v £ n o " 
 
PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 35 
 
 BS 480 .P37 1893 
 
 Parker, Joseph, 1830-1902. 
 
 None like it 
 
 Shelf. 
 
■ 
 
 ■ ■ 
 
NONE LIKE IT. 
 
NONE LIKE IT 
 
 A PLEA FOR THE OLD SWORD 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH PARKER 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 Ecce Deus," "The People's Bible," etc. 
 
 And David said, Give me that : there is none like it " 
 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Publishers of Evangelical Literature 
 
Copyright, 1893, 
 
 BY 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THIS book has been written almost wholly from 
 a preacher's point of view. In these days the 
 position of the preacher is often one of embarrass- 
 ment, because he cannot fail to be aware that the Book 
 out of which he takes his texts is regarded, probably 
 by some of his own hearers, as at best but partially and 
 intermittently inspired. The first thing the preacher 
 has to do is to establish the inspiration of his text, 
 or, against the will of his more critical hearers, to 
 take it for granted. If preacher and hearer are dis- 
 agreed as to the inspiration of the text, and the con- 
 sequent authority of the text, the cleavage cannot 
 but have a disastrous effect upon the sermon. The 
 sermon may, indeed, not be lacking in good things, 
 it may even be instructive and interesting ; yet, de- 
 
 5 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 riving no authority from the text, it starts with the 
 initial difficulty of claiming faith upon the pretenses 
 of an invalid certificate. In view of such a possibility 
 it might be well to consider whether the text is not 
 a snare and a disadvantage. 
 
 In maintaining the inspiration and authority of the 
 Bible — and in deliberately and gratefully describing 
 it as the Word of God — I have not overlooked the 
 claim which has been set up for present-day inspira- 
 tion, quite as direct and effective as the inspiration 
 of the prophets and apostles. I regard such a claim 
 with extreme suspicion, for reasons fully stated in 
 the book. If present-day inspiration, of a prophetic 
 and apostolic kind, is possible, and is, indeed, actual, 
 why so vehement an appreciation of the inspired 
 parts of the Bible ? If inspiration is a commonplace 
 in spiritual experience, if we always had it, if we 
 have it now in greater measure than the Church ever 
 had it before, why make so much of Isaiah and Jere- 
 miah, the disciple John and the apostle Paul ? Why 
 this adoration of ancient names? Why go to them 
 for texts when we can have both texts and sermons 
 as directly from above as we had this morning's 
 
PREFACE. 7 
 
 dawn or yesterday's refreshing rain? Respect for 
 antiquity may be pleaded, or reverence for the con- 
 tinuance of inspiration, but the plea does not rise 
 above the level of pious and chastened sentiment; 
 certainly it strikes no note of authority, and certainly 
 whatever it may do indirectly for the sustenance of 
 independent faith, it can inflict no jus.t rebuke upon 
 independent doubt or unbelief. If John and Paul 
 only had what we may have, why take texts from 
 them instead of taking them from ourselves? We 
 cannot first deprive the apostles of uniqueness and 
 then clothe them with authority. Where there is 
 no authority there can be no appeal. Where the 
 authority is upon a level with our own, why not fix 
 the responsibility upon our own inspiration instead 
 of citing texts and doctrines propounded by men 
 who are not here to be cross-examined and tested? 
 Men ought to have the courage of their inspiration. 
 Has history magnified any inspiration that did not 
 involve contempt, loss, reproach, expulsion, and cru- 
 cifixion? Did inspiration of an apostolic sort ever 
 fit itself into a popular and highly honored position ? 
 Inspiration is always proved on Golgotha. It is not 
 an ornament : it is a sacrifice. 
 
8 PREFACE. 
 
 It is strongly asserted that inspiration does not 
 guarantee historical accuracy. This is indeed a bold 
 assertion ; from my point of view wholly incredible, 
 and especially incredible in reference to the New 
 Testament. But the point cannot be argued in a 
 prefatory explanation. Enough to say that infinite 
 division, exasperation, bigotry, and heart-burning — 
 the unhappy experience of many centuries — would 
 have been saved if in one pregnant sentence the 
 Church had been warned by the Revealing and In- 
 spiring Spirit that the truth of the Bible was inter- 
 spersed in a mass of historical impossibility, misstate- 
 ment, and postdated interpolation. That no such 
 warning is given is a fact which has with me the 
 force of an argument. 
 
 Joseph Parker. 
 
 The City Temple, London. 
 
CONTEXTS. 
 
 -_.-- iraa 
 
 L THE WORD OF GOD 
 
 IL THE PERM AN I NT QUANTITY 
 
 in. THE ORIGINS 
 
 ".-. THE LIVING WORD 
 
 WORD TAUGHT. 
 VI. 
 
 VII. NOTES AND CO] 
 
 VIII. AD CLERUM 
 
 IX. EPILOGUE 
 
 :_: 
 
J. 
 
 THE WORD OF GOD. 
 
 II 
 
This book of stars lights to eternal bliss." 
 
 George Herbert. 
 
 12 
 
I. 
 
 THE WORD OF GOD. 
 
 SOME writers, of the highest Christian standing, 
 have brought themselves to look upon the Bible 
 as a book obviously marked by incongruity, self-con- 
 tradiction, historical impossibility, and occasional 
 moral outrage, in which, nevertheless, many a direct 
 and genuine message from God may be found if 
 sought for with a reverent, humble, and obedient 
 spirit. Such writers, regarded as a class, decline, 
 with an energy hardly less than vehement, to speak 
 of the Bible as " the Word of God," yet, happily, 
 they are equally emphatic and fervid in declaring 
 that in ancient times the Word of God came to indi- 
 vidual prophets and suppliants, and that a record of 
 the communication is to be found in the Bible. The 
 writers in question go much farther than this, their 
 urgent contention being that the Word of God not 
 
 13 
 
14 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 only came, but that it comes, is coming, has always 
 been coming, and that as a gracious necessity of 
 spiritual progress it will always come to living and 
 h->ly souls. It is important, even at the risk of ver- 
 bal tediousness, to make this clear, because, differ 
 from them or agree with them, we are dealing with 
 friends and allies who are spending their lives in the 
 exposition and propagation of their own view of " the 
 truth as it is in Jesus," and whose holy zeal warms 
 and stimulates the whole action of the Christian 
 Church. We are dealing with brethren, not with 
 enemies, with believers, not with infidels, and with 
 men whose conception of the case may some day 
 prove itself to be right. It is a worthless orthodoxy 
 that cannot stand the test of all fair criticism, and it 
 must be a superstitious and faithless faith that con- 
 ceals its credentials in fear of their possible invalida- 
 tion. On all sides of these great inquiries we are in 
 quest of truth. We want to get down to the rock 
 of reality. We desire, however much we may be 
 unable to agree in intellectual opinions, to realize the 
 presence of that Blessed Paraclete— God the Holy 
 Ghost — whose office it is to guide the meek and the 
 faithful into all truth. The brethren whose theory 
 
THE WORD OF GOD. 
 
 15 
 
 I am about to consider, and in parts strongly to 
 oppose, are of opinion that no little harm has been 
 done to the Bible itself by claiming that as a book it 
 is " the Word of God." They wish the Bible to be 
 properly defined. They regard it not as being but 
 as containing the Word of God. They are not afraid 
 to say that the Bible as a book abounds in errors, 
 that some of the authorships are nominally fictitious, 
 that many of its dates are incorrect, that some of its 
 books are of composite and not of individual author- 
 ship, that Moses may have written little or none of 
 the books which bear his name, and that David may 
 never have heard of the Psalms which are ascribed 
 to his harp and pen. Yet they claim that humble 
 and obedient souls may find " the Word of God " in 
 the Bible, but not in the Bible alone, for that Word, 
 they say, comes to men every day as a distinct and 
 direct message from God. Every day brings its own 
 message. That may be so. Certainly this view 
 does not discredit or limit inspiration. On the con- 
 trary, it insists upon the fact and worthily magnifies 
 its value. But the view must not be regarded as 
 original. It must not be supposed that some man 
 discovered it yesterday. It is a view for which other 
 
1 6 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 men have suffered. Young men are now gaining 
 applause for saying that for which older men suffered 
 social and professional martyrdom. The least such 
 young men can do is to acknowledge the wisdom 
 and courage of their forerunners. In discrediting the 
 value of second-hand learning we should take great 
 pains to escape the humiliation of second-hand orig- 
 inality. Gratitude never disgraces Genius. 
 
 It has been said by writers whose view I am about 
 to consider that the Bible itself nowhere claims to be 
 " the Word of God." Very much is made of this 
 point. It is said there is no foundation in the Bible 
 itself for the common practice of speaking of it as 
 the Word of God. "Boldly challenge those who 
 thoughtlessly employ the term." Who are they? I 
 would first inquire. The word " thoughtlessly " sets 
 up a prejudice. It is misplaced. Having regard to 
 the whole history of the Church, it may be unjust 
 and impertinent, certainly it cannot assist in the elu- 
 cidation of the argument. A man is not necessarily 
 " thoughtless " because he differs from me. He may 
 be only modifying my omniscience. If the Bible 
 nowhere claims to be " the Word of God," and if the 
 
THE WORD OF GOD. I J 
 
 absence of a claim is equivalent to the absence of a 
 right, we must carefully consider the issues. Sup- 
 pose the Bible does not claim to be the Word of 
 God, what then ? Is it not, therefore, the Word of 
 God ? May it not be all the more the Word of God 
 on that very account? Does the Bible ever claim to 
 be a book at all ? Then it is not a book. Does the 
 Bible ever claim to be a unit? Then it is not a unit. 
 If the Bible is only what it claims to be, then what 
 is it? Does it make any claim? Is it, to speak 
 figuratively, at all conscious of its own existence? 
 Besides, if inspiration comes daily, if it is always with 
 us, if " we may find truth flowing toward us like the 
 dayspring from the dewy eyelids of the morning," if 
 all this is really a fact, who is able to say that inspi- 
 ration may not be retrospective as well as prospect- 
 ive ? That it may not claim for the Bible what the 
 Bible does not formally claim for itself? That it 
 may not inspire its readers as certainly as it inspired 
 its writers? It is not for us to dogmatize. Possibly 
 God may interpret the past as surely as he may re- 
 veal the future. It was precisely in this way that 
 Jesus Christ dealt with his disciples. He took them 
 back upon the old records. He showed what Moses 
 
1 8 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 meant in a way which Moses probably never knew 
 or understood. So it is just possible, for manifold is 
 God's counsel and his paths are in the great deep, 
 that he may have put it into the hearts of his people 
 to speak of the Bible as the Word of God. 
 
 There are some rights which do not require to 
 be formally " claimed." They wait for recognition. 
 They are self- revealing; they establish themselves 
 little by little ; they grow, so to say, like reason and 
 conscience and sense of responsibility. I am speak- 
 ing of the mere matter of " claim," and inquiring 
 what it amounts to as an argument. I suggest that 
 it may amount to nothing. Shakespeare may or 
 may not claim to be a poet. The mere matter of 
 claim is frivolous. Sometimes the claim may have 
 to be set up by the observer. We come upon some 
 conceptions unexpectedly and suddenly, as when the 
 startled dreamer said, " Surely the Lord is in this 
 place, and I knew it not." There was no finger-post 
 at Haran pointing out the road to a sanctuary and 
 setting up a claim, yet Jacob found " a certain place " 
 concerning which he exclaimed, " How dreadful is 
 this place! this is none other but the house of God, 
 
THE WORD OF GOD. 19 
 
 and this is the gate of heaven." Between the even- 
 ing star and the morning star there was a pregnant 
 dream. A cloud rich with visions enswathed the 
 sleeper's head, and a still, small voice v unknown to 
 the vulgarity of sound, thrilled the dreamer's soul 
 like a whisper from Eternity, and the environment 
 was changed in all its significance. Who can say 
 that inspiration coming down from heaven to-day 
 may not have shown holy men by what name to 
 name writings seemingly scattered, chaotic, and un- 
 related? A man may not claim to be great, yet he 
 may be the greater on that account. Some men are 
 not known until they die. Their claim is set up by 
 posterity. " That which thou sowest is not quick- 
 ened except it die." The crown comes after Cal- 
 vary. A place may lay no claim to consecration, 
 yet it may affect us like a sanctuary of the Presence, 
 a Zion inhabited of God. The Bible cannot live 
 upon testimonials, or "claims," or official sanctions; 
 it can only live by such a supremacy of influence as 
 entitles it to the faith, the love, and the veneration 
 of the world. If it has exercised that influence — 
 account for it variously as we may — that influence is 
 the Bible's best claim. It is not a formal claim. It 
 
20 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 is a claim that had to be discovered. The pearl had 
 to be dug for, but it was there before the spade cut 
 the concealing sod. So the true meaning of God 
 may have to be discovered in the Bible. One man 
 discovered gravitation, and named it; another may 
 discover inspiration, and connect it with the Holiest 
 Name. My own irfquiry as a Bible reader is not, 
 What did the prophet mean? but, What did the Holy 
 Ghost mean when he spake through the prophet? 
 The prophet is dead ; the Spirit lives, and he must 
 be his own interpreter, 
 
 Carefully observe that at this moment I am speak- 
 ing only of " claim," of which so much is made. 
 There may be no formal claim, no scholastic claim, 
 no legal claim, yet, seeing that inspiration may be 
 retrospective as well as prospective, it is surely open 
 to us to inquire whether the inspiration, about whose 
 present-day action some men have not the shadow 
 of a doubt, may not have guided other minds to a 
 correct appreciation of the Bible. It is said that 
 Jesus Christ is the Word of God. But those who 
 say so must not flinch from the application of their 
 own test. Let us therefore reverently ask, When did 
 
THE IVORD OF GOD. 21 
 
 Jesus Christ himself ever claim to be the Word of 
 God ? I do not ask what other men claimed for him. 
 Nor do I ask what other men saw him to be in vision 
 or in ecstasy. I confine my attention to the fourfold 
 life of Christ given in the New Testament, and I ask 
 not what John said about Christ, but what Christ said 
 about himself. Where did he specifically and une- 
 quivocally claim to be the Word of God ? As to the 
 Fourth Gospel, some highly trained men have thrown 
 doubts upon its authorship, and John Stuart Mill — 
 certainly not " a man of one book " — quotes the 
 Fourth Gospel as an illustration of what he means by 
 foisting upon Christ words that Christ never uttered. 
 Hear Mill's testimony : 
 
 " What could be added and in- 
 terpolated by a disciple we may see 
 in the mystical parts of the Gospel 
 of John, matter imported from Philo 
 and the Alexandrian Platonists and 
 put into the mouth of the Saviour 
 in long speeches about himself such 
 as the other Gospels contain not 
 the slightest vestige of, though pre- 
 tended to have been delivered on 
 occasions of the deepest interest, 
 and when his principal followers 
 were all present." l 
 
 1 "Theism," p. 254. 
 
22 
 
 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 That Jesus Christ was the Word of God, some 
 persons who deny his deity might have no difficulty 
 in admitting. Perhaps that is the very title by which 
 they would be most ready to distinguish him. To 
 myself Jesus Christ is not only the Word of God, he 
 is God the Word. But where did he claim to be this 
 in a way so direct as to preclude the possibility of 
 any other view being taken of his Personality ? Was 
 it where he grew in wisdom ? where he was weary 
 with his journey? where he knew not the hour of the 
 Lord's coming? where he said, "There is none good 
 but God " ? where he said, " My God, my God, why 
 hast thou forsaken me?" Many persons, who cannot 
 justly be accused of thoughtlessness, have regarded 
 such passages as indisputable proof that Jesus Christ 
 was simply the Word of God — the message of God to 
 the human race, God translated into the supremest 
 expressions of excellence. I am disposed to think that 
 the very process by which the Bible is turned from 
 being the Word of God into containing the Word of 
 God might for the selfsame reason and without the loss 
 of one degree of cogency be employed in an attack 
 upon the deity of Jesus Christ. The parallels seem 
 to me at this moment to be exact. Able men have 
 
THE WORD OF GOD. 2$ 
 
 asserted that Christ never made any claim for himself 
 that is not consistent with his simply being perfect in 
 all virtue, the sublimest expression of divine excel- 
 lence. Influential sects have built themselves upon 
 this very doctrine. Large sums of money have been, 
 and still are, subscribed to maintain it. The plea is 
 in many points identical with the reasons given for 
 not describing the Bible as the Word of God. It is 
 contended that if we hand the Bible to men as the 
 Word of God they will instantly point to passages 
 which describe God as cruel and jealous and vindic- 
 tive in disproof of our doctrine. But that is exactly 
 what other men do when we declare Jesus Christ to 
 be God the Son ! At once they point us to his weak- 
 ness, his weariness, his confessed ignorance, his neces- 
 sities, his prayers, his declaration that his Father was 
 greater than he, and they demand how we can recon- 
 cile such facts and statements with our belief in his 
 deity. In that deity we do believe, and we do not 
 deny the perfect humanity of our Lord. I do not asl 
 what " claim " Jesus Christ made for himself. Theu- 
 das (Acts v. 36) " boasted himself to be somebody" 
 yet "all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and 
 brought to naught." Simon (Acts viii. 9) " gave out 
 
24 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 that himself was some great one," yet his name has 
 become the signal of the deepest infamy. I do not 
 set store upon mere " claim." History has given us 
 too much reason to suspect it. I study Christ him- 
 self, his words, his ways, his thoughts, his deeds, and 
 thus I am led to exclaim, " My Lord and my God." 
 
 The way in which the case has been stated by 
 friends on what I may call the other side indicates 
 the point of what may prove to be their error. Con- 
 densed, it is this: " Tell men that the Bible is the 
 inspired Word of God, and they will instantly find 
 such and such objection." So they may; but that 
 is precisely what we refrain from doing. Speaking 
 for myself, lest I should load others with responsibil- 
 ity, I never begin by giving the Bible a reputation. 
 I simply say, "Read it; read it all; read it with as 
 little interruption as possible, then tell me what you 
 think of it." I thus leave the Bible to do its own 
 work. You could ruin any preacher, poet, musician, 
 or artist, by giving a romantic description of him be- 
 fore he had an opportunity of showing his own qual- 
 ity in his own way. Much better say, Hear him, 
 study him, get the key of his method, and then form 
 
THE WORD OF GOD. 25 
 
 your own opinion about him. That is all I ask for 
 the Bible, or for the Redeeming Lord himself, and I 
 thankfully add that I never knew that method fail. 
 
 As for defining what is meant by " the Word of 
 God," we must remember that there is no final defi- 
 nition. No man can define God, or Truth, or Life, 
 or Love. They are original and indefinable terms. 
 We know many things without being able to define 
 them. Consciousness is larger than formal intel- 
 ligence. It is possible to intellectualize religious 
 thought and to reduce it to a species of literature — 
 .that is, to something that can be appraised and de- 
 termined by grammar and lexicon and criticism. No 
 wise man will despise any part of this literary appa- 
 ratus ; at the same time the apparatus must be kept 
 within its own lines. The cry for definition may 
 easily become both pedantic and frivolous. In all 
 languages there are expressions which are symbolic 
 rather than literal; idioms which represent our ideal 
 condition or aspiration rather than words which can 
 be separated from one another and parsed independ- 
 ently. In the higher grammar quite a cluster of 
 words may be but a single nominative. The phrase 
 " the-capital-of- England " may be but one hyphened 
 
2 6 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 word, and may be treated not as an article, a noun, 
 and a preposition, but as a consolidated substantive. 
 When we speak of the Bible as " the Word of God " 
 we may be using a symbolic idiom — an idiom which 
 represents the supreme purpose of the Book — its 
 vital content and soul — in a sense and measure which 
 no merely literary definition can fully express. It 
 is thus that the Bible may be, in my judgment, and 
 is, in my practice, more fitly, more sensitively, more 
 truthfully, described by the thrilling phrase "the 
 Word of God " than by any alternative designation. 
 We require a descriptive which is exquisitely nice, 
 at once profound and delicate, to represent the whole 
 meaning of the Bible. To describe the Bible as 
 " the Word of God " is, in my view, to describe the 
 Book by its supreme purpose, which purpose is the 
 revelation of God in such degree and proportion as 
 the human mind is able to receive it. If I must 
 characterize the Bible either by its human workman- 
 ship or its divine purpose — assuming it to have a 
 divine purpose — I deliberately elect to regard it as 
 "the Word of God." In making this election I 
 choose the less of two difficulties. I cannot escape 
 mystery in receiving the Bible, but I escape the 
 
THE WORD OF GOD. 2J 
 
 greater mystery by receiving it as a message from 
 God. I know that the penmanship is human — I 
 know that whatever is human is imperfect — yet that 
 does not affect the divine purpose except in the sense 
 that the limited instrument necessarily modifies the 
 illimitable music. The impassioned pianist crushes 
 the keys and strings of his instrument because it can 
 only tell half his thought. Embodiment always 
 means contraction. Incarnation means locality. The 
 kingdom of heaven is larger than its parables, though 
 they be shaped and colored by the King himself. 
 It must be remembered that we are dealing with no 
 less a theme than the revelation of God. How to 
 bring it into words ! Eternity is incommoded when 
 endeavoring to typify itself upon the dial-space of 
 time. It is the culmination of irony. The Bible is 
 the revelation of God — Ineffable — in the only setting 
 or framework possible in the present conditions of 
 life. To bring God into language is to bring him 
 within limitations. Words are constantly trying to 
 define themselves, and even to do what they were 
 never meant to do. Words may be better used 
 when simply pointing to what is infinitely greater 
 than themselves, than when trying to say everything 
 
2 8 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 exclusively and finally. There are points in relig- 
 ious thinking at which reverent and adoring silence 
 must supersede impotent definition. Even human 
 history, even autobiography itself, must suffer from 
 embodiment in any one set of terms. The verbal 
 accommodation is too small. The only way in which 
 national or personal history can be written, under 
 present conditions, is the way of one-sidedness, 
 partiality, incompleteness, and badly lighted color. 
 Beyond all the most elaborate and balanced expres- 
 sion stands in silence the Motive, the Thought, the 
 Impulse, the quenchless Immortality for which there 
 are no words — the gold of thought, which cannot be 
 expressed in the bronze of speech. So when I am 
 challenged to define the phrase " the Word of God " 
 I am not ashamed to own that to my mind the phrase 
 typifies a reality which it is impossible fully to ex- 
 press in terms which would not themselves require 
 to be defined. 
 
 Speaking thus of the claim of the Bible to be " the 
 Word of God," and of the limits of verbal and spir- 
 itual " definition," we are reminded of a method of 
 treating the Bible which is known as ° dissection." 
 
THE WORD OF GOD. 29 
 
 My present feeling is that the method of dissection 
 is impossible. But is not the Bible a piece of liter- 
 ature? Only in a very limited sense, and of course 
 within that limited sense it is open to partial dissec- 
 tion ; but from my point of view the Bible is infi- 
 nitely more than a piece of literature, and just as it 
 becomes more it passes out of the region of dissec- 
 tion. We can dissect literature, but can we dissect 
 revelation ? We can dissect the body, but can we 
 dissect the life ? We can dissect the rose, but can 
 we dissect its fragrance? What is called the dissec- 
 tion of the Bible is not undertaken irreverently. On 
 the contrary, it is claimed that the botanist dissects 
 the flower because he loves it. I think, however, 
 that the analogy is imperfect. There is a botanist's 
 flower and there is a poet's flower. A mother may 
 view her infant's body in one way and an anatomist 
 may view it in another. But is not the infant an 
 anatomical structure ? Yes, and infinitely more, and 
 in that glorious " more " the technical anatomist has 
 no rights. So with the Bible. It is literature and it 
 is revelation. It is history and it is insight. It is 
 discipline and it is holiness. The altar can be meas- 
 ured in cubits, but the sacrifice which is offered on it 
 
30 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 is a magnitude upon which no measuring rod can be 
 laid. Unless, therefore, the term "dissection" be 
 very carefully guarded and limited, its importance as 
 a method may easily become exaggerated. 
 
 Another method of interpretation is not free from 
 prejudice, and is certainly not always safe. It is the 
 capricious method of testing Scripture by what is 
 called "experience." Commenting upon a difficult 
 passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, Mr. Horton 
 suggests a meaning, and adds : " If the generally 
 accepted interpretation is correct, the passage must 
 take its place among those opinions or speculations 
 on divine things which are not confirmed by expe- 
 rience." Whose? What is experience? It has 
 been defined as " a term by which a man often covers 
 his mistakes." Is God's truth no larger than man's 
 experience? Compare the experience of to-day 
 with the experience of the twelfth century or the 
 seventeenth ! If experience is limited by personal- 
 ity, by whose personality is it to be limited? And 
 if limited, what is the value of it beyond the limita- 
 tion? And if any interpretation, truth, doctrine, or 
 suggestion lies beyond experience to-day, who can 
 
THE WORD OF GOD. 3 I 
 
 be confident that experience will not or may not 
 include it to-morrow? I venture, then, to submit 
 that in making experience a final test we are appeal- 
 ing to a capricious and insufficient criterion. 
 
 A special danger arises in the form of a tempta- 
 tion to judge the part out of its relation to the whole. 
 I have been enabled to regard the Bible as a unit. 
 I know it is a collection of what may be called tracts 
 or pamphlets, and that probably no one writer knew, 
 or in many instances could possibly know, what the 
 others had written. Yet to my view the Bible is a 
 unit. One part belongs to another. One part ex- 
 plains another. This is indeed very marvelous, con- 
 sidering the different authorships, the different dates, 
 the different environments. It is not difficult to believe 
 that the authors must have been moved by a com- 
 mon impulse, and must have been building a common 
 temple without knowing it. The parts of the temple 
 come together most wonderfully, as if proportioned 
 and fitted by the same Architect. So wondrous is 
 the effect upon my own mind that if any teacher 
 should explain the marvel by saying, " Holy men of 
 old wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," 
 I could accept the solution, my reason, my imagina- 
 
32 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 tion, and my heart could unite in exclaiming, " Lo! 
 God is here, and I knew it not; this is none other 
 than the Word of God, and this is the light of 
 heaven!" Nor am I to be troubled by having my 
 attention called to the real or supposed defects of 
 certain portions of the Bible. Can the Book of 
 Ecclesiastes, say some, be looked upon as the Word 
 of God ? look at its materialism, its sensuousness, its 
 pessimism. The Book of Ecclesiastes is part of a 
 larger book. Its pessimism is a shadow upon a land- 
 scape. There is undoubtedly a pessimistic side of 
 life, and I am glad to have it expressed exactly as 
 it is found in the Book of Ecclesiastes. The Bible 
 would have been incomplete without it. If it were 
 the whole Bible, it would cover the soul with deep 
 darkness ; but as part of the Bible it is true to human 
 experience, and the very recognition of it is itself an 
 encouragement to faith and hope. Others say, Can 
 the Book of Esther be part of the Word of God when 
 the name of God is not so much as mentioned in it? 
 For my own part I can see little but God in the main 
 action of that tragedy. God does sometimes gov- 
 ern anonymously. To me it is not an unacceptable 
 conception that sometimes the light is reflex rather 
 
THE IVORD OF GOD. 33 
 
 than direct, and that in reading some histories the in- 
 fluence is more obvious than the personality. The one 
 thought to be borne in mind in this connection is 
 that the Bible having been made into a unit is to be 
 judged in its unity even in the very act of consider- 
 ing its parts. Books which may be difficulties when 
 torn out of their setting may assume new color and 
 meaning when regarded in their relation to an or- 
 ganic whole. So also with texts, separate verses, 
 and special commandments which are supposed to 
 present such stumbling-blocks to that sensitive creat- 
 ure, that highly wrought and delicately constructed 
 machine, the infidel. Some teachers are painfully 
 careful of his feelings. He is most sensitive. When 
 he hears that God visits the iniquities of the fathers 
 upon the children unto the third and fourth genera- 
 tion, he faints. When he is told that the Canaanites 
 and other persons in w r hose feelings and sufferings 
 he is deeply interested were driven out of the land 
 with great slaughter and loss, he is overpowered. 
 When he comes to passages which seem to direct 
 that the heads of little ones are to be dashed against 
 the stones, he simply lays down the Bible in horror 
 and becomes a larger infidel than ever. Yet, after 
 
34 
 
 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 all, and speaking with trembling deference, even an 
 infidel may occasionally be wrong. Yet in what 
 white-faced awe we stand before him ! How anx- 
 ious the commentators are to explain verse thirty- 
 six to him in a way that will soothe his exasperated 
 feelings! How deeply anxious the preachers are so 
 to explain the Almighty that the dear and sensitive 
 infidel may take a more lenient and hopeful view of 
 the general way in which the universe is managed as 
 a whole. For my part I will not make an idol of an 
 infidel. Again and again I would say, notwithstand- 
 ing the apparently impious audacity of the assertion, 
 that even an infidel may sometimes be wrong. I can 
 at least imagine it possible that in the final audit the 
 Bible writers may have seen farther than some who 
 are shocked by their statements. Evils do run out 
 their consequences to the third and the fourth gen- 
 eration. Nations are as a matter of fact displaced 
 and replaced in a mysterious way. Even little chil- 
 dren are dashed against the stones. If these facts 
 be degraded into mere anecdotes, they are made 
 horrible by first being made contemptible ; but set in 
 their right atmosphere, thrown into their true per- 
 spective amid the ever-coming and ever-vanishing 
 
THE WORD OF GOD. 35 
 
 centuries, read in the larger light — even in God's 
 high noon — who knows but that it may yet be 
 proved that it was the infidel who was wrong ? The 
 dear and sensitive infidel cannot receive the Bible 
 because of verse seventy-nine ; then why should I re- 
 ceive the world when I am first invited to believe that 
 there is a devil? I am shocked by the suggestion. 
 Every nerve quivers with agony at the very thought. 
 Yet my infidelity does not destroy the devil. I can 
 sooner destroy him by my faith than by my unbelief. 
 My faith enables me to realize that the devil and all 
 his angels are the chained slaves of the Eternal 
 Throne. 
 
 The phrase " the Word of God " (whatever it may 
 precisely include) is one of frequent occurrence in 
 the Bible itself. It might be supposed from reading 
 some writings that this phrase is quite a modern 
 invention — a " thoughtless," " loose," " misleading " 
 expression. The phrase occurs in all varieties of 
 form in the Bible. I claim for it that it is a Bible 
 term. Whatever may be its meaning, it does in in- 
 numerable instances occur in the Book itself. Per- 
 haps, therefore, it has a meaning. At all events, it 
 
36 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 is of importance thoroughly to impress the mind with 
 the fact that the phrase " the Word of God " or "the 
 Word of the Lord " is certainly as old as the Bible. 
 Thus: 
 
 "The word of God came to"; 
 " the word of our God shall stand 
 forever"; "making the word of 
 God of none effect " ; " the people 
 pressed on him to hear the word 
 of God"; "the seed is the word 
 of God"; "the Gentiles received 
 the word of God"; "so mightily 
 grew the word of God and pre- 
 vailed " ; " many corrupt the word 
 of God"; "handling the word of 
 God deceitfully"; "the sword of 
 the Spirit which is the word of 
 God " ; " the word of God is quick 
 and powerful"; "it is not meet 
 that we should leave the word of 
 God." 
 
 These are only samples of an almost countless 
 number. The apostle Peter speaks very definitely 
 about the word of the Lord. He says, " The word 
 of the Lord endureth forever," and as if anticipating 
 our modern inquiry, What is the Word of the Lord? 
 he answers—" And this is the word which by the 
 gospel is preached unto you" (i Peter i. 25). We 
 are justified, then, in saying that the expression " the 
 
THE WORD OF COD. 37 
 
 Word of God," whatever it may precisely mean, is 
 intensely biblical. The answer which is given to us 
 is that there is no difference of opinion about this, 
 the contention is that the expression is never applied 
 in the Bible itself to the Bible itself — in other words, 
 the Bible nowhere calls itself by that name. So we 
 return to our first ground, By what name does the 
 Bible describe itself? Does it ever describe itself? 
 Because it does not describe itself, may its readers 
 never describe it? Some teachers suppose that they 
 have met the case by describing the Bible as " a 
 record." The term " record " is in great favor with 
 them. But a " record " of what? Surely more than 
 a record of names, births, ages, wars, migrations, and 
 anecdotes? These may properly come under such 
 a designation as " record." They can be fully and 
 literally set down, registered, attested, and otherwise 
 treated as events having a beginning and an end. 
 But is there nothing more in the Bible? What is 
 that something more? Is there not something more 
 in Moses than Moses ever dreamed ? Why have a 
 Bible at all, except as we may have other so-called 
 sacred books which may be interesting memorials of 
 ancient and perhaps exhausted nationalities? What 
 
38 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 is it that gives the Bible its uniqueness? That is 
 the quality which I wish to get at and appreciate. 
 Now tell me distinctly, if you can, what that quality 
 is. When I have beyond all doubt discovered that 
 quality, I can have no difficulty in making a definite 
 claim for the Bible. Is there anything in the Bible 
 of the nature of prophecy, communion, fellowship 
 with God, insight, motive — anything about or bear- 
 ing upon prayer, eternity, sanctification, election, 
 trust, destiny — anything that goes infinitely beyond 
 records, schedules, registers, and genealogies — any- 
 thing that takes in all the centuries and gathers up 
 human history into a unit? What is the supreme 
 purpose of the Book? Does the Book anywhere 
 claim to have a supreme purpose ? If it has not a 
 supreme purpose, why was it collated and published? 
 If its supreme purpose, claimed or unclaimed, is the 
 revelation of God to the world, I have no difficulty 
 in regarding it as the inclusive and authoritative 
 Word of God. One writer does give an answer to 
 the question, What is the Bible? He says, "It is, 
 to put it briefly, the sacred and inspired record of 
 the Word of God," etc. He calls the Bible "the 
 canon of sacred Scripture." Now where does the 
 
THE IVORD OF GOD. 39 
 
 Bible claim to be a canon ? Does the word " canon " 
 ever occur in the Bible? And by what authority 
 does the writer speak of "sacred Scripture"? How 
 often does the word "sacred" occur in the Bible? 
 Is the word " sacred " in the Bible at all ? Is it not 
 an ecclesiastical word ? Is it not in its very face and 
 form a priest's word? When I am "boldly chal- 
 lenged" as to the ground on which I describe the 
 Bible as " the Word of God," I in my turn may 
 " boldly challenge " the challenger to give me his 
 biblical authority for calling the Bible a canon, or 
 calling the Bible "sacred Scripture." 
 
 The Christian Church should welcome all the light 
 and aid of the best scholarship in the elucidation of 
 the Bible. There is no orthodoxy so despicable as 
 that which sneers at scholarship. I want all the help 
 I can get in endeavoring to make out the purpose 
 and meaning of the Bible. If the Bible as a whole 
 is not the Word of God, I wish to know it. Super- 
 stition is mischievous. Prejudice hurts the soul. 
 Do let us encourage reverent and competent scholars 
 to dig deeply and speak fearlessly. It is in this spirit 
 that I am about to make a revolutionary suggestion. 
 
40 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 Why not re-edit and reconstruct the canon in the 
 light of present-day knowledge? The form might 
 be changed ; the substance would remain. The for- 
 mation of the canon was a human work. The Bible 
 as we have it was never seen either by the proph- 
 ets or the apostles. If the best scholarship of the 
 Church is prepared to prove that there are literal, 
 historical, chronological errors in the Bible, why not 
 cut them out? Why not publish a revised canon as 
 well as a revised version ? If you meddle with the 
 human side of the Bible at all, why not meddle with 
 it thoroughly? I venture to think that this would 
 be turning orthodox scholarship to the best use. It 
 is high time we got rid of all false traditions. I 
 would not spare them on the ground of their age, 
 I would abolish them on the ground of their unfaith- 
 fulness. Do let us, I repeat, get down as far as pos- 
 sible to the rock of reality. If " the early Fathers 
 took over from the rabbis a collection of baseless 
 theories," let us get rid of them. If " the only evi- 
 dence in support of their claims is found in the tra- 
 ditions themselves," let us plainly denominate them 
 false witnesses. If " Canticles and Ecclesiastes are 
 not Solomonic but post-exilic," reconstruct the canon 
 
THE WORD OF GOD. 41 
 
 accordingly. We may correct a date without dis- 
 turbing a morality. Scholars will, of course, be very 
 sure of their ground before they rearrange the 
 canon, but being sure of it they should take a defi- 
 nite course, stopping at the point where their knowl- 
 edge ceases. If we know the errors before sending 
 out the Book, why not keep back the Book until we 
 have corrected the errors? I press the inquiry. If 
 we cannot re-edit the whole, why not re-edit a part? 
 Why not undertake the work within the lines of the 
 Hexateuch ? Why shrink from re-dating and re- 
 signing the Psalms ? I press the inquiry in the hope 
 that the answer will be that the task is in the main 
 impossible. Probably the answer will be that the 
 truth and the error, the factual and the moral, the 
 local and the universal, are so intermixed that useful 
 separation cannot be effected. That would be an 
 important admission, because — 
 
 First : It would help to 
 show that Revelation is 
 given within the only 
 setting or framework 
 which is possible — faulty 
 
42 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 because of human infirm- 
 ity : incomplete because 
 of human imperfection — 
 and 
 
 Secondly: That, there- 
 fore, we now have in the 
 Bible the only framework 
 of revelation that can 
 substantially represent the 
 many centuries of evolu- 
 tion and growth through 
 which biblical history has 
 passed. 
 
 What if the canon itself cannot be substantially 
 amended? Who knows how far divine inspiration 
 may have directed its contents and construction? 
 If there is a perpetual inspiration, who can say with 
 definiteness and authority that when wise and holy 
 men undertook to build the temple of the Bible 
 they were forsaken of God ? 
 
II. 
 
 THE PERMANENT QUANTITY. 
 
 THERE is a permanent quantity in the Bible 
 about whose inspiration the Christian Church is 
 substantially agreed. Probably we shall never have a 
 definition of inspiration which does not itself need to 
 be defined. By inspiration I mean a statement, doc- 
 trine, message, or discipline, which separates itself 
 from all ordinary thinking, which so far separates 
 itself as to throw ordinary thinking into obvious 
 contrast, and which associates itself with such a 
 quality of moral discipline as to exclude the idea 
 that itself can be the fantasy of a wanton imagina- 
 tion. I lay much stress upon the quality of the dis- 
 cipline ; it is not mere pain ; it is not a trick of van- 
 ity ; it is not a sordid spectacle set up for sordid 
 uses: on the contrary, it searches the heart; it puri- 
 fies the motive ; it abases and chastens the imagina- 
 
 43 
 
44 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 tion ; and, above all, it creates a desire and a yearning 
 for the good of others all the world over akin to the 
 love which created the cross. This conception of 
 inspiration enables me to accept the Bible, correctly 
 translated into English, as the Word of God. The 
 Bible addresses itself to the greatest subjects — Crea- 
 tion, Providence, Redemption, Sanctification, Des- 
 tiny. Upon all these subjects its tone is dogmatic, 
 solemn, impressive. The conceptions of the Bible 
 are as large as its subjects. It guesses nothing, pos- 
 tulates nothing, apologizes for nothing. We may 
 apologize for the Bible : the Bible never apologizes 
 for itself. All this would be incomplete, and as evi- 
 dence would be only partial (at best suggestive and 
 inferential), but for that peculiar quality of discipline 
 upon which the Bible inexorably insists. The Bible 
 makes no bid for popularity. It risks its popularity 
 by its severity. It does not ask for homage based 
 upon concession. It does not approach our confi- 
 dence through the medium of our vanity. It takes 
 us back to our ignorance, our weakness, and our 
 shame, that it may take us forward to God's wisdom, 
 Christ's almightiness, and the Spirit's miracle of holi- 
 ness. Thus the Bible is not only a sublime revela- 
 
THE PERMANENT QUANTITY. 45 
 
 tion of God, it is also a penetrating and sanctifying 
 discipline of man ; and because of this double action 
 — this complete and effective ministry — I have no 
 scruple in speaking of the Bible as " the Word of 
 God," founding that title not upon anything claimed 
 by the Bible for itself, but upon its supreme content 
 and purpose. If the Bible were not the Word of 
 God, or if the title " the Word of God " were a blas- 
 phemy or even a vital mistake, I think that, having 
 regard to its own limitation and its special purpose, 
 it would have warned me against making an idol of 
 it, and would have said, " See thou do it not, for I 
 am only a record of a progressive revelation, and I 
 abound in nearly every kind of error, not literal only, 
 but moral also." If I had the faintest scruple as to 
 estimating the Bible as the Word of God, it would be 
 dissolved by the fact that the Bible constantly seeks 
 me in God's name, offers me God's love, welcomes 
 me to God's pardon, and constrains me to obedience 
 to God's will. So large, so tender, is the Spirit of 
 this wondrous Book ! The Bible was not written to 
 tell me what the Jews did, but to tell me what God 
 did through the Jews. What the patriarchs or the 
 Jews did three thousand years ago can have only an 
 
46 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 archaeological interest for me ; but the moment I see 
 the divine movement or the divine purpose in the 
 Book I say, " I will turn aside and see this great 
 sight," how in so small a space I can see the genesis 
 of history and the very outline of God ! Under the 
 happy influence of this feeling I have great confi- 
 dence and intense joy — even if without technical and 
 formal authority from the Book itself — in prefacing 
 the public reading of the Scriptures with the solemn 
 invitation, "Let us read the Word of God." An- 
 other minister would, I infer, substitute this more 
 discriminating form, if he used any form at all, " Let 
 us read the sacred and inspired record of the Word 
 of God." If it came to a question of internal claim 
 on the part of the Bible itself, I should find no diffi- 
 culty in upholding at least the equality of the sim- 
 pler designation. 
 
 What is the permanent quantity that is in the 
 Bible — the quantity, in fact, without which there 
 could be no Bible in the sense in which we under- 
 stand that term ? It is, compendiously, the revela- 
 tion of God; it is, in detail, every law that can ben- 
 eficially affect the condition and the perfecting of 
 
THE PERMANENT QUANTITY. 47 
 
 human life — " profitable for teaching, for reproof, 
 for correction, for instruction which is in righteous- 
 ness, that the man of God may be complete, fur- 
 nished completely with every good work." It is 
 evident that the man who wrote the Second Epistle to 
 Timothy believed that some Scripture, somewhere, 
 written by some pens, was inspired ; that there was 
 some writing somewhere which he regarded as 
 " Holy Scripture," and that such Holy Scripture 
 undertook the whole spiritual culture and perfect- 
 ing of man. Now if I could lay my hands on that 
 Scripture, and if I believed it to be what Paul says 
 it was, I could have no difficulty in regarding it 
 as the Word of God. It cannot be too carefully 
 marked that the reference is to something written, 
 and therefore something that could be read; some- 
 thing different from a Personality, yet not opposed 
 to it ; a writing, a pamphlet, a book of some sort. 
 In the present inquiry that fact is of vital conse- 
 quence. Jesus Christ was not a written book. It 
 is with a written form that this inquiry concerns 
 itself. You cannot substitute the word "Christ" for 
 the word "Scriptures" in such a passage as this: 
 " Beginning at Moses, he expounded unto them in 
 
48 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." 
 There is a writing, and there is a Christ. Accord- 
 ing to the Apostle Paul any Scripture which is 
 not profitable— vitally and permanently useful — for 
 teaching, for reproof, for correction which is in 
 righteousness, which does not complete the man of 
 God and furnish him unto every good work, cannot 
 be regarded as inspired, and every Scripture cover- 
 ing and fulfilling this ministry may be accepted as 
 inspired by the Holy Spirit. Now on the ground 
 of history and on the ground of personal experience 
 it is claimed that the Bible, as we have it, and as we 
 translate it into all languages, brings men to God, 
 makes them men of God, fills them with thoughts 
 of God, and creates in them a desire to be holy after 
 the manner of God, and because it does this, does it 
 openly and subtlely, does it constantly and unexcep- 
 tionally, it is no exaggeration of claim to represent 
 it as " the Word of God." Nor can we so re-edit 
 the Bible as to say with definiteness that the exclu- 
 sion of what may be called local and limited history 
 would not affect the parts which are avowedly moral, 
 spiritual, universal, and permanent. The Bible is 
 impregnated through and through with one infinite 
 
THE PERMANENT QUANTITY. 49 
 
 and glorious purpose. Take out of the Bible every 
 passage that refers to God, that accounts for crea- 
 tion, that relates to man, that dwells upon Redemp- 
 tion, Forgiveness, Righteousness, and Sanctification, 
 take away all the passages bearing upon the restora- 
 tion and comfort of the human heart, the purpose 
 of human discipline, the subjugation of sin, and the 
 salvation of the world, and what is there left? So 
 immensely do these great subjects overshadow all 
 other subjects, and so exquisitely do their several 
 modes of treatment constitute one noble harmony, 
 that it would be a conscious injustice on my part — 
 I dare not speak for others — to hesitate to pay hom- 
 age to the Bible as verily and abidingly " the Word 
 of God." 
 
 It has been said by a German writer that the dif- 
 ference between false religions and true religions is 
 that the one has documents and the other has living 
 prophets. It is happily the distinction of the Chris- 
 tian religion that it has both. It is a marvelous com- 
 bination of the ancient and the modern. From my 
 point of view the Bible is at once the oldest and the 
 newest of books. I have found it safe to suspect 
 
50 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 the newness which has no antiquity, and to disre- 
 gard the antiquity which has no modern applica- 
 tions. Time is old, but every summer is new. The 
 earth is old, but the grass withereth and the flower 
 fadeth. When the flower blooms it is Eternity smil- 
 ing in time. Christianity has indeed its documents, 
 the individuality of each entering into and enriching 
 the individuality of the whole. Genesis and Job are 
 not the same in style, but it is the same man who is 
 tempted, the same devil who tempts, the same God 
 who protects, the same God who rules the issue. 
 The Chronicles of the Kings and the Acts of the 
 Apostles are varied enough in style and action, yet 
 there is something within the whole movement and 
 evolution which makes them hard reading for atheism. 
 So wondrously have we seen Providence working in 
 personal experience and in national history, that it is 
 now evident that men may be working in different 
 ages and different countries, in total ignorance of 
 each other's existence and labors, and yet serving a 
 common purpose as if moved by a common impulse. 
 There may not be so much difference in age and 
 country and language and environment, as we some- 
 times suppose, or within all the accidental difference 
 
THE PERMANENT QUANTITY. 51 
 
 there may be an invisible link — even that wondrous 
 line, beyond sight and touch, which stretches " from 
 everlasting to everlasting." The atom and the planet 
 are both from God — the single soul and the consum- 
 mated race. 
 
 The Christian religion has documents. To one test 
 they may be fairly subjected. Can any man add 
 one true line to the moral or spiritual code which is 
 set up in the Bible ? Can any man publish an ap- 
 pendix of omitted morals? Can any man add to 
 the tender balms and solaces provided in the Bible 
 for broken hearts and wounded spirits? We have 
 had centuries of education — this age represents the 
 latest wisdom of the world — can we, with such 
 advantages, add a solitary tittle to those Scriptures 
 which are " profitable for teaching, for reproof, for 
 instruction which is in righteousness, that the man 
 of God may be complete, furnished completely unto 
 every good work "? That is a fair challenge. It is 
 in the line of questions which are asked in the Bible 
 itself. God challenges the deities manufactured in 
 the smithies of the world. He says that no man 
 can add a cubit to his own stature, or turn one hair 
 
52 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 black or white. Can man enlarge the circumference 
 of the earth by one half inch? Why not, then, 
 boldly challenge the world to add one line or tint 
 to the moral excellence of the Bible? No such addi- 
 tion has been made. Variation, illustration, adapta- 
 tion we have had in happy abundance, and we desire 
 to have more and more, but to the integral substance 
 nothing can be added. Art sits before the same 
 landscapes; music interprets the same breezes; 
 poetry handles the same harp ; one generation pass- 
 eth away and another generation cometh, but thy 
 throne, O God, is forever and ever. Another fair 
 question is, If the moral code of the Bible is com- 
 plete, how is that completeness to be accounted for? 
 Does any theory so thoroughly satisfy the inquiry as 
 the answer, " Holy men of God spake as they were 
 moved by the Holy Ghost"? That answer I am 
 able to accept in all the fullness of its meaning and 
 so to regard the " Holy Scripture " as indeed and in 
 truth "the Word of God." But have not some 
 beautiful hymns been added to the Bible? Not one. 
 They are only beautiful because they are biblical. 
 Have not some noble moral apothegms been added 
 to the Bible? Not one. If one, produce it. If you 
 
THE PERMANENT QUANTITY. 53 
 
 produce it, I will engage to find it in the Bible as to 
 its spiritual veracity. If any man thinks he can add 
 to the commandments of God, he may be the man 
 who was in the Apostle's mind when he wrote : " If 
 there be any other commandment, it is summed up 
 in this word, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
 as thyself." There are, then, germ-commandments. 
 There may be more in a commandment than there 
 seems to be. Man's genius, even in commandment- 
 making, cannot outrun or exceed God's inspiration. 
 
 How are the biblical documents to be read? Can 
 the technical or strictly professional grammarian read 
 them ? Can the mere elocutionist bring himself 
 within the lines of their innermost meaning? It 
 must, in simple justice to my purpose, be distinctly 
 understood that in speaking of the grammarian or 
 the philologist, I speak of him only in his academical 
 capacity, and in that capacity I hardly hesitate to 
 deny his ability to read the Bible at all. I even 
 doubt whether he should take upon himself the 
 office of an interpreter. In holding this opinion I 
 am not underestimating his ability ; I am recognizing 
 the peculiar quality and unique purpose of the Bible. 
 
54 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 Thank God, the Church has ever been rich in men 
 who are happily both grammarians and interpreters ; 
 I am, however, speaking of grammatical experts who 
 do not even profess to care for the Bible more than 
 for any other book. A man may be able to parse 
 a book without being able to understand it; and 
 a man may approve the grammar of a book in the 
 very act of combating its doctrine. In reference to 
 the Bible the grammarian pure and simple has an 
 undoubtedly important work to do, but a still more 
 important work to leave undone. He must pass from 
 grammar to sympathy before he can understand or 
 explain some passages. Grammar deals with syntax, 
 philology deals with words ; sympathy penetrates the 
 writer's soul, and elicits the half- expressed meaning 
 of his heart. Perhaps only the mother can read the 
 child's letter. But will God reveal more to igno- 
 rance than he will reveal to largeness of knowledge ? 
 Who can say ? His way is in the whirlwind and in 
 the cloud, and it is not known. He says he will 
 look to the man who is of a broken heart ; and a 
 little child is his image of greatness in his kingdom. 
 It may be that some kind of ignorance is a qualifica- 
 tion for receiving spiritual mysteries. Humility may 
 
THE PERMANENT QUANTITY. 55 
 
 be more and better than syntax, and " babes " may 
 be trusted with revelations withheld from " the wise 
 and prudent." " Even so, Father; for so it seemed 
 good in thy sight." God rejects the narrow wisdom 
 which offers incense to its own vanity. " Woe unto 
 them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent 
 in their own sight." " I will destroy the wisdom of 
 the wise, and will bring to nothing the understand- 
 ing of the prudent." "We speak the wisdom of 
 God, which none of the princes of this world knew." 
 It was to very plain men that Jesus said : " It is 
 given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of 
 heaven, but to them it is not given." Grammar and 
 philology are indispensable within their own lines. 
 No man must imagine that he is wise because he is 
 not a grammarian. The dogmatism of ignorance 
 never rendered any real service to the truth. The 
 cant of self-depreciation may be but concealed infal- 
 libility. It is important to make these things clear 
 that error may be avoided on both sides. Jesus 
 Christ was reproached with never having learned 
 letters; yet his sayings are unfathomable, taberna- 
 cling in letters as angels might halt under the roof of 
 men. My submission, then, is that the Bible is more 
 
56 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 than a book ; it is marked by a peculiar quality — the 
 quality which makes the Bible what it is — a separat- 
 ing and differentiating quality — call it supremely 
 spiritual, or call it distinctively supernatural — and 
 that quality can only be penetrated by a spirit kin- 
 dred to its own, and that in the reading of the inner- 
 most meaning of the Bible spiritual character is the 
 chief medium or instrument of " the higher criti- 
 cism." The moment inspiration begins, the appa- 
 ratus of criticism must be changed. It is admitted 
 by all who regard the Bible as something more than 
 an interesting collation of very ancient literature, 
 that there is some kind of inspiration in it, that God 
 is revealed in it, and that God's will in some sense 
 or degree is made known in it. At that point literal 
 criticism begins to feel its limitations. At that point 
 another function of inquiry or appreciation comes 
 into action. The Apostle Paul puts the matter in 
 the most lucid and acceptable manner when he says, 
 ' The natural man receiveth not the things of the 
 Spirit of God, and he cannot know them because 
 they are spiritually discerned, judged, or examined." 
 The Apostle claims that some things are " revealed 
 through the Spirit." He says, " The Spirit searcheth 
 
THE PERMANENT QUANTITY. 57 
 
 all things, yea, the deep things of God." The most 
 profound literal criticism will pause at this point, and 
 the ablest scholars will themselves be the first to 
 confess that they are standing on holy ground. I 
 claim, then, that in the degree in which the Bible is 
 inspired, it can be truly read only by the ministry 
 of the inspiring Spirit, and that he only who receives 
 the Holy Ghost can feel the power of Holy Script- 
 ure. The lexicon cannot supersede the Spirit. 
 
 With a theology so vast, so sublime, yet so prac- 
 tical, calling us to all that is mysterious and ghostly 
 in adoration, summoning the soul into the inmost 
 sanctuary of the Invisible God — without a shape on 
 which to rest the affrighted eye, or a line on which 
 to lay the trembling hand ; calling us onward and 
 upward through a silence that makes our very 
 breathing a conscious trespass, and through a light 
 from which our very purity shrinks in shame — with 
 a theology so practical as to search our hidden life 
 as with fire, to test our standards and balances, to 
 bring our words to judgment, and to track our daily 
 course with the criticism of God — with a theology 
 demanding personal incarnation in fellowship and 
 
58 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 service, charging us with the sacred trust of repre- 
 senting Christ to a hostile world, and constantly 
 charging us to prove the reality of our faith by the 
 sincerity of our love — with such a theology handed 
 to us by inspired penmen for exposition and exem- 
 plification, who does not see that high above all 
 other qualifications — even prophecy, tongues, mys- 
 teries, and all knowledge — must stand in holy isola- 
 tion and solitary privilege the PURE HEART that 
 alone can see God? 
 
 But there are not only documents, there are living 
 prophets. It is claimed that some men are now in- 
 spired. It is also claimed that preachers, teachers, 
 prophets may now receive direct messages from God, 
 and that until they do receive such messages they 
 have no right or authority to preach. We must 
 understand this statement before we can receive it. 
 What does it mean ? The inspiration of the human 
 heart is perfectly possible apart from the reception 
 of a new or personal message. We may be inspired 
 to read old messages aright. There may be an 
 inspiration of delivery as well as an inspiration of 
 authorship. We may be inspired to read and not to 
 
THE PERMANENT QUANTITY. 59 
 
 write. " Then opened he their understandings, that 
 they might understand the Scriptures." " Open 
 thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things 
 out of thy law." If we meditate day and night in 
 the divine law, we may receive a truly divine inspira- 
 tion without being conscious of having received a 
 formal message which has been withheld from every 
 other praying soul. Every man will be inspired ac- 
 cording to his own individuality. But we must be- 
 ware lest we make any Scripture of " private interpre- 
 tation," and cry, " Lo here," or " Lo there," without 
 Christ's authority. Inspired men may be least con- 
 scious of their own inspiration. The more a man is 
 inspired, the more clearly will he recognize inspira- 
 tion in others. It is so in art, in statesmanship, in 
 character ; why not in our estimate of " the goodly 
 fellowship of the prophets," and " the glorious com- 
 pany of the apostles " ? If every man is to preach 
 the special message which he is supposed to have 
 received from God, we shall have not a few conflict- 
 ing inspirations. But precisely the same difficulty 
 arises from an inspired reading of an inspired book. 
 All sermons do not agree. All doctrines do not 
 agree. All conceptions of the Church do not agree. 
 
60 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 Yet all are supposed to be traceable to the Bible or 
 to be actually founded upon its distinct teaching. 
 Able attempts have been made in all Christian cent- 
 uries to propitiate the infidel when he has asked 
 whether such and such discrepancies can be recon- 
 ciled, or such and such sanguinary policies can have 
 been instigated or approved by a God of mercy, or 
 such and such anomalies would be permitted to 
 exist if the supposed Ruler of the world were really 
 omnipotent. But that line of questioning only 
 begins the deeper and bitterer interrogation — it is 
 unbelief in its crudest state. Unbelief not only at- 
 tacks the historical and external contradictions of the 
 Bible, it follows faith into the interpretation of what 
 we call the deep things of God, and ridicules its most 
 cherished sanctities: unbelief mocks at prayer; it 
 jeers at a Bible out of which both the Trinitarian 
 and the Unitarian bring convincing and overwhelm- 
 ing proof ; it mocks the Arminian and the Calvinist, 
 as each goes to the same book to prove that the 
 other is wrong ; to the most solitary and august of 
 all sufferers it says, " Save thyself and come down 
 from the cross;" and it flippantly regards the future 
 as a cloud, and heaven as a fantasy. Unbelief is 
 
THE PERMANENT QUANTITY. 6 1 
 
 not confined to technicalities. It is really a mistake 
 to suppose that Unbelief is standing outside the 
 ring-fence of Faith sobbing out its tender heart and 
 begging Christian scholars to explain how, in Sam- 
 uel, David took from the King of Zobah a thousand 
 and seven hundred horsemen, and how, in Chroni- 
 cles, he took from the same king, apparently on the 
 same occasion, a thousand chariots and seven thou- 
 sand horsemen. Dear, sweet, guileless Unbelief is 
 quite prepared to enter the church and enjoy the 
 sacraments if only the number of horses could be 
 made the same in one book as it is in the other. 
 No, no, that is not the measure of Unbelief. That 
 is only where Unbelief begins. When he has been 
 satisfied respecting the horse and his rider, the docile 
 infidel will say, " And how are the dead raised up, 
 and with what body do they come?" Do not 
 imagine that the delightful infidel, that pet of all 
 juveniles, is only waiting to see the Hexateuch prop- 
 erly dated and properly signed, in order that he may 
 adopt the creeds and idolize " the historic episco- 
 pate." Infidelity, where it is honest and courageous, 
 sets itself in ostentatious hostility along the whole 
 line of the supernatural, the revealed, and the in- 
 
62 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 spired, and not merely against certain literal and 
 obvious discrepancies. By all means let discrepan- 
 cies be reconciled or removed — scholarship is quite 
 equal to this useful work — but do not suppose that 
 the successful readjustment of chronologies, dates, 
 and authorships will lead the infidel to accept the 
 Bible as " the inspired record of the Word of God." 
 I question whether it would even help him to do so. 
 Possibly it would bring into more vivid and revolt- 
 ing significance the fact that he " did not like to re- 
 tain God in his knowledge " (Rom. i. 28). It is not 
 for me to become a judge of motive, or to defame 
 men simply because they differ from me ; neither is 
 it for me to contradict " the inspired record of the 
 Word of God " when it declares that certain men 
 " became vain in their imaginations and their foolish 
 heart was darkened," and "they changed the truth 
 of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the 
 creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for- 
 ever." 
 
 I am addressing myself to the point that men may 
 to-day be as directly inspired as were the apostles, 
 and I merely noticed the infidel by the way. That 
 
THE PERMANENT QUANTITY. 63 
 
 there are honest infidels may be quite as true as that 
 some men are born blind. My point is that even 
 now teachers who see no reason to doubt their 
 own inspiration differ from one another in their 
 interpretation of " the inspired record of the Word 
 of God." Then what is the value of inspiration? 
 When a house is divided against itself can it surely 
 stand ? When inspiration has lost its consistency 
 has it not forfeited its authority? Can a fountain 
 send forth sweet waters and bitter? If the inspired 
 men of the present day give different views of fact ; 
 if the very first sentence in some of their books is a 
 misstatement; if their very prefaces are marked by 
 glaring errors of fact — does not this throw a strong 
 light upon some things in the obviously mechanical 
 part of the Bible? Is there not an inspiration of 
 doctrine? Is there not an inspiration that leaves 
 the self-boastful intellect alone and delivers its holy 
 message to the obedient heart alone? There is no 
 need to be afraid of apparently conflicting inspira- 
 tions w r here the moral purpose is noble. The poor- 
 est of all consistency may be identity in words. I 
 do not doubt that a strong biblical argument could 
 be drawn up in support of free-will, and certainly 
 
64 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 an equally strong argument could be drawn up 
 in support of predestinarianism. Nothing can be 
 clearer than the humanity of Christ as delineated in 
 the New Testament; he is called " a man mighty in 
 word and deed," and again he is called " the man 
 Christ Jesus"; he said he did not speak his own 
 words, but the words of him who sent him ; he said 
 his Father was greater than he, and " being in an 
 agony, he prayed." On the other hand, Jesus Christ 
 has been adored and trusted as God the Son, and 
 his deity has been defended out of the very New 
 Testament which is supposed to have proved his 
 simple but holy manhood. Paul is supposed to 
 have taught salvation by faith, and James is regarded 
 as having taught salvation by works. It is possi- 
 ble that some minds may regard these as infinitely 
 greater discrepancies and confusions than those con- 
 nected with dates, localities, battles, spoils, and ped- 
 igrees, and if they are irreconcilable I agree with 
 the estimate formed of their importance. They do 
 not put my faith to any strain. There are great 
 discrepancies amongst human minds. There are 
 great discrepancies in each individual human mind. 
 Man may be described as self-discrepant. Inspi- 
 
THE PERMANENT QUANTITY. 65 
 
 ration operating through such instruments must be 
 affected by the medium of its action. One man is a 
 poet, another is a reasoner ; will they report upon 
 any mystery in the same way? Will they see ex- 
 actly the same thing and nothing more in any fact 
 in life ? I believe that Jesus Christ was a man, and I 
 also believe that he was God the Son. Faith has its 
 function, and so has obedience. Man's will is free 
 within God's sovereignty. The bird may fly in the 
 open firmament, but it cannot pass beyond the 
 horizon. Things apparently so antagonistic do not 
 necessarily contradict each other; when justly inter- 
 preted, they may complete each other. It is along 
 this line that I find satisfaction and peace. A chap- 
 ter of Paul should be followed by a chapter of 
 James. The miracles and the beatitudes should be 
 read together. This doctrine of mutual completion 
 should be applied along the whole line of thought 
 and experience. No one minister is the ministry. 
 No one communion is the Church. No one man 
 is humanity. We need all the parts to make the 
 whole, and we need the whole to understand each of 
 the parts. 
 
 I am not indisposed, then, to believe in present- 
 
66 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 day inspiration, and present-day prophets, under 
 conditions which can be clearly stated, the principal 
 condition being that current inspiration shall operate 
 with biblical lines. The reason for this limitation, if 
 it is a limitation, is that the inspiration of the Bible 
 is inclusive and complete. This would be a mere 
 statement if it could not be instantly followed by 
 illustrations and proofs. My submission is that in 
 nothing whatsoever that is wise, good, true, can 
 present-day inspiration make any advance upon the 
 Bible. That is a clear issue. Happily it is an issue 
 that can be submitted to practical tests. Take the 
 supreme question of character. The quality of man- 
 hood that is produced or contemplated by any book 
 is a good test of the quality of the book itself, pro- 
 vided always that the character is not merely pic- 
 torial, but vital and beneficent. What, then, can 
 transcend the biblical conception of character? It 
 is character founded upon a New Birth. At this 
 moment we are dealing with the conception and not 
 with the inner mystery. Has modern inspiration 
 made any advance upon that conception? The 
 New Birth means in its evolution, holiness, com- 
 pleteness of the divine image in the soul, new creat- 
 
THE PERMANENT QUANTITY. 67 
 
 ureship, eternal life. Can present-day inspiration 
 indicate any omissions of excellence and supply 
 them? If detail is required, here it is : " The fruit 
 of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kind- 
 ness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control." 
 Can one word be added? Take the question of 
 Social Beneficence. Socialism, variously defined, is 
 the rage of the hour. Have we moved one step be- 
 yond the Bible-line? I trust we have inspiration 
 enough to be just even to the Bible. Has any man 
 added one tint of beauty to the parable of the Good 
 Samaritan? Has the modern prophet ever sent a 
 tenderer message to wandering souls than the par- 
 able of the Prodigal Son ? Is social service poorly 
 represented in the closing words of the twenty-fifth 
 chapter of the Gospel of Matthew? Through and 
 through, from Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is 
 saturated with the spirit of sympathy, and alive with 
 the doctrine of social responsibility. What, then, 
 can present-day inspiration do? It will find its 
 function in obedience. New forms and new appli- 
 cations are possible, and in occasional instances may 
 even be desirable, but the root-ideas are in the 
 Bible. That Book is more than a record. Records 
 
68 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 refer to the past, but the Bible claims and rules the 
 whole future. That is an infinite distinction. I 
 call special and prolonged attention to it. The Bible 
 is, indeed, a record; but it is also a revelation. It 
 is not only a tree on whose fruit the ancients fed, it 
 is the Tree of Life, and its leaves are for the healing 
 of nations yet unborn. 
 
III. 
 
 THE ORIGINS. 
 
 WHAT are some of the main results, in reference 
 to biblical criticism, from a popular point of 
 view, which recent inquiry has for the moment ac- 
 cepted? The inquirers are, I cannot too clearly and 
 impressively repeat, our friends and companions in 
 the kingdom and patience of Jesus, and their supreme 
 object is not negative but positive, not destructive 
 but constructive. They are not excelled by any of 
 us in their ardent love of those parts of the Bible 
 which they believe to be inspired. Less and less, as 
 life advances, am I disposed to wrangle with anti- 
 christian or infidel critics, even though they come 
 from a foreign country and overbear us with rugged 
 names. I am not afraid of them. They come and 
 go like epidemics. It is infinitely otherwise with 
 brethren whom we love and honor, and whose holy 
 
 69 
 
70 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 example is amongst us like a light from heaven. 
 What, then, are some of the main positions which 
 our friends invite us to accept? In a popular and 
 general form they may be stated thus : 
 
 I: Some biblical books are either 
 anonymous or pseudonymous. 
 
 2. Inspiration does not guarantee 
 historical accuracy. 
 
 3. Some biblical books are wrong 
 in date, wrong in numbers, 
 wrong in chronology, and mis- 
 placed in canonical order. 
 
 4. Biblical authorship, or editor- 
 ship, is composite : Bible repre- 
 sentations of some great events 
 are dual and even conflicting, 
 as, for example, the two ac- 
 counts of the Creation and the 
 two genealogies of Christ. 
 
 5. The Bible is " the inspired rec- 
 ord of the Word of God." 
 
 If we had to deal with experts only, no difficulty 
 of an insurmountable kind need arise in connection 
 with these positions; but as preachers we have to 
 deal largely with novices whose instinctive judg- 
 ments ought to be regarded, lest in treading them 
 down we do violence even to some rude form and 
 
THE ORIGINS. 7 I 
 
 expression of the kingdom of God. These judg- 
 ments may be generally indicated thus : 
 
 If the Bible is wrong in history, 
 what guarantee is there that it is 
 right in morals? 
 
 If the Bible is not a reliable guide 
 in facts, how do we know that it is 
 a trustworthy guide in doctrines? 
 
 If there are two creations, why may 
 there not be two resurrections? 
 
 If there are two genealogies, why 
 not two Christs? 
 
 If the Bible is untrustworthy upon 
 points which we can definitely test, 
 how do we know that it is to be 
 depended upon in matters we can- 
 not prove? 
 
 These inquiries may be crudely put as to form, 
 yet they are neither unreasonable nor unnatural, nor 
 are they to be treated with professional haughtiness 
 or contempt. Pedantry may sneer at them, but 
 scholarship never sneers; scholarship often pities, 
 and always helps. Scholarship is patient. To pa- 
 tience scholarship owes its riches. The inquiries, 
 then, are popular, perhaps rude, perhaps shallow, 
 but not, therefore, insincere. In view of such in- 
 
72 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 quiries, and in the very degree in which they express 
 an excitement which may cool into unbelief, may 
 not popery claim to have a good defense when it 
 insists upon revelation passing to the people only 
 through the channel of the priest? Popery says, 
 in effect, "The Bible is literature; only scholars can 
 understand it; it is written in many languages abso- 
 lutely locked against the populace; let the priest 
 deal it out discreetly ; do not throw pearls before 
 swine; let the Church keep all the keys." And does 
 not Protestantism pass the Bible to the people, in 
 some instances, through a kind of popery of its own, 
 even through a kind of monastic uniqueness of 
 learning, which can only be understood by experts 
 and specialists? I ask the question in the hope that 
 it can be answered in the negative. I am jealous 
 lest the Bible should in any sense be made a priest's 
 book. Even Baur or Colenso may, contrary to his 
 own wishes, be almost unconsciously elevated into a 
 literary deity under whose approving nod alone we 
 can read the Bible with any edification. It is no 
 secret that when Baur rejected the Epistle to the 
 Philippians as un-Pauline Christian Europe became 
 partially paralyzed, and that when Hilgenfeld pro- 
 
THE ORIGINS. 73 
 
 nounced it Pauline Christian Europe resumed its 
 prayers. Have we to await a communication from 
 Tiibingen, or a telegram from Oxford, before we can 
 read the Bible? The Bible is not the Bible to me 
 because Herr Baur countersigns it, but because it re- 
 veals, as no other book has yet revealed, the almight- 
 iness and the all-love of the Eternal God. 
 
 We are cautioned, however, against calling the 
 Bible the Word of God. It is said to be so mixed 
 up with human error that such a designation might 
 give a false impression. But is not a false impres- 
 sion of exactly the same kind given about the earth 
 when we say 
 
 "THE EARTH IS THE LORD'S "? 
 
 We may not, according to some teachers, say the 
 Bible is the Word of God, but we may say the earth 
 is the Lord's. How do we know that the earth is 
 the Lord's? Who told us? We ought to produce 
 our authority for the bold assertion. Astute ob- 
 servers have not hesitated to say that whoever made 
 the world, whatever else he might be he certainly 
 was not almighty. John Stuart Mill ("Theism") says 
 
74 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 that the Kosmos is marvelously ingenious, "but," 
 he adds, " nothing obliges us to suppose that either 
 the knowledge or the skill is infinite." He thinks 
 the human body is an artful contrivance, but he is 
 of opinion that it might " have been made to last 
 longer" (page 181). Yet we go on saying that the 
 earth is the Lord's regardless of Mr. Mill's tender 
 bringing up. He thinks that the groveling condition 
 of the human race is an argument against the omnip- 
 otence of the Creator, yet he thinks — and his mag- 
 nanimity should be appreciated — that " the divine 
 power may not have been equal to doing more " 
 (page 182). Yet we go on saying that the earth is 
 the Lord's. We dare not say that the Bible is the 
 Word of God, because some infidel will point to 
 chapter four or verse twenty-one and ask if such 
 and such words could have come from lips divine ; 
 and we 'dare not say that the earth is the Lord's be- 
 cause John Stuart Mill would be shocked by the 
 suggestion that such a faulty world could have been 
 created by an almighty agent. Probably in setting 
 up such opponents as the portal through which 
 alone we can properly approach any proposition we 
 are hampering our inquiries by needless conditions. 
 
THE ORIGINS. 75 
 
 Sometimes the enemy should be consulted last, not 
 first. 
 
 We are wisely cautioned against reading meanings 
 into the Bible. We should be also cautioned against 
 reading meanings out of it. If books are rigidly 
 human, we have no right to force upon authors 
 meanings which never entered into their thoughts. 
 The meanings may be vast and brilliant, yet we have 
 no right to treat arithmetic as an effort in poetry. 
 When a man has made a plain turnpike through his 
 estate we have no right to credit him with having 
 seduced the Ganges through his private grounds. 
 But when books are of another quality altogether — 
 if they are in any way inspired — if they, by the very 
 nature of their contents, can only partly express the 
 authors' thought and feeling, and if the authors 
 themselves say so, such books may be justly treated 
 from the point of suggestiveness, and thus there 
 may be found in them the seed of many thoughts, 
 as a forest may repose in an acorn. In the case of 
 the Bible we have a book which deals with infinite 
 subjects only by way of indication, never by the 
 method of exhaustion. As the Spirit helps our in- 
 
76 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 firmities in prayer, so he will help our infirmity in. 
 reading, and thus he may show us wondrous things 
 even in familiar places. I do not want to know 
 what Moses said; I want, as before explained, to 
 know what God said through Moses. He may tell 
 the reader more than he told the amanuensis, yet all 
 the larger meanings may be in the very words of the 
 original dictation ! The amanuensis is dead : the 
 Author cannot die! We do not believe the reve- 
 lation because it is signed, we believe it because of 
 what it is in itself. It is of small consequence to me 
 who wrote the Book of Genesis, but it is of infinite 
 significance to me that its very first sentence is a 
 compendium of the total revelation of the Bible. 
 Minds are variously constituted, so much so that it 
 is sometimes almost impossible for one man to 
 understand another. I cannot expect, therefore, to 
 be universally understood when I say that there is 
 nothing substantial and far-reaching in the whole 
 Bible which is not anticipated and implicated in its 
 very first sentence. To some minds this will be 
 rhetoric, poetry, fancy, fantasy ; yet to my own 
 mind, and provable to my austerest moods, it is the 
 simplest and most convincing logic. In the first 
 
THE ORIGINS. yj 
 
 verse of the Bible I find the message of the whole 
 volume. That first verse may be represented in 
 various ways. As a manner of announcement it 
 is sudden thunder. As a revelation it is morning 
 dawning through gathered darkness. As an answer 
 to mute but hopeful wonder it is like sunrise on the 
 sea. This is the infinite speech : 
 
 " In the beginning God created the heavens and 
 
 the earth." 
 
 Taken as a mere sentence, can it be exceeded in 
 grandeur? Taken as a conjecture, can any addition 
 be made to its sublimity? Taken as an inspired 
 thought, who can heighten its elevation ? Taken as 
 a direct voice from Eternity, who can charge it with 
 apology or incertitude ? If this sentence is not the 
 very Word of God I dare not, I cannot, I will not, 
 say it is the word of man. Let us listen : 
 
 " In the Beginning, — The remotest date that has yet been sug- 
 gested. Science has its slow-rising and 
 slow-falling centuries, yet " the begin- 
 ning " — the dateless date — includes them 
 all and drowns them in a deeper sea. On 
 that ocean millenniums are tufts of foam. 
 
78 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 "GOD, — Personality, Will, Thought, Purpose: an 
 
 undefined Definition — matching the unbe- 
 ginning beginning — an impersonal Person- 
 ality — the shapeless Shape. God! He 
 enters his own Book instantaneously. He 
 comes not as a spectacle, but in the very 
 glory and supreme purpose of Action. 
 
 " Created," — A process; slow, quick, deliberate, infinite 
 
 — before all speech, therefore baffling it; 
 before all form, therefore without com- 
 parison — the beginning of Action, there- 
 fore without parallel. 
 
 Man never spake that Word on his own motion. 
 He was told to speak it. Eternity delivered the 
 secret to him, and whispered it in fit syllables. 
 There is no mark of man upon it. It is a planet he 
 never molded. It is the Morning Star. 
 
 Yes; I find everything there. Now that I go 
 back upon it how clear it is that this is the proto- 
 plasm of revelation. Within how small a compass 
 can the Eternal dwell ! What comes after this will 
 be the attenuation of itself. To meet our ignorance 
 God goes into the very detail in which man has lost 
 him. To create is not a stopping-point in the 
 divine action. " Created " is a pregnant word. It 
 
THE ORIGINS. 79 
 
 is necessarily initial and incomplete as a mere term. 
 If God " created " he did everything which that 
 word can imply : 
 
 To create is to PROTECT; 
 To protect is to REDEEM; 
 To redeem is to PRIZE; 
 To prize is to COMPLETE; 
 To complete is to GLORIFY. 
 
 Creation, therefore, is a complex and multitudi- 
 nous act, not an ostentatious and dazzling display of 
 mere might. Man begins much and finishes little. 
 His broken columns stud the cemeteries of the ages. 
 He may be tracked by his abortions. Even a 
 woman may forget her sucking child. The sub- 
 creator, proud and wanton, selfish and shortsighted, 
 may be a monster, and may judge the Creator by his 
 own littleness. That is our continual temptation. 
 We infinitize ourselves and call the issue God! 
 Man can leave his plow in mid-furrow, and abandon 
 his tower when half built, but God having " created" 
 will accomplish the fullness of his purpose and place 
 the approving crown upon the perfected miracle of 
 his grace. 
 
80 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 As to processes needful for the detailed evolution 
 — processes of many kinds, natural, social, military, 
 imperial, personal, disciplinary — they will come and 
 go in infinite variety of combination, and when 
 rightly grasped they will all be seen to help the cen- 
 tral and dominating purpose. The danger is that 
 we may be lost amidst the incessant and cross-mov- 
 ing details. The moment we lose hold of the unit 
 the fractions may make inroad upon our faith. 
 When we are troubled by the second verse we 
 should instantly return to the first. There we have 
 read of the creation of the earth, but we have heard 
 nothing of man. Yes we have. Man is in the first 
 verse. The house implies the tenant. No man 
 builds a house that it may stand empty. There is 
 an unwritten logic even in commonplace daily life. 
 The earth has no meaning in itself. In itself it was 
 not worth creating. Does a lock suggest nothing 
 beyond itself? Is the bride a picture self-complete? 
 Does she fill and satisfy the altar before which she 
 stands? Even a palace is ghastly emptiness until 
 inhabited. One little child would turn its gilt into 
 gold. One human look would soften its glare into 
 a home. Thus I see man, and all God's dealings 
 
THE ORIGINS. 8 1 
 
 with man, in the one word " created." The account 
 of the creation has been called a poem — a conven- 
 ient term for the concealment of unbelief and the 
 flattery of ignorance ; but to my mind no drearier 
 prose can be read if Man is omitted from the stately 
 action. Grass and herb, and trees and waters, and 
 sun and moon and stars, and great whales and fly- 
 ing fowl, cattle and creeping things, so moves the 
 ponderous monotony, until the unseen image of God 
 is revealed and humanized, and God and man stand 
 face to face in the fellowship of love. Then we be- 
 gin to understand. Then the future begins to grow 
 out of the seed of the present. Then sunbeams are 
 smiles. We have seen a Vision, and it has made all 
 things new. We know what it is to have seen our 
 own other life : that thrilling moment the heart can 
 never mingle with the common time ; the sight of 
 Destiny is the date at which the exultant soul passes 
 its transfiguration. At that point what to me is the 
 Word of God begins, and at that point it might end 
 if I had eyes to see. In the spirit created by that 
 experience — that first sight of the meaning of things 
 — I must watch all the detail, or it may bewilder and 
 unsettle me. The immeasurable spaces of time that 
 
82 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 may separate the events no imagination can compute 
 and designate. I do not know what a " day " is or 
 a "word." I only know that God and man are in 
 conference, and so infinite is the stoop of heaven 
 that the terms of conference are practically equal. 
 By and by I shall see how man dresses his garden 
 and keeps it. If man should fall from " our image 
 and our likeness " all that he does will bear the 
 shameful stigma of his guilt. His language must be 
 tainted by his deceit. The shadow of death will lie 
 along the whole way of his life. Yet I shall not on 
 that account undervalue the created heavens and 
 earth. The earth is still the Lord's, though loaded 
 and burdened by the cities of man. The moon 
 and the stars shine by God's ordination, though an 
 unholy reek, hot with human wickedness, veil their 
 placid luster. My suspicion of man need not shock 
 my faith in God. I will hide myself in the first sen- 
 tence of the Bible as in an appointed place. 
 
 Taking this view of the first sentence of the Bible, 
 I find no difficulty in discerning in it Jesus Christ 
 and all his work. This " God " is a plural Deity yet 
 One ; plural because One ; in arithmetic one may be 
 
THE ORIGINS. 83 
 
 solitariness, in life it may be completeness. The 
 discerning of Christ in this verse would to some 
 minds be what is called spiritualizing; to my mind 
 it is the true literalism. So variously are we consti- 
 tuted, though the humanity is the same! Paul had 
 no difficulty in seeing Christ in all the action and 
 purpose of creation. Nay, more, of creation the in- 
 carnate Christ was the first-born — 
 
 " the image of the invisible God, 
 the first-born of all creation ; for in 
 him were all things created, in the 
 heavens and upon the earth, things 
 visible and things invisible ; ... all 
 things have been created through 
 him, and unto him, and he is be- 
 fore all things, and in him all 
 things hold together." 
 
 Where did Christ claim this for himself, except by 
 implication? How did Paul come into the posses- 
 sion of this mystery except by that Spirit which 
 brooded upon the waters when " the earth was with- 
 out form and void " ? Let us indeed take care lest 
 we read meanings out of texts as well as into them. 
 Where God has been, all beauty has been, all music, 
 all light: the sermon can never hold all the text. 
 
84 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 Christ is here and I knew it not, and Calvary, yet I 
 did not understand. The Atonement is older than 
 the Creation, not in historical time, which is of yes- 
 terday, but in the divine thought, which is from 
 Eternity. Christ is the " Lamb slain from before 
 the foundation of the world." He was before all 
 history. Moses wrote of him, and Abraham saw his 
 day. His visible personality was but a parenthe- 
 sis in a movement of infinite sweep. We will per- 
 versely live in the bare, bleak wilderness of history 
 when we might revel amidst the riches of the Ineffa- 
 ble, and thus we starve the soul, and stifle prayer at 
 the very point where it might have become praise. 
 
 As certainly as Redemption was involved in Crea- 
 tion, Ascension was involved in the Resurrection. 
 It is curious, and full of profitableness, to watch how 
 the flower is involved in the seed. Curious, too, to 
 observe how everything is something more than 
 itself, looking backward and reaching forward so as 
 to complete its identity. When Christ rose from the 
 dead the rising was the beginning of the Ascension ; 
 its foretoken and hostage. Christ did not rise that 
 he might establish a miracle and then die again. 
 
THE ORIGINS. 85 
 
 "Death hath no more dominion over him." He 
 " was raised from the dead through the glory of the 
 Father." " Christ being raised from the dead dieth 
 no more." This is the full meaning of Resurrection. 
 " In Christ shall all be made alive." The Ascension 
 is not a separate and independent act. All such 
 acts go back to the multifold word " created." It 
 must be more than a word to us ; it must be many 
 words in one. Creation is ever a movement toward 
 life, larger life, life more abundantly, life that floods 
 out death. Interruptions will stand in its way, but 
 they will be overborne and abolished. " The last 
 enemy that shall be destroyed is death." But has 
 death no antecedent? Is it a word cut off, and 
 standing apart without explanation? Nay, verily. 
 The same law prevails here. Death is the fruit of 
 sin. And is "sin" in the word "created"? It is. 
 We put many things in a wrong light if we deny 
 this. We de-centralize the Eternal Throne. We 
 must not dissociate sin from the forethought of God, 
 and start some rival providence. But is God the 
 author of sin? There we begin to be deceitful with 
 ourselves. We stand on the brink of a mean quib- 
 ble. We do not realize the infinite immensity of the 
 
86 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 occasion, so we cannot bring in the relieving lights, 
 the healing compensations, the far-away totality. 
 Some questions must be reserved. Enough for my 
 immediate faith that there is but One Creator, and 
 that he is able to work the final reconciliation. Sin 
 troubles me as a problem, and if I could not set God 
 above it, and hand it over to his sovereignty, I could 
 no longer pray. Not here but there, not in little 
 time but in boundless eternity, shall we see death 
 and hell cast into the lake of fire. 
 
 Prayer is another action involved in the term 
 ''created." Creation implies creaturedom. Crea- 
 turedom implies — it does more, it necessitates — 
 Prayer. Creaturedom means limitation, and limi- 
 tation means necessity, and necessity is unspoken 
 prayer. The question is not, Whether we will pray. 
 We cannot help it. Once realizing the veriest rudi- 
 ments of civilization — once above the line of savage 
 life — we must pray ; perhaps not intelligently, not 
 definitely, not reverently, but prayer cannot be 
 stifled by adverbs ; the prayer will be there. It may 
 be only a fear, a hope, a look, a superstition, but 
 there it is. It may be degraded into idolatry, or it 
 
THE ORIGINS. 87 
 
 may be invested as a hypocrisy, yet it remains and 
 operates in the life. We may even change the word 
 without changing the thing signified ; we may speak 
 of aspiration, longing, wishing, yearning, desiring, 
 but we do not shake the reality we have not courage 
 to avow. When we pray we are true to our crea- 
 tion. We get back to God's first thought of us. 
 When he created man his purpose was fellowship. 
 That fellowship began in conversation ; on man's 
 side it passed into a cry for pity. Creation ex- 
 plains prayer. Creation, rightly understood, com- 
 pels prayer. We have lost something and must find 
 it. To-day, to-morrow, or the third day, we must 
 somewhere, be it on the hill where the light laughs, 
 or in the valley where the graves are cut, some- 
 where, in garden or wilderness or furnace of fire, we 
 must pray — in our soul's burning fever we must find 
 a God or invent one. 
 
 After this review of the contents of the first verse 
 of the Bible, I return easily and with fuller convic- 
 tion to my first position, that the whole Bible, as to 
 its supreme purpose, is by implication in that verse, 
 and in the degree in which I grasp that thought the 
 
88 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 Bible becomes to me the Word of God. As to how 
 that Word may be written, or in any way set forth, 
 how it may bear marks of editorial error as to 
 authorship, dates, numbers, and details, that is a 
 question which must be left to experts and special- 
 ists ; but even they must be careful not to invert 
 proportions and relations so completely as to give 
 the idea that the divine element in the Bible is a little 
 straggling rill feebly making its way around huge 
 boulders and through hot sands of human ignorance 
 and Jewish prejudice. From my point of view the 
 disclosure of that divine element is the one reason 
 for which the Scriptures were written. If it was the 
 one reason for which the Scriptures were written, 
 there can be no difficulty on my part in describing 
 the Scriptures by their main and indeed sole pur- 
 pose, and not by the mechanical execution either of 
 authors, editors, or canonists. But what of the in- 
 fidel who will point to some hard text and stumble 
 at it? Nothing. Beginning at that text he begins 
 at the wrong point, and beginning with him I 
 should begin with the wrong man. I do not dismiss 
 him from my consideration, yet I cannot accept him 
 as the standard by which the Bible is to be judged. 
 
THE ORIGINS. 89 
 
 But where does the Bible claim for itself that it is 
 the Word of God? In its structure, in its unity, in 
 its purpose. Again I would remind myself that the 
 assertion or non-assertion of mere claim is nothing. 
 Our friends claim that the Bible is a marvelous 
 unity, but, we might retort, where does the Bible 
 claim unity for itself? If argument is to be founded 
 upon literal claim, the inquiry is as good in the one 
 case as in the other. Viewed from their standpoint, 
 it is simply impossible that the Bible can claim unity 
 for itself. It is written by many writers. Its writ- 
 ers probably knew little or nothing of each other. 
 It is a collection of pamphlets. The Scriptures 
 spoken of by the apostles did not include their own 
 writings ; at best the reference is to the Old Testa- 
 ment, and now it is submitted by some that the Old 
 Testament is but a record of what God did in the 
 days of the ancient Jews, and that its claim upon 
 our attention is remote rather than immediate and 
 authoritative. What, then, of the marvelous unity, 
 and where is that unity claimed in the Bible for the 
 Bible? And is a book nothing more than it form- 
 ally and expressly claims to be? Suppose we say 
 that Blackstone's Commentaries arc the highest 
 
90 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 authority upon the subjects they treat, where does 
 Blackstone make any such claims for his Commen- 
 taries? If we find that he makes no such claim, 
 shall we degrade the Commentaries into a second- 
 ary place ? May not a book create its own standing, 
 and become all but canonized by universal apprecia- 
 tion? I am not prepared to regard the Christian 
 Church of all ages as an anonymous mob, nor am I 
 prepared to deny continuous and direct inspiration ; 
 and putting these two things, and all they involve, 
 together, I must treat at least with respect the esti- 
 mate which has been placed upon the Bible by the 
 Church universal. If I have to choose between the 
 judgment of the Church, and the criticism of the in- 
 fidel who is shocked by isolated texts, I will choose 
 the judgment of the Church. 
 
 There are two passages in the New Testament 
 which may greatly assist us in our reading of the 
 Scriptures. Perhaps by following out all their mean- 
 ing we may be able to see how a claim may be set up 
 even within the Bible itself for its own unity and its 
 own inspiration. One' of these passages occurs in 
 the narrative of our Lord's Temptation in the Wil- 
 
THE ORIGINS. 9 1 
 
 derness. When the tempter quoted a text, the 
 tempted Saviour replied: "It is written AGAIN." 
 Scripture completing itself is the best commentary. 
 And that is the best answer to the infidel who is 
 horrified by Exodus iv. 24-26. Say to him: " It is 
 written AGAIN." Do not blot out the passage in 
 order to calm his perturbation, but set another 
 passage beside it. The Bible is self-interpreting. 
 Where the pool is bitter, the tree of healing is close 
 at hand. Here the concordance may be the best 
 commentary. "Again, another Scripture saith " 
 (John xix. 37), is the greatest answer that can be 
 returned to any inquirer. Within the Bible you will 
 find both the enigma and the answer. The second 
 help to a right understanding of the Bible I find in 
 such words as these : 
 
 "And his disciples remembered 
 that it is written. . . . When, 
 therefore, he was risen from the 
 dead, his disciples remembered . . . 
 and they believed the scripture. 
 . . . When Jesus was glorified, 
 then remembered they that these 
 things were written of him. . . . 
 Then remembered I the word of 
 the Lord." 
 
92 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 Thus the word may remain a dead letter until ex- 
 perience gives it vitality and force and claim. In 
 the interpretation of many Scriptures, Experience is 
 the efficient scholarship. We know the twenty-third 
 Psalm because our souls have passed through it line 
 by line. We do not supersede grammar; we pass 
 into a region it cannot enter. I venture to think 
 that if we read the Scriptures in the light of experi- 
 ence and history many an obscure or forgotten pas- 
 sage would become expressive and prophetic. We 
 should be startled into many an exclamation. His- 
 tory is the amplification of Scripture. Experience 
 is the corroboration of the Bible. " Then remem- 
 bered they " ! " When he was risen from the dead, 
 his disciples remembered " ! So it is with ourselves. 
 Memory is awakened within us every day. Deeds 
 we had forgotten stand out in radiance. Words 
 little heeded at the time have, years afterward, given 
 up their secret as the sea gives up its dead. Some 
 texts are for the far-off centuries to explain. The 
 explanation of other passages we shall find in 
 heaven. 
 
 Meanwhile what is to be our attitude in relation 
 
THE ORIGINS. 
 
 93 
 
 to Christian scholarship? It is to me very pitiable 
 that the Christian scholar has so often to fight his 
 way into recognition, all the while being suspected 
 and distrusted by many people who have not a 
 shadow of a right to sit in judgment upon him. It 
 is also not a little discomforting that doctrines which 
 have in England fought their way into popularity 
 are to-day the occasion of almost martyrdom to 
 some eminent leaders in America. Forty years ago 
 men were expelled from professorial chairs in Eng- 
 land for laying down dogmas and suggestions which 
 men then unborn are now preaching to influential 
 and applauding congregations. Christian scholar- 
 ship has no other wish than to know the truth and 
 to make it known. By all means let it be watched ; 
 by all means hold on to the old until the new has 
 been proved ; at the same time make ample room for 
 Christian learning, and give our scholars to feel that 
 we expect them to be thorough and independent. 
 Any Bible that can be stolen from us is not worth 
 keeping. If we hold revelation in the letter only, 
 it may be corrupted by the moths, or thieves may 
 break through and steal; but if we hold it in the 
 spirit, if the heart knows and loves the meaning of 
 
94 
 
 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 the Word, we shall be safe in a great fortress, we 
 shall feed on the bread of heaven. On the other 
 hand, scholars must continually assure us of their 
 well-defined and inexpansible limitations, knowing 
 well that at many a point on the sacred way they 
 must put off the sandals of grammar and lexicon, 
 and stand before God in the nakedness and humilia- 
 tion of absolute Necessity. This they know right 
 well, and so long as they work in the spirit of that 
 knowledge they must be held in honor and in rev- 
 erence. Be the Bible what it may, we owe it to 
 scholarship. Let us not smite the hand which has 
 reaped and garnered our largest harvests. No one 
 knows so well as the scholar himself that he can do 
 little or nothing with the first verse in the Bible. 
 Its main words stand infinitely out of reach of his 
 apparatus. As the heaven is high above the earth, 
 so is the word GOD above all other words. We can 
 approach God only at the lower end of his ways — 
 the whispering of his strength — less than an echo of 
 the thunder of his power. Even when he clothes 
 himself with the universe his figure cannot be de- 
 scried — even in history there is a tumult rather than 
 
THE ORIGINS. 
 
 95 
 
 a presence — even in Christ the mystery is not lost. 
 In thinking of God we have been compelled to think 
 of him under the conditions of Personality. The 
 Bible itself so represents him. What personality 
 means who can definitely and finally say ? Is it only 
 a symbol to start from? Is it an indefinable term? 
 Are we, notwithstanding all our claims and boasts 
 and ambitions, mere outlines of personality, with just 
 too little of its quality to know anything of its fullest 
 meaning? Personality is a term we must not strain 
 too much. If we use it aright, it will help us a little 
 here and there ; but if we overstrain it, possibly it 
 may become the precipice narrowly separating be- 
 tween us and destruction. When we connect it with 
 what we know of life, intelligence, and sympathy, it 
 may be most helpful. But these words themselves 
 require definition. Life is as mysterious a word as 
 God. What is intelligence but a dimly lighted line 
 lying between ignorance and omniscience? And 
 sympathy is love in action. But what is low ? 
 What? Thus we are always kept outside — outside 
 of our very selves; half-interpreters of our own 
 words, self-menders, apologizing to ourselves to-day 
 
96 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 for having mistaken or misled ourselves yesterday. 
 In this condition of things we are thankful for all 
 the aid of learning, yet we feel that outside of it, 
 above it, beyond it far, are many things which can 
 only be "spiritually discerned." 
 
IV. 
 
 THE LIVING WORD. 
 
 THAT Jesus Christ came into the world is a fact 
 supported by other evidence than that of the 
 New Testament. Here we are not dealing with 
 mythology, but with history. Then let us raise the 
 question — 
 
 Why did Jesus Christ come into the World ? 
 
 Some say that Jesus Christ came into the world 
 that he might reveal the Father; others, that he 
 might show us an Example ; others, that he revealed 
 himself as the head of the race; some, that he might 
 prove in his own blameless and hallowed life the 
 possible perfectness and obedience of self-sacrifice. 
 He showed how self-will might be overcome. He 
 was the supreme Virtue. He was the ideal Man. 
 In him all human excellence culminated, All these 
 
 97 
 
98 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 answers I reject simply on the ground of insuffi- 
 ciency. To my mind they do not rise higher than 
 the level of personal opinions. They are not reve- 
 lations ; they are not even audacious guesses ; the 
 answers are not of the quality of the question. The 
 only sufficing answers that I know of are in the New 
 Testament. Modern inspiration may have discov- 
 ered them to be wrong, yet I receive them after 
 asking to be guided by God the Holy Ghost. Here 
 they are: 
 
 " He was manifested to take 
 away our sins." — I John iii. 5. 
 
 " For this purpose the Son of 
 God was manifested, that he might 
 destroy the works of the devil." 
 — 1 John iii. 8. 
 
 " The Lamb of God which taketh 
 away the sin of the world." — John 
 i. 29. 
 
 " Christ Jesus came into the 
 world to save sinners." — 1 Tim. 
 i. 15. 
 
 The Son of man is come to 
 seek and to save that which was 
 lost." — Luke xix. 10. 
 
 We feel at once that these are not mere opinions, 
 nor hesitant guesses, nor such answers as any mere 
 
THE LIVING WORD. 
 
 99 
 
 man outside the election of grace could have given. 
 If they are wrong, they are the sublimest mistakes 
 in history. To bring the personality of Christ within 
 the compass of our opinion would be a profane im- 
 pertinence. Once Jesus Christ himself showed how 
 impossible it was for mere opinion to compass the 
 magnitude of his Personality. " Whom do men say 
 that I the Son of man am?" This was a challenge 
 to Opinion to do its best. It was a magnificent 
 opportunity. Having heard all that Opinion could 
 do by way of criticism, Christ inquired, " But whom 
 say ye that I am ? And Simon Peter answered and 
 said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." 
 That was the answer of Revelation. Christ instantly 
 and as it were exultantly accepted it. as such. For 
 that reason I would humbly go to Revelation for all 
 my answers. Opinion has mocked me : Revelation 
 has filled my soul with light and joy. It is assuredly 
 profitable for doctrine. The answers which have 
 just been quoted are so clear as to make it evident 
 that but for sin we should not have known Christ 
 after the flesh — in the manner of what we now call 
 the Incarnation. We owe Jesus to sin. But what 
 is sin ? It is a familiar word in the New Testament, 
 
IOO NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 Without it such a Testament would have been im- 
 possible. Yet Jesus himself hardly ever used the 
 word, perhaps never in exactly the same sense in 
 which the apostles used it. In Matthew, Mark, and 
 Luke, it would be substantially true to say that sin 
 is a word hardly named at all. In John the term 
 does occur a few times, but hardly in the Pauline 
 sense. Yet Jesus was manifested to take away our 
 sins! For this purpose the Son of God was mani- 
 fested! Christ Jesus came into the world to save 
 sinners ! 
 
 What is sin? Let us regard it as disobedience, 
 violation of law, revolt from God, self-will, self-in- 
 dulgence, each of these, all of these, even more than 
 all. It is easier to feel what sin is than to say what 
 it is. A possible difficulty may be thus stated : As 
 sin is a spiritual offense, why not overcome it by 
 spiritual means? Why an incarnation, a crucifixion, 
 a blood-offering, a resurrection? Does the remedy 
 lie along the same line as the disease? As the 
 offense was moral, should not the remedial agency 
 be moral also? It is characteristic of the greatest 
 
THE LINING WORD. ioi 
 
 questions that they cannot be wholly answered. It 
 is especially characteristic of the Bible that its events 
 bring their own explanation. No book calls for so 
 much retrospect as the Bible. Other books can 
 explain themselves at every point of their own prog- 
 ress, but the Bible explains in one century what it 
 said in another. Its very revelations are enigmas 
 until the answ r ers come. This was made very clear 
 by Jesus Christ himself, who after his resurrection 
 began at Moses and the prophets and all the Script- 
 ures, and expounded to the dejected disciples the 
 things concerning himself. Why could they not 
 read them intelligently for themselves? There was 
 the writing, why did they not read it and grasp its 
 meaning? When Jesus Christ expounded the Script- 
 ures, he re- wrote them. He is still their one Ex- 
 positor. The Bible is a sealed book to the oldest 
 and wisest of men until it is opened by the Lion of 
 the tribe of Judah. Thus the Bible is not to be 
 compared with other books. Its meaning does not 
 come through criticism, but through spiritual illumi- 
 nation ; it is the gift of God. The reason of the In- 
 carnation, then, must be found in the events which 
 
102 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 accompanied and followed it — in the events which 
 may be happening in our own day — in the present 
 facts of our own experience. 
 
 The Incarnation of Christ was the - divine answer 
 to another incarnation. Sin had already clothed 
 itself with flesh. It had made itself visible above 
 all other spectacles. It had darkened the whole 
 sky. There is no doubt about this degraded incar- 
 nation — sin had poisoned the very blood, and shamed 
 the heavens with wantonness. Christ, then, had not 
 to address himself to a metaphysical or transcendental 
 difficulty — a spiritual tragedy which had not come 
 into the sphere of words and deeds — something liv- 
 ing far back in the soul, as a specter hardly assured 
 of its own existence. That was not the problem. 
 The world was lying in the wicked one. It was in 
 the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity. Here 
 is an insight into its condition : 
 
 " When they knew God 
 they glorified him not as 
 God, neither were thank- 
 ful ; but became vain in 
 their imaginations, and 
 their foolish heart was 
 
THE LINING WORD. 103 
 
 darkened. Professing 
 themselves to be wise 
 they became fools. And 
 changed the glory of the 
 uncorruptible God into 
 an image made like to 
 corruptible man, and to 
 birds and to four-footed 
 beasts and creeping things. 
 They were filled with all 
 unrighteousness, fornica- 
 tion, wickedness, covet- 
 ousness, maliciousness; 
 full of envy, murder, de- 
 bate, deceit, malignity ; 
 whisperers, backsliders, 
 haters of God." 
 
 That was the problem! That was the first in- 
 carnation! Then was Jesus born in Bethlehem of 
 Judea, and the people that sat in darkness saw a 
 great light. 
 
 If, then, we want a definition of sin, we must read 
 its own history and thus study its own incarnations. 
 It is not an etymological term ; it is a bitter experi- 
 ence. To the intellect sin may be little more than 
 a word more or less indicative of some superficial or 
 temporary flaw, slip, irregularity, or mischance : to 
 
104 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 the heart which has seen its first vision of holiness, it 
 is everything that can be typified by the word " hell " 
 — it is the abominable thing which God hates — it is 
 a blasphemy which disdains the portrayal of words. 
 There must be a vision of sin as well as a vision of 
 holiness. They have reciprocal effects. We must 
 see ourselves before we can see God : we must see 
 God in order to see ourselves. This is a difficulty 
 in words, yet the heart knows the answer to the rid- 
 dle. But how can there be sin if man is an evolu- 
 tion rather than a creation? Has he not come up 
 through all the countless ages higher and higher, 
 glorious with ever-brightening splendor? If we say 
 Yes, we do not disprove the Bible account, we may 
 only illustrate it. Even science may be confronted 
 by practice, and compelled to pay some attention to 
 commonplace. We ourselves are the best answers 
 to the evolution which flatters us. Let us talk the 
 matter out quite frankly: — We have come up from 
 the lowest form of life ; we have outgrown many 
 signs of early degradation ; we have, through mill- 
 ions of ages, passed from beasthood to manhood; 
 we can think, speak, act ; quite true ; but does it fol- 
 low that we cannot sin? Can we not bite and de- 
 
THE LIVING WORD. 105 
 
 vour one another? Is murder impossible? Is false- 
 hood beyond our reach ? If we can do wrong, when 
 did we begin to do it? Why did we begin to do it? 
 When did we become conscious of it ? If it is a part 
 of a great Necessity, why do we punish it? Why 
 not tolerate it in others? Why complain of it? If 
 it is point in progress, why chafe under it, resent it, 
 condemn it, and load it with penalty? The Christian 
 contention is that at whatever point man did wrong, 
 at that point he needed divine interposition. There 
 must have been a moment when man became a re- 
 sponsible agent, whether he was developed or created, 
 the proof being that he is now, at all events, a re- 
 sponsible agent, and the argument is that when he 
 became a responsible agent he did something which 
 affected his own moral standing and history. That 
 something we call Sin. That something called Sin 
 Christ was manifested to destroy, to take away, to 
 forgive. Evolution is a theory : Sin is a fact. 
 
 It was to the fact of Sin that Christ immediately 
 addressed himself. He began to preach, and to say 
 Repent. That was his first sermon. The keynote 
 was full of significance. " Repent," pronounced by 
 
106 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 such lips, was a condensed statement of the world's 
 condition. " For the kingdom of heaven is at hand," 
 was Christ's way of announcing his own Personality. 
 He was himself that kingdom and its King. In 
 this business of sin-destruction the earth needs the 
 heavens. The action is spiritually astronomic. The 
 motive or the reason must come from above, not to 
 terrify by its dignity, but to sustain and redeem by 
 its sufficiency. Hence the mingled tragedy and 
 glory of that opening call — 
 
 " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." 
 
 Then came the miracles, saying the same thing in 
 another language. They were full of the kingdom 
 of heaven in its tender, domestic, healing aspect. 
 They were gospels for the body. But not for the 
 body only, only for the body as an entrance to the 
 soul. It was the inner vision Christ wanted to open 
 when he healed the blindness of the body. The 
 leprous flesh was cleansed that a way might be 
 found to the leprous soul. After the sermon and 
 the miracles came the cross, repeating the same 
 mystery of thought and recovery, but with a pathos 
 
THE LI VI N G WORD. \oj 
 
 unique and ineffable. The cross cannot be explained. 
 To nail our poor theories on that tree but shows how 
 our love has cooled and stiffened and expired. It is 
 a mystery as a fact ; it is a mystery as an explana- 
 tion. Yet a mystery which communes with the 
 heart and fills it with unutterable joy ; a twilight 
 mystery ; the password of the evening breeze, on 
 which the Lord ever comes to Eden ; a mystery 
 better known through tears than through speech, 
 yet that may be known in a way no words can ex- 
 plain. We must not think of it as too dazzling to 
 be useful, but as too tender to be rejected. I would 
 only remove the mystery from the cold intellect that 
 I might transfer it to the glowing heart. 
 
 But the cross is associated with blood. Yes. We 
 must not set up our refinement against Christ's 
 agony. Let us warn our very souls against the 
 shameful affectation of being more appalled by the 
 blood than by the sin. A very wonderful thing this 
 is that man should have become so refined as to 
 shrink from blood and yet be able to speak of sin as 
 if it shocked no feeling. Thus we deceive ourselves. 
 We pretend to sink the sinner in the gentleman when 
 
108 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 we stand before the cross. This may be the deepest 
 depth of infatuation. On the other hand, we must 
 not think of blood only, but of the blood of Christ. 
 Nor of the blood of Christ only, but of " the precious 
 blood of Christ" — the very word being twice qual- 
 ified, and thus raised out of common thought into 
 regions of dignity and holiness. The last of Christ's 
 miracles before the resurrection was to turn his own 
 blood into wine. That blood lay beyond the reach 
 of Roman spear. That blood did not fall upon the 
 earth and waste itself in the dust. Corruptible gold 
 could have bought corruptible redemption, but we 
 have come by faith to know that we " are not re- 
 deemed with corruptible things." 
 
 When we sink into the humiliation which alone 
 befits our sense of sin — when we abhor ourselves in 
 dust and ashes — the thing above all other things that 
 we do not want is an Example. After redemption 
 we need it, but not before. To preach to me the 
 fact and the doctrine of Christ's Example when I 
 am stung through and through with experiences of 
 my sin is simply to mock me. It is to oppose to 
 me an infinite sneer. I then want a Saviour, not an 
 
THE LIVING WORD. 109 
 
 Example. I want salvation, not rebuke. Do not say 
 to me, See in Christ an instance of self-sacrifice and 
 loving obedience, but say to me, Behold the Lamb 
 of God which taketh away the sin of the world. 
 Bring down your gospel to the pit of my helpless- 
 ness. Tell angels of examples, but to the sinner 
 preach a Saviour. And that Saviour must have in 
 his hands the print of the nails and in his side the 
 wound of the spear. I must see them and feel them 
 by faith. The redness of his apparel must proclaim 
 his quality. He must not come to me in the snow 
 of his holiness, but in the crimson of his sacrifice. 
 The shame of my sin can bear the sight of his blood. 
 This would be ecstasy but for the humiliation and 
 the sorrow of my soul. My contrition takes it out 
 of the rank of romance and sets it at the head of 
 facts. As the cross is the one way to heaven, so 
 conscious sin is the one way to the cross. To the 
 intellect it is foolishness, to pride it is a stumbling- 
 block, but to broken-heartedness and self-helpless- 
 ness it is the very power and love and glory of God. 
 
 The heart has many moods, and the aspects of 
 Christ and his work must be various enough to 
 
1 10 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 meet them all. Science is for experts ; the cross is 
 for sinners. As the world is many, so the heart itself 
 is many. It must be met in every experience, es- 
 pecially in its agony on account of sin. The tempta- 
 tion of the expert is to write for experts. He can- 
 not easily change his apparatus. He talks to his 
 peers, or to those who may become his peers, 
 through long training and much acquisition. But 
 the evangelist talks to the common heart, speaking 
 to every man of the wonderful works of God in the 
 tongue wherein the man was born. This is the great 
 translation. This is the pentecostal miracle. Thus, 
 instead of emptying the gospel message out of one 
 language into another, God the Holy Ghost enables 
 every man who has received the gift of life to tell 
 the gospel story in the only truly original language 
 of living and definite experience. Grammar is not 
 excluded ; it is subordinated. The expert and the 
 evangelist should work together. In this connection 
 the point is that Christ's work should appeal to every 
 mood of the heart, and that to exclude the evangel- 
 ical view of that work is to leave the heart without 
 comfort or hope in its bitterest desolation. It is not 
 to be supposed that the world is full of experts who 
 
THE LIVING WORD. \ \ \ 
 
 are only waiting for a rectified record in order to 
 become Christians. We must not imagine that the 
 question of dates is standing between men and the 
 forgiveness of their sins. Such questions are by no 
 means unimportant, yet there are other questions 
 which infinitely transcend them in urgency. Take 
 this case : What must I do to be saved ? I have 
 sinned against heaven with an outstretched arm : by 
 day I have no light and by night no rest because of 
 the pain and shame of self-reproach : I dare not look 
 toward God in his righteousness : I am hopeless, 
 helpless, desolate. — What is the answer to the con- 
 dition faintly indicated by these confessions? for be 
 it always understood that such agony has no ad- 
 equate speech. I have always found that the best 
 answer is the cross, and that the reply of the cross 
 is this: 
 
 1. Jesus Christ came expressly to 
 meet such cases. 
 
 2. That Jesus Christ did something 
 for the sinner which the sinner 
 could never do for himself. 
 What that* something is no 
 words can fully tell. 
 
 3. That Jesus Christ tasted death 
 for every man, 
 
112 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 4. That where sin abounded grace 
 did much more abound. 
 
 5. That Christ is able to save unto 
 the uttermost. 
 
 These are the great evangelical replies, and by them 
 the sincerity of the inquirer may be tested beyond 
 doubt. Broken-heartedness on account of personal 
 sin will never chafe under such gracious and heal- 
 ing counsel. These replies are greater than literal 
 criticism. They are spiritual answers to a spiritual 
 condition. They express the majesty and the pathos 
 of the crucified Christ. There are moments in the 
 soul's suffering when that word 
 
 CRUCIFIED 
 
 shines with the glory of an immediate revelation. 
 It represents the tenderest love of God. It bruises 
 the serpent's head. 
 
 Have we not some hints of deeper meanings in 
 the case of common human suffering? Here is one 
 mourning for his firstborn, and will not be com- 
 forted. The life so lonely, the grave so deep and 
 cold, the farewell so long; the poor heart cannot 
 bear it ; faith totters under a mortal blow ; the very 
 
THE LINING WORD. \ \ 3 
 
 soul is almost turned into desperate blasphemy. 
 Who amongst us can touch that agony — who dare 
 speak to such sacred woe ? Can the physiologist 
 calm the heart by his science ? Can the physician 
 recall the vanished joy by some professional state- 
 ment? Who, then, can find the door of the sanctu- 
 ary ? Only one who has suffered a kindred loss. 
 One who has been crucified. One who knows the 
 password of grief. Sorrow must speak to sorrow. 
 Wound must speak to wound. So with the deeper 
 agonies. We have not an high-priest that cannot 
 be touched. He lays his wounds on ours — he heals 
 us with his blood. 
 
 This can hardly be explained in words. Perhaps 
 we may find it convenient at this point — face to face 
 as we are with such unfathomable words as Sin and 
 Blood — to make up our minds to some working es- 
 timate of the limit and function of Explanation as 
 applied to Christian mysteries. For my own guid- 
 ance, personally and pastorally, I have laid down a 
 few governing principles. Thus : 
 
 1. The human can never fully 
 grasp or realize the whole 
 meaning of the divine. 
 
114 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 2. The inability of the human to 
 grasp the whole meaning of the 
 divine is not a humiliation but 
 a necessity and a discipline. 
 
 3. To insist upon the literal and 
 exhaustive explanation of spirit- 
 ual mysteries is one of the most 
 deceitful impulses -of intellectual 
 vanity. 
 
 4. Every attempt to bring spiritual 
 mysteries within purely intel- 
 lectual apprehension is to en- 
 croach upon the function of the 
 heart as the best interpreter of 
 God. 
 
 5. Obedience to the divine will is 
 the primary condition of know- 
 ing all that is knowable of the 
 divine doctrine. 
 
 Within the range of these principles I have 
 escaped the frets and disappointments inseparable 
 from fruitless ambitions, and in that degree have 
 been enabled to bring undivided attention to bear in 
 legitimate directions. They have, too, if I may con- 
 tinue to be personal, had a useful effect upon all 
 my endeavors after what is called definite religious 
 teaching. I have lived to know that we can be as 
 definite in declaring a mystery as in stating a fact. 
 
THE LINING WORD. \ \ 5 
 
 The soul may be a long time in coming to the ap- 
 prehension of that possibility. The mystery is itself 
 a fact. We have to walk under the sky, not over it. 
 We have to worship God, not to understand him. 
 The honest teacher will never be ashamed to say, " I 
 do not know." He must often say so, and at these 
 points, marked against trespass, he and his students 
 will unite in common prayer, and temptation may 
 be resisted by fasting. We cannot be as definite in 
 the statement or even in the apprehension of spirit- 
 ual truth — the truth which is without form — as in 
 the statement of scientific facts, for reasons which lie 
 within the facts themselves. Science concerns itself 
 with phenomena, with the measurable, the ascer- 
 tainable, the concrete, and when it gets to the limit 
 of phenomena it stops, lest it should stumble upon 
 a religion. With what does religion concern itself? 
 With God and sin and motive, with redemption, for- 
 giveness, character, destiny. Science can make all . 
 the words it wants for the telling of its wondrous 
 tale; but religion is always short of words, and so is 
 driven into exclamations and impetuosities which lit- 
 eralists easily mistake for cant. It cries out, Who 
 can find out the Almighty unto perfection? Who 
 
Il6 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his 
 counselor hath taught him? Oh the depth of the 
 riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! 
 How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways 
 past finding out! Whether in the body or out of 
 the body, the spiritual man is often quite uncertain, 
 and as for the things he hears in the higher places — 
 the subdued thunders, the thrilling whispers, the 
 weird beating of unseen wings, the inscriptions in 
 half-lightning and in half-gloom — he says, such 
 communings and visions are not for words, they are 
 for the heart's mute wonder. In religion there are 
 few things we can fitly tell. Religion can sometimes 
 do little more than hint at its own secret. We can 
 measure the altar, but not the prayer. We can tell 
 all about the Roman gallows, but language is hushed 
 and awed before the Christian cross. The crucifix- 
 ion is Roman ; the Atonement is divine. We know 
 it and receive it and trust it expressly in its char- 
 acter as a mystery. It must not be supposed that 
 because it is a mystery we do not know it. Forget- 
 ting that a doctrine may be received as a mystery, 
 we confuse all the higher truths and put them in a 
 false relation. It is a high attainment of knowledge 
 
THE LINING WORD. 117 
 
 to know that some things cannot be known. It is 
 just at that point that the divine faculty for which 
 the best name is Faith begins its unique work in the 
 soul. Faith does no commerce in the small market 
 of explanations. Faith has infinite ventures on the 
 seas and continents of mystery. It is the substance 
 of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen. 
 Thus we stand in a great mystery. Sin and Atone- 
 ment, Law and Forgiveness, Holiness and Destiny, 
 are mysteries. We hold them in Christian faith : all 
 we know about them we learned from a Book which 
 has taken such hold of our highest nature that we 
 have come to regard it reverently as 
 
 THE WORD OF GOD. 
 
V. 
 
 THE WORD TAUGHT. 
 
 IT is supposed that Science is definite and that 
 Religion is vague in its dogmas. This supposed 
 difference has sometimes been the occasion of a 
 taunt against the Christian faith in particular. It is 
 said with no little truth that the heterodoxy of one day- 
 is the orthodoxy of another. Yet this need not be 
 any reproach. The fact would be the more remark- 
 able if its application could be strictly limited to 
 religion, whereas it applies equally to the whole line 
 of civilization, and may therefore be only a fact be- 
 cause it is first a principle. We may not be dealing 
 with an accident ; we may be face to face with a law, 
 and with a law so universal and so urgent as to be 
 the very soul of civilization. If it is true of religion 
 (and I am not prepared to doubt it) that the het- 
 erodoxy of yesterday is the orthodoxy of to-day, it 
 
 118 
 
THE WORD TAUGHT. 119 
 
 is certainly true of science and philosophy that the 
 knowledge of one century is the ignorance of the 
 next. Civilization is a process of self-correction, yet 
 civilization is inspired by one unchanging purpose. 
 Religion may be perpetually changing its forms and 
 re-adapting its appliances, yet its central truth is 
 eternal and immutable. Prayers may vary, but wor- 
 ship is constant. It may be worth while, however, 
 to examine the plea that there is more definiteness 
 or certainty on the side of science than on the side 
 of religion. 
 
 Where shall we find this definiteness? Is it to be 
 found in the history of Medicine, taking that term in 
 its largest meaning ? An Egyptian king, as far back 
 as the first Egyptian dynasty, is said to have written 
 a work upon Anatomy. Where is it ? Is that work 
 consulted to-day? Hippocrates has a great name as 
 a father of medicine and a founder of science, yet his 
 biographer says that Hippocrates knew nothing of 
 anatomy, and was absolutely ignorant of the relation 
 which subsists between the vital parts of the human 
 frame. Galen, the head of the Roman science of his 
 day, laughed at all the medical sects and refused to 
 
120 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 join any of them, preferring the wisdom and the lib- 
 erty of eclecticism. But is it possible that there are 
 these medical sects? Surely all medical men, being 
 men of science, are agreed? There are allopaths 
 and homeopaths and hydropaths and electropaths 
 and herbalists, but they all live together in happy 
 and beneficent cooperation, because science is defi- 
 nite and majestic in its dogmas, and its believers have 
 all things common, neither does any man say that 
 aught he has is his own. They all say that saliva 
 operates chemically upon certain constituents of 
 food, but they all differ as to how this is done. One 
 man, called Liebig, has published a "supposition" 
 upon the point, and now that " supposition " has 
 been recognized and tolerated by science we may 
 infer that some of its dogmas are not hopelessly 
 definite. All living things inspire the living air, and 
 we are told that numerous chemical theories have 
 attempted to explain how the oxygen is removed 
 from it. Whether oxygen, after forming an acid, 
 unites with the alkalies, or whether it attaches itself 
 to the corpuscles of the fibrin, or unites with phos- 
 phorus or fatty matter, we are told that the chemists 
 do not know, but by the time the next encyclopaedia 
 
THE WORD TAUGHT. 12 I 
 
 is published something definite may have been found, 
 and then the new dogma will laugh at the old one, 
 until a newer dogma still arises to rebuke the pedan- 
 tic merriment. Still, science would compassionately 
 recognize religion if religion would only make up its 
 mind to stand by a sworn affidavit. And philoso- 
 phy, too, is partly under the ban of science because 
 it will not definitely say whether consciousness re- 
 sides in the brain or imbeds itself in the spinal 
 marrow. 
 
 But perhaps it is along other lines that the 
 severity of definite science is to be found. When 
 Sir Isaac Newton said that white light consists of 
 seven different colors, quite a civil war broke out, all 
 the nobodies of Europe assailing Newton, and even 
 the eminent Huygens ranged himself with the blind 
 assailants, Newton said that in the case of light it 
 was impossible to have refraction without dispersion, 
 and vice versa; but Tyndall says that Newton was 
 wrong, and Dolland proved it by an ingenious com- 
 bination of his own. Aristotle and Descartes had 
 elaborated a philosophy of Nature, but when New- 
 ton published his " Principia " Aristotle and Des- 
 
122 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 cartes were no more heard of, notwithstanding the 
 definiteness of science. But John Hutchinson came 
 along with another u Principia," in which he displaced 
 the vacuum of Newton by the plenum of Hutchin- 
 son, and to his own satisfaction demolished the New- 
 tonian doctrine of gravitation. Hutchinson had so 
 learned the Hebrew language as to be able to prove 
 to his own mind that the Bible contains a complete 
 and infallible system of natural history, and if we 
 laugh at Hutchinson we laugh also at Parkhurst, the 
 lexicographer, and at Dr. Home, Bishop of Norwich, 
 for they were both Hutchinsonians until the bishop 
 came back to the Newtonian standpoint simply to 
 illustrate the possibility of a backslider's conversion 
 and to confirm the infallible certitude of science. 
 
 Descartes used to be regarded as a kind of idol, 
 and to be ranked with Plato, Aristotle, and Bacon ; 
 yet it has been declared that " the majority of his 
 physical speculations lie, and have long lain, in utter 
 ruin," and Professor Huxley says, " We have left 
 Descartes himself some way behind us." Descartes 
 had a neat religion thus neatly expressed — " I think, 
 therefore I am;" but Huxley strikes out the " there- 
 
THE WORD TAUGHT. 1 23 
 
 fore," because, as he bluntly says, " it has no busi- 
 ness there." Huxley holds that the necessary out- 
 come of Descartes' views is Idealism, and there we 
 might have found a moment's peace but for the 
 appearance of Descartes' great successor, Kant, who 
 brought in the doctrine of Critical Idealism, which, 
 among other things, refuses, says Huxley, " to listen 
 to the jargon of more recent days about the ' abso- 
 lute ' and all the other hypostatized adjectives." 
 Behold how these men of science and philosophy 
 agree, and silence your religious contentions! 
 Huxley contradicts Descartes' theory of the motion 
 of the blood, Roemer denied his theory that light 
 is transmitted instantly through space, and Dolland, 
 as we have seen, contradicted his view respecting 
 refraction and dispersion. So much for the unanim- 
 ity of science as opposed to the melancholy and be- 
 wildering divisions of religion! Perhaps, however, 
 it is in Mathematics that Science is majestically 
 and finally definite. Certainty is the very soul of 
 an Axiom. For example, take one of Euclid's very 
 first definitions. A point is position without magni- 
 tude. How intuitively we perceive the infinite cer- 
 titude and exquisite definiteness of this definition ! 
 
124 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 Yet I now solemnly deny that there is one word of 
 truth in it. I distinctly affirm that position without 
 magnitude is a contradiction in terms. Position is 
 itself magnitude. It may not be magnitude that is 
 measurable by a foot-rule, but it is still magnitude. 
 Even a point takes up the place of some other point. 
 Anything that excludes any other thing cannot be 
 said to be without magnitude. And if one point is 
 position without magnitude, what shall be said of 
 two points? Ten times nothing is nothing, and ten 
 times " without " is " without," so what is true of the 
 one point is true of the ten. It is certain that you 
 cannot put two points in the same place. If you 
 put one on the top of the other, it is still not in the 
 same place. The magnitude is increased by height. 
 Whatever is on the top of something else is higher 
 than the thing on which it rests. I therefore deny 
 the position of Euclid. And I must follow Euclid 
 with equal denial when he says that a line is length 
 without breadth. I say that length and breadth are 
 inseparable. The breadth may not be measurable 
 by a foot-rule, yet it is breadth nevertheless. And 
 when Euciid tells me that things that are equal to 
 the same thing are equal to one another, I call for 
 
THE WORD TAUGHT. 125 
 
 qualification or explanation before I can admit it. 
 The fact that A and B are equal to C makes A and 
 B equal to one another is true enough so long as 
 you are dealing with symbols, but in complex rea- 
 soning, in reasoning that affects human life, there 
 are no naked symbols, so, having got rid of the sym- 
 bols, you have got rid of the toy-axiom. A ton of 
 coals and a ton of diamonds may be equal to a ton 
 of feathers, but the one point of equality is in the 
 word "ton," or in the accident of mere weight, and 
 after that the inequalities are glaring and innumer- 
 able, so much so as to render the one point prac- 
 tically valueless and contemptible. You will be ex- 
 pecting me to deny that one and one make two. 
 That is exactly what I do deny. What is one? 
 One what? And is "one" possible? Is solitari- 
 ness possible ? Does it not sometimes take two to 
 make one? Is not "one" an assumption? Does 
 it not assume the universe? Does it not assume 
 totality ? If we were talking the common language 
 about common things, we need not go into these in- 
 quiries, but that is exactly what we are not talking; 
 we are on a line of analysis which, like everything 
 else in the universe, goes back to God. 
 
126 • NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 Is science discredited by such self-corrections as 
 have been pointed out? On the contrary. They 
 invest it with the only authority that is of real im- 
 portance. They show it to be alive. At the same 
 time they should teach it a wise charity and pa- 
 tience in relation to deeper inquiries. What is it 
 that changes in the evolution of Christian thought? 
 Only its forms, its embodiments, its apparatus. Jesus 
 Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, 
 but his living Church advances into fuller light and 
 acquires a larger language of sympathy and love. 
 Christian teachers might add to their best influence 
 by admitting that they are only growing in their 
 knowledge of the Lord Jesus, and are but struggling 
 with their first lessons. That, however, need not 
 prevent them dwelling upon the " things which are 
 assuredly believed " ; on the contrary, it should drive 
 them in that direction with fuller gratitude and con- 
 fidence. A spiritual stammerer has no right to be 
 in the pulpit. In the pulpit the speaker should say 
 what he does know, know by love, know by experi- 
 ence, know by prayer, for only thus can he feed 
 the flock of God. Indefiniteness is not greatness. 
 Ignorance is not necessary humility. A preacher 
 
THE IVORD TAUGHT. 127 
 
 should always be able to fall back upon his own 
 experience. This was the strength of the Apostle 
 Paul. He related the story of his life ; he pointed 
 out where he was and w r hat he was when the " mar- 
 velous light" struck him blind; he dwelt upon the 
 wondrous interview with the unseen but pleading 
 Christ; he showed how he came out of the great 
 agony into the greater joy ; and men who listened 
 were made to feel that they had not only to answer an 
 argument but to disbelieve and reject a man. There 
 must be no indefiniteness about character. The het- 
 erodoxy must never be moral. Where intellect shades 
 its eyes, where eloquence interrupts its fluency, 
 character must erect its standard and boldly illus- 
 trate the miracle of grace. 
 
 Christian hearers themselves need a hint or two 
 upon this matter of definiteness in pulpit teaching. 
 They must realize that Christian truth is not a set 
 of names and phrases which must be heard in every 
 sermon if the sermon is to be considered orthodox. 
 They must learn, too, that all those favorite names 
 and phrases may be there, and the spirit of the gos- 
 pel be utterly absent. There is an evangelical spirit 
 
128 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 as surely as there is an evangelical doctrine. The 
 evangelical doctrine without the evangelical spirit is 
 the ghastliest of skeletons. Who can preach about 
 Gethsemane twice in the same day ? Who can meas- 
 ure the rest that should follow a true recital of the 
 story of Calvary ? To speak rightly of the cross is 
 to be on it. Yet we may speak of the whole duty 
 of life in the spirit of the cross. What is called 
 common morality would thus be raised to its. proper 
 level. We should then discourse of secularism in 
 the holiest temper. We should exalt reason until 
 she prayed at the right altar. We should denounce 
 crime with the wrath of Christ's love. It has often 
 been pointed out that Christ's own Sermon on the 
 Mount is not what would be now considered evan- 
 gelical. Nor is it, probably, if we look at words 
 only. But what is its spirit? This is the highest of 
 all illustrations of the point that a sermon is not to 
 be judged by its words only. The remarkable thing 
 about the Sermon on the Mount is that Christian 
 preachers have often endeavored to explain it away, 
 not by rough attack or blunt denial, but by the 
 kind of compliment which has removed its supreme 
 doctrines from the rank of practicableness. Thus 
 
THE WORD TAUGHT. 129 
 
 they have always made it ideal, transcendental, poetry 
 to be admired rather than prose to be obeyed. In 
 this way they have taken out of the Sermon this 
 very virtue of definiteness. They have turned it 
 into a kind of ethical rainbow, quite lovely and won- 
 derful, a very miracle of color and delicacy, but so 
 wraith-like or spectral as to be practically useless. 
 This will, of course, be largely denied, yet it will 
 remain a fact that the sects and persons most zeal- 
 ously resolved to carry out the letter of the Sermon 
 have been sneered at or pitied as fanatical and ec- 
 centric. If any man should be tempted to wonder 
 whether the Sermon on the Mount is definitely evan- 
 gelical, let him try to reduce its precepts to practice, 
 and he will soon cry out in despair, " Lord, save 
 me, or I perish." 
 
 Not only has Definiteness been called for, but Sim- 
 plicity has also been demanded almost with vehe- 
 mence. Why this demand for simplicity ? It is never 
 demanded in science. The want of it would seem, 
 in the estimation of those who know least about it, 
 to be the crowning proof that at last we have reached 
 a high point of civilization. My submission is that 
 
130 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 there are no simple propositions in Christian doctrine. 
 I advance upon this, and submit that what looks like 
 the simplest Christian proposition is more profoundly 
 mysterious than any proposition or canon in science. 
 Take a proposition in Analytical Geometry : 
 
 " If a circle be described about 
 the axis major, then ordinates to 
 the ellipse and the circle to the 
 same abscissa, have to one an- 
 other the proportion of the axis 
 minor to the axis major." 
 
 To the non-mathematical mind this is an accumu- 
 lation of mysteries. Is there in Christian doctrine 
 an abstruser proposition ? I answer, Yes. If called 
 upon to produce that proposition, I would instantly 
 
 quote — 
 
 "GOD IS LOVE." 
 
 Compared with that proposition, all the profun- 
 dities and polysyllables of science are the shallowest 
 vulgarities. They appeal to but one section of the 
 mind. They leave the heart, the will, the conscience, 
 and the spiritual imagination untouched. They can 
 be interpreted by a hired schoolmaster. They are 
 intellectual recreations. Yet, " God is love " is one 
 of the propositions which is often commented on as 
 
THE WORD TAUGHT. 131 
 
 the very flower and perfection of simplicity ! Never- 
 theless we have in those three little syllables a doc- 
 trine that goes back to eternity, that unites and 
 interprets the whole evolution and tragedy of ex- 
 perience, that invests the Godhead with personality, 
 and that discovers the foundations of the eternal 
 throne. " God is love " is the inclusive proposition 
 — it is the encyclopaedia of doctrine ; it is the secret 
 of the universe. Creation is there, and providence, 
 and redemption. That legend blooms in every flower 
 and glows in every star; and it is working its way 
 through all sin and pain and tears, and will work 
 until in a sanctified humanity and a reconciled uni- 
 verse it interprets and crowns the purpose of the 
 cross. 
 
 I am not aware that the word " simple " is ever 
 applied in the New Testament to the preaching or 
 the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is a remarkable 
 fact. Let me be regarded as speaking with extreme 
 caution when I say that I cannot recall an instance 
 in which the hearers of Jesus Christ exclaimed, " How 
 simple!" Does the word "simple" ever occur in 
 an intellectual sense in the New Testament? Yet 
 
132 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 to-day the cry is, " The simple gospel ! Preach the 
 simple gospel! Give us the simple gospel! Trust 
 to the simple gospel!" If Christ never used the 
 term, and if the apostles never used the term, would 
 it not be wise to inquire whether it is proper for us 
 to use it? "The simplicity that is in Christ" is an 
 expression which Paul uses in his Second Epistle to 
 the Corinthians, but it has no reference to the intel- 
 lectual character of the gospel ; it is, rather, a moral 
 term equal to " singleness of affection," a charac- 
 teristic of " a chaste virgin " — a heart intense and 
 undivided. That Jesus Christ never used the term 
 " simple " may be inferred from the popular re- 
 marks which were made upon his preaching, such 
 as these : 
 
 The people were astonished at 
 his doctrine (Matt. vii. 28). 
 They were all amazed, and ques- 
 tioned among themselves. . . . 
 What new doctrine is this? 
 (Mark i. 27. ) Never man spake 
 like this man (John vii. 46). 
 They were astonished, and said, 
 Whence hath this man this 
 wisdom? (Matt. xiii. 54.) All 
 that heard him were astonished 
 (Luke ii. 47). They were aston- 
 ished at his doctrine, for his word 
 was with power (Luke iv. 32). 
 
THE WORD TAUGHT. I 33 
 
 There is nothing here about simplicity. There is 
 nothing about "the simple gospel." It is supposed 
 that " only believe " is the simplest of all exercises. 
 " Only" does not mean "simply" in the sense that 
 the act is one of ease. Belief is the supreme miracle. 
 It is a condition of birth. It is the Mount of Trans- 
 figuration. It is the glorious act of going over from 
 self to God. The obvious danger connected with 
 the popular view of simplicity is that what is so 
 very superficial in meaning may become equally 
 superficial in practice. Men may thus in a sense 
 play with their religion ; they can effect compro- 
 mises ; they can adopt expedients ; they can modify 
 convictions ; in a word, they can have a form of 
 godliness without the power thereof. This kind of 
 simplicity is to be dreaded. All sorts of tares and 
 poison-seeds may be sown in such a bog, some of 
 which may come to fruitage. Better, infinitely bet- 
 ter, hold that Jesus Christ is the revelation of God, 
 that he came down from the bosom of the Father, 
 that he is the incarnate mystery of eternity, and the 
 Eternal Firstborn, in whom all life lives and all glory 
 shines. Infinitely better, because when these sub- 
 lime mysteries enter the heart and involve the mind 
 
134 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 in their holy splendors, they uplift the whole being 
 and elevate human character by cleansing and en- 
 nobling the motives out of which it proceeds. 
 
 Yet we need not dispense with the word " simple," 
 or ''simplicity." It is a very significant word when 
 opposed to complex or complexity. Simplicity may 
 be represented as a cloth or web unfolded or without 
 folds ; whereas complexity is as a cloth folded, and 
 folded again, and again folded. Or take the various 
 translations of aTiXor/]? given in the New Testament. 
 It is rendered simplicity (Rom. xii. 8), singleness of 
 your heart (Eph. vi. 5), and a form of it is translated 
 as a single eye, in Matthew and in Luke. The ref- 
 erence is, as just said, to singleness of affection, a 
 heart with one love, a life with one aim. Of that 
 kind of simplicity we cannot have too much, for it 
 means that amidst the conflicts, doubts, questionings, 
 and wonders which accompany all vital education 
 the loyalty of the heart to the glorious Saviour is 
 steadfast and incorruptible. Such simplicity, single- 
 ness of aim, and definiteness of love must ever be 
 held to be a luminous commentary upon the gospel 
 itself, which is thus shown to be opposed to all tor- 
 
THE WORD TAUGHT. I 35 
 
 tuousness of mind, all ambiguity of speech, all crook- 
 edness of purpose, all doubleness and wavering of 
 will. If that is what is meant by the simplicity of 
 the gospel, then let it be magnified and illustrated on 
 every hand. 
 
 But who is sufficient for these things as an am- 
 bassador of Christ ? Who can, who dare, accept the 
 responsibility of representing such definiteness and 
 such simplicity? Perhaps we may be enabled to 
 indicate an answer by studying a proposition which 
 has been strongly stated thus : 
 
 " Every living preacher must 
 receive his message in a com- 
 munication direct from God, and 
 the constant purpose of his life 
 must be to receive it uncor- 
 rupted, and to deliver it without 
 addition or subtraction." 
 
 Unless I am permitted to define and qualify the 
 proposition I must not only reject it, but do all in 
 my power to guard others from accepting it. Un- 
 derstood in one way — no doubt the way which was 
 clearly before the author's mind — it may have the 
 effect of bringing the preacher's soul under a most 
 
136 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 holy discipline, and may be specially useful in dis- 
 couraging the invention of personal idols ; on the 
 other hand, it may create and foster and justify the 
 very evils it was intended to put down. If the 
 proposition is self-complete, it is wrong; if it is to be 
 read in the light of certain strong and even vital as- 
 sumptions, it may be right. Regarded as self-com- 
 plete, it puts the individual preacher into a position 
 of exaggeration. It ignores the Bible entirely. It 
 overlooks the fact that there is a common revelation 
 — an open vision — a definite message already writ- 
 ten and intended to be brought within the knowl- 
 edge of " every creature." The world is not waiting 
 for some holy man to climb the hill of God and bring 
 down a new commandment or beatitude. We have 
 the living Word — we know the heavenly will — we 
 have been with Jesus and have learned of him ; we 
 have this treasure in earthen vessels. There need 
 never be any uncertainty about the divinity of our 
 message. We ourselves need to be constantly 
 strengthened, inspired, and enlightened; we must 
 live and move and have our being in God ; along the 
 line of individual discipline our duty is obvious and 
 
THE WORD TAUGHT. 1 37 
 
 imperative; but as to our Message, is it not written 
 for us and handed to us as a sacred trust? 
 
 Regarded as self-contained, the proposition would 
 seem to create a species of sacerdotalism. It might 
 be regarded as equivalent to this : 
 
 Every living preacher receives 
 his message in a communica- 
 tion direct from God, and as a 
 faithful messenger he delivers it 
 without addition or subtraction. 
 
 What are the people to do in the presence of such 
 a man ? Is he less than a priest, a divinely elected 
 channel of at least a particular kind or quality of 
 grace? Is he not removed from the ranks of 
 brotherhood and set upon an official pedestal ? And 
 of what avail is it, except as increasing the irony of 
 the situation, that he abjure gown and bands and 
 stole and chasuble, if in a layman's garb he. claim 
 what is hardly distinguishable from a priestly func- 
 tion ? The clothes do not make the priest. I am not 
 prepared to believe that God gives direct commu- 
 nications to every living preacher in any sense that 
 puts the living preacher into a category of his own ; 
 
138 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 my belief is that God communicates with his Church 
 — "ye are God's clergy;" that he "sends a plentiful 
 rain upon his inheritance," and that no humble soul 
 is denied a sight of the open vision. 
 
 If the position of the preacher is thus made in a 
 sense sacerdotal, notwithstanding disclaimers, what 
 shall be said of the position of the Bible ? If preach- 
 ers are preaching direct communications from God, 
 if the word of the Lord comes as certainly as it once 
 came, are we to understand that the Bible is a local 
 book, a limited message, an ancient story, an ex- 
 hausted revelation? The author of the proposition 
 would reply in a vehement negative, but even a ve- 
 hement negative might not cover the ground. It 
 is most unprofitable to lay down a huge proposition 
 and then to cut it away term by term. Better far, 
 for practical purposes, to reason to a conclusion, to 
 carry forward all the vital assumptions, to clear the 
 ground step by step, and then to announce the grand 
 total of the process. In the degree in which I have 
 done this in the conduct of my own argument, I feel 
 entitled to say that the Bible is to me the contem- 
 porary of all ages, a revelation at once ancient and 
 
THE WORD TAUGHT. 1 39 
 
 modern, the living Word which abideth forever, and 
 my conviction is that every humble reader of the 
 everlasting record is encouraged to pray, " Open 
 thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things 
 out of thy law; yea, open thou mine understanding, 
 that I may understand the scriptures." I would go 
 even farther, and would resolutely test every sermon 
 by the Bible, rather than test the Bible by the sermon, 
 by whomsoever preached. Jesus I know and Paul I 
 know, but I do not know any man who sets them 
 aside. Having listened to the discourse of the truest 
 and wisest preacher, I would reserve the right 
 to search the Scriptures daily, that I might know 
 whether I had been listening to the word of man or 
 to the Word of God. 
 
VI. 
 
 FUNDAMENTALS. 
 
 THE form of personal testimony has thus far been 
 purposely adopted with a view to the strict limi- 
 tation of responsibility. I have tried to state my own 
 faith — the faith on which I live — in words as clear and 
 simple as I could find. More and more I see that 
 faith must be a man's own. We fail when we try to 
 pass faith on from hand to hand as a set of words 
 which no man may change. Words were made for 
 men, not men for words. There need be no wonder 
 that in the coming and going of words some things 
 may seem to be new which in fact are really old. It 
 is only the word that is new; the truth has put on a 
 new form for a new day. The old trees dress them- 
 selves in new leaves every spring. I have come to 
 see how possible it is that even doubt itself may be 
 a form of faith. The mind does not always move in 
 
 140 
 
FUNDAMENTALS. 
 
 HI 
 
 straight lines. But if it did, may it not be true that 
 straight lines are impossible in a universe of circles? 
 The mistake may be in thinking that there are any 
 straight lines. Even a diameter is limited by the 
 circumference. Teachers recognizing diversities of 
 constitution and temperament will make a differ- 
 ence between one doubter and another — " on some 
 have compassion, making a difference " — but they 
 must always meet sincerity with patience, and not 
 allow themselves to see perdition in every troubled 
 or even hostile inquiry. Our cross-examiners may 
 be only feeling their way to the Rock and the Altar. 
 What is to be our answer to those who are always 
 calling out for some new thing even in religion? 
 The call may not be frivolous. Even newness is not 
 necessarily despicable. It is not unreasonable, how- 
 ever, if any good use is to be made of the past, to 
 meet newness with some degree of suspicion. It has 
 sometimes falsified its own credentials. Yet a house- 
 holder should bring out of his treasure things new 
 and old. May I venture upon the paradox that only 
 the old can be the really new? Your house is new, 
 but how old is the earth on which it is built? Your 
 furniture is new, but how old was the walnut wood 
 
142 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 out of which it was cut ? And what is our hoary 
 " old " compared with the true antiquity? The gray 
 old minster on which centuries have written their 
 cipher is of yesterday compared with the rock out of 
 which it was cut and on which it rests. Or if the 
 newness that is admired and desiderated partakes of 
 the nature of what is called "originality," the same 
 remark applies. Originality is always on the road 
 to commonplace. It is on the commonplace that we 
 live. Life feeds on bread. The unique is only the 
 universal brought to a point. This is so with per- 
 sonality. You and I and the common multitude 
 make Shakespeare possible. If all men were Shake- 
 speares there would be no Shakespeare. If all plains 
 were mountains there would be no mountains. The 
 hill is only the valley as high up as it can get. You 
 would be surprised how poor the bust looks when it 
 is taken off the pedestal. All this applies to doc- 
 trine. All this is a reply to the clamor for origi- 
 nality. Notwithstanding the modern prophets and 
 yesterday's untested inspiration, I do not believe in 
 new doctrines. I believe in new ways of combining 
 the seven notes, but I am not sure that an eighth 
 note has been discovered, Other Handels and Bee- 
 
FUNDAMENTALS. 1 43 
 
 thovens will arise, but the seven notes abide forever, 
 ready to respond in new obedience to new masters. 
 New illustrations we should welcome : new doctrines 
 we should suspect. In comparing old things with 
 new it is but common justice to remember that all 
 the Christian miracles, by which I now mean all the 
 wonders of home and foreign evangelization, were 
 wrought by the old doctrines and the men who were 
 prepared to die for them. I put in the history 
 of missions as evidence. I never heard of a new 
 hypothesis founding a missionary society. The men 
 who believed in the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, in 
 heaven and hell, in verbal inspiration and in eternal 
 punishment, proved their faith by their works. They 
 may have been intellectually misguided, but they 
 were faithful and noble to the point of self-sacrifice, 
 and we who think they were mistaken have entered 
 into their labors/ and ought to be their grateful debt- 
 ors forever. 
 
 Can we take an optimistic view of the present 
 Christian outlook ? Has not Christianity had its day, 
 and has it not gone down as a sun that is set? Yes. 
 It has gone down precisely in that way. I am not 
 
144 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 aware that when the sun has gone out of sight it 
 has gone out of existence. I believe that the bright 
 view is the only full view, and therefore the only true 
 view. The danger is that we be tempted to draw 
 large conclusions from a very limited number of 
 facts, and to forget that under the law of advance 
 there is a law of retrocession and modification. The 
 movement of God is not to be judged in inches. 
 Not even in centuries. It is to be judged, as we 
 have seen, by the first verse of the Bible. We have 
 examined it and found all the guarantees there. 
 The creating God is the perfecting God — is so, not 
 poetically, but by the very necessity of his own 
 attributes. In the evolution of Christian history we 
 undoubtedly come upon eras of barrenness and we 
 pass through zones of storm. But we must take in 
 more horizon if we would judge wise judgment, and 
 the details we must leave to the Master; he will 
 shape them and correct them, and rule them into his 
 beneficent economy. If we would work more and 
 manage less, our rest would be less scared by ill-bred 
 dreams. Work helps faith. Faith is ever calm. 
 Upon what are we standing? Are we standing 
 upon the work of man or upon the Word of God — 
 
FUNDAMENTALS. 1 45 
 
 upon a resolution that can be amended, or upon an 
 Oath that is unchangeable ? There can be no diffi- 
 culty in proving from its own contents and its own 
 spirit that the Bible is distinctly optimistic. From 
 first to last the outlook is bright. The serpent can 
 hurt the heel only, but the bruised heel is to crush 
 the serpent's head. The name of Christ is always 
 associated with triumph ; true or untrue, fact or fic- 
 tion, the Bible contemplates nothing but victory. 
 
 " I beheld Satan as lightning 
 fall from heaven." 
 
 " When Christ ascended up 
 on high he led captivity captive. " 
 
 1 ' Having spoiled principalities 
 and powers, he made a show of 
 them openly, triumphing over 
 them." 
 
 We are not now discussing the truth of these 
 views. Our one point is that from first to last the 
 Bible sees nothing but victory ; and the continuous- 
 ness of that foresight, considering the incessant and 
 tremendous action of the book, is itself an argument. 
 I cannot give up the logical value of that significant 
 fact. If one writer only had been jubilant and the 
 
146 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 others had been despairing, the value of the argu- 
 ment would have been destroyed. " The seed of 
 the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent " 
 would seem to be the heroic declaration which the 
 Bible sets itself to make good. If the whole Bible 
 had been the work of one man, the value of the 
 argument would have sunk immensely. But the 
 Bible is the work of many men, in many places, and 
 in many centuries, yet its tone never varies, its cour- 
 age never declines, and that fact, which can be tested 
 by any reader, I claim not as a fact only, but as an 
 argument that cannot be shaken. Truly, there is 
 sorrow enough in the Bible, but it is the kind of 
 sorrow essential to perfect joy. True, also, that the 
 Bible is a record of conflict and hostility — the very 
 history of perdition itself — in a sense quite as much 
 a revelation of the devil as of God — but the enemy 
 is dashed to pieces like a potter's vessel : " Unto the 
 Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and 
 ever; " "he shall be as the light of the morning 
 when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds." 
 The Bible does not ignore the tragedies which con- 
 vulse and darken the human story — this is no blind 
 optimism that tints the sky with hectic colors — the 
 
FUN DA MEN TALS. 1 4 7 
 
 whole horror is realized, and in the ghastly presence 
 of sin's vast havoc the Apostle exclaims, " Where sin 
 abounded, grace did much more abound." The 
 grace is not overborne by the sin, the sin is over- 
 borne by the grace. I claim this, then, as an argu- 
 ment set in many lights and reasoned by many 
 minds, yet ending in the vindication of one law and 
 in the coronation of one Personality. 
 
 The optimism of the Bible is to be the optimism 
 of the Church and all its ministries. This is to be 
 the spirit of our service. We are saved by hope. 
 We are inspired by hope. We build in hope. 
 Under the influence of this assurance of final triumph 
 we shall remember in all our work that there are 
 other people in the world besides infidels and ob- 
 jectors. It has for a long time seemed to me that 
 for any man to build his ministry upon the supposi- 
 tion that he is going to convert infidels by answer- 
 ing their objections and removing their difficulties is 
 to adopt a policy which must end in disappointment. 
 That special arrangements may be made for this kind 
 of service is another matter. I am speaking of the 
 purpose and staple of the Christian ministry. Infi- 
 delity may soon exalt itself into a profession. To 
 
148 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 some men infidelity may be the only possible distinc- 
 tion. I seriously doubt whether an infidel can even 
 ask a question in a right spirit, and in Christian in- 
 quiry the right spirit is everything. If I may not 
 say that the Bible is the Word of God because the 
 infidel will at once draw my attention to a hard verse, 
 neither may I tell him that prayer is answered, be- 
 cause he will at once tell me that many a prayer for 
 safety has been followed by shipwreck, and many a 
 prayer for recovery has been followed by bereave- 
 ment. Neither may I tell him that God rules the 
 world, or he will at once point me to still harder 
 verses in human life. And who is this wonderful 
 man the infidel, that he should plant himself in 
 mid-stream and divert the current of Christian teach- 
 ing as he pleases ? What are his credentials ? Is he 
 greater than the apostles, the pastors, and the mis- 
 sionaries whom we have known? Is their inspiration 
 less than his no-inspiration ? I boldly deny this man's 
 right to be heard when the question is one of preach- 
 ing the gospel to every creature. It is our business 
 to preach the gospel. We have a message, and we 
 must deliver it. Nor must we be affrighted by any 
 lion in the way. But to do his work well, the min- 
 
FUN DA MEN TALS. 1 49 
 
 ister must take great care that he himself is not an 
 infidel. A formal infidel of course he cannot be. 
 An insincere and self-seeking teacher he surely can- 
 not be. Yet unbelief or half-belief or doubting 
 belief may chill his very heart, may even spoil the 
 delivery of the most correct verbal message. My 
 meaning can hardly be mistaken. It is to the effect 
 that the messenger must believe his own message if 
 he is to expect other people to believe it. Notwith- 
 standing his belief, they may reject it, yet will not 
 their blood be required at the watchman's hand? 
 Working as if the victory were assured, with what 
 thrilling enthusiasm will the preacher preach ! In 
 his soul there is a whisper, " The Lord will sud- 
 denly come to his temple." He remembers the 
 prophecy, " I will shake all nations, and the desire 
 of all nations shall come." He answers the promises 
 with loving desires and burning prayers — " Oh that 
 thou wouldst rend the heavens, that thou wouldst 
 come down!" "Make no tarrying, O my God!" 
 " Even so, come, Lord Jesus." Thus the messenger 
 has secret communion with his Lord, and many a 
 love-token passes between them. Saith the Lord, 
 " Behold, I come quickly ; " saith the messenger, 
 
150 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 " Come, Lord Jesus, come." The descending Lord 
 says, " Surely I come quickly ; " the listening ser- 
 vant answers, " Thou art fairer than the children of 
 men; . . . make haste, my Beloved." Thus the 
 holy work is done in hope. The issue is not depend- 
 ent upon the will of man. " Not by might, nor by 
 power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." 
 Great mountains may stand in the way, but before 
 Zerubbabel they shall be leveled into plains. We 
 are not struggling in a forlorn cause. There is no 
 need of the cheer which comes from tabulated statis- 
 tics. We take our stand upon the oath of God, and 
 in that oath we see, as if it were an accomplished 
 fact, a world reconciled and a Saviour satisfied. 
 
 We shall, however, soon lose our hope if we ex- 
 change regeneration for reformation. Christ is a 
 Regenerator, not a Reformer. The reformer works 
 by program ; the Regenerator works by the silent, 
 subtle, infinite power of God the Holy Ghost. No 
 wise man despises reforms ; no Christian man is 
 satisfied with them. As effects they are good ; as 
 causes they are impotent. But a program of re- 
 forms is most tempting alike to impatience and am- 
 bition. Man wants the visible and the immediate, 
 
FUNDAMENTALS. I 5 I 
 
 and this he foolishly thinks is being practical. We 
 are hindered by the very Word we worship. Spirit- 
 ual men should be most sparing and careful in the 
 use of secular terms in relation to their special work. 
 With the word "practical" as a primary term we 
 have nothing to do. Our doctrine is spiritual. Our 
 submission, I will use a stronger word and boldly say 
 our contention, is that only the metaphysically right 
 is the practically good. Only the metaphysically 
 right is Eternal. " Make the tree good and the fruit 
 will be good." This accounts for the slowness of 
 Christ's work and its thoroughness. The reformer 
 can move at once. His work is useful. I am not 
 attempting to deny it. But his work is superficial, 
 or limited, or temporary, or circumstantial. It is 
 exactly otherwise with the work of Christ. " Your 
 time is always ready," said Christ, " mine hour is not 
 yet come." The man who has to make a ladder 
 can bind himself under penalty to do it within a cer- 
 tain time; but the man who undertakes to grow a 
 tree is in a different position. A tree may be trained 
 very much as you please ; but a mind must be con- 
 sulted and studied. A coat may be made : a char- 
 acter has to be developed. How easy to clothe a 
 
152 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 body ; how hard to clothe a mind ! These illustra- 
 tions may in some degree indicate the difficulty, be- 
 cause the inwardness and the spirituality, of the work 
 of Christ. And as is the work of Christ so is the 
 work of his ministers. It is not a reforming work, a 
 social work, a political work, a controversial work ; it 
 is all this and more, and only this because it is more. 
 An atheist may be an advocate of sanitation. A 
 profane swearer may be an expert in questions as be- 
 tween capital and labor. A man may be a temper- 
 ance reformer and never open a Bible. I purposely 
 put the matter thus broadly that I may make the 
 uniqueness of specifically Christian work the more 
 obvious and impressive. Ministers are inspired by 
 the Holy Ghost, and separated by the Holy Ghost, 
 to do a work that cannot be confused or mingled 
 with any other kind of work. When they lose their 
 distinctiveness they not only lose their power, they 
 lose the very reason of their existence. Forgetting 
 this, they have, in some instances, nearly wrecked 
 their true influence. And consider how great that 
 true influence ought to be ! It should be a terror to 
 evil-doers. Bad men would soon be made to feel 
 that every act was under holy criticism and that the 
 
FUND AMEN TALS. I 5 3 
 
 very air was alive with judgment. The witness of 
 God would express itself through the testimony 
 of ministers. The poor, the broken-hearted, the 
 wronged, and the down-trodden would soon be made 
 to understand that their Redeemer liveth. We must 
 get back, then, to the metaphysical, back to the 
 spiritual, back to the Holy Ghost. 
 
 ' \ We have this treasure in earthen 
 vessels that the excellency of the 
 power may be of God and not of 
 us." 
 
 " By manifestation of the truth 
 commending ourselves to every 
 man's conscience in the sight of 
 God." 
 
 " My speech and my preaching 
 was not with enticing words of 
 man's wisdom, but in demonstration 
 of the Spirit and of power." 
 
 " Our gospel came not unto you 
 in word only, but also in power, 
 and in the Holy Ghost, and in 
 much assurance." 
 
 In thus giving Christ his proper function as a Re- 
 generator we shall know exactly how to define and 
 qualify the doctrine which has grown around the 
 word Christocentric. Properly denned, there is no 
 
154 KONE LIKE IT. 
 
 objection to the word, yet it may be most deceitful 
 and misleading. Christ must not be at the center 
 in the sense of a bust surrounded by floral tributes. 
 Then he would be a mere idol. He must be at the 
 center in a living, commanding, inspiring sense. Not 
 that alone. Infinitely more than that. He must 
 prove his right to be there. And to be there is no 
 man's right. Only God can be there with adequate 
 right. The position would overweigh and over- 
 whelm any man. Yet Christ must be there. And 
 if there, why? Because of his quality, his resources, 
 his doctrine, his majesty, his Godhead! To my 
 consciousness Jesus Christ is the Incarnate God not 
 because of some Greek preposition or some recon- 
 dite point in Greek syntax. If grammar created his 
 deity, grammar might destroy it. To me he is God 
 incarnate because of what he is in himself, and not 
 because of what he is even in the estimation of his 
 worshipers. If, therefore, we gather around him 
 not as an idol, not as a figure of extreme dignity and 
 loveliness, but as the Incarnate God, the term Chris- 
 tocentric, though pedantic and affected, may not be 
 objectionable, in some cases it may even be tempo- 
 rarily useful. But its deceitfulness is obvious. It 
 
FUNDAMENTALS. 155 
 
 may conceal a deep disloyalty. It may go no farther 
 than admiration. It may only mean applause, it 
 may not express the highest conception of worship. 
 The poet has his "society," the philosopher has his 
 devotees, but Christ, as God the Son, must be hailed 
 as Lord and God, and adored as the Infinite Saviour 
 of the world. How is the reality of this worship to 
 be proved? May it not be a mere sentiment? May 
 even prayer be other than emotion rhetorically ex- 
 pressed? Here, again, as ever — a continuousness 
 which amounts to a revelation and an argument — we 
 come upon the law and the test of strenuous disci- 
 pline. Our worship must be tried by rack and thumb- 
 screw ; our prayers must be passed through the fire. 
 " The fire shall try every man's work of what sort it 
 is." Christocentric does not mean self-considering: 
 
 " Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and 
 do not the things which I say? " 
 
 * ' Not every one that saith unto me 
 Lord, Lord, shall enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven; but he that 
 doeth the will of my Father which 
 is in heaven." 
 
 "If any man will come after me, 
 let him deny himself, and take up 
 his cross, and follow me." 
 
156 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 1 ' Let us go forth, .therefore, unto 
 him without the camp bearing his 
 reproach." 
 
 If by Christocentric we mean such devotion and 
 such discipline, it becomes but a new verbal descrip- 
 tion of an old and unchanging process. 
 
 It is here that I find a standing-place, a rock, 
 amidst the bogs and the quicksands of this century 
 of self-assault and self- rectification on the part of 
 Christian believers. It is not at all discouraging, 
 indeed it may be the exact contrary, that Chris- 
 tians are overhauling their own books and arguments. 
 And inasmuch as the overhauling leads to no cessa- 
 tion of Christian activity, but if possible to an in- 
 crease of apostolic service, it is safe to infer that they 
 themselves conclude that no central position has been 
 shaken. A broad distinction must be drawn between 
 men who assail the Bible because they are hostile to 
 its moral teaching and men who believe that the 
 moral teaching would be better understood if the 
 historical and critical position were better defined. 
 These men are our friends and helpers ; we must 
 therefore honor and guard their spotless reputation ; 
 
FUNDAMENTALS. I 5 7 
 
 and this we can do without being able to accept all 
 their suggestions and conclusions. My present feel- 
 ing is that some of them in moving at all have either 
 gone too far or they have not gone far enough. 1 
 could have understood them better if they had not 
 claimed any exceptional inspiration for the Bible, 
 for to me inspiration is more than spiritual genius, it 
 is sovereign and divine authority. There are two 
 positions, outside the orthodox view, which might be 
 maintained intelligibly and effectively. 
 
 First: A man may say that, without mak- 
 ing any claim whatever for the Bible, 
 he simply finds in it many things that 
 are most pathetic and beautiful, and 
 he values them on their merits. He 
 neither knows nor cares to know who 
 wrote the Bible : he reads it as a col- 
 lection of books and judges it as its 
 contents may vary. This man has no 
 theory of inspiration. 
 Second: A man may say that inspiration 
 comes and goes; the Bible was in- 
 spired ; it was at the time all that the 
 most orthodox have claimed for it, but 
 
158 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 now it is displaced, in the higher educa- 
 tion, by the Holy Ghost. 
 This second view might be profitably examined by 
 Christian believers. It is more than possible that 
 the Holy Ghost may have been, unintentionally in 
 many instances, ignored and dishonored. Is it not 
 possible that the Bible, regarded simply as a book, 
 may have done all that it was ever intended to do, 
 and according to the law " first that which is natural, 
 afterward that which is spiritual," may it not now 
 disappear, except as a historical record, and give 
 place to the Living Spirit, the very Spirit which, in 
 the opinion of many, dictated and inspired its mes- 
 sages? I find no difficulty in seeing that such an 
 inquiry may be conducted in the most reverential 
 and obedient spirit. As a matter of fact, displace- 
 ment or supersession has been the law of the Bible 
 itself. This I regard as a key which might be largely 
 used. Sacrifices have been displaced : ritual has 
 been superseded : " the first tabernacle was a figure 
 for the time then present " (Heb. ix. 9), and was dis- 
 placed " by a greater and more perfect tabernacle 
 not made with hands " : the law was only " a shadow 
 of good things to come, and not the very image of 
 
FUND AMEN TALS. 1 5 9 
 
 the things " : " there is verily a disannulling of the 
 commandment": miracles are no longer known as 
 in New Testament times : the Saviour himself has 
 ascended up on high, " yea, though we have known 
 Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we 
 him no more" (2 Cor. v. 16): we cannot deny this 
 law of displacement. Sometimes we call it the law 
 of growth. The man displaces the child. The fruit 
 displaces the blossom. Experience displaces igno- 
 rance. Who, then, shall say that the Bible, consid- 
 ered as a book, may not be displaced by the Spirit 
 w r ho wrote it by the hands of men? But by what 
 test should we then know ourselves to be of the 
 divine seed ? " Hereby know we that we dwell in 
 him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his 
 Spirit" (1 John iv. 13). But how do we know that 
 the living Christ is in our hearts the hope of glory ? 
 " Hereby know we that he abideth in us, by the 
 Spirit which he hath given us" (1 John iii. 24). 
 " The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that 
 we are the children of God" (Rom. viii. 16). But 
 can we be perfectly sure that we have realized our 
 forgiveness and received the seal from God ? " He 
 that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in 
 
l6o NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 himself" (i John v. 10). In view of all the facts 
 thus set forth I am quite prepared to believe that the 
 Church may be passing through a transition in regard 
 to the exact place of the Bible in Christian educa- 
 tion, nor can I call those men infidels or enemies 
 who have entered into such deep communion with 
 the Spirit that the book is no longer, as a book, what 
 it was when they first believed. For my own part 
 I still need the book, and I need the Spirit to inter- 
 pret it. " Whatsoever things were written afore- 
 time were written for our learning, that we through 
 patience and comfort of the scriptures might have 
 hope " (Rom. xv. 4). I am willing to bear all the 
 reproach of the old faith if I may be permitted to 
 keep the book to whose messages I owe my very 
 soul. All that I know of Jesus I learned from the 
 Bible. It has been a lamp to my feet ever since I 
 accepted its teaching. When all other books have 
 forsaken me the Bible has been to me sweeter than 
 honey, yea, than the honeycomb. 
 
 I deliver this testimony the more earnestly because 
 it helps to account for a fact which is not always 
 understood. That fact is the supposed narrowness 
 of men who cannot at once surrender an old friend 
 
FUNDAMENTALS'. 1 6 1 
 
 for a new theory. I am one of those men. The 
 propounders of theories that are novel even if true 
 will immensely increase the value of their theories 
 by being patient with those who ask for time to ex- 
 amine them. Epithets are not always convincing. 
 Why should we be called narrow, bigoted, unpro- 
 gressive, and superstitious? We think we have a 
 vindication — sometimes that vindication is a memorv, 
 or an experience, or an emotion, or a conviction ; 
 but whatever it is, we think an answer better than a 
 sneer. Those who sneer at our narrowness should 
 remember our training. We think we owe more to 
 the Bible than we owe to them. For the present, 
 speculation is subordinate to gratitude. But we had 
 really come to love the Bible, greatly as we may 
 have been mistaken. We did not love it thought- 
 lessly ; our love was based upon reason. When we 
 were poor, the Bible spoke to us as if it knew exactly 
 our emptiness and destitution, and it bade us be of 
 good cheer and to fix our expectation upon God. 
 When the little child came into the house, Jesus 
 Christ spoke to us about it, took it up in his arms 
 and blessed it; and when the little child died that 
 same Jesus said, " Suffer little children to come unto 
 
1 62 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven ; ' ' and as 
 we tremblingly placed it in his arms he smiled upon 
 us, and said something about " a little while." The 
 Bible has been very precious to us. I know not 
 what the house would have been without it. The 
 print was so large that we could read it in the dark. 
 The message was so good that it soothed our weari- 
 ness and lay like balm upon the heart that was ill at 
 ease. In such hours men knew as if by an inspired 
 instinct what a book really is. It was in such hours 
 that we first truly read the Bible. And as we read 
 the psalm, the prophecy, the song, we pressed the 
 Bible to our hearts and called it the Word of God. 
 Be patient, therefore, with us if we cannot all at once 
 change our point of view and modify our apprecia- 
 tion. We do not mean to be "narrow," but we do 
 mean to be just. A life-long love implies a long 
 process of eradication. We must try the spirits 
 whether they be of God. We are not afraid of 
 light. We have no fear of progress. We pray 
 for the expansion and sanctification of scholarship. 
 True criticism will rob us of no promise, and in no 
 degree will it spoil our heritage or vex our peace. 
 But do not call us " narrow " even if we think every 
 
FUNDAMENTALS. 1 63 
 
 word in the Bible came directly out of heaven from 
 God. Sq much did come from him that we sup- 
 posed it must all have come. Perhaps we ap- 
 proached the Bible more from the point of sympathy 
 than from the point of criticism. Take away from 
 it, if you can, all its literal errors, and rectify all its 
 historical mistakes, you will, I know, as Christian 
 scholars be just as anxious as the humblest believer 
 to guard the tree of life and magnify the love of 
 Christ. 
 
VII. 
 
 NOTES AND COMMENTS. 
 
 O Thou living One, tender 
 and strong beyond all thoughts of 
 mine, I feel great need of Thee just 
 now. I am about to differ from 
 men who serve Thee night and 
 day, and whose love and zeal put 
 my poor work to shame. May my 
 words be well chosen lest they 
 should wantonly offend those who 
 love Thee with entireness of heart. 
 May I mock the argument without 
 mocking the man. Spirit of the 
 gentle Christ, make me gentle! 
 Spirit of truth, make me sincere! 
 
 ANY books now in circulation are, perhaps 
 unduly, and certainly without intention, trou- 
 bling people who have been zealously, and some think 
 ignorantly, holding on to the old form of truth with- 
 out question and without doubt. I am far from sure 
 
 that such people should read the kind of books I 
 
 164 
 
 M 
 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 1 65 
 
 refer to, and quite as far from sure that such books 
 should be offered for public sale. To experts they 
 may be useful : to others they may do much tem- 
 porary harm. For example, Mr. Morton says in his 
 preface to " Revelation and the Bible " : " This book 
 pretends to be nothing more than a series of tenta- 
 tive suggestions." Then was it wise to offer it for 
 miscellaneous sale? An author cannot limit his re- 
 sponsibility in this way. His own intention may be 
 perfect, and in a large degree may be defensible, but 
 after publication he is only one party in the case. 
 What does the Church, taken as a whole, young and 
 old, trained and untrained, want with " a series of 
 tentative suggestions"? Is not this an unsatisfac- 
 tory kind of " reconstruction " ? Who can have any 
 sense of safety in living in a house which is " nothing 
 more than a series of tentative suggestions "? Who 
 would care to travel by a time-table that is " nothing 
 more than a series of tentative suggestions"? Such 
 suggestions offered to experts or specialists may be 
 useful ; can they do any real good to the rank and 
 file of the Christian Church? The title-page offers 
 "an attempt at reconstruction": the preface prom- 
 ises " nothing more than a series of tentative Stfgges- 
 
1 66 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 tions." I cannot accept that estimate of the book. 
 In parts it seems to me to be anything but tentative 
 — it appears, in fact, to be definite, even dogmatic, 
 and here and there to be almost contemptuous in its 
 view of an elder school. After reading Mr. Hor- 
 ton's book what will the ordinary Christian reader 
 have in place of the old Bible ? Mr. Horton himself 
 says he will have " nothing more than a series of 
 tentative suggestions." Is the exchange worth mak- 
 ing ? Or does the author mean that the " tentative 
 suggestions " refer only to points of criticism and 
 history? If so, is it not a book for experts only? 
 And if for experts only, was it wise to send it broad- 
 cast over the whole Church ? The author designates 
 the view which he opposes, with undoubted sincerity 
 and often with most pathetic eloquence, " the un- 
 proved assumptions of the orthodox tradition," and 
 his own view he describes as " nothing more than a 
 series of tentative suggestions." What is the exact 
 difference between "unproved" and "tentative"? 
 And what is a man profited if he exchange " as- 
 sumptions " for " suggestions " ? If " tentative," what 
 is the length of the lease? And when the lease is 
 held by two holders, which of them has the sole right 
 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. \6j 
 
 to give it up? These inquiries become important 
 when it is considered that the subjects affect spirit- 
 ual education. We are " reconstructing " the Bible : 
 we are not editing a private letter. On the title- 
 page of " Verbum Dei " Mr. Horton quotes a sen- 
 tence from Hermann Schultz to the effect that a 
 living religion has prophets, and a dead or unknown 
 religion has only writings or documents. Thus dis- 
 tinguished names are not always associated with very 
 original remarks. When Mr. Horton offers " nothing 
 more than a series of tentative suggestions," I recall 
 a sentence from a still more distinguished German, 
 even from Goethe himself, who says : " If a man 
 sets out to write a book, let him put down only 
 what he knows — I have guesses enough of my own." 
 
 Some of Mr. Horton's epithets in " Verbum Dei " 
 were perhaps hastily chosen. They are not like him- 
 self in tone. As applied to men who take what is 
 called the old view I cannot commend them. Here 
 are specimens: careless (p. 103), thoughtless (p. 104), 
 loose and careless (p. 106), sleek (p. 106), unthinking 
 (p. 107), baseless (p. 107), inexact and inappropriate 
 (p. 113)- I should have thought that the author 
 
1 68 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 would have looked upon " sleek " as ecclesiastical 
 slang and would have avoided it, for no man can be 
 daintier than he in his use of words. The point 
 is principally important as indicating a spirit. The 
 spirit of contempt is not the spirit of scholarship. 
 Nor is it the spirit of reconstructive criticism. Nor 
 is it the spirit of Christ. In his preface Mr. Hor- 
 ton prays " that this little volume may come to his 
 brothers in the ministry with a genuine message 
 from God." Which brothers? The "careless," 
 "thoughtless," "sleek," " unthinking," and "inex- 
 act"? Then will his circulation be large or small? 
 We must not think men " sleek " because they dif- 
 fer from us. A man may take even Mr. Horton's 
 view and yet not be "careless." We should give 
 each other credit for good faith all around. 
 
 Mr. Horton states this view : 
 
 " If the teacher is igno- 
 rant of God's more recent 
 utterances the world will 
 not unnaturally suppose 
 that his authority on the 
 more ancient utterances 
 is open to question." 
 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 169 
 
 But that is exactly what the world says about the 
 Bible ! Men say quite freely, If the Bible is wrong 
 in facts, what guarantee have we that it is right in 
 morals? If we answer, The Bible treats of morals 
 and not of facts, the retort is that we are begging 
 the question; we are undertaking to support a post 
 hoc; we are special pleaders. But is Mr. Horton 
 prepared to have his rule, if I may so call it, applied 
 to himself? Let us see. The very first sentence in 
 " Verbum Dei" opens thus: 
 
 " When the invitation 
 came to me to cross the 
 Atlantic and deliver the 
 Lyman Abbott Lecture on 
 Preaching," etc. 
 
 But no such invitation ever came to him, ever could 
 come to him! There is no Lyman Abbott Lecture 
 on Preaching! Here is a man describing other 
 men as <l careless," "thoughtless," "unthinking," 
 and " inexact," and yet the 'first sentence in the 
 very book which contains these epithets is itself a 
 misstatement of fact! If we are at liberty to say 
 that a man who cannot state a fact cannot state a 
 doctrine, or that a man who does not know the 
 
170 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 modern cannot speak authoritatively upon the an- 
 cient, what shall we do with a book which begins 
 with a mistake? And not a mistake about some 
 other man, but a mistake about the author himself! 
 He writes the mistake, prints the mistake in italics, 
 dates the mistake, and signs the mistake, and hopes 
 that the book which opens with the mistake will come 
 to his brothers in the ministry with a genuine mes- 
 sage from God! The mistake is made the more 
 glaring by the author describing other men and 
 their views as careless, thoughtless, loose, unthink- 
 ing, baseless, inexact * and inappropriate ! The mis- 
 take may have been corrected in other editions, but 
 that is not the point. If Mr. Horton had died, as 
 Ezra did, the mistake would never have been cor- 
 rected by his own hand. We do not allow Ezra to 
 publish a second edition, revised, corrected, amended, 
 and annotated ! This instance, probably of a mere 
 slip of the pen or a momentary lapse of memory, 
 must not be brought up against the whole line of a 
 man's ministry, or what ministry could stand? At 
 the same time it is a striking illustration of the pos- 
 sibility that in the act of stating a simple matter of 
 personal history, meant to be absolutely literal and 
 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. I 7 I 
 
 real, a man may commit an almost incredible mis- 
 take. We should be careful how we call other men 
 "inexact." "With what measure ye mete, it shall 
 be measured to you again." 
 
 I knew a minister who made an idol of Accuracy, 
 who had to be drawn out of many a pit even on the 
 Sabbath day. 
 
 In " Verbum Dei " (p. 46) the author says: 
 
 "... It would be mis- 
 leading indeed if we were 
 to argue from the conver- 
 sation between Abraham 
 and the Lord concerning 
 the destruction of Sodom 
 that we to-day may expect 
 to hold a conversation in 
 that form." 
 
 Why ? What is to render it impossible ? If it ever 
 did occur, why may it not occur again? But why 
 trouble about Abraham when the Higher criti- 
 cism has proved that there never was such a person ? 
 Abraham was a tribe or an ideal; anything but a 
 literal or historical individual. The Higher criticism 
 tells a man that he may as certainly commune with 
 
172 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 God as Abraham ever did, and when he accepts the 
 comforting doctrine he is told by the same criticism 
 that no such man as Abraham ever lived! That 
 Abraham was an eponymous hero ! Only eighteen 
 pages further on (p. 64) the author says : " The word 
 of the Lord comes to men to-day just as it came to 
 the prophets of Israel." Then why need the partic- 
 ular "form" be any difficulty in the Lord's way? 
 Has the Lord discontinued the form of dialogue ? 
 Is it all mythical ? I claim that there are circum- 
 stances under which a myth may be the only possi- 
 ble fact. I further claim that even a myth may be 
 a divine instrument, and a Vision itself may be an 
 Incarnation. We must not think that even if the 
 four Gospels are mythical we have got rid of them. 
 Possibly the literal is only the pedestal on which the 
 ideal must stand. What if men themselves be only 
 masks or myths or visions or shadows, or modes of 
 consciousness, awaiting revelation and the heavenly 
 house? We talk sometimes of the Bible writers as 
 if they were original authors, or as if they had a 
 consciousness apart from their subject. I find no 
 present difficulty in taking a different view of the 
 matter. From my standpoint the man himself — 
 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 173 
 
 Abraham or Jeremiah, Ezra or Paul — is a revelation, 
 perhaps he himself is the revelation! We seem to 
 argue, not always by intention, that man is quite an 
 independent actor and that he works out his own will 
 in his own way. Not from my point of view. I 
 believe that God may turn mistakes into channels of 
 revelation. I believe that God may inspire a man to 
 make literary mistakes, that by so doing man may 
 learn his proper place and starve his pride by eating 
 the dust of humiliation. How much does every wise- 
 man owe even to his blunders! How much does 
 civilization owe to the hard soil and blunt tools! I 
 do not expect my meaning to be universally per- 
 ceived. I am endeavoring to show that man does 
 not always know what he is doing; that God may 
 turn man's wrath to his own praise and may restrain 
 the remainder; yea, that God may cause our mis- 
 takes, our infirmities, our vanities, and our lapses to 
 fall out to the furtherance of the gospel. Never let 
 ereignty be modified. Never let sovereignty slip 
 from the divine grasp. It brings us face to face with 
 appalling mysteries; yet otherwise we should be 
 plunged into despair. I cannot now reconcile much 
 that I see around me with the exercise of divine 
 
174 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 sovereignty, yet that sovereignty is my one hope of 
 ultimate illumination and harmony. 
 
 Mr. Horton says (p. 150), "The Bible begins with 
 a Poem of Creation." Who told him so? All 
 writers have not taken this view. Which of them, if 
 any, has the right to decide, in a way which quietly 
 ignores all the others, what it is ? Even histories, as 
 we all know, may be written in poetry. What if the 
 Bible itself is a Poem from beginning to end ? What 
 if the poet alone can understand it? Not the 
 rhymester, but the poet, the man whose heart-eyes 
 are wide open ? And what if the men who know all 
 about syntax and Chaldean cosmogony and the clay 
 tablets of Assurbanipal be the only men who can 
 never understand the Bible? It would be quite in 
 harmony with much that we know of Providence if 
 God were to do without them and send meaner men 
 upon his errands. It is wonderful how much good 
 God has done through ignorant men, blundering, 
 ungrammatical, unphilosophical men, and wonderful 
 how he has now and then touched some poor hearts 
 even by "Mesopotamia." Collecting, as far as I 
 can, the records of great preachers, evangelists, and 
 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 175 
 
 missionaries, I have been astounded how much good 
 has been done by earnest men who probably never 
 heard of the clay tablets of Assurbanipal ; and quite 
 as astounding has it been to me to find so little set 
 down to the credit of the men who discovered the 
 tablets, and deciphered their meaning. Far from 
 having any prejudice against such men, I heartily 
 wish them long life and great joy in Babylon. I am 
 thankful that some men are so constituted that they 
 could not be happy without clay tablets. I think 
 the world owes a good deal to them, yet I am by no 
 means sure that they know anything about Revela- 
 tion. They may, however, know a good deal about 
 it, but their spiritual knowledge is not the result of 
 their Assyriology. 
 
 One of my difficulties with present-day biblical 
 criticism is that in many cases the critics are theo- 
 retically on one side and practically on the other. 
 They repudiate the idea that the Bible is the Word 
 of God, and yet in other sentences they are willing 
 that it should be substantial]}- regarded as such. 
 Mr. Horton says (" Verbum Dei," p. 104): "I say 
 there is no foundation in the Bible itself for the com- 
 
176 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 mon practice of speaking of it as the Word of God." 
 But Mr. Horton says in " Revelation and the Bible," 
 p. 12: " On the whole, it is perhaps safest to cling, 
 at least provisionally, to the idea that all Revelation is 
 really the revealing of God." Before this, on p. io, 
 he says : " They, too, are not far wrong who speak 
 of the Bible as the Book of God, though of course 
 it is a term foreign to the Bible itself." And yet 
 in "Inspiration and the Bible" (preface, p. 10) he 
 says: " I hardly know an argument waged at the 
 present day on the Secularist platforms which does 
 not derive all its cogency frrom the false impression 
 which we have ourselves given about the nature and 
 claim of the Bible." He describes those who say 
 that the Bible is the Word of God as careless, 
 thoughtless, unthinking, loose, and inexact, and then 
 he says they are not far wrong who speak of the 
 Bible as the Book of God. If this title is " foreign 
 to the Bible," why use it? I do not understand the 
 position. The mischief is that there is great danger 
 of forming some sort of double conscience. I do 
 not say that this danger besets other minds ; I only 
 say that in my own case the danger would be ex- 
 treme. A striking instance of what I mean by the 
 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 
 
 *77 
 
 dual method, or the method of apparently being on 
 both sides, is given in u Verb um Dei " : 
 
 " The unthinking dog- 
 ma of orthodoxy that the 
 Bible as such is the Word 
 of God," etc., p. 107. 
 
 " The Bible itself is in 
 so unique and peculiar a 
 sense the Word of God," 
 etc., p. 155. 
 
 The ground would be much clearer if the followers 
 of modern criticism could say : Here is a very old 
 book called the Bible : in every sense it is a most 
 remarkable book : it abounds in narratives, allego- 
 ries, visions, misstatement, self-contradictory stories, 
 beautiful reflections, brilliant prophecies, and splen- 
 did conceptions : who wrote it, when it was written, 
 for what purpose it was written, are points upon 
 which opinion is strongly divided; still it is a won- 
 derful book, and we think it may, if read in the spirit 
 of present-day inspiration, be used with great ad- 
 vantage in the spiritual training of the soul. It 
 seems to me that this is substantially what modern 
 criticism comes to. It is the position of rationalism. 
 That rationalism is certainly neither flippant nor 
 profane, nor is it inconsistent with a reverent theory 
 of present-day inspiration. 
 
178 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 Mr. Horton zealously maintains his faith in revela- 
 tion. Upon that point he is definite and in a man- 
 ner passionate. Yet every single book in the canon 
 is wrong in some point or feature ; in some instances 
 palpably and ridiculously wrong; not a single book 
 as orthodoxy has immemorially accepted it is left 
 without some degree of challenge ; dates are wrong ; 
 chronology is wrong; genealogies are wrong; au- 
 thorships are wrong; grammar is wrong: quotation 
 is wrong; and yet the Bible contains a revelation. 
 Mr. Horton's estimate of the Apostle Paul would 
 once have been accounted scandalous. Even now, 
 in face of all changes, I find it impossible to accept it 
 A few quotations will make my meaning clear : 
 
 " To suppose that there 
 is any Divine revelation in 
 the command to bring the 
 cloke, and the book, and 
 especially the parchments 
 . . . is a rednctio ad 
 absurdum" etc. 
 
 I cannot at this moment see any absurdity in the 
 claim. Providence is manifold. There is a revela- 
 tion of providence as well as of redemption. I want 
 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 179 
 
 to see God in little things as well as in great. I 
 want God to reveal himself through apostolic neces- 
 sity and the by-ways and conditions of apostolic 
 life. I really do not see the absurdity, and therefore 
 I cannot join in the somber mirth. 
 
 " When we turn from 
 the mere human elements 
 in St. Paul's writings," 
 
 I " boldly challenge " Mr. Horton tc point out where 
 the Apostle Paul calls himself " St. Paul." Where 
 does he " claim " to be St. Paul? 
 
 " to his actual mistakes," 
 etc. 
 
 This is definite. Now we wait for examples, and 
 
 Mr. Horton responds: 
 
 " No one, for example, 
 can study carefully the 
 use which he makes of 
 the Old Testament with- 
 out observing the inexact- 
 ness of his quotations and 
 the interpretation, often 
 quite unjustified by the 
 
180 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 original context, which he 
 puts upon the venerable 
 words." 
 
 I protest against the large and easy assumptions. 
 Paul I know, but some of his critics I do not know. 
 According to this criticism Paul quotes inexactly and 
 interprets unjustifiably. Then at what points is he 
 to be trusted? Mr. Horton would answer: Come 
 to Christ; receive his Spirit and you will know. 
 But have not our old teachers come to Christ? 
 Have they not received the Holy Ghost? Have 
 they been teaching us in darkness? Has the true 
 light been withheld until to-day? Again: 
 
 " To quote him (Paul) 
 as an exegete of the 
 ancient Scriptures would 
 be obviously absurd." 
 
 Why obviously? Why prefer Mr. Horton to the 
 Apostle Paul, " an Hebrew of the Hebrews " ? I do 
 not say that he is not preferable, I only ask for some 
 reason for establishing the preference. In other 
 qualifications Mr. Horton would decline rivalry; 
 why challenge it on the ground of correctly inter- 
 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. I 8 I 
 
 preting the ancient Scriptures? Take another in- 
 stance : 
 
 " But the most striking 
 
 of the mistakes into which 
 the Apostle, owing to the 
 necessary limitations of 
 the most inspired teachers, 
 fell, was the conviction 
 that the Parousia, or sec- 
 ond coming of the Lord, 
 was to be in that gener- 
 ation." 
 
 And yet some well-instructed men have contended 
 that the Parousia is an accomplished fact! They 
 may be right or they may be wrong, yet that is their 
 contention, and they have supported it with much 
 learning and argument. The expression with which 
 I am chiefly concerned is — " the most striking of the 
 mistakes" of the Apostle; implying that the mis- 
 takes are not a few, but that at one point he excels 
 himself in the misinterpretation of providence. The 
 calm and easy manner in which Mr. Horton snubs 
 the whole Bible — regarding it as a literary compend 
 — will not convey to those who do not know him a 
 proper impression of his genuine modesty. Even to 
 
1 82 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 those who do know him, and hold him in honor 
 for his works' sake, it must appear remarkable how 
 he can traverse the whole field of biblical revelation, 
 find fault with every writer, correct every writer's 
 blunders, misinterpretations, and general stupidity, 
 snub the apostles, and tell the evangelists exactly 
 where they go wrong, and dismiss them all as the 
 very clumsiest clerks that ever dipped a pen, but 
 who, on the whole, had a distinct and sublime rev- 
 elation from God. Mr. Horton may be right. God 
 has most certainly chosen many strange agents, and 
 it may be only another of the mysteries of his provi- 
 dence that he corrects a ministry of blunders by a 
 ministry of disclaimed infallibility. The issue of such 
 a course is the practical abolition of the Bible. To 
 this it must come. The proof we can only find in 
 the coming and going of years. I do not look upon 
 the Apostle Paul as a man who had a kind of mantle 
 of inspiration which he put on and off as occasion 
 required or suggested. I regard him as an inspired 
 MAN; a man who walked not after the flesh, but 
 after the Spirit ; he lived and moved and had his 
 being in God ; he was of the very body and spirit of 
 the Lord ; he fought one fight, kept one faith, served 
 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 1 83 
 
 one cross ; his soul was steeped in God ; in his speech 
 there were no " mere obiter dicta " ; in his correspond- 
 ence there was no mere, ornament ; the man was 
 crucified with Christ ; for him to live was Christ ; he 
 counted all things loss for Christ — this is hardly the 
 man whom we care to see charged with "inexact" 
 quotation, "unjustifiable" comment, "irrelevant" 
 application, and glaring " mistakes." I grieve to say 
 that these epithets and terms are applied by Mr. 
 Horton to the Apostle. If it be asked, Are not all 
 Christians inspired men ? I answer, Yes, as to char- 
 acter, as to holiness ; but as to gifts and trusts and 
 leaderships I answer, No. 
 
 In " Faith and Criticism," p. 9, Professor Bennett, 
 who has won a very high reputation as a professor 
 of Old Testament literature and criticism, and who 
 is intensely evangelical in his love of Christ and his 
 belief in the spiritual uses of the Bible, says: "The 
 early Fathers took over from the Rabbis a collection 
 of baseless theories"; but what is the precise critical 
 difference between " a collection of baseless theories " 
 and "a series of tentative suggestions' 1 ? I cannot 
 
1 84 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 exactly appraise the difference. The Professor says 
 (p. 20) : " We are getting accustomed to hear with- 
 out any special emotion that in Ruth, Daniel, and 
 Esther a beautiful and instructive fabric has been 
 reared upon a slender historical basis." Is this argu- 
 ment? Is the cessation or abatement of emotion a 
 proof? If so, we must not forget that it painfully 
 applies to the hearing of the gospel itself. But it is 
 not proof; it is not intended as an argument, and in 
 many honorable instances it is not a fact. On p. 26 
 the Professor says : " The books from Genesis to 
 Chronicles are not so much histories as homilies with 
 a profusion of historical illustration." This would 
 seem to make the matter worse and worse. If the 
 text is false, what can the homily be? If the his- 
 torical illustration is not reliable, how can any intel- 
 ligent trust be put in the homily ? Suppose a sermon 
 or homily should be preached upon the earthquake 
 which occurred in Italy in 1587; suppose the hom- 
 ily should be rich and pathetic in doctrine and illus- 
 tration ; suppose it should have deeply impressed 
 generations of men in many lands ; and suppose that 
 no such earthquake ever occurred in the history of 
 Italy ; I fancy that if the preacher offered to preach 
 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 1S5 
 
 a homily upon the great Mexican catastrophe which 
 occurred the year after the earthquake in Italy, he 
 would find his " occupation gone." Men find it as 
 difficult to accept a true sermon from a false text as 
 to discover a straight line in a corkscrew. It will 
 show in part what the Old Testament is coming to 
 if we take another sentence from Professor Bennett's 
 essay, p. 31: "No doubt much that is most char- 
 acteristic and valuable in Christian thought is found 
 in germ and suggestion in the Jewish Scriptures." 
 I must very earnestly protest against this particular 
 form of putting the case if the New Testament is 
 supposed to represent Christian thought. If the 
 New Testament is not included, I do not see why 
 the remark was made; if it was included, I do not 
 see how it could have been made. The Professor 
 bewilders me by the very next sentence in his essay : 
 " Hut, through failing to exercise his imagination, 
 the Christian reader often sees a dense forest where 
 there were actually only a few scattered saplings." 
 I think the imagination must have been very vigor- 
 ously exercised if three or four saplings were mul- 
 tiplied into Bashan or Lebanon. If a man told me 
 that he had seen Mount Sinai when he had only 
 
1 86 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 seen a grindstone, the word " imagination " would 
 instantly occur to me. 
 
 The former difficulty, that of a kind of dual posi- 
 tion — I would say see-saw position but for fear of 
 being misunderstood — occurs in the case of Professor 
 Bennett. He says (p. 20) that though we are get- 
 ting accustomed to hear certain things about Ruth, 
 Daniel, and Esther, it would be a very different thing, 
 in the estimation of the Christian public, if Abraham 
 and the patriarchs were called in question. We 
 may infer, then, that Abraham and the patriarchs 
 are quite secure, at least in the estimation of " the 
 Christian public," and inferentially in Professor Ben- 
 nett's. But on p. 22 the Professor says : " The earli- 
 est history of the patriarchs is separated by many 
 centuries from the patriarchs themselves." That puts 
 one nail in their coffin. Still, Abraham remains. 
 Not a hair of his head must be touched. It is 
 something for the Christian public to have retained 
 Abraham. But have we retained him? On the 
 very same page (22) Mr. Bennett says: "Docu- 
 ments of the early monarchy can only shed a dim 
 and uncertain light on the time of Abraham." How 
 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 187 
 
 do we know, then, that we are quite sure of Abraham ? 
 Does he suffer from the " dim and uncertain light " 
 which settles on his time? Some critics (p. 23) have 
 set forth Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the Twelve 
 Patriarchs as personifications and representatives of 
 Israel in the various phases of its early history ; they 
 are accounted, Professor Bennett says, " not as his- 
 torical persons" but "eponymous heroes." So far, 
 therefore, as these particular critics are concerned, 
 even Abraham is not made of much account. Pres- 
 ently we may get accustomed even to his disap- 
 pearance. Professor Bennett says, however (p. 23), 
 " There are weighty arguments to be waged on the 
 other side." One of these weighty arguments is the 
 assurance of " a distinguished critic " (anonymous) 
 " that when we come to Abraham a true historical 
 instinct tells us that we are dealing with the authen- 
 tic record of a real historical person." But what 
 about the " some " who made Abraham eponymous? 
 Was the " true historical instinct " not available to 
 them ? And, after all, what is this " true historical 
 instinct " ? Who has it ? Who keeps it ? Who dis- 
 penses it? This " historical instinct " operates within 
 some sort of circle. This is how Professor Bennett 
 
1 88 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 puts it on p. 24 : " The verdict of the historical in- 
 stinct in favor of Abraham is only conclusive to 
 those whose instincts give the decision." This is 
 fatal. Abraham is turned over to the " historical 
 instinct." If you have the instinct you have Abra- 
 ham, but in the absence of the instinct Abraham is 
 "as good as dead." I am not sure whether this is 
 Professor Bennett's own opinion. His words are not 
 quite clear to my mind. At this point he distinctly 
 refers to " the Christian public," and perhaps he does 
 not, for the nonce, include the critics, regarding them 
 rather in their professional capacity, and especially 
 regarding them as in advance of " the Christian pub- 
 lic," and gradually breaking the surprise with which 
 that public may one day hear that a personal and 
 historical Abraham never existed ; that, in fact, he 
 was simply an eponymous hero! Professor Bennett 
 thinks " a general consensus of opinion on the sub- 
 ject, or the agreement of a large majority of histori- 
 cal experts, might enable us to establish the histo- 
 ricity of the narratives on internal evidence alone." 
 But what is the good of telling us of what would 
 happen if we had what is not in existence ? But is it 
 not in existence? I have only Professor Bennett's 
 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 189 
 
 authority to rest upon. This is his sentence : " But 
 no such consensus or agreement exists " (p. 24). 
 Then where is Abraham ? Then what is the posi 
 tion of the Church in relation to the polemical skep- 
 tic on the one hand and the devout inquirer on the 
 other? Professor Bennett's answer makes me sad. 
 I give it in his own disheartening words: "The 
 Church must be prepared to find that it cannot at 
 present give an obviously conclusive answer to the 
 polemical skeptic, and even that it cannot always on 
 intellectual ground remove the difficulties felt by 
 devout and earnest inquirers " (p. 24). That is an 
 unhappy position. It is, also, a position which in- 
 volves a good deal more than is expressed within 
 the limits of its own terms. If neither the polemical 
 skeptic nor the earnest inquirer can be satisfied on 
 this point, how many other points would be included 
 within the same inability? Is Professor Bennett, 
 then, prepared to let the " historicity " of Abraham, 
 Isaac, Jacob, and the Twelve Patriarchs go? He is 
 not. He has two sources of encouragement, and I 
 deeply regret that I am unable to avail myself of 
 them. The student has a "sense of the vivid real- 
 ism of the history of the patriarchs": that is the 
 
I9Q NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 first source of encouragement, and the second is the 
 student's " hopes as to the possibilities of future ex- 
 cavations." The second is a poor foundation to rest 
 upon. What if the excavations should turn out the 
 other way ? Then what will become of the personal 
 Abraham and the patriarchs ? But is there any pos- 
 sibility of the excavations playing us false? This is 
 Professor Bennett's dubious answer : " We are also 
 encouraged to hope for very much from the inscrip- 
 tions, though the specimens of apologetic evidence 
 already offered from those sources are not encourag- 
 ing " (p. 23). This would be disquieting enough, 
 but it becomes something like intellectual torment 
 when we read on the very next page, " Critics can 
 scarcely discount for ready money the possibilities 
 of archaeological investigation." Where, then, is 
 Abraham, about whose security we thought there 
 was no doubt? Professor Bennett says (p. 25): 
 " The Church will not venture to interpose between 
 the sinner and his Saviour the necessity of arriving 
 at a correct conclusion on the existence of Abra- 
 ham." Yet Christ made more of Abraham than of 
 any other character in the Old Testament. He 
 names him more frequently and dwells upon him 
 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 191 
 
 with more appreciation, and appeals persistently to 
 him in contending with the unbelieving Jews. On 
 p. 29 Professor Bennett seems to join the "some" 
 of p. 25 who look upon Abraham and others as 
 representations and ideals rather than historical 
 individuals. I quote the Professor's own words : 
 " The importance of Abraham and Daniel does not 
 lie in their being unique personages, but in their 
 representing Hebrew ideals, the highest life of 
 Israel." So Abraham, about whom the Christian 
 public might feel so sure, concerning whom " a dis- 
 tinguished critic " said, " A true historical instinct tells 
 us that we are dealing with the authentic record of 
 a real historical personage," now becomes an ideal 
 of the highest life of Israel! His very existence is 
 put negatively by Professor Bennett, who says on 
 pp. 23, 24 : <( No one will maintain that the existence 
 of Abraham has been disproved, or that the narratives 
 of the patriarchs have no foundation in real history " ! 
 Surely Abraham is fast disappearing! Yet Professor 
 Bennett has a singular comfort for us even here ; for 
 on p. 29 he says : " If a haze of uncertainty dims the 
 features of Abraham, we see more clearly the simple 
 facts ... of his children." An ideal man has real 
 
192 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 children! A non-historical personage has a large 
 historical family ! Now read a little in the light of 
 the " Hebrew ideal " theory : 
 
 And an eponymous hero was four 
 score and six years old when Hagar 
 bare Ishmael to the Hebrew ideal. 
 And when an eponymous hero was 
 ninety years old the Lord appeared 
 to him, and the eponymous hero 
 fell on his face, and Jehovah talked 
 with the Hebrew ideal. . . . The 
 eponymous hero fell on his face, 
 and laughed ; . . . and the epony- 
 mous hero was circumcised in the 
 flesh of his foreskin ; . . . and the 
 Hebrew ideal sat in the tent door 
 in the heat of the day ; . . . and the 
 eponymous hero gat up early in the 
 morning ; . . . and the eponymous 
 hero said of Sarah his wife, She is 
 my sister. 
 
 For my own part, I cannot follow this reasoning, 
 nor can I believe that it will ever do any spiritual 
 and lasting good. I will go farther and express a 
 wonder whether an ancient document for which no 
 inspiration had been claimed would have been treated 
 in this manner. Are not the critics simply making 
 out a case? Is not their action ex post facto ? Are 
 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 193 
 
 not the critics groping about for some kind of inspi- 
 ration of which they cannot see any adequate evi- 
 dence ? Why do they not take up a rationalistic 
 position and lecture upon Abraham as they would 
 lecture upon Hector or Ulysses? This painful en- 
 deavor to find inspiration, without finding it, would, 
 were the case my own, put my conscience in serious 
 peril. Personally, I should prefer to treat the Old 
 Testament as a very wonderful record which supplied 
 many points of interest upon which a religious mind 
 might profitably meditate. For the present at least 
 I am thankful to be able to take up a very different 
 position. I accept the Old Testament as inspired, 
 notwithstanding any flaws in the human workman- 
 ship. ' To me it is a revelation of God and his Sover- 
 eignty, of the Father and his Providence, of the 
 Creator and his Dominion. It is infinitely majestic 
 and solemn. Without God the Holy Ghost it never 
 could have been written. In it I feel the breath and 
 see the very finger of God. I am not dependent in 
 any degree whatever, or for any purpose whatever, 
 upon "tentative suggestions," or "future excava- 
 tions." 
 
 I see more and more that earnest spiritual inquir- 
 
194 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 ers should not approach the Bible from the stand- 
 point of experts. Men, regarded in the bulk, are 
 not scholars and specialists. The reading of the 
 Bible might in many cases be regulated as other 
 reading is regulated. It might be useful to tell some 
 people exactly where to begin. It may be that the 
 historical books of the Bible should not be read until 
 the very last. Why not begin with the Parables and 
 the Beatitudes, and work backward? Enter the 
 Bible by the Christ-gate. In this way we could in a 
 sense reconstruct the canon without alarming con- 
 servative instincts. Let the Bible be put back again 
 into its several parts, and let those parts be given 
 out according to the age and circumstances of the 
 reader. Give out the Parables as a first lesson ; then 
 the Christ Stories ; then the history of the Crucifix- 
 ion ; then a selection of the Psalms ; then some of 
 the principal biographies. This would not only save 
 many premature inquiries, it might prepare the mind 
 to consider critical points and difficulties in a right 
 spirit. It would certainly put these points in their 
 proper place. It is undoubtedly difficult for some 
 minds, inexperienced and untrained, to confront at 
 once the problem of Creation, the history of the 
 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 195 
 
 Fall, and the intricacies of ancient and superseded 
 ritual. There is no spiritual need to begin there. 
 The infinite beauty of the gospel is that a beginning 
 can be made at any point. Why not begin at the 
 point nearest Jesus? What if the original text was 
 meant to be read not only from right to left, but 
 from last to first ? What if the Origins should be an 
 answer, not a puzzle? In some such way as this, 
 always variable, I have come into the possession of 
 my own steadfast faith in the Bible. I did not come 
 into it by comparing Chaldean and Hebrew Cosmog- 
 ony, or reading the clay tablets of Nineveh, or set- 
 tling the parentage of Jotham, or adjusting the dis- 
 crepancies as to the period between the birth of 
 Arphacsad and the migration of Abram. These are 
 questions for experts. They are to some minds 
 deeply interesting questions. But I did not find 
 them necessary to salvation. It is quite supposable 
 that a man conscience-stricken on account of sin and 
 directed to the Bible for guidance would impatiently 
 put such questions aside, and almost instinctively 
 find out the portions which bear immediately upon 
 his own necessity. "There is a spirit in man, and 
 the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him under- 
 
ig6 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 standing." My belief in the Divine Sovereignty 
 enables me to recognize guidance even in the selec- 
 tion of passages of Scripture. I see also the possibil- 
 ity of a man so finding Christ, and so accepting the 
 precious gospel of his love, that he would find no 
 difficulty in describing the book to which he owed 
 all his saving knowledge as none other than the 
 Word of God. The title would seem to suit the 
 contents. He would think of those parts of the 
 Book which gave him life and light and pardon and 
 hope. He would rest hard by the cross. He would 
 make his soul glad with the words of Jesus. And if 
 in the end he called the Book none other than the 
 Word of God, I think he might be understood and 
 forgiven. 
 
VIII. 
 
 AD CLERUM. 
 
 [As this book views the subject of Biblical Criticism almost wholly 
 from the standpoint of a preacher, it has occurred to me that a few 
 observations bearing upon Pastoral Theology might be useful. Inci- 
 dental light may thus be thrown upon practical points. The Christian 
 preacher is largely dependent upon the Bible. Without it what mes- 
 sage has he? what unique authority? what standard of appeal? By 
 approaching the Bible from the standpoint of the preacher's actual 
 service we may see how pastoral Experience may become a critic and 
 an annotator.] 
 
 ARE you very much disheartened just now? 
 _/\_ Are there no friendly faces shining upon you ? 
 Come, then, let us talk to- Discouragement s 
 gether, and let me be your and 
 
 elder brother. I have been just 
 
 as much cast down as you can possibly be, yet I have 
 lived to sing in the warm light and take the gift of 
 peace from the right hand of Christ. The Saviour 
 clearly saw that his servants would often be in trouble. 
 So he laid up for them a rich store of comfort, one of 
 
 197 
 
198 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 the very first comforts being the lesson that is to be 
 drawn from his own experience. The servant is to 
 be as his Lord. If the Master of the house has been 
 called Beelzebub, how can they who are of his house- 
 hold escape vituperation? Did not the people take 
 up stones to stone him? Did he not go to places 
 that refused to receive him ? Had the Son of Man 
 where to lay his head? By thinking these things 
 over I have often received great comfort. My sor- 
 rows are nothing to Christ's. He was despised and 
 rejected of men. " He was a reproach of men and 
 despised of the people." The people sneered at his 
 ancestry ; they questioned his credentials, saying, 
 " Search and look, for out of Galilee ariseth no 
 prophet; " they said he had an unclean spirit; "he 
 came unto his own, and his own received him not." 
 Now, where are your little troubles? Some man 
 has left your ministry in a resentful spirit; well, 
 what of it? He will show his true colors some day, 
 and the mystery will be made plain. Do your duty ; 
 do not be affected by his evil spirit ; show by your 
 forbearance what the grace of God has done for you, 
 and then forget the injury and go on steadily with 
 your work. Do not allow yourself to think of re- 
 
AD CLERUM. 1 99 
 
 sentment. " Resist the devil and he will flee from 
 you." Your enemy, or his children, will one day 
 come to your door to beg. " If thine enemy hunger, 
 feed him; if he thirst, give him drink." By making 
 a right use of the Bible, in such experiences, you 
 will find, as I have found, how wonderfully it proves 
 itself to be the Word of God. It knows me alto- 
 gether. It knows exactly what I want. When my 
 sorrow is supreme, it says, " Is there no balm in 
 Gilead? Is there no Physician there?" 
 
 " But people are so ungrateful," ypu re- 
 mind me. 
 
 Yes ; some of them are. But are not some 
 of them grateful ? I am always struck with 
 the kindness of people, their love, their sym- 
 pathy, their patience. 
 
 " True ; but the people I have done most 
 for are most ungrateful." 
 
 Very likely. That has been sadly illus- 
 trated in my own experience. But even on 
 that point the Bible gives the best comfort. 
 It would seem, as in the Apostle's case, the 
 more you love some people the less you will 
 be loved. 
 
200 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 How wonderfully the Bible meets this very case. 
 " Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth ; for the 
 Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up 
 children, and they have rebelled against me." Now 
 will you think your case over from this point of 
 view? If you will, I am sure you will take heart 
 and begin again. Do not give up your work. 
 Write your letter of resignation, and write it very 
 strongly and even vehemently, and then place it 
 most carefully in the middle of the fire, the devil's 
 post-office for the devil's letters. Why should a 
 faithful man be faithless? You were not called to 
 the ministry by the will of man, but by the will of 
 God. " In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he 
 will direct thy paths." A minister must have no 
 self? He must be his Lord's loving slave. In such 
 a case his chain is his liberty. What have you or 
 I suffered in comparison with the Apostle Paul? 
 When I think myself ill-treated or wronged in any 
 way I read Paul's record, and become ashamed of 
 my petulance : 
 
 " Are they ministers of Christ? 
 I am more ; in labors more abun- 
 dant, in stripes above measure, in 
 prisons more frequent, in deaths 
 
AD CLERUM. 201 
 
 oft. Of the Jews five times re- 
 ceived I forty stripes save one. 
 Thrice was I beaten with rods, once 
 was I stoned, thrice I suffered ship- 
 wreck, a night and a day I have 
 been in the deep; in journeyings 
 often, in perils of waters, in perils 
 of robbers, in perils by mine own 
 countrymen, in perils by the 
 heathen, in perils in the city, in 
 perils in the wilderness, in perils in 
 the sea, in perils among false breth- 
 ren; in weariness and pain fulness, 
 *in hunger and thirst, in fastings 
 often, in cold and nakedness." 
 
 Yet we are tempted to resign because some man has 
 given up a pew! I am ashamed of myself when I 
 think of this possibility. What did the Apostle do 
 with all his sorrows, disappointments, sufferings, and 
 infirmities? He turned them to good account. He 
 made capital out of them. Oh, listen to this hero- 
 martyr : 
 
 " I take pleasure in infirmities, 
 in reproaches, in necessities, in per- 
 secutions, in distresses for Christ's 
 sake: for when I am weak, then 
 am I strong." 
 
 If we are in the apostolic succession we will do the 
 same. " If I needs must glory, I will glory in the 
 
202 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 things which concern mine infirmities." Paul thus 
 made failures into successes. They brought him 
 nearer to his Lord. They helped him toward 
 Gethsemane. " He said unto me, My grace is suffi- 
 cient for thee : for my strength is made perfect in 
 weakness." Our weakness gives Christ an oppor- 
 tunity to show the power of his grace. He does not 
 always save us from trouble ; he always saves us in 
 it. " We are troubled on every side, yet not dis- 
 tressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; per- 
 secuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not de- 
 stroyed." That we are " not destroyed" is a proof 
 that we shall be saved. With the Lord, a negative 
 may mean a positive. Are you destroyed ? Is your 
 root consumed with fire? Is there no remnant of 
 strength? Let us look to our Lord and expect his 
 incoming to our hearts every moment. " Though 
 he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by 
 the power of God." "If we be dead with him, we 
 shall also live with him : if we suffer, we shall also 
 reign with him." Now read the twenty- third 
 Psalm, and tell me if it is not the Word of God ut- 
 tered from the human side. 
 
AD CLERUM. 203 
 
 You know that the value of all comfort depends 
 upon the right with which we can claim it. It is 
 not meet to take the children's Self-Examination 
 bread and cast it unto the dogs. Personal. 
 
 We must not be comforted in wrong-doing. " What 
 glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, 
 ye shall take it patiently? " I must, then, probe my 
 heart before God. I must not spare myself. The hot 
 iron must go right in. Have I been envious of some 
 other man? Have I sought to injure his reputation, 
 or to modify his influence? Have I been secretly 
 pleased when I have heard that he is not quite so 
 popular as he used to be ? And yet have I said how 
 sorry I was that he was not maintaining his position ? 
 What wonder if God should chide me, and feed me 
 with the bread of rebuke? My soul was indeed 
 mean, and my breath was corrupt in prayer, yea, my 
 holiest words were bathed in pestilence, and my sup- 
 plications were weighted with deceit. Is it to be 
 wondered at, then, that God stirred up men against 
 me, and rolled rough stones before my feet? It was 
 righteous judgment. I had shut the door of the 
 sanctuary in my own face, and excluded myself from 
 
204 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 the light of love. Or, if I have not sinned in this 
 particular way, have I not sinned after a manner of 
 my own? Have I not burned with unholy passion? 
 Have I no secret altar of illicit worship? Has cov- 
 etousness perverted love, and seduced motive from 
 its first simplicity? Have I not become entangled 
 in an unprofitable process of self-justification without 
 going to the root of the matter? It is along this line 
 of inquiry that I often find the probable reason of 
 my discouragements and depressions. Other people 
 may have been the visible instruments, but the hos- 
 tility which they expressed may have been divine. 
 Very rarely does chastisement of this sort begin and 
 end with a personal opponent. The opponent him- 
 self may not fully know what he is doing. He may 
 even do it without reluctance. It does the soul no 
 harm to see God himself in all this penal action ; on 
 the contrary, it brings the soul to great principles 
 and gives it an opportunity of penitence and confes- 
 sion. Never spare your own soul, or regard yourself 
 as an instance of injured innocence. Self-severity is 
 the way to health. At this point also I have proved 
 the Bible to be the very Word of God. There is no 
 severity like the severity of that Word. " The word 
 
AD CLERUM. 2 05 
 
 of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any 
 two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing 
 asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and mar- 
 row, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of 
 the heart" (Heb. iv. 12). This may or may not 
 technically be the Bible as a mere book, yet it is in 
 that book I find the dividing sword as I find it no- 
 where else. When the Lord says, " Is not my word 
 like as a fire? and like a hammer that breaketh the 
 rock in pieces? " my heart can only answer in a sol- 
 emn and grateful Yes. A favorite figure is that of 
 the sword; 
 
 " He hath made my mouth like 
 a sharp sword." — Isaiah xlix. 2. 
 
 " Out of his mouth went a sharp 
 two-edged sword." — Rev. i. 16. 
 
 " Repent, or I will come unto 
 thee quickly, and will fight against 
 them with the sword of my mouth." 
 — Rev. ii. 16. 
 
 We may know the Word of God by its severity as 
 well as by its gentleness. It is a savor of life unto 
 life, or of death unto death. It effectually worketh 
 in them that believe. The Word of the Lord is as 
 the Lord himself. "Hell and destruction are before 
 
206 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 him ; how much more, then, the hearts of the children 
 of men." Are we very much cast down and exceed- 
 ingly troubled ? "I the Lord search the heart, I try 
 the reins, even to give every man according to his 
 ways, and according to the fruit of his doings " (Jer. 
 xvii. 10). That maybe the explanation! It finds 
 the reason in myself, and therefore it is likely to be 
 true. I must no longer trifle with myself. " If I 
 say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the 
 night shall be light about me." What, then, shall I 
 do? Wherewithal shall I cleanse my way? I will 
 arise, and go unto my Father, and will say unto him, 
 " Search me, and know my heart ; try me, and know 
 my thoughts ; and see if there be any wicked way in 
 me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Along 
 this line you will find release, and hope, and heaven. 
 
 Why do I preach? This is not so simple an 
 inquiry as it seems to be. Have I really a message 
 Self=Examination to the people, and is it so urgent 
 
 Ministerial. t h a t I must deliver it or die? 
 Whose message is it? Is it mine or God's? Is it 
 not partly mine ? Say the setting of it in words, and 
 in choosing the words have I not given the prefer- 
 
AD CLERUM. 207 
 
 ence to words which man's wisdom teacheth ? Have 
 I not been betrayed by my own cleverness and sor- 
 didly delighted with my own originality ? But I have 
 been told that I can have as direct a message from 
 God as Jeremiah had, or the Apostle Paul. Is that a 
 fact? Yes and No. God does now certainly com- 
 municate with the men who are " called to be saints," 
 but not to the exclusion of other men whom he has 
 chosen, and not at regularly appointed canonical 
 hours. You have to preach in the morning and in 
 the evening and in mid-week, and to do this for ten 
 years, or twenty, or fifty. Never forget that there 
 is an " everlasting gospel " as well as an immediate 
 message — a central fund of truth, public and per- 
 manent, as well as the word just dropped from 
 heaven. How could human vanity be more flatter- 
 ingly besieged than by the temptation that God 
 speaks privately and even secretly to the one man, 
 and that the one man is to be listened to as the 
 oracle of heaven? I believe that even the one man 
 is only really strong as he speaks the common truth, 
 under the common inspiration. We must beware 
 of " another gospel, which is not another," and we 
 must be so deeply attached to the common truth as 
 
208 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 to understand the apostolic exhortation : " Though 
 we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gos- 
 pel unto you than that which we have preached unto 
 you, let him be accursed." Paul would not allow 
 any preacher, even himself, to substitute one gospel 
 for another. He was so emphatic upon this point 
 that he repeated it: "As we said before, so say I 
 now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto 
 you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." 
 But was not Paul inspired? Yes. Yet he did not 
 claim what we call originality. He was inspired to 
 "receive" and to "deliver" a great public trust of 
 the Church : " For I delivered unto you first of all 
 that which I also received" — and was it something 
 that he himself, and he alone, received as a personal 
 and direct message in answer to his own individual 
 prayer? He gives the contrary impression by going 
 constantly to " the Scriptures " for his facts and 
 arguments. The doctrine which Paul " received " 
 and "delivered" he states to be: — -Christ died: 
 Christ was buried : Christ rose again : Christ was 
 seen : Christ was seen by me. All this is set out in 
 the fifthteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the 
 Corinthians. That is the doctrine which I have to 
 
AD CLE RUM. 20g 
 
 receive and deliver. These are the unchanging facts. 
 Personal inspiration may come and go, but the 
 sacred deposit abides. There is a standard truth — an 
 " everlasting gospel." God will surely visit his ser- 
 vants and reform their faith and grant them larger 
 understanding, but he will not change the foundation 
 — the sure corner-stone — nor destroy the election of 
 his Son. 
 
 Am I preaching faithfully ? Am I afraid of men's 
 faces? Do I take my income and my worldly posi- 
 tion into account? Is my example like a holy fire 
 in the Church, or am I chilled by the indifference of 
 others? I must stretch my very soul upon the rack 
 of these inquiries if I would fight the enemy in the 
 power of God. My humiliation will then be turned 
 into true glory. I shall not be dependent for my 
 comfort or peace upon popular applause. With that 
 applause I shall have no concern. Not what is pop- 
 ular but what is right must be my incessant and 
 fearless inquiry. "Jesus, still lead on." O my 
 Father, help me in all my vows; nay, do Thou Thy- 
 self firs^t form the vows within my heart, then nurture 
 them with Thy grace, and help me to turn them into 
 
2IO NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 life that they may be of use to others also. May I 
 preach the everlasting gospel under the gracious in- 
 spiration of the immediate moment, that it may come 
 with great power and tenderness to hearts that are 
 confident in the coming of Thy kingdom. Father, 
 make me a vessel meet for Thine own use. 
 
 The Apostle Paul has laid down the subjects of his 
 ministry, and I do not see why I should change them. 
 Preaching on the right They are great subjects. 
 subjects. They are at once historical 
 
 and prophetical. Let me slowly repeat them : Christ 
 died : Christ was buried : Christ rose again : Christ 
 was seen : Christ was seen of me. This is the true 
 modernness. The element of personal experience 
 and testimony is essential to true preaching. No 
 matter who else has seen Christ, if I have not seen 
 him myself I cannot preach him. A spectacle to the 
 eyes of my body he may never be, yet he may be 
 the daily vision of my soul. We are told that Paul 
 did not preach on gloomy things, but upon " Jesus 
 and the resurrection." But what does resurrection 
 imply? Resurrection is the last word of a series. 
 Born, Died, Buried, Rose — that is the series, and 
 
AD CLERUM. 2 I I 
 
 every point glows with eternal meaning. I must 
 preach Jesus and the Birth, Jesus and the Death, 
 Jesus and the Burial, if I would intelligently and 
 powerfully preach Jesus and the Resurrection. 
 Death by itself is a poor theme, but death regarded 
 in the light of the Resurrection becomes a servant of 
 the Lord, and to die may be to partake as of a holy 
 sacrament. Death is now no more death. It is not 
 the old servitude to law. It is obedience, vivified 
 by hope. It is necessity, with consent. I must, 
 then, follow the Apostle's commanding example and 
 preach on great subjects. They will lift the ministry 
 to its right level. They will bring in that element 
 of majesty which does not consist in pomp of words 
 or gorgeousness of metaphor, but in a solemn and 
 subduing consciousness of the Supernatural, as if God 
 filled the air and placed his almightiness at our dis- 
 posal. We shall know the nearness of God by the 
 obliteration of ourselves ; by our sense of unworthi- 
 ness ; by our eagerness to bless others; by our ha- 
 tred of sin. The tests are many and perfect. The 
 very greatness of his themes will drive a minister to 
 prayer. Let him discourse upon some small theme, 
 and he feels that he can handle it without help. Let 
 
212 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 him face Eternity, and he will clese his eyes in hum- 
 ble supplication! Woe to the minister who thinks 
 he can handle all themes with ease, and woe to the 
 church whose minister he is! Woe, also, to the 
 minister who thinks that the Cross is an old theme 
 and that everything possible has been said about it. 
 That is a fatal error. The Cross is the oldest and the 
 newest of themes. They who know it best see in it 
 a new glory every day. " God forbid that I should 
 glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 "To me to live is Christ." "The life which I now 
 live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, 
 who loved me, and gave himself for me." Still the 
 "me," always the "me," necessarily the "me also." 
 " I live, yet not I." 
 
 Is it at all short of criminal for any man to preach 
 doctrines which affect the very foundations of char- 
 Preaching founded a °ter and the remotest issues of 
 
 on Authority. human life without being able 
 to test their truth except by his own supposed in- 
 spiration? Who is the preacher? Who sent him? 
 Who gave him his word? Every other teacher has 
 a basis. Every other teacher has his book of evi- 
 
AD CLERUM. 2 I 3 
 
 dences. Why should the preacher alone have a 
 license bearing no signature but his own? Every 
 other teacher has a book not of his own writing. 
 What is the sky but a book? What is the earth but 
 a book? What is unwritten daily life but a book? 
 How foolish, then, it is to speak of Christianity as a 
 book-religion. Science is a book-science. The only 
 superstition that has no book is Agnosticism, and it 
 has no book because it has no science and no relig- 
 ion. Agnosticism is a cipher shutting out every- 
 thing and inclosing nothing. It is an impertinence 
 hardly less than profane for a man to base his 
 preaching upon nothing but his own variable and 
 capricious inspiration. Even bibliolatry may be 
 preferable to self-deification. The authority of the 
 Christian preacher is the Inspired Word. His min- 
 istry is founded upon a revelation. His sermon is 
 modern: his gospel is everlasting; his illustrations 
 are a thousand : his Message is one. As a minister 
 I must found myself upon the Bible. What it is to 
 others I know not; to me it is the abiding and un- 
 changeable Word of God. Revelation is at once the 
 guarantee and the test of true inspiration. " Try tin- 
 spirits whether they are of God." "Of your own 
 
214 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to 
 draw away disciples after them." To every Timothy 
 I would affectionately say : " I charge thee before 
 God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, Preach the Word." 
 " If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of 
 God." These oracles are declared by the apostles 
 to be " the word of this salvation " (Acts xiii. 26), 
 "the word of faith" (Rom. x. 8), "the word of 
 life " (Phil. ii. 16), " the engrafted word which is able 
 to save your souls" (James i. 21). If any man ask 
 Christian ministers to produce their authority, let 
 them gratefully and exultantly reply : " God . . . 
 hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation " 
 (2 Cor. v. 19). 
 
 We cannot preach unless we pray. We can talk ; 
 we can say good things; we can be popular; but 
 Preaching the other in the dear Lord's sense of the 
 
 side of Prayer. term we cannot preach. The 
 Apostle calls upon us to " pray without ^easing," 
 and this exhortation has been designated an " apos- 
 tolic hyberbole." I solemnly deny it. We breathe 
 without ceasing, we love without ceasing, we believe 
 without ceasing, why is it hyperbolical to pray with- 
 
AD CLERUM. 2 I 5 
 
 out ceasing? Why will we find figures of speech 
 where we might find the very breath of heaven ? 
 Christianity is nothing if it is not hyperbolical, from 
 a worldly and carnal point of view. Nothing in it 
 is on a low level. Nothing is ordinary. It is the 
 religion of the Incarnation — that hyperbole of love ! 
 We cannot always be upon our knees, but attitude is 
 not prayer. We cannot always be uttering formal 
 or verbal petitions, but " prayer is the upward glanc- 
 ing of an eye when none but God is near." The 
 grammarian cannot explain "pray without ceasing," 
 but the child-heart knows it well and knows it all. 
 Is it hyperbole to say " we live and move and have 
 our being in God"? To accept that being in the 
 right spirit is to "pray without ceasing." Prayer 
 may be a look, a sigh, a tear, an expectation without 
 words and beyond them. In the soul's highest 
 moods, when the soul is nearest heaven, we eat the 
 Lord's flesh and drink the Lord's blood, without 
 heeding the sneer and the quibble of unbelief. And 
 so we pray. And so we read the Bible and lovingly 
 call it the Word of God. We may be challenged to 
 say where it calls itself the Word of God, but we 
 should be unjust to our inspired and ardent love if 
 
2l6 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 we called it by any inferior name. It has told us all 
 we know about God and Jesus, and Sin and Pardon 
 and Prayer, so we call it the Word of God. It tells 
 me that I may pray. It says God hears and answers 
 prayer. It invites me to draw nigh unto God. In 
 its very midst there is a Throne of Grace. I must 
 keep close company with my Lord. I must not lose 
 sight of him for one moment. He must be so near 
 me that we can talk in whispers. Without him I 
 can do nothing. With him I can do all things. 
 " Lord, abide with me, for it is toward evening and 
 the day is far spent." 
 
 Will prayer supersede labor? Never. To labor 
 is to pray. Prayer may rearrange labor, may give 
 new scope and new direction to labor, may charge 
 our aptitudes with new responsibilities, may operate 
 in many ways, but will never sanction or prosper in- 
 dolence. I will go so far as to say that a minister 
 may be withdrawn in a large degree from literary 
 attention to artistic sermon-making. He may have 
 been a manufacturer of idols. Herein God may 
 "stain the pride of his glory." He may have to 
 think more of the truth and less of the form ; more 
 
AD CLERUM. 2 I 7 
 
 of the Master and less of his own petty reputation. 
 It may be the most painful of all fates to be merely 
 a popular preacher. At this point prayer will work 
 its silent miracles, in mellowing thought, in deepen- 
 ing tenderness, in enlarging charity. O brothers, let 
 us pray without ceasing, that we may work without 
 fainting. " They that wait upon the Lord shall 
 renew their strength." "The Lord is good unto 
 them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh 
 him." In prayer we are alone with God. We are 
 in his treasure-house receiving the costliest of his 
 riches. " The God of Israel is he that giveth 
 strength and power unto his people." It is as if he 
 would give us his almightiness. " He giveth power 
 unto the faint ; and to them that have no might 
 he increaseth strength." Incomplete power despises 
 weakness : perfect power nurses it into force. There 
 is One who will not break the bruised reed, nor 
 quench the smoking flax. We must get near him 
 in prayer. "The Lord will give strength unto his 
 people," " for which cause we faint not; but though 
 our outward man perish, yet the inward man is re- 
 newed day by day." I will boldly go to my Father's 
 throne, and tell him every day what Jesus did tor 
 
2l8 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 me. He will not say No to Jesus, " for of him, and 
 through him, and to him, are all things, to whom be 
 glory forever." 
 
 The ministry of Christ is not a " learned profes- 
 sion " in any monastic sense which separates it offi- 
 Words and Things c ' m ^Y from the life of the corn- 
 not Necessary to mon people, or in the sense of 
 
 Salvation. , uu , , 
 
 having a crabbed terminology 
 
 of its own without which no man can hold the keys 
 of the kingdom of heaven. Unhappily, the ministry 
 of the gospel has been made scholastic. Men who 
 enter it must know a little Latin and a little arith- 
 metic. Latin and arithmetic no man of sense will 
 undervalue. They may be extremely useful in any 
 walk of life. But they have no necessary relation 
 whatever to the ministry. To the ministry men are 
 called directly from Heaven. The true minister is a 
 miracle of the Holy Ghost, and on the Holy Ghost 
 he must rely for daily inspiration. Modern ways of 
 training ministers inexpressibly sadden me. Some- 
 times I feel as if they must grieve the very Spirit of 
 God. There are many things really not necessary 
 to the ministry. Even a final year in Germany is 
 
AD CLERUM. 219 
 
 not absolutely indispensable. I am not now speak- 
 ing of scholars, but of ministers, preachers, pastors, 
 who have to mingle with the common life of the 
 people. Scholars we must have. I am now speak- 
 ing from a purely pastoral point of view, and I say 
 that pastors must not be priestlings, and certainly 
 must not be sciolists and pedants. They must hum- 
 ble themselves to the acceptance of the fact that a 
 great many beautiful things can be said even in the 
 English language ; even some fairly original things 
 may be expressed by that instrument. It is really 
 a very fair language, and men should take pains to 
 spell it well before they sneer at it. I have some- 
 times thought of making a list of words not necessary 
 to salvation and of hanging it up in the pulpit. The 
 list would contain such words as : 
 
 Absolute, Relative, Hy- 
 pothesis, Phenomena, Ag- 
 nostic, Positivist, Synop- 
 tic, the Johannine problem, 
 Assurbanipal, the Septua- 
 gint, Psychology, Assyri- 
 ology, Orthophonic, Tar- 
 gum, and I [egelianism. 
 
220 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 I have no personal prejudice against any of these 
 words — indeed, some of them look as if they might 
 mean a good deal — yet I do not think they are neces- 
 sary to salvation. I think the Church could do very 
 well without some of them. The sort of preaching 
 which I describe as the Gospel-made-difficult never 
 did me any good. Nor did I ever wish to speak to 
 the preacher. He always seemed to be preaching 
 out of a cloud into a cloud, and to be writhing with 
 intellectual and verbal pain. I have avoided the 
 portentous creature, and have sincerely wished that 
 he would at once take a final year in Germany. The 
 style that I like is the style of the Beatitudes, and 
 the style of the Parables. Jesus finds my heart. 
 Jesus feeds me. Jesus gives me rest. " The com- 
 mon people heard him gladly." Dear Saviour, help 
 me to preach in Thy way and to tell sorrowing men 
 how they may find Thee. I am most anxious to be 
 infinitely removed from the idea of being a member 
 of a mere profession. If this ministry is a profession, 
 it is a wicked fraud, with Simon Magus as its type 
 and head. An expert I can understand, and I can 
 assign him large functions ; but the half-bred scholar 
 who appoints himself as an oracle is a stumbling- 
 
AD CLERUM. 22 1 
 
 block, an uncertificated priestling, a pretender, and 
 a sham. A great process of unfrocking must go on 
 in every ministry. This will separate the true from 
 the untrue, and invest the true with their rightful 
 influence. The priest, regarded as the type of cer- 
 tain traditions and pretenses, must be got rid of. 
 He profits by ignorance and grows rich by supersti- 
 tion. He sells heaven for a livelihood, and makes 
 an investment of Calvary. The humiliation of listen- 
 ing to such an embodied falsehood is intense and 
 intolerable. On the other hand, how noble a picture 
 is that of a good minister of Jesus Christ! He is a 
 sincere, simple-minded, unpretending, sympathetic 
 soul ; he longs to do good ; he hides himself behind 
 his Lord ; for him to live is Christ. The world will 
 always want such ministers, and the Head of the 
 Church will never cease to supply them. They will 
 not necessarily be literary experts ; but they will be 
 rich in that varied and well-tested experience which 
 has tried the quality of faith in the stress and sorrow 
 of life. The bigness of the man will explain the 
 dignity of the minister. The ministry calls for large 
 and generous natures. I am well aware that igno- 
 rance may pervert my meaning, and that, being des- 
 
222 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 titute of every qualification, it may claim the mantle 
 of inspiration. There is, however, no serious cause 
 for alarm. Ignorance can have but a short day. 
 Where there is no deepness of earth the process of 
 withering cannot be long put off. Never trust a 
 man simply because he knows nothing. It is a poor 
 ground of trust. To blatant fluency truth owes 
 nothing. Even where reading does not add to my 
 wisdom, it humbles me by revealing my ignorance. 
 To know my ignorance may be the beginning of true 
 knowledge. So, then, I would be saved from the 
 little-learning, which is the worst ignorance, and from 
 the no-learning, which makes self-confidence so pos- 
 sible. I must go to God in loving prayer, and put 
 myself wholly into his hands. I would bathe myself 
 in God. O God, hear my crying, and turn Thyself 
 toward me in great compassion. 
 
 Mr. Ruskin says that Political Economy is citizen's 
 economy. That is definition by etymology, which 
 is often the best definition of all. Pastoral theology 
 is shepherdly theology. Shepherd is as hard to de- 
 fine as Father. We all know the meaning, yet we 
 can never tell it all. Care is so watchful, gentleness 
 is so patient, love is so unselfish, that we cannot eas- 
 
AD CLERUM. 223 
 
 Ily follow their whole way and set down in plain 
 words exactly and completely what they are doing. 
 Love is always coming back, like Abrarri, to the altar 
 which it " built at the first." Gentleness always 
 adds one more soothing touch, and anxiety has al- 
 ways one more " good- night " before weariness drops 
 asleep. The shepherd, or pastor, is not necessarily 
 a literar\- expert, yet he is an expert in his own way. 
 Mothers must not be clumsy, nor shepherds, nor 
 nurses, nor the hand that stirs the fire in the hushed 
 chamber of suffering. There are fine arts that have 
 no name. The angels train us to their use. The 
 Spirit guides the chosen craftsman and holds the 
 hand that draws and cuts and molds the finest lines. 
 We should do nothing for ourselves, but quietly and 
 intently await the coming of the angel. 
 
 THE PASTOR SHOULD KEEP HIS PEOPLE AROUND 
 
 HIS DESK 
 
 whilst composing his discourse. The audience will 
 be imagined, not imaginary. Thus every sentence 
 
 will be addressed to some known experience, and 
 thus the hearers will know that the pastor lives in 
 their midst. The wise pastor is under no delusion as 
 
224 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 to the capacity and qualifications of his audience. 
 He knows that most of his auditors are in absolute 
 ignorance of his subject, and therefore he takes 
 nothing for granted. Even greatness has its own 
 fine way of being elementary. Greatness never 
 snubs the congregation, for that would mean exas- 
 peration on the one side and loss of influence on the 
 other. Yet greatness can stoop to the lowest and 
 wait for the slowest. The pastor knows that most 
 of his people are wholly unprepared for continuous 
 and elaborate argument. They have just left a 
 thousand worries : the child is ill ; the field is bare ; 
 there is no blossom on the fig-tree ; there is no herd 
 in the stall : the mind, therefore, must be humored 
 and lured into the subject with pious and tender tact. 
 The minister makes a fatal mistake who supposes 
 that his congregation is composed of intellectual and 
 highly cultivated hearers. A few such there may 
 be, and where the description is really true they will 
 be the strongest supporters of any pastorate bent 
 upon carrying forward the common life of the church. 
 True culture is generous and patient. Probably the 
 most prominent characteristic of any miscellaneous 
 audience is ignorance. If a minister could question 
 
AD CLERUM. 22$ 
 
 his hearers one by one as to their knowledge of the 
 Bible, he would be simply horrified. Ask them 
 about the scheme of any Epistle, its characteristics, 
 its purpose, its supreme thought, then he will know- 
 exactly on what a cultured audience he is lavishing 
 his genius. The most discouraging feature of the 
 case is that people are under the delusion that what- 
 ever else they may be ignorant of, they certainly do 
 know the Bible. Not a man in a million knows any- 
 thing about the Bible beyond a few of its most famil- 
 iar chapters and texts. I venture to think that when 
 the Bible is really known, in its unity, its purpose, 
 its spirit, men will have little difficulty in calling it 
 the W ord of God. In the meantime they must be 
 largely regarded as not knowing it. This fact creates 
 the opportunity for a wise handling of the Word. 
 How to be guileful without deceit ? How to rem< 
 ignorance without first insulting it? The pastor 
 must study these inquiries in the light of facts. He 
 must often work obliquely. By explaining a word 
 or an argument to the young, and asking grown 
 people to be patient with him in doing so, he may 
 now and then get a beam of light partially into 
 heads — if heads they are — which are the very sepul- 
 
226 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 chers of darkness. But specially and lovingly must 
 the pastor remember that the majority of his hearers 
 do not live in a library. They have not been trained 
 to follow a linked argument. Why, then, should the 
 pastor pose before them as the descendant of an 
 Aristotle who would be the first to disown and de- 
 spise him? Rather let him " serve the Lord with all 
 humility of mind, and with many tears." This bap- 
 tism of tears is no mean sign of power. They are 
 the tears of a strong man. " Out of much affliction 
 and anguish of heart, I wrote unto you with many 
 tears " (2 Cor. ii. 4). " He beheld the city and wept 
 over it" (Luke xix. 41). Man is not made up of 
 intellect exclusively. Nor by intellect alone can man 
 be saved. 
 
 THE PASTOR MUST LIVE FOR HIS CHARGE 
 
 by identifying himself with the spiritual education 
 of his people. They are his people. Upon one fold 
 he spends his care and love, as the father spends his 
 heart upon one home. He must not be " a stranger " 
 to his own sheep, or they will not know his voice. 
 The standard of the true pastor is Christ. " I am 
 the good shepherd ; the good shepherd giveth his life 
 
.-//) CLERUM. 
 
 for the sheep." In our own way and in our own 
 degree we are to be what Christ was. That is our 
 high calling! That is our cross. " Christ also hath 
 loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering 
 and a sacrifice to God for a sweet- smelling savor " 
 (Eph. v. 2). Resentment is forbidden to the true 
 pastor. He cannot act as a fellow-citizen or an 
 equal. The pastor has often to be quiet when the 
 natural man would be haughty and repellent. In a 
 sense the pastor must be Christ. " Let nothing be 
 done through strife or vain-glory ; but in lowliness 
 of mind let each esteem others better than them- 
 selves." The apostles are pastoral examples. " Being 
 reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it." 
 This is argument! This is the witness of the Spirit ! 
 The pastor is not yet fully ordained in whose heart 
 there linger- one trace of social contempt. u Conde- 
 scend to men of low estate." " Have not the faith 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ with respect of persons." 
 Resentment, or vanity, or self-justification lias no 
 commendation in the Bible. "Say not thou, I will 
 recompense evil; but wait on the Lord, and he shall 
 save thee." Acting in this spirit, the pastor will win 
 the hearts of his people and prevail silently against 
 
228 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 the proud doer. Violence makes but temporary- 
 success. " He that is slow to anger is better than 
 the mighty ; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that 
 taketh a city." Aggressive and boisterous policies 
 are for the carnal man ; gentleness is the power of 
 the pastor. " To the weak became I as weak, that I 
 might gain the weak." Filled with this spirit, 
 
 THE PASTOR WILL NEVER DEPRECIATE HIS 
 CHARGE. 
 
 Wherever his lot is cast, the pastor will conscien- 
 tiously and gratefully make the most and the best of 
 his people. He will never set himself above them 
 in any spirit of vanity, playing the worldly " gentle- 
 man " that he may throw their manners into humili- 
 ating contrast. The people will feel his superiority 
 without having it thrust upon them. They will 
 smell the rose without being pierced by the thorn. 
 In the whole course of my ministry I have never 
 failed to observe that the pastors who appreciate 
 their people are the pastors who do the most endur- 
 ing work. Besides, if the pastor were a real gentle- 
 man, owing nothing to pretense and nothing to 
 veneer, he would know that, however much the peo- 
 
AD CLERUM. 22g 
 
 pie are inferior to him, they once had sense enough 
 to elect him, and he once was glad enough to accept 
 their favOrs. But such a gentleman never breaks 
 down in his manners. He is filled with the Spirit, 
 and is therefore appreciative, approachable, and of a 
 tender heart. Let me lovingly warn my brethren 
 against the too frequent practice of depreciating their 
 people. Take Christ's view of them. "Why dost 
 thou set at naught thy brother?" In the pulpit the 
 minister addresses his audience as " my Christian 
 brethren " — " my dear friends " — " my beloved hear- 
 ers." He who calls his people by one name in public 
 and by another in private brings himself under the 
 charge of insincerity and practical falsehood. The 
 ruder the people the larger the pastor's opportunity 
 for refining them. If the people are too rude to be 
 mixed with, why live upon them? Why not take up 
 some genteeler misery? They who gathered around 
 the Saviour were not members of the social aristoc- 
 racy. The Apostle Paul worked with his own hands 
 that he might relieve the poorer churches from the 
 charge of his sustenance. " Ye remember, brethren, 
 our labor and travail: for laboring night ami day, 
 because we would not be chargeable unto any of 
 
230 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 you, we preached unto you the gospel Of God." 
 There is a gentility that can work with its own hands 
 when need arises. The pastor will never fail to look 
 beyond the circumstances and fix his thought upon 
 the man. He is a shepherd of souls, not of gold 
 rings and soft raiment. " Not many wise men after 
 the flesh are called." The men whose " mouth 
 speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons 
 in admiration because of advantage," are condemned 
 by Jude as men who " walk after their own lusts." 
 The pastor will have his personal friends and his 
 elect companions, but in his pastoral capacity he will 
 be " kindly affectioned " toward the whole church. 
 " I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these 
 things without preferring one before another, doing 
 nothing by partiality." The pastor has a special 
 message to the rich as well as to the poor, and it 
 is the more delicate message to deliver. " Charge 
 them that are rich in this world, that they be not 
 high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches." Charge 
 them " that they do good, that they be rich in good 
 works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate." 
 In this way will the godly pastor bring into sympa- 
 
AD CLERUM. 23 I 
 
 thy and fellowship many who are divided by the 
 worldly distinctions of title and estate. 
 
 THE PASTOR SHOULD KNOW HUMAN NATURE, 
 
 for that is the truly "original language." No mat- 
 ter what else you know, if you do not know human 
 nature you are not fit to teach and guide human life. 
 Man is odd. Each man is a man by himself, a sep- 
 arate study, an independent puzzle. Do not be 
 misled by mere manners. I tremble when I am 
 introduced to " a nice man," " such a nice man " ; " a 
 quiet man," " such a quiet man." You never know 
 what a man is until you have interfered with his 
 vested interests, or until you have seen him under 
 insult. Then will you know how very nice a man 
 he is, how extremely quiet, how absolutely modest. 
 I have had to do with " nice men " until I dread the 
 very term. 
 
 "There's a deal o' solid kicking 
 In the meekest-looking mule." 
 
 So says James Russell Lowell, and so will every 
 pastor say who has had to do with " very nice men." 
 Jesus Christ knew human nature, and acted with 
 discretion that was meant to be exemplary. " Jesus 
 
2 $2 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 did not commit himself unto them, because he knew 
 all men, and needed not that he should testify of 
 man: for he knew what was in man." He did not 
 treat Nicodemus as he treated Herod. The pastor 
 will need discrimination in distributing spiritual in- 
 struction and comfort. Sometimes he will be mis- 
 cellaneous; sometimes personal and direct. "I, 
 brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, 
 but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ." 
 Even the disobedient must not be treated as hostile. 
 " Count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a 
 brother." Beware of false professors. "Take heed 
 that no man deceive you." Pastors should not live 
 for flattery. They will never be really happy until 
 they live primarily for the favor of God. To the in- 
 quiring pastor I would say : Form your own estimate 
 of men. Keep your counsel to yourself. Never 
 listen to gossip ; never descend to tittle-tattle. Give 
 your people to feel that your mind is set upon great 
 subjects and the application of such subjects to daily 
 experience, and they will soon feel that you are dis- 
 inclined to indulge in local slander or frivolous criti- 
 cism. The holy man will bring unholy subjects into 
 disrepute. If you know human nature well, you 
 
AD CLERUM. 233 
 
 will let some men talk themselves right out. You 
 need not listen. But you might look at them in a 
 way that they could hardly mistake for an encour- 
 agement. 
 
 THE PASTOR SHOULD KEEP A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 
 
 This will be his stronghold in the day of trouble. 
 It has been the defense of good men in all time. To 
 my junior I would say, Let no man do you such 
 favors as would pervert your judgment or quell your 
 courage. Borrow from none. Avoid debt as you 
 would avoid a wolf. Never forget that a pound 
 a week is not three shillings a day. Keep your 
 tastes within your income. How nobly Samuel ad- 
 dressed the people : 
 
 "Behold, here I am: witness 
 against me before the Lord, and 
 before his anointed : whose ox 
 have I taken ? or whom have I de- 
 frauded? whom have I oppressed? 
 or of whose hand have I received 
 any bribe to blind mine eyes there- 
 with? And I will restore it you" 
 (1 Sam. xii. 3). 
 
 That is independence. There should be nothing 
 shady in a pastor's relations with his people. The 
 pastor's motto should be Straightforwardness. The 
 
234 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 Apostle Paul had a noble record. " I have coveted 
 no man's silver, or gold, or apparel. ... In all things 
 I have kept myself from being burdensome unto 
 you, and so will I keep myself." An infinite shame 
 to modern churches if the pastor should be neglected, 
 yet the pastor's own honor need not be tarnished. 
 " Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have 
 ministered unto my necessities, and to them that 
 were with me." A horrible shame to the churches! 
 To whom is the pastor, in many cases, least indebted 
 for support? To the rich. Always allowing for 
 brilliant exceptions, the rich men in a church are the 
 robbers of pastors. They rob them in the very act 
 of patronizing them. They tempt them into need- 
 less expense. The richest man I ever knew gave 
 me seven and sixpence per quarter for his seat, and 
 every time I submitted to the humiliation of dining 
 with him my traveling expenses were in excess of 
 that amount! Yet with what glory he covered my 
 ministry! Surely the time will come when spiritual 
 things will be rightly valued. " If we have sown 
 unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we 
 shall reap your carnal things?" Is flesh to be bal- 
 anced against thought ? " Who goeth a warfare any 
 time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, 
 
AD CLERUM. 235 
 
 and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a 
 flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?" 
 These are lessons for the churches. The less the 
 pastor thinks of them the more should they be 
 thought of by the people. Let the pastor so order 
 his conduct in all such matters as to have a con- 
 science void of offense. Along this line many high 
 rewards are to be gathered. " Our rejoicing is this, 
 the testimony of our conscience." A solid — a sac- 
 ramental feast! A banquet with the Lord himself! 
 Hear the Apostle : " I have lived in all good con- 
 science before God until this day." "And herein I 
 do exercise myself, to have always a conscience void 
 of offense toward God, and toward men." It was in 
 this bank of conscience that the Apostle laid up large 
 wealth. " I thank God, whom I serve from my fore- 
 fathers with a pure conscience." According to the 
 testimony of his conscience every pastor is strong or 
 weak. The conscience is the man. Never have an 
 artificial conscience, or a one-sided conscience, or an 
 oblique conscience. If the light that is in thee be 
 darkness, how great is that darkness! 
 
 And in what will all faithful shepherdliness end? 
 Suppose a pastor has fed the flock of God, taking 
 
236 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but will- 
 ingly: not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind. 
 What then? Will he die the death of a dog and be 
 buried as an unclean thing? Suppose the pastor has 
 been blameless as the steward of God and an en- 
 sample to the flock? Suppose he has been an ex- 
 ample of the believers, in word, in conversation, in 
 charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity? What then? 
 Shall he pass away as smoke and be forgotten as a 
 wind? It is not so that the Apostle speaks of the 
 end. His words glow with thankfulness; his spirit 
 is immovable in confidence : 
 
 "When the Chief Shepherd shall appear 
 ye shall receive a crown of glory that 
 fadeth not away." 
 
 " Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly." 
 
EPILOGUE. 
 
 237 
 
IX. 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 IF the Bible had not survived so many examina- 
 tions, assaults, and afflictions, one might despair 
 of its happy issue out of present-day inquiry and 
 so-called dissection. What we want, however, and 
 what we must have at all costs, is the truth. In 
 pursuing this end Christian scholars must be prayer- 
 fully and generously supported. We may have to 
 build other churches and other colleges, because as 
 honest men we cannot accept a livelihood by betray- 
 ing a trust ; yet I believe we shall account the sacri- 
 fice a joy if by making it we can get nearer to reality 
 and fact. If the discussion turned upon some par- 
 ticular doctrine contained in the Bible itself, a doc- 
 trine known to be open to various interpretations, the 
 ground would be very significantly limited. But in 
 this case the question turns upon the genuineness 
 
 239 
 
2\Q NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 and credibility of the Bible itself, and I, for one, am 
 sorry that our scholars and experts do not feel them- 
 selves at liberty to speak more definitely upon that 
 vital subject. Theirs is largely a non-committal at- 
 titude upon nearly all the points of expert opinion. 
 They offer us "a. series of tentative suggestions," 
 they refer us to " a true historical instinct," they are 
 not able to say this or that " at present," they give 
 " legitimate weight " to the results or possibilities of 
 " future excavations," and they assure us that all is 
 right as to spiritual revelation. Adam, as he has 
 been popularly apprehended, was removed from the 
 Bible long ago by the naturalists ; there is no Adam ; 
 there never was any Adam ; there never could have 
 been any Adam; — the account of the Creation is a 
 Poem, but who wrote it no man knows; Adam could 
 not have written it, for there never was an Adam ; — 
 Mr. Horton (" Revelation and the Bible," p. 39) says 
 that it would be a "childish misinterpretation" to 
 treat the first known story in Genesis " as literal 
 act" — the serpent never talked, the Flood never 
 fell ; — Abraham was ideal and cumulative, a noun 
 of multitude, rather than a real and historical person- 
 ality; — we are getting accustomed to hear without 
 
EPILOGUE. 241 
 
 special emotion that " Ruth, Daniel, and Esther rest 
 upon a very slender historical basis " ; — Moses did 
 not write the Pentateuch, David did not write the 
 Psalms, Solomon had little or nothing to do with the 
 Proverbs; — "the authors of the books which com- 
 pose the Bible did not dream of making the claim 
 that what they were writing was written by God, or 
 spoken by God" (" Verbum Dei," p. 105); — yet in 
 spite of all this we are assured that on all spiritual 
 matters the Bible may be trusted. Surely this is 
 imposing a severe strain upon the mind of any one 
 but an expert. But we must not consider that. 
 What we want to get at is fact, rise, or fall what 
 may. The front gates are fired down, the castle 
 guns have been silenced, the moat has been crossed, 
 the roof has been battered in, but the household 
 hearth still remains! Does it? How long will it 
 remain? All along the critical line orthodoxy has 
 had to give in. Even "poor Tom Paine" is now 
 seen to have been something of a hero and a pion- 
 eer, and in fact almost a martyr. All this may be 
 right, or it may all be wrong; what I fear is that 
 where criticism has so completely beaten back ortho- 
 doxy it may one day drive in the battle upon Cal- 
 
242 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 vary itself and seize the cross as a trophy of war. 
 It is easy to deprecate this view, and easy to pity 
 it as sentiment, yet I cannot sufficiently ignore the 
 antecedent facts to treat it with disregard. If ninety- 
 nine of a hundred points have been carried, I cannot 
 feel quite secure about the hundredth. But some 
 of the men who have made the bulk of these conces- 
 sions are Christian men? Truly. They are, too, 
 men who do more for mankind than it lies within 
 my inferior capacity to do. I know that I am not 
 dealing with aliens and enemies. That is my su- 
 preme difficulty. I feel that if such men are right, 
 I must be wrong. I was preaching in some blunder- 
 ing way before they were born, but they come up 
 with all the new learning, and they take away, or 
 permit to be taken away, Adam and Abraham, and 
 David and Isaiah and Daniel, in the sense in which 
 I have always cherished these illustrious names. 
 They drive Christ out of the Messianic Psalms and 
 prophecies. They tell me that the Bible is wrong in 
 history, wrong in chronology, wrong in dates, wrong 
 in sequence, and that (Horton, " Revelation and the 
 Bible," p. 13) " as a treatise on ethics, or a Vade 
 Mecum of practical conduct, the book does not pro- 
 
EPILOGUE. 243 
 
 fess to serve." But they assure me that the whole 
 purpose of the book is to bring men to Christ. 
 Whose Christ? Baur's? Strauss'? Renan's? Pres- 
 ently may they take away my Lord himself without 
 telling me where they have laid him? 
 
 In substance I retain the Bible exactly as my 
 mother gave it, for she, too, was an expert. She 
 thought the Lord made the heavens and the earth 
 in six days, and that he rested on the seventh day 
 and blessed it. She told me the story of Joseph just 
 as if it had been all true, and she told me about 
 Abraham and Isaac and the angel seizing the up- 
 lifted knife as if it were a fact. And about the Flood 
 she told me, and never for a moment doubted the 
 great rain, but was quite sure that the flood was 
 'forty days upon the earth, and that the waters pre- 
 vailed upon the earth, and that all the high hills that 
 were under the whole heavens were covered. She 
 went over all the Bible lovingly, and never said a 
 word to me about " tentative suggestions," clay tab- 
 lets, and "future excavations." And many a time 
 after reading the Bible to me we fell on our knees, 
 and the dear old soul talked to God as if he were a 
 
244 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 real living being and quite close to her. Yet she 
 knew nothing about God but what she had read in 
 the Bible ! Of course all this cuts a mean figure in 
 the eyes of formal logic and in the view of the new 
 learning. Yet I am going to cling to it. My reason 
 for referring to it now is to remind the critics that 
 there is a Bible dear to the common people — they 
 were made by it, converted by it, comforted by it, 
 and they live upon it, and I do not want the critics 
 to take it away until they have something better to 
 give than " a series of tentative suggestions " and the 
 hope of finding some help in "future excavations." 
 We must not ignore the work which the Bible has 
 done amongst the people. Experts should limit the 
 circulation of their books amongst themselves. They 
 should prey and feed and starve upon each other's 
 partial learning, and flatter each other's critical in- 
 stinct by inventing still longer polysyllables and 
 playing the middleman to German wordmongers. 
 I would only take away an idolater's idol because I 
 think I have something better to put in its place. 
 Neither would I take away the Mother's Adam and 
 Moses and Abraham and Isaac and Isaiah and Dan- 
 iel, and fill the ghastly vacancy with (f nothing more 
 
EPILOGUE. 245 
 
 than a series of tentative suggestions." But what 
 would the infidel say ? I never consult the infidel 
 upon anything. I go to the infidel for infidelity ; I 
 never go to him for faith. What, then, is to be 
 done ? Go on with the old until the new is ready. 
 Do not let the soul shiver in nakedness whilst the. 
 new tailors are wrangling over the texture and pat- 
 tern of the new clothes. What about the suggestion 
 that the Bible is the composition and the imposture 
 of the monks of the twelfth century ? It is the most 
 self-stultifying theory ever dreamed by insanity, if 
 only for the reason that there is no book in the world 
 of which the monks are so much afraid as the Bible, 
 and no book which they have so strenuously endeav- 
 ored to keep out of the hands of the people. If they 
 invented it, they were so God-forsaken as to invent 
 an engine for their own destruction. No layman can 
 harbor both the Bible and the monk. Then what of 
 the rationalistic theory which picks and chooses, and 
 blows away the ghostly or supernatural element? 
 A most inadequate and a most irrational theory. 
 Rationalism offends nothing so much as reason. 
 Every man who knows himself knows that there is a 
 point at which reason must terminate its explanations 
 
246 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 and solutions, and be dissatisfied by a half-illumined 
 universe, or rise into imagination, or find light and 
 rest in faith. The only right which any man has to 
 be a rationalist is the right which he has to starve 
 himself — and has any man the right of self-starva- 
 tion? I do not hesitate to say that the difference 
 between Unitarian and orthodox conceptions should 
 not be so faint as hardly to be distinguishable ; nor 
 should a teacher's evangelicalism depend upon an 
 occasional sentence here and there : the distinction 
 should be vital, glaring, palpable, eternal. I, there- 
 fore, utterly repudiate the so-called rationalistic con- 
 ception of Inspiration. What, then, is my personal 
 standpoint, my individual and peace-bringing faith ? 
 I will try to make it clear. 
 
 At the outset I feel sure that the Bible was writ- 
 ten, edited, put together, and otherwise made into a 
 book by somebody. The sun and moon may have 
 made themselves, or may be due to anonymous 
 origin, but it is certain that some man or men wrote 
 the Bible, and some other man or men printed it, 
 published it, and brought it within our reach. It is 
 something to know beyond doubt that the Bible had 
 
EPILOGUE. 247 
 
 a personal origin. But it might have a personal 
 origin and be a bad book. Exactly. But we know 
 that it is not a bad book. Even some schools of 
 rationalism admit that the book has moral merits. 
 Certainly it is a most religious book. Its key-word, 
 as we have seen, is GOD. That must be most 
 clearly recognized. When creation is accounted for, 
 where is God put? In the very first sentence. 
 When man is accounted for, where is God put ? In 
 the very first sentence. When the Law is given, 
 where is God put? In the very first sentence. 
 When the prophets were called, where is God put? 
 In the very first sentence. When Jesus began to 
 preach, where was God put? In the very first sen- 
 tence. When Jesus Christ rose from the dead, to 
 whom was he about to ascend ? To " my God and 
 my Father." When Jesus shall end his mediation, 
 who shall reign? " God shall be all in all." When 
 Jesus shall come again, how will he come? "With 
 the trump of God." From whom is the new Jeru- 
 salem to descend? " I John saw the new Jerusalem 
 coming down from God." Before whom did the 
 four-and-twenty elders fall down in heaven? They 
 fell down and worshiped God that sat on the throne. 
 
248 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 Who promised the seed of the woman ? God. Who 
 so loved the world that he gave his only begotten 
 Son? God. Who shall destroy the last trace of 
 sorrow? " God shall wipe away all tears." So rolls 
 the thunder-music. God! God! God! I simply 
 note the fact, and I especially note it because it is 
 one of those facts which do not terminate in them- 
 selves. Whenever God comes, he comes with thou- 
 sands of angels and chariots innumerable. When 
 God comes, Creation came, and Providence, and Re- 
 demption. Finding as I do so much implied by the 
 introduction of the divine Name — implied, I say, not 
 expressed or claimed in any formal way as in a legal 
 document — I at once, and necessarily, think of the 
 book in vital connection with that all-including Name. 
 In a very clear and intelligible sense, the Name is to 
 me the book, and the book is the Name. I hardly 
 so much as see the human names: they are the 
 names of clerks, scribes, secretaries, or amanuenses; 
 I am interested in them only in a very secondary 
 and remote way. Why ? Because the other Name 
 fills all the space and becomes the focal point of all 
 attention. It would not surprise me if the writers 
 themselves were to tell me that they were very slow 
 
EPILOGUE. 249 
 
 and laborious penmen, and that often they did not 
 know what they were writing. The prophecy may 
 have been greater than the prophet. Jeremiah him- 
 self, not the least of the prophets, may have shrunk 
 into a child when the heavenly charge sought to 
 enter into his soul, and Moses never really knew how 
 much he hesitated and stammered until God called 
 him to service. Then the hesitancy was felt. These 
 high elections magnify our estimate of personal in- 
 firmity. We chaffer on equal terms with Eliphaz, 
 Bildad, and Zophar, but when the Voice out of the 
 whirlwind thrills us, we abhor ourselves in dust and 
 ashes. It is that Voice which I hear most distinctly 
 in the Bible. That Voice is indeed the Bible. 
 Without that Voice there would be no Bible. I 
 therefore call the Bible the Word of God, and if I 
 called it by any other name I should be as one who 
 was busy here and there and who let the King pass 
 by. It is more than possible to think too much 
 about the scribes and the amanuenses, and to think 
 too little about what is actually written. We have 
 turned the amanuenses into authors and loaded them 
 unjustly with responsibility. Sometimes we should 
 pity them. Surely it was not easy to bear " the 
 
250 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 burden " of the Lord. I thank the men through 
 whom the message came, but I must not forget that 
 my business is with the message itself. If I were to 
 offer homage to the angel who brings me " the say- 
 ings of the prophecy," he would say, " See thou do 
 it not ; for I am thy fellow-servant and of thy breth- 
 ren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings 
 of this book: worship God." If, when I read the 
 wonderful words of Peter, I were to fall down at his 
 feet and worship him, he would take me up and say, 
 " Stand up; I myself also am a man." If I were to 
 think only or largely of Moses and Ezra and Isaiah, 
 this same Peter would rebuke me, saying, " The 
 prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, 
 but holy men of God spake as they were moved by 
 the Holy Ghost." And the prophets themselves 
 would rebuke our criticism and our admiration, say- 
 ing, " Why marvel ye at this ? or why look ye so 
 earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holi- 
 ness we had brought you this message?" They 
 would refer us to the true Source : " Not that we are 
 sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of our- 
 selves; but our sufficiency is of God." In the New 
 
EPILOGUE. 251 
 
 Testament as well as the Old the reference is always 
 to God: 
 
 " We are laborers together with 
 God . . . written not with ink but 
 with the Spirit of the living God. 
 . . . These things saith the Son of 
 God. ... It is God which worketh 
 in you. ... I was made a minister 
 according to the gift of the grace of 
 God. ... I am made a minister 
 according to the dispensation of 
 God; ... in the sight of God 
 speak we in Christ." 
 
 Thus, not " in a few scattered texts " but uniformly 
 and passionately we are referred to God. Prophets 
 and apostles ask no recognition, they constantly 
 point us to God. The dominant and unchanging 
 tone of the Bible is God. This is my reason for 
 thinking and speaking of the Bible as the Word of 
 God. 
 
 This gives me the right point of approach to the 
 Bible and all its contents. All the detail I can now 
 survey from a true elevation. So long as I mistook 
 the telegraph messenger for the telegram itself, I was 
 in great confusion. Who was he? Who were his 
 
252 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 parents? What was his age? How did he come 
 to be connected with a great electrical system? I 
 made a puzzle of him. Was he old enough to have 
 written a telegram? Had he and another boy con- 
 cocted the telegram? After all, was the missive a 
 telegram ? If it was a telegram, why was it not sent 
 immediately to me without the intervention of a 
 messenger? And if a messenger had to come, why 
 almost insult me by sending a boy — quite a child, in 
 fact? I asked the boy if he had written the tele- 
 gram, and he said No. I demanded to see the clerk 
 who had penciled down the message, and he turned 
 out to be little more than a boy himself, but he had 
 sufficient sense to suggest that I had better open the 
 envelope and read the message. When I read it, 
 the boy and the clerk became of small consequence 
 to me. The message was full of love. It was the 
 message for which I had been waiting many a weary 
 day. I could have loved even the boy who brought 
 it to me. I had at length looked at the whole action 
 from the right point of view, and now the shadows 
 were dispersed by the full shining of the light. The 
 right point of view is exactly what we want in every- 
 thing. The theodolite itself may be in perfect con- 
 
EPILOGUE. 253 
 
 dition, yet the triangulation will be bungled if it is 
 not set up on the right spot and at the right height. 
 The mere setting up of the theodolite was, we are 
 told by the surveyors, one of the most difficult oper- 
 ations in carrying out the trigonometrical survey of 
 the country ; sometimes a scaffold had to be built up 
 to a great height, the surveyors say that they had 
 sometimes to build a solid foundation for it in the 
 middle of a bog, and sometimes it had to be carried 
 to the very summit of a rocky mountain. So in our 
 looking out upon wider spaces, we must not only 
 have a well-adjusted theodolite, we must find the 
 elevation on which the instrument must stand, even 
 if that elevation has to be built or attained at the 
 greatest cost. Then must follow the three specific 
 adjustments of the instrument, any one of which 
 being wanting or incorrect, triangulation is impossi- 
 ble. It seems to me that the higher critics have not 
 always placed themselves at the right point of view 
 in attempting to survey the almost boundless field 
 of inspiration. They are, in some conspicuous in- 
 stances, mere word-grubbers who cannot find through 
 grammars and lexicons what can only be found by 
 incessant and sympathetic communion with God. 
 
254 N0NE LlKE IT - 
 
 Expertness may be the fruit of prayer. If I start 
 my survey of the Bible from any other point than 
 God, I am lost in details. The Author, not the 
 Book, in its mechanical form, is the point to begin at. 
 This is markedly so in the New Testament as well as 
 in the Old. We must first know the dominating Per- 
 sonality of the book. That Personality is Jesus Christ. 
 The Worker, not the works, must first be studied. It 
 is beautiful that the New Testament begins with the 
 genealogy of the Man. God had no genealogy, so he 
 plunges at once into the act of revelation by creation. 
 Jesus comes to us by every human genealogy, and 
 all the genealogies vary even up to the point of per- 
 plexity and contradiction, yet they are reconciled in 
 the root, forasmuch as they trace the incarnation of 
 the Son of man. Jesus is every man's ancestor and 
 every man's descendant. The root is in every twig, 
 and every twig is in the root. Buddha is in the gen- 
 ealogy, and the woman who was a sinner, and the 
 man who murdered his brother, and the saint almost 
 wholly white, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed In- 
 nocence with a kiss, forasmuch as this Coming One 
 was the Son of man. " The Son of man!" That is 
 his genealogy in three syllables. It reaches beyond 
 
EPILOGUE. 255 
 
 the time-line, for he who is thus the Son of man is 
 of necessity the Son of God, and he who is thus the 
 Son of God is to me, and to unnumbered millions, 
 God the Son! Thus, in surveying the New Testa- 
 ment, I think I place the theodolite on the true base. 
 And thus the miracles fall into their right position 
 and yield their mystery in response to faith. It was 
 only when I approached the miracles from the wrong 
 point that they staggered my inexperience. I talked 
 of nature, and laws of nature, and the order of the 
 universe, and continuity, until I settled into that kind 
 of wonder the lower side of which looks toward 
 unbelief. But all was changed when I approached 
 the miracles from the point of long and deep com- 
 munion with Christ. The miracles were but the dust 
 of his feet. They ceased to be miracles. They were 
 syllables in one great speech of love. In the first 
 instance I struggled up to them through the weak- 
 ness and gloom of fear: in the second I descended 
 upon them in the strength and glory of faith. Then 
 I understood how he came to make so little of mira- 
 cles and so much of holiness, and then there shone 
 upon me the meaning of his promise that the glory 
 of his miracles should be eclipsed by the " greater 
 
256 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 works " which he would do through his disciples 
 when he worked from the height of the heavens. 
 
 From precisely the same point I have approached 
 the aspect of Election which is known as Inspiration. 
 What is inspiration but election operating along one 
 special line? I do not think of individual Jews, a 
 man here or there, as inspired, but upon Jews as a 
 whole or a unit. They were in their corporateness 
 called, elected, predestined, or otherwise set apart 
 and inspired. They were a chosen people. Yet not 
 elected apart from morals. Even the divine election 
 makes self-conceit and self-trust impossible : " If ye 
 will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, 
 then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above 
 all people." Great honor in the King's name means 
 great obedience. Where is boasting then? It is 
 excluded. Inspiration is committed to obedience. 
 Why God should have chosen the Jew and not the 
 Greek we cannot explain. Even the Greek was not 
 left without election. Why Sinai was chosen, and 
 the prouder heights of Jerbal passed by, no man can 
 tell. There is only One who can carry forward the 
 mystery into light. That One is our Father. I still, 
 
EPILOGUE. 257 
 
 therefore, take my stand upon that Father's sover- 
 eignty. I know that the end will be right. Theories 
 and criticisms will come and go. Confidence and 
 panic will alternate in the experience of the Church, 
 but the Truth advances by night and by day. We 
 should determine to see the good that is in each 
 other. Literal criticism is needed, so is spiritual 
 interpretation, so is poetic construction, so is mystic 
 idealization. We do not want uniformity of creed ; 
 we want individual conviction sanctified by universal 
 love. Men can surely meet on the ground of com- 
 mon service for Christ's sake, and find in charity the 
 end of the commandment. 
 
 It is important to remember that Inspiration and 
 Revelation are not one and the same thing. Prob- 
 ably there cannot be Revelation without Inspiration, 
 but there may be Inspiration without Revelation. 
 It may be proper to define Revelation as including 
 such truths and facts as are not discoverable by 
 human reason, say, for example, the Personality and 
 the attributes of the Godhead. But Inspiration may 
 guide the mind into all truth; — into a right construe- 
 
258 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 tion of history, into a right grouping and coloring of 
 the facts of life, into the right use of the moral sense ; 
 in short, into a true knowledge of all things pertain- 
 ing to the whole culture of the soul. A man may 
 be inspired to carve a statue, or paint a picture, or 
 compose a poem, yet have no Revelation of the liv- 
 ing and gracious God. A right conception of this 
 difference might simplify and readjust some theo- 
 logical controversies. 
 
 Am I expected, then, to receive from so small a 
 people as the Jews so great a gift as a Book which 
 is regarded by Christendom as the vehicle of a divine 
 revelation? Am I in any prescriptive degree what- 
 ever to be bound by that Book ? Why not go to the 
 Greek, the Roman, or the Indian mind for my reve- 
 lation? Is not the word "Jews" itself a stumbling- 
 block? Why not collate all revelations, dreams, 
 visions, and aspirations, and get out of them a com- 
 mon revelation? Surely one might naturally resent 
 the thought of Englishmen, and men of all other 
 nationalities, being driven to Palestine to learn from 
 misbehaving, cruel, lying, selfish Jews who God is, 
 
EPILOGUE. 259 
 
 and what he is, and what he wants. Is not this to 
 enter, if entering at all, into the sanctuary of Reve- 
 lation by some ill-kept postern gate, rather than 
 through the portals of a federal and representative 
 Humanity? I have no difficulty as to my reply. I 
 might argue that the Jew in this relation was more 
 than a Jew ; that from beginning to end there is not 
 in the Bible a shadow of suggestion that the Reve- 
 lation was a message to the Jew alone; and that 
 infinitely beyond all other sacred books the Bible 
 is pervaded and penetrated by what I may call the 
 spirit of universality. When it begins there are no 
 Jews ; when it ends there are no Gentiles ; for at the 
 end the whole earth is as a rose in the garden of 
 God. But I have a larger answer. I am already 
 committed to the Jews by an infinite obligation. 
 From the Jews I have accepted the Christ. " Salva- 
 tion is of the Jews." This acceptance determines 
 everything. I am not ashamed to receive the Writ- 
 ing where I received the Life. 
 
 As to some of the biblical books being supposably 
 less inspired than others, such as Esther, Daniel, 
 
26o NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 Ecclesiastes, and Jonah, the case is not proved ; but 
 if proved, the issue would be of limited importance. 
 In the matter of gradation, or degree, or other ob- 
 scure variety, the construction of the Bible is most 
 remarkable. In some cases the personality of the 
 prophet goes for much, as Jeremiah, Isaiah, and 
 Ezekiel ; in others, the prophet is lost in the proph- 
 ecy. Who knows anything of Obadiah ? Or Joel ? 
 Who knows precisely when Amos took up his work, 
 except that it was two years before the earthquake? 
 Of Amos and his junior Hosea we know some in- 
 teresting particulars ; but who knows anything of 
 Micah, whose father's name is unknown, and whose 
 birthplace owes its fame to his own prophecy? Yet 
 Micah spake of justice and mercy and the humble 
 walk with God. The minor prophets had their share* 
 of inspiration. Inspiration is not a mechanical term. 
 The great and the small are the Lord's. Daniel 
 is not necessarily uninspired because his mysterious 
 pages are apocalyptic rather than prophetic. Jonah 
 represents an inspired conception of life and duty, 
 however much we may be perplexed by its central 
 difficulty. Inspiration touches the highest and low- 
 est grades of faculty. 
 
EPILOGUE. 26l 
 
 There is a common inspiration, as well as an in- 
 spiration that is unique. " There is a spirit in man, 
 and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him un- 
 derstanding." The Church is entitled to claim this 
 inspiration in reading the Bible. Some parts of the 
 Bible are personal and local, and in that degree they 
 may have been allowed to fall into desuetude. The 
 site of " the valley of craftsmen " is of no importance 
 to us. We do not deny the existence of a country 
 because some of its mountain heights are inaccessible. 
 Many of us are compelled to do with the Bible as 
 we do with a country : some valleys are fruitful ; 
 some rocks are barren. My pastoral advice to in- 
 quirers is founded upon the example of Christ. 
 When he was asked great questions he referred the 
 inquirers to the law, the commandments, the proph- 
 ets. This is what his ministers must do. He never 
 referred to the difficulties of the Old Testament, but 
 to its gospels. The valley of Megiddon may have 
 been blotted out : the garden of Gethsemane is the 
 road to Forgiveness. 
 
 The probability is that some practical notice will 
 be taken of action that seems to go directly in the 
 
262 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 face of the generally understood doctrinal position of 
 various evangelical communions. What turn the 
 action may take it is impossible to foresee. Criticism 
 need not degenerate into persecution. Of persecu- 
 tion, the whole Christian Church has had more than 
 enough. Criticism of the most searching kind we 
 should welcome on every side, but persecution — by 
 which I mean public discredit and forfeiture of posi- 
 tion and maintenance, together with nameless petty 
 annoyances — we should regard not only as hateful 
 but as impossible. On the other hand, the higher 
 critics must not encourage the spirit of contempt in 
 reference even to the oldest and slowest orthodoxy. 
 Those who stand by it deserve the love and honor 
 of all the servants of Christ. They have not been 
 ignoble men. God has used them to great ends, and 
 we should magnify God in all their holy devotion 
 and labor. Besides, we must not suppose that all the 
 learning is on the one side and all the ignorance on 
 the other. Some well-instructed men reject many 
 of the conclusions of the higher criticism, and others 
 maintain an attitude of suspicion and reserve. For 
 my own part, I do not hesitate to regret the spirit 
 which has been shown by some young higher critics. 
 
\ 
 
 EPILOGUE. 263 
 
 Where it has not been a spirit of direct insolence, it 
 has been a spirit of studious non-appreciation of 
 other men — it has left them unnamed ; it has had no 
 gracious word of recognition even for the oldest of 
 them ; it has cast upon them the unworthy sneer 
 implied by such epithets as " thoughtless," " care- 
 less," " unthinking," " baseless," and " sleek." That 
 spirit was surely not " drenched in prayer," nor was 
 it imbibed in all-night communion with the Saviour. 
 Our elder brethren may have been mistaken, but 
 they certainly were not " thoughtless " ; they may 
 have been blinded, but they have been neither " un- 
 thinking" nor "sleek." The higher criticism may 
 be put before the churches in a lowly and tender 
 spirit ; then it will be anxiously and even sympathet- 
 ically considered — or it may be put otherwise, and 
 thus grieve many who may be living and serving in 
 the love of God. The time has not yet come when 
 we can realize the full results of the higher criticism, 
 when unwisely handled, in the life of the churches. 
 At present it is somewhat of a novelty. It has not 
 yet settled down to its work amongst the masses. 
 When it has done so, the result will be disastrous. 
 One higher critic read in the pulpit a portion of 
 
264 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 Scripture, and concluded thus : " Of course you know 
 it is not true, but it will serve to illustrate my sub- 
 ject." Another higher critic announced a course of 
 week-evening addresses upon " Things in the Bible 
 that are not true." It is not surprising that many 
 Christians are grieved and shocked by such wanton 
 outrage upon decency and justice. It is an infinite 
 wrong, and I, for one, indignantly denounce it. Such 
 men are — so at least it seems to me — in their wrong 
 places in pulpits that are even nominally evangelical. 
 On the other hand, there are ministers who honestly 
 avail themselves of certain results of the higher criti- 
 cism in a spirit of reserve utterly destitute of blatancy 
 and defiance. Between two such classes of critics 
 the most vital distinction must be drawn. Wisely 
 handled, the higher criticism may greatly help the 
 education of the churches ; unwisely handled, it may 
 wreck their very existence. 
 
 The forces which are now antagonizing the Bible 
 as it has been heretofore largely regarded, are the 
 strongest that civilization can muster. Within the 
 Church are the higher critics who have challenged 
 
EPILOGUE. 265 
 
 the authorships, the dates, the chronologies, and 
 many of the earlier moralities, and have turned not 
 a few of the ancient leaders and examples into 
 " eponymous heroes," and some of whom have not 
 hesitated to lower the Apostle Paul. Outside the 
 Church are the agnostics, many of them men of the 
 highest intellectual eminence, who attack the higher 
 critics just as severely as the higher critics attack 
 certain portions of the Bible, and " boldly challenge " 
 them to prove the Supernatural and demonstrate the 
 Divine. The greater havoc some of the higher 
 critics make in the structural parts of the Bible the 
 more vehemently they exalt the Supernatural, but 
 their worship of the Supernatural is mocked by the 
 agnostics as an infatuated superstition — and the ag- 
 nostics have no reason to be ashamed of the intel- 
 lectual force and dignity ranged on their side. Even 
 agnostics have passed through universities, and, 
 having done so, they smile at the idea of Revelation 
 and Worship. They have won all along the line of 
 the higher criticism ; who can say that they will not 
 further push their triumphs until they beat down 
 and quench every shrine and altar and upper light? 
 They have no reason to be disheartened. In docu- 
 
266 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 mentary religion they have wrought great havoc ; 
 why may they not work equal havoc in spiritual re- 
 ligion? To smile at the suggestion is not to answer 
 it. Once men smiled at the attacks made upon the 
 mechanical and verbal Bible, but the attacks are no 
 longer regarded as futile or abortive. The pedants 
 cannot help us, but the People can — they represent 
 the great common heart of the world, and it is to 
 that heart the Christ has always appealed. My hope 
 is in the common heart with all its sin and sorrow, 
 its pain and need, its tragedy and self-despair; in 
 that shattered, grief-stricken heart — in that mean 
 Bethlehem — the Child-Saviour will be born age by 
 age while time endures. The Incarnation stands 
 between the natural and the supernatural and lays 
 its wounded hands upon both. It is the hope of the 
 world. It is the Infinite Salvation. But how can 
 war be waged with success against the ever-gather- 
 ing and overpowering forces of criticism, agnosticism, 
 unbelief, and moral aversion? Modern culture, nar- 
 rowly interpreted, has not greatly aided the war ; nor 
 has Science as represented by her highest English 
 names ; — there is only one hope, and that hope is 
 the Living Christ working amongst the common 
 
EPILOGUE. 267 
 
 people. We must get back to Bethlehem, back to 
 Galilee, back to Calvary. We must take Christ's 
 standpoint in everything: even in relation to Moses 
 and the prophets, and the Psalms, and " all the 
 Scriptures." Literal errors have no doubt crept into 
 manuscripts, translations, and versions ; this has been 
 frankly admitted by the most competent orthodox 
 critics, yet I venture to think that such critics are 
 right when they counsel a policy of caution and 
 patience, as against a policy of Critical Young-Eng- 
 landism which may occasionally disguise its cruelty 
 under an ambiguous civility, and which may now 
 and then be tempted to mistake its self-complacency 
 as the newest vehicle of inspiration. 
 
 Writing solely from a preacher's standpoint, I have 
 no doubt that the common people do with the Bible 
 as to its structural framework exactly what they do 
 with its most mysterious teaching — they wisely leave 
 it until they are better fitted to grapple with the 
 difficulty. Whoever really enters into the spiritual 
 church enters it by what may be called the gate of 
 Mystery. It must not be imagined that the median- 
 
268 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 ical or strictly literal part of the Bible is either the 
 only difficulty or the greatest difficulty. Probably 
 it is the least, and the least to be accounted of, not- 
 withstanding the excitement of the higher critics. I 
 have never known any one unite livingly and sym- 
 pathetically with the Christian congregation on the 
 ground that he intellectually comprehended the 
 orthodox conception of the constitution of the God- 
 head. As a pastor I have thought it wise to encour- 
 age the soul to feed upon the Saviour, and to leave 
 all difficulties, literal and metaphysical, for deferred 
 consideration and adjustment. Nor is this an official 
 advice adopted to meet a theological necessity. It 
 is the approved policy of all life and progress — with- 
 out it, life would come to a dead stop. I do not 
 know how much, if anything, Christ owes to those 
 who come to his cross along the critical, the aca- 
 demic, or the purely intellectual line. I will not 
 judge, lest I wrong a rationalism in which I have no 
 faith. May not literal errors be removed? Cer- 
 tainly ; but do not magnify their importance. Is it 
 not desirable to have absolutely accurate history? 
 Certainly ; but not nearly so literally important as 
 some persons would make it out to be. The real 
 
EPILOGUE. 269 
 
 history may be in the central line, and not in the 
 local placing and shading. We may need a new way 
 of reading history. For my own part, I can read 
 the Bible without being troubled by any conscious- 
 ness of discrepancy, or any deficiency in the dating 
 and signing of the several books. Perhaps some day 
 a word, one little word, may explain much. I am 
 willing to wait. I have enough for the present. I 
 have all Eternity to work in. But ought not scholars 
 to be encouraged to prosecute their critical studies? 
 Certainly ; and they ought to be encouraged to re- 
 frain from publication until they have something 
 better to offer than " merely a series of tentative 
 suggestions." It might be useful for them to issue 
 a one-sentence report to the effect that they were 
 steadily at work, and that, until they had definite 
 conclusions to announce, the Church would do well 
 to keep on reading the Bible. — I believe the Church 
 will do this, whatever bulletins may be issued from 
 the mines of criticism. 
 
 Such is my personal testimony. If one ungracious 
 word has escaped me I have done myself grievous 
 
270 NONE LIKE IT. 
 
 i injustice, for I love and honor the brethren whose 
 views I am least able to adopt. They have taken 
 their course and I have taken mine, and in all in- 
 stances the action has been taken under a solemn 
 sense of responsibility to the adorable Head of the 
 Church. He will judge us all, and in his mercy he 
 will save the weakest, and spare even the bruised 
 reed that he may breathe more music through it. If 
 here or there a word with too keen an edge has 
 found its way into this book, may God forgive it and 
 destroy its unhappy influence, for Christ's men should 
 be stronger in love than in any other quality. I am 
 not able so to divide the Bible into human and divine, 
 natural and supernatural, as to impair in any degree 
 its absolute authority in doctrine and morals. To 
 me it was not so much the writer who was inspired 
 as the man — Moses or Ezra, Isaiah or Paul. The 
 man's personality was a greater miracle than his in- 
 spiration. Consider when he wrote, what he wrote, 
 and consider the influence which still flows from his 
 writings, and then — account for him ! Do not be so 
 modern as to be a critic; be so ancient as to be a 
 contemporary, then — account for him! Do not get 
 at this man through a foreign grammar and an arti- 
 
EPILOGUE. 271 
 
 ficial concordance, but through sympathy, assimila- 
 tion, and spiritual kinship, then — account for him ! 
 To understand the building you should commune 
 with the architect. A word from him might fill his 
 cathedral with light. In the Bible we have to deal 
 with inspired manhood as certainly as with inspired 
 literature, with character more than with ability, with 
 holiness rather than with office. The grammarian, 
 as such, will never understand the prophet. The 
 lexicon will never explain the Bible. That Book of 
 books — that Poem which absorbs all poetry — can 
 only be understood in one way, and that is by our 
 daily walking and conscious fellowship with God the 
 Holy Ghost. 
 
 THE END.