the same point, but to the same bearings and the same aspects, — not precisely to a former past, but to a present that bears to it a very strange and wholly unlooked-for resemblance. If this be true in many things that fall under our own immediate observation (and very nnobservant must he be who has not often verified it for himself), if we often se"em to ourselves to recog- nize this principle of events becoming in many respects doubles of each other, and that not only in minor matters, but even in circumstan- SCRIP TUBE : ITS INTERPRKTA TION. 123 ces of some historical importance, — if this l)e so, is it strange that in the spiritual history of our race there should be such parallelisms ; that words apparently spoken in reference to a precursory series of events should be found to refer with equal pertinence to some myste- riously similar combinations that appeared long afterwards ? Are we to think that coun- sels sealed in silence from eternity, that pur- poses of the ages formed before the worlds w^ere made, that dispensations of love and mercy laid out even before the objects for whom they w^ere designed had come into being, w^ere not over and over again reflected, as it were, in the history of our race, and that the events of a former day were not often bound in mys- tical likenesses and affinities with the events of the future by that princi2)le of redeem- ing love which permeated and pervaded all ? Unless we are prepared plainly to adopt some of the bleakest theories of the scej^ticism of these later days ; unless we are determined to find civilization and development and not God in history ; unless we have resolved to see in the Gospel no foreordered dispensation, but only a system of morality, una,nnounced, un- foreshadowed, as strange in its isolated and exceptional character as it has been strange 124 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. in its effects, — then, and then only, can we consistently deny the likelihood and probabil- ity of God's purposes to the world having im- parted to events seemingly remote and nncon - nected, and to issues brought about by varied and dissimilar circumstances, real and spiritual resemblances. Then only can we JTistly deny that the word of prophecy might truly, legiti- mately, and consistently be considered to refer as well to earlier as to later events, wherever such resemblances could be reasonably demon- strated to exist. To illustrate the foregoing comments by an example, let us take an instance which our op- ponents are never wearied with bringing for- ward, — our Lord's prophecy relative to the fate of Jerusalem and the end of the world. Here it is said that the system of first and sec- ond meanings, which we are now defending, is most palpably nothing whatever else than an attempt to lielp out the verification and mitigate the incoherence of a somewhat con- fused and partially unrealized prophecy. Now, in disposing of this idle but painfully familiar comment, we will make no alhision to the question of the four Apostles, which, it may be observed, necessitated in the answer refer- ence to the end of the world as well as to the SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 125 end of the Theocracy (Matt. xxiv. 3) ; we will only take the prophecy as we tind it, with its mingled alhisions to a near and to a remote future, and simply incpiire whether there is any such resemblance, spiritual or otherwise, as might make expressions used in reference to the one almost interchangeably applicable to the other. Who can doubt what the an- swer must be ? Who that takes into considera- tion the true significance of the fall of Jeru- salem, who that Sees in it, as every sober reader must see, not merely the fall of an ancient city, but the destruction of the visible seat of Je- hovah's worship, the enforced cessation of the ancient order of things, the practical abroga- tion of the Theocracy, — all closely synchro- nous with the Lord's first coming, — who is there that will take all these things fairly into consideration and not be ready to acknowledge resemblances between the end of the fated city and the issues of the present disj^ensa- tion, sufticiently mysterious and sufficiently profound to warrant our even alternating be- tween them (we use the studiedly exaggerated language of opponents) the verses of the Lord's great prophecy ? Till it can be shown that the course of things is fortuitous, that pro- vidential dispensations are a dream, and the 126 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION, gradual development of the counsels of God a convenient fiction — till it can be made clear to demonstration, that there are no profound harmonies in the Divine government, no mys- tical recurrences of foreordered combinations, no spiritual affinities between the past and the present, no foreseen resemblances in epochal events, and- no predestined counterparts, the ground on which the reasonable belief in double meanings and double applications of prophecy has been rightly judged to rest will remain stable and nnshaken ; the perspective character that has been attributed to Scriptural predictions will still claim to be considered no idle or unreal imagination. (2) The subject of tyijes has been much dwelt uj)on by modern writers, and in most cases with unsingular fairness. The popular mode of arguing on this subject is to select some instances from early Christian waiters which are obviously fanciful and untenable, to hold up the skirts of their folly, to display their utter nakedness, and then to ask if a sys- tem of which these are examj^les either can or ought to be regarded with any degree of favor or confidence. If Justin tells us that the king of Assyria signified Herod, and Je- rome was of opinion that by Chaldeeans are SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRET A TION. 127 meant Daemons, if the scarlet thread of Rahab has been deemed to liave a liidden meanings and the number of Abraham's followers has been regarded as not wholly T\nthout signifi- cance, we are asked whether we can deem the whole system otherwise than precarious and extravagant, whether we can at all safely at- tribute to the details of the Mosaic ritual a reference to the J^ew Testament, or really be- lieve that the passage of the Red Sea can be very certainly considered a type .of baptism. The ultimate design of this mode of arguing will not escape the intelligent reader ; — it is simply an endeavor l)y slow sap to weaken the authority of some of the writers of the New Testament, and to leave it to be inferred that our Lord Himself, in recognizing and even giving sanction to such applications of Scripture (Matt. xii. 40, John iii. 14 ; comp. ch. \i. 58), either condescended to adojDt forms of illustration which he must have felt to be untrustworthy, or else really in this did not rise wholly above the culture of His own times. ]S'ow at i3resent, without at all desiring to press wdiat we have not yet discussed — the inspiration of Scripture — we do very earnestly call upon those who are not yet preimred wholly to fling off their allegiance to Scripture, 128 SCRIPTURE : ITS INTERPRET A TION, to bear in mind the following facts : — {a) Tliat our Blessed Lord Himself referred to the Brazen Serpent as typical of his being raised aloft, and that He illustrated the mystery of His own abode in the chambers of the earth by an event of the past which He Himself was pleased to denominate as a sign, — the only :sign that was to be vouchsafed to the genera- tion that then w^as seeking for one ; (Z>) that the Ev^angelists recognize the existence and significance of types in reference to our Lord (Matt. ii. 15 ; John xix. 36) ; {c) that the teach- ing of St. Paul is pervaded by references to this form of what has been termed "^ acted prophe- cies" (E-oni. V. l^seq.'^ 1 Cor. v. Y, x. 2 seq.\ Oal. i V. 24 seq. ; Col. ii. 11) ; (6^),that the greater part of the Epistle to the Hebrews is one con- tinued elucidation of the spiritual significance of the principal features of the Levitical law : its sacrifices, rites, and priests were all the shadows and typical resemblances of good things to come (Heb. x. 1) ; (e) that St. Peter plainly and distinctly declares that the water of the Flood is typical of baptism (1 Pet. iii. 21) ; {/) that in the last and most mysterious revela- tion of God to man the very realms of blessed- ness and glory are designated by a name and specified by allusions (Rev. xxi. 22) which SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRFAW TION. 129 warrant our recognizing in tlie Holy City on earth, the '^ Jerusalem that now is," a type of that Heavenly City which God hath prepared for the faithful (Ileb. xi. 16), a similitude of tlie Jerusalem that is above, a shadow of the incorruptible inheritance of the servants and children of God. When we dw^ell calmly U2)on these things, when we observe further how, not only thus directly and explicitly, but how, also, indirectly and by allusion, nearly every writer in the New Testament bears Avitness to the existence and significance of tj^es, how it tinges their lan- guage of consolation (Rev. xxi. 2 seq.)^ and gives force to their exhortations (Heb. iv. 14) ; when we finally note how the very Eternal Spirit of God, by whom they were inspired, is specially declared to have vouchsafed thus to involve in the ceremonies of the past the deejD truths of the future (Heb. ix. 8), when Ave calmly consider the cumulative force of all these examples and all these testimonies, we may perhaps be in- duced to pause before we adopt the sweeping statements that have been made in reference to the whole system of typology. We may admit that types may have been often injudi- ciously applied, that it may be difliicult to fix bounds to their use or to specify the measure 9 1 30 SCRIPTURE : ITS INTERPRETATION, of their aptitude, and jet we may indeed seri- ously ask for time to consider whether such re- cognitions of the deeper meanings of Scripture thus vouchsafed to us, and thus sanctioned by our Lord and His Apostles, are to be given up at once because they are thought to come in collision with modern views of Scripture and modern canons of interpretation. Our op- ponents may well be anxious to get rid of the whole system of tyjDes ; we can understand their anxiety, we can even find reasons for the sort of desperation that scruples not to repre- sent what was once sanctioned by our Lord and His Apostles as now either mischievous or in- applicable. It is felt that if typology is ad- mitted, the assertion that Scripture has but one meaning is invalidated. It is seen clearly enough that if it can be shown, within any reasonable degree of probability, that the de- tails of a past dispensation were regarded by the first teachers of Christianity as veritable types and symbols of things that have now come, then the recognition of further and deeper meanings in Scripture, of secondary senses and ultimate significations, must direct- ly and inevitably follow, and the rule that the Bible is to be interpreted like any other book at once be shown to be, what it certainly is, SCRIPTURE : ITS INTERPRETA TION. 131 inapplical)le. Need we wonder then that every effort has been made to denounce a system so obstructive to modern innovations ; need we be surprised that the rejection of what is thus accredited has been as persistent as it would now seem proved to be both unreasonable and without success ? (3.) Our third subject for consideration, the existence of deeper meanings in Scripture, even in what might seem simple historical statements, follows very naturally after what has just been discussed. Here again we can adopt no more convincing mode of demon- stration than is supplied l)y an appeal to Scrip- ture. Yet we may not unj^rohtably make one or two preliminary comments. In the Urst place, is not this assertion of a oneness of mean- ing in the written words of an intelligent au- thor open to some discussion ? Is it at all clear, even in the case of uninspired writers, that the primary and literal meaning is the only meaning which is to be recognized in their words ? Is it so wholly inconceivable that more meanings than one may have been ac- tually designed at the time of writing, and that, conjointly witli a leading and primary meaning, a secondary and subordinate mean- ing may have been felt, recognized, and intend- 132 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. ed ? Nay, can we be perfectly certain that even words may not have been specially or instinc- tively chose which should leave this second- ary meaning fairly distinct and fairly recog- nizable ? It would not be difficult to substan- tiate the justice of these queries by actual ex- amples from the writings of any of the greater authors whether of our own or some other country. Still less difficult would it be to show that in very many passages meanings must certainly be admitted which it may be probable were not intended by the writer, but which nevertheless by their force and perti- nence make it frequently doubtful whether what has been assumed to be the primary meaning of the words is really to be deemed so, and whether what is judged to be an applica- tion may not really represent the truest aspects of the mind and intentions of the author. Let us add this second remark, that the in- stances in which words have been found to involve m^eanings, not recognized at the time by reader or by writer, but which after- circumstances have shown were really to be regarded as meanings, are by no means few or exceptional. The whole group of illustrations supplied by " ominata verba," the whole class of cases which belong to that sort of uncon- SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 133 scious prescience wliicli is often found in minds of liiglier strain, the various instances Avhere glimpses of yet undiscovered relations have given a tinge, to expressions which will ■only be fully understood and realized when those relations are themselves fully known, — all these things, and many more than these, might be adduced as illustrative of the deeper meanings that are often found to lie in the words of mere uninspired men. Such mean- ings neither they nor their own contemporaries may have distinctly recognized, but meanings they are notwithstanding ; not merely applica- tions or extensions, but meanings in the sim- ple and regular acceptation of the tenn. How this is to be accounted for, we are not called upon to show. We will not speculate how far the great and the good of every age and nation may have been moved by the inworking Sj^irit of God to declare truths of wider application than they themselves may have felt or real- ized ; we will not seek to estimate the vary- ing degrees of that power of partially foresee- ing future relations which long and patient study of the past and the present has some- times been found to impart. All sucli things are probably Ijeyond our grasp, and would most likely be found to elude our present powei*s 184 SCRIP TUBE : ITS INTERPRETA TION. and present means of appreciation. With rea- sons we will not embarrass ourselves ; we will be satisfied with simply calling attention to the fact that the existence of such phenom- ena as that of words having deeper and fuller meanings than they were understood to have at first is not only not to be denied, but may even be deemed matter of something more than oc- casional experience. The two foregoing observations will, perhaps^ have in some measure prepared us for forming a more just estimate of the further and sec- ond meanings that have been attributed to the words of Scripture. If it be admitted that some of the phenomena to which we have alluded are occasionally to be recognized in purely human writings, is it altogether strange that in a reve- lation from God the same should exist in fuller measures, and under still clearer aspects ? If the many-sidedness, mobility, and varied pow- ers of combination existing in the human mind, appear at times to invest words written or sj)o- ken with a significance of a fuller and deeper kind than may at first be recognized, are we to be surprised if something similar in kind, but higher in degree, is to be observed in the lan- guage of Holy Scripture ? Is the Divine mind not to have influences which are conceded to SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 18;") the Imman ? Are the words of Prophets or Evangehsts to be less pregnant in meaning, or more circuinseribed in their applications, than those of poets and philosophers ? Witliout as- suming one attribute in the Scripture beyond what all our more reasonable opponents would be ^\dlling to concede, without claiming more for it than to be considered a revelaion from God, a communication from the Divine mind to the minds and hearts of men, we may justly claim some hearing for this form of the a pri- ori argument ; W(5 may with reason ask all fair disputants whether they are j)repared positively to deny, in the case of a communication di- rectly or even indirectly from God, the proba- bility of our findhig there some enhancement of the higher characteristics and more remark- able phenomena that have been recognized in communications of man to men i When we leave these d priori considera- tions, and turn to definite examples and illus- trations, our anticipations cannot be said to have disappointed us. AVe have really an afftuence of examples of second and deeper meanings being deliberately assigned to pas- sages of Scripture that might have l)een other- wise deemed to have only the one simple or historical meaning that seems first to present 136 SCRIP TUBE : ITS INTERPRETA TION. Itself. Let us select two or three instances. Is it possible to deny that our Lord Himself dis- closes, in what might have been deemed a mere title of Jehovah under His aspects of relation to favored worshippers, a meaning so full and so deep that it formed the basis of an argument (Matt. xxii. 31 seq. ; Mark xii. 24 seq. ; Luke xx. 37 seq.) ? The familiar titular designation is shown to be the vehicle of a spiritual truth of the widest application ; the apparently mere recapitulation of the names of a son, a father, and a grandfather, in connexion with the God whose servants they were, and whom they worshipped, is not only urged as proving a fundamental doctrine, but is tacitly acknowledged to have done so by gainsayers and opponents (Luke xx. 39). And further, let it be observed, that it is clearly implied that this was no deeply-hidden meaning, no profound interpretation, which it might require a special revelation to disclose, but that it was a meaning which really ought to have been recognized by a deeper reader, — at any rate that not to have done so argued as plain an ignorance of the Written Word as it did of the power and operations of God (Matt. xxii. 29). Let this really "preroga- tive" example be fairly considered and prop- SCniPTURE: ITS INTEUPllETATION. 187 erly estimated, and then let it be asked if the existence of deeper meanings in Scripture can consistently be denied by any who profess a belief in onr Lord Jesus Christ. It seems to us that this is a plain case of a dilemma : eitlier with Strauss and.Hase we must regard the argument as an example of Rabbinical sopliistry, — and so, as Meyer reminds us, be prepared to sacrifice the character and dignity of our Lord, — or we must admit that, in some cases at least, there is more in Scripture than the mere literal sense of the words. Such an example opens the way for the in- troduction of others, which without this j^re- rogative instance, could not have been strongly urged, except on assumptions which, in our present position in the argument, it would not be logically consistent to make. By being as- sociated, however, Avith the present example, they certainly seem to be of some force and validity in confirming our present assertion, and, to say the very least, can be more easily explained on that hyi^othesis than on any other that has yet been assigned. Let us specify Matt. ii. 15. Now tlie (piestion pre- sents itself in the following form : — Is not this an example furnished by the Apostle of what we have already seen must be recognized in 138 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION, an example s^ouclisafed by his Lord ? Is not this a case of deeper meaning ? Do not the words of Hosea, the second meaning of which was doubtless not more aj)23arent even to the prophet himself than it was to his earlier readers, seem only to have a simple historical reference to the earthly Israel ? and yet do they not really involve a further and typical reference to Him who was truly and essentially what Israel was graciously denominated (Exod. iv. 22 ; comp. Jerem. xxxi. 9), and of whom Israel was a type and a shadow ? So, at any rate, St. Matthew plainly asserts. Which, then, of these hypotheses do we think most proba- ble, — that St. Matthew erroneously ascribed a meaning to words which they do not and were not intended to bear, that the two chapters are an interpolation (for such an hypothesis has been advanced), or that they supply an in- stance of a second and typical meaning in words of a sim23ly historical aspect, and that a truth is here disclosed by an Apostle similar to what we have already seen has been clearly disclosed by our Lord ? Let us take yet another, and that, as it might be thought, a very hojDeless instance. St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Ephesians (ch. iv. 8), not only makes a citation from a Psalm, SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 139 wliicli at the part in question appears to have a simple historical reference to some event of the time (perhaps the taking of Rabbah), but even alters the words of the original so as to make its application to our Lord more pertinent and telling. What are we to say of such a case ? Does it not really look like an instance of almost unwarrantable accommodation ? Does it not seem as if we had now fairly fallen upon the point of our own sword, and that, in citing an example of a second meaning, we had unwittingly selected one in w^iich the very alteration shows that the words did not orig- inally have the meaning now attributed to them ? Before we thus yield, let us at any rate state the case, and leave the fair reader to form his own opinion. Without at present as- suming the existence of any influence which would have directly prevented the Apostle from so seriously misunderstanding and so gravely misapplying a passage of the Old Tes- tament, and only assuming it as proved that there is one authentic instance of words of Scripture bearing a further meaning than meets the eye, we now ask which is to be judged as most likely : that the Apostle to substantiate a statement, which could have been easily substantiated by other passages, de- 140 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. liber ately altered a portion of Scrij^ture wliicli had no reference to the matter before him, or that he rightly assigned to a seemingly his- torical 23assage from a Psalm, which (be it observed), in its original scope, has every ap- pearance of being prophetic and Messianic, a deeper meaning than the words seem to bear (such a meaning being in one case, at least, ad- mitted to exist), and that he altered the form of the words to make more palpable and evi- dent the meaning which he knew they in- volved ? We have no anxiety as to the deci- sion in the case of any calm-jndging and un- biassed reader One further remark we may make in conclusion, and it is a remark of some little importance, viz., that if the present instance be deemed an example of Scripture having a second and deeper, as well as a first and more simple meaning, it must also be regarded as an example of an au- thoritative change in the exact words of a quo- tation, — ^the change being designed to bring up the underlying meaning which was known to exist, and to place it with more distinctness before the mind of the general reader. III. Having thus, as it would seem, sub- stantiated our assertion that deeper meanings lie in Scripture than appear on the surface, and SCR IPTURE : ITS INTERPRKTA TION. 141 that this may be properly considered as in part accounting for the existence of some of those difficulties and diversities which are met with in Scripture interpretation, we now pass to the third assertion relative to the subject, viz., that Scripture is divinely inspired. Here we enter upon a wide subject, which may with reason claim for itself a separate and independent essay, and which certainly ought fully to be disposed of before any rules bearing upon interpretation can properly be laid down. As a longer discussion of this sub- ject will be found in another portion of our volume, we will here only make a very few general remarks upon inspiration as imme- diately bearing upon interpretation, and more especially upon the estimate formed of its na- ture and extent by the advocates of the system of Scriptural exegesis now under our consid- eration. In the outset, let it be said that we heartily concur with the majority of our opponents in rejecting all theories of inspiration, and in sweeping aside all those distinctions and defi- nitions which, only in too many cases, have been merely called forth by emergencies, and drawn up for no other purpose than to meet real and supposed difficulties. The remark 142 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPREIATION.^ probably is just, that most of the current ex- planations err more especially in attempting to define what, though real, is incaj)able of being defined in an exact manner. Hence all such iterms as ' ' mechanical ' ' and ' ' dynami- cal ' ' inspiration, and all the theories that have grown round these epithets, — all such distinc- tions as inspirations of superintendence, in- spirations of suggestion, and so forth, — all attempts again to draw lines of demarcation between the inspiration of the books of Scripture themselves and the inspiration of the authors of which those books were results, may be most profitably dismissed from our thoughts, and the whole subject calmly recon- sidered from what may be termed a Scriptural point of view. The holy Volume itself shall exj)lain to us the nature of that influence by which it is pervaded and quickened. 8. Thus far we are ^^erfectly in accord with our opponents. We are agreed on both sides that there is such a thing as inspiration in refer- ence to the Scriptures, and we are further agreed that the Scriptures themselves are the best sources of information on the subject. Here, however, all agreement com]3letely ceases. When we invite our opponents to go with us to the Scriptures to discuss their state- SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 1-13 ments on the subject before us, and to com- pare the inferences and deductions that eitlier side may make from them, we at once find that by an appeal to Scripture we and our oppo- nents mean sometliing utterly and entirely different. We mean a consideration of what Scripture says about itself : we find that they mean a stock-taking of its errors and inaccura- cies, of its antagonisms with science and its oppositions to history, — all which they tell us must first be estimated, and with all which they urge, that inspiration, be it whatever it may, must be reconcilable and harmonized. In a word, both sides have started from the first on widely different assumptions. We assume that what Scripture says is trustworthy, and 80 conceive that it may be fittingly appealed to as a witness concerning its own characteris- tics ; t/tey assume that it abounds in errors and incongruities, and suggest that the number and nature of these ought to be generally ascer- tained before any further step can be taken, or any opinion safely arrived at on the whole sub- ject. Such seems a fair estimate of the posi- tion and attitude of tlie two contending par- ties. If this statement of our relative positions l)e just, it seems perfectly clear that several differ- 144 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. ent lines of argument may be adopted. We may examine the grounds on which their as- sumption rests, or endeavor to estabhsh the validity of our own. We may deny that any errors or inaccuracies exist, and throw upon them the 07ms jjrohandi^ or we may take the most popular and telling instances in their enumeration and endeavor to discover by fair investigation how far they deserve their posi- tion, and how far prejudice and exaggeration may not have been at work on their side, as conservatism and accommodation on ours. All these are courses which may be adopted with more or less advantage, but any one of which would occupy far more space than we can afford for this portion of our subject. We must satisfy ourselves, on the present occasion, with making, on the one hand, a few affirma- tive comments upon the nature, degree, and limits of the inspiration which we assign to the Scripture ; and on the other hand, a few negative comments upon counter- statements advanced by opponents, which seem more than usually untrustworthy. To begin with the negative side, let us ob- serve, in the first place, that nothing can really be less tenable than the assertion that there is no foundation in the Gospels or Epistles for SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATIOy. 145 any of the higlier or supernatural views of in- spiration. It is a perfectly intelligible line of argument to assert that for the testimony of any book upon its own nature and characteris- tics to be worth anything, it must iirst be shown that the book can fully be relied on : it is quite consistent with fair reasoning to re- fuse to accept as final or conclusive the evidence of what it may be contended has been shown to be a damaged witness. Such modes of argument are quite fair and intelligible, and as such we have no fault to find with them ; but to make at] the outset an assertion, such as we are now considering, — to prejudice the minds of the inexj^erienced by an afiirmation, which, if believed, cannot fail to produce the strongest possible effect, and which all the time is the very reverse of what is the fact, is indeed very like that '^ random scattering of r- uneasiness" which has been attributed to our opponents,* and which such cases as the pres- ent go ver}^ far to substantiate. It is scarcely possible that those who make such assertions can be ignorant of the terms in which our Lord is represented by the Gospels to have spoken about the Scriptures of the Old Testament. * See Moberiy, Preface to ' Sermons on the Beati- tudes,' p. ii. J 10 r 146 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. It cannot surely be forgotten that He said that they " conld not be broken" (John x. 35), and that when He so spake He was using Scripture in a manner that ahnost vouched for its verbal and literal infallibility. It cannot have been overlooked that when He was citing the words of David He defined the divine influence under which those words were uttered (Mark xii. 36). Does not an Evangelist record His promise to His Apostles that the Holy Ghost '' should teach them all things, and bring all things w^hicli He said to them to their remembrance" (John xiv. 26) ? and does not that same Evan- gelist mention the yet more inclusive promise that the same Eternal Spirit should lead the Disciples into '^the whole truth" (John xvi. 13) ? and are such words to be explained away or to be limited ? Does not the same writer further tell us that the Holy Ghost was almost visibly given to the Apostles by the Lord Him- self (John XX. 22) ? and does not another Evangelist tell of the completed fulness of that gift, and of men so visibly filled wdth the Holy Spirit that the lips of bystanders and strangers bore their ready and amazed testi- mony ? Have we no foundation for asserting a higher inspiration when eleven men are told by a parting Lord that they are to be His wit- SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 147 nesses, and tliat they are to receiv^e supernatu- ral assistance for tlieir mission ? Is testimony to be contined to words spoken, and to be de- nied to words written ? Did the power that glowed in the heart of the speaker die out when he took up the pen of the writer ? Was not, again, the "' demonstration of the Spirit" laid claim to by St. Paul (1 Cor. ii, 4) ; was it not '' God's wisdom" that he spake (ver. 7) ? Does he not plainly say that the things ' ' which God prepared for those that love Him," His purposes of mercy and counsels of love, were revealed to him by God through the agency of the Spirit (ver. 10) ? and does he not en- hance his declaration not only by affirmatively stating from whom his teaching was directly imparted, but by stating, on the negative side, that to man's wisdom he owed it not ? Yea, and lest it should be thought that such high prerogatives belonged only to words spoken by the lips, does not the same Apostle guard himself, as it were, by claiming for his written words an origin equally Divine ? and does he not make the recognition of this a very test of illumination and spirituality (1 Cor. xiv. 37). We pause, not from lack of further state- ments, but from the feeling that quite enough has been said to lead any fair reader to pro- 148 8CRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. nounce the assertion of there being '' no foun- dation" in the Gospels or Epistles for any of the higher or supernatural views of inspiration contrary to evidence, and perhaps even to ad- mit that such assertions, where ignorance can- not be pleaded in extenuation, are not to be deemed consistent with fair and creditable argument. To deny the worth or validity of such testimony is perfectly compatible with fair controversy ; to deny its existence in the teeth of such evidence, — and such evidence is known and patent, — can only be designed to give a bias to a reader, and to raise up ante- cedent 2)rejudices in reference to subjects and opinions afterwards to be introduced. How far such a mode of dealing w^ith grave ques- tions is just or defensible, we will leave others to decide. Let us make a second remark of a somewhat similar character, and earnestly protest against hazy and indefinite modes of speaking about the testimony of the Church in reference to the doctrine of inspiration. Whether the Church is right or wrong in its estimate of the nature and limits of this gift, is certainly a question which those who feel the necessity of inquiry are perfectly at liberty to entertain. We may pity a state of mind that is not moved SCRIPTURE : ITS INTERPRETA TION. 149 by sncli autli(jrity, and we may suspect it to be ill-balanced ; but we do not complain of such a mode of proceeding. If a man wishes to find out whether the Early Church, for instance, is right or wrong in its estimate of a principle or a doctrine, let him (in a serious and anxious spirit) commence his investigation, bat let him not seek by vague and indefinite language to make it first doubtful whether the Early Church really did form any estimate at all, — when that estimate is plainly set down in black and white in fifty different treatises. Let us, at any rate, have a clear understanding on the question at issue, and agree as honest men to throw no doubts upon simple matters of sim- plest fact. IS^ow^, when we are told that the term inspiration is l>ut of yesterday, and more especially that the question of inspiration was not determined by Fathers of the Church, we do seem justified in protesting against such really unfair attempts to gain over those who have neither the time, the knowledge, nor per- haps the will, to test the truth of the assertion. Let there be no mistake on this subject. The Fathers of the Church may be right or they may be wrong ; but, at any rate, on this topic they have spoken most frequently and most plainly, and if any question in the world may 150 SCRIP TURE : ITS INTERPRETA TION. be considered determined by them this cer- tainly is one. The Apostohcal Fathers term the Scriptures " the true sayings" of the Holy Ghost (Clem. Rom. ad Cor. i. 45). In quot- ing passages from the Old Testament they often use the significant formula ' ' the Holy Ghost saith. " Those that followed them used their language. Justin Martyr describes the nature of inspiration, and even hints at its limits {Cohort. § 8) ; Irenaeus speaks of the Scriptures as " spoken by the Word of God and His Spirit" {IlcBr. ii. 28. 2) ; and even at- tributes to the foresight of the Eternal Spirit the choice of this rather than that mode of ex- pression in the opening words of St. Matthew's Gospel {II(m\ iii. 16. 2). In quoting a prophet, Clement of Alexandria pauses to correct him- self, and say it was not so much the prophet as the Holy Spirit in him {Cohort. § 8, p. QQ), and on the question of Scripture infallibility and perfection he is no less precise and definite {Cohort. § 9, p. 68 ; Strom, ii. p. 432, vii. p. 897, ed. Potter). Tertullian and Cyprian carry onward the common sentiment ; those who follow them reiterate the same so frequently and so definitively that we become embarrassed by the very affluence of our examples. Euse- bius of Cassarea deals even with technicalities, SCRIPTURE: ITS INr?JRPRETATION. 151 and brands those who dared to saj that the writers of Scripture put one name in the place of anotlier {Comment, in Psalm, xxxiii., ed. Montf.). Angustine states most explicitly his views on the whole subject, and asserts the in- fallibility of Scripture in language which the strongest asserter of the so-called bibliolatry of the day could not desire to see made more de- finite or unqualified (see for example Epist. Ixxxii. 3, to'in. ii. p. 285, ed. Bened. 2). . . . Again we pause. AV^e could continue such quotations almost indefinitely. We could put our fingers positively on hundreds of such pas- sages in the writings of the Fathers of the first five or six centuries ; we could quote the lan- guage of early Councils ; we could point to the silent testimony of early controversies, each side claiming Scripture to be that from which there could be no appeal ; we could even call in heretics, and prove from their own defences of their own tenets, from their own admissions and their own assumptions, that the inspiration of Scripture was of all subjects one that was conceived thorouffhly settled and agreed upon. Enough, however, has pei'haps been said, enough quoted, to place the matter beyond doul)t, and to make this perfectly cer- tain, — that what are called high views of inspi- 152 SCRIP TUBE: ITS INTERPRETATION. ration were entertained almost unanimously hj the earlier writers of the Church. So obvious, indeed, is the fact that writers like Gfrorer not only concede the fact of the agreement of the early writers, and admit the strong opin- ions they held on the subject, but use it as a very ground of reproacli against them, and call upon us to wonder how men who enter- tained such high views on the inspiration of Scripture could j)ossibly be such arbitrary and unfaithful interpreters. A third remark may be made on the nega- ti\^e side by way of complaint that we find so little weight assigned to the subjective argu- ment, as it may be termed, for the inspiration of Scripture. In the sceptical writings of the day the argument is rarely stated except to be dealt with as a form of a natural but not very harmless illusion. Yet it is an argument of the greatest force and importance, and an ar- gument which, if rightly handled, it is much easier to set aside than to answer. Is it noth- ing that the Bible has spoken to millions upon millions of hearts, as it were with the very voice of God Himself ? Have not its words burned within till men have seen palpably the Divine in that which spake to them ? Is it not a fact that convictions on the nature of SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 153 the Scriptures deepen with deepening study of them ? Ask the simple man to wlioni the Bible has long become the daily friend and counsellor, who reads and applies what he reads as far as his natural powers enable him ; ask him whether longer and more continued study has altered to any extent his estimate of the Book as a Divine revelation. What is the invariable answer ? The Book ' ' has found him ;" it has consoled him in sorrows for which there seemed no consolation on this side the grave ; it has wiped aw^ay tears that it seemed could only be wiped away in that far land where sadness shall be no more ; it has pleaded gently during long seasons of spiritual coldness ; it has infused strength in hours of weakness ; it has calmed in moments of excite- ment ; .it has given to better emotions a per- manence, and to stirred-up feelings a reality ; it has made itself felt to be wliat it is ; out of the abundance of his heart the mouth speaks, and he tells us with all the accumulated con- victions of an honest mind, that if he once deemed the Bible to be fully inspired on the testimonv of others, now he knows it on evi- dence that has been brought home to his own soul. He has now long had the witness in 154 SCRIPTURE : ITS INTERPRETA TION, himself, and that witness he feels and knows is unchangeably and endnringly true. Ask, again, the professed student of Scrip- ture, the scholar, the divine, the interpreter, one who, to what we may term the testimony of the soul, in the case of the less cultivated reader, can add the testimony of the mind and the spirit,— ask such a one whether increased familiarity with Sci'ipture has quickened or obscured his perception of the Divine within it, wiiether it has led him to higher or to lower views of inspiration. Have not, we may j)er- haps anxiously ask, the difficulties of Scripture wearied him, its seeming discordances per- plexed, its obscurities depressed him ? Have not the tenor of its arguments, and the seeming w^ant of coherence and connexion in adjacent sentences, sometimes aw^akened uneasy and disquieting thoughts ? What is ahnost inva- riably the answer? — "No; far otherwise." Deepened study has brought its blessing and its balm. It has shown how what might seem the greatest difficulties often turn merely upon our ignorance of one or two unrecorded facts or relations ; it has conducted to stand- ing-points where in a moment all that has hitherto seemed confused and distorted has arranged itself in truest symmetry and in the SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 155 fairest persjiective. In many an obscure pas- sage our student will tell us how tlie light has ofttimes suddenly broken, how he has been cheered by being permitted to recognize and identify tlie commingling of human weakness and Divine power, the mighty revelation al- most too great for mortal utterance, the <' earthen vessel " almost parting asunder from the greatness and abundance of the heavenly treasure committed to it. He will tell us, again, how in many a portion where the logi- cal connexion has seemed suspended or doubt- ful, — in one of those discourses, for instance, of his Lord as recorded by St. John, — the true connexion has at length slowly and mys- teriously disclosed itself, how he has perceived . and reahzed all. For a while he has felt him- self thinking as his Saviour vouchsafed to think, in part beholding truth as those Di- vine eyes beheld it ; for a brief space his mind has seemed to be consciously one with the mind of Christ. All this he has perceived and felt. And lie will tell us, perchance, what has often been the sequel ; how he has risen from his desk and fallen on his knees, and with uplifted voice l)lessed and adored A1-- miirhtv God for His mft of the Book of Life. The cold-heai-ted may smile at such things. V- 156 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. the so-called philosophical may affect to ac- count for them ; they may be put aside as il- lusions, or they may be explained away as projections of self on the passive page, uncon- scious infusion of one's own feelings and emo- tions in the calm words that meet the outward eye. All this has been urged against such testimony, and will ever be urged even to the very end. But when the end does come the truth will appear. That witnessing of soul and spirit will, it may be, rise up in silent judgment against many a one who now slights it ; that testimony so often rejected as self- engendered and fanciful, will be seen to have been real and heaven-born, a reflex image of an eternal truth, a part and a portion of the surest of the sure things of God. 9. But let us now pass from the negative to the positive, and make a few affirmative obser- vations on the subject before us. Let us begin, not with a theory, but with a definition and a statement of the belief that is in us. If asked to define what we mean l)y the inspiration of Scripture, let us be bold, and make answer — that fully convinced as we are that the Scrip- •ture is the revelation through human media of the infinite mind of God to the finite mind of man, and recognizing as we do both a human SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 157 and a Divine element in the written Word, we verily believe that the Holy Ghost was so breathed into the mind of the writer, so illu- mined his spirit and pervaded his thoughts, that, Avhile nothing tliat individualized him as man was taken away, everything that was neces- sary to enable him to declare Divine Truth in all its fulness was bestowed and superadded. And, as consonant with this, we further be- lieve that this influence of the Spirit, whether by illumination, suggestion, superintendence, or all combined, extended itself — -fir.n, to the enunciation of sentiments and doctrines, that so the will and counsels of God should not be a matter of doubt, but of certain knowledge ; secondly, to statements, recitals, facts, that so the truth into which the writer was led should be known and recognized ; thirdly, to the choice of expressions, modes of speech, and perhaps occasionally even of words (the in- dividuality of the writer being conserved), that so the subject-matter of tlie revelation might 1)0 conveyed in the Attest and most ap- propriate language, and in the garb best calcu- lated to set off its dignity and commend its truth. Let such be our deflnition. If asked how we justify it, how we prove*our assertions, we 158 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTEUPRETATION, answer in two ways : first, by d\j)riori argu- ments of great force and validity ; secondly, by d posteriori arguments of equal or even greater strength — arguments wliicli our pre- ceding remarks on the negative side have been designed indirectly to set forward and substan- tiate. Into these arguments we do not in- tend to enter, but we may profitably pause to specify them. On the a priori side, and es- pecially in reference to the Old Testament, we may specify evidences of inspiration derived from the clear accordance of various events with prophecies special or general that can be proved to have been uttered before the events in question. Among instances of this nature the history and present state of the Jews have been always rightly and confidently appealed to.^ Again, on the same side, but more in reference to the New Testament, it has been fairl}' urged that, if we admit the general truth and Divine character of the Christian dispensation, we can hardly believe that those who were chosen to declare its prin- jsiples and to make known its doctrines were not especially guarded from error in the exe- cution of their weighty commission, and were ! * See Moberly, Preface to ' Sermons on the Beati- tudes,' p. xxxii. • SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 159 not divinely guided both in the words they nttered and the statements they committed to writing. On tlie a posteriori side we may specify the tliree great arguments to which we have ah-eady aUuded : the direct declarations of Scripture, the trustworthy character of Scripture having been first demonstrated ;* the unanimous consent of the early writers, and unchanging testimony of the Catholic Church ; and, lastly, the inward and subjec- tive testimony to the Divine nature of the Scripture yielded by the soul and spirit of the individual. Other arguments there are, es- pecially on the a 'priori side, of varying de- grees of strength and solidity, appealing in different ways to different minds ; but the chief perhaps have been specified, and on these we may safely and securely base our preceding assertions, and our unhesitating and unqual- ified belief in the full inspiration of the Word of God. But it may be asked, how do we conceive that this inspiration took place ? What is our * Thus to appeal to Scripture to define its o^^ n charac- ter in reference to inspiration seems perfectly fair, when the trustworthy character of the volume has been prop- erly demonstrated ; compare the remarks of Chalmers, ' Christian Evidences,' iv. 2. 26, vol. iv., p. 390. (Glas- gow ed.) 160 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. theory of the process ? what do we conceive to be the modus agendi of the Holy Spirit in the heart of man ? This we plainly refuse to an- swer. We know not, and do not presume to inquire into the manner ; we recognize and be- lieve in the fact. Individual writers may have speculated ; imagery, suitable or unsuitable, may have been introduced as illustrative by a few thinkers in early ages ; but the Cathohc Church has never put forward a theory. On this subject she has always maintained a sol- emn reserve ; she declares to us that in the Scripture the Holy Ghost speaks to us by the mouths of men ; she permits us to recognize a Divine and a human element ; but, in ref- erence to the nature, extent, and special cir- cumstances of the union, she warns us not to seek to be wise above what has been written, •not to endanger our faith with sj)eculations and conjectures about that which has not been revealed. Theories of inspiration are what scepticism is ever craving for ; it is the voice of hapless unbelief that is ever loudest in its call for explanation of the manner of the as- sumed union of the Divine with the human, or of the proportions in which each element is to be admitted and recognized. Such explana- tions have not been vouchsafed, and it is as vain SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 161 and unbecoming to demand them as it is to re- quire a theory of the union of the Divinity and Humanity in the person of Christ, or an esti- mate of the proportions in which tlie two per- fect natures are to be conceived to co-exist. Not much more profitable is the inquiry into the exact Hmits of inspiration, whether it is to be considered in all cases as extending to words, or whether it is only to be confined to sentiments and doctrines. At first sight we might be inclined to adopt the latter statement, and such, to some extent, would certainly seem to have been the view of a writer of no less antiquity and learning than Justin Martyr ; still when we remember, on the one hand, that there are instances in Scripture in which weighty arguments have in some degree been seen to depend on the very words and expres- sions that are made use of (John x. 34 ; Gal. iii. 16), and on the other, that many im- portant truths must have lost much of their force and significance if they had not been expressed exactly with that verbal precision which the subject-matter might have de- manded, we shall be wise either to forbear coming to any decision, or else to adopt that guarded view which we have already indii*ectly advocated, viz., that in all passages of impor- 11 162 SCMIPTUBE: ITS INTERPRETATION. tance, wheresoever the natural powers of the writer would not have supplied the befitting word, or expression, there it was supplied by the real though probably unperceived influence of the Spirit of God. A question of far greater moment, and far more practical importance, is that which re- lates to the exact degree of the inspiration, the fallibility or infallibility of the Sacred Rec- ords. Was the inspiration such as wholly to preclude errors and inaccuracies, or was it such as can be compatible with either one or the other ? This is clearly the real anxious question of om- own times, and one to which we must briefly return an answer, as general canons of interpretation must obviously to some extent be modified by the opinions we form on a subject which so seriously affects the character of the documents before us. Let us pause for a moment to consider the answer that is now commonly returned by those among us who claim be considered of advanced thought and intelligence. They tell us, in lan- guage of unrestrained confidence, that no man of candor can fail to acknowledge the exist- ence not only of mistakes as to matters of minor importance, but of such positive ' ' patches of human passion and error," such '' weakness of SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 163 memory," or such '^ mingling of it with im- agination," such '' feebleness of inference, such confusion of illustration with argument," and such variations in judgment and opinion, that in the study of Scripture we must continually have recourse to a ^' rectifying or verifying faculty, ' ' that we may pro23erly be enabled to separate the Divine from the human, — what is true, real, and unprejudiced, from what is perverted, mistaken, and false. In a word, the Sacred writers now stand charged with er- rors of two kinds, — errors of mind and judg- ment, and errors in matters of fact, l)ut on evi- dence (as the following remarks will tend to show) which cannot be regarded either as suffi- cient or conclusive. To substantiate the first class of errors we may commonly observe two modes of pro- ceeding : on the one hand, the more reckless method of citing difficult texts, assuming that they contain a meaning arbitrarily fixed on by the critic, and probably not intended by the writer, and then censuring him for not having intelligibly expressed it ; on the other hand, the more guarded but equally mischievous sug- gestion that the logic of tlie Scriptures is rhe- torical in character, and tliat sucli passages as Rom. i. 16 seii.^ Rom. iii. L'J, al., are ex- 164 SCRIPTURE: IT8 INTERPRETATION. amples of some forms of error in reasonings and such oppositions as ' ' light and darkness, ' ' '' good and evil," " the Spirit and the flesh," ' ' the sheep and the goats, ' ' oppositions of ideas only, which are not realized in fact and experience. With regard to these methods, we will say briefly that the first is unfair and discreditable ; the second, simple assertion that can either be disproved in detail, or that fairly admits of counter-assertion of greater probable truth. The second class of alleged errors is, at first sight, of more importance and plausibility. It professes to include oppositions to science, oppositions to received history, and cases of direct mutual contradiction. Of these three forms we may again briefly say that instances of the first kind, far from increasing, are stead- ily decreasing under a just comparison of the true meaning of the words of Scripture with the accredited conclusions of science. Eecent dis- cussions of the subjects of controversy by men of acknowledged scientific attainments have tended to show that the oppositions of Scrip- ture and science are really far more doubtful than they are assumed to be, and that though they still hold a very prominent place on the pages of the charlatan, they one by one dis- SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATIOI^. 165 appear from the treatises of men of real science who liave scholarship sufficient to extract the real meaning of the language of Scripture in the passages under consideration. . . . Much the same sort of remark, iivutatls mutandis^ may be made on alleged oppositions to received History or Chronology ; many of the sup- posed oppositions held in former times to be inexplicable have now entirely passed away from the scene, and have alike ceased to stimu- late the sceptic or to disquiet the believer ; others, like the case of Cyrenius (Luke ii. 2), are all but gone ; and as to what remain there is a growing feeling among unbiassed scholars and historians that if we could but obtain the knowledge of a few more facts relative to the various points at issue, the oppositions of Scripture and History would wholly cease to «xist. ... In regard of mutual contradic- tions, it might be thought a better case has been made out. Writers from wliom we might have looked for more guarded comment have done much to exaggerate the so-called discrep- ancies of the Scripture narrative, and have somewhat too emphatically denounced modes of explanation that, both from their simplicity and, not unfrequently, their antiquity, have very great claims on our consideration. Seep- 166 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. tics have not been slow to take advantage of this ill-advised course. When, however, all these so-called contradictions are mustered upy they are but a motley and an enfeebled host. We survey them, and we observe some as old as the days of Celsus, and as decrepit as they are old ; others vainly hiding all but mortal wounds received in conflicts of the past, and now only craving a coicp de grace from some combatant of our own times ; some of a later date, and a more aspiring air, recruited from Deistical controversies of a century or two^ back, but all marked with uncomely scars^ and armed with nothing better than broken or corroded weapons. There they stand ; the dis- crepancy between two Evangelists about the original dwelling-place of Mary and Joseph, explained and well explained fourteen hundred years ago ; the two genealogies, fairly dis- cussed in ancient times, and in our own ex- plained in a manner that approaches to positive demonstration ; the blasphemy of the two thieves, disposed of very reasonably by Chry- sostom, and since his time on the same or a similar princij)le by every unprejudiced com- mentator ; the narrative of the woman who anointed our Lord's feet, first jDrepared for the occasion by the assumption that the narratives SCRIPTURE : ITS INTERPRETA TION. 1 < j 7 in all the four Gospels relate to the same woman, — an assumption regarded even by Meyer, and apparently De Wette, as plainly contrary to the fact. And so on. When we survey such a company, and are told that, at any rate, we should respect their numbers, their aggregate authority, their cumulative weight, an uneasy feeling arises in the mind that those who parade them must really be aware that there is something amiss with each case, that, however numerically strong they may be, it is disagreeably true that as individual instances they are disabled or weak. If so, is there not a great responsibility resting on those who bring forward catalogues of such in- stances, and yet do not apprise the simple and the inexperienced that each supposed dilfi- culty has most certainly been met over and over again, and with very reasonable success ; that this array, so to be respected for its num- bers, is really strong in nothing else, — a mere rabble of half -armed or disarmed men ? But finally, it may be said, are we prepared to assert that no inaccuracy, even in what all might agree in regarding as a wholly unim- portant matter of fact, — a date, for instance, or a name, or a popular statement of an in- diiferent matter, — either has been, or can ever 1 68 SCRIPTURE : ITS INTERPRETA TION. be, found in the whole compass of Scripture ? To that question, in its categorical form, we should perhaps be wise in refusing positively to return any answer. We have no theory of inspiration, we only state what we find to be a matter of fact, we only put forward what those facts and the testimony of the Church alike warrant us in defining as the true and Catholic doctrine. We have no means of set- tling definitely whether a j^osse .peccare in minor matters may, or may not, be compati- ble with a Divine revelation communicated through human media ; but certainly till inac- curacies, fairly and incontestably proved to be so, are brought home to the Scripture, we seem logically justified in believing that as it is with nine-tenths of the alleged contradictions in Scripture, so is it with the alleged inaccu- racy. Either the so-called inaccuracy is due to our ignorance of some simple fact, which, if known, would explain all ; or it is really only an illustration of one of those very conditions and characteristics of human testimony, how- ever honest and truthful, without which it would cease to be hmnan testimony at all. If positively forced to state our opinion, we will express what we believe to be the true doctrine of inspiration in this particular by an example SCRIPTURE: ITS INTERPRETATION. 169 • and a simile. As in the case of the Incarnate Word we fully recognize in the Lord's hu- manity all essentially human limitations and weaknesses, the hunger, the thirst, and the weariness on the side of the body, and the gradual development on the side of the human mind (Luke ii. 40), — in a word, all that be- longs to the essential and original characteris- tics of the pure form of the nature He voach- safed to assume, but plainly deny the exist- ence therein of the faintest trace of sin, or of moral or mental imperfection, — even so in the case of the written Word, viewed on its purely human side, cm,d in its reference to incutters previously admitted to have no l)earing on Divine truth, we may admit therein the ex- istence of such incompleteness, such limita- tions, and such imperfections as belong even to the highest foi*ms of purely truthful human testimony, but consistently deny the existence of mistaken views, perversion, misrepresenta- tion, and any form whatever of consciously committed error or inaccuracy. 10. We have thus at length touched upon all the main points in which the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture is in any degree likely to come in contact with rules and prin- ciples of interpretation. Less than this could 170 SCRIPTURE: ITS INTEUPRETATION. • not have been said. Less it was not logically consistent to say. It may, indeed, seem plau- sible to urge that we have no right to express any prior opinion on such subject ; that we have only to apply to Scripture the ordinary rules of inter j)retation which we observe in the case of other books, and that we ought to leave the question of insj)iration to be settled by the results we arrive at. Is it not, how- ever, abundantly clear that if thfere be even a low presumption, arising from external or in- ternal evidence, for supposing that the Scrip- ture has characteristics which render it very unlike any other book, then it is only right and reasonable to examine that evidence before we ap23ly rules of interpretation which, per- haps, may l)e found in the sequel to be inad- missible or inapplicable ? Surely, on the very face of the matter it seems somewhat strange to be told to interpret the Scripture like any other book, while in the same breath it is avowed that there are many respects in which Scripture is unlike any other book. It is really y^y^ much the same as being told to as- certain with a two-foot rule the precise linear dimensions of a room of which it is known or admitted that the sides are not always straight, but variously curved and embayed. The ap- SCMIPTURE : ITS INTERPRET A TION. 1 7 1 plication of our two-foot rule would doubtless put very clearly before us, if we had ever doubted it, not only the fact that bays and curvatures really did exist, but also that the instrument in our hands was a singularly unfit one for measuring what it was plain required something less rigid and impracticable. The duty of the two-foot rule would really then be over, unless we chose to reserve it for those parts where the walls somewhat more nearly conformed to the straight line. If, however, we desired properly to complete our task, we should have to go home for our measuring- tape. h^h., }ul^ )H-y, i^ !, I ^ -^ Date Due 1 ,**—«**" ' mmmmm^^ ^ li BS480 .B88 The inspiration of Holy Scripture Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 1 1012 00050 9119 lp<|\xtx\xvff